Dmitry Prigov: Safe

July 16, 2012 will be five years old when Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov died. We again publish his column of February 04, 2005.

I don't remember exactly. I set it out, as I remembered from someone else's voice.

At the very moment of the unfortunate introduction of Soviet tanks into the unfortunate Czechoslovakia, a small group of then courageous dissidents reached protest to Red Square. The well-known Georgian literary critic Gia Margvelashvili immediately rushed to the post office and sent a flashing telegram to Bella Akhmadullina. She was brief. Something like: Bella-You are Pushkin. And in this case, the great veneration of Akhmadullina, which was filled with Gia, like the entire Georgian people, was added to everyone clearly and easily read (at that time of universal literary advanced advance and moved) the plot with the Decembrists. In the sense that they, the Decembrists, are a matter of perish in the square, and the poet must be preserved for higher ministry. Moreover, in our case, the tragic outcome was inevitable and absolutely predictable. You can not scatter poets for such low worries as any protests or revolutions there. Fear is quite understandable. But, it should be noted how a model of behavior could rather be intended for an intellectual than a poet. After all, he is always a child, a toy and a game of passions, throwing him into a baking of the most unimaginable stories and experiences. Where is his place, if not in the forefront of a jubilant crowd?

This story was remembered for me due to playing such a plot literally in recent times to our native Ukraine. Two the most the most the most Ukrainian poets - Andrukhovich and Zhadan - came to Moscow - to tell about their own very active and noticeable participation in the popular movement, nicknamed the “Orange Revolution”. Their quite emotional stories about what happened surprisingly calmly and even skeptically accepted the Moscow intellectual gathering (with the exception of only the emotional V. Rofeev). And understandable. Anyone who coincided with the enthusiasm of the victorious people's mass, who experienced the euphoria of popular unity, can hardly convey this feeling, or rather, even some higher ecstatic stress with a more or less established life with a more or less established life. This always happens. But we also experienced something similar to Dahl like in the 90s. So, it is unlikely that the calmness and skepticism of the audience could be attributed to the tunality and ignorance, like some Swiss, unnecessary for the past few centuries.

Conversations and discussions began. Suspicions were expressed about the main defendants in Ukrainian events. It is understandable. American money was also remembered. Although what are they?! That this ridiculous money compared to money and all the administrative and mass-media hardware array of the current government (try, transfer this to a monetary equivalent)! Without costs and small city festivities cannot be arranged. There is nothing shameful in this.

The personal experience of a clash with all kinds of manifestations of national emotions was also remembered. And where are they not? Moreover, during periods of almost catastrophic perturbations?! Much has been said fair and unfair about fair, apparent and still hidden, which has to be in the near future. In general, we have a smart people, well-read, corrosive, taught on our own bitter experience of everything like and much more specific, almost nowhere not reproduced. Oh, forgive us, Lord!

But I was all worried about this to everyone. It can hardly be the topic of popular discussion. But if the audience called themselves intellectuals (there are such!), So there is a problem - the position of the intellectual in such events. That is, if you put it more scientific, the point of its location. The fact is that an intellectual is not just a smart and educated social being. Smart and educated are full. And there will be smarter than us. Some Leontiev on television - is it stupid? No, far from stupid. The premium is even smart and educated. And Pavlovsky is smart! And others. And others. But the intellectual (even if, in my, say, specific form and image, he will come out that in a deep needle above the named) is not just a smart and educated human person, but some such specially bred creature for verification and testing for the strength of all kinds of powerful myths and discourses. Like, say, a dog trained on drugs. In this position there is no inferiority and no advantages over others. There should simply be the concept of a voluntarily accepted ministry, cultural sanity and relevant norms of professional, or rather, corporate ethics, if such exists and can exist in our time. And, say, the transition to service in power or voluntary service to her (we will not judge whether it is good or bad, in many ways it depends on the essence of the authorities itself), with all your unearthly education and an incomparable mind, leads you out of the stratum of intellectuals. Their fate is to experience socio-cultural projects. And you were already going to serve any one of them. Again, I repeat, this is not any fundamental advantage, but only the purity of understanding of your position and, accordingly, the price of your statement in the free market of ideas and assessments.

Naturally, in a similar way the described position and life strategy are quite difficult and selects personalities with suitable psychosomatics. In the sense that can endure such a strange and, admit, in emotional and simple everyday respect, a difficult situation, sometimes leading to almost total loneliness in the surrounding society. Therefore, we are natural and often implemented another temptation of intellectuals (we have already remembered a trip to power) - to stand on the barricades, or even go into the terrorist underground along with the offended and oppressed, so honestly and jealously dosel protected from pressure and terror of power. This partly understood and even apologized gesture is an attempt to overcome total loneliness, and sometimes despair. But, according to all the same depressingly cold and almost inhuman logic of our previous reasoning, there is a change in the purity of position. That is, an attempt to participate in the implementation of one of the sociocultural projects, which, like all the others, has already begun to Bacillus of Totality and violence until its implementation, what to evaluate and pretend and there is a mission of the intellectual.

This is all with some doubts and in obvious embarrassment (if - as, by the way, and always - not with internal confusion), I expressed the cute and enthusiastic participants in the Ukrainian revolution. That is ... or, rather .... Actually, not ... oh, I'm completely confused with you.

I recall a story that is very popular in my childhood. It was called "honest word." A certain boy, playing with his comrades, was set by his, as it were, the boss to guard a certain warehouse until permission to leave the post was received. Friends ran away and, having played enough, parted home. And about their sentry and forgot. Already evening. Darkness. Sludge. And the boy is small and defenseless. Rare compassionate passers -by, having learned what was the matter, persuade our stubborn to go home. And he cannot. He gave honestly. He is a knight of his meaningless honest word. And maybe meaningful. He stands at the post. And who put it - look now, fistulas.