Writer Victor Erofeev - about Russian life, art and gopnikism as a phenomenon of our time

Victor Erofeev is an alien everywhere: neither the “right wing” nor the liberal intelligentsia consider him their own. He also treats both poles of social thought with the same skepticism, saying that the artist should look for another in the world, without trying to go into operation or find his flock. We met and talked with Viktor Erofeev.

" He cut the window to Europe, and it was boarded up"

- Do you have the feeling that the country has entered the second round? A novel with totalitarianism revives the style of 100 years ago both in politics and in art. Why are we plunging to where we had difficulty getting out?

- We live in a fairy tale. And a fairy tale does not have to be kind, children's. She can be cruel and bloody. In this fairy tale, the characters are unchanged, only the actors are changing. A fairy tale is just a movement in a circle. Sometimes gives some hopes to the hero, then again he slamms him and so on. There are figures that demonstrate real evil, absolute, and this is not only a woman Yaga, maybe the king can be infinitely cruel: all this cutting of heads ... Suddenly the theme of love, Ivan-Durak, but as soon as the wedding occurs, we again plunge into the darkness. This is not a metaphor, believe me, it is, spins and spins like a top.

If you look at our story, we are driving in one direction in one direction, then in the other, but all in one field. And in order to jump off him, we need to make tremendous efforts, which Peter the Great made.

But he also did not jump out, still sucked. He cut the window to Europe, and it was boarded up. He broke the country moreover: this part arose, which is called the liberal intelligentsia, and its trouble consists in the constant desire to free the people, that is, the remaining 80 percent of the population. The Russian intelligentsia is a caste that fights for the liberation and happiness of the people. Only all liberal thought is based on the principle of French education of the 18th century: a person is kind in nature.

- Is this an erroneous principle?

- He is refuted since Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Freud, and then the whole history of the twentieth century.

It is sometimes sad to look at the Russian liberal public, because here everything goes in a circle. Everyone fights for the free choice of the people, and the people unanimously votes at all for those who wanted to free them. The point is not that they were knocked out by all the objectionable. The fact is that this was almost no one outraged. Unlike, say, from Minsk, where in recent years a charge of European values ​​has accumulated. In Minsk, at the Literary Congress, I was simply amazed at the soft tolerance of Belarusians, which our liberal thought did not have, plowing a thousand pieces. And why she was shaken, it is also clear: because everyone has their own idea of ​​the liberation of the one who cannot be freed.

Of course, there is an opportunity to make the country softer, better, more compassionate, to twist something, just as we, having understood ourselves, can slow down something in our own character: cruelty, anger ... The same is real to do with society, as Europe did. After all, she did not promise a bright future, she promised more human comfort, not only bodily, but also mental, in general, culture. Another thing is that when another meets this society, of course, villains always win, because they have no restraining factors.

" Who does not agree - Russophobe"

- A recent congratulation of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland reminded of the phenomenon of gopniki, which took root at all levels of society. Why did the gopnik become a superhero in Russia?

- We have millions of gopniks. We live under the sun of the gopnik. We searched for our idea for a long time and came to this cult. This is a cult of power. Gopniks never apologize, do not hesitate, arrogance is welcome. They make things completely idiotic from the point of view of normal consciousness, and for them - joy and happiness. Gopnik is glad when someone was on his leg. The main thing that sounds in power now is laughter in relation to those “idiots” who, as we are here or there, in the West, reason. Of course, there is also concern there that subordinates can at some point be angry, but not because of liberalism, but only if the latter is taken away. But this is also programmed in the fairy tale: both the rebellion and the dreams of Ivan-Durak.

- We are observing the new Middle Ages: superstitious pseudo -religiosity, mythologized consciousness, urban terrible legends like liquid chips and poisoned watermelons ... where is this where?

- Paradoxically, gopnicism is built on superstitions. You are the chosen one of your yard, you can be killed with Finka, or they can glorify you. On this strange courtyard note, you can increase the Middle Ages of Dohren. And when the gopnik takes off to the top, he perfectly understands that in order to hold the authorities it is necessary to turn on the mystical element, mythology. Even in history, he should always be right, hence the exploitation of the topic of victory. And who does not agree - Russophobe.

- Here you are called that.

-I am unfairly called Russophobe, I only try to show reality and get somewhere. I do not think that the ideal is in the West. Recently, on one international panel, I asked my neighbor if he would die for European values? He replied: for his family and relatives yes, but there is no value. I say: this is the difference, for these values ​​we alone are in prison, his last name Navalny, and the other was killed near the Kremlin, his last name Nemtsov. So we understand something in this.

I do not suit anyone. Gopota is not mine, but the liberals also have a red line for which it is impossible.

And the writer, unlike the journalist, is not looking for a way out - he is looking for an entrance. The entrance to the existential topic, which is much more significant than these are political squabbles.

This is the continuation of the very struggle against entropy, which is the main task of art and makes it the creation of the deity.

- Why did the state take care of morality: began to plant for “pornography”, “propaganda of LGBT”, to label books? Yours, for example, "18+".

- Any totalitarian regime intervenes in bed. All energy should not be subordinated to your whims, but to focus on state security.

But this is very selectively: they themselves will not live according to their own laws. There are a huge number of harems in Moscow, but they are not interested in it, but it is interesting to ban the girls to sleep with girls.

- If you continue about the Middle Ages, then Covid has become a new plague. Why didn’t she bring true values ​​to the fore: life, freedom, health?

- I had the same hope: that Covid will rally people, setting them a common task. But it turned out the other way around. Stupidity intervened, we stupid. There is nothing uniting even at the formal level. Stupidity is a terrible catastrophe of our time.

" If you do not jump out, with a murmur, like a silage"

- Why in the mass consciousness there is no moral imperative, a single idea, what is good and what is bad?

- He was, after all, literature of the 19th century worked well here. But there was also organic evil - tsarism. And this evil was so hated that the fighters changed places with him. And blood flowed. We did not recover from this. The intelligentsia is now an endangered object. The literature is weak. She can talk about that and something, and even talented, but large literature is not about that, it should be in the search for really significant ideas about human nature.

Our main sores are gopnicism, lethargy of philosophical thought and decay of the crowd. If you do not jump out of this fairy tale, Russia will rot - as a silo. We lag behind the world, work poorly, do not even be lazy, but Baldey. These fictions about the “deep people” are terrible, which can actually catch three topics: fishing, vodka and women, however, even about women is already more difficult. And then the wall, no abstract words. I write in a new book that there is a “understanding” - a filter through which the understandable passes, and the incomprehensible slows down. “Subject” helps them live: neither sanctions nor repression are terrible. And if something slips through, then there will be an explosion, Pugachevschina.

- This is a pessimistic theory in favor of departure.

- The country will not get away from itself. She will accept everything, she accepted the 37th year. This time it will be more pointed, but no less inevitable. To cut everyone, we need an ideology that will bribe everyone, we do not have it, so mass repressions are possible only on very strong tension, mobilization, when “tomorrow is war”. But if you pull it strongly, the elite will be unhappy, they also want to live, and not we will walk.

To change the country, we need enormous efforts equal to Petrovsky. And a person ready to take it on himself. Late Gorbachev, probably, could go further than others, he burst out of the fairy tale a little, but then famous events happened. But Yeltsin failed, he himself turned out to be this people.

Like Putin, he is amazingly popular. He is his own, he is a scout, a lover of hunting. The analysis with this must begin, and not with the fact that he hates a liberal thought, and she - his.

It can save a miracle related to Peter the Great, but it is desirable that Peter is not very bloody. And this will not be for the wool to the population, security forces and many. But if you steer correctly, you can jump out of this fairy tale, otherwise with a burning. True, I don’t see Peter yet.

- Can culture save?

- Culture is the fight against entropy - with chaos, decay, death. The main fighter with entropy is Kafka. Or a little Dostoevsky in “Notes from the underground”, because it is an exit on an existential topic, which makes it possible to continue the path of co-creation.

- But in this struggle it is impossible to win. That is, the struggle is obviously with a tragic outcome?

- Impossible. And the man is mortal. But we are included in what Andre Malro called the conditions of human existence - that was the name of his book. You just need to admit that people are those that are, that “they” are us. We sometimes lose ourselves, ideas about ourselves because of any devices, but this does not mean that they must be banned. This means that you just need to comprehend yourself.