What ideals does Russia fight for?

The readers of the story did not have to explain the causes of the conflict, for them they were understandable and close.

After the Great Patriotic War, such painful contradictions did not arise – both at the front and in the rear, the vast majority of Soviet people knew what they were fighting for.

But in 1964, when the film adaptation of the story “The Viper” was made (the film was released in 1965), in order to demonstrate “morality” in the narrative, it was necessary to introduce an additional, through hero – the poet Afanasy Babich. It is needed only in order to say at the end of the film one, the main phrase for the director: “If in the nineteenth they told me to go under Denikin’s machine guns for the slogan: “Reduce prices for knitwear”, I would immediately sew this slogan! I wouldn’t give a peep!”

In addition, the main character, brilliantly played by Ninel Myshkova, actually explains the reason for her tragedy: “I am very sad, I am alone!”

The history of the story and the film is interesting. Why did Tolstoy, a sensitive artist who perfectly understands the emerging situation, decide to speak out on the topic of such a painful split in society in 1928? And is it not by chance that the film adaptation of the story became necessary precisely in 1964? How are these dates marked?

But these are the finals of two Soviet liberal periods – the NEP and the “thaw”! Literally, the last few years have been like a hangover caused by these important stages in our history.

Something like 2022, when the “long 90s” ended, including perestroika. We are waiting for what reflection they will receive in art.

The other day, a certain imposing official pointed out to me the need to remove the epigraph from Mandelstam’s poem from the manuscript of the book. These are trifles, Osip Emilievich and I will survive this. But other such representatives of those in power had previously thrown out the books “How Steel Was Tempered”, “The Tale of a Real Man”, “Young Guard” from the school curriculum, replacing them with “The Gulag Archipelago”. As a result, the current Dani Milokhins (by the way, a symbol of modern youth at the suggestion of Sberbank) do not know why Gastello, Matrosov, Talalikhin sacrificed themselves … They did not even hear about them …

But there is nothing to blame on the youth, since we ourselves are to blame for such results. I recall a song to the words of Alexander Velichansky: “I sculpt from plasticine / Plasticine is softer than clay / I sculpt from plasticine / Dolls, clowns, dogs. / If the doll comes out badly, / I’ll call it the Fool, / If the clown comes out badly, / I’ll call him the Fool.

To which clever brothers make a fair remark to their sister: “Is the doll to blame, / Is the clown to blame? You sculpt them roughly, / You don’t love them enough, / You yourself are to blame, / And no one is to blame.

In the song, everything ends optimistically: “I sculpt from plasticine, / I say this: / If the doll goes bad, / I’ll call her Poor thing, / If the clown comes out bad, / I’ll call him Poor.”

So now we need to learn how to sculpt well, and at the beginning to understand that we finally need to do this.

The civil war that we talked about, within which we are getting used to living today, is a struggle of meanings, or, as Sergei Kurginyan says, a struggle for the future. Until recently, the Anglo-Saxon criterion for evaluating success was very popular with us. It was expressed in a simple question: “If you are so smart, why not rich?”

On such slogans the youth from Upper Lars was brought up – they are victims of the deeds of their older comrades, and of our entire society.

I have been studying modern economic history for 30 years now and I have become convinced that people not only grow old in different ways, but also get poorer in different ways, or rather go bankrupt. Therefore, it is especially unpleasant to look at the victims of decompression sickness – the emergence of some businessmen and politicians was too fast, and the transition from perestroika intellectuals or even students to proto-oligarchs took literally months. And such nominees, when they lose not even the last money, are crippled, as during the rite of exorcism from a person of demons.

And they are not helped by any risk management, for which they spent millions and by no means rubles, they did not heed the warnings that were not included in books like Economics: “You are tormented to swallow dust, saving your assets in the West.” The naivety of our businessmen is striking. Take at least the latest events that happened to the far from stupid Mikhail Fridman and Natalya Sindeeva …

However … About ten years ago, when I read the memoirs of Oleg Tinkov, I had no doubts: is the author, such a successful person, let’s say, not very smart. I pushed that intrusive thought away, telling myself that he didn’t deserve that kind of appreciation, at least from me. And suddenly, in the middle of the book, I come across this passage: “Abramovich made a very good impression on me. <...> Although it is impossible to say that he is smart and erudite. The saying “Be quiet – you will pass for a smart one” is about him. As they say, no comment … After that, I calmed down – between me and Tinkov, perhaps, the same financial distance as between Tinkov and Abramovich. And if he can…

And this applies not only to domestic businessmen, look at our neighbors. In Ukraine, for a long time the most “effective” secret peaceful weapon was the “flying dumpling”. Recall Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s The Night Before Christmas, which is relevant these days: “Patsyuk opened his mouth, looked at the dumplings, and opened his mouth even more. At this time, the dumpling splashed out of the bowl, slapped it into the sour cream, turned over to the other side, jumped up and just got into his mouth. Patsyuk ate and opened his mouth again, and the dumpling went again in the same order. He only took on the task of chewing and swallowing.

And we ourselves are again to blame for the fact that they flew!

As I already wrote in one of the previous articles, we were given another, perhaps the last chance to change our minds. As the famous parable says: if you cook a frog over low heat, it will not even notice how it is cooked. But our cook, fortunately, turned out to be impatient, and when everything seemed to go according to plan, he splashed boiling water into the cauldron to speed up the process. And the amphibians to be eaten finally realized that they were not in Ibiza, but quite the opposite – they were cooked! And they moved their paws. And now whether we will be able to get out of this boiler, depends only on ourselves.

And the confusion in our movements is understandable, parts of the body, after 35 years of processing, do not work well. And many neighbors ask to return to the boiler, because it was so good there.

Our symphony is hard to write – as long as it turns out to be a confusion instead of music. But what could we expect when the musicians on stage are the same. Each group of instruments plays its own: bowed strings – something classical, woodwinds – trying to play chanson, brass – love and perform jazz, well, drums – solid rockers. Pedlars walk through them and offer Chinese goods to independent performers. In the hall, the audience sits at tables, has dinner and gives orders to labukhs, holding out five-thousandth banknotes.

And we have to wait for the conductor to step onto the podium and wave his baton.

In the meantime, I would like to recall one more, it seems to me, the most famous anti-liberal work – Dostoevsky’s “Demons”. In vain, the communists were offended by him. Read it again, and today you will see that the elder Verkhovensky is the spitting image of Borrell, and the younger is Burbock or von der Leyen.

And in the novel there is a hero who plays the role of a jester – the postal official Lyamshin. While playing music at one of the meetings, he begins to play with the menacing sounds of the Marseillaise. Then I will quote Fyodor Mikhailovich: “But suddenly, along with the masterfully varied measures of the anthem, somewhere on the side, below, in the corner, but very close, the nasty sounds of “Mein lieber Augustin” were heard. The Marseillaise does not notice them, the Marseillaise is at the highest point of intoxication with its greatness; but “Augustin” is getting stronger, “Augustin” is getting more impudent, and now the measures of “Augustin” somehow suddenly begin to coincide with the measures of “La Marseillaise”.

And this Lyamshin is far from harmless, this Austrian folk song will soon be sung by the Nazis in beer halls, and after that the invaders will play harmonicas in our abandoned cities.

And also as an explanation. In 1936, the newspaper “Pravda” published an article “Muddle instead of music.” It was directed against Dmitri Shostakovich. A nasty article, as it should be, when it became possible, rumor attributed authorship to the most important. And the real author was the Soviet Lyamshin – the odious Kievan literary critic David Zaslavsky. In addition, he managed to have a hand in defamation of Mandelstam and Pasternak.

I want to hear real music.