Translated material
Give me a happy ending!
I wonder who you have to be not to understand just from the hybrid naming of the series: they are joking with the reader. They’re not fooling you by selling fake stuff, but they’re offering to have fun. Counting on your understanding. Few? So the subtitle (by the way, they never put them on the covers of ZhZL) screams: hoax, game, fun! Please show me at least one literate citizen of our country (illiterates don’t read books) who would not know that the second president of Russia was Vladimir Putin, and not Roman Arbitman. Not enough again? So on the counter-title we read: “A series of the most truthful biographies. Conceived in 1833 by O.I. Senkovsky (the much-famous Baron Brambeus in his time, an extraordinary master of risky practical jokes and hoaxes - A.N. ) and carried out in 2009 by L.A. Gursky with the participation of R.S. Katz." And copyright icons (with their frenzied seriousness seeming to predict and parody the current lawsuit) under the last two names - gaming pseudonyms of the cheerful and inventive successor to the work of the two barons (Munchausen and Brambeus), the brilliant critic Roman Arbitman. The fact that it is he who works under the masks of the detective Gursky who once emigrated from the USSR and the decrepit but cheerful bore Dr. Katz is known in the literary community as accurately as the name and surname of the second president of Russia. Which - I repeat once again with tenacity worthy of better use - Roman Arbitman (whose frighteningly serious photograph adorns the ill-fated cover) was not. And, I’m willing to bet anything, he won’t become fourth (fifth, sixth) either.
He has another job. Make jokes, tease geese, parody everything that catches the eye. This is how it was on the paths of the “Gursky period park” (a series of malicious political detective stories), this is how it was at the faculty of Dr. Katz (in a number of fundamental scientific works, whose pompous delirium, however, was inferior to the thick products of other, alas, non-fictional luminaries of the (post)Soviet humanities ). So it is in the book under trial, where the biographical canon in general, and the lackey biographies of living politicians, and liberal dreams of a kind magician-wizard who will instantly - without problems and losses - make our lives happy, and cunningly experiments in alternative history, and media manipulation of sad and tragic events in the very real history of recent years, and much more. I wouldn’t say that all of Arbitman-Gursky’s jokes are equally successful. And I don’t want to discuss the merits and demerits of a book that is clearly aimed at a narrow circle of lovers of allusions, subtexts, inverted quotes and self-revealing hoaxes and has already received many approving responses in a variety of publications (from Znamya to Afisha). “Like it or not” is one question, genre specificity is another. So, none of the reviewers of the “biography of the second president” doubted its parodic nature. And I strongly doubt that at least one reader succumbed to the “provocation”, that is, believed that he lived during the years of Arbitman’s presidency. Moreover, it’s hard for me to imagine a person who buys a book without looking at it, and any line of the “biography of the second president” (either from the annotation or from the afterword) openly makes funny faces. But even if there was only one person who mistook Gursky’s kunshtyuk for a real book from ZhZL, what harm would that do to the “Young Guard”? Why is the circulation on fire and a million at the box office? Or the Young Guard planned to publish a biography of R.E. Arbitman (not a fictitious president, but a famous writer living in Saratov) in the series “Life Goes On”? They hired a clever author, selected illustrations (Roma the schoolboy; Roma the student; Philology department of SSU; the editorial office of the magazine "Volga"; covers of books by Gursky and Dr. Katz; someone depicting Arbitman giving a speech in the Oval Hall - not to be confused with the Oval Office - Libraries of foreign literature; the family consoles Arbitman, who was once again deprived of either the Nobel Prize, or the Booker Prize, etc.), and now, having done a lot of work, they fear for future sales, since the False Roman (false president) has crossed the path? Somehow I can’t believe it.
But I can’t even assume that the Young Guard simply took advantage of the opportunity to rake in a million (ruining their fellow members). After all, it’s not rednecks who run (very intelligently!) a successful publishing company, for which a million is not at all a vitally significant amount. Maybe they decided to promote Arbitman-Gursky, like “ours” once did - Sorokin? I wrote it, and I myself felt ashamed of the comparison - both in front of the Young Guard and in front of Arbitman the writer. (There was no Arbitman-President. Putin was the President of the Russian Federation in 2000-2008. This has been verified several times.) All that remains is to indulge in entertaining conspiracy theories. So...
A certain insidious ex-oligarch, who fled to a foreign country, through his agents, plants the idea of a lawsuit on the leadership of the Young Guard, while simultaneously starting a rumor that the Kremlin and the White House, frightened by the “Gursky” scoffing, are starting a crusade against freedom of speech. Three birds with one stone were killed with one stone. The government is discredited; the “Young Guard” is presented in a farcical form (to the sadness of many writers and historians, authors of excellent books in ZhZL and other Young Guard series, who hardly like the plot with the admonishment of “Printerra”); Parodists and hoaxers leave behind their “penalty-threatening” (bad luck is the beginning!) quirks, thereby sharply impoverishing the landscape of native literature. The plot is just for Gursky.
But if according to Gursky, then with a happy ending. So that neither the authorities (which are not afraid of jokes), nor the mighty publishing house (whose reputation is dear), nor the great Russian literature, nor the modest “Printerra” would suffer, the “Young Guard” negotiates with its Volgograd colleagues on the assignment of rights to the “Series of the most truthful biographies” (Gursky and Katz can be persuaded) and immediately orders new issues of it. For example, the biography of a man who, as has been precisely established, was simultaneously the head coach of the Russian national football team, the rector of Moscow State University, the chairman of the board of RAO UES and a laureate of the last five Tchaikovsky competitions in all categories, will achieve great success. His name, of course, is Andrei Nemzer (and not Roman Arbitman). The biography continues. I have a nickname in my stash - Krok Adilov.