My decade

"Super-Zno" debate in New York

In New York, at Columbia University, an event was held with a somewhat strange, but, of course, intriguing the name “Super-Nobo”.

“Nose” is the name of the well -known literary award, the award and presentation of which is preceded by public debate, which right in the presence of the public, right on the stage, directly, as they say, offline are carried out by jury members and a team of invited experts.

This time the debates were, frankly, unusual. Firstly, they turned out to be, so to speak, away. Secondly, they were not talking about the book of the past year, but about the book of the past decade.

In this somewhat exotic way, the anniversary of this award was celebrated, established ten years ago by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.

I, as one of the laureates of the award (2012), as well as the brand new laureate Alexander Stesin were invited to these debates. And I was also asked to speak with short speeches about how each of us the past decade is seen.

The debate went in English, with which I did not have the most, to put it mildly, trusting relationship.

Therefore, I wrote and, accordingly, read with the help of the translator my text in Russian.

After our knockers, the debat actually began, as a result of which the laureate of Super-Nice was the novel by Vladimir Sorokin Metel.

A worthy, in my opinion, decision.

And my speech - here:

I am always actively, although without much success, I try to avoid two genres of public communicative behavior, genres, which are usually actualized by themselves in certain calendar circumstances - most often on New Year's or post -day days.

The first, perhaps, hated, is the so -called forecasts for the nearest or even more so for a distant future. "I'm not a fortuneteller for you!" -With difficulty restraining the evil intonations, I say (and most often I think) in cases where some media youths-girls pester questions like “What do you think will happen? ".

The second is the so -called results. “Tell us what you remember this year, these five years, ten, one hundred, five hundred, a thousand? How? Well, if in two or three words literally ... "

These questions every time find me by surprise, and I am able to panic, I suddenly understand that

I was right here and now with a dusty burlap with a dusty burden with an elegant name amnesia.

In a word, in these cases, I can not remember anything in the most shameful way.

And I begin to mutely mumble: “Well, something was like that, of course. Could nothing be, really? There was something! Exactly! Was! I'm just sorry, I don’t remember that. ”

And now, right here I am ordered to talk about what I especially remember the past decade.

And I am sitting on a steep bank, hanging my legs and throwing a thin fishing rod into the muddy waters of my holey memory. I sit and wait for it to peck. And most importantly, who pecks? What will peck? And will it bite at all?

Well, let's try it all the same.

I remember, for example, that a decade began with unexpected public activity in our city and in our country, with very pretty street activity, with crowded processions and rallies, with very careful, but even more expensive and reverent hopes. What? It is not known what. Our hopes are always self -sufficient and always primary in relation to the objects of their application.

I remember that at the beginning of this decade I shyly knocked on, and then I entered the littleness of Facebook in a little understandable space, in which very soon I got used to it so much that I began to perceive and perceive this space as my own, and my active presence in this space is like my own artistic project.

It was in this decade that I realized that social networks in general and Facebook in particular are modern literature, in general, there is.

I remember that in this decade there were numerous arrests, searches, courts and sentences. There were protests on this subject, as well as many different degrees of talent, argumentation and passion of texts, including mine.

I remember that during these years there was an extraordinary flowering of such an artistic phenomenon as actionism, heyday, also marked by the forensic police consequences, which became in the perception of many, as it were, an integral part or at least a convincing context of the artistic process.

I remember that various feasible forms of sympathy and support of girls from Pussi-Rayot, or Peter Pavlensky, or authors of an outstanding art work using and even the participation of one of the St. Petersburg bridges, began to be perceived by me as my natural duty.

I try to remember something else. Something else ...

A! Here! In one of the years of the past decade, I became the laureate of the literary prize “Nose”, which circumstance to me today warms the soul and fills it not quite clearly formulated, but, of course, positive and even joyful sensations.

In short, it was not a completely lost decade. Not even lost. For me at least.