Nobel pygmies: how they deceived the world again

As a rule, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been the most questioned recently. From the latter, we immediately recall the awarding of Svetlana Aleksievich – a political order, or Bob Dylan – almost a genius, yes, but what does literature have to do with it? Last year, a Tanzanian writer named Abdulrazak Gurna was awarded, have you heard of this? That’s the same. But what a wording: “For his uncompromising and sensual denunciation of the consequences of colonialism and the fate of refugees in the maelstrom of cultures and continents.” Black Lives Matter is just around the corner, isn’t it?

By the way, I am often asked which of the Nobel laureates of the 21st century is worth reading. I answer: John Coetzee, Elfriede Jelinek, Mo Yan, Alice Munro, Peter Handke – these are the ones you should definitely read. This paragraph as nota bene.

This year, the Frenchman Michel Houellebecq was revered as the main contender. My attitude towards him changed from wary-negative to very respectful. His latest books, Submission and Serotonin, are must-reads. They brilliantly convey that murderous quagmire in which modern society is bogged down.

However, as a rule, the main contender for the Nobel Prize does not receive. So this time the author from France triumphed, but not Houellebecq. The award was presented to Annie Erno. What is this writer famous for, if in principle famous? She is revered by feminists, activists of the MeToo movement and so on in the same vein. Bourgeois prose, sustained in accordance with the trends of the modern world.

The candidacy seems to be a compromise, albeit not a solid one. However, it was not without scandal. The trick is that Annie Erno is accused of being close to the BDS movement – the one that advocates the boycott of various goods (including goods from Israel). And in 2019, the German Bundestag passed a resolution that assessed the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. So this statement by Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, looks, in general, logical: “Awarding Annie Erno with the Nobel Prize in Literature is a defeat in the fight against anti-Semitism and misanthropy.” Not bad, right? However, Handke somehow falls short of the anti-Serbian scandal associated with the laureate.

Well, what about Russian writers? Among the candidates was Lyudmila Ulitskaya, a wonderful writer, but her chances were estimated very modestly – 16 to 1. Sadness. Although it all started with the fact that on October 7, 1910, Leo Tolstoy refused to consider his candidacy for the Nobel Prize – the count was convinced of the unconditional harm of money. Certainly, the elder from Yasnaya Polyana foresaw what the prize would turn into. Well, only five Russians were awarded it: Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky. Yes, even then the award was extremely politicized. Although Sholokhov could not be pushed aside. Of the latter, Vladimir Makanin and Eduard Limonov could definitely claim the Nobel Prize – it did not work out.

However, with all the criticism of the Nobel Prize in Literature, it cannot be denied that its winners reflect the socio-cultural trends and trends that dominate society. They reflect and, more importantly, they are asked. Hmm, the question is: what trends are being set by modern Russian literature and, by expanding, Russian culture in general? And I’m not talking about the fact that over the past 40 years we have not given the world either a new Dostoevsky or a new Shostakovich. This is, let’s say, a piece phenomenon. The question here is that at a certain stage, Russian culture began to mediocrely copy Western culture. Not to absorb and adapt the best of it, but to imitate, sometimes even sliding into a parody.

In many ways, this is why what happens after February 24th happens. After all, it is impossible, while defending identity and independence, to remain dependent and lost in the field of ideas and meanings. One cannot oppose oneself to the West by imitating the West in such a way. Sometimes it seems that the special path of Russia, about which so many words have been said, has been lost somewhere, as if in Goncharov’s great novel The Cliff.

It’s important to say this. Interest in literature, in the culture of a particular country directly depends on the place: political, economic, geopolitical, that this country occupies in the world. And yes, Soviet culture, of course, was hushed up, not fully recognized, but at least carefully studied. With modern Russian culture, everything turned out to be sadder. Well, it ended up that they tried to cancel Russian culture in the world. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Stravinsky. And this, of course, is insane. But no less madness is that we ourselves, in a certain sense, have abolished our own – truly our own – culture.

However, and here I turn to the second part of my reflections, this Nobel afterword, modern culture, in principle, tends to focus on the pygmies. Isaac Newton has a famous expression: “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” So, modern civilization largely stands on the shoulders of dwarfs. And we observe a characteristic grinding of everything: values, morals, people. It seems that really large animals have died out, only their descriptions remain. So I said: Nobel laureate Svetlana Aleksievich. Well? Who is she? A talented artisan, but nothing more. Will she stand on a par with Camus, Kipling, Mann?

The same trouble, maybe even worse, with the so-called Nobel Peace Prize. It is obvious that from a certain moment it began to be handed over to people only of the corresponding political orientation, but the trouble is that they were more likely to be engaged in war than in peace. What, for example, did such notable “peacemakers” as Al Gore and Barack Obama do? In the same year, Alexei Navalny and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya were revered as the main favorites.

However, others won in the end. This year, the Nobel Prize was awarded to the Belarusian activist Ales Byalyatsky, the Russian Center “Memorial” (recognized as a foreign agent) and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. The latter organization is something completely fictitious and astoundingly useless, best described by the capacious epithet “grant-eater”. Whom and what freedoms this Ukrainian center defended is a huge question, curved like a vicious fishhook. As for the “Memorial”, then, of course, he has worthy deeds (though the trouble is that they are unworthy too), but the Nobel Prize – isn’t it too much?

Although, perhaps, such an award has its own, albeit somewhat perverted logic. The trick is that the notorious civilized world has long turned into something like a corporation controlled by a global boss. It writes out awards, distributes positions, forms a board of honor. And all in accordance with strict corporate rules. Candidates are selected for this or that post not at all according to objective criteria, but mainly according to the so-called agenda. Radical feminism, you say? Please put women in positions. Aggressive LGBT propaganda? A black lesbian is very good.

But the tragedy here is different. It lies in the fact that the so-called opinion leaders, or simply leaders, are absolutely nothing! They are empty, meaningless and incapable of independent decision making. Even those who want to appear villainous are only pygmies compared to the dinosaurs of the old world. They are more like sickly clowns like the Joker than like infernal butchers and executioners. And the vast majority of them, all these leaders of states, are nothing more than puppets in the hands of a ventriloquist, through which orders and instructions are voiced.

The world has long existed in the construction predicted by Samuel Huntington in an article and later in the book The Clash of Civilizations – The West against the rest (that is, the West against the rest). And in order for this construction to work in other countries that make up this very rest, you need to place your deputies there (or Gauleiters, as you like). And in order for them to look more impressive, solid, significant, they, these governors, need to be given prizes and awards. Moreover, as Julius Evola noted, a person cannot exist without hierarchies and authorities. And therefore they are created – artificially and brazenly.

This is how this great premium swindle works. It’s like inflating balloons, bright, spectacular, but completely empty inside. So you inflated the balloon, clamped it so that the air would not come out, but you just let it go a little – and that’s it, there is no balloon. Yes, you can still tie a knot, but it will still be blown away, right? Or, look, it will burst, which we, in fact, are observing. After all, no matter how many awards you give, on which stool you put it, the pygmy will still remain a pygmy.