Robinson Cruzo and Siberian link

In 1719, a book that conquered readers of the whole world and is still inferior only to the Bible in the number of translations into foreign languages went out of the press in London. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe are considered the first English novel, which: a) is based on real events, b) gives a psychological portrait of the protagonist, c) contains the moral and ethical substantiation of the plot.

Once on a uninhabited island, Robinson Crusoe is a lot and fruitfully reflecting on God, prays, reads the Bible. In Soviet publications, almost everything related to religion was cut out by censorship, although, according to the author, religiosity helped his hero to remain a man for more than twenty years of loneliness.

But we, in the USSR, had another Robinson - a conqueror of nature, who never gives up and does not fall into despondency, and heals all diseases with rum and tobacco. Such an English colonial Pavka Korchagin. Or the "Tale of a real man" in the surroundings of the Caribbean.

However, we are not talking about Soviet censorship, on whose conscience there are many mutilated books, but about Daniel Defoe. He was 59 years old when he wrote Robinson, inspired by the history of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirka, who was dedicated from newspapers, who, like the hero of Defo, was on a uninhabited island (though in the Pacific) with the Bible (again!) And the minimum set of instruments (though Robinsonade Selkirka lasted only four years) and became the most popular, became the most popular Storiteller in the pubs of his native town. Defoe, who had an acute intuition on good stories, simply could not pass by this story. He himself was a first -class journalist: by the way, it was he who invented the report - in 1703 after the so -called “Great Storm” fell on the coast of England, which claimed a lot of lives, Defo wrote and published the documentary “ Storm ”, where he collected in the chronological sequence of thousands of facts related to this event.

"Robinson" brought its author worldwide glory and immortality. The novel became a literary sensation, giving rise to fashion for the non-fiction genre (as it was understood at that time). On the wave of commercial success of Robinson, Defoe, of course, could not but take up the continuation of the Robinsonada, and in the same 1719, the sequel “ Further adventures of Robinson Crusoe ” came out from under his pen, in which the sailor from York and his faithful Friday set off on an almost around the world, fight with pirates and savages, and torment the opium And by pearls, they risk life on each page, until once Friday dies in a battle, pierced by three hundred (300!) Arrows. But this is not the end. Having lost his best friend, Robinson is floating in China, and from there with the commercial caravan of Moscow and European merchants enters Siberia.

Muscovites, in my opinion, hardly deserve the names of Christians, but they impersonate such

From this place you can and more in more detail. When Robinson and his companions cross the Amur, the narrator writes that "he experienced relief, being in the country controlled by Christians." But then it is stipulated: "The Muscovites, in my opinion, are unlikely to deserve the names of Christians, but they pretend to be such and are very devout in their own way." Defoe himself had never been to Russia or even more so in Siberia, but simply used, like a fiction writer, the common images that exist in the mass consciousness. Apparently, the confessor of Putin Fr. Tikhon Shevkunov, who claims that the information war against Russia has been going on for four hundred years. So Defoe is there ... The narrator, of course, paints the horrors of the Siberian winter: " In winter, when everything is covered with snow, the Tungus live in cellars communicating underground passages ."

But he pays much more attention to the political climate. Robinson Crusoe makes a stop in Tobolsk, where he decides to be wintering, especially since the city finds an exquisite society consisting of exiled nobles and aristocrats. In the long winter evenings, Robinson conducts conversations with a certain prince, who fell out of favor with the king and exiled to Siberia, having lost property and ranks. They discuss the state structure of the Russian Empire, and Robinson declares to the prince:

“ I was even a greater sovereign than the Moscow king, although my possessions were not so extensive, and the subjects were not so numerous. The nobleman looked at me in amazement. I unlimitedly had the life and property of my subjects, and despite this unlimited power, not one expressed dissatisfaction with me or my rule. Here he shook his head and said that in this regard I was above the Moscow tsar .”

In response, the prince tells Robinson about the charms of life in Siberia: " Poor soldiers live no worse than us, hunting in the forests for sables and foxes. Having worked for a month, they can exist for a year. Since life is not expensive here, then this needs a little ."

Emphasized by sympathy for the disgraced nobleman, Robinson offers to arrange an escape to England. But in the 18th century, the times of the London Sidelts have not yet come, and the prince does not think of himself as a political emigrant. He politely rejects the offer of an eccentric Englishman.

That, in fact, is all that Daniel Defoe can report about Siberia: winter, exotic, lack of freedom. Three hundred years have passed (exactly 300!), And these ideas about Siberia seem to remain the most common.

Andrey Filimonov - writer