Vice-President of the Russian PEN Center explained why Alexander Gorodnitsky is cooler than Bob Dylan

On March 20, Alexander Gorodnitsky, one of the founders of the author’s song genre in Russia, turned 90 years old. How tourist folklore became real poetry, the famous poet Yuri Ryashentsev told the MK correspondent that day, who revealed the secret of his popularity. This time we decided to look at the personality of the hero of the day from a different angle.

Our today’s interlocutor, vice-president of the Russian PEN Center, writer and playwright Yevgeny Popov is a graduate of the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute. “The songs of Gorodnitsky have been sung or purred by all geologists of the country for more than 60 years. And there are no former geologists. For me, happiness is that I am familiar with this legendary person, whose work and personality are unique, ”Popov immediately said.

– What is the most important thing in the works of Alexander Moiseevich?

– St. Petersburg culture and “Russian” life – this is the nerve of Alexander Gorodnitsky’s creativity. Right now I’m talking to you, and my head is spinning: “There is no map for this place, we are sailing forward along the outline.” Perhaps this is the meaning of Russia.

– The fusion of poetry and song has become a world trend – just remember the Nobel laureate Bob Dylan. But it seems that this merging was most pronounced in the Russian tradition.

– Poetry, merged with the song, is more of a Soviet, not a Russian tradition. Or rather, the tradition of the “thaw”, a prominent representative of which is the great Alik Gorodnitsky. About the American bandura player who received the Nobel Prize, I, perhaps, will not say anything. It’s not my business to whom and why the Swedes give money and why this party event enjoys such unshakable authority. I respect Gorodnitsky more. He started in St. Petersburg with his peers Rein, Kushner BEFORE Brodsky, who was born in 1940. Among poets and bards, Gorodnitsky takes the place of Gorodnitsky, and this is higher than the first or even any extra-class place. There is no second Gorodnitsky, Okudzhava or Vysotsky, and there cannot be, just as there can be no second Andrey Platonov, Zoshchenko, or Shukshin, Iskander, Aksenov.

– The song-poetry appeared in a certain place at a certain time – is it not an accident?

– In the 60s, a “thaw” tape revolution happened in our strict country and, thanks to the bard song, an uncensored sincerity arose. And the profession was correctly chosen by the young intellectual Gorodnitsky, because in geology there was a traditional craving for culture and there was more freedom than at a factory or research institute. That is why I knew Gorodnitsky’s songs from the age of 15, and I got acquainted with the poetry of the St. Petersburg people mentioned above ten years later. But there are also great “just bards”. For example, the classic of the genre Vladimir Turiansky or Volodya Berezhkov, Alik Mirzoyan, Misha Kochetkov. However, it is not necessary to oppose poets to bards. Both of them may be offended. In general, it is also not my business to oppose some people of art to others, I am not a poet, musicologist, literary critic or any other evaluator of existence. I am a writer. The person is more observant than intelligent.

– “Poetry – music – mountaineering – geological parties – romance – freedom”: does the set of these concepts define the sixties?

– All of the above, plus, of course, “I love the Fatherland, but with a strange love,” as well as the rejection of the traditional forms of the existing Soviet power. First, Stalinism, then Khrushchev with his corn, surrounded by “Parteigenosse”, whom Stalin raised for the happiness of the people, and they diligently ruled the country, inciting each other. Tired! However, mores have changed, you need to remember and know this. That even then there was a chance for happiness. The “sixties” did what they could.

– Tell us about your first meeting with Gorodnitsky.

– 1964. Student geological practice in the Crimea near Bakhchisarai. Leningraders, Muscovites, Kievans. Hundreds of young geological people. Concert of the already legendary Gorodnitsky, with whom, of course, I was not familiar. When in the late 80s they met and became friends, he remembered this performance in the Crimea. And I remembered that I worked in the same places in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, on the Tunguska River, where he composed his first songs. But only ten years later. Oddly enough, even acquaintances were found. Survivors.