Victor axes articles. Victor Toporov

As a high school student, I regularly received school essay double grade 1/5 - “one” in literature and “five” in Russian writing. This was called, respectively, “content” and “literacy.”
Until I once received 1/1 ratings for another “magnum opus” the size of Vzglyadov’s column…

Inna Gavrilovna! – I was indignant. – As for the “content”, everything is clear to me. But what’s wrong with my “literacy”? Do I make mistakes?

“You really don’t make mistakes, Vitya,” the teacher answered me judiciously. – But here I thought: with such hooligan “content” as every time in your works, what kind of “literacy” can we even talk about?

Inna Gavrilovna was, of course, right - if not as a teacher of Russian language and literature, then as a teacher wise from life in Soviet society.
And then practically nothing changed in this regard.
Because subsequently - strictly speaking, throughout my entire life - things were exactly and only this way: at first they gave me a wisely balanced rating of 1/5, and starting from a certain moment (when I was especially “annoyed”) they were off by a few absurd 1/1.

And to the next question: “Do I make mistakes?” Every time they answered me with imperturbable impudence: “You really don’t make mistakes, but nevertheless”...

And this “nevertheless” inevitably makes us remember another story - not forty-five years ago, but thirty-five years ago.

I then decided to join the trade union committee of writers, but my senior colleagues from the writers’ union, whose work I had already not so much criticized as ridiculed (orally; then, naturally, I was not published as a critic), were firmly determined to deny me even such pathetic professional recognition.

But to do this directly was, of course, a bit embarrassing, because I was already widely – and loudly – ​​published as a poet-translator.

You see, Viktor Leonidovich,” the chairman of this little-reputable organization explained to me, “we had a check here, and it turned out that average age members of the trade union committee - sixty-two years. So they recommended that we dramatically rejuvenate the staff. Therefore, we cannot accept you in any way.

That's why?.. But I'm twenty-seven!

Nevertheless…

Well, but now I’m just these sacramental sixty-two years old - and nothing has changed since then: I still don’t make mistakes, but with such “hooligan content” there’s no talk of any “literacy”, as usual, it doesn’t work.

Except that, having become completely insolent over the years, my opponents now sometimes talk about my “illiteracy.”

But these are pipes!

My trouble is not the scandalous content of my publications: most often it is not they that are scandalous, but the events and literary works, the assessment and analysis of which I am engaged in, literary morals themselves are scandalous.

My problem is not the supposedly unacceptable harshness of the tone: a gentleman, you know, never offends anyone unintentionally.

Women in Russia, as you know, do not give, but “sorry.” But a literary critic cannot “pity” anyone – unless, of course, he is a woman.

And the point is not that you will be sorry, but you are not (this is precisely not the case - and the method of mutual pity, it is cross-pollination, has blossomed everywhere).

The point is that you will regret it, and another critic will regret it, and a third, and only the reader will not regret it.

Or rather, he will regret that, like the last fool, he listened to your obviously dishonest recommendation.

By feeling sorry for the writer, you become dishonest with the reader.

And the same with the writer you felt sorry for.

Well, and, of course, with his fellow writers, whom for some reason you didn’t feel sorry for.

A literary critic's loyalty must be to the reader, not to the writer.

Literary critic, faithful to the writer, - this is not a critic, but a literary servant.

Although, of course, I cannot help but admit: much of what I do - and do honestly - is done with aggravation.

Or, rather, with anticipation, perceived by many as aggravation and even abuse (the latter, however, is nothing more than slander).

My trouble lies in the nature of my abilities in the field of literary criticism, which has become for me a partial vocation.

In literature, I am not Doctor Zhivago. And certainly not good doctor Aibolit. I'm Dr. House.

My specialty is early diagnosis.

Advanced diagnostics.

And if only for this reason, the diagnosis is objectively outrageous.

This or that branch (or person) of Russian literature seems to be blooming, but I say: “To the morgue!”

It’s even possible that sometimes I still make mistakes. But this is just unlikely.
Of course, they don't agree with me. They are offended at me. They hate me.

But if the doctor said: “To the morgue!”, that means to the morgue.

Victor Toporov What about you, fellow countrymen?

MY COUSIN Valera, returning from school, triumphantly announced to his mother that the Jews had been beaten all day today in their fourth grade. Aunt Zina, a simple and honest woman, did not talk about proletarian internationalism. She explained to her son that his late father was Jewish - and, of course, considered himself a Jew. A terrible hysteria happened to Valera: sobbing heatedly, he categorically refused to recognize himself as a Jew (or half-Jew), he did not want to go to school the next day, he did not want to live...

Gradually, all this somehow resolved and calmed down, but not completely: having the typical Slavic appearance and impeccable personal data (he is also Toporov, our family - let me remind you - is from crosses), he chose a path atypical for a representative of a “small people”: the army, work as a machinist railway, correspondence university... And, although this was subsequently followed by correspondence postgraduate study, the transition to managerial - and quite large (he rose to the rank of railway general) - positions, he, for example, never acquired a separate apartment: neither a service apartment (also a service apartment), neither cooperative; long years he and his mother, wife and daughter lived even without a telephone. He rarely communicates with blood relatives along the Toporov-Krichevsky line and only when this, for one reason or another, cannot be avoided. Contacts of our families were based on the friendship of mothers: Zinaida Fedorovna came to us (in last time was at my mother’s funeral, but she herself is not much younger and is very sick): an overweight old woman (once she was a blond beauty a la Lyubov Orlova), by some strange irony of fate, who in her later years became like a Jew... And Valery switched to administrative work involuntarily: having run over a man on the road, although the driver was not found guilty of this, he was no longer able to drive trains.

I'M FOR A FEW YEARS younger than his cousin - and by the time he began to beat the Jews, he was already clearly aware that I belonged to this ill-fated tribe. I was aware and did not experience any inconvenience in this regard. I vaguely remember how, as a child, some yard boys tried to persuade me to admit that I was not a Jew after all, because, they said, they couldn’t be friends with me, but I stubbornly stood my ground and invited them to give up their principles. However, minus the passage yards and the famous Kabinetsky kindergarten, where the “punks” were in charge and my fellow tribesmen tried not to appear, the world of childhood - both at home, and on the lawns near the house, and then at school - was swarming with Jews: only lawyers, a doctor named Mayor treated me, and sometimes they called the famous professor Farfel for a consultation, in the first grade I became friends with Porter and Rabinovich... Then chess players appeared... and not least poets... Well, my mother’s admirer -a Zionist who regaled me with that kind of literature...

The fight against cosmopolitanism was perceived from the inside - by the offspring of rootless cosmopolitans - precisely as a Jewish conspiracy against the rest of humanity. This was, of course, not so or not entirely so - although, perhaps, it was so too.

I remember how I was surprised, when I was three or four years old, by a lesson taught by my own father. He took me to a pastry shop on Nevsky, which he called Kukhmisterskaya, took cakes for me and coffee for himself - and froze at the counter, turning somewhat sadly to the side.

Dad, why are you turning away?

You see, son, I also really love cakes. And my mouth is watering.

So take it!

No, son. If a fat Jew in a beaver coat eats a cake in public, it may arouse anti-Semitic sentiments in someone.

Why are you wearing a beaver coat then?

The position obliges.

I tried to ignore the indirect advice about the beaver fur coat that my position obliges me to wear, but I took note of the cakes once and for all. This, one might say, is the only lesson from my father that I accepted unconditionally.

I WAS WALKING in the vicinity of “Saigon” with eighteen-year-old (but looking fifteen) Kolya Golem. Some guy in his forties asked me for a light. I gave him a light - from a cigarette.

Did you regret the matches, or what?

My sir, you are poorly brought up! You should have thanked me, and you...

Shut up, local!

I looked at the guy more closely. Obviously healthier: I can’t cope with him, young Gol (“the blockade of Leningrad” - one girl teased him in Crimea) is no help. Remembering the struggle that I had once been involved in, I twisted the man’s hand and dragged him to the police. The nearest picket (and I was quite aware of this) was in the Vladimirskaya metro building.

Already on the steps of the metro, seeing the cops, the guy wriggled out of my grip and turned to them for help. They took both of us to the picket line. Young but courageous (he was a coward only in literary situations) Gol followed us.

“He attacked me on the street,” the man explained.

“He insulted my national dignity,” I said.

Passports,” said the desk sergeant.

Both had passports.

Kopelevich Boris Fedorovich, Jew,” the sergeant read with emphasis. “Toporov Viktor Leonidovich, Russian...” He paused. “Well, tell me again how it happened.”

He attacked me on the street!

He insulted my national dignity!

The sergeant turned out to be witty.

“Why are you, fellow countrymen, quarreling,” he asked and let both of them go, first Kopelevich, then me, at a five-minute interval so that we wouldn’t fight in the street.

SURPRISINGLY, This amusing story acquired a certain meaning for me, even beyond the one that obviously follows from it. Reflecting on it, I gradually became imbued with the logic of Uncle Kopelevich: it turns out that one Jew can insult another on a national basis, appealing to the concept of “parochialism.” To a certain extent, this corresponds to the constructions of other theorists of the Jewish question: a bright individuality is the first to escape from the ghetto, she does not experience any oppression, on the contrary, she even exists in a mode of obvious preference, but after her, the gray Jewish - “shtetl” - mass makes an exit from the ghetto , and then they begin to put pressure on her and spread rot. Naturally, both the individual and the mass experience mutual hatred. This is just one theory (and not the most widespread), but it exists...

Shtetl - that is, not assimilated primarily in a cultural sense - Jewry (although, of course, it just seems to him that it has already assimilated one hundred percent) irritated and irritates me in literature (along with other things in literature), to this day day - let's say, I immediately and rightly baptized the magazine “World Word” into “Shtetl Word” - and the fault or reason for everything was the then guy named Kopelevich.

I am often accused of anti-Semitism (although in relation to me we can only talk about national self-criticism), even - like a certain Reitblat - of “clumsily hidden anti-Semitism.” Meanwhile, it is absolutely clear that the conversation about Jewish predominance (or about Jewish dominance) in certain spheres of activity and about specific, not always harmless forms of asserting this predominance (a conversation during the years of Soviet power with its implicit but undeniable state anti-Semitism is absolutely unacceptable) today , when Jews stopped hiding or at least mixing their Jewishness, without, however, abandoning the methods and style of informal secret society, - such a conversation today is necessary and inevitable - and it must be conducted in the form of an honest dialogue with those who are contemptuously attested or denigrated as anti-Semites.

Tabooing (or hysterically tearful, with an eye on the Holocaust and an appeal to the generic interpretation) of this topic represents ostrich politics; Such an approach in the current conditions does not reduce, but multiplies the number of anti-Semites - real ones, not imaginary ones - and multiplies it exponentially. We do not live in Germany, where the ban on the topic is determined historically (although even there it will sooner or later be broken, and with a brutal explosion of energy that has been languishing for a long time); in our country, the guilt of Russia before its Jewry and the guilt of Jewry before Russia is in a shaky - and increasingly swaying - balance; It’s not that a new state anti-Semitism is ripening in our country (what doesn’t exist, doesn’t exist!), but more and more fertile soil is being created for it. And it is created primarily by the Jews themselves - successful, promoted, triumphant - but refusing any reflection about the national (aka in this case mafia) nature of their success; Moreover, they categorically prohibit such reflection for everyone else. Hence national immodesty (if not national arrogance), which is objectively harmful. Hence the growing bewilderment and rejection. The second Jewish revolution (like the first in 1917) threatens to turn into a tragedy - both for the entire country and for Jewry, which is celebrating the momentary victory.

IN 1991 I WAS ON ST. PETERSK RADIO the cycle of literary critical broadcasts “In a Crooked Mirror” is a radio analogue of what began at the same time on the pages of “Literator” and continues to this day (from late autumn 1992 - on the pages of “Smena”) “Diary of a Writer”

In one of my first radio speeches, I subjected Daniil Granin’s next story to derogatory criticism. The story was regular, but not ordinary: Granin wrote a pamphlet against the long-retired first secretary Leningrad Regional Committee CPSU Romanov.

I had nothing - and I don’t have anything - against Granin. On the contrary, I consider him a good essayist, who inevitably - due to the special hierarchy of Soviet literature - turned into mediocre prose writer. At the vote in connection with the expulsion of Solzhenitsyn from the Writers' Union, he - the only one - abstained; and although he subsequently withdrew his “abstinence”, such hesitations are costly - and they really cost Granin dearly: he had to resign from the co-chairmanship of the St. Petersburg Union of Writers (together with Mikhail Dudin, who voted for the expulsion, but lost his post too - an accident a rhyme to the final chapters of Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle,” where, having narrowed the circle of suspects to two people, they take both). The early perestroika novel “The Picture” was not so bad, the famous “Bison” during perestroika, for all its moral ambiguity, was not either; except that the “Siege Book” turned out to be clearly fake. But with the story that was subjected to my criticism, the situation was out of hand. The initial lack of honor and dignity is the only thing that gives a person the opportunity to write a pamphlet against someone whose heels he had previously licked before his overthrow. That is, more precisely, if you are someone (except sexual partners) have ever licked your heels, then never dare write literary pamphlets against anyone! So I said this on the radio - and these words remain true to this day; but then, full of perestroika optimism (or, if you prefer, idealism), I also said something else: Granin and Romanov, Soviet literature and Soviet authority bound by this chain. And if we are to send away the party power, then sub-party literature should follow it.

The performance caused a storm. It was believed that Granin would kill me, and not in a figurative sense, but in a literal sense (Granin himself, his vindictiveness and especially his omnipotence are demonized in the literary circles of St. Petersburg - he is a kind of Berezovsky and Korzhakov rolled into one for us). They offered me security (!), and when I refused, they provided me with, to put it mildly, a criminal cover. They explained to me that if anyone ever encroaches on me, then it is enough to say to the encroacher (or those who encroached): “You will have to deal with a Chinese” (or a Korean, I don’t remember, but such a person really existed, and I even met the nickname in the book “Gangster Petersburg” or “Corrupt Petersburg” - again, I don’t remember) - and he (them) will immediately lag behind.

I remembered all this in another connection, directly related to this topic. After the program about Granin, I received a bag of letters (living was relatively prosperous back then, postage costs were negligible, and writing letters to all sorts of editors was not yet considered bad manners or a sign of mental illness). More precisely, two half-bags, if I sorted them, of course. About half of the listeners accused me of attacking the great Russian and Soviet writer. The other half thanked me for finally smearing the dirty Jew all over the wall. Somewhat stupefied by the second stream of letters, I returned to the first and discovered that all of them, which dealt with the great Russian Soviet writer, were signed with expressive Jewish surnames. Icebergs, Weisbergs, Eisenbergs, all sorts of Rabinovichs - that’s it and only that. And then I was stunned for the second time.

Of course, I knew that Granin was a Jew - in one sense or another - and that real name his Herman. But this knowledge remained deeply passive; in the case of Granin, Jewishness, true or false, did not matter at all. Granin was for me a Soviet writer - and only Soviet, without secondary national characteristics; he wrote in specifically Soviet stationery with occasional borrowings from landscape lyric poetry of the sort that falls into the “Native Speech” anthology. In addition, he was a Soviet leader - which, if not excluding Jewry, then reduced it to the party minimum. And suddenly it turned out that many people (there were dozens of letters, and in total there were more than a hundred) hated Granin precisely and only as a Jew. But something else also turned out: many Jews love the “great Russian and Soviet writer” exactly and for exactly the same thing - for his Jewishness, which is hidden in every possible way and for me personally has no meaning!

It was a good object lesson in what I call feedback and what I see as the main driving mechanism of Judeophobia.

Ending in the next issue

Tank trucks produced by "KAPRI", sale of low-bed semi-trailers Uralautotrailer is offered by "Kominvest-AKMT".

From the book Newspaper Tomorrow 807 (19 2009) author Zavtra Newspaper

Victor Toporov MURDER OF THE “RUSSIAN PRIZE” In Moscow, the “Russian Prize” was awarded based on the results of 2008 in three categories. The laureates were: in the nomination "Poetry" - Bakhyt Kenzheev (Canada), in the nomination "Small Prose" - Margarita Meklina (USA), in the nomination "Large Prose" - Boris Khazanov

From the book Newspaper Day of Literature # 151 (2009 3) author Literature Day Newspaper

From the book Dialogues with Chess Nostradamus author Sosonko Gennady Borisovich

Countrymen In one of spring days In 1970, I went to see Korchnoi, who was then living in Leningrad on Gavanskaya Street on Vasilyevsky Island. “What an amazing letter I just received,” said Victor, handing me an unusually sized foreign envelope as soon as I

From the book Newspaper Day of Literature # 67 (2002 3) author Literature Day Newspaper

Victor Toporov THE NON-EXISTENT WATERDIVISION I readily accept the invitation to take part in the discussion about Russianness and Russian-languageness in literature, although I don’t think that my point of view will be popular. However, there cannot be complete clarity here. IN

From the book Newspaper Day of Literature # 76 (2002 12) author Literature Day Newspaper

Viktor Toporov, executive secretary of the organizing committee APPEAL TO THE CITYMAN So, we continue. Prize " National bestseller" is going through the third round. Greeted rather skeptically in the first year, the award came into focus already in the second, last year's, cycle

From the book Newspaper Day of Literature # 163 (2010 3) author Literature Day Newspaper

Victor Toporov ABOUT LITERARY PRIZES *** The Solzhenitsyn Literary Prize was awarded to archaeologist Valentin Yanin.

Academician Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin, an archaeologist who rediscovered the history and culture of ancient Novgorod, was awarded the Alexander Prize author Zavtra Newspaper

From the book Newspaper Tomorrow 869 (28 2010)

Victor Toporov ANNALS OF “NATSBEST” 2001 There were six wrestlers in our first sumo competition - And the flyweight won five. author Zavtra Newspaper

"Who are you, where are you from all of a sudden?" - “My name is Leonid Yuzefovich. I myself am not exactly a Mongol, but not quite a Russian.”

From the book Newspaper Tomorrow 298 (33 1999) author Literature Day Newspaper

Viktor Toporov WHAT ARE YOU, COMMUNIES? (Ends. Begins in No. 32) THERE ARE QUESTIONS, for a balanced answer to which you would have to be born a Martian. The respondent’s impartiality is too strong, even if sometimes involuntary, his interest is too self-evident not even in

From the book Newspaper Day of Literature # 167 (2010 7) Victor TOPOROV ANNALS OF “NATSBEST” 2001 There were six wrestlers in our first sumo competition - And the flyweight won five.

"Who are you, where are you from all of a sudden?" - “My name is Leonid Yuzefovich. I myself am not exactly a Mongol, but not quite a Russian.” 2002

From the book Magazine Q 06 2010 author author Q Magazine

Victor Toporov The ABC of Taste The Path from Below The current moods in and around literature (including publishing and thick magazines) completely coincide with the socio-political ones. In talking about them, I would come up with a summary formula: alarmist optimism. That is

From the book Literary Newspaper 6320 (No. 16 2011) author Literary Newspaper

Countrymen Controversy Countrymen BOOK ROW Naumov A.V. Counts of Medema. Khvalynsk branch. – M.: Socio-political thought, 2011. – 280 pp.: ill. – 1000 copies. The fate of every person is the Iliad - this is what Maxim Gorky once said, starting a series of biographies of not the most famous or

From the book Collection author Shvarts Elena Andreevna

VIKTOR TOPOROV ON THE LINE 03/25/2008 A couple of years ago I talked with the literary critic Viktor Toporov. The social circle of stupid Soviet rednecks does not include literary critics, so I listened with great interest. Then, without delay, I bought two books, which pleased

From the book Newspaper Tomorrow 457 (35 2002) author Zavtra Newspaper

From the book Newspaper Tomorrow 458 (36 2002) author Zavtra Newspaper

COMMUNITIES Anna Serafimova August 26, 2002 0 35(458) Date: 08/27/2002 Author: Anna Serafimova COMMUNIES I don’t visit this provincial town often, but I used to spend holidays here, lived for a long time with an aunt who passed away long ago. When I arrive, I go to places dear to me. Here in the old

From the book IN THE CASPIAN SKY, notes from a pilot author Osipov Pavel Stepanovich

COMMUNIES The sharp, slightly rattling voice of the loudspeaker flew around the waiting passengers. They instantly perked up, began to fuss when they heard about the start of landing, and headed towards the plane in unison. Among them walked Agrippina Vasilievna, a hunched old woman, with a wrinkled, tanned face,

Victor Toporov

Looking at the good-natured grandfather with a lush gray beard, one cannot believe that this is the thunderstorm of the literary world, Viktor Toporov, whose pen is not even a bayonet, but a surgical scalpel with which he calmly dissects the literary community. And who will like it when they open it up, pulling out unsightly insides into the light of day, and even accompanying this procedure with caustic witticisms and savory comparisons? Therefore, in the writing workshop, assessments of Toporov’s activities are given very different. Philologist Gleb Morev writes that the articles of the odious critic, “working in our field of primitive provocation,” were initially designed to create a scandal, and the writer, on the contrary, considers Toporov “one of the few critics who justify the existence of this workshop in principle.” Boris Strugatsky said in his heart in 1993: “Our trouble is not that there is such a Toporov, and not even that he writes. The trouble is that there is no other Toporov who would explain that everything Toporov wrote is incorrect.”

But this is the opinion of writers who get a lot from Viktor Leonidovich. And for mere mortals, reading “Belinsky of Our Days” is interesting and informative: the author’s culture, erudition, and irony make him one of the most popular publicists. In his political articles, Toporov gives a sharp assessment of Russian reality. His books are a guide to modern literature, in which the accents are clearly placed and labels are mercilessly applied. Unlike most of his colleagues in the writing workshop, Toporov honestly admits that criticism is an extremely subjective activity, and as many critics as there are as many opinions.

“Literary killer” Viktor Toporov was born in Leningrad in 1946, graduated from Leningrad State University with a degree in German philology. Since 1972, his translations of German and English poetry, as well as critical articles on foreign literature, have been published. Since 1987 he has acted as a critic of modern literature, since 1990 - as a political commentator. From 2000 to 2005 he headed the Limbus Press publishing house; he was succeeded in this post by the writer.

"The Godfather" of the fashionable literary award "National Bestseller".

Member of the Union of Writers of the USSR and the Union of Writers of St. Petersburg, academician of the Academy of Russian Modern Literature.

“Our literature has not influenced anything for a long time and is of little interest to anyone. Against this background, Viktor Toporov’s fiery philippics give me, perhaps illusory, but important for me, the feeling that something extraordinarily significant is still happening in her, since she is capable of evoking such a strong and genuine passion. Toporov is perhaps the last of the underground fighters who has remained faithful to the precepts of his youth. He does not recognize decency, because in the environment from which he came, it was considered indecent. Yes, he is angry, but without predators, herbivores face extinction. It would be hard to call his court impartial, but his biases are always according to Hamburg. He can be reproached for inappropriate tone, but not for flaws in taste. He does not receive a salary, fortunately he does not serve anywhere, and is not obliged to fit into any format other than his own.” (

Victor Toporov

"Hard Rotation"

To the question “What is your profession?” I don't have a clear answer. In any case, just one. German philologist, what does it say on a university diploma? Literary and film critic? TV columnist? Essayist? Columnist? Political journalist? Poet? Prose writer? Translator of poetry and prose? Publisher? Teacher? Founder of literary prizes and public organizations? A gray-haired master or a godfather who does not disdain “wet work”? Master of Thoughts or “Pique Vest”?

Sometimes I am called a professional brawler (in all of the above fields and also in everyday life), but this, of course, is slander. My creative behavior looks scandalous only in the conditions of a universal, to put it mildly, Through the Looking Glass. The definition of “foul-mouthed philosopher” (as Sergei Shnurov called me) is good, especially from his lips, but also inaccurate. They even compared me with Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov and even with Archpriest Avvakum, compared me with Spinoza and Uriel D'Acosta - but let this remain on the conscience of the flatterers of that time. They compared me with Belinsky and (more often) with Burenin; they regularly called me a Pug barking at an Elephant (to the herd of Elephants), and to the extent of multi-stage idiocy, they more than once played up my “talking” surname. They stated (the first, if I’m not mistaken, was Boris Strugatsky): “Toporov is known for the fact that he has never said or written a single good thing about anyone. words".

From the outside, of course, you can see better. Especially if you judge with offense and bias. Therefore, we will stick to strict facts. First of all, I am, as it has recently become common to say, a newspaper writer. At least, it is in this capacity that I appear on the pages of the book offered to your attention. Here are collected (or rather, selected) articles and feuilletons over the past three years, first published in the “Political Journal”, the St. Petersburg magazine “City”, the electronic newspaper “Vzglyad”, the monthly “Petersburg. On Nevsky" and a number of others. In all these publications, I publish articles and columns on a regular basis (some once a week, sometimes less often) from year to year, and I focus on the intended audience of each thematically and, not least, stylistically. When the audience coincides, when it doesn’t, this is how the first intersections arise (but also the first discrepancies), movement arises - both translational and rotational - rotation occurs. But it’s not yet a strict rotation - meanwhile, my book is called that way.

The term that became the name was borrowed from the practice of music television channels. Hard (or, more often, hot) rotation is the regular, annoying inclusion of the same songs and clips in the program. (On television, such rotation, as a rule, is paid for, but in our comparison this is not relevant, because on television everything is paid for.) In this book, the same plots are constantly repeated and echoed, the same names, the same same topics; are repeated from article to article within each of the five sections and from section to section. Key expressions, important images, illustrative examples are repeated. Assessments and thoughts are repeated - however, each time being refined, specified and acquired with new connotations. They are repeated, gradually forming into a general (and, if you like, universal) picture.

In book form, all articles included in the book are published here for the first time. They are published with minimal discrepancies in comparison with the first publications in periodicals: where a word that was thrown out in the heat of the moment was removed, where, on the contrary, a couple of lines were restored, removed by a reinsured editor, or even a layout designer, where a typo, inaccuracy or stylistic error. However, all these cases are isolated; there are approximately the same number of footnotes that also appeared in the book for the first time. The texts collected in the book were not subjected to any opportunistic revision or updating - for this I answer with my own heart. In the end, the collection included about a third of what I wrote and published over three years - and articles that, in my opinion today, are outdated, were simply not included in the book.

The material in the book is organized thematically into sections, and within each section the articles are arranged not chronologically (or reverse chronologically) and not thematically, but alphabetical order. Moreover, the sections themselves follow each other in alphabetical order. Such, you know, rigid rotation, such, I beg your pardon, know-how. Of course, organizing the material alphabetically is a purely formal technique, but this is exactly what I needed to emphasize the internal unity of articles that differ chronologically, thematically, and sometimes even in genre. It was needed, not least of all, to emphasize the internal unity of the initiates to different parties our life sections.

“Diagonal of Power” contains articles on, relatively speaking, political topics. The conventionality of the definition itself (ironically fixed already in the title) is explained by the fact that we are talking here not so much about politics - and we don’t have any politics! - how much about the reflection of what, due to a misunderstanding, is considered politics in the philistine (that is, in you and me, reader) consciousness. What has been instilled in us for years or, on the contrary, has been hushed up, is tested here primarily on elementary common sense.

Both in politics and in art, it is now common to think: if you are not in the “box”, then you do not exist in nature. And the second section of the book - television criticism in the broadest sense - is therefore naturally called “The Box Game”. Some of the talking heads move into this section from “The Diagonal of Power,” and many others will pop up more than once, as if on the screen (“Heads pop up on the screen like air bubbles,” the American poet wrote half a century ago) in further sections of the book.

Between (absent) political and virtual television life, on the one hand, and the gardens of fine literature, on the other, there is a certain twilight zone, the extremely diverse inhabitants of which do not lend themselves to a single definition, even theoretically, because they are united only by a categorical reluctance to accept strict forms and at least to some extent defined contours; in my book they (and the section dedicated to them) are called “Unnaturals”. Realizing that this name is somewhat risky, I will clarify in advance that we are not talking here only about “people of the moonlight,” and the author of this formula (the same Rozanov) called “people of the moonlight” not only adherents of same-sex love, although, of course, and them too.

Non-straight people (although, of course, they are not alone) often write poetry and prose. The main Writer of the Russian Land, in fact, is a certain Pupkin (more precisely, the collective Pupkin), who traditionally wins not by skill, but by number. The section “Praise to Pupkin” includes articles about current Russian literature. Pupkin has been reading me with particular interest and bias for fifteen years now and is offended by me more often, and most importantly, most strongly. And he even gave it to me once Mailbox a lovingly coiled rope. And only occasionally - in a clumsy attempt to get rid of the insult - he sighs sadly: “What can you do about it! Toporov is a forest orderly!” But our literature is not a forest, but a jungle - and “The Jungle Orderly” is the title of the final section of the book, which is primarily devoted to polemics.

On August 9, 2016, V. L. Toporov, a poet, translator, publisher, passionate and biased participant in the Russian literary process, would have turned 70 years old.

Text: Mikhail Vizel/GodLiteratury.RF
Photo from LJ philologist

V. L. Toporov(1946 - 2013) spent his entire life translating prose and poetry from English and German languages. It is not surprising that he also wrote original poetry. Another thing is surprising: that

he categorically refused to print them during his lifetime, although he willingly read them in a friendly circle - and bequeathed this to be done after his death.

Therefore, the introduction to the first book of poems and translations by Viktor Toporov “Long live the world without me!”(the title is borrowed from the last entry left by Toporov on Facebook), written by his daughter, begins with the words: “The later this book appeared, the better it would be.”

But she appeared when she appeared. Sudden death of Viktor Leonidovich August 21 2013 turned out to be a shock not only for his many friends and students (for the sake of simplicity, let’s designate his friends who are old enough to be sons and daughters), but also for the equally numerous ill-wishers (not to say “enemies”) who could not forgive him a categorical, sometimes even deliberate reluctance to comply with generally accepted rules of literary decency, an animal instinct for falsehood and opportunism, draped in the garb of progressiveness and relevance.

The literary community has lost a mirror that could not just hint, but say in plain text that someone “has a crooked face,” as the well-known saying goes.

The “National Bestseller” award, invented by him when he was editor-in-chief of the Limbus-Press publishing house, will remain. Will stay “thousands of lines by Blake and Bredero, German and Austrian expressionists - in a word, just enough to be accepted into the Union Soviet writers ten times - approximately the same number of times at the reception he was miserably failed by envious colleagues.”, as noted by the leading website “Century of Translation” Evgeniy Vitkovsky. And now the original poems of the poet Viktor Toporov will also come into circulation.

Texts and cover provided by Limbus-Press publishing house

The Horde does not sleep until the khans fall.
After all, the entire Horde is the vanguard.
We guys will be breathless tomorrow.
And now sleep while the khans sleep.

They sat with the princes yesterday.
In six tents, kumiss flowed like a river.
Lamb carcasses, fat shot, were spinning.
And only in the seventh they were sad, locked up.

The night has come - Tatar, dear.
The moon entered her palm like a saber.
Why are you neighing, my horse, not knowing the way?
Not yet blood, not time, not fire.

You, girl, be gentle with me on the road.
This is where we stand, tireless.
There, in Rus', things are not serene again.
Oh, your mother, how we will pacify them!

Let's rush into an open field with an honest geek.
And all we meet is a futile cry.
In Europe they know about the wild Mongol.
Only in Rus' is it known how wild he is.

It is, of course, stone hail.
Vigilantes, spare regiments.
We will cut, chop down, destroy without mercy.
We will burn the country from the Vistula to the Oka.

Don’t ask for earrings from such a thing.
Don't wait for cloth, bitches, or cows.
I'll be back, okay. Look, it's starting to turn red
And the boys jumped up from the carpets.
1981

Georg Heim
(1887–1914)
A CURSE TO BIG CITIES

1
Crowned with a death's head
And the white gates with a black banner
Silently dissolve. Dawn,
The dawn is filled with wretched light,

A terrible picture is visible behind them:
Rain, sewage, stuffiness and mucus,
Gusts of wind and gasoline vapors
They merged in the fumes of silent lightning.

And, flabby, monstrous volumes,
The naked breasts of the city lie
In mealy spots - right up to the window -
And they breathe the rust of the sky and tremble.

And - booths abandoned for the night -
In the rays of the moon they are only more clearly black,
Iron idols froze,
Heading into a senseless escape.

(Along the street in the bald patches of dawn
A swaying woman, touched by ashes,
Walks to the hooting of the clarinet -
It is played by a possessed gnome.

Behind her, like a chain, a crowd drags
Silent men,
And the gnome plays drunkenly and bloodily -
Lame gray-bearded baboon.

Down the river, in the halls and in the snares,
In dens of darkness and in the twilight of caves,
In the dump of streets, in pits and swamps,
Where the night is like day, and the day is gray like midnight, -

Debauchery shines like a golden stream.
The baby, sucking, sinks its teeth into its chest.
The old man, squealing, climbed into the girl’s ass,
Burnt by the desire to fly -

Like a butterfly above a bush. Above the rose.
Blood flows from the womb. Sodom is approaching.
Virginity was killed by an indecent pose,
With an old woman's bloody tongue.

In the delirium of love, in the torture chamber,
Like those whom Hermes called,
They shake, foam flies from their lips -
And the singing reaches the skies, -

And it fills them with shame.
And they soar upward, followed by a corpse.
To the sound of a flute. The pain kills them
Vultures with one movement of the lips.)

VIKTOR TOPOROV

1946, Leningrad - 2013, St. Petersburg
By education he is a Germanist. If translators had a traditional division into generations, Toporov would probably have been a “seventieser” - only this word sounds wild and means nothing; in the seventies, few were allowed to translate serious poetry, and mainly through the latest anthology volumes of the BVL. Thousands of lines by Blake and Bredero, German and Austrian expressionists - in a word, just enough to be accepted into the Union of Soviet Writers ten times - approximately the same number of times at the reception he was miserably failed by envious colleagues. The fact was that the prolific Toporov was very willingly published in Moscow, and the city of Leningrad did not forgive this. Well, in the post-Soviet era, Toporov published his own books of translations from Gottfried Benn, W. H. Auden, Sylvia Platt - and much more; representatives of the youth do not forgive them now; She is angry, she tries not to know other languages ​​besides English, in a word, everything has always been like this, and will remain so. At the turn of the millennium, Toporov became the editor-in-chief of the Limbus publishing house and somewhat distanced himself from poetic translation.

Source: www.vekperevoda.com

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