"Big Book" - Basinsky. And Tolstoy

In Moscow , one of the main literary awards of the year, "Big Book" was awarded. The critic Pavel Basinsky received three million rubles for the documentary "Leo Tolstoy: the flight from Paradise" On the resignation of the writer from Yasnaya Polyana and the last days of his life. The second prize went to Alexander Ilichvsky for the novel "Pers", the third - Viktor Pelevin for the novel "T", whose hero is also Leo Tolstoy.

Pavel Basinsky on the stage of Pashkov’s house, speaking of his book, was shitty and concise:

-I am aware that the date that we now celebrate is the 100th anniversary of the death of Leo Tolstoy, of course, played a role in the fact that I became the winner. I would like to express my gratitude to the people thanks to whom this book was written, although, of course, there are no longer among us for a long time. This is a wonderful environment of Tolstoy, who left completely amazing diaries, letters, this is the great Sofya Andreevna with her diaries and memories. Of course, this is Dushan Petrovich Makovetsky, the personal doctor of Lev Nikolayevich. When the book came out, they called me from Slovakia and asked me to interview one Slovak magazine, and in this interview the question was: what is Makovetsky for Russia? I replied that if Tolstoy's departure is our peculiar Odyssey, then Makovetsky is our Homer. I would like to bow to all these people.

The peculiarity of the Basinsky’s work: he considers all the key episodes of Leo Tolstoy’s life retrospectively, through the prism of his tragic care and death at Astapovo station - a novel and a marriage with Sofia Andreevna, and a rejection of property (behind this decision, according to the researcher, is an archaic masculine desire to separate the son with his father’s house), and conflict with Orthodoxy, and conflict with Orthodoxy, and conflict with Orthodoxy. Renovation from the church. According to the critic of Alexander Arkhangelsk, the logic of documentary research of Basinsky allows us to understand that the episode with a dying did not meet with the elders of the Optina desert was a tragic accident. And the winner of the second prize "Big Book" Alexander Ilicevsky believes that Tolstoy’s departure is akin to the corporatism of modern art of the twentieth and 21st centuries.

The hero of the novel "Persian" of Illychevsky-Velir Khlebnikov, the poet poet-as if bringing Tolstoy's departure to the absurdity and logical development. The Laureate of the "Big Book" himself does not agree with these interpretations, he believes that there cannot be one explanation of Tolstoy's logic.

It is curious that Viktor Pelevin’s novel “T”, who received the third book “Big Book” for the first time in the literary life of Pelevin, is also dedicated to Tolstoy, only in the inherent Pelevin with an ironic postmodern vein: his hero - Count T - professes non -resistance to evil by violence, but at the same time uses the eastern martial arts in the struggle for the ideals of good and generally resembles Hero Boris Boris Akunin, the detective of Fandorin. Roman Pelevin received the main prize of reader sympathy during Internet voting, but the writer himself, as usual, remained in the virtual space.

The heroes of the Big Book Prize were not so much relevant modern writers as the titans of Russian literature - Tolstoy and Chekhov: Anton Pavlovich received the award "For honor and dignity in Russian literature." The monetary equivalent of the Prize will go to the Chekhov commission under the Russian Academy of Sciences, for the development of the Chekhov Heritage.