https://www.site/2017-06-21/oleg_kashin_o_skandalnom_intervyu_svetlany_aleksievich

Taiga dead end of a Nobel laureate

Oleg Kashin about the scandalous interview with Svetlana Alexievich

Alexander Galperin / RIA Novosti

Taking the side of the Regnum agency and the wide circle of patriotic public applauding it is still a pleasure, but the position “with anyone but them” is in itself close to disgusting. Yes, the Regnum agency had an undoubted success this week, so serious that one can even say that it alone gives the long-term existence of this agency at least some meaning. The interview with Svetlana Alexievich, published by Regnum, is indeed a very successful journalistic work, and taking into account the personality of the interviewee (world-famous writer, Nobel laureate), it is also a great socially significant event.

Strictly speaking, there was no reason to expect Svetlana Alexievich to make statements in the spirit of “the damned Nazis killed Buzina” or “if a person’s native language is Russian, he should have the right to use his native language on an equal basis with the state language, no matter where he lives,” but journalist Gurkin got direct answers from her - yes, she understands the motives of Buzina’s killers, and yes, she considers it necessary to abolish the Russian language for a while in order to cement the nation. These two most scandalous statements by Svetlana Alexievich, which directly contradict any ideas about literary humanism or humanism in general, are now forever with her. “To cement a nation” - where does this come from, from what depths, from what movie about Germany in the thirties?

What’s worse is that we saw an old-fashioned and primitive person, behind whose cannibalistic statements it is impossible to discern subtle provocation or cruel irony. Before us is the most ordinary Soviet man in the street, behaving exactly the same way as many, many other Soviet people, in different times who brought their Pioneer-Komsomol luggage to big world and discovering that with this baggage there can be only one path - to the rednecks to talk to the TV, to dream of killing all the Arabs if you went to Israel, or to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow if you went to the USA.

The contrast between “Russians” and “Soviet” is a long-standing hackneyed device, based on the simple principle that I will consider those I don’t like to be Soviet, and those I like, and myself, to be Russian. Now is the case when it makes more sense to use the unpleasant word “Russians”, so that in contrast with “Soviet” both words sound equally unpleasant. Over the 26 years of its history, Russian post-Soviet society has experienced a lot of things, mostly bad and joyless - there were disappointments, there was a lot of deception, there were wars, there were terrorist attacks, there were Yeltsin and Putin, and there are probably many more troubles and nasty things ahead. But in any case, Russia has moved very far from the starting point that remained in 1991; several generations have grown up without Soviet experience. And even Soviet nostalgia, which became fashionable at some stage, is in fact not Soviet at all - when some crazy Stalinists, using crowdfunding, raise money to buy an advertising surface on a bus and draw Stalin there, they behave as they were told If people in any Western country would have behaved in their place, no one in the USSR would have thought of how to behave, simply because no one in the USSR knew that this was even possible. Post-Soviet practices, post-Soviet habits of Russians have long supplanted everything good and bad that can be associated with the Soviet period - a post-Soviet Russian would not think of hiding the house key under the doormat, and a Soviet would be horrified if he were asked to dive into a hotel pool shouting “Tagil!” - after all, in this case, the senior group will write a document to the KGB and there will simply be no more foreign countries.

Svetlana Alexievich, whose main books were written in the USSR and immediately after, has never lived in post-Soviet Russia. She is deprived of our collective experience, and she no longer understands the language spoken by post-Soviet Russia. This could be a huge plus - after all, a similar formula describes the fates of all the major artists of our emigration from Bunin and Nabokov to Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky; We also have plenty of examples when a person did not leave anywhere, but simply the borders moved so that the person became a foreigner - Repin, without leaving anywhere, went to Finland, Igor Severyanin - to Estonia, and so on. But each of these people had an important advantage over Svetlana Alexievich - none of them were Soviet people.

Probably, Svetlana Alexievich could be called a Belarusian writer, but this is difficult, and the point is not even in the language (after all, in Ukraine there are many Russian-speaking Ukrainian writers whom no one would think of calling Russian writers), but in the peculiarities of the Belarusian national building , when regarding who you need to be to be a Belarusian, there are at least two mutually exclusive versions - Lukashenko’s and anti-Lukashenko’s, and both require the kind of involvement that Alexievich does not have. She, of course, does not march under Lukashenko’s red towel banner, but also the song "Don't be a beast" She does not sing to the poems of Yakub Kolas, she is outside of this context.

Svetlana Alexievich remained in the USSR, in that Soviet culture, which, being built primarily on defaults, was fundamentally different from the West (or from our current one, it doesn’t matter) in that it was enough to take a step away from the official coordinate system in order to your word sounded like a revelation, and in this sense, Tarkovsky and Gaidai, Vysotsky and Yevtushenko, Soloukhin and Trifonov are equal to each other - when a living word suddenly sounds in the suffocating silence, behind this word anything and anyone can be hidden, a real genius or an opportunist, a fighter or an informer - no one could know this for sure, the sounds came from a tightly closed black box, and it was impossible to check; a book in which there was no positive communist - what did she mean

Soviet literature in its canonical Gorky-Fadeev version died long ago, and it so happened that the only legitimate heir to this version was the modest student of Ales Adamovich. The Soviet writer, who survived and came into fashion many years after 1991, is something like a taiga dead end, people lived in the forest and missed everything. It’s nice, it’s interesting, but you shouldn’t go to Agafya Lykova for comments about the prospects of mobile communications - she will tell you that it’s all demonic, and those who are involved in it need to be impaled. This in no way cancels Agafya’s taiga or Old Believer virtues, we just need to keep in mind that she is from the taiga, and she is the only one, we must take care of her.

22:53 — REGNUM

Reviewer IA REGNUM met and talked with a Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich. The conversation took the form of an interview, about which Alexievich was notified and gave her consent. During the conversation, the Nobel laureate decided, for one reason known to her, to prohibit the publication of this interview. Since Alexievich initially agreed to the interview, the editors IA REGNUM I decided to publish it in full. An audio recording of an interview with Svetlana Alexievich is in the editorial office.

For some reason, it turns out that interviews are usually done with people with whom they generally agree. Relatively speaking, you won’t be invited to Channel One because they don’t agree with you...

- A they will call for “Rain”...

And they will call you to Dozhd, but they won’t argue with you. I want to honestly tell you that on the overwhelming majority of issues I completely disagree with your position.

- Come on, I think this should be interesting.

That's it. Because this is dialogue.

- Yes, it’s interesting to find out the image of the person on the other side, to find out what’s in his head.

Fine. Some time ago you gave a sensational interview that a religious war could begin in Belarus between Orthodox and Catholics, because “you can put everything in a person’s head.” Can you invest too?

— My profession is to make sure that they don’t invest. Some people live consciously, are able to protect themselves, are able to understand what is happening around them. But most people just go with the flow, and they live in banality.

Do you imagine that there are more such people in our part of the world?

— I think it’s like everywhere else here. And it’s the same in America, otherwise where would Trump come from? When you're dealing with the average person, you listen to what he says. It doesn't always make people love you. So, it’s like this everywhere, it’s not just a Russian trait.

We are simply in a state now where society has lost its bearings. And since we are a country of wars and revolutions, and, most importantly, we have a culture of war and revolutions, then any historical failure (such as perestroika, when we rushed, wanted to be like everyone else) - as soon as failure happened, because society was not ready for it , where did we return? We are back to what we know. Into a military, militaristic state. This is our normal state.

To be honest, I don't notice this. Neither in acquaintances, nor in strangers I don't see any aggression or belligerence. What is meant by militarism?

“If people were different, they would all take to the streets, and there would be no war in Ukraine.” And on the day of Politkovskaya’s memory there would be as many people as I saw on the day of her memory on the streets of Paris. There were 50, 70 thousand people there. But we don’t. And you say that we have a normal society. We have a normal society thanks to the fact that we live in our own circle. Militarism is not when everyone is ready to kill. But nevertheless it turned out that they were ready.

My father is Belarusian, and my mother is Ukrainian. I spent part of my childhood with my grandmother in Ukraine and I love Ukrainians very much, I have Ukrainian blood. And in a nightmare it was impossible to imagine that the Russians would shoot at the Ukrainians.

First there was a coup d'état.

- No, it was not a coup d'etat. This is nonsense. You watch a lot of TV.

I was born there.

— It was not a coup d'etat. Russian television works well. The Democrats should have used television like this, they underestimated it. Today's government puts into consciousness what it needs. This was not a coup. You can’t imagine how much poverty there was around...

I present.

- ... how they stole there. A change of power was the desire of the people. I was in Ukraine, went to the “Heavenly Hundred” museum, and ordinary people they told me about what happened there. They have two enemies: Putin and their own oligarchy, a culture of bribery.

In Kharkov, three hundred people took part in the rally in support of the Maidan, and one hundred thousand against the Maidan. Then fifteen prisons were opened in Ukraine, housing several thousand people. And Maidan supporters walk around with portraits of obvious fascists.

— Are there no people in Russia who walk around with portraits of fascists?

They are not in power.

“They are not in power in Ukraine either. Poroshenko and others are not fascists. You understand, they want to separate from Russia and go to Europe. This also exists in the Baltic states. Resistance takes on fierce forms. Then, when they truly become an independent and strong state, this will not happen. And now they are tearing down communist monuments, which we should also tear down, and banishing television programs. What, will they watch Solovyov and Kiselev?

They look on the Internet. And the traffic has not decreased at all.

- No, some part of the people are watching, but not the people.

How can I tell you: the traffic of Russian channels exceeds the traffic of Ukrainian ones.

- Well, what are they watching? Not political programs.

Life in Ukraine has become poorer - that’s a fact. And freedom of speech there has become much less - this is also a fact.

- Don't think.

Do you know who Oles Buzina is?

-Who was killed?

And there are hundreds of such examples.

“But what he said also caused bitterness.

Does this mean they need to be killed?

- I'm not saying that. But I understand the motives of the people who did it. Just as I don’t like at all that Pavel Sheremet, who loved Ukraine, was killed. Apparently there was some kind of showdown or something.

You find a lot of excuses for them.

- These are not excuses. I just imagine that Ukraine wants to build its own state. By what right does Russia want to restore order there?

Have you been to Donbass after the war started there?

- No. I wasn't there. When the war began, you no longer looked for justice. I think Strelkov said that in the first week it was very difficult for people to shoot at each other, that it was almost impossible to force people to shoot. And then the blood started. The same can be said about Chechnya.

Even if you agree with the position (although I completely disagree with it) that people in Kyiv “came out on their own,” after that people in Donetsk also came out on their own, without weapons, they didn’t listen to them, they tried to disperse them, and then they came out with weapons. Both those and others came out to defend their ideas about what is right. Why are the actions of the former possible, but not the latter?

— You did the same thing in Chechnya to preserve the state. And when Ukrainians began to defend their state, you suddenly remembered human rights, which are not respected in war. You Russians behaved even worse in Chechnya.

I'm not a politician. But when the integrity of the state is called into question, this is a problem of politics. When foreign troops are brought in and begin to restore order on foreign territory. By what right did Russia enter Donbass?

You weren't there.

- I, too, like you, watch TV and read those who write about it. Honest people. When Russia entered there, what did you want - to be greeted there with bouquets of flowers? So that the authorities will be happy with you there? When you entered Chechnya, where Dudayev wanted to create his own order, his own country, what did Russia do? I ironed it out.

You said that you are not a politician. You are a writer. It seems self-evident to me that the current struggle of the Ukrainian state with the Russian language is the main claim that will be made against them. Ten years ago, Gallup conducted a study on what percentage of the Ukrainian population thinks in Russian...

- I know all this. But now they are learning Ukrainian and English.

...they did it very simply: they distributed questionnaires in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian. Whoever takes what language is the one who thinks in that language. 83% of Ukrainians think in Russian.

- What do you mean by this? They were Russified in seventy years, just like the Belarusians.

Do you want to say that people who lived in Odessa or Kharkov ever thought in Ukrainian?

- I don’t know about you, but in Belarus, out of ten million people, after the war there were only six million left. And about three million Russians moved in. They're still there. And there was this idea that there was no Belarus, that all this was great Russia. It’s exactly the same in Ukraine. I know what people taught then Ukrainian. Just like now they learn Belarusian with us, believing that someday new times will come.

— Well, you banned speaking Belarusian in Russia.

Who banned?

- Well, of course! You only know your top piece. Since 1922, the intelligentsia in Belarus was constantly exterminated.

What does 1922 have to do with it? You and I live today, in 2017.

-Where does everything come from? Where did Russification come from? Nobody spoke Russian in Belarus. They spoke either Polish or Belarusian. When Russia entered and appropriated these lands, Western Belarus, the first rule was the Russian language. And not a single university, not a single school, not a single institute in our country speaks the Belarusian language.

That is, in your understanding, this is revenge for the events of a hundred years ago?

- No. This was an effort to Russify, to make Belarus part of Russia. And in the same way, make Ukraine part of Russia.

Half of the territory that is now part of Ukraine has never been any “Ukraine”. This was the Russian Empire. And after the revolution of 1917, on the contrary, Ukrainian culture was implanted there.

- Well, you don’t know anything except your little piece of time that you found and in which you live. Half of Belarus was never Russia, it was Poland.

But was there another half?

- The other half was there, but never wanted to be there, you kept it by force. I don’t want to talk about it, it’s such a set of militaristic platitudes that I don’t want to listen to it.

You say that when Russian culture was implanted a hundred years ago (in your opinion), it was bad, but when Ukrainian culture is implanted today, it is good.

- It is not imposed. This state wants to enter Europe. It doesn't want to live with you.

Do you need to cancel the Russian language for this?

No. But maybe for a while, yes, to cement the nation. Please speak Russian, but all educational institutions will, of course, be in Ukrainian.

That is, it is possible to prohibit people from speaking the language in which they think?

- Yes. It's always like this. That's what you were doing.

I didn't do this.

- Russia. This is all she did in the occupied territories; even in Tajikistan she forced people to speak Russian. You will learn more about what Russia has been doing for the last two hundred years.

I’m not asking you about two hundred years. I'm asking you about today. We live today.

“There is no other way to make a nation.”

It's clear. You have said in many interviews that your friends looked and are looking at what is happening on the Maidan with apprehension and that the evolutionary path of development is certainly better. You probably meant Belarus first of all, but probably Russia too? How do you imagine what this evolutionary path should look like, what is required here?

— The movement of time itself is required. Looking at the generations that came after the generation that waited for democracy, I see that a very servile generation came, completely unfree people. There are a lot of fans of Putin and the military path. So it is difficult to say in how many years Belarus and Russia will turn into free countries.

But I do not accept revolution as a path. It’s always blood, and the same people will come to power. There are no other people yet. What is the problem of the nineties? There were no free people. These were the same communists, only with a different sign.

What are free people?

- Well, let's say, people with a European view of things. More humanitarian. Who didn’t think it was possible to tear the country apart and leave the people with nothing. Do you want to say that Russia is free?

I'm asking you.

- How free is she? A few percent of the population owns all the wealth, the rest are left with nothing. Free countries are, for example, Sweden, France, Germany. Ukraine wants to be free, but Belarus and Russia do not. How many people come to Navalny's protests?

That is, people who adhere to the European view of things are free?

- Yes. Freedom has come a long way there.

What if a person adheres to a non-European picture of the world? For example, it contains the concept of tolerance, and can an Orthodox Christian who does not believe that tolerance be right be free?

- Don't be so primitive. A person's faith is his problem. When I went to see a Russian church in France, there were many Orthodox people. Nobody touches them, but they also do not impose their view of life on others, as happens here. The priests there are completely different; the church does not try to become the government and does not serve the government. Talk to any European intellectual and you will see that you are a chest full of superstitions.

I lived for a year in Italy, and ninety percent of the intellectuals I met had great sympathy for leftist ideas and for the Russian President.

— There are such people, but not in such numbers. They reacted to you this way because they saw a Russian with radical views. Putin doesn't have as much support there as you might think. There's just a problem with the left. This does not mean that Le Pen is what France wanted and wants. Thank God France won.

Why did France win? And if Le Pen had won, would France have lost?

- Certainly. It would be another Trump.

But why did “France lose” if the majority of the French voted for it?

- Read her program.

I've read both of them. There is nothing in Macron’s program other than general words that “we must live better.”

- No. Macron is truly free France. And Le Pen is nationalist France. Thank God that France did not want to be like that.

Nationalist cannot be free?

“She just suggested an extreme option.”

In one of your interviews, you said: “Yesterday I walked along Broadway and it’s clear that everyone is an individual. And you walk around Minsk, Moscow - you see what’s going on folk body. General. Yes, they changed into different clothes, they drive new cars, but only they heard the battle cry from Putin “Great Russia” - and again it’s the body of the people.” Did you really say that?

- Yes, I said that. But she said it with reference to the philosopher Leontiev. I read this quote of his somewhere. But, as always in journalism, this part of the answer was discarded.

I won't throw anything away.

- But there, really, you walk and see that free people are walking. But here, even here in Moscow, it is clear that people are having a very hard time living.

So you agree with this quote as of today?

- Absolutely. This can be seen even in the plastic.

This girl, the bartender in the cafe where we are sitting, is she not free?

- Stop what you're talking about.

Here's a real person for you.

- No, she is not free, I think. She cannot, for example, tell you to your face what she thinks about you. Or about this state.

Why do you think so?

- No, she won't tell. And there - any person will say. Let's take my case. When I was given the Nobel Prize, then (this is the etiquette in all countries), I received congratulations from the presidents of many countries. Including from Gorbachev, from the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany. Then they told me that a telegram from Medvedev was being prepared.

But at the first press conference, when they asked me about Ukraine, I said that Crimea was occupied, and in Donbass Russia started a war with Ukraine. And that such a war can be started anywhere, because there are a lot of hot coals everywhere. And they told me that there would be no telegram, because this quote of mine was broadcast by Ekho Moskvy.

Before Trump, this was impossible in America. You could have been against the Vietnam War, against anything, but when you received the Nobel Prize, the president congratulates you because it is the pride of this culture. And they ask us whether you are in this camp or that camp.

You sometimes talk about Russia as “we”, and sometimes as “they”. So is it “us” or “they”?

- Still, “they.” Already “they”, unfortunately.

But then this is not the prime minister of your state, why should he certainly congratulate you?

- But we are considered a Union State. We are still very closely connected. We haven't pulled away yet, and who will let us go? At least we wanted to break away.

So, “they” then?

- For now - “we”. I am still a person of Russian culture. I wrote about this time, about all this in Russian, and I, of course, would have been glad to receive his telegram. According to my understanding, he should have sent it.

You were awarded the Nobel Prize almost two years ago. What do you think now - why exactly did you receive it?

- You need to ask them. If you fell in love with some woman, and she fell in love with you, the question of “why did she fall in love with you” would sound funny. This would be a stupid question.

But here, nevertheless, the decision was made not at the level of feelings, but rationally.

“They told me: “Well, you’ve probably been waiting for the Nobel Prize for a long time.” But I wasn't such an idiot as to sit and wait for her.

And if the Nobel Committee once asked you which other authors who write in Russian should be awarded the prize, who would you name?

— Olga Sedakova. This is a person who matches my understanding of what a writer is. Today he is a very important figure in Russian literature. Her views, her poetry, her essays - everything she writes shows that she is a very great writer.

In connection with your books, I want to return to the Donbass topic, but not in political terms. Many of your books are about war and about people at war. But you are not going to this war.

- I haven’t gone and won’t go. And I didn’t go to Chechnya. Once we talked about this with Politkovskaya. I told her: “Anya, I won’t go to war anymore.” Firstly, I no longer have the physical strength to see a murdered person, to see human madness. Besides, I have already said everything I understood about this human madness. I have no other ideas. And to write again the same thing that I have already written - what’s the point?

Don't you think that your view of this war might change if you go there?

- No. There are Ukrainian and Russian writers who write about this.

But you answer questions, talk about these events.

- This is happening in another country. And I can answer these questions as an artist, not as a participant. In order to write books like I write, you need to live in a country about which we're talking about. This should be your country. Soviet Union- this was my country. And there I don’t know many things.

I don't mean writing books so much as understanding what's going on there.

“Are you trying to tell me that it’s scary there?” It's the same thing there as in Chechnya.

You weren't there.

“Then, thank God, they showed the whole truth on TV.” No one doubts that there is blood there and that they are crying there.

I'm talking about something else. People who live in Donbass are confident that they are right. These are ordinary people, and they support the power of the militias. Maybe if you saw them, you would understand them somehow differently? They are people too.

— The Russians might as well send their troops into the Baltic states, since there are many dissatisfied Russians there. Do you think it was right that you went and entered a foreign country?

I think it is correct that for 23 years the unwritten law in the state of Ukraine was the recognition that there is both Russian and Ukrainian culture there. And this balance was more or less maintained under all presidents...

- It was like that until you entered there.

This is not true. In the winter of 2013−2014, before Crimea, we heard where the “Moskalyak” should be sent. And in February 2014, immediately after the coup d’etat, before any Crimea, we saw draft laws against the use of the Russian language. People who live in [the southeastern part of the country] consider themselves Russian and do not consider Bandera a hero. They came out to protest. For some reason, do you think that people who live in Kyiv have the right to protest, but those who live further east do not have such a right?

— Weren’t there Russian tanks, Russian weapons, Russian contract soldiers there? All this is bullshit. If it weren't for your weapons, there wouldn't be a war. So don't fool me with this nonsense that fills your head. You succumb so easily to all propaganda. Yes, there is pain, there is fear. But this is on your conscience, on Putin’s conscience. You invaded another country, on what grounds? There are a million pictures on the Internet of Russian equipment going there. Everyone knows who shot down [the Boeing] and everything else. Let's end your idiotic interview already. I no longer have the strength for him. You are just a bunch of propaganda, not a reasonable person.

Fine. In an interview with the newspaper El Pais, you said that even Soviet propaganda was not as aggressive as it is now.

- Absolutely. Listen to this idiocy of Solovyov and Kiselev... I don’t know how this is possible. They themselves know that they are telling lies.

In the same interview, you said that the church does not limit itself to banning theatrical works and books.

- Yes, she climbs into places where she has no business. It’s not her problem what plays to stage, what to film. Soon we will ban children's fairy tales because they supposedly contain sexual moments. It’s very funny to look at the madness you are in from the outside.

You can hear State Duma deputies fighting against feature films, but what kind of prohibitions from the church do you mean?

- Yes, as much as you like. All these Orthodox Christians who think that Serebrennikov is doing something wrong, Tabakov is doing something wrong. Don't pretend you don't know. The performance was banned in Novosibirsk.

Do you think this is a general church position?

“I think it even comes from below.” From this darkness, from this foam that has risen today. You know, I don’t like our interview, and I forbid you to publish it.

Journalist of “Business Petersburg” Sergei Gurkin published an interview with writer Svetlana Alexievich in the Regnum agency. The interlocutors discussed Russian foreign policy, but after half an hour of conversation, the Nobel laureate forbade the release of the interview. However, Gurkin decided that this was Alexievich’s problem. As a result, the journalist was fired from DP.

RIA Novosti / Kirill Kallinikov

Interview with the title “You are just a bunch of propaganda” it turned out in the Regnum news agency on June 19. At the beginning of the text it is said that during the conversation Alexievich decided to prohibit its publication, but since she initially agreed to the interview, the editors released it.

Interview author Sergey Gurkin explained in his Facebook account, why he decided to publish. In his opinion, if the interlocutor agreed to an interview and then refused, then this is “his problem.”

I'm a journalist. And if the interviewee a) knows what he is saying (in a public place with witnesses) for an on-record interview and b) at the beginning of the conversation agrees to answer questions head-on, but after 35 minutes of conversation decides that he didn’t like the interview, then that’s his problem

- Sergey Gurkin.

The journalist also said that this interview is good because it “says a lot directly.” “Now we have found out: people can be prohibited from speaking their native language if there is a state need for it (says the writer); those who killed the writer for his views can be understood (says the writer, humanist and democrat); Russification is bad, Ukrainization is good (says a person who thinks, speaks and writes in Russian); and so on and so forth,” wrote Gurkin.

Most of the interview is devoted to Russian foreign policy and relations between Russia and Ukraine. In particular, Alexievich stated that she does not consider the Maidan coup d'etat, and added that she understands the motives of the murderers of the Ukrainian writer Oles Buzina.

S.A.: What he said also caused bitterness.

Regnum: So these people need to be killed?

S.A.: I’m not saying that. But I understand the motives of the people who did it. Just as I don’t like at all that Pavel Sheremet, who loved Ukraine, was killed. Apparently there was some kind of showdown or something.

The woman agreed that during European integration in Ukraine it is possible to “abolish the Russian language.”

Regnum: You say that when Russian culture was implanted a hundred years ago (in your opinion), it was bad, but when Ukrainian culture is implanted today, it is good.

S.A.: It is not imposed. This state wants to enter Europe. It doesn't want to live with you.

Regnum: Do you need to cancel the Russian language for this?

S.A.: No. But maybe for a while, yes, to cement the nation. Please speak Russian, but all educational institutions will, of course, be in Ukrainian.

The Nobel laureate also said that after the generation that waited for democracy, came “a very servile generation, completely unfree people.” In her opinion, free people are “people with a European view of things.” Alexievich also noted that she does not accept revolution as a path, since “it is always blood, and the same people will come to power.”

It is difficult to say how many years will it take for Belarus and Russia to become free countries

- Svetlana Alexievich.

Sergey Gurkin, photo: Facebook.com

Later Sergei Gurkin reported on his Facebook page that in the last two years he had an agreement with “DP” that he could free time collaborate with Regnum. On June 19, the journalist provided an interview to DP, but the St. Petersburg publication did not publish it due to “a discrepancy between the topic and tone of the interview.” Gurkin informed management that he would publish the text in another publication.

After the interview was published in Regnum, the management of “DP” suggested that Gurkin contact the news agency with a request to remove the text, but he refused. As a result, the management of Business Monday offered him to resign by agreement of the parties. The man agreed.

Alexievich herself, in a comment to the Belarusian publication BelaPAN, stated that she gave an interview for Business Petersburg. “Yes, there was an interview, a correspondent came. But when we started talking, I realized that this was a provocation,” she said. Gurkin himself claims that during the conversation the interlocutors did not discuss the place of publication.

The opinions of commentators on Gurkin’s account differed. Some felt that the journalist had no right to publish the interview and praised Alexievich’s position.

“You won’t leave the Network”: The Network has been buzzing for a week, discussing Svetlana Alexievich. This is an outright provocation: the writer is gone. This is a conversation between the St. Petersburg journalist Gurkin and Alexievich: it was supposed that this would be an interview for “Business Petersburg”. But the publication appeared on the Regnum website (despite the fact that Svetlana Alexandrovna refused to consider this wild dispute as her interview and forbade publication). Either the provocation of the tireless pranksters Vovan and Lexus, the Gogol story, in which one of the invisible Nanai boys tried to award her with the Order of Ukraine, the other with the Order of Russia.

This already looks like a methodical, unabated campaign of pressure by the state machine (and many of its volunteers) on the writer. By the way, Alexievich was the first to notice the fatal connection between herself and the Gogol Center.

Novaya Gazeta asked Svetlana Alexandrovna to comment on the latest events.

— See how the car started up. This is already serious. And it's hard to fight back. It's not even about the conversation, but about the wave that arose after it. It seems that I seriously disturbed them all: and now a precedent has appeared. Topic for discussion. With shameless distortion of quotes. I’m wondering: have these people read the Regnum publication? They probably haven't read my books.

Two weeks ago I performed in Moscow, at the Gogol Center. The hall was full. People probably came partly to support Serebrennikov. These people (there were a lot of young people) - they were the Russia that I loved! And it seemed to me that it was the people of Russia, which I loved, who are now in complete despair.

In St. Petersburg, the June “Dialogues” (including my lecture “I don’t want to write about the war anymore”) were supposed to take place on the new stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. And suddenly we were denied this site. I’m not the only one: Alexander Sokurov and Lev Dodin were supposed to speak there. Thank you, Mikhail Piotrovsky sheltered us all. “Dialogues” took place in the Hermitage.

Apparently I'm seriously annoying now. I never considered it necessary to hide what I thought: I spoke openly about the annexation of Crimea and Donbass.

There, in St. Petersburg, a conversation took place with Gurkin. I immediately realized: this is not an interview. I didn’t perceive it as an interview. A nervous, alarmed, disheveled young man came with an aggressive attack. I was amazed that he was an employee of Business Petersburg. Let's say, I mentioned Russification. It began in Belarus in 1922. Mr. Gurkin clearly knew nothing about this and asked: “What does 1922 have to do with it? You and I live today."

My writing curiosity got the better of me. It was necessary to end the conversation immediately: in the third minute it was clear that this was not an interview, but a squabble. And I continued to talk to him, because I am interested in such a person. Especially a young man with such views. We have been waiting for so long, with great hopes: the unbeaten generation will come! Here it comes...

However, I immediately and firmly said that I forbid it to be published. The result: the publication of Regnum and a wave of “responses” to it. Kashin, Babitsky, Prilepin, Shargunov, Kiselev... they gave the go-ahead. I’m not even talking about the turmoil raging on Facebook. But I read with interest.

And it seems that people are singing from each other’s voices. Without even reading the “squabble.” After all, I didn’t talk about banning the Russian language at all! I talked about abolishing it as a language of instruction. To cement new nations. For a while. Literally: “Please speak Russian, but all educational institutions will, of course, be in Ukrainian.”

It was about how desperately people want to build their own state. And their logic is very rigid. But you have to try to think about it. Understand their position. Try.

Then the next wave came: Alexievich and the pranksters! Yes, they called me. Lexus and Vovan. One - allegedly on behalf of the Minister of Culture of Ukraine. The other is on behalf of Arkady Dvorkovich. And both offered orders: “Heavenly Hundred” and Friendship of Nations, it seems.

Let me explain that I will not accept any awards from any states. This is a deliberate position. At a time like today, an artist should not accept awards. When Vovan (or Lexus?) called on behalf of Ukraine, I was not very surprised: I knew that Poroshenko wanted to meet with me. I was more surprised by the call from Lexus (or Vovan?) on behalf of Russia, I thought about pranksters, and I wondered how they work? So I didn’t speak for long, but I did.

As a result of all these passions, I now understand well how difficult it is for an honest person in Russia today. Especially “on the ground”. Far from capitals. In a storm, in a haze of turbidity and provocations coming from everywhere. Starting, of course, with the television screen. And I think: how deep is this passion for denunciation, for searching for the “stranger,” the passion for the collective “at him!” sits in our man, in the “red man” - even in his descendants. It’s like I entered the gene code. What a readiness for collective bullying lives in people! I want to understand, as an artist, what is it about us? In human nature here?

By the way, if everyone who bit into what I said with such passion, turning the words inside out, would look with the same passion at the words of Dmitry Kiselev: abysses would open up for them!

And I would like to tell him: “Mr. Kiselev, don’t scare me. I won't give in."