Life in philology

The publishing house "Education" began to publish a new magazine - "Part of speech" dedicated to humanitarian subjects and their teaching at school. The chief editor of the magazine is the author and the once permanent employee of Polit.ru philologist, journalist and teacher Leonid Klein. In the first issue of the magazine, an interview with Leonid was published with a candidate of philological sciences, head of the department of the Institute of Cervantes Tatyana Ivanovna Pigareva about books, their translations and teaching of literature. The paper publication is always limited in volume. With the resolution of "Parts of Speech", we publish the full text of the interview.

How do they become philologists? How did you make this decision?

Walking, breathing, love, reading is the concepts of one order from early childhood. I even built houses not from cubes, but from books, the benefit of both the apartment, and the cottage consisted of shelves and bookstores in the corners. In children's games was Robin Hood, Achilles or King Matius, dolls were despised. She wrote stories from five years, then poems in French, at ten years old began to translate Verlene and Baudelaire, she wrote out wise quotes with children's clumsy boutings. A straight path to the phille.

And from what sources did you absorb languages ​​at such a young age?

Grandma spoke to French, books on the shelves stood correct, well, and ... the influence of family portraits. La Noblesse Oblige , as the French say, although my wise parents (my father, great -grandson Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev) always appreciated only their own merits to the “members of the noble assembly” treated with deep ironic.

When we came to the “family” Museum of Muranovo, where for a long time the director of my grandfather was the director, Kirill Vasilievich Pigarev, and the museum wing was still preserved in the use of the family, the dad first sent me the paths.

It is interesting that Kirill Vasilievich, like my grandfather, grew up in Muranovo, having received only a home education: his mother and aunt, Tyutchev’s great -granddaughters, were educators of the children of Nicholas II. In 1940, he wrote a biography of Suvorov. He sent the manuscript to one of the publishers - there was no answer. But then Stalin decided to work on the image of the Generalissimo and requested books about the great Russian commanders. Suvorov’s unrelated biography turned out to be almost the only “Soviet” study. Stalin liked the work, and he decided to thank the author - specially for this, they took a telephone in the apartment. The book was immediately published, after which Kirill Vasilievich, who had neither a certificate nor a university diploma, was awarded the degree of candidate of historical sciences. After that, he defended his doctor about Tyutchev’s work. Here is such a ready -made script on the topic "Philologist and era."

When you went to Moscow State University, it was an absolute brand and no choice ... What are your most vivid impressions of studying at Moscow State University?

It was a philological faculty of Moscow State University, the faculty with a capital letter - the competition is huge, but only there, for the “abroad” - and no doubt. I was very lucky

In the early 80s, we found the last generation of great teachers.

Most of them never left the borders of the USSR, they loved their idealized countries Platonically, but as they knew and understood them!

The literature of German romanticism was taught by Albert Viktorovich Karelsky, a two-friend of the Hoffmann Cruisler-he was a researcher of romanticism and his living embodiment. It seemed that our lecturer had just talked with Gölderlin or Kleist, and then looked at us, sinners.

The revival was read by Georgy Konstantinovich Kosikov, a specialist in Rabelais and structuralism - a huge, lame, with a hooked stick, but with such a Rabelazian charisma and the brilliance of thoughts that all freshmen fell in love with it.

Teachers set the highest bar to the profession, so we read giant lists of literature with inspired ease. Now I can’t even believe that it was possible to “digest” all these volumes for the semester.

There is a Greek term “methane”, that is, the transformation of the soul. I think that in pedagogy this is the main thing: in the soul, in the student’s mind, some kind of shift must occur. It is for this that lectures, live communication are needed. The energy charge received from the teacher cannot be replaced by anything. I will never forget how we went out after lectures on Spanish literature Natalia Rodionovna Malinovskaya: silently, as enchanted - just not to splash.

The facts may be forgotten, the structure of thinking remains and the fundamental base on which then everyone erects their own building.

The analysis of the text is a universal tool, so philologists, journalists, designers, and businessmen came out of our course. We have a universal profession.

Have you taught you well at school?

At least the texts of the classics met at the cellular level even in violent heads. Although we were not really taught to analyze. At school, I was always Tanya-Kotoria-all-and-and-me-literature. I liked to scare the teacher Khodasevich or Burliuk instead of Mayakovsky. But when I began to prepare for admission to the phille, the verdict of the tutor was shocking: "A capable girl, but so poorly prepared." The eternal problem of school teaching is that talented teachers are not enough for everyone. It seems to me that the only reasonable reform of humanitarian schools is the creation of a video lecture program. Let Valentin Nepomnya tell about Pushkin, let all high school students hear Dmitry Bykov’s lectures, and then the teacher can conduct a discussion, “get” plots mandatory in the program.

But this was before. Lotman's lectures on Russian culture in the late 80s were recorded on television. However, not many teachers include Lotman or Bykov in the lessons.

And if a selection of the best lectures becomes part of the mandatory program? Interpretations also gradually become classic. It seems to me that talking about Gogol’s “overcoats” without fragments of the film Yuri Norshtein is no longer possible. If children are shown how he sculpts the face of Akaki Akakievich from Pushkin’s portraits, Michelangelo, Kapitsa, they will completely differently understand the plot of a “little man” basic for Russian culture.

It turns out that today we have a course of literature without the necessary interpretations?

Yes, the emphasis on interpretation is necessary because in the Soviet years the information prevailed. The volume of Gumilyov got - you are on a horse. Now the information field is endless, and for a modern teacher, the main thing is to teach the selection, find the keys, open those interpreters that have already entered the “halo” of the author. In “Talking about Dante”, Mandelstam formulates one of the most important postulates: “Education is a school of the fastest associations. You grab on the fly, you are sensitive to hints ...”.

To teach the flight of thoughts, you need to “fly a clock” with experienced pilots.

It is not clear how to combine all this with the standards, the exam.

I think that it is possible, although I did not teach at school, I only read several special courses. When schoolchildren are interested, they are the most grateful, “transformable” listeners. Having graduated from the Philfak, I entered graduate school and read a course of foreign literature in the Schukin Theater School for 15 years. I was invited several times to teach at the philological faculty, but the need to keep abreast of all the latest scientific achievements of me, frankly, scared me, although I defended the dissertation very serious, about the problems of time and space in the Spanish poetry of the early twentieth century.

I remember in my student years we sat in a hostel in a fun company. It was about some writer, in my opinion, about Goethe, and in the heat of the discussion, one of the students from the classic department says: “Here I am not competent. I am not familiar with the entire body of the texts of this author. ” Here is such a future scientist, a special way of thinking. I have always been closer to essays, an experiment.

At the Schukin school, one could do what you want. For example, at the exam, I gave students the following tasks: “The young man goes down the stairs and sees a girl who catches a butterfly. Describe this situation in the style of Oscar Wilde, Emil Zola and Marseille Proust. ” Naturally, we analyzed all these “worlds”, learned to think about and get used to each.

Literature, first of all, is a charge of happiness, as well as a unique opportunity to “make friends” with a huge number of very wise and interesting people. Someone made friends with Balzac, then with the cunder, then somewhat went with him - and then Virginia Wulf met Virginia. This is not a replacement of life real, but its necessary component. If a person did not survive this experience, then he is just very sorry. How sorry a person who has never loved. No wonder Bormhees wrote that he did not teach students literature, but taught them to see “form of happiness” in the literature.

Your children are studying at school now. Are you satisfied with the school education of your children?

There are good teachers in their school, but the main problem is the lack of motivation in the school environment. The son is always worried that there is no one to talk to in the classroom, to study - “not cool”, to be smart - it’s strange. At home, he becomes himself, and at school he is more likely to be serving duty.

What do you think is a certain trend of time?

It seems to me that this is a tragic time trend that arose, including due to the fact that the role of literature in the school curriculum has become secondary. I was always touched by the idealized image of Russia, which I encountered, starting to actively work with Europeans. Russia is an incredibly educated country, reading, wise, deep, dusha, Toska, Sudba. But in any stereotype there is a share of truth.

The literary centricity of Russia is unique, and if we lose it, then the country will die.

Despite the fact that in the Soviet system literature was ideologized, she was still taught, so it turned out that she had such an influence ...

Which was not provided?

That's right. Say, everyone knew the biography of Pushkin better than the life of his own grandfather. Here is an uprising of the Decembrists, and Gorchakov - “Frant”, “Prince”, the future chancellor of Russia - comes to Ivan Pushchin, brings him a foreign passport and persuades him to escape. And Ivan Pushchin - flatly refuses, deciding to share the fate of friends, and spends 30 years in hard labor. When this is told in childhood, a system of values, “non -nonsense” is laid in his subcortex. Well, at least someone.

Pasternak wrote in “security literacy” that “the history of culture is a chain of equations in images that pairs the next unknown with the famous”, where in one part there is always the gospel, and in the other - the current moment of culture. Culture, literature are sciences that also educate.

But the same student could then read the “Raised virgin”, where Makar Nagulnov throws children out of the hut without regret. I want to say that after all, it was significant for a very narrow intelligent layer.

Everyone understands that from the same carbon you can get both diamond and coal. But I always liked Shelley’s answer to the question of whether it was possible to remain moral and noble in the vicious and imperfect world: “It is impossible, but it should.” So with literature and its teaching. Yes, everything is not easy, but

It is literature that is the subject of the school curriculum, which gives the necessary chemical components for the formation of a person in general and a Russian person in particular.

What is a nation? It seems to me that this is a group of people who in childhood read the same books. It is in this case that people begin to “breathe soil and fate” in people.

It turns out that it went forever - this is smart, reading, deep? ..

Nothing leaves forever. At least I want to believe in it. There are two visual geometric schemes, I always painted them for students. The first is a culture in the form of an inverted pyramid. A large number of people understands something lying on the surface, and then, as they deepen, the number of understanding becomes less and less, but on this it is kept. Second: two circles, small and large. When a person knows little (a small circle), his contact with an unknown small, the more he finds out, the more he discovers for himself an unknown.

The world of inventors will still triumph over the world of acquirers: “artists” are more interesting to live.

But it turns out that the one who knows more doubts more?

Of course, an important element of any wisdom is doubt, then “wise doubt” that goes well with confidence in its ideas and ideals. When Georgy Konstantinovich Kosikov gave us a course of lectures on Rabelais, he showed with a delightful brilliance how the Rabelazian world is being built on bringing any truth to the limit, sometimes to the point of absurdity, where truth turns into its own opposite, devours itself. About the same - and the romantic irony of Hoffmann. The great unheard of warning the twentieth century.

One of my favorite books from a completely different genre is Kozintsev’s memoirs “Deep screen”. In it, he admitted that when his name is to teach young directors, to share his experience, he always says that he can hardly share experience - he can rather share doubt.

This teacher, of course, must open new worlds to students, teach them, but at the same time it is equally important to “share doubt”. There is nothing worse than the truths that surround the laurels.

Remember, you told me about the translation of Marquez “A Hundred Years of Loneliness”, about the Soviet translation, which was somewhat cut, but was almost the best ...

The first translation of “A hundred years of loneliness” was made by Valery Stolbov, one of the “pillars” of Soviet Spanism, and his wife Nina Butyrina. They worked on him for several years, lived in this great novel. They called all the pieces of furniture in the apartment with the characters of the novel, talked with them, honing the rhythm and tone. It was a grandiose work and a grand victory. In the first publication, censorship cut out several too frank scenes, but already in the editions of the 80s they were restored. It was this Russian text that created Markesomania, influenced many Russian writers, not to mention readers. And then in the 90s, Margarita Bylinkina decided to make a new version “A hundred years ...” and, having released a new translation, in a series of publications literally doused her predecessors with mud. Acted according to the logic of the 90s: scandal-the best advertising. And she turned out to have a text, non -musical, non -musical, with stylistic “blunders”. Such a Shakespearean story around Markes.

“AST”, now the official publisher of Marquez, for some reason prints the translation by Bylankina, although all teachers are asking for reading the version of Stolbov. I recently sent a letter to the AST with articles of the Spanies for this Shakespearean to the plot and a request to return the first translation. Let's see if they respond. For example, "Autumn of the Patriarch" - for me the best novel of Marquez - did not work in Russian. The translation was correct, but not talented. In art, everything decides “a little bit”.

The last two questions. First: Have you heard about the idea of ​​the project “100 Mandatory Books”? How do you feel about this idea? And in this regard: three or five of your most important art books in life?

The ingenious architect Gaudi all his life re-read comments on the new Testament and the architectural dictionary of Vioolle-Le-Duke. Lev Tolstoy claimed that one good book is enough to read for life, despite the fact that in Yasnaya Polyana he had a library of 22 thousand volumes. That one, the only one, needs to be chosen for a long time. Therefore, lists are not a good thing. At the Schukinsky school, I gave students full “Philfak” lists of literature, not hoping that someone would read them. But culture is a language. Each name is a word in its era. If we are talking about the Middle Ages, it would be nice to know that there were “senior Edda” and minnesingers, and not just Francois Viion and “Song of Roland”. For the exam, it was necessary to read at least four authors to choose from, but to analyze the text in detail and seriously so that they and they themselves would be interested. I put “deuces” only for deception: if I said that I read, and not the matter was listened to the briefly in the corridor.

And about your favorite books - it is very difficult to choose: they change. Three to five will be dishonest towards the rest. A truly existential writer was Marseille Proust for me: his ability to cherish the details, to remember and build the world ... an incredibly important skill-passed experience through the Pristan prism, accurate, fragrant, filled with textures, chains of images, experiencing every moment of being. I read it from crust to crust, all seven volumes, and I am grateful to the fate that I turned out to be the moment when it turned out to hide and defeat Proust.

Another important stage is Dante. His path according to hell, where he empathizes and judges, disputes the traditional interpretation of sins, takes revenge on the road by the hated dad BonifacevII, justifies friends, scaredly grabs the hand of Virgil ... one of the first grandiose and free creators of the New Age. Amazing text.

Shelley wrote that the most correct place for reading the “Divine Comedy” is the roof of the Milan Cathedral. A couple of years ago, she performed his order, spent the day among Gothic spiers, managed to read only “Hell”, but in Italian, with comments. Although the Russian translation of Lozinsky is a masterpiece in itself and a separate plot for conversation.

In order not to offend anyone, I will remember my beloved Borges: "I have always imagined paradise something like a library."