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Usually, before presenting a prize, everyone is interested in only one thing: who will get it? But before the start of yesterday's Grigoriev ceremony, the main question was different: what will they give? More precisely, will they give me anything? Let me remind you that a couple of months ago Rosbank refused to continue financing the Apollo Grigoriev Prize - and the ARSS award was orphaned . Whether the academicians managed to find a new sponsor and what would happen next with the prize - those gathered at the Library of Foreign Literature excitedly discussed this, fortunately the start of the ceremony was being postponed.

The oval hall, contrary to initial fears, was almost full. Only the nominees, nominators and jury members were absent. Of the three finalists (according to the rules of the award, they are all called laureates), only one was present - Yuri Arabov . Neither Victor Pelevin nor Boris Strugatsky were there. Of the five judges, two appeared - the chairman of the jury Pavel Basinsky and Natalya Ivanova . Samuel Lurie remained in St. Petersburg, Valentin Kurbatov in Pskov, and Alexander Genis in New York. In the same concrete jungle , Mikhail Epstein , who nominated Pelevin for the Prize, got lost, and Roman Arbitman and Sergei Borovikov (nominators of Vititsky-Strugatsky and Arabov, respectively) did not make it out of Saratov.

However, the number of absentees had no effect on the number of speakers. The event was opened by ARSS President Sergei Chuprinin , who called on writers not to complain about lack of money and once again reminded that Apollo Grigoriev himself lived, as befits a poet, from bread to water.

Then Pavel Basinsky took the floor. He called the current jury "diverse" and lamented its "geographical diversity." Recalling that in the 20s, the “ Serapion brothers ” greeted each other with the words “Hello, brother! Writing is very difficult,” Basinsky promised that from now on, instead of “Good afternoon,” he would say to fellow critics when they met: “Hello, brother! awards are very difficult."

However, in the end, the chairman of the jury stated, telephone consultations between St. Petersburg, Pskov, the States and Moscow ended happily. The judge's verdict will seem unexpected to many, he warned, admitting, however, that he himself cast his vote for the future winner.

There was also some controversy with those observers who, analyzing the composition of the shortlist, saw mercantile motives in the actions of academicians. According to Basinsky, the jury’s decision was in no way dictated by the desire to lure a new sponsor under the unprecedentedly loud and widespread names for Grigorievka, and all speculation on this topic is absolutely groundless. As for the poets who, contrary to expectations, were not among the finalists (let me remind you that the longlist included Inna Lisnyanskaya , Oleg Chukhontsev , Maxim Amelin and Mikhail Yasnov ), the judges were tempted to make a poetic shortlist, but they overcome.

The same topic was picked up by Natalya Ivanova, who spoke after Basinsky. The poetry in Grigoriev's longlist was, according to her, absolutely wonderful, but the prose was uneven. Before I had time to understand why the academicians, struggling with temptation, preferred the uneven to the wonderful, Ivanova had already begun to develop another of the motives set by Basinsky. According to the critic, it is very difficult to choose the winner of the award for the best work of the year, regardless of the genre, because it is impossible to compare football with figure skating or boxing with chess. It seemed to me that I heard some kind of recipe from Vysotsky about boxing and chess, but in general I didn’t want to argue with Ivanova. The question of who is better: Oleg Chukhontsev or Alexander Kabakov is probably really not easy to answer.

Then the absent nominators and equally absent laureates took the floor. Sergei Borovikov's speech about Yuri Arabov was read by Leonid Bakhnov . Borovikov, through a medium, told the audience that he chose “ Big Beat ” for the purity of the genre - Arabov wrote a real novel, and not fictionalized memoirs, of which there is an overabundance in our literature today. Borovikov called “ Roses and Chrysanthemums ” by Svetlana Schönbrunn an example of such a genuine novel based on autobiographical material and expressed regret that the magnificent book of the Russian Israeli did not receive the response it deserved. I readily agree with Borovikov: “Roses and Chrysanthemums” is truly one of the best novels published in the 90s.

Following his nominator, Arabov himself spoke. He read out a lyrical text, which began with a description of an emigrant cemetery in Prague, where a certain monk acquired a grave for himself during his lifetime and serves requiem services on it every day. The writer proposed to consider this sad picture as a metaphor for the current state of Russian literature, standing in front of his own tombstone with his date of birth stamped on it - 1799, the year of Pushkin's birth - and a question mark after the dash.

Then Arabov began to scold the Moscow literary community. The names of Foma Opiskin and Roland Barthes flashed. It turned out that Barth did not grant immortality to humanity, and therefore literature must return to the search for meaning. At this point everyone applauded, and Arabov sat down. I admit, I did not catch the general essence of what he said, but I realized that the essay ended much more optimistically than it began.

Arabov was replaced by Nemzer and, in a voice with an unidentified accent, introduced himself as Roman Arbitman. The fake, however, was immediately exposed by the shape of his mustache and tie with Einstein. Nemzer's face was hidden by a mysterious object, which caused lively debate. In my opinion, it was the mask of Emperor Paul. In vain. Any first-grader in our country knows that Emperor Pavel is not Roman Arbitman, but Viktor Sukhorukov.

On behalf of Arbitman, Nemzer spoke about the novel by S. Vititsky (Boris Strugatsky) “The Powerless of This World.” This text more or less coincided with what was recently published in Russian Journal, so I will refrain from reproducing it.

Strugatsky himself, whose speech was read by Chuprinin, stated that the era has changed, but a circulation of 100,000 still does not say anything about the quality of the book. Any graphomaniac has his fans, and, on the contrary, no matter what masterpiece a writer creates, there will always be people who are sure that it is junk. And the main thing is that in both cases there will be millions of people who will absolutely not care what you wrote or whether you wrote anything at all. Therefore, the author can only rely on his own judgment - but, nevertheless, recognition from such qualified experts (the bow of the jury) is always pleasant.

Contrary to the opinion expressed by Roman Arbitman and me that Pelevin, having bypassed the long list, smuggled his way straight into the short list, the guru of generation P also found a nominator. As it turned out, Mikhail Epstein at the last moment nominated Pelevin instead of Vladimir Sharov, whose novel “ The Raising of Lazarus” ", published as a book in 2003, was published in the magazine "Znamya" a year earlier, and therefore, according to the regulations, could not lay claim to Grigorievka. True, this valuable information was hidden from the public and the corresponding adjustments were not made to the long list. Isn’t it better, by the way, to publish the longlist after the deadline, when no amendments are anymore possible? Otherwise, even Nemzer, who reviewed the incomplete version of the list of nominees, was misled.

Epstein's speech - the most philological of all that I had the chance to listen to that evening - was voiced by Ivanova, who began with memories of how she attended Turbin's seminar with Epstein and the master called Epstein a "wild student."

Epstein suggested viewing Pelevin's prose as a sign of the rapprochement of the elite and the mass, noting in passing that there is nothing more elitist than savoring mass taste. That’s why Pelevin’s accusations of bad taste are wrong - it’s not bad taste, but a taste for bad witticisms and turns of phrase.

The critic particularly focused on the problem of the erasure and inexpressiveness of Pelevin’s language. The language of a prose writer, Epstein stated, is only one of the elements of an integral structure, and it must be considered in relation to all other elements. The Pelevin cliche is necessary for the author; it conveys the emasculation of the world being described, and without the sluggish, insipid language, Pelevin would not exist, just as there would be no Kafka without the clerical staff.

Pelevin's agent Vladimir Popov said that his client would be happy to come to the ceremony, but alas - Pelevin is currently writing a new novel, and during such periods he moves as far as possible from civilization and even communicates with his agent only by phone. Immediately, however, it became clear that in Pelevin’s nirvana there is not only a telephone, but also a post office with a telegraph - Chuprinin read out two dispatches from the author of “ DPP (NN) ”, one of which began with the words “Dear so-and-so”, and the other - "Dear so-and-so." Apparently, in his Land of the Lonely Nightjar, Pelevin does not forget to reread Sasha Sokolov , which, of course, cannot but rejoice.

Pelevin pleased those gathered with the message that he was especially pleased to receive the prize from Basinsky, for whom he twice retook the test in Soviet literature at the Literary Institute - and since then he remembers how difficult it is to earn his recognition. However, the plot did not develop - in his response speech, Basinsky flatly refused to remember the student Pelevin.

Finally, it's time to announce the winner. After a pause, which would have done honor to Kachalov, Chuprinin named him - Yuri Arabov became the main laureate. The surprise promised at the very beginning of the evening by Basinsky turned out to be truly unexpected. From the moment the shortlist appeared, it seemed that Arabov was taken third in the company of Pelevin and Strugatsky to complete the package. His novel, although attractive in material and intonation, is not free from compositional failures and is frankly poorly written. I don’t really believe that the cliched nature of Pelevin’s language means anything more than the prose writer’s elementary inability to write differently, and no one can convince me that behind the linguistic clumsiness of “Big Beat” there is a deep meaning hidden.

However, the winner’s final words sounded very nice. Arabov said that he was glad that the prize was royalty-free. Firstly, he does not consider it possible for himself to receive a monetary reward bypassing Strugatsky, and secondly, he remembers too well the fate of the first Grigoriev laureate Ivan Zhdanov . When Zhdanov received 25 thousand dollars, Arabov, who was then in debt of 10 thousand, asked him to lend him two. Zhdanov agreed meekly. Then other acquaintances approached the laureate with the same request. Zhdanov did not refuse them either. On the advice of practical friends, the poet exchanged the remaining amount for rubles, after which a default occurred. Having finished his story, Arabov expressed understandable joy that he would neither have to lend money nor refuse friends. (By the way, another version of the same story, told by Evgeniy Bunimovich, can be seenhere .)

So, the current Grigoryevka creatively combines the features of two popular St. Petersburg awards - Andrei Bely (it is free) and National Best (where an applicant who does not appear at the final ceremony is disqualified). Maybe next year we should introduce another innovation and reward a good writer for a change? And then, you see, sponsors will catch up...