Moscow 2012

It is necessary to live in Russia for a long time, while it is still useful to live abroad, in Germany and in America, for example, so as not to be killed in their homeland, and then return and live again for a long time in Russia. This is the formula of writing, although it should not be considered universal. However, in relation to Vladimir Voinovich, everything came true: success, repression, emigration, return, enviable longevity, success.

Today, Vladimir Nikolaevich marks 80 years.

The writer generally needs to live for a long time, especially in Russia, in order to accumulate impressions and create images that will be called immortal during his lifetime. Because it is important that in life. So that the sorrowful list of Russian writers would not be replenished, whose names and images gained immortality only after the creators themselves, repeatedly humiliated, offended or even physically destroyed, left, without learning what is called mass reader recognition. And Voinovich is with us, and we can completely sincerely and openly, in writing or oral form, to test to him our gratitude, admiration and love.

Even for this, in Russia it is necessary to live for a long time so that the author with surprise, pain and mockery can observe how the plot of the most fantastic of his books comes true. As the Soviet intelligence officer literally inflated over the country, who served in Germany, controls its airy, ideological and cash flows. True, he has not yet flown into space to control the flows from there, but the plot is clearly developing in this direction. To live up to 80 years and to see how life respectfully copies the book invented by you is a rare luck for the writer. Unique, generally speaking, the case in the history of literature.

Of course, this has its disadvantages - in Russia to live in Russia for a long time. Because when you live a life during which several generations are replaced in the country, in the declining years you suddenly become convinced of the indestructible cyclicity of domestic history. And if the name of Voinovich is again included in black lists, like four decades ago, and a film dedicated to a nice anniversary is shot from the show on TV, then this is not only vile, but also boring. It turns out that in this cyclic of this life, not only the funniest or most terrible, but also the most hopeless plots continue. And a long -abolished, buried and even prohibited by the Constitution, censorship successfully discusses your immortality.

However, for this, in Russia it is necessary to live for a long time, especially a satirist writer in order to collect such nasty jokes. In general, a satirical view of the world teaches a person to sober innocence in a collision with meanness, vulgarity and lies, and this prolongs life. As for resentment, the writer, especially the satirist, again has a means of overcoming them when the image of the offender is studied under a magnifying glass in "Ivankiad" or rises to the cyclopean greatness of Simych Karnavalov. And then the insult is forgotten, and the image of the hero rushes into eternity.

What is impossible to overcome is the fundamental absurdity of human existence, it can only be captured and ousted with laughter combined with pity. Thus, Winovich’s wonderful novels were written “through mutual correspondence” and “hat” - the Gogol “overcoat” in the Soviet way. Thus, in Russian literature, “alien to us, the poetry of the image of life as it is”, for which Vladimir Nikolaevich was so convincingly scolded in the era of mature socialist realism.

However, the main thing for what in Russia or not in Russia the writer needs to live for a long time is to finish the most important, most significant, most immortal novel. I mean Chonkin, in which the author put an end to 50 years after he began to compose it. And in it everything that was necessary for reader happiness fit: a soldier and a woman, triumphant love and laughter, a hellish state machine, a simple -minded of the main character and the mocking sobriety of the author’s gaze. Russian fate, American passport and meeting in Russia, where you need to live long to wait.

Happy birthday, dear Vladimir Nikolaevich!