In Russia it was proposed to establish the Putin Prize in Literature

A joke about the fact that all over the world parties are created in order to take over power, and only in Russia this is done so that the authorities take them over and go among the people, it seems, from the stage of KVN. I don’t know about the parties, but the writers’ “Union of February 24” that emerged last weekend openly says in its Declaration that the state must clearly declare its interests in literature and pay attention to writers who have taken the position of the state.

So that the official who decides who to give money from the budget and who not does not get confused, in the preamble the “Februaryists” point out that we have writers who have renounced their country, there are those who adhere to aggressive neutrality (an excellent phrase, purely Orwellian). And there are authors of “war poetry”, trench prose and front-line essays who remained faithful to the Motherland and the people, who joined the Union.

“The Union of February 24” opposes monopolism in literature and does not strive for a monopoly itself – the intention is excellent, but there is a nuance. In comments to the Declaration on social networks, they write that the document ignores the existence of the Writers’ Union of Russia, which no less actively supports the Union of Voters, for which the head of the Union, Nikolai Ivanov, and a number of prominent figures were awarded medals of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. However, among the signatories there are combatants – for example, volunteers Dmitry Artis and Dmitry Filippov. The writer Daniel Orlov is known for actually helping the front (and not just transferring books of poetry there), military correspondent Anna Dolgareva can hardly be blamed for supporting the special operation from a distance.

But what is important is not what these or those participants in the literary process did for the country, but what they want from it in return and what exactly they wrote. We carefully read the Declaration: “The state must (“should” is a favorite verb in relation to the Motherland, heard from patriotic writers) stop spending funds on demonstratively politically neutral projects in the field of literature, not to mention financing those who are engaged in outright sabotage.”

Who is it proposed to spend the money on? The answer is obvious. And the clause that “we do not expect material benefits from the state,” but only “we expect to be useful and expect help in publishing books and magazines,” is very weak.

Opponents from the opposite ideological camp talk about the newly-minted “allies” as people who asked the authorities for money (and received it) individually all these two years, and now they are doing it collectively. But, I’m afraid, this reproach cannot be personified.

Recently, writers have been talked about exclusively as dependents – it is proposed to finally legitimize the profession of a writer, assign payments, transfer care (read funding) from the Ministry of Digital Development to the Ministry of Culture, support, provide royalties…

But the moment will come when the very people, to whom they talk so much about being close, will ask: “Why should the country support modern literature? Why can’t she feed herself?” It’s clear why he can’t, but go explain.

But the most important thing in this whole story is the following: literally the next day, the poet Dmitry Melnikov called for the creation of the Putin Prize in the field of literature and art in Russia, following the example of Stalin’s. Melnikov believes that it is necessary (another favorite word) for “Putin himself to read the applicants. Well, at least I looked through it.” Only this, the writer living in the Moscow region is sure, will allow Russian literature to be pulled out of the underground.

None of the researchers doubt that Stalin read all the books of applicants for the prize named after him, which was awarded for 14 years (during the life of the leader – 11). And in 1941, Alexey Tolstoy, Sergeev-Tsensky and Mikhail Sholokhov received “Stalinka” of the first degree in prose. And in poetry – Nikolai Aseev, classic of Belarusian literature Yanka Kupala and classic of literature of the Ukrainian SSR Pavlo Tychina, and second place (I will name three names out of five) – Lebedev-Kumach, Sergei Mikhalkov and Tvardovsky.

Let Melnikov and all the other contemporaries who support the SVO or hide a fig in their pocket forgive me, but among them there is neither Sholokhov nor Tvardovsky. So the president has no serious reason to put aside the volume of Lermontov, which, according to Vladimir Putin, is constantly on his bedside table.

To whom and for what should we give the Putin Prize in this case? The authors of the “Union of February 24” (two-thirds of them are poets), together with Melnikov, created, say, two hundred poems, of which no more than ten went “to the people.” But only one poem by Melnikov himself is comparable to the poetry of the Second World War, “Write a letter to me later, as if I were alive…” about the battles for Mariupol.

And 90% of what was created after this poem was a stream of rhyming texts marked with the “necessary” meaning: take the name of the city of Donbass plus the words “fighters”, “tank”, “machine gun”, “heroes”, “battle”, “death” – and the poem is ready. The exception from the entire poetic array is perhaps the documentary “Diary of a Volunteer” by Artis, written through the eyes of an eyewitness and witness.

It is also worth noting that the name of the “Union…” does not evoke associations with the events in Ukraine – first of all, the pre-revolutionary “Union of October 17” of Guchkov and Rodzianko comes to mind. Most likely, the writers will soon realize this themselves and rebrand.

And since most of them are in one way or another connected with Zakhar Prilepin, since Prilepin and Margarita Simonyan were involved in the promotion of “for the SVO” poets, they traveled all over the country. Maybe they really should have called themselves “Rodney” or “Prilepintsy” or something.