A monument to Limonov appeared in Moscow

Instead of an epigraph…

Eduard Limonov (according to Savenko’s passport) is a multi-valued and significant personality, largely underestimated, and somewhat overestimated. Surprisingly, in this thin man with a high voice and a piercing look, there was literally everything, because it is so difficult to briefly say at least something voluminous about him and it is impossible to characterize exhaustively. And it is definitely impossible to say more than he wrote about himself in poems and novels created in the style of autofiction, where real facts are intertwined with fiction.

Who is Eddie, or Grandfather, as he called himself in recent years? An irreconcilable radical, the founder of the National Bolshevik Party (banned in Russia) and the marginal newspaper Limonka? Certainly. A scandalous writer whose debut novel thrived thanks to very explicit erotic scenes and an abundance of obscenity? It is what it is. A philosopher for whom invective vocabulary and pornography were just decorations for describing the complex human essence? Definitely. Aesthete and ascetic. Clochard dandy. An anti-humanist (this is how he calls himself in the book “We Had a Great Era”), who knew how to hate passionately, and a ladies’ man who knew how to love just as passionately (Limonov had three official wives and no less civil ones, all of them were the first beauties).

On the grave of Eduard Limonov there is a monument by the sculptor Mikhail Baskakov, where he is depicted in a fashionable coat with fittings in his hand. The first version of this sculpture was going to be presented in Gostiny Dvor, next to a typewriter, from which sheets filled with texts fly to the ceiling. The monument is successful – Limonov is undoubtedly a destroyer – but the author of these lines associates his figure with another sculpture created even before Limonov climbed onto the podium of fame. Alberto Giacometti’s “walking man”, according to the French writer Francis Ponge, “the executioner and the victim at the same time, the hunter and prey”, “the man at the pillar of his contradictions”, who “in a dilapidated suffering world is looking for himself – starting from scratch”.

Monument from the Bach archive

– Why do you need it? I ask an artist who decided to celebrate Eduard Limonov’s birthday by creating an unauthorized mural.

“Limonov is a complex phenomenon that needs to be comprehended,” replies the “Russian Banksy”, who, like the British artist, hides his identity. – Limonov is a part of our history, just like Dostoevsky or Brodsky. The man was, and it can not be forgotten. It cannot be erased from history. I basically do not want to give assessments to Limonov. I am the bridge between past and present. I broadcast memory. Here’s something for you to think about. Turn off the TV and turn on your brain. Look it up, read it, draw your own conclusions.

– Limonov is a man with a rich and dramatic biography. What specific memory will we broadcast?

Let’s think together.

On reflection, we choose three rare documents that a year ago, exactly on the eve of the 79th birthday of Eduard Limonov, were sold at one of the Moscow auctions and were bought by one of the Moscow museums. The greatest excitement at the auction was caused by the scheme with the title, where the militant spirit of Limonov is combined with the “hellish poetics” of Solzhenitsyn: “In the first circle. The conquest of Moscow bohemia through the sewing of trousers.

The previously unknown document comes from the archive of Bach – cartoonist Vagrich Bakhchanyan, who came up with the pseudonym Limonov for Eduard Savenko during a language game, where each participant had to compose an unusual surname for himself or another. Bach came up with Limonov, not yet suspecting that this name would become a household name.

Edik met Bakhchanyan back in Kharkov, where he grew up, began to write poetry and learned to sew. A friend brought him together with the artist Boris Zhutovsky, a participant in the famous exhibition “30 Years of the Moscow Union of Artists” in the Manege, who almost fell into logging because of that opening day. And it started … As a result of “fan” acquaintances – with the help of orders for tailoring trousers – Limonova recognized the whole color of the intellectual underground. His beloved Elena Shchapova, the wife of a famous artist, who later left her husband and left for the United States with Limonov, wrote: “Eduard at that time was a very touching provincial: with wild curls, in an embroidered Ukrainian shirt and round glasses. Limonov was well known in Moscow, but not because he wrote poetry – he sewed trousers perfectly.

But more importantly, then Edik Savenko recognized the Moscow underground, was fed by it and turned into the poet Limonov. But we are talking about a young man without a higher education, who spent his childhood in the midst of post-war devastation, almost fell into bandits (during one unsuccessful “operation”, a friend died before his eyes, after which he decided to earn honest labor), managed to work as a high-altitude fitter, a loader, a peddler of newspapers and books, a waiter and a cook … A young man with hands, who hitherto wrote rather primitive poems, suddenly found himself at the epicenter of Moscow’s intellectual life. More precisely, not simply and not suddenly – he himself immersed himself in it, set the task of capturing the Moscow bohemia – and captured it.

There are about a hundred names in the scheme: Moritz, Kabakov, Neizvestny, Voroshilov, Aleinikov, Pivovarov, Sapgir, Rabin, Kropivnitsky, Kholin, Kublanovskiy, Sidur, Brodsky, Krivulin, Levitansky, Bruni … Some are circled and highlighted in red. Lines stretch from circles to other names that paint a picture of literary and artistic Moscow from the inside – from the point of view of human ties.

The drawing looks like a work of a conceptualist or a diagram of a future novel. However, that’s the way it is. Before us is the same soil, in the language of a tailor – cutting, on the basis of which much later Limonov “sew” his books.

It would not be superfluous to note here that Limonov will not describe the most “delicious” scenes in his novels, but will stitch them together – from wardrobe elements and costume details. The writer always treated them with special attention. But his mastery was manifested not so much in the fact that the author was brilliantly versed in fashion, but rather in how knowledge of the subject helped the writer express the emotion, mood, drama of the episode. This, perhaps, is what distinguishes Limonov’s literary style – to express something total through objective experience, weaving a large and paradoxical image out of simple, often colloquial words.

The next part of the triptych was a self-portrait made by Limonov in 1967–1968 with a ballpoint pen as an illustration for a typewritten biography. Just then, Eduard Savenko arrived in Moscow. Just then, in a short autobiography, he writes that since 1967 he considers himself a poet. This is the same “zero point” from where Limonov begins. And in this simple drawing – the whole of Eddie, with his unshakable inconsistency and rebellious spirit. Before us is a double portrait: here is Limonov in his usual raincoat and glasses with thick lenses facing us, and here he is with his back.

The third part of the triptych is a text written in the early 1970s by 27-year-old Eddie, already grown into the metropolitan bohemia: “… Bohemian Moscow is represented by basement workshops, apartments on the outskirts, vodka, a tangle of relationships that bind everyone – absolutely everyone. There is a lot of bourgeois in Russian bohemia. But I love these people and this life very much. Having once arrived from the provinces, he experienced the intoxicating feeling of a young man who came to Paris. The sketch is capaciously titled: “The highest complexity is simplicity.”

Literary puzzle in the alley

A collage of photos is mounted in a special neural network program that combines photo fragments and makes each squiggle and letter extremely clear. The background for the triptych is yellowed sheets with manuscripts. One, two – and the images are added together. I just want to exclaim: “What technology has come to!” But it is precisely at this moment of the triumph of progress that the program … hangs. “Mystic! the artist wonders. “It has never happened before. Yes, this is the spirit of Limonov hovering over us and laughing. You have to restart your computer and do everything from scratch. After several circles of technocratic hell, everything is finally ready.

Where will this fresco be? – I’m interested in the “Russian Banksy”.

“I have already chosen a place,” the artist responds, gathering everything he needs into a small cloth bag. A brush with metal teeth and a rag flies into it – all that is needed to glue the image, already printed and cut into fragments. – In the morning I applied a special composition in the niche so that the fresco would sit as it should. And at that moment, can you imagine, the director of the local bookstore ran out and started shouting like in a Soviet film: “What are you doing here?”

– What about you?

— Yes nothing — made legs. There is a place where Limonov once performed. There is now a bookstore, and next to our niche.

15 minutes along dark alleys – and we are there. The hallway is dark and quiet. “Come on,” the artist commands and begins to glue the fresco on the wall soaked in a special solution. “Just turn away from the cameras,” he warns me and his muse friend, who is on the lookout. Puts the image together like a puzzle. Knocks on it with a metal brush, rubs with a rag. “Now is the magic itself,” the artist whispers in a conspiratorial tone.

At this moment, a girl appears in the archway in flared pants, reminiscent of those cut by Limonov. Stops. Silent. Watching closely. The face is stone. The spectator does not interfere with the “Russian Banksy”: a few deft movements – and that’s it. An empty niche turns into a literary monument. It is difficult to identify Limonov in it – you need to guess him here. This is not a classic monument for you, but a mystery that requires immersion. And this understatement has its own charm, which seems to fascinate our silent spectator. She leaves without saying a word.

At the fresco with Limonov’s secret scheme, another spectator remains – this is Dasha Dugina, whose black-and-white portrait is found in the opposite niche. The artist posted it here a few months ago. He is convinced that it is necessary to preserve different memories. He plans to immortalize Yuri Shatunov and Igor Talkov, temple images and the Russian avant-garde on the streets of Moscow. The cultural code of Russia is woven from the same complex contradictions as Limonov, as the whole era, the whole country. “The highest complexity is simplicity.”

Our secret artist consciously avoids judgments, he offers material for reflection. But his companion-muse, in a feminine way, notices the unimportantly significant: “Strange, many of Limonov’s statements seemed absurd – infinitely radical, paradoxical. And suddenly they come true – from this goosebumps. And those who previously denied Limonov now speak in his words, while some of his books are being removed from city libraries. The world is unpredictable in its somersaults.”

* * *

The street monument to the strange hero of the era of postmodernism, a man in eternal denial and eternally denied, fixed him at the point of beginning, which happened at the end of the thaw. When a young hooligan was just gaining intellectual baggage in order to commit his great and terrible deeds and mistakes in the future. Emigration, the scandalous novel “It’s me, Eddie”, politics, prison – all this will happen later. Here we are in a moment of pure conceptualism, when the newborn poet is just getting ready to conquer…

Instead of an afterword…

Edward Limonov. From the unreleased.

Manuscript from 1967:

In all important things, the most essential thing is style, not sincerity;

The study of what moral and immoral actions are indicates a halt in mental development;

Only small people know themselves.
Early 1970s, Moscow:
But if someone is to blame
So it’s my fault
You see – the jacket is my brother!
You see – the jacket of the country!
You see the pants of the alleys
Daughter Turgenev proud
You have a stomach ache
Or with a firm back
I am an alabaster forehead
Genius of times and buildings
I never do it
Run without names
I’m your boss – lie
I am your complete Jew
I am a capital louse
I run between the poplars
For every dog ​​to know
The time has come
Wind tight to us to know
brought new knowledge
You and the draftsman
You and the artist – ah!
Am I against you
I’m against the darkness in my eyes
I am against my darkness
You do what you want…