Aesthetic image of the enemy

Among the reasons for the modern Russian-western confrontation, veiled or frank, reflected both in the recent war in the Balkans and that the Russians are humiliatingly denied perpetual time in visa-free trips to Europe, there is one that we do not write about because they do not think about it. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, organized in many ways, the Russian side, if not Russian generosity, despite the well -known resistance of the Allies of the Federal Republic of Germany, it would seem that the era of mutually detected neighborhood was supposed to begin. And true, there was a moment when the spirit of fraternity was felt in the air. All this ended unpleasantly quickly.

We disappointed the West and in some ways ourselves, finding ourselves “others”, not the way Europeans would like to see us. And although even in the most unpretentious American films there is a propaganda of love for “another”, not like you, if he was at least an alien, even a black man, the Russians did not become loved in a “other” quality. The West rather preferred completely “other” Chinese, despite the fact that, according to social standards, we became much more freer than a competently repressive modern Chinese communism. In the end, it turned out that in the European House there is not even the corner that was provided to the Romanians and the Baltic states, not to mention the Poles and Czechs.

Much is explained by the public barbarism of our protracted transition period, but not all. The Western aesthetic norm of life has become a dictator of not only style, but also political addictions. Russians did not take to NATO for aesthetic reasons, as not passed the Face Control.

In their pathos emotionality, cave naivety, pool, behavioral clumsiness, Russians for a long time were directly opposite to the large aesthetic style of the West - the Cool style. Strictly speaking, the Russians did not even know about this cool. Meanwhile, this concept from elite fashion has turned into a state that has recently defines Western culture, which has gone beyond the limits of literature and cinema, absorbing on an equal footing of the "beauty of nails" in the highest sense, that is, the culture dissolved in everyday life, life in culture. In Berlin or Paris, they will definitely be indicated to you: only lesbians smoke this brand of cigarettes, and only pastors go on that brand of cars. On the Russian side, neither the official nor the "kitchen" cultures, for obvious reasons, not only did not keep up with the western development of events, but was sharply taken to the side. We watched Western films, leafed through Western magazines and read Western books, if it succeeded, in a completely different way than Western consumers of culture. In any case, we did not see in all this product unifying idea, on top of the barriers of clashes of conservatives and liberals, archaists and innovators. We delved into existential meaning, not noticing the formation of a new form. We missed what made up the aesthetic essence of the West of the last 50 years, which has already been announced in two setting articles by Tim and Life, which youth from Los Angeles to Cape Tokyo and even socialist Warsaw have responded.

The concept of Cool (etymologically “cool”) arose in the USA in the late 40s along with the jazz plate of Males Davis “The Birth of the Cool” and the books of Jack Kerua. The latter can be considered the ideologist of the “kula”, who wrote in the 50th year about the difference between the “cheese” and “kul”-knowledge, as opposite forms of self-awareness. Strictly speaking, the “kul”-consciousness, which still does not have a Russian verbal equivalent, does not leave in a person the unresolved, “dark” sides. He is characterized by openness, transparency, eroticism, ironicism, emphasized style, which is found in its jazz roots. Not all the idols of the West were Kul. Neither Elvis Presley nor Merilin Monroe fall into this category. But the best that is in the Beatles, the musical “Westsay story” by Leonard Berke, the songs of Bob Dylan, on the one hand, and on the other - a smile, hairstyle, clothing style of President John Kennedy (especially if he is compared in the photograph with his interlocutor Khrushchev) is a true “kul”.

Gradually, the “kul” became the crown of global American-European efforts of facial muscles, votes, fashion, advertising, and the code of behavior. The manners of Soviet diplomats, like native cultural products, did not pass in the West without a strong dose of irony. The gap between Western fashion and the “Russian style” led to the fact that in the minds of the West, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russians re -formed in the image of the enemy, but no longer ideological, but aesthetic, less dangerous, more ridiculous. In comparison, especially with an eccentric, carelessly stuttering "The Cool Britania" in the interpretation of the current British prime minister, we are nervous, twitching, shyly -nasty mass. There are no large anti-Kulov among white people in the world than Russians.

Nevertheless, Moscow during the 90s intensively seeks to become a “kul”, having willy-nilly rushing behind the West that bore this fashion for lack of a new one. Even the policemen sewed a pro -Western uniform. But Russian neophytics (well, youth magazines performing under the cover of Kul) does not cause Euro -home people due to faded imitation.

However ... Pushkin! - We have our own fundamental “kul”. And the "hero of our time"? - Yes. And the "auditor" of Gogol? "Lolita", perhaps, is one of the most "cool" production of the twentieth century. The sculptor Ilya Kabakov, the best Brodsky, somewhere around Sorokin, in some ways Pelevin, a dozen photographers, one fashionable Yakut fashion model also adequate “kul”-gang, although, of course, they do not come down to him. We also have a Soviet classic “kul”, like the “Caucasian captive”.

The latest aesthetic “scissors” between the West and Russia is an object for “kul” -thoughts, and not for despair, which, in this case, is not “kul” at all.