Why didn’t Bykov come to Putin?

Our creative editor of the weekly Sobesednik, Dmitry Bykov, was invited to Vladimir Putin for a meeting with theater and film figures. He told our correspondent Valeria Zharova why Bykov could not go to the meeting with the prime minister.

Dmitry Bykov: A week ago, a female voice (“This is from the Ministry of Culture”) asked me on the phone where to send an invitation to a certain meeting. I answered, as always: to “Interlocutor”. What kind of meeting, why and with whom - no one told me.

On Wednesday, April 27, Grigory Zaslavsky from Nezavisimaya Gazeta suddenly informed me that a meeting was planned between the prime minister and the creative intelligentsia and I was supposedly invited there. At first I took it for a prank. Because exactly the day before, in comments for Novaya Gazeta about Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the Dozhd channel, he wrote verbatim the following: “I was brought up in such a way that I am a naturally polite boy, even too polite. If a president or, God forbid, a prime minister suddenly appeared in front of me, I would probably be unlikely to be nonconformist and blurt out something particularly impudent in his face, like: “Yura Shevchuk, musician.” Hardly I would find an opportunity to behave in a particularly non-conforming, defiant and proud manner with representatives of the supreme power, simply because it is very difficult to demonstrate all these qualities in face-to-face contact. You need to be either very indelicate, or very offended, or, as they say, “without a tower.” I am neither one nor the other, nor the third. intelligentsia - as if she were so kind. In such situations, the usual form of politeness, such as a smile or a greeting, is so easy to mistake for elementary, unconstrained sycophancy.”

This is something very quick reaction, I thought. I was unable to physically appear at the meeting with the prime minister, since in order to fly to Penza (he receives cultural figures there) I needed to be present in Moscow on the morning of April 29, and at that time I had to finish my already planned tour of bookstores, where I was presenting Ostromov. The next presentation of the book was already planned, I could not cancel it.

But even if I were present in Moscow and the invitation sent to the editorial office of Sobesednik on April 28 found me at work, for me the question of attending this meeting would not be at all simple. Precisely because I do not really believe in the possibility of an open discussion of the current political situation personally with the prime minister. Personal communication with the second, and perhaps even the first, person of the state imposes serious etiquette restrictions. I personally am not ready to say directly to the prime minister’s face, “To improve the situation in the country, Vladimir Vladimirovich, the most correct thing would be to minimize your participation in governing the state.” I don't think it's polite. Unfortunately, I don’t have any other advice in this situation.

One prominent publicist with whom I discussed the invitation to the prime minister put it succinctly: “No matter what you do in this situation, you will get your bucket of shit.” I have no special illusions about the press, colleagues and the blogosphere. Some would have written “Sold out!” if Efremov and I had gone to Penza. Others write “They were afraid!”, because Efremov is abroad, and I am on a trip to Russian cities. I haven't tried to please everyone for a long time. I only know that if the first person of the state invites the authors of a satirical project, to which they have recently begun to listen, he needs it more than the satirists. And most importantly, it’s hard for me to imagine satirists politely and gratefully accepting such an invitation and having small talk with the prime minister over a cup of tea.