"In all terrible nakedness."

Nikolai Svanidze answers the questions of “domestic notes”.

Who is watching your historical programs, are you counting on a specific audience?

Sociometric measurements were not made, but I do not see great need for them. In all my programs, I always counted on people who are not too lazy to think. It can be both a teenage girl, and a retired man, a man with a higher education or a rustic carpenter.

Do you deliberately use modern clip technologies? Do you have a deliberate tradition of "pictures"?

Fashion in television, as in other areas of life, comes and goes away, and, in the end, healthy conservatism triumphs. Clip technologies are designed for a youth audience, and they can annoy the elderly. In addition, I believe that in clip technologies there is a certain frivolity of the presentation, which is not combined with seriousness, drama and even the tragedy of the material. I do not see the possibility of such a combination.

What are the general principles of building a transmission?

Firstly, this is a very high density of the material-at the limit of perception possibilities. I understand that there is a risk of misunderstanding, but I want to squeeze as much as possible into the program, because the story is richest, there are a great many facts. And the second: we are not time. There is not a single fact that would be overwhelmed. Naturally, we can’t tell about everything that was happening in all the ends of a huge country over the whole year in forty -four minutes. But we are not time.

What are the principles of selection of heroes, plots?

Here I try to be objective and be guided by the criteria for the scale of the personality or the scale of the deed, which is far from always the same.

Recently, your hero was a berry ...

Yes, he is a large -scale figure, three heads above Yezhov, whom we do not take at all as a character. The berry is comparable by scale with Beria. He led the NKVD for a very long time, did a lot of terrible things, but he is interesting. In our series there are personalities with a plus sign, and with a minus sign. I can love them or not love them. But the berry undoubtedly significantly influenced what Russia was in the 20th century.

From what image of our history do you repel and what do you want to bring the viewer to?

In the series "Historical Chronicles" we are engaged almost exclusively by Soviet history. Only a small part is devoted to the beginning of the century. In our society, there is nostalgia for Soviet times. This is primarily nostalgia for a huge empire. People tend to wear her in different beautiful clothes. Here everyone was together, everyone was friends, loved each other, and now they do not like. Nostalgia is an emotion. People sometimes sad simply in their youth. This is generally the property of memory - to hold the bright sides of life. Therefore, many are now tended to nostalgically recall the Soviet Union, clouding in memory what was bad. With this myth I struggle, relying on the facts. At the rational level, it is not necessary to be sad about the Soviet Union, it was really the fruit of the October Revolution and at the same time inherited the worst traditions of the Russian Empire. This synthesis was finally fixed under Stalin. But the Soviet Union showed the whole world a path that cannot be going. This is his huge historical role.

There is another reason for nostalgia for the Soviet Union. He was completely unmotivated in his citizens with a mania of greatness: we are huge, we are afraid of us, respect us, we are the first country of socialism, we, we, we ... we are the best, we have the happiest children ... And now, after the defeat in the Cold War, after the collapse of the USSR, this whole system of completely baseless self -love has collapsed. And people remember the former - then they respected us, but now not, then we were afraid, but now not. The Swiss are not sad about the fact that they are not afraid of them ...

But this nostalgia is a consequence of a stereotypical idea of ​​its past, about Russia, which it should be.

We have no other serious concept of the past, which would be accepted by the patriotic. Although Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov said best about patriotism: "Who lives without sadness and anger, he does not like his homeland." This is the patriotism, in my opinion, and not to be proud of his own stupidity, their own mud. The most common pseudopatriotic concept is that Russia is an empire, and if not an empire, then not Russia. We can be ourselves only if we live in an empire, otherwise, disappear all the loss. This concept seems to me deeply false, and I try to fight it on the example of the history of Russia of the 20th century. My task is to show the truth about this story in all its terrible nudity.

I have another super -task - to accustom people to the perception of history. Now the danger is very great that the new generations of our fellow citizens, our children, will completely lose a sense of history. Many of them have such an attitude as if it all started this morning. And before that, there were fools who could not tell us anything, because they did not reach anything, and idiots-devers, about whom we know nothing at all, and we don’t want to know. Now, after all, the socio-hierarchical staircase is turned upside down: many young people are more rich and socially protected than their parents, which cannot be in a normal society. Respect for the older generations falls-and why respect them? Respect for history falls-what was valuable there?

I want people to love history, so that they understand: followed by many generations of their ancestors, followed by powerful layers of great culture. It is necessary that people know - in Russia there was a great spiritual culture. The regime that we had in the 20th century, largely opposed this culture, burned it and succeeded in it.

And another task, closely related to the previous one, is just to accustom people to look back. After all, it is known that if you shoot the past from the pistol, she will respond with a shot from the gun. You need to know the story, know it as it was. There is such a science - history. I strive to ensure that people treat history seriously and perceive it not as a set of jokes, but as their past. But in order to love this story, you need to read something, watch. I want us to love our story even in a terrible form, because it is believed that it can be loved only if it is clean and immaculate, like a young maiden. This does not happen.

Our history is tragic partly because since the time of Karamzin is understood exclusively as the history of the state.

This question is complicated. Because the history of Russia is really the history of the state. There are objective reasons for this and, above all, a huge territory. The vastness of the territory has always led to the strengthening of the central authority in order to hold these lands with steel scraps so that they would not spread, like a cave -free dough. All the last centuries, the main task of the authorities was to maintain the territory. The one who managed to expand it was a great sovereign. And how much he put his people for this, did not matter. This is a given of our history. Therefore, the history of Russia is the history of the Russian state. This is not good and not bad, it is so.

After the abolition of serfdom, when the country slowly followed the path of bourgeois, democratic transformations, there was a threat of Russia entering the Western cultural and social-economic project. And the forces that opposed this path - it does not matter how they called themselves - could not endure it. The revolution was not a jump forward, but a fall. She delayed the transformation of Russia for a whole century.

It turns out that our statesmen are right, claiming that statehood and collegiality are the basis of our cultural identity and historical tradition.

Holding on to the traditions that it is most important for us to live as you like, but only the same and all together, you should live in a bunch of shit, and anyone who tries to raise your head over this heap, chop it with a saber. Such identity does not suit me. And people will not arrange people if they explain that it is possible to maintain identity and live in a well -maintained country. We have our own language, we have a great spiritual culture. And this makes us not like anyone. The French are not concerned that they are similar to the British only because they have the same economic system. Tell the Frenchman that he looks like an Englishman, - his eyes are scratched. And it really does not look like. Although the differences are small in the economic and social structure.

Any joint social action is based on a historical tradition. Our politicians are constantly wondering: such and such things are characteristic, organic for Russia, and therefore such and such actions will be effective, while others are not characteristic and therefore ineffective ...

It seems to me that this is a shylerism, that a crab card always gets from the sleeve. Here, if the country is likened to a person, the age characteristic is issued for a personal one. The baby pisses in diapers. Let's not let him grow, and then we will say that he tends to write in diapers. These are the original ones - we write in diapers and do not want otherwise, this is our tradition. But, thank God, the child grows up. The country should also grow. For our description, a collectivist consciousness was issued. But this is just a relic of antiquity: everyone had a peasant community and, as a result, a collectivist consciousness. And then society went on to individualistic consciousness when a person came to the fore. In Europe, this began in the days of the late Middle Ages, which gave rise to a great culture of the Renaissance. It turned out differently with us, and we decided to erect it into the Absolute.

Well, we have not grown in a thousand years?

Grounded, of course. But fundamentally little has changed. And many people believe that the closer to the origins, the better. Among our most terry traditionalists there are even those who do not recognize Christianity. In their opinion, Christianity is the Jewish-Western religion, which is alienated to us, and we, in order to be ourselves, must pray to the Bolovans to the pagan.

Do you see other historical broadcasts on TV?

How do you feel about them? When my project was being prepared, everyone asked: well, it will look like Parfenovsky? When several episodes came out, they stopped comparing. It is ridiculous to compare red with round. Parfenov is a very talented television designer, he works amazingly with the form. For me, the content is much more important. These are completely different sports. And I think that both are needed, "let one hundred colors bloom."

Recently, transfers built on secret materials on the history of intelligence have gained great widespread ...

It can be curious to watch. But this is not mine. I try in my project to fight the theory of conspiracies - in the broad sense of the word. But it is difficult to fight her, the theory of conspiracies is seductive with its ease. No need to look for reasons, delve into the sources. Everything is simple. Lenin received money from the German General Staff through Parvus and made a revolution. But the reasons are much deeper. Even if the conspiracy took place, it must be embedded in historical fabric, and not say that it is all the matter. It is ridiculous to say that the First World War began only because the Archduke Ferdinand was killed. It has not therefore begun, although without a Sarajev murder, maybe it would have begun differently. It is also ridiculous to believe that three people in the Belovezhskaya Pushchal collapsed the Soviet Union. If he himself was not ready to fall apart, they would not have such a task on the shoulder.