Friends of Ruslan

Conversation of lovers of the Russian word with Boris Paramonov about prose writer George Vladimov

Boris Paramonov: George Nikolaevich Vladimov should be remembered with a kind word. He was a writer of extraordinary exactingness to himself. He wrote slowly, scrupulously - therefore he wrote little. He studied the material of his books thoroughly, in lively practice. For example, to write the novel "Three minutes of Silence", the action of which takes place on fishing vessels-seaners, he himself worked on the season on such a ship. Hence, Vladimov has such fidelity to realistic details, such a convincing and convincing acquaintance with the subject of the narrative. There is no doubt that he traveled on a truck, as the hero of his first novel “The Heavy Ore” driver Pronyakin.

And of course, the story "Faithful Ruslan" is striking in almost the first place by the thorough knowledge of a very specific and rare plot - the life and service of camp guard dogs. And fortunately for the author, he himself did not have to sit in the Stalinist camps, nor in the guards to serve, he did not see these stories, that is, he studied them specifically. Yes, and if Vladimov had such an experience of camp improving, he would hardly have written "faithful Ruslan" - the prisoners hate guard dogs and would not understand their bizarre psychology. And every business needs to be studied with love, cognitive Eros is necessary.

Ivan Tolstoy: Boris Mikhailovich, but about the largest work of Vladimov - the novel “General and his Army” - just said critically in relation to this material itself.

Boris Paramonov: Roman was criticized for numerous inaccuracies in the interpretation of historical material. Critics were serious-for example, Bogomolov, the author of books with military topics "Ivan" and "August 1944". Liderman and Lipovetsky wrote a reasonably critical article: they pointed out significant mistakes in the interpretation of the characters of the novel, and just historical: German General Guderian and Sovetsky Vlasov, whom the author, according to critics, was unlawfully idealized. And one cannot disagree with this: it is impossible to submit Vlasov as a positive character, no matter how we relate to Stalin or, forgive the Lord, to Hitler. For my part, I noticed a certain inaccuracy: two Soviet senior commander, having been surrounded, very openly scold Stalin and everything that he did with the army before the war. It is doubtful that such conversations openly be held. Vladimov himself describes the Red Army during the war as a paralyzed atmosphere of fear.

George Vladimov. "General and his army", 1994

In general, I would not call this book of Vladimov among his best.

Ivan Tolstoy: But for this Roman Vladimov received the Buker Prize, and then again - a bucker of decades.

Boris Paramonov: Well: it is quite possible to understand and, so to speak, to forgive: they loved Vladimov, sympathized with his fate of the dissident and exile and awarded them. And they did the right thing to say. But this often happens: the prize is one, and the book is another. In general, no criticism threatens Vladimov, because he wrote a “faithful Ruslan” - a book that has become and remaining classic at that very moment. The author of the classic work will not lose from any criticism.

Ivan Tolstoy: This book has a rather long and difficult story. Talking about her went long before the appearance of the text. The book, written on the author’s dating in 1975, was never printed in the Soviet Union.

Boris Paramonov: But she appeared in Samizdat, and in her first edition. Its content became known even to those who did not read this manuscript - for example, I knew. So they said: the camp is closed, the guard dogs were dismissed to autonomous feed, and they live by little. But at the station where the camp was, a large batch of builders arrives, they decided to build something there, some kind of Komsomol construction. And then dogs who remembered the service are attached to this youth column. They remember, and young builders of communism do not suspect what is the matter. They go to themselves and go in a column, the songs are singing. But someone got out of the column and ran somewhere for somewhere. And the dogs behind him. Here, the whole column runs in a panic, and the dogs rush to everyone.

Ivan Tolstoy: A very capacious image.

Boris Paramonov: Brilline, boldly might say. And now I remember, at the same time they said that Twardowski (Vladimov worked in his New World) advised the author to expand at first a small story - not only the case of describing, but his life all this dog (in the literal and figurative sense). Increase volume, make a story from the story, or even a novel. Vladimov did, but so far he wrote and rewritten - and the thaw ended, the topic became impassable.

Ivan Tolstoy: Yes, the authorities were very clever then found: they say: this side of our history is described by Solzhenitsyn in "Ivan Denisovich", and there is no need to return to this.

Any business needs to be studied with love, cognitive Eros is necessary

Boris Paramonov: such an impression is ready to create that Solzhenitsyna was printed for that to close this topic once for all.

But the mighty institute of Samizdat has already been created, we went to write and read without censorship. Vladimov’s thing fell into the most golden list of samizdat, this is “faithful Ruslan”.

And the thing is unusually good. The first, strongest and impression of it is a classic, and no critic, nor praises for this discussion, it becomes a classic as it reads.

The plan itself is unusually effective, brilliant, I would say. The plot technique: Having made the hero the dog, the author thereby converted it to a man - and in this conditional man he saw the present - that is, the Soviet man. The movement of an elegant and powerful plan of a man - a Soviet man - appeared to a dog. With all her positive qualities of love for the master and fidelity to duty. And from this identification there is no way to get rid of, and a powerful, grotesque and at the same time is by no means a satirical image of Soviet life.

That is, the dogs are good, and people are no worse - but they only perform in their own quality, but in this ugly transformation. Even not ugly, but precisely the grotesque, unnatural, witchcraft of perverted role.

Here, Ivan Nikitich, I want to give the word Abram Tertz - Andrei Sinyavsky, who wrote a wonderful text called “People and Beasts” about “faithful Ruslan”.

Ivan Tolstoy: Yes, those who read this text say that it should be published under the same cover with the "faithful Ruslan".

George Vladimov. "Faithful Ruslan"

Boris Paramonov: Okay, we quote:

Announcer: "Faithful Ruslan" -If we determine this image in the general-affiliate categories and in the actual measurement scale , you can’t call otherwise, as another, and, moreover, the final variation on the theme of the “positive hero” in Soviet literature. Moreover, Ruslan - This is the “ideal hero”, who has been looking for Soviet writers for so long, a knight without fear and reproach, a knight of communism, serving the idea not for fear, but for a conscience who gave himself without a trace the idea, up to the ability to sacrifice life for it at any moment. The concepts of honesty, fidelity, heroism, discipline, about partisanship, about the indissoluble unity of personal and social will - All that millions and millions of two -legged are brought up from childhood and what is called the scientific “moral code of communism” is expressed in this character with purity, truly blinding. And the fact that we are not a person, but a dog, does not change the essence of the issue, but tells the positive properties of Ruslan only to more organicity, simplicity and touching plaity. In this regard, I would dare to proclaim the story about the faithful Ruslan with the peak, the apotheosis of those ideological and educational aspirations that are full of all communist propaganda, which considers art, morality, politics, and sometimes life as its own appendage. "

Boris Paramonov: This is wonderful: finally, in the Russian literature of the Soviet period, such a long-term positive hero appeared in a dog image. This is the tour de Fores, of course: what is the dialectic of Russian artistic development!

Ivan Tolstoy: There was a similar story. Historian Yakov Solomonovich Lurie, under the pseudonym Kurdyumov, published a book in Soviet times, in which he discovered the Soviet positive hero - Ostap Bender.

Boris Paramonov: No, it was a little wrong there: Ostap is not like a positive hero, but a beloved hero. In general, it would not occur to anyone to deny that he is a crook, with all his charm. And Ruslan Vladimovsky is precisely a positive hero, simply a hero.

Ivan Tolstoy: For that matter, then the heroes in Soviet literature were, and not in a small number. Offhak: Pavka Korchagin. Yes, although Timur Gaidarovsky.

They are imposed heroes that are lowered on the subject of imitation. And Ruslan himself grew up in the thick of Soviet life

Boris Paramonov: Still Pavlik Morozov, recall, about whom M.L. Gasparov said: we will not forget that he would be considered a hero in ancient Rome. But what is common for all these Soviet heroes and different from Ruslan: they are imposed heroes, launched from above for imitation. And Ruslan himself grew up in the thick of Soviet life-and not even a human dimension, but in some ontological, being. It has just such an ontological integrity.

Ivan Tolstoy: Like Pasternak:

Ill -warled
And eternal outside schools and systems,
It is not made by hands
And we are not imposed on us by anyone.

Boris Paramonov: For all the unexpected, we can say the stunning plot novelty, the story of Vladimov, the same, undoubtedly affects that it lies on the main highway of Russian classical literature. It is located in the Tolstoy tradition. And the point is not only in the dog plot, forcing the Tolstoy horse plot to recall - "holstomer", of course. Not only the plot, but also the artistic means of Vladimov are taken from the Tolstoy school, from a mighty Tolstoy tradition. Vladimov masterly uses Tolstoy lessons, skillfully works in his methodology. Tolstoy reaches an extraordinary artistic effect, withdrawing things and a plot position from the usual context, overcomes the automatism of a become a confused perception. This is what in the literary theory was called the technique of removal: you need not only to point out the thing, but to give it to feel - not to recognize, but to see. For this, it is necessary to make a thing a touching attention that clings to it - to make a thing strange. Then we will see her in proper fullness.

Terz-Sinyavsky in his article on the story of Vladimov, it is this circumstance that forms its analysis.

Announcer: "... dogs are better than people, absorbed the law of wire and ended up its most persistent and consistent adherents. The finest system of the system, the adequate expression of the service are not people - Dogs (...) a sense of surprise, here prevailing and related to a “dog look” on things, allows all the ordinary, simple signs of reality, a long -become familiar, lost content and shape, as if re -squeeze out in our surprised consciousness. Lord, how did we not be surprised before, seeing all this! Thus, exciting surprise, the world becomes worthy of reproducing it, fix it on paper to remember and comprehend it. The era, reality ultimately should be and will be grateful to the artist for the fact that he has been immortalized in such an amazingly way, and, therefore, she will no longer sink, will not disappear without a trace in the summer, as any scoundrels or Khazars passed without memory. If, for example, Ruslan, from us, would not have left the positive hero in this virgin and proud form, and even gleaned from the deaf, hazardous environment of the camp "Vokhra", where, it seems, there were never any heroes, but only only one - "garbage" yes "vertukhai" ... [...]

George Vladimov. "Big Ruda". Moscow, 1961 (cover)

Boris Paramonov: And here is this term himself - the critic openly appeals to the Tolstoy art system:

“For the dog , a lot in human behavior seems incredible, strange, and therefore“ dog perception ”opens up the scope of all kinds of artistic“ elimination ”. And“ removal ”here, with Vladimov, not just a formal technique, but a universal way of vision and comprehension of life. Because it is truly strange and amazing the world in which we were born, and since it is strange, it means that it deserves that it deserves to deserve it, then it deserves that it deserves to deserve it. To depict it, so do not immediately take offense at the dogs with which they are well -compared.

Boris Paramonov: That's what a multi -valued equation is: to compare people with dogs does not mean to humiliate them, if the best feelings of love, friendship, and devotion are on the side of the dogs. And Soviet people are just as good: faithful, devoted, ready to serve and die. Yes, on which side in this world, in this life - is it true? Where can people remain people without turning into a guard dog, and dogs remain dogs without adulth after terrible human habits?

Ivan Tolstoy: Boris Mikhailovich, but in the story of Vladimov, in addition to the dog Ruslan and his owner, there are other characters - and not dogs, but people. There is a former prisoner, nicknamed the shabby and cohabitant of his aunt Stura.

Boris Paramonov: Yes, and the plot thereby grows and enriches. Even the name of this aunt was invented some kind of camp-Stura. It seems that it sounds in Russian, and at the same time stinks of a camp. And this is how the shabby talked once, remembering the German communist, who was sitting with him:

Announcer: "Many He countries I saw it And to me told. He, Of course, the communist-Raskomunist, But the nation is not You will redo it That's what I remarked: He pays attention to the fact that people do not live like that somewhere, but in a special way that they have such and such customs, so they are decorating the house, so on Here they sing songs, they play weddings. Ah, go, Ours will start - Where I visited what I saw, then the main thing It turns out that the Komsomol was organized there, and there Here is a revolution without five minutes on the nose, but in Another place - affairs more unimportant, Marxist study in the rudiment itself, Only a trade union struggle is being waged. And not that To your liking, what revolution and Komsomol, but the matter is that everything Around in our opinion, well, like in his native Saratov. And you ask what is still interesting there, - it will ate you with this surprise: "Sorry, If This to you Not Interesting, What the same to you at all Then interesting? "You see how!"

Boris Paramonov: That's the question: such a person - the better he is a dog, torn from a normal dog life and turned into a camp of camp protection? What did our world turn into?

Announcer: "Poor ball Our, chopped, chopped borders, boundaries, fences, prohibitions, Flying, Twisting, in Longing Dali on Ostra these stars, And Not was such Pydi on his surfaces, Where would Someone someone Not Sterus. Where would One Prisoners by using other prisoners They did not carefully guard the third prisoners - and themselves - from excessive, deadly pharynx Blue freedom. Obedient this law, second After the World gravity, The guard of his uninterrupted Ruslan - permanent sentry at his voluntary post. He slept in a whip, in a certain eye, Not letting yourself fall into Uponness. Head He fell on his paws, he shook in fright - and a wrinkle was still added On the cool of it forehead. Only Allowed his memories - How were approaching tomorrow's concerns. "

"Big Ruda", director V. Ordynsky. In the title role, Evgeny Urbansky. Poster to the film on the story of George Vladimov, 1964

Boris Paramonov: But this is almost the most important: Ruslan has a no one who has arisen from - from the genetic code that broke through - a memory of a former life, about the right life. And here, again, Vladimov, the artist’s sharp instinct, is held once by the accepted - the Tolstoy model. Drawn a certain Patriarch utopia:

Announcer: “Sometimes he saw himself in the middle of a wide mountain valley, on the belly in the thick grass, who is facing the sheep herd. The pink-blue mountains gradually float into darkness, from them blows with a damp wind and some kind of misfortune, and the sheep shy to each other, and he reassures them-low and hoarse barking. Having begun a huge circle, he goes to the bonfire, sits down next to him. Shepherds, and for a long time, looks into the fire, unable to tear themselves away from his changeable mysterious game. He is the first to feel the wolf and meet him, as befits a shepherd with a shepherd - we don’t bark, just to show his diligence, and with fangs and chest, feeling the heat of the fire and people who will always come to the rescue ... "

Boris Paramonov: The author continues to continue this bucolic utopia:

Announcer: "On a sultry noon, he ran to the river together with barefoot children; They Threw it V water stick, And He Swims for her Spraying viscous motionless water, and then lies, stretching out like a dead, laughing eyes From the sun, and They lie down next to him wet Bulk on Sand, trembling Its wool is combed out by a tick, stuck into a hot, naked ear. Bought up to the blue, they rise lazily for slope, and he is at a distance, satisfied and proud the fact that while he With them, no evil will touch them - neither a snake, nor a vigorous cow, nor a mad dog. ... blue frosty in the morning V Taiga, drowning in a snowdrift, he rushed To the aid The owner who is I had to Tight, clung in the back of the bear and held to death, and when to him He himself had to be tight, the owner helped him out, finishing the beast with a knife and a butt. И первый кусок, сочащийся теплой кровью, доставался ему, и They возвращались с тяжелой добычей, кое-где пораненные, кое-как залеченные и полные взаимной любви... In everything непременно была любовь - That To пастухам в черных косматых шапках, то к ребятишкам, то к этому узкоглазому плосколицему охотнику. Но где же он видел их, откуда брались эти видения? Во всей его жизни, вот до this весны, никогда не было ни гор, ни овец, ни реки, затененной плакучими березами, ни зверей крупнее кошки. Все, что He знал отроду, – ровные ряды бараков, колючая проволока в два кола, пулеметы на вышках, левый сапог хозяина. Maybe быть, эти видения, невесть откуда взявшиеся в глухих тайниках его памяти, Got it to him from предков - степных волкодавов, зверовых лаек, лохматых овчарок горных долин, которые в конце концов породили его и вместе с ростом, силою и отвагой передали и то, что каждому из них пришлось изведать? Но зачем это ему – чтоб мучился он и искушался непрожитыми жизнями? Или он был всего лишь звеном в бесконечной цепи, и эти мучительно сладостные видения вовсе не ему предназначались, а тем щенкам, что родились от него и еще родятся? Но в этих видениях и ему была радость, он бережно их покоил в душе, боясь потревожить их течение, среди трудного своего дня предвкушал минуту, когда останется наедине со своими живыми картинками. И порою ему казалось: все это происходило с ним до лагеря, до питомника, до того, как он стал себя помнить, - And он об этом мечтал как о прошлом, которым стоит гордиться".

Георгий Владимов. "Три минуты молчания". Франкфурт-на-Майне, Посев, 1982

Борис Парамонов: Но нельзя сделать Толстого из русского писателя, узнавшего реалии советской жизни. А Владимов знает, и не может уже утвердиться и успокоиться в этих патриархальных образах. Он, как и герой его, сторожевой лагерный пес, вырван из животной буколики, ввергнут в отчуждающие социальные структуры.

Диктор: "…он мог бы become таким же вольным зверем, How They, And - добычливым зверем. But не знал Руслан – и мы, грамотные, не всегда ведь знаем, – что лучше всего хранит нас от погибели наше собственное case, для которого оказались мы приспособлены и которому хорошо научились. И то ведь шла уже вторая половина его жизни, а всю первую привык он не обходиться без людей, им подчиняться, служить им и любить. Вот главное – любить, ведь не живет without love никто в этом мире: ни те же волки, ни коршун в небе, ни даже болотная змея. Он был навсегда отравлен своей любовью, своим согласием с миром людей – тем сладчайшим ядом, который и убивает алкоголика, и вернее, чем самый алкоголь, – и никакое блаженство охоты уже Not заменило b ему другого блаженства: повиновения любимому, счастья от самой малой его похвалы".

Борис Парамонов: Вот едва ли не самое горькое: мир человеческий, мир культуры предстает уродующим искажением самых основных, базовых, элементарных чувств, равно присущих человеку и собаке: это мир извращенной любви. Это опять же мощный толстовский аккорд.

Писателю, добравшемуся до таких – толстовских – вершин, оставалось только, как самому Толстому, уйти из неправедного мира, извратившего жизнь не только людей, но и животных – самых любящих, самых преданных человеку. Владимов и ушел: перестал быть советским писателем, обрек себя на изгойство и преследования.

Иван Толстой: Да, он эмигрировал в 1984 году. Поселившись в Германии, взял на себя редактирование журнала "Грани".

Борис Парамонов: И сильно улучшил его. Получил в фонд журнала ощутимые деньги, стал выплачивать хорошие гонорары. Тем самым и авторов хороших привлек. Вайль и Генис стали чуть ли не в каждом номере печататься, Довлатов печатался. Я три важные статьи опубликовал, в том числе одну под названием "Канал Грибоедова": где сделал политический прогноз: коммунисты в СССР откажутся от власти, если получат за это экономическую компенсацию. Предсказал появление феномена, получившего название номенклатурный капитализм.

Иван Толстой: Но эта владимовская идиллия недолго длилась – выжили его из журнала.

Борис Парамонов: Как недолго длилась другая иллюзия: что коммунисты, хапнув богатство, уйдут от власти. Они и хапнули, и от власти не ушли. Правда, сейчас по-другому называются.