IZO

Marat Guelman posts a poem by his father (quick translation by MB) (maratguelman):

To their father, children should be a
disappointment
otherwise what kind of children are they, whose children are they?
A donkey's? A camel's?
A father should constantly
get into a rage
break out in a cold sweat,
he should be horrified.
Otherwise what kind of father is he, whose father is he?
A mannequin's? A doll's?
Children should be such
that their father
every evening, on going to bed,
prays to High Heaven
not to wake up in the morning.
Then they are children, and he is a father,
then it becomes clear why
we call God the Father.

In conversation yesterday evening, top socialist realist Geli Korzhev strongly recommended Ilya Kabakov's recently-published account of the underground art movement 1960s-70s (60-70-е... Записки о неофициальной жизни в Москве). He regards it as extremely well-written, insightful and honest.

Zinovy Zinik on Vladimir Sorokin in the TLS (download .pdf).

Performance and photo artist Natalia Mali tells me she and her boyfriend were asked to an orgy by Alexander Brener and Barbara Schurz. When Natasha inquired what would actually take place, Schurz said it would be a quiet affair and they would read books.

Unpublished, hitherto unknown verses by WH Auden are translations of odes to Lenin in the Dziga Vertov movie (commissioned by Stalin) Three Songs of Lenin (Telegraph).

About talented, tragic child poet Nika Turbina, who committed suicide seven years ago. As a child she had asthma and scarcely slept.

The poet Vsevolod Nekrasov died on 15 May (KP, in Russian). He was one of the originators of the Moscow conceptual school and for a long time published only in samizdat. More here (Kommersant, in Russian).

Interview with writer and broadcaster Zinovi Zinik, in two parts (retromaniak, retromaniak, in Russian).

The poet Lev Losev, biographer of Iosif Brodsky, has died (Kommersant, in Russian).

Russian writers on LiveJournal A-K (avmalgin, in Russian) and L-Z (avmalgin, in Russian).

More on the Russia-Ukraine culture wars (Kyiv Post) (thanks, MK):

... the controversy – about whether Gogol was Ukrainian or Russian – was, in fact, created by Gogol himself.  The text of “Taras Bulba” has two versions. The first one was published in 1835. In it, the Cossacks aren’t called Russian and there is no talk of “Russian soul.” Originally, Bulba was shown as more of a crazed Cossack gang chief rather than a noble warrior protecting his country.  However, the later text of 1842, which is more common and which also became the basis of the movie, was revised by Gogol himself. According to historians, one of the reasons for this was a critical reaction to his other work, “Government Inspector,” which was called anti-Russian.

At Viktor Pinchuk's after-party for Damien Hirst, the speeches were in English and Ukrainian but as far as I could tell all the guests were speaking English or Russian.

The complete text and illustrations of Evfrosiniya Kersonovskaya's description of her years in the GULAG is published here (women-gulag.ru).

In a "six-figure" deal, Penguin will publish Nabokov's The Original of Laura, about a man's obsession with his promiscuous wife, on 3 November; the prose is "not necessarily extremely polished" (BBC) (thanks, MK).

New Paulo Coelho novel set at the Cannes Film Festival (Reuters):

"The Winner Stands Alone" follows serial killer and wealthy Russian entrepreneur Igor as he resorts to extreme measures to win back the affections of his ex-wife Ewa.

Review of the English translation of Vladimir Sorokin's early novel, The Queue; only the second of his novels to receive an English translation (Elaine Blair/Nation).

A Russian-language film based on Gogol's tale Taras Bulba was finally released this month; for comparison purposes there is a 1962 Hollywood version, available on DVD, which includes the immortal line "Put your faith in your sword, and your sword in a Pole" (Wikipedia). Youtube excerpts below.

Book review: Gina Ochsner's The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight (Guardian).

Convicted MMM ponzi-scheme fraudster Sergei Mavrodi recites his own poem. Someone tell me it's not a load of rubbish.

Novelist Boris Akunin wanted to visit Uzbekistan to collect material for his next Erast Fandorin historical detective novel; the Uzbek authorities in Moscow refused to give him a visa because he wouldn't give them a synopsis of the book (RIA Novosty, in Russian).

Writer and leader of the National Bolshevist Party Eduard Limonov (Wikipedia) has begun blogging (limonov-eduard, in Russian).

Russia and Ukraine squabble over Gogol's legacy (Guardian). I find it ironic that the Ukrainian authorities are trying to suppress Russian, the language that Gogol wrote in. There is a similar debate about possession of Mikhail Bulgakov. My thoughts about this kind of thing are here (IZO, earlier).

The poet Alexei Parshchikov has died in Cologne, age 54 (Lenta.ru, in Russian). I knew him in the 80s, when his girlfriend - or was it wife? - was Olga Sviblova and he was part of the metametaphor (метаметафора) group of writers and artists that included the painters Evgeni Dybsky, Igor Ganikovsky, Boris Markovnikov and Zakhar Sherman. UPDATE: memories of Parshchikov (avmalgin, in Russian).

The well-known translator Natalya Trauberg died in Moscow in 1 April. She was born in 1928; she translated English authors including Greene, Chesterton, C S Lewis and Woodhouse and also from from portuguese, french and italian. Here's an interesting interview with her about the nature of Christian fairy tales, a subject which occupied her throughout her life (foma, in Russian).

$5 million budget for two-week photo-shoot with Master and Margarita theme (Russia Today).

Marat Guelman has denied he is the author of the novel American Salo (American Lard), which looks at the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and in which novelised account he, as a political technologist, plays a major pseudonymous role (Novy Region, in Russian). There's a lot on this book here, which looks at the pr around the book including the Moscow metro ad campaign (Open Space).

An archive of thirty years' worth of "refusenik" documents is now online (JTA) (thanks, MK). Actually, I'm not sure "refusenik" is the right term: the refuseniks were those not allowed to leave the USSR, and this is an emigré archive; of course, many emigrés were at one point refuseniks.

New York emigré Emil Draitser has recently won a New Jersey arts award (Hudson Reporter):

Draitser said that his latest work, his memoir Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin, was the most rewarding.

Russian-Jewish life in the present: an interview with Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar of the Chabad Lubavitch, under whose auspices the Abramovich-Zhukova Garage functions:

A. ... there is a lot that Israel could do to foster a warmer friendship with Russia.   

Q. Such as?

A. Well — the world very often condemns Russia in reaction to terrorist attacks that take place in this country. Take for example what happened in Chechnya. I think Russia would like to see more understanding from Israel at such times.

Reputed to be the sofa on which the wounded Pushkin expired; it was handed to the Pushkin house-museum in St Petersburg in 1937; and now an ancient blood-spot has been discovered on it; but scholars won't confirm the sofa is the genuine article (drugoi).

Raunchy online novel lawyer sacked (Daily Mail). Sacked for writing badly, I hope (IZO, earlier).

There is interesting background - more than in Wikipedia - on Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt's guru, Eurasian party leader Alexander Dugin, here (Stringer, in Russian):

Dreams of secret societies and great deeds led the young romantic into the dissidents' embrace. Dugin began to frequent the crazy underground salon of writer and mystic Yuri Mamleev. At the end of the 60s, in Yuzhinski Lane, several geniuses of underground Bohemia met and socialised: the artists Antoli Zverev and Vladimir Pyatnitsky, the poets Genrikh Sapgir, Yuri Kublanovsky and Leonid Gubanov, the writer Venedikt Erofeev.

Alan Sillitoe, author of the classic kitchen-sink novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, is also the author of two Russian travel books, Road to Volgograd (Amazon) and Gadfly in Russia (Amazon).

Allen & Overy lawyer Deirdre Dare has been writing about sexual goings-on in Moscow in her serialised online novel Expat; now her employer has told her to stop (Daily Mail). Is the novel any good? Well, here's the first sentence:

There is something thrilling about being in bed with a Frenchman, even if he does have a small **** which he can't get up.

Doesn't sound too thrilling to me, I'm afraid.

The complete recent Solzhenitsyn correspondence in the TLS (Zinovy Zinik, Michael Nicholson, Robert Chandler, Archie Baron), below the cut.

The views of the nutty Russian professor, Igor Panarin, are getting re-runs in the US press (WSJ) for some reason that I can't fathom: we covered them a month or two ago (IZO, earlier). His contention that, for example, Texas will secede to Mexico due to the influx of Hispanic immigrants is plainly ridiculous: the immigrants are coming to Texas and surrounding states in order to escape from Mexico, surely. The WSJ article, although it states clearly that the Panarin US break-up theory appeals to the "Russian state media", may give the impression that it has broad intellectual currency in Russia: it doesn't. Prof Panarin's views do however veil very real anxieties about Russia itself. Vladimir Sorokin's Day of the Oprichnik, the 2006 novel which many fear is a blueprint for the Russian future, contains the following dialogue between "traitors":

Chairman of the Duma:
So, we'll seize power. But what shall we do with Russia, Sergei Ivanovich?

Minister:
Chop it up and sell it off.

Chairman:
To whom?

Minister:
The East to the Japanese, Siberia to the Chinese, Krasnodar Terrirtory to the Ukrainians, Altai to the Kazakhs, Pskov region to the Estonians, Novgorod region to the Belorussians. And the middle bit we'll keep for ourselves.

Now, the transformation of Russia won't happen by means of "chop it up and sell it off", but may well occur organically. An acquaintance of mine who visited Irkutsk recently tells me that the city is filling up with Chinese traders and businessmen, many of whom are marrying the local Russian girls. Apparently they don't drink and work hard and thus make, in some ways at least, ideal husbands. One can imagine that the Chinese one-child policy, which has led to a preponderance of boy children, could increase this kind of sexual expansionism. Sorokin's novel, set about 2030 I think, posits a huge Chinese presence in Russia; and the now-fashionable Eurasian political movement led by Alexander Dugin is, in a sense, an acknowledgement of such a future.

Top films at the Russian box-office 2008. First two places go to Russian movies (1st: Irony of Fate 2 (Ирония судьбы-2) – $50 million; 2nd: The Admiral (Адмиралъ) – $33.4 million), the rest I think are imports (Open Space, in Russian). In books, Stephanie Meyer's vampire trilogy topped the pre-New Year shopping list (Open Space, in Russian) and the top-selling Russian-language author was Boris Akunin, no. 5; obviously, this line-up reflects gift-giving preferences with young people in mind so it may not indicate the sales pattern in other weeks. Apparently Meyer the books, on which the excellent movie Twilight is based, were inspired by a dream (Stephanie Meyer).

If you feel like it, you can watch the whole of the recent dramatisation of The Master and Margarita on youtube, with English subtitles.

Michael Nicholson replies to Zinovy Zinik on Solzhenitsyn (TLS). Zinik's original letter (IZO, earlier).

Rich man's fancy: Russian businessman Evgeni Yakovlev has paid for a series of photos featuring Isabelle Adjani as Margarita from Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (kinomania).

More Syava. 

The separation of Russia and Ukraine puts a cat among the cultural pigeons. Who's whose? Is Mikhail Bulgakov a Russian or Ukrainian genius (Guardian). The same sort of question could be asked, I suppose, about Malevich, Kulik, or even Ilya Kabakov (born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) – or indeed about a host of other artists born in, and trained in, the regions of the former Russian Empire. But, wherever an artist came from, usually we find that a particular city has a formative professional effect. Bulgakov became a major writer while living in Moscow, where he moved in 1921. If he's a Ukrainian writer, then maybe Picasso is a Spanish painter.

Trailer for movie of Pelevin's classic novel, Generation P.