The collector of samizdat

In the second part of this issue: Kharkov language: a conversation with Kharkov intellectuals and “My favorite records” with opera singer Nodar Andgubladze (1927-2013).

Let's start with the heading " Memories"

Samizdat was in the Soviet Union a huge part of the non -certificate culture. Its authors were outstanding writers, thinkers, musicians. Despite the persecution of the authorities, Samizdat had millions of readers and listeners.

Sergey Korobov:

- On the box of audio cassettes with my record made in 2003, with a simple pencil, it was largely inscribed: “Yuri Linnik. Keep!". This recording was made in the country, on the balcony of which stood a large telescope. The sign is not accidental: the owner of the cottage defended the scientific dissertation on the topic “Aesthetics of the Cosmos”, and the museum created by him in Petrozavodsk is called a museum of space art named after Nikolai Roerich. With the writer, poet, doctor of philosophical sciences, Yuri Linnik (1944-2018) could record interviews on many topics, but that time we talked about samizdat. Yuri Linnik was the owner, perhaps one of the largest collections of samizdat in the country. When in 1997 he transferred most of it to the National Archive of Karelia, it took a truck for transportation. And this story began in the early 60s. Yuri Linnik simply explained to Samizdat simply:

Yuri Linnik

- This was a shortage of information that we acutely, painfully felt during the years of Soviet power. This deficit had to be covered. All the time I lived in the feeling that I did not have enough normal books. I sought to get that there was no access from a young age. In the 60-70s, these searches took on a systematic nature. We can say that I specialized in Samizdat. And what I collected is many, many and many volumes. What did I collect? I started with an elementary, while still a student of the institute, I copied the forbidden Gumilyov. Of course, I copied Brodsky, of course, I followed the fate of Solzhenitsyn. But I would say so - this is a universal samizdat, it was in every city, it was everywhere. I have a specificity in my activity, I was very worried about the fate of the Russian spiritual underground. Of course, what went into exile was published there. But I was interested in people who remained in Russia, their fate. I was attracted to the 20s, a turning point. I tracked at people whose youth came for this time and who still lived until the days when I began to think.

I started with an elementary, while still a student of the institute, I copied the forbidden Gumilyov

Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev, a great thinker, a friend of Solzhenitsyn, I gathered all his works, I copied all his work with his blessing. Alexander Isaevich Lyubishchev, our great Russian mental universal, biologist, philosopher of a very wide range, philologist, and historian. I am happy that my fate crossed with him. I was engaged in his archive, I copied 30 volumes. This copy was made on a typewriter, made right in the editorial office of Soviet newspapers, there were well operated by drivers who could professionally make copies, they were all the time in work, they shot things very, very risky. I would say that Petrozavodsk is a city, I do not want to idealize it, but it is liberal than other cities, because in another city I would have thundered faster than in Petrozavodsk.

Vasily Vasilievich NAYMOV, 1996

So, the spiritual underground. Vasily Vasilievich Nalkimov, in the 20s he was 16-17 years old, when he became a member of an anarchist organization. It was a philosophical anarchism, a very deep anarchism that anticipated the ideas of energy. Energy is a mother of order, the more disorder, the more freedom of liberal, economic, the more return, the more creativity in society. Beautiful poet Valery Pereveshin, classic, he lived in Brazil. He published a lot abroad, but a lot remained in his manuscripts. So he had such an expression - “overwhelm”, this is his neologism. “Rub” - overtake through the machine. So he “missed” a lot of verses that have not yet been published, this is samizdat. This is a unique case. Until now, I support the correspondence with Larisa Nikolaevna Anderson, she lives in France - this is a poet of the first wave of emigration. She helped me get a lot of materials related to Harbin, including handwritten materials. Another direction is also connected with Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich. I collected a large collection of artists of the Amaravell group-these are artists who met with Roerich in the 20s. Their destinies were also very difficult, someone was in the camps, someone was shot. We removed copies from the work of Nikolai Konstantinovich. I specifically went to the Baltic states to get some interesting manuscripts there. I have a huge Roerich archive.

Alexander Alexandrovich Lyubishchev

Very early, I began to engage in Gulag. I was interested in the work of people who were in places of imprisonment. In this regard, Solovki attracted me to me. I collected 11 volumes of materials on Solovki. Once again, I repeat that I was driven by the feeling that the information is scattered - this is what is called entropy. And when I collected all these materials, I felt like an entropy fighter. I have no ambitions, but somewhere in this there is an element of the mission, collect, preserve, convey. Of course, any collector is an individualist and an egocentric - this is undoubtedly so. There is an element of collecting, but at the same time we are altruists. I perfectly understood that what I would collect, will work for many people, and will work for many years, will work after I leave this plan of being. Only in this way, this activity is fundamentally altruistic, it cannot be otherwise. When I went to people when I went to the underground - it was a search. I am still a young man, suddenly I meet an article by Alexander Alexandrovich Lyubishchev, who amazes me, what free thought, what a non -trivial system of thinking. I am looking for moves to this person. I spread special ballots through friends: help me find the heirs of such and such people that you heard about such and such names, have you come across the work of such and such philosophers, such and such poets. This information was distributed, I often had a positive result. Take Daniil Andreev, because now all of Russia is reading it, I have known him for 25 years. I went to his heirs, they gave me these verses, these treatises. When you are busy with this activity, you become a magnet, information is attracted to you, an interesting process of self -organization begins to work, a network is created, an information network is born, and it grows quickly, productively. You go out on people, go to texts that were unpredictable, which are sudden, unexpected.

I found Karelian butterflies, transported Nabokov to Switzerland and received the novel “Dar” as a gift from him

When there is a deep desire, need, it comes by itself. Often it was like a miracle, it seemed incredible. So I learned that Vladimir Nabokov has nostalgia for two butterflies, which he loved very much in childhood. These butterflies fly only on the peats of the North, near St. Petersburg, in our Karelia. I found these butterflies, transported him to Switzerland, these scales, received the novel “Dar” as a gift from him. I received this through the Ardis publishing house, the publishers of Nabokov. It was an adventure, but what happiness it was. These were conspiratorial lines. I received a “gift” with a parcel, but someone brought from Russia, someone brought and sent it to me. By the way, such a parcel, such a parcels were a rather frequent occurrence. That is, per lustration, the internal mail was not always subjected to. It was a very interesting life, not devoid of an adventure element. I never had a direct conspiracy, I never had hiding places, everything I had, I kept it straight at home. This was too much to hide somewhere, it was impossible to hide. I hoped that God keeps me.

Vladimir Dmitrievich Poremsky

There is a wonderful thinker, scientist Vladimir Poremsky, he has a brochure "On the molecular type of underground organization." Its essence is this: these molecules, these links are isolated from each other. That is, the maximum safety, the chain is built so that it moves information with a minimum risk for those who carry out this work. I could get a book, a package from a person with whom I am not familiar, they say to me: "Yura, come to the Akademkniga store on Gorky, a girl will meet you, give you a bag." I came, took a bag, I have never seen this girl again. There could be Nabokov in this bag, there could be the magazine "Bulletin of the RCD", the Publishing House "Imka-Press", my favorite magazine of the Russian abroad. This system was as if flooded, it was invisible, it worked very reliably, the failures were rare, at least in the circle with which I was connected - these are Karelia, Petersburg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, former Sverdlovsk, this is Tomsk, by the way.

So we lived, we lived interestingly. What I did is belongs to my country. There were few of us, but we saved. What we have preserved is now published by volumes, series. I would say this: what came out is still a small part of the iceberg. The spiritual accumulation of Russia during these years is huge. I am very sorry that the process of publication is sluggish with us, our reader has not received a lot. I can call whole directions of philosophical thought, Russian biocomism. A wonderful poet and writer, science fiction and philosopher Alexander Yaroslavsky, shot on Solovki. There is such an abbot Gennady (Eikalovich), the largest Russian philosopher. I have a copy of his huge book “Russian Messianism”. Who knows this person? A lot of names.

A person has the right to receive information freely, with a minimum of efforts spent on this receipt. Our efforts were colossal

Of course, there was a certain devaluation of such collections as my collection, because much of what I copied was published by a normal typographic Gutenberg way. I have no nostalgia, after all, these were abnormal conditions. A person has the right to receive information freely, with a minimum of efforts spent on this receipt. Our efforts were colossal, abnormal, we could tear ourselves. People were torn, people lost freedom, and sometimes life. We lived in an ugly country, we lived under an abnormal regime. There is nostalgia, like nostalgia for youth. Now Samizdat has gone online, I think the Internet has largely adopted this mission, of course, raised it to a completely new qualitative level. I think that now it will not be forbidden, although such urges in Russia are still feeling. I am disappointed that I am observing in Russia. I do not want to be absolutely a pessimist, nevertheless we knew freedom, but, it seems to me, Russia went the wrong way that would be optimal for her. Russia has now retreated from the democratic line - this retreat is obvious.

Kharkov language.

Igor Solomadin , historian:

- Many guys who are on the forefront, goodobats, those who are volunteer, they never had a language problem. They have a purely practice, performance of work. The task is different, the task is to help those who are on the front edge, and no difference, says a person in Ukrainian or Russian-it doesn’t matter, it is important that he is a patriot, a patriot in a good sense of the word, in the pristine sense of the word that really risks his life, risks his health, protecting Ukraine.

The inscription preserved since the war on the wall of one of the houses in Kharkov, 1983

Lidia Starodubtseva , cultural historian:

“There is a patriotic Ukrainian, there is a separatist Kharkov, Kharkov, still nostalgic for the great father and the Soviet past. But these are two loci, which are just islands on a city scale. The rest of Kharkov is the psychology of an indifferent mass. They don’t care who will be in power, they don’t care what language to speak, they don’t care what an ideology that will come to this Earth.

Boris Sevastyanov, musician:

-My grandmother was a convinced communist, and my grandfather was a communist, but in a family circle behind a glass of vodka we sang such a song, half-joking, but if my grandmother was now alive, it would have sang seriously:

Zhovto-Blakiti Our Prapori,

Mi non -interpretation, chalki.

Bode Vilna Ukrainian, wake Nenka Samostyina,

Zhovto-Blakiti Our Prapori.

“My favorite records” with an opera singer, writer Nodar Andguladze (1927-2013).