Not for any money

The magazine "Zvezda" (No. 9, 10) publishes a unique correspondence of Sergei Dovlatov with Igor Smirnov

The correspondence of Sergei Dovlatov with Igor Pavlovich Smirnov begins as a good old novel - with a notice of inheritance. However, the intrigue about its receipt quickly departs to the second, then the third, plan and is absorbed by a much more powerful plot - why are people alive? What are alive compatriots who were abroad of their country?

“We will walk and talk,” Dovlatov wrote to a friend, “but you can’t buy this for any money.”

If you keep in mind a free dialogue, then for Dovlatov this is his calling, the call of the soul. Conduct a roll call in air routes - for him the condition is perfect. This caused one of his amazing recognition: "I am probably the only author who writes a letter with a lush pleasure than stories."

His dialogue with a friend of Youth Igor Smirnov, who received professorship near Munich at the same time, when Dovlatov settled in New York, began as unexpectedly, just as naturally, and continued all the 1980s.

Interestingly, in the published extensive correspondence (81 Letters), the fact that Igor Smirnov was significantly different from what Sergei Dovlatov was expected from him.

“You should exchange ideas and products, and open a veil over intimate biographical circumstances only for the closest people,” Igor Pavlovich believed and believes. But he also got involved in a living dialogue with an open soul, coming to such a compromise conclusion:

“... I clearly understand that she (correspondence.- A. A. ) documents her time (1980s) and sheds light on a certain social phenomenon (for a group of persons who left the Soviet Union), thus representing a more or less objective value, which I have no right to dispose of exclusively of my own free will. We ourselves share his main fear: "... the individual should be presented for a wide discussion in the only form in which it is a personal contribution to the universally significant, acting as a mental product or a reason for reflection."

For us, this "personal contribution" of both confidentors is undeniable. It is enough to say that the figure of Joseph Brodsky passes through the whole narrative, which was not trivial. For example, in the first letter of Dovlatov (August 20, 1981):

“Brodsky reached a complete Olympus. The "Genius Prize" hapon, this is 200,000 for five years, something like a grant. Once we went to an Indian restaurant, and Brodsky brought the old man of the American, who turned out to be Robert Penom Warren. Joseph was extremely attracted, helps a lot, greatness plus money is very to his face. ”

Or, in the same letter, a look at New York:

“New York is an amazing city. Here, indeed, they kill, but - certain people, at a certain time and in strictly defined places. Personally, I bought two pistols, Italian and local. I keep the heavy at home, I wear a light portfolio. Oddly enough, it calms. ”

Of course, Sergei never held any pistols-neither in Leningrad or in New York. But such a hyperbolism, associated with irony, is a characteristic feature of his creative manner. And in the portfolio he happened to wear, if not a pistol, then the iron pipe, which Alexander Genis already talked about.

The captured by this purely artistic element, Igor Smirnov draws the scenes no less colorful. In one of the last letters, when guests from the Soviet Union were frequent to the West, he brings Mot of the philosopher Pyatigorsky who has justified in England:

“... The Soviet authorities decided to compensate for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in the introduction of Svintelligenia into the West. Europe. <...> Among others, in Munich there were Bitov, Akhmadulin, Ascension and Postalkin. <...> A native of the people, Posnavkin was not sick. During his Munich performance, he not only read excerpts from “The cloud spent the night ...” (like: “In the distance there were clear outlines of the mountains”), but also scolded the owls. Power with such a long-accumulated in it-hatch that all the German publishers self-respecting concluded with him. Fucking a lot of money and not hoping to come to the West anymore, Poskrekin bought everything necessary in order to withstand a long siege of his Moscow apartment: a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, a TV with a prefix and much more. For two hours they did not want to put him on the plane. Renata and I, bending under the weight of his things, rushed these two hours at the airport. Finally, from somewhere the bales of the owl came up. The money that we decided to exchange right away in the bank. A weighty pack of rubles was exchanged for 20 marks, after which the renata burst into tears. The commander of the winged liner, who read the "Tuchi", took pity on Poznavkin.

The editors of the Star thanks Elena and Katerina Dovlatov, who allowed the letters of Sergei Dovlatov, naturally, thank his interlocutor, after some thoughts, who nevertheless confirmed their general cultural significance. Immediately after the death of his friend, he gathered them together and sent them to Lena Dovlatova, telling a completely mystical story in the letter attached to them:

“Dear Lena, I am sending you all Serezhins letters that I found at home (I think that none of his letters was lost to me). When Seryozha died, I was in Cyprus. Suddenly, my clock stopped. A few days after that, I called my wife in Munich and found out that the clock stopped on the day of Serezhina Death ... "

Andrey Aryev

Direct speech

Igor Smirnov

Retired Professor of the University of Constance (Germany):

- Sergey and I were long -standing friends, studied together at the Faculty of Philology of LSU. In early 1981, I moved from the USSR to Germany, preserving the Soviet passport, so I could visit Leningrad. And on my first visit, I found out that Sergey’s mother received a small inheritance in Leningrad, I informed Sergei about this - this is how our correspondence began. It continued until Sergey’s death and will now be published for the first time.

Of course, she, like any correspondence, is quite intimate-neither I nor Sergey were shy in expressions that could well hurt someone. Therefore, Andrei Yuryevich Aryev and I, before publishing, some places of this correspondence were removed.

Sergei Dovlatov remained a writer when he wrote personal letters-they were typically pre-Ovlatov’s jokes, his honed and worked out style, but the value of the publication not only in this: Sergey’s letters open his attitude to different people-his contemporaries, those with whom he communicated in New York, for example, with Joseph Brodsky.