Martyshkin labor

In 2015 - in the “Year of literature” - they talk a lot about the need to raise the status of a writer, his earnings, and so on. They realized late: you need to forget about the status and money. "Not to fat ..." Here at least save the reader who is increasingly turning away from modern Russian literature.

The profession "writer" wants to add existing professions to the register. It seems to be "can serve as a starting point for revising the minimum wages of writers" - despite the fact that Russian literature had "a huge impact on world civilization."

Yes, I provided. But today in Russia the writer does not play any special role, and it is not to increase payment of his work with such measures. The publisher still pays the author as much as he pays-from market or any other considerations.

I wonder what will happen if they really introduce the "minimum wage of the writer"? The publisher will be obliged to pay the author no less than any amount? And what if this amount cannot physically “fight back” with any sales? Just not to publish non -profit authors?

And this despite the fact that Russia is generally a “country of writers”, and no matter how the prestige and importance of writing work over the past twenty -five years fell, who want to be published for free, or even pay for this “right” surprisingly a lot.

The role and significance of the profession of a writer with the fall of communist ideology fell very strongly. Under the USSR, the writer was considered a "bearer of communist ideology", a propagandist of the ideas of the "bright future." Although, of course, in the 1970s and 1980s he was no longer like that: these are the elderly ideologists, frozen in time and stupidly memorized ideological formulas, for some reason thought so.

In the new reality, the writer as a bearer of ideology does not need the authorities, and television copes well with propaganda

In the main means of propaganda, television has turned into the first "ideological lever". The books were still read, but not at all those who promoted or praised the “socialist system”. Behind the scarce translated poppy lined up in line or handed over waste paper to get a talon on some Druon or Simenon. And the books of hundreds of "Soviet writers" were sold in the load to something honey.

But the writers continued to be a "privileged caste": even those who had nothing to do with ideology. So, for the company. In the new reality, the writer as a bearer of ideology does not need the authorities, and television copes well with propaganda.

If you try very hard, you can maintain the visibility of the “status” by participating in a talk show or visiting glamorous parties. Only now financial privileges, if you are not a successful commercial author, will not receive, and your opinion is actually few people.

And there is nothing wrong with this: such rules of the game. The problem is different: people read less and less read Russian authors. Ask the twenty -year -olds about their reader preferences, and they will call foreigners all. Yes, it is easier for them to identify themselves with the American heroes and French than with the characters invented by Russian authors.

And everyone is to blame for this - and we, writers, and publishers, and critics, and the jury of literary awards. The selfish self -expression, kumovism, taste, arrogance of large publishers, which can inflate to a large circulation of almost any book, are to blame.

The result is a growing number of "deceived readers", which were plunged by another masterpiece of domestic literature. And the next time these readers will not buy a book of a modern Russian author.

Vladimir Kozlov - Moscow writer