Zasursky died

Russian journalism is orphaned

I have three kinds of faculties at the university: a group of natural (physical factory, chemical faculty ...), a group of unnatural (philological, historical ...) and only one is unnatural. Therefore, do not even speak with me about the faculty of journalism.

So (according to rumors) said the legendary rector of Moscow State University Petrovsky.

Zasursky forty -two years was the dean of this faculty.

He died today.

In his office, the main one, of course, was the table, I think, the only one in the world. Not a single piece of paper here disappeared, for many years everything took shape here in a delightful mess, in one pile. Unsoluble mystery: nothing was lost! Letters in different languages, manuscripts, faculty documents, explanatory students over many years ...

By the way, about explanatory.

Another legend. The famous Pravda reporter, one of the best in the country, Pavel Barashev studied at the journalism department since its founding. I studied before the third year ... He married, his son was born, grew up, entered the journalism factory, finished, began to work.

Father unsolvedly continued to study in the third year. Third -year student and died.

The record is unable!

Somehow, the “New” came up with the competition named after the correspondence of Shchekochikhina-for the best work of the slobber, student of the journalism department. Zasursky promised the winner the year of the winner not to deduct from the journalism department ...

It was easy for him to promise it.

I am not aware of cases when Zassursky expelled someone on his own initiative-for academic poor performance, for politics ... I kept to the last. Protected to blood.

I know from my own experience. He was a bad student, and my first acquaintance with Dean passed in that capacity.

Never in my memory, Zasursky did not sign a vile letter, did not make a speech, which should then be ashamed.

And how did he last more than forty years in the dean - the ideological faculty?

An American letter specialist who defended his candidate back in 1951 and was called his dissertation-"Theodore Dreiser to Communism was called. Then he will write more than 200 works, 16 monographs. He was a member of the editorial colleges of countless magazines, including such as “Index/Dossier for Censorship”.

In 2007, he resigned, became the "president of the faculty."

... Do you need faculties of journalism in general? What is their efficiency? All the same, only a few graduates of specialized universities work in the newspapers ...

Yes, and the best of us are Agranovsky, pilot ... Golovanov, engineer ... Bovin, lawyer ...

Once I was the secretary of the Union of Journalists, and we conducted an inventory of all the prizes of the country-there were not as many of them then, but also a lot, so we had to work hard. So, more than 80 percent of the awarded turned out to be - graduates of the faculties of journalism, half of them - graduated from the journalism faculty of Moscow State University.

I understand that these figures do not talk about anything, but still ...

When they introduced a new classification of professions, and journalism was insultingly annexed to the group “Communication with the Public, PR”, Zasursky was among those who protested against this especially fiercely.

He did not win. This, I will say to the way, noticeably ...

He was ninety -one years old. I was sick lately.

... In the mid-90s, he and I ended up at the Russian-Norwegian conference in Murmansk. The last night everyone sat in the lobby of the Arctic hotel, talked, laughed, drank something. The hotel administration dispersed us at half-fourth.

At six in my number they knocked, I opened. On the threshold stood Zasursky in a tracksuit.

“Ah? .. What? ..” I asked in a stunned way.

- Good morning! Will you run?

- Ah? .. Where? .. Why? ..

- I, you know, run every morning ... and thought ...

- No!!..

... and Zasursky ran away alone.