Translated material
Citizen Granin
About the courage to call black black and white white.
2019 has been declared the Year of the Writer Daniil Granin in Russia, but, of course, that’s not why you should read his books. Answers to the question “why?” a lot, and most of them can be found in the book “The Last Notebook. Changeable shadows." (M.: AST; Edited by Elena Shubina, 2019). Almost half of the materials collected in it are published for the first time. Compiler Natalia Sokolovskaya builds an exciting kaleidoscope from them - childhood and front-line memories, philosophical essays, everyday observations, sad reflections and anecdotes...
A significant part of the book consists of historical sketches. Citizen Granin understood perfectly well that the present of his country is difficult, the future is precarious, because the past has not been comprehended.
The writer begins “Overcoming Tragedy” by calling black black and white white. Categorically not accepting the well-known position “there were a lot of good things.”
Historical optimists are offered something completely unexpected for them - to begin with, to separate good from evil. And then you can’t lie, as if they are so inextricably linked that the proximity of achievements turns any abomination almost into a special kind of virtue.
Granin examines the problem of justifying crimes several times in the book. Analyzing, for example, “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky. In his case, Raskolnikov turns to small evil for the sake of great good. “The idea is very modern” and logically irrefutable. On the other side of the scale is just love.
It is significant that Granin assesses the ending of this world-famous work (the promise of “complete resurrection and new life” of the hero) as far-fetched. Indeed, “love versus an idea is an irreconcilable duel” (D. Granin). Humanity in its modern form, having finally resolved this issue in one direction or another, would in any case cease to exist. The main thing, as always, is to decide where to die.
Today's Russia faces approximately the same dilemma. It was not for nothing that Granin studied key fragments of Soviet history and portraits of its main figures so closely. The book more than clearly shows that our troubles are not at all from the “dashing 90s.” So the country will either deal with its past, or the past will deal with it.
At the same time, Granin, a writer, a front-line soldier, a hard worker, a boss who has not lost his conscience, has sufficient outlook to hope for a positive outcome of this drama. The book presents many memorable episodes when the miracle of love turns out to be stronger than evil ideas.
What would happen if the same academician D.S. Would Likhachev, one of the world's leading experts in the field of ancient Russian literature, have chosen rational “silence in exchange for expanded professional opportunities” in his time?
We would have already forgotten what St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt really looks like, the Kremlin in Novgorod would be built up with high-rise buildings... But you never see many sad examples of commercial expediency in Moscow today? Each of them is also an example of “silence in exchange.” And Likhachev saved many monuments of Russian culture. Now they are a monument to him too.
Isn’t it a miracle the beginning of Granin’s creative path? Imagine: Soviet Leningrad, 1952. A young power engineer is at work almost around the clock - the city's cable system is battered by the war, and accidents happen every now and then. By the way, they can be “sabotage” at any moment. At night, he, who has no literary experience, writes a novel. My wife, of course, considers this eccentricity...
And suddenly he is offered a long business trip to Italy - “like going to space”, also “the salary is five times more”, housing (not in a communal apartment!).
So not only does Granin himself refuse, but his wife is on his side (“after all, you need to finish the novel”), and his superiors (and “in those days they might not have fired you, they might have forced you”)...
And yet, in the new book, the writer D. Granin appears before us, first of all, as a citizen. In that very meaning - “a free and equal member of society” - which “has not taken root among us”, but, on the contrary, has long been marked with a “stamp of suspicion”. Citizen, let's go.
We'll pass through. Where is the question?
Arseny ANNENKOV - for Novaya