AGAINST THE POWER OF BLACK THOUGHTS

STARODUM

An entry in Anatoly Grebnev's Diary of the Last Screenwriter, made exactly thirty years ago: “Leva E.: “I have a Caucasian face. Helps a lot. A hotel room, some tickets, clothes, whatever, please. Why?...

An entry in Anatoly Grebnev's Diary of the Last Screenwriter, made exactly thirty years ago:

“Leva E.: “I have a Caucasian face. Helps a lot. A hotel room, some tickets, clothes, whatever, please. Why? Caucasian face. Trust in us…”.

Funny? If so, then in the context of today, blackish humor turns out.

Although it is not shameful to smile - not in this case, so in others. For example, remembering the poem by Yaroslav Smelyakov of the 50s, called no less no more than “Little Holiday”; and the holiday was reduced to the fact that “the Chinese, noticed immediately by everyone, entered the Grocery Store. Simply - he entered, and "everyone's lips became kinder, and their eyes became more cheerful." Sentiment is on the verge of tearful tenderness, but meanwhile it is not a fantasy. At least the Moscow public in those years really perceived with tenderness the appearance of Chinese "brothers" on their streets.

Or - in my personal memory, much later: in the nearby Varna store, the dark-skinned inhabitants of the neighboring "diplomatic" house, with full consciousness of their right, violate the queue for Bulgarian cheese and Hungarian chickens. And we, usually arguing about this, are silent. Guests. Yes, even black, somewhere there, therefore, the oppressed.

What is there! Does everyone today know that in the already very distant 20s of the 20th century, being a Jew (!) meant thereby showing social reliability? Almost like being "from the peasants." A Jew means not one of the counts. Not a nobleman.

So what? We were better? No. Each time such a preference diagnosed a form of yet another social disease.

About Jews. That was a time of heightened class hatred, sharpened from above, in particular, and especially towards the disadvantaged from the nobility, that is, the “whites”. At the same time, to painfully smart intellectuals (this is later, through the efforts of Stalin and his associates and followers, every intellectual will be tested for “Jewishness”, and then ... Not foreignness was under suspicion, but foreignness).

However, stronger, more real than the hatred really encouraged by the top, was the slavish fear that ruled the bottom to be found guilty of involvement in socially dubious, class alien; renunciations of the "wrong" parents flowed through the newspapers.

Do you like this kind of internationalism?

The Chinese... Oh, that was the period of "great friendship", which left a mark in the name of processed cheese, the legendary snack of students and those "for three". The two tyrants simulated a love union; the masses picked up: "Stalin and Mao are listening to us!"

Blacks ... Let's say politically correct: African Americans, Afro-Asians. The symbolism of the Cold War with the traditional "and you have blacks being lynched." Love-passion indiscriminately - what about the "agent of influence", the excellent bass Robson (who with a tear - perhaps sincere - sang: "Niet for us neither black nor colored"), what about the terrorist Angela Davis.

Finally, a “person of Caucasian nationality”… Blame it: a “Caucasian person” that inspires confidence.

Whoever has not forgotten will confirm: yes, love for them - with rudeness to “their own” - on the part of servants of various levels (generous, they throw, not counting banknotes; an anecdote of those years: “You don’t need a coat!”), The trust of Moscow blondes. Caps-aerodromes on the steps of the Central Telegraph, victoriously looking at the passing women ... I remember, however, how ashamed of this image were my Tbilisi intellectual friends, brilliant writers.

I hope the reader has noticed: in everything that I remember, there is not a single - well, almost, almost - reproach to "them", "guests". But we are with you...

Understanding this “we” historically broadly, one should remember that our undoubted genius, Dostoevsky, who promulgated in a famous speech the universal responsiveness of the Russian soul, without which it is not Russian, was no less undoubted an anti-Semite and Polonophobia. How did you get along? In any case, this contradiction was inadvertently - that is, inadvertently in relation to Dostoevsky specifically - expressed by the Soviet poet, by the way, a Caucasian: "It is easy to love all of humanity, it is more difficult to love a neighbor."

Anatoly Smelyansky in the book "The Departing Nature" recalls how Oleg Efremov read the phrase from Tolstoy: "It is difficult to love a Jew, but it is necessary." And for weeks he pestered those around him with this phrase, earning a reputation as an anti-Semite among some of the "liberals". “He,” Smelyansky interprets Efremov’s understanding, “discovered real Christian wisdom in this paradox: overcome prejudice, overcome your savagery, a Jew is just as difficult to love as a Russian, Tatar or German. It is difficult to love a person, but it is necessary.

Although, for that matter, love is not necessary.

Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov, “from the Russian Russians”, repeating Pushkin’s words about the half-German Fonvizin (I’ll venture to join: I myself am in the book “Russians, or From nobles to intellectuals”, where there is a “Russian outcast”, “Russian seer”, “Russian lazybones” etc., etc., Leskov designated as “Russian Russian”), and so, he could speak out: “I am for equality, not for the Jews.” And is it necessary to explain—a delicate matter, I admit—that "not for" does not mean "against"? That the formula is generally more meaningful than the notorious "Jewish question"? That there is a difference between personal and uncontrollable, what can you do, antipathy - better to say: lack of sympathy - and misanthropy?

We note what was said by a person who fully deserved the words of his biographer: "Leskov was very afraid of patriotic empty boasting and (even! - St. R.) national pride."

Returning to our topicality, to the current Georgian phobia: everything is not so simple. True, this maxim is suitable for all cases of life.

Who created the myth, beautiful as almost all myths, and as utopian as they are, about Georgia - an earthly paradise, it seems, a paradise before the fall? About a country where everyone without exception is knightly noble, disinterested, broad-minded? A myth, a utopia, which is dangerous for the myth-makers themselves, because someday disappointment will inevitably strike.

We, we created, not excluding the Georgians themselves; in particular, I am a sinner among many and many, not unreasonably falling in love with the country, for me - as again for many and many - good, and for the people whom I count as my friends. And then, unfortunately, my personal pain turned out to be different and, perhaps, the most acute of all, even the Gamsakhurdist nightmare, how, during the days of the Armenian misfortune, a terrible earthquake, the villages adjacent to the railway, including Georgian ones, went to rob trains with humanitarian aid. cargo. “Men and women walked, mothers with children, old men with old women” (extract from the press of the 90s).

Georgia will never be the same after this, I complained helplessly, not realizing that the “former” one was also largely invented (as ideally patriarchal Rus' was invented). No one here is better or worse than anyone; as Zoshchenko used to say, in good times people are good, in bad times they are bad, in terrible times they are terrible.

With the caveat that if it is not in the power of people, that is, us, to create good times, then it is quite possible to turn bad times into terrible ones ...

It is hardly necessary for me to repent of the imperialist consciousness; rather, it was my peculiar Georgian patriotism plus the remnants of utopianism that made me resent the statistics, according to which almost 80% of thieves in law are Georgians. (Is it so?) There was even a completely stupid thought: why don’t “they” together, collectively, correct this shameful situation? After all, small nations, I thought, are much more solidly united than huge ones; I didn’t notice that, having accidentally met a countryman abroad, a Georgian will joyfully rush to him, and a Russian will pass by ...

However, I am ready to find a reason for repentance.

When today, at the wave of the president’s hand, they take over the markets, freeing the “blacks” from power (by the way, if I’m not mistaken, this applies to the Georgians to the least extent — since Shevardnadze, under the strong-willed slogan: “We are the nation of Rustaveli, and not hucksters!" - blocked the way to the Moscow market and he, I remember, won for a while, until the Caucasian competitors appeared), in short, here's the duality of the situation. Or maybe my duality of mind: as a buyer with experience, can I meet a belated call only with disapproval? I can't, damn it!

Firstly, when it was still clear that the venality of Moscow officials and the Moscow police formed all this, ousting the so-called domestic producers. And secondly…

Yes, there is no "second". Everything with us - and always - in the first place, having the root cause of our fundamental incorrigibility. Saying: “We are not against the Georgian people ... one faith ... one culture ...” (in another situation we will conjure ourselves: not against the Azerbaijani ... Latvian ... Turkmen), at the lexical level we give out what was once a protective formula of anti-Semite phobia: “What am I anti-Semite? Yes, I have a friend - a Jew!

Even the number one anti-Semite - or at least of the very first - Sofronov had Baltermants with him.

What to add?

After all, I am not writing all this to sympathize with “them.” “They”, thank God, have their own homeland, where they can return and, at the very least, build their lives. We will remain on our own with a permanently distorted consciousness. We are sorry.