Nagibin, darkness at the end of the tunnel read online. Yuri Nagibin - darkness at the end of the tunnel

Zelikman's comment:

An amazing metamorphosis occurred with the writer, which he told in his autobiographical story “Darkness at the End of the Tunnel.” For most of his adult life, Yuri Markovich considered himself a half-breed, the son of a Jew and a Russian. And therefore, constantly, both in childhood and in adulthood, I felt like an outcast among representatives of the “indigenous nationality”. And nothing: not a word from my mother - ... I prefer Jews, they are more fun, smarter and more educated, not a successful entry in the fifth column, not a Slavic appearance, not a demeanor in the style of the daring Kiribeevich, not to mention success in the field of Russian literature and cinematography - nothing could erase Yu. Nagibin’s inferiority complex. This was facilitated by the open manifestation of anti-Semitism and offensive allusions to the writer’s affiliation with the sons of Israel.

And suddenly he learns that his biological father is a certain Russian nobleman, brutally murdered in the first years of the revolution (by the way, not by Jewish commissars, but on the contrary, by local men), but the one whom Yuri considered his father all his life, Mark (Mara, as his name is called) called in the family), adopted him almost at birth.

Therefore, the end of mental torment: you are now one hundred percent Russian, and of noble blood to boot! But this discovery, which, it would seem, should have brought the writer into the camp of the most rabid Russophiles and potential or active Judeophobes, had completely unexpected consequences: right now Yuri Nagibin fiercely hated anti-Semitism and began to consider his native Russian people as the bearer of this shameful principle.

Quotes from Nagibin:

“Why do they hate Jews so much?

For the execution of Christ? But most of those who hate are atheists, they don’t care about Christ, who is also a Jew. Having executed Christ, the Jews gave the world a new religion, which became the religion of the Russians...

The Jewish nose, burr, swagger - all this is nonsense. In my wide-cheeked, purely Russian face, if there is a mixture, it is Tatar; and in my pronunciation and in my entire behavior there was not a trace of Jewishness, but did that help me? There are many more explanations, in my opinion, some of them, hiddenly boastful, invented by the Jews themselves: envy of the intelligence, dexterity, impudence, business acumen of the sons of Israel. This happens sometimes, and then old cliches are brought to light: gesheftmachers, dodgers, swindlers.

But Russian people envy each other much more...

Homelessness of Jews - but is this a reason for hatred?

More like for sympathy.

Something secretly genetic inherent in non-Jews? Again, no.

How willingly they pay tribute to Jewish musicians, Jewish chess players, Jewish singers, Jewish artists and Jewish dentists.

One thing remains - defenselessness. Defenselessness means insignificance. This bestows consciousness of its gratuitous advantage. Any scumbag, any scum who has not succeeded in anything, any person living in life feels proud next to a Jew.

He is a king, an eagle, smart and handsome. He exudes the juice of superiority. The last of the last among his own, and suddenly, without any effort, of which he is incapable, a certain lifting force lifts him up.

This lifting force comes from the defenselessness of the Jews, the stepchildren of his rightful homeland. There is no better card for bad rulers than to play on the Jewish phobia of the lower strata of the population. And the population for the most part belongs to the lower classes, even those for whom the family chandelier shines, and not the slum lamp-snot. People of the highest quality are negligible, they do not form a layer, so, a transparent film.” Yu. Nagibin.

*****

“There is an opinion in the West that Stalin saw the Jews as a fifth column. He could completely trust them during the war with Hitler; for Jews, unlike Russians, there was no captivity, but he could not experience the same trust when thoroughly pro-Jewish America became the main enemy. And this soil was superimposed with a personal attitude.

Truly zoological hatred did not prevent him from keeping the disgusting Jew Kaganovich close to him. Did he need it? Probably, but Stalin easily sacrificed more necessary and much more valuable people.

Kaganovich certified in the eyes of the world his loyalty to the Jews. Yes, Stalin knew how, when necessary, to step on the throat of his own song. And he did not trust the Jews to the same extent as all the other peoples of the Soviet state, including the Russians, no more. He could not take the Jewish “fifth column” seriously, because he knew well that all conspiracies and malicious intent against the Soviet regime, as well as sabotage and espionage, were born in his own imagination for the purpose of preventive cleansing and assertion of himself alone...

Stalin could not give anything essential to the people destined for continuous slaughter: no land, no housing, no food, no clothing, no household items, much less freedom, and who needs it? But he could give something more, something that satisfies the deepest essence of the Russian people, so desirable and sweet that with it the vodka becomes stronger, the bread tastier, and the soul warmer - anti-Semitism...

The campaign against cosmopolitanism was stupid in its original formulation. But despite all the stupidity and ridiculousness, this company was extremely, tragically serious, which few people understood at the time, because it meant a decisive turn towards fascism. From now on, it was possible to put an equal sign between the ideologies of communism and national socialism.

No matter how the party line subsequently fluctuated, no matter what thaws and perestroikas disturbed the stagnant waters of our existence, devoid of reality, the attitude towards Jews - the litmus test of any policy - did not change, because the basis remained unchanged - Russian chauvinism. And this country cannot be any other.”

*****

“But no one loves us (Russians - A.Z.) except the Jews, who, even having found themselves safe in the land of their ancestors, continue to languish from unrequited love for Russia. This devoted, to the point of groaning and muttering, either a woman’s or a slave’s love was the only thing that irritated me in Israel.”

*****

“There is a wonderful saying: a Jew is one who agrees to this... There is one common property that turns the population into something common... This property is anti-Semitism...

Lord, forgive me and have mercy, this is not how I would like to talk about my country and my people! Was this really what my soul dreamed of, was it really from here that a mysterious and bewitching call sounded to me? And for this I suffered for so many years! I had to suffer, to suffer what was given from birth. And now I am ashamed of such a desired inheritance. I want to go back to the Jews: it’s brighter and more humane there...

True faith does not require proof. And what could be truer, purer and more unshakable than the faith of an anti-Semite: all evil comes from the Jews...

How I want to believe that there is a way out! How I want to believe in my country! It's hard to be a Jew in Russia. But it’s much more difficult to be Russian.” (From the story “Darkness at the end of the tunnel”, M., 1994 - A.Z.)

*****

“And yet there is one common property that turns the population of Russia into a kind of whole; I do not say the word “people,” because, I repeat, a people without democracy is a mob. This property is anti-Semitism.

Just don’t say: excuse me, what about so-and-so?! This means nothing except that so-and-so, for reasons unknown to himself, is not an anti-Semite...

Anti-Semitism is not hampered by either a high intellectual, spiritual and spiritual level - Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Z. Gippius were anti-Semites, nor by sincere disgust for the Black Hundreds, pogroms and the word “Jew,” which is as short and commonly used as the most beloved word of the Russian people...

All the horrors of the century flowed off him like water off a duck's back: the bloody war, the ovens of Hitler's camps, Babi Yar and the Warsaw ghetto, Kolyma and Vorkuta and... wait, I'm tired of sputtering, everyone is already well aware of the dirt and blood of Hitlerism and Stalinism.

But then the darkness cleared, “young Eos stood up with purple fingers, tore the eyes of the people after a heavy hangover sleep, stretched and ... began to clear the field for the construction of another, reasonable, neat, sufficient life - nothing had happened,” the hero stretched and rushed to finish off the Jews.

But we should cross ourselves, admit our complicity in a great crime and repent before the world.

But he is forever innocent, my people, a baby killer. And those are the guilty ones. What is being brought to light is something old, pre-revolutionary, long worn out, rusty - but there is no other way! - weapons: gendarme linden tree - protocols of the Elders of Zion, world Jewish-Masonic conspiracy, ritual murders...

All this happened, happened, but did not pass.

The Black Hundred Okhotnoryadets rises to his full gigantic height. The one that emerged in the late forties and early fifties dwarfed it in comparison. Post-perestroika anti-Semitism adopted all the rotten nonsense from its musty bins: long-exposed forgeries, forged documents, false testimony - without disdaining anything, without being embarrassed by anything, because all this is not really necessary. True faith does not require proof. And what could be truer, purer and more unshakable than the faith of an anti-Semite: all evil comes from the Jews.” (From the story “Darkness at the end of the tunnel”, M., 1994 – A.Z.)

Additionally:

Forum topic, where a selection of materials is proposed for discussion: Historical background of the recent history of anti-Semitism. Selection of articles

Downton" This, " Dr. House" or " Orange...

1) Present tense

2) Past

3) Parallel

3 and a half) Behind the scenes

Plus to this...

It would be wrong to watch more than 60 episodes without leaving any impression about them. But also write about " Orange is the New Black"(USA, 2013) is difficult, because, whatever one may say, almost all the action takes place in an American women's prison. And the contingent there, although literary-styled, is appropriate...

Apparently, this is inevitable: if you spent so much time immersed in the lives of the characters, they become close and understandable to you, you worry about them, think about the storylines even beyond the boundaries of viewing. And here it becomes not so important, " Downton" This, " Dr. House" or " Orange...“There are, however, series that simply “don’t work.” But I came across this one almost by accident and... I don’t regret watching it.

Understand. Anyone who wanted to has already watched the series. Anyone who hasn't watched it is unlikely to watch it now. I’m not going to persuade anyone anyway. I just wanted to say a little about the composition of the film.

1) Present tense- what is happening now in Litchfield prison. Events, relationships, routines, internal wars, love, death, survival, crimes and punishments.

2) Past- for many heroines we are shown their backstory. And not necessarily in the vein of “how did she come to live like this.” Just an excursion into personal history “before”, often “long before”. Therefore, there is also a whole collection of individual stories interspersed here with varying degrees of detail.
We look for ourselves and we see for ourselves. For many, future crime is simply “written in the genes”; it becomes a direct consequence of living conditions: family, region, ethnic group, groups. And some go astray almost by accident. And further. Although this idea is not explicitly carried out, many children's faces are shown, which suggests that once upon a time everyone, even hardened criminals, were ordinary children.

3) Parallel- yes, our heroines are serving time. But life behind the walls has not stopped, it goes on. Some people have children and they are taken to the outside world. Someone loses a loved one. Someone is trying to raise their children (or even their husband) over the phone. Somewhere there are relatives with whom relationships are maintained. One smart girl, on the contrary, managed to get married without leaving her cell))

3 and a half) Behind the scenes- I highlight this piece of the plot very conditionally, since formally it falls either under 1 or 3 categories. As you know, any prison... whatever - any FENCE has two sides. On one side are our... uh... ladies, and on the other are those who guard them. And it's not just the guards. There is a superior over them. And above that - even greater management, and so on, until the threads of control climb to the very top. And life is bustling there too. There are heroes and scoundrels. Their own “strange” and money-grubbing people. They have their own families, their own hobbies, their own intrigues, lovers and mistresses. In general... it turns out to be a kind of series within a series.

Plus to this...

TV series - Orange is the New Black

23 Jul. 2018

Briefly speaking. I liked the book. But everything is tough, very tough. I warned you.

But that’s not all? Of course not. There is a serious scientific search here, there is imminent hope for results that are important for many people. There are people dedicated to their work, ready to work literally day and night, moving closer and closer to understanding the truth, unraveling the carefully woven networks of scientific hypotheses, human intrigues and opposition to the System... There is a lyrical line, simple, but very sincerely written and that is why you believe in her. There is an intense drive that is a little short of , but, nevertheless, immerses us in the problems of neurophysiology and diagnostics so deftly that we, who are by no means experts in this, understand what is happening and empathize with it. And that's great.

Briefly speaking. I liked the book. But everything is tough, very tough. I warned you.

Robin Cook -- Brain

14 Jul. 2018

Inkheart" Cornelia Funke Gerasimova

So

saw

film of the same name near the book
For children From 6-7 to 14 you can definitely read and listen.

Yes, yes, sometimes you want to look into children's books, especially if they passed you by, or even if they weren’t even there in your childhood)) Audiobook " Inkheart" Cornelia Funke I chose, of course, because of the reading Gerasimova, this, and I am ready to listen to a lot in his performance.

Whether such a fairy tale is interesting for adults is a question, and I will answer it a little later. The main character is a 12-year-old girl, whose father repairs books, and whose mother disappeared several years ago under mysterious circumstances. More than anything else, father and daughter love to read; the girl’s aunt is a book collector with a huge home library. And in general, this story has so (too) much to do with books that I wouldn’t be surprised if the author herself turns out to be a strict but passionate librarian))

Books are capable of transporting us each to their own world, where strange creatures live. But that is not all. With a special talent, you can So read a book that these same creatures will be able to move here to us, appearing in the flesh. The flip side of this miracle is quite sad - a book can easily take something from our lives and carry it inside itself. Something. Or someone. And then the invented characters begin to wander among us and live as they want, and we tirelessly try to regain what we have lost. The book is just about this.

I was lucky to perceive this story exactly as it was. Three arts - the author, the translator and the reader - merged here very successfully. No, really, I've seen less elegant translations of the characters' names, they don't sound as great as these. Just listen in your mind: Dust Hand, Mo, Capricorn... When Gerasimov says his “Dust Hand,” we almost physically feel how a tiny cloud of dust washes over the hero. And when the scoundrel Basta appears on stage, his name sounds like the blow of a whip.

There are many charming details in the story, like looking at an antique Persian carpet. Here is an overly smart ferret with horns, here is a brave Arabian boy from the time of the Thousand and One Nights, and here is the fairy Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. Here is a dumb servant with her secret. But our heroes are warily hiding in the dense night forest, while robbers are roaming around and looking for them. Well, in this scene we have a meeting with the Creator. Er... no, I mean it literally, not figuratively. Here the hero of the book meets the one who wrote this very book. There are plenty of collisions and twists in this tale.

I decided that I would not look for the second and third parts of this story. And I will not watch the film of the same name based on this book. But I don’t regret the time spent with the heroes in their strange, literally near the book, world. It was an interesting adventure. :-)
For children From 6-7 to 14 you can definitely read and listen.

Cornelia Funke -- Inkheart

May 26, 2018

Linda Evans entitled " Stray".


This book is about the amazing.

cats

Worlds of Victoria". In the first book of the series (" wonderful friendshipStray

Have you noticed? Sometimes the book itself is not as exciting as getting to know a new author or, as in my case, getting to know a whole book universe. But let's talk about everything in order. I re-read a fantasy story Linda Evans entitled " Stray".
Sadly. Not only does the name sound rather unpleasant in Russian, but the author was also unlucky with the name. Try searching for Linda Evans and you will immediately come across a famous film actress with exactly the same name, who was born 5 years later and has nothing in common with our writer. But the entire Internet is filled with it. Alas.
But I unexpectedly liked the story itself.
This book is about the amazing collaboration between humans and a race of intelligent tree cats.
The difficulty here is that although both of our races are intelligent and friendly towards each other, they cannot communicate directly, since people speak in sounds, and cats, as everyone knows, are telepaths, but in a different range than people. And if they communicate with each other easily and naturally, then from their point of view people are deaf and dumb. Fortunately for both sides, sometimes you still come across strange people who are able, if not to understand the thoughts of these six-legged creatures, then at least to a limited extent to perceive their emotions and convey their own.
Actually, Pribluda was the name given to a wild tree cat that came to people for help.

I think all fans of stories about (alien intelligent) animals might like this series. Although " cats"here are not just cute animals. They have their own society, they use tools for hunting, store and transmit knowledge in a unique way, know how to light a fire and are capable of group meditation. They are able to instantly “dissolve into the night” even during the day, even(!) in a closed room.
But, alas, they are not ready to confront human technology, weapons and technology. However, we are not talking about war here yet. It’s just that sometimes you come across vile people and, in contrast to them, sensible people. Then come up with a story yourself. Just keep in mind that there will definitely be understanding and misunderstanding, adventure, detective investigation, mutual assistance and honest and deep friendship up to complete self-sacrifice.

Ukrainian readers may be interested to know that a significant role in the book is played by a family that emigrated to this planet from earthly Ukraine. :-)

I’ll also say that this is the second book in a series called “ Worlds of Victoria". In the first book of the series (" wonderful friendship") told about the first meeting of people with tree cats. The heroine there is a 12-year-old girl with an empathic gift. The book " Stray", which we are talking about now - a continuation of the story, with cats and people, but without the girl.

Well, the main thing has been said. Now I’m moving on to the tricks, links and interesting things))

Linda Evans -- Stray

May 8, 2018

Book Vitaly Kaplan "Alien

1. Unusual composition

2. Genre

3. Domain

4. Dive

5. Levels

6. Parallels associations

It's hard to be a god" Strugatskyeverything is wrong and everything is wrong".

There are books that are entertainment, books that express the writer’s thoughts, books that generate thoughts in the reader, books in which the writer thinks TOGETHER with the reader.
Book Vitaly Kaplan "Alien", in my opinion, this is exactly what it is - the heroes live their lives, and the writer and I follow their adventures, play out different approaches, discuss situations...
“There are many of these too!”, the Experienced Reader will say, and he is, of course, right. And I just want to list exactly why this book seemed unusual to me. Go.

1. Unusual composition. The book consists of two parts. Both tell the same story, but seen through the eyes of different characters. Not only that, but the two stories are very different.

2. Genre- difficult. Here you have adventures and fantasy, a very significant part is devoted to religion, but there is also a place for mysticism.

3. Domain. Remember the missionaries who converted entire continents to Christianity? Do you remember the progressors of the Strugatskys and others? Agree, these two situations have common features, approaches, problems, areas of applicability and areas of admissibility. The book pays a lot of attention to this aspect. Moreover, independently, without “copying” plots and solutions from others.

4. Dive. However, all these are just words and, I’m afraid, they never conveyed the main thing. The book is very emotional. The plot and characters literally pull us into their world. And it was we who came from the prosperous world of Today to the distant feudal world in order to bring to it the knowledge of the One God (as opposed to generally accepted paganism). It is we, stoned, who are lying in the house of a local witch, who, as it were, is not even a witch at all... It is we who think that we are so wise, advanced, that we know everything and bring the light of truth to the ignorant, but in reality we are just blind ( but self-confident) kittens who know nothing about the world they came into...

The book is emotionally rich. Sometimes it amuses, sometimes it provokes indignation or sympathy. And sometimes it surprises. So much so that the surprise does not go away for a long time, and the situations are scrolling through my head again and again))

5. Levels. Oddly enough, there are a lot of them in the book. There is a lower one: the lively story of ManEs, which began with an adventure almost in the spirit of “Monday...” There is a middle one: with immersion in a different culture, partly even a language. There is a high one: with thoughts about God in general (not necessarily Jesus), about his preachers and apostles, about tasks and ethics, about opposition, about the appropriateness of influence, and much more. And there is one more. I don’t even know what to call it so as not to miss... Esoteric? Mystical? Magic? Each of these words is inappropriate. But at least it indicates an approximate direction.

6. Parallels. If you ask the question what this book is like, the answer will be quite difficult to find. But certain bookstores associations I came across this while reading. And first of all, which we have already talked about in "".
Both books are about religion. In both, the main character is Russian, thoughtful, looking for his own path and sincerely intending to help others. I want to emphasize: not a religious fanatic with fire and sword, but an intelligent and benevolent wanderer who does not consider it shameful to dispel his doubts in lengthy discussions of the upcoming “project” with “classical” clergy.
From other associations, undoubtedly, " It's hard to be a god" Strugatsky. But to a lesser extent - only some ideas overlap a little, and in other aspects " everything is wrong and everything is wrong".

Overall, I really liked the book (even though I myself am still an atheist), I didn’t even expect it. I read it a second time and, I think, in a few years I will want to go down this road again. I wish the same for you.

defenders"), thoroughly schizoid, but... so plausible that I still can’t shake the feeling of touching some truth that is not allowed to people)) no less!

PLOT Engine
As you understand, this is very good cocktail

book universes
the same Dyson

That's it, I'm wrapping up already. The book is flawed, especially in literary terms. But it reads briskly, the adventures are exciting, relationships develop and sparkle with little stars, scientific thought does not sleep, the imagination draws pictures... What else should we expect from good classic science fiction?

Finished the epic series Larry Niven "Ringworld". A classic of science fiction and, as some believe, Niven's best work. But somehow it has bypassed me so far)
Actually, there are 2 books in the series, and I liked the first one more. The second is also good, but if in the first there was a flight of fancy, a tangle of plot, the creation of a mysterious world, then the second turned out to be more reasonable or something... Although it is in it that one absolutely deceitful idea is presented (about " defenders "), thoroughly schizoid, but... so plausible that I still can’t shake the feeling of touching some truth that is not allowed to people)) no less!
Only lazy people didn’t write about the book. Therefore, I will not describe the technology. I will only say two things.

PLOT Engine- a wonderfully selected “adventurous four”: a team consisting of an earthly adventurer tired of boredom, smart, skillful and cunning, an alien resembling an intelligent tiger, a hot-tempered and aggressive warrior, another alien, pitiful and ridiculous in appearance, but a representative of the most advanced races in the known universe and... did I say four? The fourth member of the team was a young girl who, in addition to beauty and intelligence, also had incredible luck.
As you understand, this is very good cocktail, which can wander around and amuse us for more than one episode. And the author seems to have not missed a single opportunity here.

And one moment. You and I are already spoiled by many expressive book universes. People enthusiastically read and even write all sorts of sequels to Harrypotters, Stalkerzone and Metro - and this is also already familiar.
But here, when you see that 10 years after the release of the book, people continued not only to read it, but also to discuss the intricacies of the world invented by the author, build hypotheses, develop all kinds of theories. The book mentions a clever thing from the world of space physics called a “Dyson sphere.” So, when he writes to the author himself the same Dyson :-) to discuss certain aspects and ideas... I don't know about you, but it made a strong impression on me. I would probably feel the same way if someone wrote science fiction about traveling at Einsteinian speeds, and Einstein himself suddenly turned to him))
Michael Crichton, which I wouldn't like. Many of them have been filmed, and very successfully. Now I got to the techno-thriller called " Exposure". And again - great!

harassment breaking stereotypes turn on your head

exactly next chapters.

Wings"it was about airplanes" Andromeda strain" - about microbiology, in " Next" - about genetics, " Jurassic Park

The main theme of the novel is slippery, sticky and scandalous: harassment, which is now fashionable to call an American word harassment. But at the same time, the main line of the book (like many others by Crichton) is breaking stereotypes, the desire to force people not to judge rabidly “about what is already clear to everyone,” and turn on your head and realistically consider each specific case.

So if you are expecting an ordinary snotty and plaintive story about another secretary who was successfully and fruitfully laid... uh... the eye of the Big Boss, then everything was completely different here. And quite the opposite. :-)
And if suddenly at some point in your reading it seems to you that, well, now you exactly If you figured out what it was, why, who is to blame and what to do, then in the next chapter you suddenly discover a fork in your guesses, and in the next chapter you understand how far you were from the truth at the beginning. Well, now everything is certainly clear. Yeah-yeah)) Until next chapters.

As usual, here too we are distinguished by very thorough technical preparation and an amazing ability to speak even about complex and boring things in an intelligible and understandable manner, without reducing the degree of interest. In the book " Wings"it was about airplanes" Andromeda strain" - about microbiology, in " Next" - about genetics, " Jurassic Park", as you remember, very convincingly and vividly tells us about paleontology, but here...

Michael Crichton -- Expose

The lackeys - my mother did not put a contemptuous, derogatory meaning into this word, she simply stated her social affiliation - were: the guardian of my childhood years, the kind genius of the house, the most beloved of loved ones, Veronya, and her sister, the wonderful Katya, who was my nanny for a short time, and those huge families that moved into the rooms of the apartment that once belonged to us entirely, which were vacated by the death or for other reasons of the decline of my relatives, any servants, be it a janitor, a stoker, a fitter, a salesman in a store, a hairdresser, a greengrocer from the village who brought sauerkraut on the sledge and pickled cucumbers, a milkmaid with tin cans that smelled like Antonov apples, a lackey and a manager, the first representative of Soviet power in my life, whom I revered, feared and hated.

I was surprised by the word “read” that slipped under the pen. Did I really “revere” the gloomy, silent lackey Dedkov with a knife-like glint of gloomy look from under his brows? Yes, this was the attitude prescribed by the grandfather, the head of the family, of everyone except the mother, who allowed herself to buck, to the young, deadly power. This lesson of slavery stayed with me throughout my life. I treated any authorities that I met on my way: the leaders of the Writers' Union, party secretaries of various ranks who challenged me to justice, directors of publishing houses, editors-in-chief of magazines and newspapers, army commanders during the war - with hatred, contempt and respect, grateful them for all the evil that they could have done to me, but they did not do it to the end.

And now I was stopped by the word “young” when applied to the devilish crime that crippled the lives of my parents, my own, my children and grandchildren, had I not stopped my family. “Young” is something fresh, promising, flying. “Young executioner” or “young murderer” sounds wild. But the authorities were really very young, only three years older than me. God, how little I missed the time that made my mother’s green, always preoccupied eyes flash so dreamily! She was then “their nobility Ksenia Nikolaevna Krasovskaya,” as it appears on the envelopes of the few surviving old letters. Mother loved her past too much to feast on it in dried form.

Having barely realized my existence, I began to feel the era that remained behind the line as a single time layer. I had the same relationship with time as the ancient Greeks. For Pericles' contemporaries, the historical war with the Persians and the destruction of the legendary Troy did not have a time gap, both of them happened before, not now. And when - the Greek consciousness was not interested in this, it was beyond comprehension. I irritated my mother terribly with questions about the Napoleonic invasion, demanding private details, as from an eyewitness to those exciting events. Explain such idiocy - or is there something else here? It’s impossible, but already as a schoolboy, in love with “The Three Musketeers,” I allowed a meeting with old d’Artagnan and anxiously awaited it. Was this really such a wandering? Boborykin, when he was born, lived for a year under Pushkin, and when leaving the earthly vale, he lived for a year with me. One single life separates and unites me with Pushkin.

Let's go back to the lackeys. They were divided into those who depended on us: Veronya, her numerous relatives, neighbors, who were treated for free by my grandfather - like in all Kholuy families, their children were constantly sick with all sorts of infectious diseases (breathing this air saturated with microbes, I never I didn’t get infected with anything), and of the lackeys who didn’t depend on us - we were afraid of them, again, everyone except mom. Thus, the first difference between people that was revealed to me lay in the social sphere, although I’m not sure that this word is appropriate, because the intelligentsia is not a class, but a stratum, while lackeys are generally an amorphous concept. But the reader will understand what I mean. And this is not a home legend, but a truth, confirmed by numerous evidence: after the infant cannibal language, all these “mnyam-mnyam”, “tprua”, “bo-bo” and the like, after “mama”, “Veroni”, A little later, “dad,” as I called under general pressure an unfamiliar person whose purpose in the house was unclear to me, I clearly and loudly pronounced “intelligentsia.” Then, after a pause and as if thinking, I said: “electricity,” after which, shocked by these linguistic feats, I shut up for a whole year. My relatives were horrified that I was speechless, but, having fulfilled the vow of silence given to who knows who, I began to chat and have not been able to stop to this day. The most amazing thing is that when I uttered the word “intelligentsia,” I knew what it meant. This clarity has become clouded over the years, and in the proximity of the outcome I became completely confused. The situation was worse with “electricity”; I didn’t understand then and still don’t understand what it is. It suddenly occurred to me that my infant, dormant consciousness was looking for something similar to Lenin’s famous formula of communism.

The concept of “intellectual” allows for a broad interpretation, ours was no better and no worse than all others, but “lack” in our family understanding did not coincide with the commonly used one, which derives from it the verb “to grovel” to grovel, curry favor with those in power, for us “lack " - this is a commoner, a black bone or, older, a boor.

Soon I began to realize that in the big world, and the big world for me at that time were our two courtyards, intellectuals were not too favored. My intelligent friends knew this too, diligently walking around the courtyard freemen. And I was drawn there. I missed something in the company of the quiet boys my parents had chosen to be my friends. From the age of six I was assigned to a German group led by dear Anna Fedorovna Borchart, who was somehow connected in the past with the house of the artist Lanceray, which in my childhood ignorance did not bother me at all, but for my parents it was, as they say now, a sign of quality.

She taught us German in passing; our main occupation was handicrafts. We glued boxes of unknown purposes from thin cardboard, made appliqués from [!a branch of paper, which evoked some kind of carnivorous feeling in me; it was so pleasant to look at and to the touch, smooth, dense, tightly fleshy, every color had a tint and iridescence, mixed with this was the pungent and tasty smell of syndeticon, and a rather empty activity, none of us had artistic inclinations, turned into zeal, service to something secret, there was undoubtedly a sensual moment here, so vehemently rejected by Nabokov, who, with all his daring intelligence, insight, irony and fearlessness, was stuck in the snares of a golden, innocent childhood - just like Charskaya.

Almost as exciting for me in these lessons was our teacher's ritual taking of iodine; she dropped it from a dark bottle into a cup of milk, the drop sank in the white liquid, then floated up from the bottom, coloring the milk with amber yellowness, and it seemed to me that Anna Fedorovna was tasting heavenly nectar. I came up with the taste of this drink, reminiscent of the taste of the Cocoa Shua liqueur, unknown to me at that time, and was painfully jealous of it, not suspecting that it pacified the thyroid gland.

My classmates were intelligent boys: Kolya, Venya and Mulya, I call them in order of seniority. Kolya was my age, Venya was a year younger, Mulya was a year younger than Venya. He immediately became a squeaky, outcast - a pitiful little creature in an elegant velvet jacket, with dimples on his cheeks and a curly head. Kolya and I were not generous to this defenseless little man. We did not touch the other boy out of respectful and disdainful pity: he had recently suffered from ringworm and wore a cap on his bald head. He grew slowly, with some kind of ostrich down, only when our home lyceum ended and we went to school, Venya acquired a cap of thick dark hair.

The boys were well-mannered, shuffled their feet, thanked each other every now and then, did not show off to each other, and did not compete. I treated them well, even Mula, although I pestered him, but I was bored with them, especially when we grew up and a school loomed ahead, beckoning me like D’Artagnan’s musketeer regiment. And how I hated it - almost immediately !..

Only once did masculine daring awaken in Kolya. His large, bright mother, with ashen hair and shining lilac eyes, was an actress at the Art Theater in second or third roles. But for some reason the troupe needed her, since they kept her. One day she took us to a matinee performance.

For the first time I came to the theater, and immediately to such an acute, stunning spectacle as “The Blue Bird”, with personified elements and food products, with humanized domestic animals, with the souls of the dead, giant ghosts and a fiery blacksmith, with poetry looking into the still deaf for sweet sounds and heart prayers. However, I prayed every now and then, but extremely pragmatically, always asking for something. This low habit has remained with me to this day; I constantly pester the Almighty with business and economic requests. This performance was the discovery of a second world, lying behind the surface of things and phenomena; there was death, which I vaguely suspected, and the sadness that I foresaw, and the longing for the unknown, which destroyed the self-sufficient integrity of my prosperous world. The performance pulled me out of my childhood, but I didn’t want to part with it and began to resist, suddenly turning into such a tomboy as I had never been.

During the intermission, I seemed to have broken free, dragging the prudent Kolya into my madness. We almost destroyed the mezzanine where our seats were. We rushed around like mad, jumped over the backs of chairs, wrestled, collapsing onto the dirty rugs of the aisles, almost knocking down the timid spectators, touched quite sensitively - to the point of roaring - the decorous children smearing their mouths with chocolate from the buffet, and brought the elderly usher to tears , trying to calm us down. We didn’t fly out of the theater only because we were under the high patronage of Kolya’s mother. She saw our outrages, but could not intervene because she was in a dense ring of gentlemen, whom Kolya called with an unfamiliar word “fans.” Only occasionally could one hear her lost, distant, as if from a forest, plaintive voice:

Well, boys, stop it!..

Oddly enough, this crazy, dashing male fuss did not bring us closer. The very next day Kolya appeared at the group as the same sleek, obedient, well-mannered boy that I was used to seeing him. Either he was burned by what happened yesterday, or the violence was organically alien to his sluggish soul and he, against his will, succumbed to my fury. I did not want to come to terms with his defection, and as soon as classes ended and Anna Fedorovna, taking the remaining colored paper, syndeticone and scissors, floated out of the room, I rushed at him and began to knock him down. This was a natural continuation of yesterday's muscle games, in which he behaved bravely and steadfastly, but Kolya did not accept the fight and became disgustingly unfulfilled. The partnership didn't work out. The more I was drawn to the yard hooligan.

Of course, different children lived in our house, there were also quiet ones, like Mulya, they did not appear in the yard, they were taken by the hand to Chistye Prudy, to the kindergarten of the Lazarevsky Institute and other safe places. The unified lackey composition of the two courtyards was violated only by Seryozha Lepkovsky, the grandson of the famous actor, a tall, slender, noble and brave boy, capable of standing up for himself. However, it only seemed so, because he boldly went into battle. Seryozha was not the first to get into a fight and never fought out of anger, like the other yard boys. For him, every fight was a noble fight, a duel, but the guys who were obviously stronger always bullied him. Therefore, he invariably ended up beaten. He didn’t take offense, didn’t cry, didn’t threaten through his snot from behind the life-saving doors of his entrance, he wiped away the blood, forced a smile with his broken mouth and said with discouraging good nature: “Yours took it.” His nobility touched no one, rather the opposite, as it should be in a state of lackeys.

Our house was known in the area as the House of Printers, which was the name given to all printing workers indiscriminately at that time. There were several large printing houses in Armeniansky and adjacent lanes, and during the revolution, the headquarters of revolutionary printers was located in our house. But, of course, other professions were also represented here: merchants who became red sellers after the liquidation of NEP - in any case, that’s what the former tent-keeper Melnikov, the father of my worst enemy Zhenya, called himself, there were post office employees, several real NEPman families survived, a year , when the first five-year plan and collectivization began, the heads of these families went to Solovki, and my father went to the banks of the Lena, near Zhigansk, he was just an unlucky stockbroker, they treated him more gently; The house was decorated by: the artist Lepkovsky, gray-haired, with a loud voice, the truck driver Kozlov in a leather jacket, the coachman Potapych with a cotton bottom - in the first courtyard, looking at Armenian, there was a stable where two former trotters, Khapun and Magarych, were crunching oats. Once upon a time they were ridden by the millionaire Vysotskaya (tea trade), then by the diamond maker Samatis, and then by some Soviet official with thin legs, tightly compressed by the chrome of high boots. And suddenly everything disappeared: the rank in boots, the coachman, the horses, and the stable was turned into a home club.

We lived in the part of the house that overlooked Sverchkov and Arkhangelsky (later became Telegrafny), but the address was written on Armenian Lane, although we were separated from it by another courtyard. From its very inception, the Soviet government imposed a ban on front doors and walk-through courtyards. Both of them saw the possibility of escape. It was only in the mid-thirties that the gates to Sverchkov were opened, and before the war the front door was opened. By this time everyone had already been caught, and there was no one to escape.

Current page: 1 (book has 35 pages total) [available reading passage: 23 pages]

Yuri Markovich Nagibin
Darkness at the end of the tunnel

© Nagibin Yu. M., heirs, 2015

© Publication. Decor. LLC Group of Companies "RIPOL Classic", 2015

* * *

Autobiography

When the next book of fiction comes out, there is no need to preface it with autobiographical information. What does the reader care about the personality and circumstances of the author’s life if he is offered a fictitious world or one recreated by the creative imagination? The situation is different with collected works. Here the reader must have at least a minimum of information about the author, know, perhaps, the background, otherwise he will not understand the passion for certain problems and indifference to others, the reasons for interest in certain phenomena of life and culture and the reticence of others, no less significant, will be unclear. And, in general, there will be too much fog. That's why I decided to briefly tell you about myself.

I was born on April 3, 1920 in Moscow, near Chistye Prudy, in the family of an employee. By the early thirties, my parents separated, and my mother married the writer Ya. S. Rykachev.

My father was unhappy. Almost his entire subsequent existence was controlled by someone else's will; it determined his place of residence, occupation, and daily routine. He was imprisoned for the first time in 1928. Until his death in 1952, he lived either in prison, in a camp, or in exile. He shared the fate of many intellectuals. For a very long time, the only reminder of my father was the St. George Cross, which he received during the World War. Having lived his sad, lonely life, he died in 1952 in the small town of Kohma, where the central square with a pink tower bears, for some reason, the name of the founder of the useless Esperanto language, Dr. Zimmenhoff. And in the mid-fifties it turned out that my father did not deserve such a fate.

The father in my stories is a half-fictional, imagined person, despite the fact that the living person was much better. But I will write about it later.

I owe to my mother not only the directly and firmly inherited character traits, but also the fundamental qualities of my human and creative personality, invested in me in early childhood and strengthened by all subsequent upbringing. These qualities: the ability to feel the preciousness of every minute of life, love for people, nature and animals.

I owe everything in my literary education to my stepfather, and if I made poor use of his lessons, it is entirely my fault. He taught me to read only good books. In the late twenties and early thirties, a strange craze passed: in schools, tattered novels by Charskaya and Verbitskaya, with pages taped up, appeared in schools, which not only girls, but also representatives of the stronger sex became engrossed in, having temporarily lost interest in Surkf and Nick Carter. Baudelaire said: “God saves his favorites from useless reading.” My stepfather saved me from useless and bad reading. Jules Verne, Walter Scott, Dickens, Dumas, Russian classics and, of course, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver - the literature of my childhood. Later they were joined by Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Maupassant. And then my stepfather introduced me to Marcel Proust, Bunin, Andrei Platonov. At that time, for various reasons, these authors, who remained for me, along with Dostoevsky and Leskov, first among equals, were inaccessible. My stepfather taught me to think about what I read. From early childhood I was accustomed to living in the circle of literary interests, but at the same time I did not at all resemble that writer’s son who asked his parents: “Are there non-writers in the world?”

We lived in a good, indigenous part of Moscow, surrounded by beautiful ancient churches, which were later mercilessly destroyed. I was proud of my home. First of all, it opened into three lanes: Armenian, Sverchkov and Telegrafny; I loved puzzling people with my triple address. In addition, he possessed two courtyards. And finally, in its basements there was the largest wine warehouse in Moscow. “Picking” bottles was the same obligatory craft, sanctified by tradition, for all generations of boys in our house, as in other villages was carriage work or icon painting. The main population of the house were “printers,” as then for some reason all printing workers were called indiscriminately. But in small numbers, the bourgeoisie who have fallen into insignificance remain here: “former people” and Nepmen. I owe my early awakened social feeling to home, for, to my great grief, my peers for a long time persecuted me with the nickname “bourgeois”. We lived more than modestly, but even the well-fed, smartly dressed son of the store manager, Zhenya Melnikov, shouted a mortally insulting word to me with his mouth always stuffed with ham and gingerbread. Still, they were friends with me, because the eternal need for self-justification forced me to be especially daring in all the courtyard enterprises. By the time I realized that the word “bourgeois” does not mark imaginary prosperity at all, but my non-proletarian origin, the cruel nickname disappeared.

I loved our large communal apartment just as much as home. Several families lived in it, including the strict, “ideological” family of the Rubtsovs, where the tall, handsome men Fomochka and Motya gave birth to beautiful daughters with machine-gun frequency.

My nanny's sister also lived here 1
People around me called Vera Ivanovna my grandmother, although we were not related. But Vera Ivanovna was a long-term friend of my grandfather, a doctor, who was widowed early. She flatly refused to become his wife or even be considered one. She ran the house, being in it “for everything.” She herself stubbornly called herself my nanny. Let it stay that way. I have written a lot about her - with ardent and grateful love.

Vera Ivanovna (Veroni), kind, sweet Katya, who every now and then buried her husbands with cheerful despair and gave shelter to numerous village relatives who came to Moscow for various needs. Katya’s nephew - the small, bug-eyed, mysterious Yanka - frightened me with stories about ghouls, merman, goblin and witches, who were visible and invisible in his native village of Konury in the Ryazan region. The witch's charm of the Kennels was so great that we once and for all abandoned our dachas near Moscow for the sake of the village. True, we did not live in Konury, but next door, in the village of Vnukovo. My nanny was from there, her brother Yakov lived there in a hut with an earthen floor, standing on the edge of a marvelous apple orchard. This hut was constantly burning. It burned down in the rainy summer of our first visit, burning powerfully and brightly in the dark Ryazan night, like Pompeii in Bryullov’s painting.

In the neighboring village of Akulovo, Veroni’s elder sister, the iconically beautiful Sasha, lived with her husband and children. Pavel Nikolaev, that was the respectful name of Sasha’s husband, was the most helpful owner in the entire district. His children were just as hard-working, good-natured and quick-witted. Pavel Nikolaev had two cows in the herd, and two horses stood in the stall: a mare and a gelding. In 1929, he was dispossessed before my eyes. This night, when the cattle roared, the children cried, Pavel Nikolaev and Sasha were silent, remained forever in my memory. After the release of the film “The Chairman,” literary guardians, who consider it their calling to keep strangers away from the village gate, asked me ironically: how long have I been so interested in the village? A long time ago, since that very night...

Both my mother and stepfather hoped that I would become a real man of the century: an engineer or scientist in the exact sciences, and they heavily stuffed me with books on chemistry, physics, and popular biographies of great scientists. For their and my own peace of mind, I got test tubes, flasks, and some chemicals, but all my scientific activity boiled down to the fact that from time to time I cooked shoe polish of terrible quality. However, that’s later...

Until I was eight years old, everyone who wanted to know what I wanted to become when I grew up, I answered: a MUR agent 2
To the police.

I didn’t know what it was, but I liked the masculine sonority of this phrase. At the age of eight, having experienced the epic of saving Nobile with extraordinary depth and emotion, I wanted to become Amundsen or Chukhnovsky. In the first I was attracted by the beauty of his death to save his enemy, in the second by the brilliant success of the feat.

A year later, I was passionately interested in The Three Musketeers, not so much the novel as the idea of ​​friendship so charmingly embodied in its characters. This hobby colored my life for several years; I lived in two images: an ordinary Moscow schoolboy and d’Artagnan. And my friends Pavlik, Borka and Kolka became Athos, Porthos and Aramis, respectively. However, Aramis turned out to be a composite image; at some time, Kolka gave way to Osya Roskin. We had musketeer cloaks, hats with feathers, swords with beautiful hilts. But the main thing is not in the props, these friends of my childhood, adolescence, and youth gave me in full what Exupery called “the gold of human society.” The fate of my friends was tragic: Pavlik and Osya died on the fronts of the Patriotic War, Kolka - in Auschwitz. Boris and I, having won back, were unable to establish friendship again, too keenly feeling the gaping emptiness next to us.

For a long time, I, already a fairly old guy, believed that I would carry a hat with a feather and a musketeer’s cloak all my life. But at the age of thirteen I gave up these childhood dreams without pain or regret. My heart awoke, I fell in love with a girl two years older than me and, as it were, mentally moved to a different “weight”. My love, as usually happens with first love, turned out to be unsuccessful, and I completely devoted myself to sports and social work. I studied with straight A's, mainly because I didn't feel particularly inclined towards any subject.

Here came the time for cooking shoe polish and the vague uncertainty, carefully hidden from everyone, that I would really become an engineer.

But I felt more and more confident on the football field. The then coach of Lokomotiv Jules Limbeck 3
He was French.

He predicted a great future for me. He promised to introduce me to the double masters by the age of eighteen. But my mother did not want to come to terms with the idea that she gave birth in pain and raised a left midfielder or a right inside linebacker with hungry milk. Apparently, under her pressure, my stepfather increasingly convinced me to write something. Yes, this is how my literary life began artificially, not by my own inevitable urge, but under pressure from outside.

I wrote a story about a ski trip we took as a class one weekend. My stepfather read it and didn’t ask me to write anymore. Of course, the story was bad, and yet I have every reason to believe that already in the first attempt my main literary path was determined: not to invent, go straight through life, delve into the material of reality, trying to find as much as possible in it.

I perfectly understood my stepfather’s silence and did not try to challenge the destructive assessment hidden behind this silence. But the writing captured me. With deep surprise, I discovered how, from the very need to transfer onto paper the simple impressions of the day and the features of well-known people, all the experiences and observations associated with this simple walk strangely deepened and expanded. I saw my school friends and the unexpectedly complex, subtle and intricate pattern of relationships in a new way. It turns out that writing is the comprehension of life...

I began to write, but secretly from my loved ones. I wanted to understand myself, to finally understand with whom I had been coexisting for seventeen years and who had not pleased me with a single independent decision, choice, or misdemeanor. This was not an abstract task, but a vitally important task; I had to find myself. The story-reasoning, which I not only wrote all night long, but somehow extracted and outlived, was called “I”. There was no immodesty here, for the unfortunate “I” was subjected to merciless analysis and the most severe condemnation. Besides everything, it was a step on the path to adulthood, which, as it sometimes seems to me, I generally passed, immediately stepping into old age.

One day I “forgot” my writing on the table, and my stepfather understood this “invitation to dance.” He read the unfinished story and said:

- Apparently, you are seriously ill with this disease. Write. If, at worst, you don’t have talent, you will become a literary critic.

A new stage of literary study began. My stepfather drove me to despair with his demandingness. Sometimes I began to hate words, but tearing me away from the paper was a difficult task.

Nevertheless, when I graduated from school and received a certificate with a gold border, giving the right to enter any university without exams, the powerful home press came into operation again. Instead of the literary department, I ended up at the First Moscow Medical Institute. I resisted for a long time, but could not resist the example of Chekhov, Veresaev, Bulgakov. It turns out that the path to literature goes through anatomy.

By inertia, I continued to study diligently, and studying at a medical university is extremely difficult, requiring, in addition to everything, endless cramming of Latin terms. There could be no talk of any writing now. I made it to the first session, began to pass the exams successfully, and then, as more than once in my life, a woman let me down. While all the anatomy students were dissecting parts of a lean male body, I received a female leg with a thick layer of fat. Freeing the muscles from fat, I cut the fascia - a thin film that encloses the muscles as if in a cover. My test was not accepted; for the first time in all my years of study, I failed. This made me even more reluctant to go to medical school.

And suddenly, in the middle of the school year, admission to the screenwriting department of the film institute opened. I rushed there. Two C grades received in the special exam were enough to qualify for the competition. By the way, the only applicant awarded two A's is now working as a fashion designer.

So, for the first time in my life, I did my thing. In general, not very smart. Instead of acquiring the necessary and noble specialty, working as a doctor for some time and only then “going into poetry,” I moved along the path of early literary professionalization. Studying at this pre-war VGIK was easy, or rather, there was almost none, but there was plenty of time to write stories, essays, reviews and articles.

I never finished VGIK. A few months after the start of the war, when the last carriage with institute property and students left for Alma-Ata, I moved in the opposite direction. I would really like to say that this was my action, but, unfortunately, an autobiography is not how you would like to live your life, but how you actually lived it. My intention became an action only after my mother told me, biting her lips: “Don’t you think that Alma-Ata is somewhat far from those places where the fate of humanity is decided?”

A fairly decent knowledge of the German language decided my military service. The military registration and enlistment office handed me over to the PUR, and the Political Directorate of the Red Army sent me to the seventh department of the Volkhov Front. The seventh section is counter-propaganda.

But, before talking about the war, I’ll tell you about my two literary debuts. The first, oral, coincided with my transition from medical institute to VGIK.

I gave a reading of a story at an evening of aspiring authors at a writers club. Besides me, Ivan Menshikov, who later became my great friend, and the poet Ivan Baukov read there. Both performed successfully, especially Baukov. I was booed, almost literally. My story was about how a seventeen-year-old boy wants to achieve the love of an adult woman, but retreats, realizing his pathetic immaturity. However, hardly anyone heard the end due to laughter, mocking and indignant cries. The theme of the story itself turned out to be unusual and irritating: it was fitting for a novice author to read a story about a border guard with a dog or about shock labor. At first, I was stunned not by the abuse itself, but by the fact that my stepfather, whom I firmly trusted, could allow me to perform with such waste paper. I was scolded not only by students of the Lithuanian University and members of Babel's literary association, but also by respectable writers: Anna Karavaeva, Valeria Gerasimova, Agniya Barto, who were recognized, eminent, and widely known. “This is some kind of sensuality!” – Anna Karavaeva said about my heroine, and I thought about suicide. And then the unexpected happened. The chairman of the evening, Valentin Petrovich Kataev, suddenly blushed and said sharply: “Well, stop playing with his bones. A gifted person read the wrong thing, it happens to everyone!”

To be honest, I realized that they were talking about me only by the unanimous indignation of the audience. And then a mocking voice sounded: “But the story is good!”

Yuri Karlovich Olesha stood at the door. There was silence and confusion. I was saved. The point is not that Olesha’s opinion mattered more than Kataev’s, but Yuri Karlovich at that time never appeared at literary evenings and in the imagination of the young he was shrouded in some kind of legendary fog. Then Mikhail Yuryevich Levidov spoke wittily, cheerfully and warmly about the story. And now, after a lifetime, tears boil in my throat when I remember how kind these great writers were to me.

A year later, my first story, “Double Error,” appeared in the Ogonyok magazine; It is characteristic that the story was dedicated to the fate of an aspiring writer. On the dirty March streets I ran from one newsstand to another and asked: is there Nagibin’s latest story?

The first publication shines brighter in the memory than the first love.

...The Volkhon Front was a difficult front. The incredible difficulty of his task of breaking through the ring of the Leningrad blockade from the outside was aggravated by the fact that the offensive was carried out on Chudovo-Lyuban, that is, where the German defense was densest and most echeloned. It is no coincidence that after many bitter failures the breakthrough was made in a completely different place, near Mga-Senyavin, where only a narrow strip separated the Volkhon Front from the Leningrad Front.

The 2nd Shock Army fought its way through heavy fighting to Myasnoy Bor, only to be surrounded there and lie down in the Volkhov forests and swamps. I was attached through the 7th Department to this army, went there for instructions, collecting captured materials, issuing operational leaflets addressed to the enemy regiments and divisions with which battles were currently taking place. I also went there with a radio van, which made it possible to directly conduct ten- and fifteen-minute broadcasts for enemy troops. Then the vehicle was usually spotted by mortars or field guns, and it was necessary to escape. The radio movement team, led by military technician Lavrinenko and the announcer who replaced me, senior lieutenant Stroganov, died near Myasny Bor.

If in Malaya Vishera, where the political department was located, front-line impressions were exhausted by continuous bombing and shelling from the air, analysis of all kinds of German writing: from operational documents to personal letters of dead soldiers - this was called studying the enemy, working in a newspaper in German - then trips to the front line expanded the circle of observations immeasurably. Here, in the companies where we trained volunteer mouthpieces, at the OP of battalions and regiments during battles of local importance, in liberated villages, where we had to be among the first to interrogate fresh prisoners who had not learned to be cunning, the war opened up in all its cruelty. seriousness. I only had the opportunity to participate in combat and shoot at a visible enemy once. We should have taken, but never took, the imaginary (strategic) height. This difficult, unsuccessful battle is described in a number of my stories.

Gradually, I collected a book of military stories about signalmen and drivers, translators and political workers, infantrymen and front-line business executives. I must say that before the war the publishing house “Soviet Writer” intended to publish a collection of my stories, I am glad that this collection was not published. The war gave me the right to publish; after all, my first collection, “A Man from the Front,” published in “Soviet Writer” in 1943, contained grains of genuine experience that was not given in vain.

In November 1942, in connection with the disbandment of newspapers for enemy troops, I was transferred to the Voronezh Front to the 7th Department of the 60th Army to the same position, pompously called “instructor-writer.” I didn’t stay here long – a little over a month. I was very lucky - I was shell-shocked twice in a row. The first time was during a horn transmission from no man's land, the second time was at a market in the small town of Anna, where I was sent to the hospital. I barely had time to exchange a glass of Varents from some woman for a spool of thread when a German “croaker” emerged from somewhere, dropped a single bomb, and I didn’t try the Varents. They dug me up, brought me to consciousness and sent me to Moscow.

I was ill for a long time, and upon recovery I discovered that my way to the front was barred even as a war correspondent. Fortunately for me, the Trud newspaper received the right to keep three civilian military officers, that is, not subject to approval by the PUR. I worked at Trud until the end of the war. I had a chance to visit Stalingrad in the very last days of the battle, when the Traktorozavodsky village was “cleansed”, again near Leningrad, then during the liberation of Minsk, Vilnius, Kaunas and in other parts of the war. I also went to the rear, saw the beginning of restoration work in Stalingrad and how the first tractor was assembled there, how the mines of Donbass were drained and coal was cut with a butt, how the Volga port stevedores worked and how the Ivanovo weavers worked, gritting their teeth...

In addition to newspaper essays, the impressions of these trips were embodied in stories that made up the collections: “Big Heart”, “Two Forces”, “Grain of Life”. And then everything I saw and experienced then returned to me in a new image, and I again began to write about the Volga and Donbass during the war, about the Volkhov and Voronezh fronts and, probably, I will never fully settle accounts with this material.

After the war I began the life of a professional writer. Back in March 1942, when I was on the Volkhov Front, I was accepted in absentia into the Writers' Union. It happened with idyllic simplicity. At a meeting dedicated to admission to the SSP, the late Leonid Solovyov read my war story aloud, and the late A. A. Fadeev said: “He’s a writer, let’s accept him into our union...”

At first I traveled a lot around the country and wrote a lot of essays and stories. The trip around the Kursk region, which lasted almost the entire summer, was especially significant and generous in impressions. A year ago, drought scorched the Kursk land, the machine park with MTS 4
Machine-tractor station.

Was insignificant. They plowed with cows, or even with themselves, then a Shchadrovsky sower appeared in the fields with a basket, they harvested the grain with scythes and sickles; cabbage soup was made from nettles; sour cabbage soup was considered a delicacy. And suddenly, like an oasis in the desert, the village of Cherkasy Konopelki, near Sudzha, the collective farm “Luch”, prosperous, well-fed, ringing with songs, and in it the chairman Tatyana Petrovna Dyachenko! Illiterate, effortlessly “parsing” a newspaper, immensely talented in every firmly placed word, in every expressive, picturesque gesture, in every decision, behind which lightning-fast coverage of certain contradictory complexities. This elderly, heavyset woman with affectionately menacing eyes was an organizer, a tribune, a leader from God. Then I wrote about her directly and indirectly, imparting the tart flavor of her personalities to other heroes; she was so rich that there was enough for many; unexpectedly for me, it broke through into Yegor Trubnikov, the chairman, although the direct prototype was K. P. Orlovsky. The image of Tatyana Petrovna was most fully embodied in Krychenkova, the heroine of the story and film “Woman’s Kingdom”, the play “The Sudzhan Madonnas”, and the opera “Russian Women” by Kirill Molchanov.

During these years I was given the happiness of a close vision of Andrei Platonov. He was friends with my parents, often visited us, and with me he went to the Vagankovskoye cemetery, where, sitting at the grave of his untimely deceased, handsome, gifted and unfortunate son, we drank a quarter. Platonov spoke as powerfully and uniquely as he wrote. He talked about many things: about Pushkin and Gorky, Greene and Hemingway, Spengler, Freud, Pavlov, and also about steam locomotives, Russian fairy tales, war and human loneliness, but he never spoke about “literary affairs” and seemed not to suspect that They exist. He was a very strong debater, but sometimes, bored with the objections of opponents, provocative and unequal to him, he crushed them not with new evidence, but with an emotional outburst of pain, fatigue and ridicule.

I imitated him for a long time, or rather, tried to imitate him. The whole period of my literary studies consisted of my stepfather erasing Platonov from my phrases. Andrei Platonov knew about this struggle and was entirely on the side of his stepfather. When one Leningrad writer wrote in a review of my collection: “Nagibin, like his teacher A. Platonov, naively believes the power of literature is in the word,” he, without even smiling at the splendor of this formulation, said with annoyance: “What a teacher I am! You can't learn from me. As soon as he became a little like me, he disappeared.” I appreciated this advice...

The end of the forties - the beginning of the fifties - the most difficult time in my literary life. In five years I published only one meager collection, and also poor artistically. I was at a loss. More successful, and therefore more complex, poignant stories were rejected, and only the worst of what was written made it into print, and I began to lose the idea of ​​what was good and what was bad in literature. Andrei Platonov was no longer there. Scolded all around - both for the pure, touching story “Ivanov’s Family”, and for the tender tales about Finist - the Clear Falcon, and for the wise stories about the war - Platonov lay down in the ground next to his son. Huge, kind, naive, eternally inspired Leonid Solovyov ended up in the camp. My stepfather, who himself had experienced a mental crisis and was also seriously ill, kept repeating one thing: “Try to write as best as possible, everything else will come.”

I heeded this somewhat pointless advice and wrote the story “The Pipe,” which, along with “Winter Oak,” became perhaps the most popular of all the things I’ve written. 5
The resonance of the film “The Chairman”, the story “Patience” and the story “Get up and Go” was much greater.

The reader response was extremely warm and friendly. As a matter of fact, it was only with the advent of The Tube that I experienced that strange, immensely exciting feeling that you have a reader. But in Literaturnaya Gazeta Trubka was brutally scolded. And I got even more confused. Meanwhile, 1953 was approaching...

This year marks the beginning of the happiest period of my literary life, which continues to this day. One after another, stories came out, well and strongly noticed by readers: “Winter Oak”, “Komarov”, “Chetunov, Chetunov’s son”, “Night Guest”, “Get down, we’ve arrived”, etc. In critical articles statements appeared that many of These stories were written at the end of the forties, but remained hidden.

“Winter Oak”, “Rocky Threshold”, “Man and the Road”, “The Last Assault”, “Before the Holiday”, “Early Spring”, “My Friends, People”, “Pursuit”, “Chistye Prudy”, “Distant and close”, “Someone else’s heart”, “Alleys of my childhood”, “You will live” - this is not a complete list of collections that were published by me in the period 1953-1975. I also turned to a new genre for me - the story. In addition to “Difficult Happiness,” which is based on the story “The Pipe,” and “Bambi,” written along and sometimes across the famous forest fairy tale by Felix Salten, I wrote the stories “Pavlik,” “Pages of Trubnikov’s Life,” “Far from War.” ", "At the cordon", "Smoke break". “Pavlik” was of fundamental importance to me, because here I tried to settle accounts with that spiritual undergrowth, incapable of independent existence, which I spoke about at the beginning.

One of my close friends took me duck hunting one day. Since then, Meshchera, the Meshchera theme and the Meshchera resident, disabled World War II ranger Anatoly Ivanovich, have firmly entered my life. I wrote a book of stories about him and a script for the feature film “The Pursuit,” but, besides everything, I just really love this unusual, proud man and value his friendship.

It may seem strange how hunting fits in with the love of animals. But if we exclude those fat shooters for whom helpful huntsmen hunt down the game for shot, then all hunters love animals. Shooting at a rapidly flying duck, at a black grouse powerfully tearing from the support, at any bird, any animal, protected by its speed, agility, agility, is not cruelty; killing while hunting is love... But now, at a time of severe impoverishment of nature, it is better to wait with this love...

I spoke about my clean pond childhood, about a large house with two courtyards and wine cellars, about a large communal apartment in the “Chistye Prudy” series and “The Book of Childhood.”

My stories and stories are a real autobiography. Here “The Pipe,” which is persistently considered an autobiographical thing, was written from other people’s words. Everything else, of course, except for historical works, has either been experienced or at least seen.

Since the late fifties I have devoted a lot of time to cinema. I started with self-films, this was a period of study, never completed at the film institute, mastering a new genre, then I began to work on independent scripts, these include: the duology “The Chairman”, “The Indian Kingdom”, “Director”, “Save Our Souls” "("Red Tent"), "Tchaikovsky" (co-author), "Yaroslav Dombrovsky". I did not come to this work by accident. All my stories and tales are local, but I wanted to embrace life more widely, so that the winds of history and the masses of the people would rustle on my pages, so that the layers of time would turn over and great, drawn-out destinies would take place. To do this, you need to write a novel, but apparently, by its very structure, I cannot write “thickly.” But the script of a two-part film, operating over centuries and crowds, contains no more than one hundred and twenty pages, that is, it remains within the limits of a small form...

Of course, I didn’t only work for “large-scale” films. I am glad to have participated in such films as “The Night Guest”, “The Slowest Train”, “The Girl and the Echo”, “Dersu Uzala” 6
Academy Award". In 1990 I was awarded the European Agrigento Prize.

, “Late Meeting”, “The Riddle of Kalman”, “Bambi’s Youth”.

In recent years, without changing the times, I began to write a lot about the past, about figures of Russian and world culture. This is a large cycle of stories about Archpriest Avvakum, Trediakovsky, Bach, Goethe, Pushkin, Delvig, Tyutchev, A. Grigoriev, Leskov, Fet, Rachmaninov, stories about Tchaikovsky, Hemingway. I also wrote purely historical things: “Stronger than all other commands,” “Kulichek the Abbot,” “Kvasnik and Buzheninova.”

In 1980–1981, a collection of my works was published by the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house.

Now I have discovered another interesting area of ​​work: educational television. I made a number of programs for him: about Leskov, Lermontov, Innokenty Annensky, J. S. Bach, S. T. Aksakov.

There is a proud maxim, I heard it from many, including from one guard: “If it were given to me to start life over again, I would live it in exactly the same way.” I can't say that about myself. I believe that my life deserves approval only as a draft. I would have lived it completely differently. I would go to the history department and, returning from the war, would graduate from it. I would not be in a hurry to publish, but would be in a hurry to live, deeply, strongly, with concentration. I would not repeat many other mistakes. But no one gives me this opportunity to rewrite the draft. And I bless every day of life as I have lived it, and every day that remains to me.

YURIY NAGIBIN

DARKNESS AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

I buried my mother. Her stepfather left after her, suddenly before that somehow
strangely, pitifully and unpleasantly invigorated for the future. Several years have passed,
and I wanted to resurrect the image of my mother through the few that remained in the house
material signs of its existence. All her pathetic toilets were given away
to friends, more valuable things were sold by the stepfather, who was about to start a new life,
there remained a round leather hat box filled with all sorts of rubbish:
scraps of embroidery, a beaded handbag, a patent leather purse for needles,
two or three rings, St. George - one on a ribbon, a bunch of letters, several
photographs, for some reason my mother did not give them to me for the album - or not
did you like yourself on them, or were there some unpleasant things associated with them?
memories. I never bothered to find out the reason. Never loved
asking close people, being content with what they told me themselves.
There was also a lot of other things: a broken ostrich feather, once
adorning my musketeer hat, a tortoiseshell comb, a tiny
mother-of-pearl theater binoculars, a non-opening fan and my striped
a baby's vest with buttons, who knows why, dragged behind me into
old age. Mother treated this storage without any sentimentality: it’s worth
The box is on the closet, it doesn’t bother anyone, so let it stand. She rummaged through it very much
rarely to get something you need: masquerade binoculars, a beaded handbag
for filming for her friend - a little film actress, some special
sewing needle...
I removed the dusty moire box from the cabinet, wiped it with a rag and opened it. All
the items were in place, except for the rings - perhaps they were thrown into
the crucible of a stepfather's new life. The sight of a beaded handbag, as always, delivered
pleasure, it was striped, each stripe had its own color: red,
blue, purple, white, black - and crinkled pleasantly in the palm of your hand. I held in
all objects in their hands, but the sensitive fingertips did not respond to them
substance: neither the smooth mother-of-pearl of binoculars, nor the dry spine of an ostrich feather,
nor the patent leather of a purse for needles. And the eye remained indifferent, just like
hand. I was not moved by my mother’s young photographs. Now I understand why she
I didn’t love them: despite the similarity of features, they didn’t have my mother’s essence. It's strange that I
didn't notice this before. The two Georges have lost even that dull shine
which they still had the last time I looked in the box.
Matte, green, having lost the honorable weight of the award, they looked
brass fakes, like self-rewards of today's stuffed Cossacks.
All the things named and not named had nothing to do with the mother and
my longing for her. To resurrect the image of the mother through her material signs
I failed to exist, as I put it with incomprehensible eloquence. Moms
It wasn't in the box.
The letters were tied with black silk ribbon. I tore it apart
straightened the top envelope. "To her honor Ksenia Nikolaevna Krasovskaya" -
appeared on the envelope. Yes, my mother was a “nobility” and remained in the thick of it
Soviet rudeness. Well, what do they write to “her honor”? Naturally
In a psychological move, I took the letter out of the only unaddressed envelope.
Also, in a store, people take the tie that is available in one
copy, and only these ties constitute mass production.
The addressless letter first shot me, putting me to death, then
brought me back to a completely different life. The box was not a trash can. She kept
essence.
“Dear Ksenushka,” wrote the unknown author in small, neat handwriting,
as if he was saving paper, this letter will be given to you by a completely reliable person,
but don't use him as a postman. And don’t write to me at all until then
until I let you know. But there may not be a sign. I went too far
too far to turn back. I'm sorry. We knew that we couldn't
have a child. But what can you do if the future citizen so stubbornly wanted
be born. Listen to me carefully. He must have a father. You
do you understand what I mean? Serious times are coming, and we must forget
sentiment. I can't get out of this even if I survive now. They are not
They will calm down until they kill everyone. You need protection. You can't handle it alone
although you are strong. You won’t be able to swim out with such a load as I am. I need to be deleted
- Once and for all. Life is unpredictable, suddenly obsession and demons will end
will return to the underworld. Do you believe in that? Me not. Best and most reliable
If only Volodya were in the honor of the authorities, L. would never allow this.
And in general, “don’t trust the poet’s love, maiden.” Senya is also a poet, but not to that extent
degree, he is a good person, but, unfortunately, he is a former homeowner, and this is for him
will remember.
Mara remains. You loved each other, I think he still loves you,
which, of course, does not interfere with his flying novels. I don't believe in his father's
qualities, but they are not required. But behind him is a wonderful family, a mighty
father, wonderful mother, charming brother. This is a bastion - they won't let you
abyss. I don’t undertake to advise how to arrange all this; in everyday affairs you
smarter than me. Sorry and goodbye. TO.".
Now I cannot express how I felt reading this letter. But me and
Then I couldn’t do it, there was too much going on. I remember from
with absolute certainty the feeling of gross fatigue and the boorish phrase that
I said out loud:
- I should have put on a condom.
Thus I welcomed my father's return.
And it's not that I didn't like that voice from beyond the grave. Quicker
I liked it. He was gentle, serious, decisive, without any ballast
remorse, regret, guilt and other intellectual saliva. All by
the truth of life, which is never immaculate and prudent in
every movement. It was in the spirit and character of my mother: when fate
brought another dirty trick to her, she didn’t spill her emotions, but immediately
began to act. And I also thought that they wouldn’t have anything anyway
it turns out that people must be different from each other in order to withstand a long
life together. If only a little drier, more mocking, this letter resonated within me
in the voice of a mother.
With my rude phrase I responded to the leaden fatigue that suddenly fell upon me.
on me. It’s as if the whole life I’ve lived was slowly rolling over me
heavy wheel.

At first, like Mowgli, I didn’t know who I was, sure that I was nothing
different from the rest of the wolf pack. But it was easier for Mowgli to discover his
dissimilarity with the animate world around him (Kipling’s animals are animate),
he was the only one - naked, hairless, fangless and clawless, able to
only stand, but also run on two legs. And all the living creatures were around
They look like me - pets don’t count - and for a long time I didn’t realize
that the community of bipeds is deceptive, that in the myriad of human beings there are many such that
marked with an invisible sign of inferiority.
It’s hard to say when I discovered that most men and some
women who come to our house belong to this tribe of outcasts, equally
like my best friend Misha (in childhood photographs taken by Chistoprudny
photographer m-gunner, next to me, against the backdrop of a white castle, palm trees and an airship
in the curly sky, invariably standing with his leg beautifully outstretched, an elegant boy,
plum-eyed brunette with a hairstyle that was called "bubikopf"), too
belongs to the marked caste, and that most of the children with whom we play
every day in the Abrikosovsky Garden and exchange visits from time to time,
from the same tribe.
But I knew almost from birth about the heterogeneity of people, which seemed
natural to me and not offensive to anyone. My family, myself, our guests, my
friends in the garden, walks and children's parties are intellectuals, and everyone
the rest: flatmates, inhabitants of our big house, for the rarest
with the exception of the courtyard peers, with whom I had not met until now, they are lackeys.
That's what my mother called them, in any case, which didn't stop her from easily finding
they have a common language. Then I realized that mutual understanding was not about
familiarity, but on the exact opposite - instant and joyful recognition
plebeians of the lordly - higher - essence of my mother. Apparently the revolution failed
destroy, along with hundreds of thousands of bar, the inexplicable charm of nobility.
Kholuyami - mother did not put a contemptuous, derogatory meaning into
this word, simply stated social affiliation - there were: and
guardian of my childhood, kind genius at home, beloved of loved ones
Veronya, and her sister, wonderful Katya, who was in my family for a short time
nannies, and those huge families that moved into those released with death or
for other reasons, the decline of my relatives in the room that once belonged to us
entire apartments, any service, be it a janitor, stoker, fitter, salesman
in the store, the hairdresser, the greengrocer from the village, who brought it on the sledge
sauerkraut and pickles, thrush with tin cans smelling
Antonov apple, he was a lackey and a manager, the first representative of the Soviet
authority in my life, whom I revered, feared and hated.
I was surprised by the word “read” that slipped under the pen. Did I really "read"
gloomy, silent, with a knife-like glint of a sullen look from under the brows of a lackey
Dedkova? Yes, this was the attitude of everyone prescribed by the grandfather, the head of the family,
except for the mother, who allowed herself to buck, to the young, deadly
authorities. This lesson of slavery stayed with me throughout my life. To any boss
met me on my way: the leaders of the Writers' Union, party
secretaries of various ranks who called me to justice, directors of publishing houses,
editors-in-chief of magazines and newspapers, army commanders during the war - I
treated with hatred, contempt and respect, grateful to them for everything
the evil that they could have done to me, but they did not do it to the end.
And now I was stopped by the word “young” in the application to the devil,
crippled the lives of my parents, my own, my children and grandchildren, not
stop my birth. “Young” is something fresh, promising, flying. Wildly
sounds like “young executioner” or “young murderer”. But there really was power
very young, only three years older than me. God, how little
I missed the time that made the green lights flash so dreamily,
mother's ever-preoccupied eyes! She was then "their honor Ksenia
Nikolaevna Krasovskaya", this is what appears on the envelopes of the few surviving
old letters. Mother loved her past too much to feast on it in
dried form.
Having barely realized my existence, I began to feel the era that remained beyond the line,
as a single time layer. I had the same relationship with time as
ancient Greeks. For Pericles' contemporaries, the historical war with the Persians and
the destruction of the legendary Troy did not have a time gap, both
happened before, not now. And when - the Greek consciousness is not
occupied, was beyond comprehension. I irritated my mother terribly with questions
about the Napoleonic invasion, demanding private details, as from an eyewitness
those exciting events. Explain such idiocy - or is there something else here? -
impossible, but already as a schoolboy, in love with The Three Musketeers, I admitted
meeting with old d'Artagnan and was anxiously awaiting it. Was he really that crazy?
Boborykin, when he was born, lived for a year under Pushkin, and after leaving earthly
vale, lived with me for a year. One single life shares and together -
connects me with Pushkin.
Let's go back to the lackeys. They were divided into those who depended on us: Veronya, her
numerous relatives, neighbors who were treated for free by my grandfather - as in
all the lackey families, their children were constantly getting sick, all in a row
infectious diseases (breathing this air saturated with microbes, I never
didn’t get infected with anything), and to the lackeys who didn’t get enough of us - we are them
Everyone was afraid, again, except my mother. Thus, the first difference between people,
what was revealed to me lay in the social sphere, although I am not sure what it was
the word is appropriate, because the intelligentsia is not a class, but a stratum, lackeys in general
the concept is amorphous. But the reader will understand what I mean. And it's not homemade
legend, but the truth, confirmed by numerous evidence: after
infantile cannibal language, all these “mum-mum”, “tprua”, “bo-bo”
and the like, after “mom”, “Veroni”, a little later “dad”, that’s what I called
under the general pressure of an unfamiliar person whose purpose in the house was
unclear, I pronounced “intelligentsia” clearly and loudly. Then, after a pause and
as if thinking, I said: “electricity,” after which, shocked by these
linguistic feats, shut up for a whole year. My family was horrified that I
I was speechless, but having fulfilled my vow of silence to who knows who, I began to chat and
I can’t stop until today. The most amazing thing is that,
Having said the word "intelligentsia", I knew what it meant. This clarity with
has become clouded over the years, and in the nearness of the outcome I am completely confused. Worse
what happened with “electricity”, I didn’t understand then and I still don’t understand what
this is what it is. It suddenly occurred to me that my infant, dozing
consciousness was looking for something similar to the famous Leninist formula of communism.
The concept of "intellectual" allows for a broad interpretation, ours was no better
and no worse than all the others, but the “lack” in our family understanding did not coincide
with the commonly used one, which derives from it the verb “to slack” -
to grovel, to curry favor with those in power, for us a “lack” is
commoner, black bone or, older, boor.