Tolstoy. Hint

The Russian delegation at the London Book Fair this year was not at a loss: bibliophiles were promised to grow a great classic, but while he is gone, his deputies were shown

Miracles do not happen - miracles happen. Between these poles, the London Book Fair, which had just summed up its results, also maneuvered. To ride a white horse into the world of a language that by 2015 (according to research by a member of the British Council ...

Miracles do not happen - miracles happen. Between these poles, the London Book Fair, which had just summed up its results, also maneuvered. To ride a white horse into the world of a language that by 2015 (according to British Council member David Gredoll) will be spoken by almost half of the planet, and to overcome the obstacle of 3% of all translated literature in England, has not yet been possible for any of the foreigners. But Russia is clearly not going to wait until 2050, when the popularity of the English language will decline along with the decline - from three billion to five hundred million people - of the English-speaking population. Its onslaught, if not on the book market, then on the English public has been intensifying lately.

For three consecutive years, Academia Rossica and the Federal Press Agency have been hosting the SLOVO festival with the ambitious goal of influencing political relations between the UK and Russia by bringing the cultures of the two countries closer together. The method is not new, but effective. Not so long ago, the Bolshoi Theater and the Soviet circus held the brand, now modern writers have come to the fore.

Fifty people came to the fair, which, in addition to the Academia and the ministry, was also organized by the British Council. What to do - if there is no Tolstoy, you have to take it in quantity. True, in the announcement on the website of the fair, Boris Akunin was compared with Gogol and Tolstoy, but Grigory Chkhartishvili is smart enough to treat Manilov's PR twists with humor. Chosen by the British as the “Author of the Day” from the Russian stand, he spoke modestly and thoughtfully about his work, seriously and fearlessly about the political situation in Russia. I must say that even more people gathered to listen to his dialogue with translator Andrew Bromfield than to the meeting with Kazuo Ishiguro. However, 25 million Akunin's total circulation puts him on a par with any public idol.

Other Russian authors did not have such a quorum. The whole day was devoted to meetings with writers - Vladimir Makanin, Leonid Yuzefovich, Mikhail Veller, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Dina Rubina, Olga Slavnikova, Mikhail Shishkin, Zakhar Prilepin, Pavel Basinsky, Lev Danilkin, Mikhail Gigolashvili, Evgeny Vodolazkin, German Sadulaev, but there was a lot of excitement was not observed. And where does it come from - even the famous Ulitskaya, Makanin, Shishkin, Lukyanenko, who are widely translated in Europe, say that a special promotion strategy is needed in the English-speaking world, but we still did not have any. It's only now that our literary agents have begun to fight for authors like the big ones. Yulia Gumen spoke about this in a short break between difficult negotiations, aside from the festive life of the Russian stand.

In fact, it is for literary agents that any book fair is a real suffering, providing them for a whole year. After all, almost a quarter of the income from the fees of the writer makes them fight for everyone, and our agents are slowly mastering this art. Shishkin's "Venus Hair" and "2017" by Olga Slavnikova have already been translated into English, contracts have been signed for translations of their new books. This year, the British became interested in the works of Oleg Pavlov, Zakhar Prilepin, Evgeny Vodolazkin, Alisa Ganieva, Lev Danilkin.

At the presentation of Zhezeel's biography of Yuri Gagarin, released by Danilkin on the eve of the fair, there was a large gathering. Gagarin is one of the figures that have become fashionable even among the youth of England. Arriving in July 1961 at the invitation of the Manchester foundry, the first cosmonaut caused such a wave of popular interest that the government was forced to change the program - Gagarin was received by Prime Minister Macmillan, and on the last day he was invited to lunch with the Queen. There is a legend that, confused by the abundance of incomprehensible forks and knives, he offered the queen to eat in Russian. With aristocratic ease, Elizabeth took a large spoon and quietly reassured Gagarin: “I myself don’t know how to use them, they usually serve me.”

This year, April 12th was celebrated noisily and cheerfully - Yuri walk passed along the Thames embankment, firecrackers flew into the sky, young radicals shouted songs and slogans in broken Russian. In July, a monument to Gagarin will be erected on Mall Street, which will stand there for exactly a year (then it is supposed to be moved to another, as yet undetermined location). Lev Danilkin struck the audience gathered for the presentation with the statement that if Gagarin were alive, the history of Russia could have turned out differently - he supposedly had such political talent that he could even become the country's prime minister.

But even this sensational statement was drowned in a lively discussion of a communication session with the crew of the international space station. The fact is that the BBC website posted a call to ask six cosmonauts from Russia, Italy and the United States questions about their circle of reading. And on April 12, the cosmonauts told from the big screen at the Russian stand what books they took with them on the flight, what they think about what they read, how literature helps them live and work. Diligent answers drowned in the general jubilation of numerous spectators.

Gagarin's biography, as well as Pavel Basinsky's biographical book about Leo Tolstoy, easily joined the world flow of non-fiction, prevailing on almost all the stands of the fair. Olga Morozova, editor-in-chief of the Atikus publishing house, believes that the crisis has had a strong impact on the book market, cutting off the circulation of fiction. Publishers prefer not to take risks - and release guides on cooking, fishing, embroidery and other leisure activities. But the search for new forms here is relentless. The French attach cups and glasses to cookery books, and the Chinese equip children's books with so many flashing lights, squeakers, chants that the book looks more like a toy than a printed edition.

Looking at this, it is hard to imagine that a person who grew up on such a performance would fall in love with an honest book. However, it is unlikely that we will have to talk about it in the near future. Marketing and Research Resources just completed a study to find out how the growing popularity of e-book readers is affecting American reading habits. It turned out that 40% of respondents began to read more after they joined the reading of electronic books, 58 - that they read e-books with the same intensity as printed ones. However, it is believed that Americans are not a decree to the reading public - about half of Americans in a study conducted at the state level admitted that, from the age of 18 to 24, they read only when necessary and never for themselves. England is a country where the prestige of literature is still high. Even the latest funny scandal is related to literature - 36-year-old Sergio Lapa, who won second place in a prison poetry competition and published his work in the newspaper Inside time, was convicted of plagiarism - he stole Philip Larkin's poem "Conversations in Bed".

And this interest in the word, which in England is supported by the books of, for example, Fowles, McEwan, Ackroyd, Benksom, gives hope that the local respect for Russian literature, instilled by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, will last until such time as when our writers come to their senses and remember how these writers conquered the world. Big ideas, a peculiar look, new experience in moments of general confusion are in demand more than ever. And with what disappointment those who gathered at the round table “The Image of Russia in the Modern World” listened to the Booker laureate Mikhail Elizarov, who staged an ugly cry in defense of Stalin, assuring the hushed foreigners that wreckers like Solzhenitsyn ascribe to the leader and teacher atrocities that were not committed by him. The moderator of the meeting, Bridget Kendall, who had dinner with AST editor Elena Shubina, who broke her voice over this freak, had dinner in her wonderful house, for all her restraint, could not hide her amazement that such writers represent Russia. She did not yet know about the scandal started by Stas Zhitsky on Snob in connection with the practice of Eksmo, which, together with the Yauza publishing house, publishes the Stalinist series.

In general, a lot was said about the history of Russia at numerous round tables. "History of Stalinism in 100 Volumes" was presented by the ROSSPEN publishing house and Yeltsin's presidential center. And it was a completely different conversation - it was conducted by the historian Sergei Mironenko, human rights activist Arseniy Roginsky and other professional people. Leonid Parfyonov presented his four-volume collection “The other day. Our era". I'm not sure that the British understood much about her, since the author himself, without giving the floor to an excellent translator, explained that all the concepts of this life are untranslatable. The presentation of Patriarch Kirill's book “Freedom and Responsibility: In Search of Harmony” looked somewhat outlandish, and even then rather because the landing of priests in black cassocks was too impressive and there was too much champagne for Lenten days.

In addition to pompous meetings in different places in London, there were many intimate meetings. For example, in the Pushkin House, where Ekaterina Genieva, director of the Library for Foreign Literature, presented the program of the Library Book Center for the production of multilingual editions of works by Russian and foreign authors and Margarita Khemlin's book "Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna". Margarita involved the audience in inspirational memories of things from the wardrobes and pantries of grandmothers. Prehistoric scissors, bottles, hand-embroideries walked along the rows, causing bouts of more and more new stories - it is precisely such meetings that establish those human relationships that can only help to understand each other.

And this is where the miracle happened. I remember how quite recently, at any foreign fair, our delegation looked like a flock of frightened sheep, afraid to step outside the fence of their booth. And now - with what freedom and liveliness our people communicated with their English colleagues: at a high reception at the residence of Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, and at a huge parti in honor of our delegation, and at a meeting in a bookstore, where advanced youth gathered, with whom you can’t talk about the weather. If we so quickly, despite decades of school foreign language lessons, learned to speak English when it became urgently needed, then there is hope that we will soon learn to write in such a way as not to be left out of the book civilization. After all, it was created by our classics. The same Akunin at a meeting with readers promised that we would soon find a new Tolstoy on the Internet.

Direct speech

Vladimir Makanin: “It remains for us to preserve and defend our identity”

The English-speaking market is a room full of people. You are trying to enter there, you squeezed your foot through the door, thinking that it was ajar for you, but it turns out that it was opened in order to kick out three, already worked out, with kicks. This is a market closed in itself, self-sufficient, well-fed. I have 16 books published in France, 20 in Germany, many in Spain, China. And there are only three, and then only small things. None of the novels have been translated. Neither "Asan", nor "Fright", nor "Underground", translated everywhere. If the French, the Germans and we need each other, feed each other, then they don't need anyone. The system of universal values ​​has been broken, especially the Muslim world has mixed up the pan-European maps, and someone has to save what is left. The English-speaking world has appointed itself to be the custodian of these values. Why is the lion the king of animals? After all, the tiger is stronger, the crocodile is scarier, but the lion roars the loudest. So here. We are crushed by American technical power, we cannot resist them, if only because we have different approaches to solving problems. It seemed that when the beatniks appeared, they would turn the world upside down. But many new schools were created in America, and virtually every one of the troublemakers was appointed rector. Small but boss. And everything calmed down pretty quickly. We can't do that. It remains for us to preserve and defend our identity. A writer is a creator, he cannot depend on a society that elevates him today, destroys him tomorrow, and forgets the day after tomorrow. Moreover, he cannot beg for permission to sit on someone else's perch. Perhaps young writers, and not because of their intellect, but because of a large spread of paint, will eventually get into this market. And this fair, on a grand scale and well organized, can do a good job.