WHO WILL BE BEST IN RUSSIA?

FREE THEME

To: Aleksey EvdokimovSubject: Shortlist of "Natsbest" as solitaire Hello, co-author! On Friday, in the appropriate surroundings of the bookstore on Basmannaya, a shortlist of the next, sixth "National Bestseller" was announced. It was noisy and messy...

To: Alexey Evdokimov

Topic: National Best shortlist as solitaire

Hi collaborator!

On Friday, in the appropriate surroundings of a bookstore on Basmannaya, a short list of the next, sixth "National Bestseller" was announced. It was noisy and motley, as always at National Best parties, Dorenko wandered among the crowd of guests, the chairman of the jury, Comandante Limonov, smiled into his Zemstvo revolutionary beard, and two square National Bolshevik boys vigilantly looked so that no one encroached on the leader ... But this is all secular, let him, and more importantly about books.

Of course, when I was preparing an interview with Prilepin for publication, I couldn't be sure that his "Sankya" would be on the shortlist - but I did; what's more, the jury's choice fits surprisingly well with what Prilepin and I talked about. As usual, there are six names in the short. In addition to "Sanka", these are "Boris Pasternak" by Dima Bykov (without which, it seems, the National Best final is already unthinkable - like the Yankees have Thanksgiving Day without a turkey), "2008" by Dorenko, "American Hole" by Krusanov, "Plant and it will grow" by Andrey Rubanov and Lucky and Mad Men by Igor Sakhnovsky.

Guessing who will be given is a pointless business. Personally, I will root for Rubanov, his “prison romance”, lively, biting, capacious, with excellent focusing of the author’s eye – I personally like the most attractive of all the “belle laitre” presented ... and for him, a debutant, the prize is more important than anyone else. But it’s a shame for Bykov too - surely they won’t give him again? Yes, and his Pasternak is good, complex and important ... although, of course, formally promoting a biography from the ZHZL series into bestsellers is somehow strange. And Prilepin has a chance, after all, Katya Volkova, his beloved woman and like-minded “teenager Savenko,” is on the jury, and surely Limonov himself will not support his fellow party member if he happens to decide (remember, the chairman of the jury intervenes in cases where there are two leaders with equal number of votes). In general, the choice of National Best is indeed unpredictable - not because it is impossible to lobby and there is no engagement (yes, now), but because everyone is lobbying for different people and is engaged in different ways.

Well, whoever takes the upper hand from this list - in which, perhaps, there are no epoch-making revelations, but (unlike the previous two "Bests") there are a couple of very fresh and high-quality crafted things - the most curious thing, it seems to me, is the list itself. After all, five of the six books in it (with the exception of Sakhnovsky, whose collection is still more about love than about ideologies) are clear and undisguised statements about Russia: about national history, destiny, character, future. Statements and polar.

Krusanov's Russia is certainly an empire, but a mystical, symbolist, visionary empire, rather from ether to astral than from ocean to ocean, and in it (dreams, oh your sweetness!) an avant-garde artist is like a "gray cardinal" and the first sword of power. Dorenko's Russia is ruled by clowns of an absolutely Rasputin (not Valentina, but I mean Grishka) type, ready to go rogue at any moment. Rubanov's Russia is an Asian country, all the more dangerous, but also a pretty country in which a minus by a minus can give a plus. Prilepin’s Russia is half-crushed by a vast, well-fed backside through and through of corrupt, stupid and greedy power ... but supposedly gathering with a power to shake off this very backside from itself, and even hang a kick. Well, Bykov’s Russia is a country of an irrevocable, not even social, natural cycle, a bad repetition of relaxations and toughenings, revolutions and tyrannies, a country in which it is not possible to change anything, but you can only choose “between a noose and a noose”, but this choice is the most important thing that a sensible individual has to do...

Agree that such an unambiguously traced general theme in the seemingly chaotic choice of the grand jury cannot be completely accidental. Apparently, after all, many already guess that self-identification for the modern Russian is not a speculative but an urgent need, since someone who does not realize himself is not able to act meaningfully.