Prigov's work

Transparent and elusive Dmitry Alexandrovich disappeared behind a twist of fate. Often after a person leaves, it becomes clearer; we understand on which shelf of memory we can now carefully and forever place meetings with him, his speeches, gestures, texts. Here is a different case. Transparent and cool, Dmitry Aleksandrovich Prigov has gone somewhere to his place, to a place where many of us are not and cannot yet be.

About seven years ago, at one of the old-regime luxurious literary evenings in the large hall of the Central House of Writers (the Central House of Writers, let me remind those who do not know), a famous prose writer said something about the return of literature to realism. The main thesis: the times of Prigov have passed, the path that many seemed to be the path of all Russian literature (“postmodernism”, “conceptualism” and all that stuff) turned out to be the path of Prigov alone. This is said to the point, all that remains is to figure it out - what is “Prigov’s path”?

Another memoir: 1993, a seminar near Moscow for workers of the university’s humanitarian field. “Modern poets” were invited to speak, among them Prigov. Wary anticipation in the eyes of department heads and sector heads. YES. With a brisk step he enters the foyer - transparent, cool, with a bottle of mineral water without gas in his hands. “So, hello, where are we going to work!?” And he takes out a thick diary from his breast pocket. A relieved sigh from those greeting us - yes, these are workers of the literary field, not blacksmiths, not some kind of drunkards! Prigov: “Here, I’ll tell you a story. One lady asks another: would you, Maryivanna, marry a radical communist? - For what?? A silent scene of amazement and indignation. I really wanted to repeat in a whisper for those who did not understand: Prigov had already begun his work - right here, in the lobby of the once luxurious boarding house, before even reaching the stage.

Prigov's work consisted of exposing any square meanings that did not allow dotted interpretations. Let's say, what does a person feel when reading Lermontov or, excuse me, Pushkin? Very often, nothing more than what is customary to feel is prescribed by the square frames of stereotyped ideas. And then someone comes, calling himself a poet, and recites “Eugene Onegin,” omitting all the vowels (or consonants, it doesn’t matter). Those who were outraged by the desecration of the shrine, without knowing it, experienced the positive results of Prigov’s work. They are now less threatened by banal zombies with vulgarity, the substitution of their own perception, albeit unsophisticated, but personal, by someone else’s and square ones. If the saving clichés about the “lyrical hero” and the “image of Pechorin” are selected, what remains?

In the midday heat, in the valley of Dagestan

With lead in my chest I lay motionless

I! I was lying - Prigov Dmitry Alexandrovich

The bloody wound was still smoking

Blood oozed out drop by drop - not his! Not him! - my!

What remains is a transparent and cool repetition of what has been passed, a return to oneself, unpretentious, but truthfully asking: why do I, exactly me, need literature, poetry - if we discard graduation essays and ideological connections to the eternal and infinite?

Twice in front of me D.A. told the same story. A man comes to an expert and shows him poetry. He says: it looks like some minor Acmeists, interesting! - No, my neighbor wrote this! – Then it’s bullshit! – But he wrote it that way on purpose! - Ah, then it’s interesting!

Genuine artistic intention can remain itself in any textual form. Or not to stay - if it is superficial, not experienced. And vice versa - the usual “high”, familiar style does not guarantee anything; it easily turns into a cliche. Prigov’s main point: in art, neither rigor, nor ostentatious shockingness, nor classical restraint, nor demonstrative paradoxes and somersaults that are not supported by the seriousness of intentions are guaranteed. The path of the avant-garde artists as such does not coincide with the path of Prigov. After the “Black Square” it is too tempting to depict blue circles and green trapezoids with a mysterious look. Shouting with a kikimora, Prigov does not glorify the kikimora and the sweet harmony of poetic classics trampled by it. He shouts something else: in art, as in life, there are no longer any guarantees. Overthrowing a tyrannical regime does not promise immediate freedom. Iambic tetrameter does not lead down the beaten path to perfection.

I remember 1991, the intoxication of the initial accumulation of uncensored freedom. Discussion of a new list of texts for entrance exams in philology. Well, Gogol, Chekhov, Bulgakov - it’s clear. And who is modern - except Brodsky? And suddenly, from different ends of the hall, a collective recitation of Prigov’s works from the recently published anthology “Mirrors” begins. Thus began Prigov’s path of literature, which presupposes distrust of the square lack of freedom of rhythm, style and gesture.

The dotted and transparent Dmitry Alexandrovich disappeared around the bend of the flint road. In the absence of his daily calls, many will again decide that the Moon is being made in Hamburg. Maybe this is inevitable, because there is nothing else like it, judging by the Hamburg score - right?

The author is a literary critic, literary scholar, professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities.