Writer Sergei Lukyanenko: “The world has reached a dead end”

– Sergey Vasilyevich, in the past interview You said that the coronavirus has become an excellent reason for the world’s leading players to abandon globalization and other “chips” of modern civilization advertised for decades. Have your words been confirmed in the end?

– Unfortunately yes. During this time, the concept of the “end of history”, a single world with a single center of power and “decision-making” in the face of the United States, has finally collapsed. It turned out that history does not end, and other countries have interests, which leads to conflicts.

It also turned out that there are problems in assessing the role of certain states, their capabilities and influence. The entire world order that we knew from the first twenty years of the 21st century has collapsed.

– What will happen next? We see the unity of the US and Britain, contrary to “continental logistics”, we hear how the Baltics and Europe talk about the “Russian threat” (and are afraid of being swallowed up by their eastern neighbor). Does this mean that Orwellian Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are being formed before our eyes?

– I don’t know how Orwellian the future zones will be. As usual, life is much more complicated, writers always simplify reality by creating some kind of models. But the fact that the world has become multipolar is a fact.

I do not rule out further fragmentation of the same Europe, relatively united at the moment. There are a lot of contradictions and hidden conflicts in the EU, they exist even within military blocs – say, relations between Greece and Turkey within NATO. I would venture to suggest that against the backdrop of ongoing events, the European Union will lose its economic attractiveness.

The European economy, of course, will not disappear completely – it has a certain reserve of intellectual and financial resources. But it is becoming more and more difficult for Brussels to implement a common policy, to support the Americans at a loss, to promote the “agenda”, in many respects against the will of the majority of the population (which is so intimidated that it will never dare to admit it).

In fact, that sweet Europe that we all fell in love with after the collapse of the Soviet Union (when everyone exclaimed: “Look how good everything is there!”, “What freedom!”, “How everything is well-groomed and people are smiling”) – goes into oblivion. It turned out that the prosperity of the Europeans rested on cheap resources, which were pumped out of us in the first place. And as soon as they became not so cheap, everything cracked at the seams. And the values ​​we like – freedom of speech, thought and information – suddenly became perfectly limited. So much so that the level of censorship and diktat in the West has approached the worst Soviet standards.

– You talk about the EU as about the USSR two zero …

– It’s just amazing how much they repeated all the negative things that we had under the Union. Building the new Russia in which we now live, we did something clumsily and rudely, with a bunch of shortcomings and other things, but at the same time we proceeded from certain idealized ideas.

At first, we idealized communism, thinking: now we will all be equal, we will finally live. But, disillusioned with communism, we began to create a capitalist society that also exists only in the form of ideals. Therefore, we now have such a period of sobering up, while Europe and America have a period of self-knowledge, their own sobering up – and surprise!

– In the Universe of “Patrols” Good and Evil signed a “non-aggression pact”. If the ideas of your science fiction books are applied to everyday life and look out the window, will we understand that the agreements are no longer respected?

– In “Patrols” I divide Dark and Light not as Evil and Good, but as Egoism and Altruism. Because if you look at what is happening there, you can see that the Dark Ones often do quite good deeds. And the Light Ones are capable of the dark and the evil. This is a much more correct division, remember what good intentions and beautiful slogans the socialist idea consisted of. “Peace – to the peoples! Land – to the peasants! Power – to the working people!”

Everything is positive and wonderful, who can argue. But what was the implementation? The Light Ones had this trait in my books: they have a great idea, and we will implement it by any means.

And what we are witnessing now is a serious planetary crisis. But it is not connected with the concepts of “good” and “evil”, because at a certain level in politics and statehood these terms cannot be used. Everything is so multifaceted that in any good you can find evil and in any evil – good.

Rather, according to the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the world has reached a dead end. Unfortunately, throughout history, humanity has developed only one mechanism for responding to serious crises – the military one. The war does not have to be “hot” – it can be “cold” or economic war. But as soon as the contradictions reach a certain level, a power confrontation begins.

– What happened to Russian literature in 2022? When the first writers began to leave, it was presented in such a way that now almost all the best would leave, and a new “split” would be legalized. But in Upper Lars or at the crossings with Kazakhstan, we did not see the pedestrian version of the “Philosophical steamboats” in the autumn of 1922.

– Russian literature split earlier. This happened not even in 2014, but in 2004, when the first contradictions with the Western world arose. Then began the division into those who believe that the West is right and should obey and obey, and those who believe that Russia has its own interests and, first of all, it is necessary to defend them.

But, as with any elite, there was a temptation to take sides on the part of the literary crowd that gained recognition there. The reasons here are often material – the writer earns a lot abroad, his children study there, he has real estate and he is used to spending most of his time there, like, for example, Akunin.

The gap has been ripe for a long time, and this year I just had to make a choice: you are with your own country or with a foreign one.

Some chose the latter. But so many did in Soviet times. However, of those who left after the revolution, the majority either returned, like Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, or did not take place in that world. The exception is Vladimir Nabokov. I do not think that Vera Polozkova will collect stadiums in London and Paris, reading her poems. I even doubt that she will write much after her departure.

– We see a significant political activity of a number of writers. Stephen King has become a classic of the genre here, annoying billionaires and key world leaders with his tweets.

– I saw many writers who went into politics, and each time it ended badly for them in terms of literature. Maybe they received some preferences and in this sense “found themselves.”

And personally, I’m not going to point out how to live and act. Stephen King was lucky – as a writer, he ended 10 years ago. Why shouldn’t he lead Musk, Trump and the world?

Yes, the writer should have his own opinion and not be afraid to express it. You can try to speak in books, hide behind them – but silence in response to a question is not very beautiful. I do not hide my opinion: I am with my country and people, with my main readers.

Yes, I, like anyone else, do not like hostilities, do not like sanctions. I confess, with great pleasure, I traveled to Europe, rested, admired the ancient cathedrals and spiers. But for me, the Motherland is Russia, or, if you like, the Soviet Union in a broad sense. And Europe, America, Asia – these are other worlds where it is interesting to go, but you always need to come back and be yourself.