"Investigators are watching all my interviews"

Writer Sasha Filipenko on the ban on books, the meaning of literature and the reaction of Russians to war

The Russian authorities regularly impose prohibitions on art: theatrical productions, exhibitions, music and their authors. In early February, the books of Lyudmila Ulitskaya began to be removed from Moscow bookstores and libraries, and earlier the works of Dmitry Bykov and Boris Akunin disappeared from the shelves.

The prohibitions also touched the Belarusian writer Sasha Filipenko: in December 2023, the Moscow theater on Pokrovka canceled the premiere of the play “Kreunker” based on the writer’s novel, and one of the actors handed the summons to the military enlistment office right at the rehearsal. The reason, according to Sasha, was his political position and the content of the book itself. Filipenko is undergoing a regime in Belarus. In November 2023, Sasha’s father conducted searches and detained for 13 days. Since 2020, Filipenko has been living in Switzerland. He continues to publicly criticize the Belarusian authorities and oppose the war in Ukraine, and his books are popular. The already mentioned novel “Cremator” received the award of the French literary magazine Transfuge in the nomination “Best European Roman”. But the performance on him still came out - but in Berlin.

- Sasha, why do you think so much attention is paid to writers now? Why did the authorities massively ban books?

- I think that they are prohibited not by writers, but by opinion leaders. Representatives of the authorities and books did not read these. The regime simply prohibits people who have a large number of subscribers among, conditionally, of the opposition layer. The fact that the books of Ulitskaya in Russian libraries are prohibited is just small dirty tricks. Officials need to pretend that they work, but I do not think that they do it because they are afraid: Russians will now read some kind of novel and put the Kremlin on the pitchfork. I do not think that this is a blow to literature, because they just as forbid, for example, musicians. They are not prohibited athletes, because they are sitting with the tongues in the ass. It seems to me that this is just about who occupies what position, and not about who writes what.

Literature generally does not cope with the creation of protest. It can only fix and explain to people in a hundred years why, for example, in February 2024 it was not possible to stop the war.

-You once said that Russian society in relation to the war with Ukraine behaved quite infantilely. Why?

- There are many reasons! When I spoke, it seems, in Frankfurt, and said there: in my view, the problem of Russia is that there is no society. The woman from the audience got up and said: “If there are people, then there is society!” I say that this is the problem. There are people, but no society.

Russians do not know how and never knew how to unite. It goes deeply. Once again I re -read the book of Applebaum “Gulag”. And she has an amazing moment, which, it seems to me, is not paid attention to, but he is fundamental. She describes that the prisoners of Soviet camps united by a national basis. Ukrainians with Ukrainians, Belarusians with Belarusians, Chechens with Chechens, but Russians have never united with the Russians. They did not understand themselves as a nation that could unite, except that Muscovites sometimes united with Muscovites, and Petersburgers with Petersburgers.

Although, it would seem that if such a massive group united, it would be much easier for them to survive in the camp, defending their rights. People simply do not have this experience of unification.

When I worked at the rain, Lobkov and I drove throughout Russia from Moscow from Moscow to Chelyabinsk. I rode and saw that there was no Russia, but there are a huge number of different countries. People in the Urals live their lives, people in Tatarstan - their own. You enter Chuvashia, and your radio switches and begins to broadcast in Chuvash. Once in Kazan, you understand that they are ready to change flags at least tomorrow: there is a very strong separatism that they can hide, but in fact everything is ready for the Republic of Tatarstan to be independent. There is no this big country that everyone is talking about. I think that people who live in Chelyabinsk, or people who live in Yekaterinburg have the feeling that Moscow is fighting, but they do not concern them. Yes, there someone is going to the front, someone was unlucky, but globally it is not we are fighting with Ukraine, this is fighting Moscow, and we live here with our Ural life.

It seems to me that people simply do not take responsibility for their country. I have been in a huge number of places in my life, but I have not seen anywhere that people do not love their own country so. If you travel around Russia by car, then you travel around the landfill. This is not a matter of poverty, because Belarus is also a poor country, but entering Belarus, you understand that people are different to their country.

Many say that propaganda seems to be instructing people to support this war. It seems to me that the main meaning of Russian propaganda is that it forces it to inactive. It seems that Yudin said about this that when it was necessary to force Russians to vaccinate from Covid, propaganda could not cope with this task, and when it was necessary to force them not to notice the war, she copes with this.

Of course, it is clear that there are economic reasons, and for a huge number of people, death becomes a social elevator. Residents of Moscow cannot imagine why people go for 200 thousand rubles to fight, and for those 200 thousand rubles, this is a stunning order of numbers. But we only went through the top. There are many reasons and they are all accumulated with each other.

All this sounds as if I condemn Russian society. This is not so, but still I think that when the war began, Moscow had to stand. There was none of this. 30 or 50 thousand courageous people came out, but these are incommensurable numbers with what is happening.

Everyone is talking about impossible repressions. They were aimed at the lead. There were no repression. I was always on marches and protests in Belarus, in Russia, I was on single pickets. There have always been super-Vegetarian times in Russia. It was possible to go out, God forbid. When they say that it’s scary now, I think that when it was not scary, no one went out anyway. Yes, there were brave people who came out, but it was society, the masses of Nifig did not.

Approx. Ed.: On May 6, 2012, a protest procession “Millions March” was held in Moscow, ending with clashes between participants and the police, as a result of which criminal cases were instituted to participate in the riots and violence against representatives of the authorities. More than three dozen people became defendants, most of which received convictions. According to the ATS-Info , since 2012, more than 3 thousand people about the total number of people subject to politically motivated criminal prosecution by the Russian authorities. In Russian law enforcement agencies, there is a practice of torture of prisoners and detainees.

- What happened in Belarus could become a certain demonstration that intimidated the Russians?

- I think that Russians will always find an excuse to get scared.

You know, when in Belarus in 2020 protests took place, just from my friends in Russia I heard advice every day on how to go out. When this terrible war happened, I thought: “Okay, friends, now you will show us what to do,” but I saw nothing. So yes, all this is very infantile, and they all continue to not notice for two years and think that it will somehow resolve. This is not a matter of political preferences. The same thing happened with Navalny, when he came, and no one came out for him ( in the shares on January 23, 2020, they took part, according to the MBX-Media, more than 100 thousand people were detained, according to the OVD-Info, 4,000 people were detained, dozens of people were injured according to the media zone.-Ed. ) . This is not a question of whether Navalny likes or dislike, but the question of the fact that you can not poison the citizen of your country.

Russian society is now behaving plus minus as Ksenia Sobchak. She is like a weather vane - both ours and yours, but now there is Konstantin Bogomolov (husband Ksenia Sobchak, director), performances are underway. All this does not devalue a huge number of amazing courageous people who did and continue to make a cool thing. All the same, we see how today in Yekaterinburg the guy performs and tells Mizulina in the face of everything he thinks. People are incredibly cool, but unfortunately, there are no societies.

- Where do these bold people come from in such an environment?

-In 2010, when we went to the square in Belarus, we were also 30 thousand people, and 10 million around did not want to go anywhere, they were more or less satisfied. There should have been a lot of things in Belarus to change so that a million to go outside. In the case of Russia ... Well, what else can you come up with a more terrible than thousands of people who died in the war? I do not know what else should happen so that the Russians are massively recovering and understand that something is wrong.

- Literature can not resist propaganda in any way?

- Literature cannot resist propaganda absolutely for sure - this is just a matter of power. The book now needs to fight Facebook, with Instagram. Turn off, my friend, from Tik-Tok and read the 800-page romance! A few will master this.

In the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn had 10 millionth circulations of the Gulag Archipelago ( it is difficult to establish the exact numbers about the circulations, but they were really calculated in perestroika and in the early 1990s. -Ed. ) . We will leave Solzhenitsyn's imperial views aside now ... So, let's say 10 million people read this book. It would seem that she had to influence everyone, but this did not happen. It just doesn’t work like that. Now, if you want, then, of course, literature will personally be an antidote.

- If you follow this logic, then from the regime to ban literature is a rather stupid move, because it, on the contrary, attracts attention to the works and their authors.

- True, there is no logic in repressions. This is the whole point - repressions act so that everyone is scared and understand that everyone can fly in. The regime needs enemies. Today, writers, tomorrow football players or influenters-Vegan.

- Sasha, since literature cannot affect anything, why then, for example, are you writing books?

- A good question. Don't know. Obviously not to influence the minds. Because you fix the time, take a photo of the era. I do this for myself to figure out and work out emotions and feelings. Maybe tell people, but rather future generations.

I understand that my contemporaries do not react much to what I am writing. I wrote the "former son" in 2012. Everyone asks me when I write a new book about Belarus, and I say: “Why? The "former son" is relevant now. " The book has a scene in which children play the dispersal of demonstrations. Then, in 2014, they told me that I wrote it for the thickening of paints and never will happen, and in the 2020 we saw that YouTube was littered with the videos of children who were divided into riot police and protesters and chopped down.

That's when I work as a journalist and an essayist, I clearly understand that I am acting and as an activist too, I can tell you about what is happening in Belarus, and this article will probably read the Eurodes or someone else who has some kind of influence.

I understood that when I wrote about events in Belarus, about prisons or about organizing a red cross - this was the result for sure. Now, three years later, they finally interrupted relations with the Belarusian Red Cross. The last straw was that they abduct children from Ukraine. I urged them to stop this cooperation in 2020, because I said: the Belarusian Red Cross directly participates in the falsification of elections in Belarus. When you write an essay or article in a large newspaper, then you approximately understand what it can affect and how. The books are not at all like that.

- Is it important for you to interact with readers?

- In general, it doesn’t matter. It seems to me that if you start thinking about the reader, you need to finish writing. I now understand: from me publishers and readers are waiting for me to write a historical novel; And I think that I definitely will not do it. I want to do what I want, and not what they expect from me. I say this to myself, not about all authors, of course.

- All your books are in the public domain, and you are in this sense for piracy. I then thought that this was just about your books to reach any reader.

- It just seems strange to me that when you are a young author, then you carry your manuscript to everyone and beg you to read, and when you become famous, you suddenly remember copyright. I am sure that if a person reads the book and he will like it, then he will definitely buy it, if not for himself, then his friend. For the book, word of mouth is very important. Anyway, where does piracy begin? If you read the book and gave it to your friend, this is not piracy, right?

- Tell us about your European speeches: what is more, politicians or literature?

- Yesterday I went to the premiere of the play “Creuncher” in Berlin. After that, he played at a conference at the University of Kil in northern Germany, there we talked about what is happening with anti -utopia, and tomorrow I am going to play in Lausanne. Somehow my life happens in recent years. Last year, in my opinion, there were 60 performances. Since books are published in different cities and countries, I am all the time on the trip. I speak in Lausanne, because the “cremator” came out in French, and next month I am going to Holland, because the Red Cross is going out there.

I really try to talk about Belarus. For example, the reason for my tomorrow's trip to Lausanne was my article in the French magazine Comet. This text is written as a conditional guide for modern Belarus: what do you need to expect if you come to Belarus now? What will happen to you if you walk in red and white things? Will you listen to you at the hotel? What things do you need to take with you if you are raised for 15 days? In general, an honest guide to the country.

As a rule, even when I talk about books, they still ask me questions about what is happening in the country. I think this is important, because, unfortunately, few people remember about Belarus, and now there is no such country on the agenda in Europe.

- In November 2023, your dad was detained in Minsk. In this regard, you are not afraid to continue to write and talk about Belarus?

- For himself or for him?

- For him, for his family, for loved ones.

- This is a difficult question. When dad was taken out of the house, they said to mom: "Say thanks to your son."

I still did not understand why they came up with 13 days to him. Dad said that when they talked to him in the RUVD, he put the printed photos of me with the president of Switzerland, with Tikhanovskaya, with the Minister of Culture of Germany. Father poked a finger at these photos, asked questions. While there was an interrogation, they opened his phone and searched for something that could be closed for him. Dad signed the protocol that a criminal case had been instituted against me; According to which article it is excited, we still do not know, we only know that, in addition, there are two other things in the process of excitement. He had a search at home because I was registered at the same address.

Recently, my father was again during interrogation and said very ridiculously: “You know, it seems to me that investigators are on your side.” I think he has already developed Stockholm syndrome. I say: "Yes, they were excited for this business to just understand that I am a good guy."

Investigators asked my father if I was going to return. They said that all my interviews were watching. They asked if I was proud of Belarus.

Dad replied: "Yes, and it would be nice if Belarus also began to be proud of Sasha."

Therefore, yes, I'm scared. On the other hand, this cannot affect the situation. Dad has no passport now, he cannot leave. You can probably somehow run, but dad does not want this, because he did not do anything criminal. It is strange and wrong that parents are responsible for children. Even these bandits have the concept of taking parents unsportsmanlike.

I recently said in some interview that Lavrov was behaving as a spokesman for some kind of organized crime group, and the next day a person from one Ural organized crime group called and said: “Sasha, please do not compare us, we never lowered so low.”

- Now I have to ask where you know the participant of the Ural organized crime group?

- They know me! I do not. He just found me after the interview. The comparison with Lavrov was very hurt.

-Sasha, are you writing something artistic now?

“No, it’s hard for me because of all the events that are taking place.” Recently, I have written many articles about Belarus. Now there are ideas, but I can’t stop at anything and I haven’t been writing anything for two years. I think about the importance of what I am doing now against the backdrop of war.

To start writing, you need some kind of click. You are like a powder barrel, and you need a spark. In the sense of plots and ideas - I have a lot of gunpowder, but there is no spark.

- Where does it usually come from?

- Who knows? Magic! Maybe tomorrow will appear. I hope every day.