The son of Yuz Aleshkovsky Alexey: “Father would be pleased with the monument with a dog”

In Russia, for the first time after the death of the author, his book of “reselected” works was published

On March 21 this year, the life of Yuz Aleshkovsky, a prose writer, screenwriter and poet, author of “camp songs” and, in particular, lines about Comrade Stalin, a great scientist, that actually became Russian folklore, ended in the United States. In Russia, not so long ago, a volume of Aleshkovsky’s selected prose was published with an afterword by his son Alexei. But the MK correspondent talked with Alexei Iosifovich not only about today’s and future books by his great father.

– That “Re-elected” includes well-known works for all of us: “Nikolai Nikolaevich”, “Kangaroo”, “Disguise”, “Hand” and “Ring in a Case”. Why such a set of texts?

– The question, of course, is more to the compiler, but the answer is obvious: these are the most famous and popular works of my father, and I agree with this choice.

– In social networks, you wrote that the afterword to the book managed to please your father and that he chose the title himself.

– This afterword was first published in a book of his poems and songs in 2020. He himself asked me to write it, and he really liked it.

– Are there any unpublished works of Aleshkovsky?

– My father has a novel that he wrote and did not have time to finish. I worked in different files, which often duplicated each other, and complained that I got confused in them. Ira (Irina Feliksovna, Aleshkovsky’s widow, Slavist, – I.V.) says that she asked the editor, with whom her father constantly worked, to sort out these materials.

– Did your father tell you the title of this novel?

– Not. He only mentioned it, but Ira said that the text was almost finished.

– Are there any plans to publish some diary entries, correspondence – should we expect the preparation of a complete and comprehensive collection of works, like Dostoevsky or Leo Tolstoy?

– My father did not keep diaries. Maybe someday it will come to the publication of excerpts from his letters, but this is not in the nearest plans.

– Will there be a new collection of works by Aleshkovsky? If such an idea arises again in Russia, who will they turn to?

– In Russia, only to me. There were already collections, the very first remarkable three-volume edition was designed by Andrey Makarevich (recognized as a foreign agent – I.V.), then another additional volume was released.

– If you could take only one book from your dad to a desert island, which would it be?

– Probably, the story “Nikolai Nikolaevich”.

– And what about monuments or memorial plaques – are such initiatives being voiced at the moment?

– They didn’t contact me. But I think. father would be pleased if a monument with a dog were erected to him in the Neskuchny Garden, where he lived in his youth.

What needs to be done to bring this idea to life? Maybe we should start a petition?

– The petition is not a very correct way, as it seems to me. Here, perhaps, appeals from readers and cultural figures, if there are many, can help.