The poet Malenko wrote about the terrorist attack: “There will be no partial war”

There will be no partial war

The nightmare called “Crocus” gradually passes, but does not let go. And he won’t let go – that’s already clear. Now we have to live with this, with a new consciousness that it cannot be as before. It shouldn’t! When the horrors of war are for some, and for others, life remains in chocolate. The poet Vlad Malenko, who heads the Moscow Theater of Poets, wrote specifically for MK.

Once upon a time, during the Second Chechen War, my consciousness was cut and stunned by the contrast:

there are soldiers in the trenches, black fumes, the roar of turntables, the work of artillery, but that’s all

two hours’ flight – and the eternal capital’s “disco”, night bars, imposing audiences in theaters…

There we made our way in the dark, repeating the password for passage, like “Our Father…”, and holding flashlights as far as possible from our bodies at arm’s length, got up at five in the morning for engineering reconnaissance, and here “boom-boom-boom” and beauty contests. It was reminiscent of some kind of terrible performance with its own laws. And I couldn’t come to terms with it. I remember how at night I crawled out of bed and crawled along the floor to the toilet room.

In May 2014, we brought car tires to the backyard of the Taganka Theater and staged the first reading of parts of the play “Southeast. Farewell to Slavyansk.”

We told ourselves and the then small gathering of spectators about the new reality, about anxiety, about vigilance. In February 2022, having assembled my creative team, I said: “Guys! We will no longer live like yesterday. A completely different story has begun for both our country and the world as a whole.” He wrote then: “When a thief with a knife is walking in the hallway, it’s stupid to drink to the good world in the kitchen!” Biblical times have returned. Everyone needs to turn on, take out the parental code of life in a military situation from memory. There is no partial war. The country needs to relearn the science of attention. It is necessary to uproot the carelessness of the plush years. To be honest, Russian carelessness, laziness, gullibility, like the ancient Indians – this whole set needs to be thrown into the trash. As a nation we are on the Rubicon. We need to unite and everyone in their place work for a future victory, and not say loud toasts to it in the evenings.

Two years ago, in March 2022, I wrote and will repeat now:

Spring stands in a short coat

And he consoles as best he can.

Don’t get used to military reports,

Otherwise the soul will become numb.

The moon will fall heads for Easter,

And death will not come to work.

Muscovite in the morning cafe!

Don’t get used to Donetsk photos.

Otherwise he will touch you with iron,

Not in Volnovakha, on Volkhonka.

Do you hear this time moaning

In an ordinary radio speaker!

The time has come for clear thoughts,

That there are no final stops.

Victory is a church for those involved,

Not for the careless.”

Vlad MALENKO,

artistic director of the Moscow Theater of Poets