Sergey Romashko. "The Cherry Orchard" in French

"The Cherry Orchard" in French
Sergey Romashko

Publication date: March 11, 2004

At the beginning of the year, when French intellectuals loudly declared their dissatisfaction with their situation, most observers both in France and abroad believed that the matter would end in verbal battles in newspapers and, at best, on television. This is not the first time they will make some noise and disperse. However, things turned out differently .

Firstly, several shares coincided at once. There were isolated outbreaks last year, but here the creative intelligentsia seemed to burst through. Almost simultaneously, the following appeared: a manifesto “Against the War on Intellect,” signed by prominent scientists and people of art, in which the government was accused of a hostile attitude towards people of mental work and creative thought; in parallel, the “Save Science” movement arose; the National Archives declared the situation critical; the elder of French scholars of antiquity, Jacqueline de Romilly, appealed to the authorities (supported by many of her colleagues) to pay attention to the plight of the teaching of classical languages ​​in a country that has always been famous for Greco-Latin studies; A group of eminent French researchers currently working abroad published an open letter to the President of the Republic. The tension grew like a snowball.

Secondly, precisely because of the participation of natural scientists (“Save Science”), the authorities could no longer get rid of rebellious intellectuals with ordinary statements, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that “they are always dissatisfied with something.” There are not just a lot of representatives of natural science - their work is directly related to rather sensitive areas of modern economics and politics (technology development, defense), in general, the high level of technological developments in our time is both a necessity and a symbol of a powerful power. So here the government touched a nerve. Immediately, additional funding and promises of jobs for young researchers began to be pulled from the sleeve. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin met with the leadership of the Academy of Sciences (a structure that is more conservative and stands aside from the announced actions; here they also counted on a split in the scientific community), trying to establish a dialogue with scientists. However, the situation is already out of control. In addition, President Chirac also promised to support science at one time, but this promise was not fulfilled. So the beginning of the week was marked by demonstrations and the presentation of a statement signed by tens of thousands of science workers to representatives of the ministry. About two thousand scientific leaders at various levels carried out their threat and resigned as a sign of disagreement with government policy.

The situation, frankly speaking, is extraordinary: a mass strike of scientists defending their professional rights. However, it is important not to get lost in the details: by how much funding for certain branches of science or culture needs to be increased, how many rates should be allocated to this or that institution, what changes need to be made to regulations, etc. This is clearly what the government would like, that is, to drown a principled discussion in a bureaucratic quagmire, where it is certain to emerge victorious. But this is exactly what the authors of the manifesto “Against the War on Intelligence” warned about: the government is pursuing “ a policy of primitivizing public discussions, reducing complex problems to simple solutions .” Science in a changing world cannot remain unchanged, but it must remain science. Scientists will have to defend not just some of their practical positions (this, of course, is necessary), but also their fundamental position in society, otherwise they will find themselves - if they have not already found themselves - hostage to a system from which it will be extremely difficult to escape.

What is happening in France is not of general interest to us. The fact is that France is a country with a strong tradition of statism (not for nothing that the word itself is French) and centralization in all areas, including science and culture. In this sense, of all European countries, Russia is closest to France. And therefore our problems are quite similar: brain drain (mainly overseas), a lack of funding for basic research, and the hopelessness of the position of young scientists. Of course, the severity of their problems differs from ours, but this is Russian specificity, since our country is always, as the founder of the Soviet state noted, the weak link. To the credit of our French colleagues, it should be noted: they did not wait until they were brought to the same state as ours. There is another point of contact between our countries: the attitude that has developed over a long time towards people of mental work and creative professions as a special class that plays a specific role in society (not limited to purely professional duties). That is, if there is anything similar to the Russian “intelligentsia” in Europe, it is the French “intellectuals”. And if the intelligentsia had already been buried, then the intellectuals were not yet completely buried, and now they came to their senses, feeling that the critical moment had come.

Intellectuals felt the fracture of the social shift they were experiencing with particular pain, because their usual support began to disappear from under their feet. In a world where everything is labeled with a price, knowledge as such, cognition for the sake of understanding the world and man, turned out to be not only unnecessary, but also impossible, since both storing knowledge and conducting research costs more and more money, and it is precisely money not enough. The crisis of traditional European statehood, which is based on the flow of money past the state treasury, has given rise to a simple solution - the (self) dismantling of the state, its retreat from many spheres of life. This process is especially painful where the state has traditionally taken on significant social and cultural functions. The point, however, is not only the painfulness of the moment, but also the fact that the undermining of fundamental functions and values ​​(since nothing real is offered in return for the dismantled state structures, except for the utopian chimeras of self-financing and some private foundations that have never existed in France in serious volumes) can cause degradation of society as a whole. Knocking intellectuals out of their usual positions means a reduction of social structures, a loss of critical reflection, primitivization and dulling of communicative processes. This is precisely what our French colleagues are ultimately protesting against. And we should sincerely wish them success, and at the same time carefully monitor how things are going with them.