Chosen Mercy

Anatoly Pristavkin died

Anatoly Ignatievich Pristavkin did not live to see the age of seventy-seven. He had a terrible childhood: during the war, the boy was left without parents and ended up in an orphanage. He remembered the horror of existence at that time (the cruelty and self-interest of adult bosses and the complete lack of rights of young children, endlessly humiliating human dignity and often cultivating retaliatory ferocity). The teenager had the strength to overcome the choice imposed by circumstances - to be trampled or turn into a beast; he willfully left the pedagogical dungeon. He lived hungry and hard, but did not sink to the bottom. Pristavkin wanted to become a writer - and became one. After serving in the army, he entered the Literary Institute, which he graduated in 1959. You have to think about the mental (and physical) efforts that paid for this entry into literature.

In the 60s and 70s, Pristavkin wrote notable, although not too “loud” books, alternating stories with a production touch (“Notes of my contemporary”, a series of “Angarsk” stories - while still a student the writer visited the construction of the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station) and lyrical, landscape and poetic prose (“Seliger Seligerovich”). The theme of distorted childhood arises in the bitter, although equipped with an enlightened ending, story “The Soldier and the Boy” (1977). The social novel “Thief Town,” written in the mid-70s, underwent considerable censorship ordeals and was published under a neutral title (the first word was cut); however, it did not cause a strong resonance.

In the early 80s, rumors began to circulate in the literary community about a new story by Pristavkin, completed in 1981. The topic itself was absolutely taboo - Stalin's massacre of the peoples of the North Caucasus. Usually, those talking about the story, having outlined this topic, added: this is unlikely to be published . And formally they were right - not only the explosive (and therefore cowardly taboo by the authorities) plot, but also the entire structure of the story about the confrontation between human purity (embodied in children) and totalitarian violence, contempt for the individual, selfish cruelty was completely inappropriate in the spreading kingdom of short-sighted hypocrisy and cynical indifference. The story “A Golden Cloud Spent the Night...” was published in 1987 by Znamyan, which became an impressive social event. Meanwhile, the merits of this sad story, not coincidentally entitled by Lermontov’s line, were by no means limited to the “Chechen” theme. The story seethed with anger and a thirst for justice, but no less important were spiritual gentleness, unostentatious compassion for the victims of evil, and poetic warmth. The purity of the child's spirit and the mysterious harmony of the natural world were depicted here no less impressively than the monstrous crimes of the Soviet regime and the evil and pathologically selfish slave masters it raised. The worldwide success of this indisputably best book by Pristavkin was, of course, supported by perestroika euphoria, but it was by no means due to it alone.

In the 90s, Anatoly Pristavkin headed the pardon commission under the President of the Russian Federation. When the history of this commission is written (and this will happen sooner or later), it will become clear what a truly great role it played in the history of our society. The struggle for the lives of those who were condemned (albeit in accordance with the law) to non-existence introduced into the public consciousness, corrupted by decades of communist inhumanity, a simple and great idea about the pricelessness of all human life. The commission saved those sentenced to capital punishment from death and at the same time reminded of the immutability of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Adherents of “education by murder” are not giving up (and do not intend to give up) their positions, but Russia still maintains a moratorium on the death penalty. This is a considerable merit of all the members of the pardon commission (which has long been disbanded, although, alas, there is a lot of work for it in today’s Russia) and its chairman Anatoly Pristavkin.

According to the self-righteous “logic” of violence, the dark years of the orphanage were supposed to dislocate the child’s soul, imbue it with hatred for the world and contempt for any “other,” and set it in a wolfish mood. The fate of the author of the story “A Golden Cloud Spent the Night...” irrefutably proves: the logic of violence is not only inhumane, but also deceitful. Anatoly Pristavkin did not forget his childhood pain (although, perhaps, in the happy time of his literary debut he tried to get away from it), he realized that everyone has the same pain (for the human race is one), and therefore in our cruel age he chose mercy. May his memory be blessed.

Andrey NEMZER