Defeat is everywhere

Gorky publisher Boris Kupriyanov summed up the disappointing results of 2022

Summing up the results of the year is a dubious task, especially when the year does not want to end. Nevertheless, Boris Kupriyanov, the publisher of Gorky and one of the founders of the Phalanster bookstore, decided to share his thoughts on what 2022 brought to the book and literary community of Russia.

All of us, since February 24, 2022, have found ourselves in the face of advancing barbarity, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editors of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that there is still a place for thought and fiction in the world.

Summing up the results of the year is one of the most meaningless activities, mixed with vanity and arrogance. You flaunt your achievements and even think that someone is interested in them. But at the end of 2022, the words “summing up” sound especially defiant and naive. Firstly, this year has not ended yet and it is not known when it will end - at least not according to the calendar, and secondly, this year there was no subject who with a clear conscience would say that he was something did it myself .

But if we still try to characterize everything that happened in relation to the cultural and literary field of Russia (and this is the only thing we can talk about both legally and in conscience), then the most appropriate word will be defeat. Defeat is not for one group or pole there, but defeat for everyone. There were no beneficiaries as of December 31. The right and left, liberals and patriots, statists and anarchists, both those who were ready for it and those who were confident of victory, suffered defeat.

Already in the spring, it became clear to almost all participants in the process that the usual educational practices were no longer working. In addition, the educational strategy itself was called into question. This caused both fierce and senseless debate, which is not surprising: telling opponents that they acted incorrectly for 20 years and achieved results opposite to what they wanted is arrogant and rude, but admitting your own mistakes of a strategic scale is also very offensive.

The humanistic values ​​we (you) preached crumbled in one day. People simply couldn't bring themselves to read. Book truths began to seem like lies, because they stated one thing, but practice turned out to be completely different. The numbers clearly speak of the apathy, fear, and helplessness that reigned everywhere. Bookstore revenue fell by half from February 24 to March 15. Only at the end of March did people regain the opportunity to read. By the way, the same decline occurred at the end of September.

Cultural progressives, who believed in inevitable changes for the better, lost their main argument: “over the past decades, people have stopped eating each other.” But no, with the very first shot, dehumanization, like a relict beast, crawled out of the swamps and ravines: we turned out to be primitive enough to... not to read Tolstoy, but to listen to something else - what pours out of the TV.

The legend of the spiritual independence of culture somehow collapsed on its own amid the cancellation of musicians’ performances, the expulsion of talented directors and actors from state theaters (and we have almost no others left), and the humiliating sealing of books written by foreign agents (what a word) in plastic. True, it turned out that that thin cultural layer that had been accumulating throughout the last twenty years of comfort and prosperity was, of course, too thin, but... perhaps still not enough to take it and abolish it. In cafes, at home and on radio stations, they listen to disgraced musicians more than the singer Shaitan, they still watch films with their favorite actors, read those books that they liked and still like, they see on Youtube those journalists they are used to trust, and not those who 24 /7 squealing from all the irons. And this, of course, is also a defeat, albeit of a different camp.

But not everything is so strong and serene. Our cultural community turned out to be much more vulnerable, and old skills crawled out, like that same primitive beast from a ravine. Workers of culture and literature suddenly became very “careful”, much more careful than the regulatory authorities required of them. There have been cases when books by “unreliable” authors were removed from the shelves in bookstores (very few) and libraries (they say many). On their own, without lists sent down from above, without superior orders, and even so zealously that Akunin * Recognized in Russia as a foreign agent with Polyarinov, who are not even on the lists of foreign agents, disappeared from the shelves. At the same time, for some reason, they hid the patriotic writer Pogodina-Kuzmina. Self-censorship is more dangerous than censorship (prohibited in Russia according to the Constitution). Self-censorship paves the way for censorship, prepares society for restrictions, and makes exceptions and prohibitions permissible. And, as the above examples show, they will hide and ban not according to party lists, but according to a special administrative instinct, a slavish, lackey fear of “no matter what happens.” Even the demonstrative wrapping of foreign agents’ books in paper is already a concession to this fear. Acceptance, as well as the presence, of restrictions means the defeat of society.

Separately, it should be noted that the laws on the control of foreign agents and the ban on LGBT propaganda have come into force, since they also relate to the book business. Let us assume that the logic of the authorities prohibiting the free distribution of books written by those whom the authorities themselves recognized as foreign agents is understandable. But what do LGBT representatives have to do with it? And why is it now that such a struggle has begun against their normalization that they cannot even be mentioned in books? We are told about the protection of traditional values, but there are no traditions more hostile towards LGBT people than those that reign in Russian prisons and zones. Do they really want to instill exactly these values ​​in us? Is this why, last year, the Russian stage was once again captured by profiteering performers like Gazmanov? If my assumptions are correct, then this is not even a defeat, but a disaster! No, I don’t want to believe this at all.

Let's go ahead and see what's happening with book festivals and fairs. KRYAKK, the most important non-state fair that does not take place in capitals, was canceled this year. The organizers' decision is clear. For a non-state fair, ideological interference is mortally dangerous; any pressure from outside destroys the most important thing - its independence. The founders decided that the risks of such pressure were too high, and turning the fair into a place of political struggle was wrong. Perhaps the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation made the right decision, although, of course, it is a great pity that the most important book event beyond the Urals did not take place. The St. Petersburg Book Salon has retained an enviable loyalty to itself - just as it was a meaningless, boring event, it remains so. The festival on Red Square and the MIBF (some letters were dropped from its name, either M for international or B for exhibition) as an exception managed, if not to become better, then at least not to sag. I won’t say anything about the Non\fiction fair of intellectual literature, since I had a direct connection with it for many years. There was also trouble with small regional festivals. In the past year, they were either canceled, or subjected to very strict censorship restrictions, or instead of a book event, something completely different was held. True, many book micro-festivals and micro-fairs have arisen in St. Petersburg and Moscow: in the courtyard of “Subscription Editions”, in the “Mart” cafe, at the “Factory”, in the Rassvet cultural center, in Peredelkino, at “Artplay”. Sometimes very tiny ones, with the participation of two or three publishing houses. These horizontal connections have proven beneficial to both publishers and readers. There is hope that something more will come out of all this next year. For now, this too is still the same defeat. Fairs and festivals in 2022 were weaker than in pre-Covid times. And it’s not about the number of visitors, but about the results, tritely calculated in rubles. They not only did not increase, but sometimes even decreased, despite the significant rise in price of books.

The transformation of the premium book process began long before 2022. A year and a half ago, Rich, a musician with political views not close to me, noticed that if before the Natsbest award was a circus, it has now turned into a farce. There is nothing to add here. This year “Natsbest” was not held at all. “NOS” was also cancelled. The “Big Book” has become... not very big. All three of its prizes this year went to authors of biographical books. In general, there are thousands of book awards in Russia, established in honor of the many writers with whom our country is so rich. And who knows what they are about: the Delvig, Belinsky, Leskov, Patriarchal, Ministry of Internal Affairs and many others. But they no longer reflect the process of development of literature, although they used to describe a field. Now - no. And this is also a defeat, although prepared earlier, but coming in 2022.

The last few years - starting around 2016-2017 - we have had a flourishing and abundance of all kinds of literary criticism, which was carried out by a variety of people, even if they did not always understand what it was. But at least these were different people who stood in different positions: professional, political, ethical, aesthetic, formal, advertising, philological, self-praising, and so on. Some analyzed the author's success, some analyzed the language, some demonstrated themselves, some explained the author's (and their) political position, some retold the plot, some even tried to explain what the book being criticized was actually about. and how it can be read. All this, perhaps not the best criticism, is dead. Now it is (almost) pointless to use old practices and techniques. Any analysis comes down to the designation “friend or foe,” as in the electronic identification system in military aviation. Even praise from a representative of the opposite camp is perceived as blasphemy, and criticism from one’s own camp is perceived as treason. Readers have settled into camps, like charged particles in a magnetic field, and there can no longer be any talk of any objectivity. It's as if there are several postmodern Hamburgs in the world, each with its own separate account.

Our literary and book community has failed not only to cope with fear, but also with responsibility. Disputes between those who left and those who stayed quickly spread to culture and literature. According to the now generally accepted flawed binary logic, the community is constantly divided, like a cut worm. And it is divided not only on the main issue, but also on many others. For example, how radical are you on the main issue? It’s amazing that society is already binary divided, but habit takes its toll and both camps continue to divide. Meanwhile, departure does not relieve the person who left of responsibility for the cultural state in which Russia now finds itself. This is a defeat, and we will have to learn for a long time to bear responsibility for ourselves and for the society in which we live.

So solidarity, as it turns out, is not the strongest feature of our book and literary community. Writers, bookstores, and the media are divided not into two, but into a much larger number of groups, or, more precisely, along different lines of demarcation: those who remained - those who left, those who support - those who do not support, those who are silent - those who are not silent. With those who left, who support and who are not silent (from any side), everything is clear. But most members of the community do not adhere to these three radical positions. And it is from them that the impossible is demanded: to publicly decide on a position, which is practically very difficult and will almost certainly entail dire consequences. It is not for me to judge the degree of radicalization of someone's private position, but it seems that those who are safe cannot demand public revelations from people who are in a completely different situation.

Maybe someone got the impression that there were still some victories somewhere, for example in the Z-poetry camp (I’m not sure if this is a self-name, but it suits their style very well). I'm afraid of incurring curses on myself, but in reality this is not the case. This group broadcasts only two messages: 1) talks about a grandiose victory and “people’s love” and 2) whines that it has few resources, money, airtime, space, money - and therefore few victories and “people’s love”. Such a position under other circumstances could claim success, but in their case it is comical. The Z-poets have learned well the Afisha precept: “As we say, so it will be.” However, Afisha designed the future, and the Z-poets only talk. At the same time, they are sure that everything they say is the truth: “everyone loves us,” “we are real poetry,” “we are wonderful poetry,” etc. As if this does not need to be proven first. There is still a difference between a word and an event. I can advise them to post as few photographs as possible from their events (at which you can count those present by head) and not to name numbers (the poet Karaulov said that the main “place of power” of the group, “Bunker on Lubyanka” - not the most original name - is not can accommodate more than 60 people, and this, whatever one may say, is not a stadium, even a school one, although poets in stadiums are more an incident than the norm).

It's easier said than done, but when they finally do something, it turns out so-so. At the end of September, one student of Zakhar Prilepin’s literary school wrote a song, which his mentors immediately proudly boasted of. Nothing special, an ordinary set of cliches, but the most revealing thing about it is the title: “300,000 Spartans”... All the preparation on the farm, all their cultural background, all these “Russian Lessons”, all the notorious “meanings” (in the plural, as they like to say), all “loyalty” to traditions was expressed in these three words: a compound numeral and a noun. For me, they are the anthem of this entire formation; they contain ignorance and misunderstanding of cultural symbols, vulgarity, a sad call for death and admiration for it. They even see a feat as something dull and uninteresting. Under any circumstances, this poetry will not be real. It is deeply derivative and reminiscent of modern Russian films about the Great Patriotic War. It seems to me that the necrophilia present in every second of their works does not come from the NBP * An organization recognized as extremist in Russia. with her, as many critics argue, challenge and desire for the impossible, but represents a distorted, false childhood memory of Soviet courageous sorrow and dignity, from misunderstanding turned into a craving for death - just as the Soviet “if only there was no war” was transformed in the current “we can repeat it.” And this is also a deliberate defeat.

In addition, apparently, the resources allocated for the “development of patriotic culture” turned out to be modest. Even before the New Year, fights and mutual claims began among the Z-poets. As in the “liberal circles” they hate (of which the apologists of the “new” poetry are absolutely sure), here a coterie of not the most talented, but the loudest representatives has formed who have completely privatized “patriotism”, are actively selling it and carefully choosing who to admit , and who should not be allowed to access resources and audiences. There are also questions about the audience, but if we assume that there is one and its number exceeds the notorious 60 people (the poetry anthology, according to the statement of its compilers, was sold on pre-order in the amount of either 3,500 or 35,000 copies, which is funny - how send all this to customers?), then it still does not affect the literary process. Squabbles are an example not of victory, but of defeat.

Finally lost my tongue! Moreover, in addition to the reduction of its field, since they began to read and publish less in Russian, and not only in Russia itself. The language has been “enriched” with new words and concepts: “front”, “arrival”, “behind the tape”. We tend to fall under the spell of professional terms; I am still fascinated by “they fell on the target of the Inkerman lighthouses.” But “front” is a word, oddly enough, genderless, in contrast to the brutal “advanced,” because the front is a position.

There is no pure art left today, it has dried up, it is no longer possible to be neutral. It seems that the time has come when you need to lose, just survive, write “on the table”, publish in scanty “club” editions. Develop horizontal connections...

I think I haven’t listed all of our defeats; there are probably others. But the main one is not all these problems with printing or paper, but the defeat of readers. In two years, books have risen in price by 40%. This is higher than official information on the inflation rate. This benefits no one—neither publishers nor sellers. Over the past 25 years, books in Russia have risen in price by more than 20 times. The average price increased from 50 rubles to 1000, that is, even adjusted for inflation, “Big Mac indices”, changes in exchange rates - this is still more than double. In addition, for various reasons, many books have simply become inaccessible to Russian-speaking readers.

Is it that bad? No, of course, many writers and publishers have personal victories. Independent bookstores are appearing in Arkhangelsk and Ufa. The House of Books has reopened in St. Petersburg, updated and humanized (unlike the Moscow one, which is rapidly returning to the 90s). “Subscription Editions” are preparing a wonderful store for us in Nizhny, as well as surprises in St. Petersburg. But all this could have been more, all this could have been more colorful, more interesting.

I wish this year 2022 would end soon, really end.