"Taissia Zakharovna Shcherbak, daughter of a Kuban peasant." "A photo made in 1912." "Isaac Semenovich Solzhenitsyn, from a peasant family." "Stavropol region." "He volunteers in World War I." "Is decorated for bravery." "This handsome couple," "Isaac and Taissia - marry in 1917." "Soon Isaac dies." "Sasha, their son." "Sasha Solzhenitsyn is born on 11 December, 1918." "In winter, a harsh season." "THE KNOT" "Only a few years ago" "Sasha used to go to church with his mother." "Now the churches are gone, he's a Komsomol member, he and his mother live in Rostov..." "At school, he heads his class." "He likes football and amateur theatre." "He has good friends, though later many of them will be forced to betray him." "But this has yet to come." "Sasha Solzhenitsyn is enthusiastic about Socialism." "He believes Marxism, Leninism to be the people's fate." "At a very early age, in his school years, he becomes aware" "It was his first marriage." "Not, perhaps, a very happy one." "In 1941, with a degree in Physics and Mathematics from Rostov University, he leaves for the front." "An open face." "A Russian, a peasant type, on the whole." "There are thousands such faces." "But no longer millions." "It seems he wrote his first stories at the front in 1942." "An artilleryman." "No coward, he could have been killed many times." "His wit and honesty saved his soldiers' lives, by the end of war he was a captain, with several awards." "He was 27, alive to all he had to face." "In 1945 he was arrested right at the command post." "They'd had enough reading his frank letters to a schoolmate." "From 1945 on, and for more than fifty years this man would not have a single hour of quiet life:" "The obtuse regime, his fatal disease, the silence of millions of witnesses, the envy of the guild, his exile, his perseverance." "A photo for the outer world, in a suit lent by the prison." "In 1953 he was assigned to "eternal residence"" "in a remote Kazakh village." "Just think over these words:" ""For eternal residence"." "He lived here, at the edge of the desert, taught at school, fell ill, secretly continued to write." "His courage was so great, his concern for the life so unselfish, that in a cancer hospital he studied oncology, read very, very much, and he wrote, wrote, wrote every day..." "It seems as if God looked after him during all these months and loving him," "He made him continue to bear the heaviest burden," "He saved Alexander from death." "Solzhenitsyn would say he was alive as long as he kept writing." "Natalia Svetlova." "Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova." "In 1970 she becomes his wife." "She took this photo." "His eyes." "His face." "The small photo is taken by him." "Her face." "Her eyes." "Their family would prove to be uncommonly close." "From 1970 to 1973 three sons were born to them:" "Yermolay, Ignat, Stepan." "The photo taken in America, in Vermont, after his expulsion from the USSR." "This provincial American town gave the Russian family refuge for 18 years." "Yermolay, Ignat, Stepan went to an American school, but every day their parents taught them at home:" "Physics, mathematics and Russian." "The adults decided the boys should be Russian." "They grew up with love and discipline, and soon they were already at their typewriters, typing their father's works." "One more Vermont photo." "Center, Mitya," "Natalia's son by her first marriage." "Mitya suddenly died from heart failure." "A young man, kind, loved by everybody." "Yermolay's a Sinologist," "Ignat a pianist," "Stepan an architect." "Many parents, seeing this photo, will feel heart-ache thinking of the unfortunate fate of their own children." "But not many are able to make a difficult decision and to stick to it, so as to secure a decent future for themselves and their children." "Solzhenitsyn seeks harmony, but harmony is achieved only through self-sacrifice." "According to him, the family is the most important part of this harmony." "And there is also work, and there is his homeland." "His return was absolutely inevitable, not because someone awaited him," "but because he was confident that he would return to Russia before he died." "By 1994 he at last accomplished the dream of his youth:" "A book about the Russian revolution." "And what a book!" "Ten volumes of the "Red Wheel"." "The reality of the revolution, extracted from non-existence." "A book for the future." "Like many of his other works, this book has not been read by his compatriots." "It went unnoticed." "Who knows - perhaps they are afraid to look into their dreary future." "Had they read it, they might have avoided such a dreary future." "The Solzhenitsyns took their things, packed their enormous library, their huge archives" "and, in the summer of 1994, left for Russia." "I don't know about you, but I felt guilty." "I felt guilty that we had nothing to receive him with, that we had nothing to give him." " He didn't come for an award." " He must get something from society." " But he does." "Not from the society, but from life." "It's much more important to give than to receive." "It makes you much happier." "You reward yourself by giving." " But he is an artist." "He must receive first." " He must give." " He will give anyhow." "He can't do otherwise." "Strange as it seems, he should receive a lot more than he what gives." " He does." "He gets wonderful letters." "He knows there are many people who are grateful and who bow low to him." "He knows that." "He doesn't live and work for rewards, he can't do otherwise." "Anyway, we are happy at home." " Then may God help you." " Thank you." "We do feel this help." " We can't help much." " You can." " We helped so little." "In tough times we didn't help." " We're strong." " Yes, you are." "But those who saw everything and did nothing to help, or the little they could, what should they do now?" " Many people were trying to help us, many did help." "Many of them are like brothers to us, up to now." "They aren't all here, some are abroad, the people who saved the archives." "They're our brothers." "In no way do we feel lonely or offended." "He feels no bitterness." " I see." "He may have no feeling of bitterness, but we have." " I have?" " No, neither of you, but we have." "I remember very well the general silence when he was banished." " This is what they can't forgive." "There are people who know well that they were silent, but they respect and love him for he spoke for them." "But his fellow writers, the majority of them, can't forgive just that." "His words made their silence audible." "Never mind it all." "One can't go beyond one's self." "No doubt." "Since 1917 and until now people seem to be convulsed." "I'm looking at Natalia, and listening, if a floor board will not creak." "It is his study above." "We'll soon go for a walk." "The forest is all around." "A quiet day." "The summer is over." "How strange." "The intelligentsia, all the time pondering over the questions:" ""Why?", "What to do?"" "Do not notice the very existence of their great compatriot who has already given his answers to many questions." "He's been thinking a lot for a long time about our life," "he's asked for advice, he asked many people, some of whom went very long ago." "I recall:" "It probably was Akhmatova who said about him:" ""A torchbearer." "Fresh, energetic, young, happy." "We forget that such people still exist." "Eyes like jewels." "Strict." "Hears himself speak."" "Young, happy..." "This "young and happy" man was awarded the Nobel prize in 1970." "That's it." "He became untouchable, no matter what they say." "Thank God for that." "Leave him in peace." "Let him write." "In his Nobel lecture he asked:" ""What can literature do against the onslaught of overt violence?" "Remember:" "Violence doesn't live alone, and can't live alone." "It is inevitably interlaced with lies." "Violence has nothing but lies to hide it, and lies have nothing but violence to keep them up." "Anybody who has ever proclaimed violence to be his method must inexorably make lying his principle." "And the only thing for any ordinary courageous man to do is to abstain from lies." "May them - lies and violence - reign in the world, but not through myself." "Lies can withstand many things in the world, but not art." "When lies disappear, bare violence will show its ugliness."" "How long winter is..." "It predisposes to sleepy contemplation." "One, two, three, four months a year..." "Centuries after centuries - winter... winter..." "sleep... sleep." "No." "After all, one has at least to begin reading Stepan Aleksandrovich," "Yermolay Aleksandrovich, Ignati Aleksandrovich - they are his true happiness, his personal happiness." "I hear his steps." "He's walked out of his study," "he's coming to see me." " There are mushrooms there." " Yes, mushrooms." " Toadstools?" " You know, I'm not a great expert," "I'm a Southerner." "All my youth there, I didn't see a single mushroom." "So I'm no expert." " Then you must be especially fond of green." " When I returned to the Moscow region from my Kazakhstan exile..." "In Kazakhstan... we always had sun, there was continual exhausting heat." " Dryness." " And when I came to a forest, after the rain," "I was stupefied... unable to recover my senses, to render such beauty." "After a real desert without anything but camel thorns." "Nothing else." "A cloudy day is such a pleasure, and such a delight." "I can't live without direct contact with the earth," "I can't stand many-storied buildings." "I feel as if I were in a prison there." "I specially noticed that Abakumov hated green." "I wonder why?" " Yes, why?" "Because he was an anti-natural man." " Anti-natural?" " We can walk side by side here." " Anti-natural..." "What does that mean?" " Anti-natural..." "Well, it means he who is against nature." "A cruel scoundrel." "He was not the only one." " People become so or are born so?" " Both." "We have..." "A tremendous importance must be given to our natural qualities." "Tremendous." "But the way they will develop... depends on us." "And on circumstances." " Are there circumstances, which man doesn't control?" " I think in any case a lot depends on man." "Not everything, but a lot." " Does man realise that he is a scoundrel?" " No, he doesn't." " Never?" " No, one can't say so." "The greatest Shakespearean villains do realize it, but they always find something to justify themselves." "Here is a bench, we can sit down." " It's wet?" " There'll be two more benches on the way." " We can sit here." " Oh, how good!" " We..." "We are highly responsible for the development of the innate qualities nature bestows us." "Yes, highly." "The rationalist belief that only conditions are to blame, was something Dostoevsky laughed at." "There is no justification." "I saw it," "I've been through war, prison," "cancer hospital, everywhere conditions were hard, cruel, incredible." "Yet people behaved differently, fought in different ways." " I accept that if a man is cruel, but has by his side somebody who is kind, who doesn't allow him to cultivate cruelty," "then it doesn't develop." " It's good if there is a man like that at hand, but saying there was no such person at hand" "is no sort of justification." "The absence of someone who could pull me up, who could help me, cannot justify my acts." "A man must understand his own ways by himself," "and he himself must come to understand his natural capacities." "And then, you see..." "It isn't easy at all for a man to understand himself." "I must say, that I look at it with surprise now, as I have been granted longevity." "From 80 years on one may call it longevity." "In our unfortunate Russia even 70 is longevity." "It's wrong." "In longevity one finds new possibilities and capacities" "that I can speak about." "One of them is... that... recalling one's whole life again and again," "one discovers things one had never been able to discern while life still ran on." "We..." "We spend the greater part of our life in action." "And action prevents us from a quiet understanding of any nuances in life." "Old age gives... some extra space for the soul to grasp it all." "This is why we don't always have the right to bear judgement on other's acts." "Just because we underestimate men who did not understand their own acts, as they had neither the time, nor the circumstances" "to do so." " Even if their acts were extremely cruel?" "Again this word." " Yes, I see you emphasize this very much." " I'd like to understand, why the cruelty of man is something I worry so much about." "When it must be so enjoyable, so gratifying to commit acts of kindness, to compromise, to listen to people, to help." " Not only this." "It is human to make a career, it is human to look for success, to show one's worth, to become distinguished, to satisfy one's aspirations, to satisfy love, - dozens of ways, all this is not yet cruelty." "Don't consider it as cruelty." "It will give you, how to say, a flat picture." "Cruelty and kindness are the two poles, the extremes, but the whole spectrum should not be reduced to this." " Let's go." " As you wish." " To the next bench?" " To the next?" "All right." "The weather is fine, fine." "We're going to the place," "And here it happened." "I've written a miniature about it." "I'll show you the place." "It's such a pity our friend ordered the remains sawn off and destroyed." "It was really incredibly beautiful!" "There are two things of truly perfect beauty, the Universe and Man." " He's beautiful?" " Not beautiful, perfect." "He is such a perfect creature, possessed with so many vital resources," "so as to overcome all illness and danger." "It's hard even for an atheist, who never thinks who he is, to imagine." "One need not search too far, it suffices to read about any function of the body, how it works." "It's amazing." "Do we live only from eating and drinking, and is that the way we increase our energy?" "No." " Then why do we kill each other so much?" "So willingly?" "Why do men live in eternal combat?" " If there were billions of similar creatures, they'd be sure to compete, just as much." "This is the way of nature." "Even trees strangle other trees when they grow up." "Would you ask them to strive for universal peace?" "Here we are." "Here was a huge lime." "You see, it's sawn off." "A huge lime." "And the lightning struck it, and split it in two." "One piece of it fell on those trees, the other hung here." "For a day the split part stood there." "Then it fell on those trees." "They remained like that for 2 years." "They were sawn off just two months ago." "There were pieces of burnt bark scattered about here." "The lightning passed through and went into the earth." " How old was this tree?" " I can't say for sure." "One has to count and count." " The rings." "Is it true that each ring is a year?" " Yes, but you must know how to count them." "You must know what is a ring, and what isn't." "I wouldn't try." "Sure, we have trees here that were already there before the revolution." " How old is this tree?" " Who knows..." " 100 years, more?" " I think less, but who knows." "We have such old pines here." "And in Vermont we had very thick trees." "Maybe from before the foundation of the USA." "There's another bench." "Let's sit down to look at the park." "What I like here though it's not a real village," "but still..." " Over there?" " Yes, they have small plots of land, and cocks." "It's nice that we can hear them crowing here." "I'm so fond of crowing!" "One of the loveliest sounds." "It is so multi-toned, vibrating, with a complex spectrum, and there's such... vitality," "such love of life!" "Especially in the day-time," "I mean the midday crowing." "I'm fond of cocks." "In America I was struck by two things in nature." "Their pines are strange." "They are not so slender, not so far-reaching" "Here we have bare columns for 4/5ths of the height, then the crown." "In America it's quite different:" "They have branches lower down." "It's a pine, but not our kind." "And then, there are almost no song-birds in America." "It's incredible." "Here in spring whole forests sing." "Everything sings." "In America it is silent." "Only two or three birds sing." "Fine birds, but none sing." "There's a wonderful blue bird, a sky-blue bird there." "Lovely, but it doesn't sing." "There's a pigeon like that - a melancholy pigeon." ""Tragic pigeon"." "Actually, it's not a pigeon." " Why sad?" "Too few birds sing there." "My feelings towards nature were somehow different in America." "I no longer had the lively affinity I used to have." "Not a single miniature was written there." "Not a single one, during all my 20 years abroad." "I did write them before I was banished, now I write them again." "Not there." "It's most strange." "The same beautiful sky, the same clouds, the same light." "Why?" "Among other features of longevity, of old age " "it is... it is a state that depends on... how you understand and expect death." "That fear of death is so typical not only in the West, - all prosperous people feel it." "Fear of death obscures the mind unless you attain a state, when you lose all fear and deliver yourself unto God's will." "Death is a natural transition from one state to another." " To another life?" " Yes, to another life." "Russian peasants always understood that and died in peace." "Then... there's a harmony." "You live those last years in harmony, with trust in God, and in the sort of death or disease He will send us." " Should man ask God for it?" " You don't ask for anything, just live in union with nature." "Why are early deaths so tragic?" "Because when life is interrupted artificially," "to understand himself, his life, to understand anything." "It just cuts him off." "There's also another matter." "Too many people of my age are already gone." "It creates a feeling of a semi-desert." "Still other people, other ages, you recall them one by one, and where are they all?" "They are no more, and you miss them." "You see, all religions are against cruelty, all of them, but cruelty remains." "That's what they're for:" "So that men can have a shield, a brake." "Repentance was so common in Russia." "Now it doesn't exist any more." "Now you'll never make anybody repent." "I appealed for it in my article." "Everybody just laughed." "Whatever should repentance be for?" "When in some of my works" "I give way to my own repentance, the only result is: "Look, look, he himself is like this."" "No one thinks:" ""Let me do it myself." "I will try."" "Nobody cares." "Today's crooks aren't expected to repent." "If it were only cruelty..." "How about greed?" "Is greed a lesser trouble than cruelty?" "Greed destroys the human race." "Greed destroys everybody." "Man can't stop and say:" ""That will do." ""I've got enough." "I'm perfectly satisfied."" "No, he wants more and more." "Greed is terrible." "Terrible." " How odd." "Everyone knows it's no good, and yet..." " It isn't 'everyone knows'." " They know greed is an evil." " Well, it is generally considered as morally condemnable." "We'll take another path, also narrow enough." "We won't go along the road." " No." " We'll turn to the left." "Let's go." "Yes, little by little." " It must be beautiful in winter." " Yes, it is." " Do you get frosts?" " Of course." "Of course." "Sometimes - 25 °C." " It must be quiet... in the snowy evening, quiet and peaceful." " Yes." "In Vermont there's still more snow, though it is further south." "A savage continent." "When it suddenly begins to snow it comes down in huge amounts." "More snow there than here." "In Moscow, after all, there are thaws." " Why does winter bring a feeling of peace?" " That's only when you are warm, not when you have to break frozen ground with a pick-axe." " Once it was..." "The lowest temperature at which I have ever worked was -35 °C." "It fell to our lot." "Sometimes they cancelled work at - 35°C and sometimes at - 40°C." "That day there were fluctuations of one degree." "We went." " 35°C, what a horror." "I carried a barrow with a mate." " Didn't you curse life?" " No." "It was just one such day when I got the idea for my "Ivan Denisovich"." "Just write about only this, I thought." "Just one day, when nothing terrible happened." "Nothing sensational." "Quite a normal day." "That's what I imagined." " In such a frost?" " 35°C." "It was only once when I worked at such a temperature." "I was also doing some stonework, and I became rather a good mason." "I would be glad to go to Ekibastuz, to see my "lanterns", as they call them." "Such triangles hang over workshops there, and here all is glazed in." "Stepped stonework, upwards, like that, and from the other side." "I know where my lanterns are, I wish I could see how they are." " Do people know they are yours?" " No." "They wanted to rename the main lane there" ""Solzhenitsyn Avenue."" "But it created such a row!" " Why?" " My God!" "Before I was hated by the communists, then... by the Kazakhs, because I said Kazakhstan ought to unite with us, as some regions were entirely Russian." "They didn't forgive me for that." "Condemned me to death." " The Kazakhs?" " A Kazakh nationalist organisation." "They can't forgive me." "It's a pity." "I had even a whole Kazakh class," "I was a form master." "All the pupils were little Kazakhs, and we got along very well together." "They were unpretentious boys." "Really, nationalism fools everybody." " Beautiful pines." " Sorry?" " Such beautiful pines." " You'll see the best ones from my study." " A tree is the most perfect thing in the world." "More perfect than man..." " Yes." " We simply don't know it." " No, we don't." " What is this?" "What does it tell us?" "What does it mean?" "This long trunk, its roots, its crown, its swinging?" "What does it mean to die standing and not fall?" " Yes, you are right." "It is perfection." "Yes, it is." "THE KNOT" "PART TWO" " He is now just upstairs?" " Yes." " One can't even hear the floor creak." " He's working." "How good to live in silence." "He depends on very few things." "He is easy to get on with at home." "Unassuming." "Always grateful for anything one does for him." "He can eat the same thing every day." "I never take advantage of his modesty." "He is easy to please for food and clothes." "What does he absolutely need?" "Plenty of sunlight, when he is at work, and silence." "He really needs these two things." "He is frost-resistant." "He can work when it's cold." "I can't." "But there must be light and silence." "If there's any noise..." "In Vermont the young weren't allowed to play basket-ball till 1 p.m." "We had a net by the garage, they were playing all the time." "Sometimes I played with them too." "But not before 1 p.m. After that we could play, because his work was not so important then." "Now I think:" "Did Vermont ever exist?" "Seems we never left Russia." " Hello!" "Good afternoon." "Yes." "All right." "On the first floor are his bedroom and his two studies:" "This one, the smaller, warmer in winter, and the larger one, where he is working now." "This is the writer's desk." "Everything is in the right place." "Last spring's lilies of the valley" "He likes them." "A radio." "He listens to classical music." "A gas-stove, a table." "He can boil potatoes for himself, make a cup of tea." " Hello!" "Yura, there's nobody there." "Nobody answers." "They must be out." "No matter." "Bye." " I don't remember anything." " Do you get a lot of mail?" " Yes, it's enormous." "It's all in the basement, we can show you." "The old archive is huge and so is the new one." " Do all the letters come to your Foundation?" " That depends." "Many letters come to our city apartment." "We spent 2 years there, before this house was ready." "That address is reliable." "Here we didn't even know our post-code." "It's the countryside." " What do they say?" " Now they write considerably less, because stamps are too expensive." "About half the mail is requests for material aid." " For survival." " And so we do help them." "We can't help everybody, but we do help former prisoners." "Those that suffer both from old age and the injustices that wring their hearts, and ours too." "We help those first." " You know some of them?" " Not many." "It has changed, you know." "We helped the families of those who were imprisoned under Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko." "Their gulag was heir to Solzhenitsyn's former one." "Their wives, children, parents often were in a desperate situation." "The wives often lost their jobs, the children, the old parents fell ill." "The breadwinner was in jail." "We then helped those prisoners." "Certainly, we knew many of them." "Everybody knew them." "Prisoners were not as numerous as before, but they were those who raised their voices in protest." "As much as they could." "They were relatively young, many of them managed to get by one way or another." "Those whose health wasn't too ravaged, could work." "We don't help them anymore." "We help only those of them who lost touch with life." "Now we help Stalin's gulag prisoners, the prisoners of Solzhenitsyn's time, whom we had not helped during all the period of our underground work under Brezhnev." "Our Fund's managers were being arrested, beaten, imprisoned." " How do they find you?" "There are rumours about, as usual." "We published something." "People do know." "Besides, now... we ask local administrations to send us the lists they have." " Of the destitute..." " No, of those who endured repression." "They have such lists." "We take the lists, for instance, of the Volgograd or of the Stavropol region." "Say, 600 names." "Those lists are very long." "There we have data such as the date of birth, the dates of imprisonment, some other basic information." "We select the eldest people, or those who served the longest term." "If there are any disabled, we note them down." "We get to half the list." "Supposedly the worst off." "Then we send them letters, with no promises, just saying we'd like to learn more about them," "asking them to write to us, if they'd like to and can." "As a rule, people do answer, 85-90% of them do." " And what do they write?" " Mainly they are amazed that somebody should take any interest in them." "They write remarkable letters, one can't help crying from fear, from pain, and joy that we can help." "These letters help us understand their position." "For example, one may have children, but doesn't know where they are." "So we make our choice according to their circumstances." "We don't help too many in each region, but we do help." "In more than 40 regions." "Even more than that." " Thousands of people?" " Yes, counting those who receive regular aid from us." "There is a one-time aid too." "Because the Fund is made of the money raised from the publication of this book all over the world." " Does the State help you in any way?" " Does it help us?" "Of course not." " Never offered its help?" " Never helped, nor offered, and we never asked." "While I was talking with his wife, the writer decided to tidy his study himself." "He refused any help." " All right." "Now I must look how things are there." "Yes." "That's all right." "Now everything will be all right." "All right." "Yes..." "A very nice table" "Now it's there just as a memory of the old one." "No more than that." " To stand a while and think." " Yes." " Looking at the maple." " There in Vermont the ceiling of my study was even higher." "There were six windows in the roof." "Plenty of daylight, but also beastly cold in winter." " How did you heat it?" " We didn't." "I tried to, but it was too expensive." "For half a year I didn't work there, I had another study." "I worked there only during the warm season." "Here the study is not so cold, one can work, but anyway the smaller one is more comfortable." "It's warmer." "You've come just in time, it is just the end of the warm period." "Natalia Dmitrievna helps me a lot in my work." "She has herself typed all this..." "The collected works." " Including editorship." " Each character, each phrase..." " All the 20 volumes." "A unique edition..." "Of course, there aren't many copies." "And yet, I gave it to some regional libraries." "They were grateful." "So one can find it in regional libraries." "The "Red Wheel" was also sent to local libraries, because it's not available." " In what regions of Russia?" " I also sent copies to regional libraries," "I can't even tell you how many:" "In Yaroslavl, Kostroma," "Ryazan, Voronezh, to cite..." "Rostov only towns familiar to me:" "Pyatigorsk, Taganrog..." " And Petersburg?" " They have it at the Public Library in Petrograd." "I never say Petersburg, I can't accept it." "I accept Petrograd." " I prefer it too." " They were quite right to rename it, when World War I began." "Why on earth do we have to have a foreign name for our capital?" " A "burg"." " Not even "Peter-burg"," "Peter pronounced it as the Dutch do, "Peter-burkh"." "Plus "Sanct" on top of it." "Who believes now it's about St. Peter?" "Nobody used "Sanct"." "Now they say "Saint Petersburg"." "Why should they?" "Just Petrograd." "The region's still "Leningrad oblast"." "It could be Petrograd oblast." "Well, then." "Very valuable:" "The Great Academic Dictionary." "The Dahl Dictionary's essential too." "Other volumes..." "You see, in the camp, you couldn't read any book, as to my literary work, I kept it secret." "I was reading all the time:" "We'd go, say, to roll-call, and wait 20 minutes," "I kept reading." "Everybody thought I was crazy:" "Reading a dictionary!" "A rat would come to check." " What's this?" " A dictionary." "So I acquired a lot of Russian." "You see?" "I went through all four volumes." "Those notebooks I showed you were my first, then the second, the third, the fourth extracts..." "Out of them came the "Dictionary of Language Extension"." "It took me 35 years." "The Dahl is priceless." "So, you learned the language?" " Yes..." " You studied Russian again?" " Yes, that's how I did it." "I made myself familiar with it" "I always put down the expressions I heard, too." "I always made notes." "Dialects from different regions help a lot." "For instance," "Ivan Denisovich speaks the Meshchera dialect, that is, from east of the Ryazan region, southward from Vladimir." "The locality is called Meshchera." "In "Matryona's House" it's her natural language." "She didn't know I was taking notes when she was speaking." "I wrote what she said." " Did any of your ordinary readers ever tell you they appreciated the language?" " Readers?" "Oh, no." "I'm mostly criticised for inventing words." "We are so out of touch with authentic Russian, that when I reinstate rich, clear, genuine Russian words, they are seen as my inventions." "A few made it: "obustroit", "to arrange or complete"." "The pamphlet where I used this word was condemned, but the word itself was widely used and abused." "But you see, it's only a natural combination." " There were other such cases, when your words were accepted." " You see..." " Now there are prepositions." "'PROvedat', to call on somebody." "'RAZvedat'." "To find out." "And why not 'PREDvedat'?" ""To pre-know"?" "To know beforehand?" "Or 'PEREvedat', "to re-verify":" "I know what it is, but I check." "'PEREvedat', 'PREDvedat' can exist." " But "to pre-know" is somehow incorrect." " Why?" "It's absolutely valid." "Too few combinations are currently accepted." "We have 20 prepositions, even more." "And hosts of verbs." "Each of the prepositions can go with each verb." "And when I combine things that were never combined, they start shouting." "I didn't invent anything." "I just combined things that already exist." "That's all for now." "I'm going up to work." "I sat in the corner of his study." "I watched him." "Everything was interesting." "Then I decided to come nearer his desk." "I sat by his side and watched him working." "I heard his breath." "In the days before we had been talking for many hours, about many things," "but always returning to the theme most important for me." "I hear his voice and I see his eyes," "I will remember everything, from now to the rest of my life." " This is where Russian literature differs greatly from that of the West." "In the West, the plot's foremost, it gets the most attention." "Dostoevsky focussed on the plot." "Maybe that was... what opened his way to the West, because here he was despised and slandered, and died quite unknown." "He was discovered by the West, and then we realised whom we had lost." "While in his lifetime he was downtrodden." " It seems to me he has two kinds of plot:" "The first is defined by the character's actions, the second is the moral plot, which seems to me more important than the action." " I agree with you." "But can one call the moral object a plot?" "It's not the right word." "It should rather be "the framework of the narrative,"" "or "the pivot of the narrative."" "The plot is a chain of events and the reactions of the characters to them." " Of course." "You are right, one may call it "a moral plot"." "And this was most important for Dostoevsky." "Still, he was concerned about the average reader, this is why he didn't dismiss the common plot either." " Perhaps he just needed money?" "His life was hard, and he had to sell, the rest was the power of his writing." " You cannot put it all down to money." "He did have his readers in mind, and how to make them read..." "I agree with such a division:" "A common plot and a moral one." "Of course, he valued the moral plot very much, but never neglected the common one." "This is important, it's rare in Russia." " Had Raskolnikov not killed the old woman, had the novel finished before he turned the door-handle, it would have been "Crime and Punishment" as well..." " The moral plot was already over, but not yet the common plot." "Yes, you are right." "It's true." " Were there in Russian literature any moral plots before his?" "Who influenced him, or did it begin with him?" " You know... in some respect it was Karamzin." "Karamzin was very sensitive to moral plots." "His "History of the Russian State"" "is permeated with moral judgement." "His fiction too." "Your question was rather unexpected..." "Now I think it over once more..." "Yes, Karamsin for prose." "On the one hand, Russian literature as a whole stands aloft because of its ethic principles, which have never been lost." "Ethical concerns." "This is its distinction in literature." "It's a pity it'll end up crushed and discarded." "They all want aestheticism, which is only fit for making soap bubbles." "On the other hand, it's strange that Russian literature, partly because of Gogol," "whose pitiless vision took in all vices," "partly with his influence it overlooked the constructive aspect of Russian history." "Who created this great power?" "Who made it extend to Siberia to the Pacific, to Alaska, who introduced culture to Siberia?" "By the end of the 18th century cultural activity was highly developed in Siberia." "Why do we speak only about Oblomov," "Pechorin, Onegin, the odd people, who can't hang on to anything?" "Where are the men of action?" "The builders?" "Russian literature overlooked them." " When did this occur?" " There was no break." "It just flowed on, like a river." "I think it was Gogol's influence." "He opened the way to the satirical, the ironical," "Saltykov-Shchedrin." "He was already..." " He was the quintessence of them all." " Pure mustard..." "Pure mustard." "Why?" "..." "He drew us aside..." "It wasn't by accident that Gogol couldn't write the second part of "Dead Souls"." "Suddenly it came out that with all his... high moral convictions and motives" "he was simply unable to see those people, he understood they ought to exist, but he couldn't see them." "He tried to, but couldn't." "Such was his vision." " But he was already conscious of it." "He was, but an artist can't take orders, even from himself." "If it doesn't work, it doesn't work and that's that." "For some reason or other it all went wrong." "He had such talent, such a burning vision of all negative things." "Like an X-ray." " By its nature, art is born in complex and highly dramatic circumstances, that's the way art is born, isn't it?" " Not necessarily." "The atmosphere can be peacefully lyrical." " No, I am speaking about great works, about dramatic and tragic works." " Big works can be born so, but lyrics can come differently." "Like small brooks." " That depends on the author's fate." " It may be a turbulent river or a water-fall, it may also be a quiet lovely brook." "Drama is not a necessary condition for literature and art." " Is there anything new here, something that has never been before?" " Since 1917, many new things." "Few we could write about." "If we did, we were eliminated, those who described things as they were." "Those works were burnt..." "I'll never forget how I was brought to an interrogation," "in the middle of the room there was a huge pile of manuscripts." "Somebody's apartment had been searched at night." "And there lay that heap, and the investigator about to deal with it." "An enormous heap, high, in the form of a cone." "A lot of manuscripts and books." "The investigator was sitting at his table away from me and there was this mountain between us." "Aghast, I thought:" ""Now all is doomed."" "My war diaries were burnt." "Five notebooks, all in all." "I was deprived of those memories." "All my notes from the front are gone." "Only five notebooks, but there!" "Like a symbol, you see, of all that disappeared." "So much was destroyed in Russia." "After 1917 our life changed immensely." "And the people have changed." "They aren't the same." "Our literature has given but a poor notion of the whole thing, but it isn't to blame, because all truth was suppressed, and all manners of lies praising the Soviet regime were encouraged and widely spread." "So we ignored a great deal, and didn't realize in what condition Russia was by the 1990ies." "Why do we now have so many surprises?" "Because for 70 years we knew nothing." "You spoke of cruelty." "There never was such cruelty as in Soviet times." "It might be called an achievement of the Soviet period." "If I don't eat you, you'll eat me." "If I don't betray you, you'll betray me." "One of us must be jailed." "And that's it." "There were many such changes." " Why don't we know about what Rasputin is currently doing?" " Because he has been silenced, in our country of freedom..." "Why?" "I do know, I read his work." "He still writes good stories." "He doesn't appear publicly, because he's not invited." "Radio Svoboda even called him a fascist." "A fascist!" "They are crazy, stark raving mad." "They simply don't let him have his say." "We need freedom of speech." "He's got none." "Sometimes I meet him, I keep up with his work." "I'm very fond of him." "He has a tender soul, a kind and pure one." " I have a feeling that literature lives on the past." "The past is important." "The past we've lived." "Literature finds it difficult to exist along with a rapid, overhasty life." " No, it's pure physics:" "Human nature has not enough time to follow everything going on around it." "An artist has to be placed at some distance from his object." "If he just sets down his momentary impressions, it will be more like an essay, a piece of reporting," "than a work of art." "Few authors are able to capture pieces of reality instantly." "Chekhov could do that." "At once." "But the majority must have time for their impressions to settle down." "And also, at a certain age one begins to write" "not about the historical past, but about one's personal past," "about the earlier years of one's own life." "Why are there so many memoirs?" "So many people write about their youth." "When?" "In their old age." "In old age it often happens that old remembrances" "become more vivid." "There's some psychological law about it." " We are talking about the age of the soul." " Yes, we are." " The age of the soul..." "Is your soul older or younger than you?" "What's your feeling?" " This is interesting." " Is it hard for you?" " An interesting question." "I can't tell." "It's a difficult question." "We've lived together, my soul and my body," "the same length of time." "Of course, the soul was living mostly in another sphere, at another speed." "Still, I would not call it old." "DIALOGUES WITH SOLZHENITSYN" "PART THREE" " You've moved it?" "Oh, you're shooting?" "I thought it was all over." "Well, it's up to you..." "Good..." " Alexander Isaevich." "Show me your hands." " Hands?" "Near us was Tolstoy Street, now it's been renamed." "I had my sledge." "Suddenly, whistles began blowing." "Blowing everywhere." "What's up?" ""Lenin's being buried"." "If Lenin's being buried, then it's January 1924." "I was five." "Lenin's burial..." " And the details... of life at home, the objects?" " Yes, of course." "Well, I..." "My mother was already working." "She went to work in Rostov, I stayed in Kislovodsk with my grandparents." "I remember my grandparents well." "We witnessed a lot together." "They taught me to pray to God." " Were they kind?" " They were very faithful." "My grandfather was... a very remarkable man." "Actually, he replaced my father, because... my father died before I was born." "I never saw him." "My father... after the 3rd year of university, went to war as a volunteer," "returned from the war to his bride, his future wife, lived three months and was killed during a hunt." "In an utterly foolish way." "And my grandfather was a very remarkable man." "He began as farm worker." "He had nothing." "He came from Tauria to Kuban and got hired." "He worked for several years, but so well, that his employer ended up giving him a few sheep, a cow." "I believe that was all." "He started his farm just from that, and raised it to such a high..." "Land was cheap there, so he started to buy." "He created an estate of 5400 acres," "and was an important producer of corn and wool." "He shipped big amounts of wool and corn." "Now there's a sovkhoz nearby, but it cannot work as well as his farm." "You ask whether he was kind." "It's very simple." "When the revolution came, naturally he was... dispossesed of all," "had nothing to live on." "So, he... his former workers supported him." "For 10-11 years after the revolution, I witnessed it:" "As long as he remained free, they supported him." "Everyone would load a cartful of goods for him." "That was the kind of patron he was." "That's that." "He finished at the GPU." "His fate is unknown." " You still don't know?" " It's over." "I will never know." "In Armavir." " And your grandmother?" " She died a little bit before that, just an illness." " Who then took care of you?" " No, I lived with them only until the age of 5, 5 or 6, afterwards I came to stay in summer, when I lived with my mother in Rostov-na-Donu." "This is how I became a Rostovian." "You see, the city of Rostov... in the matter of language is not what a Russian writer needs." "In later years, as an adult," "I recovered what I had lost with the impurity of the Russian language in Rostov." "A very mixed language." "Incorrect pronunciation." " Why does it happen so?" " Because of the multicultural population there." "The South developed separately from Central Russia." " The arrival of different cultures..." " The language got distorted while moving southwards." "There was the Ukrainian dialect which superimposed itself on it." "This is why, when I came to Central Russia for the first time, it was just before the war," "I was struck by the language." "Ever since, I looked for authentic ...Russian." "And found it." "There were the Cossacks, the Ukrainians, the Greeks, the Armenians, the Jews, the Caucasians..." "Mixed and remixed." "Thus there was no good Russian." " How does it influence one's character?" " The character..." "Well..." "My character was more influenced by the severity of the Soviet epoch." "Hard times." "I was brought up with the faith of God, and from school on, this faith was being smothered." " But you did retain it?" " I did for a long time, but in the end I gave in to this treatment, dialectic historical materialism carried it away, and I lost my faith." "It's very typical that in our student years..." "This is how it was:" "I held on until the end of school, then it finished." "But after, during the 5 years before the war," "I was completely unreligious." "Many years later, when I began to sort out" "some old letters, some early attempts at writing," "I was struck by my spiritual emptiness at that time." "You see?" "It was striking, I myself..." "We spoke about being able to think it out." "No, one can't think it out on one's own." "I lived a full life, an active life." "And many years have passed since then." "Already in exile, when I was reading my old extant archives," "I was struck by spiritual emptiness." "The reason is clear to me:" "An unreligious period." "That's it." " Sometimes one hears that faith cannot exist without education and learning." " Without learning?" "Wrong." "Without proper upbringing - it's true, yes, because if you just let a boy, like Mowgli, walk on the grass, he may develop a sense of religion, he may develop it, or he may not." "How to say..." "In those same student years, with my friend, we went down the Volga in a small boat." "Bought it in Kazan, sold it in Samara." "Not so far..." "We just went in a boat, still boys." "100% dependent on the weather:" "On wind, rain and everything." "We had no shelter, nothing." "Each day we became more superstitious." "Not believers in God, just terribly superstitious." "Afraid of any sign, of doing things the wrong way." "So, of course, in nature man gets to feel the superior forces." "But it's clear religion is acquired through upbringing, from one generation to another." "I managed to receive it from my parents, from my mother and my aunt, dear to me." "They succeeded in sowing its seeds during the most savage Soviet time." " So learning is not important in attaining faith." " Not important at all." " But one has to know." " No, for this knowing is not necessary." " One must know." " For this, one doesn't need much learning." "There are different levels of learning." "Another level is greater learning, deep and philosophical." "You may have it or not." "A proverb says: "Who knows less, sleeps more"." "You know, learning..." "And another one:" ""Learning adds no wit"." "At first, I was appalled:" "How can it be so?" "It adds so much!" "It was at the front." "We had a commissar, he always repeated this:" ""Learning adds no wit"." "I tried to argue: "How can that be, comrade major!"" "Long after that, I thought: "That's true"." "There are people of vast learning, who are basically foolish." "And people of little learning, but wise." "They know life, psychology, the right way of living." "No connection to learning." "In general, mankind became so enthusiastic about progress, pushing forward with it ever since the Age of Enlightenment." "But in reality, all mankind has won its spiritual emptiness." " Technological advances..." " Only technology, civilisation, give-me-all, all the goods, now the Internet," "the stream of information leaves no more air to breathe, the soul ...goes empty." "The soul is empty, death is terrifying, nowhere to go." " If there's progress in learning, in education, there should be moral progress too." " There should be." " Is it possible?" "Did we not already attain all that was needed..." " Attain?" " We know already, it's known..." " To know is nothing." "One has to let it into one's heart." "One may know anything." "Some people know that God exists, even some scientists, some great physicists admit it, others don't know." "One knows, another doesn't." "No, it must be in the heart." "One must live with it." "Morality is not attained by knowledge." "It is attained first in a child's upbringing, then by a self-teaching." "In this way." "Through experience." " Why... in 1917-1918, did we choose to make such radical changes?" "Why didn't we just choose to repair the social system, instead of starting from zero?" " First of all, the word... 'to choose' is... a wrong one." "To choose..." " But millions of people took part in it." " Yes, but... there was no choice, in the proper sense." "I'll explain." "'To choose' means... explaining to the whole nation, to all the people:" ""You've this way or that way to go." ""Keep in mind, this will come out of this, and that of that." "Here you have a 20-year, a 50-year forecast."" "They think it over and vote." "This means 'to choose'." "But our way of choosing was..." " Was such a method possible in 1917?" "Not at all." " Then, why discuss it?" " That's what I..." "Yes, but then you shouldn't call it a choice." "Or no, I'll call it a choice." "A choice, right." "Gorbachev was saying: "My father chose to follow Socialism"." "This is how he chose it, like all the others, like this:" "The Bolsheviks, with financial support from Germany and, we know, also from" "Wall Street, published a huge number of tracts and newspapers." "These newspapers read:" ""Why do you need this war?" ""Put down arms." "Kill the officers" ""and go home to till land you will take from the landlord."" "That was the choice." "The only choice." "Right, it was a choice." "Our people took that... that cheap bait." " It was introduced so..." " A huge number of people accepted this." " Why?" " Because it's one of the features... of human nature." "You are concerned only with its cruelty." "But there's also greed and unruliness, and an absence of foresight too." "He could take his gun and go home right now, why not to go?" " We're speaking... about the qualities of the nation, not those of a single man?" " But not the whole nation." "Not the whole." " The bigger part, which... was to endure all." " Not sure about the bigger." "It was the Whites who had their ideals:" "To preserve healthy life in Russia." "The Reds had that destructive trend of building Socialism." "But the multimillion Red Army was not created of volunteers." "They were at first in the Red Guard." "The Red Army was made up by force." "Only the Bolsheviks had the cruelty, your term, to come... to catch deserters and to shoot them before the villagers." " Were there any such examples in Russia before?" " Never." " No such mass exterminations?" " No such examples of mobilisation, because before everyone reported when called to service." "No one sought to evade it, on the contrary, if you didn't pass the test, if you were inapt for service, it was a shame." " Yes." " I was speaking of something else..." " For one's self." " I recall your publication," ""Communism in Evidence, But Misread"." " This is true and untrue." "I took this title, when, in my fervour, I considered" "Communism to indeed be misunderstood in a stupid way." "That the Western politicians didn't understand the full danger of it." "But now, when I know how Wall Street helped the Bolsheviks," "Wall Street, the biggest banks of America helped them to secure their position," "I think:" "No, they understood it well." "They knew Communism was useful." "When it was in Russia." "To make Russia..." "to turn it into... a source of raw material, to exploit it and to make profit from it." "Later, they failed." "The cold war started, the Bolshevik empire improved." "Now they've succeeded once more." " Can you imagine... a successful, or let's say, a happy... outcome of an experiment called Socialism, anywhere?" "Is it possible?" " Without the breath of God, with no conscience, both of those struggling regimes are hostile to man." "The one and the other." "No good will come out of the one or the other." "Everywhere... the matter is conscience." "Only it has to be... developed in oneself and in others." "The statesmen aren't busy with this." " But neither are the statesmen in the West." " Yes, yes." "Nowhere they are." " Who, in the structure of modern life, could undertake this function of..." "development?" "Because it has become absolutely clear this process should be organised." "Who should be the organiser?" "How are leaders being put forward?" " In a way, religions organise it." "But it couldn't be arranged from the outside." "People should themselves ...respond" "and live accordingly." " People can't, people need help." " It's wrong." "Among our people," "I can speak for them, because I've seen many simple people, there are many sincere Christians, who live among evil and chaos, in an honest and open-hearted way, and die in peace, with no burden of sin." "A lot of them." "What matters, is how one responds to the sermon." "How one responds." "Apart from sermons, religions offer nothing." "They only call." "People decide." "You were speaking of our revolution, of people choosing their fate." "Mankind too reached its current state by itself." "The fashion today is to speak ceaselessly about the transition" "from the 20th century to the 21st, from the 2nd millennium to the 3rd." "My God, how many publications, how many discussions." "All idle." "Because the border is not drawn, there isn't any bright line to cross where January 1, 2001 is to come." "No." "There isn't such a line." "The transition is already happening, in a threatening way, and it doesn't promise us any good neither in the West, nor in the East." "All is in us." " That is, it's an inclined plane, and we go down?" " We go up in terms of civilisation, and down, in terms of soul." "A devastation of the soul." "A vacuum in the soul." "Very alarming, very alarming." " Yes." " Of course, in our country we have our own fears, still bigger, our own atrocities and horrors, that suffocate us, but it must be said that humankind doesn't live in a paradise." "The 21st century has yet to show itself." "My God, how did they greet the 20th century?" "What a joy:" "At last, the century of reason." "And what did they get..." "Now, they have the same hope for the 21st." "It'll be the same, if not worse." "We're going to destroy nature." "It is dying inexorably." "Chekhov, in "The Huntsman", already then..." "at the end of the 19th century, found such heartfelt words about the death of nature." "The 19th century!" "I wished I'd be given that nature!" " What impression did his "Sakhalin Island" give you?" " "Sakhalin Island", I'll tell you, is somehow smothered with too many statistics." "Too many statistics." "There aren't enough living examples." "It was hard to comprehend it in a visit." "It was very good that Chekhov went there." "For him, it was an act of courage." "No railway." "The Siberian way, many hardships." " He had a fatal disease..." " Yes, he had." "But "Sakhalin"" "actually doesn't bear a great emotional charge." " Did it have any special meaning for Russia at the time?" " Not even that, because a certain Doroshevich, who wrote some... brilliant feuilletons, also about the condition of detainees, had impressed society even more." " And did you ever think about Chekhov as a man?" " I thought a lot about him." "Right now, in the 10th issue of Novy Mir, in print in October, there will be my study of Chekhov." "I write there about many of his stories, a lot." "Year after year, I took my notes, then put them in order." " And to imagine his earthly life, its atmosphere?" " I love him tenderly," "I have much tenderness for him." " What, to your mind, is interesting in Chekhov's Russian?" "What do you note there?" " Alas, he too... was influenced by the South." "Taganrog, the South..." "He didn't work out a spatial, profound, succulent language." "He allows himself some inexact literary words, instead of the right ones." "This is southern education, unfortunately." " Interesting." " Does reading history improve language?" " Depends on the writer." "With Karamzin, yes, remarkably." "I didn't study him, because he's still the 18th century." "I took the 19th - 20th." "History by Karamzin is poetry." "One would want to write down his phrases as aphorisms." "To repeat them." "Just to learn them by heart." " Yes, yes." " That's him." "Serguei Soloviev does not have this ability." "Serguei Soloviev is dry... dry, strict and very state-oriented." " That is, his ideology defines the features of his language..." " And precision." "And Kliuchevsky comes to a kind of poetic take-off." "Not the same as Karamzin, but he makes sharp analyses." "This is how he wrote his works:" "First, he gave lectures." "He is all rhetoric." "And while he is saying his bright words," " He creates a form..." " Yes, and the picture is there." "Many vivid pictures." "A long way from Karamzin, but very fresh writing." "That's why he makes new words appear." "I see some new words appear." " New indeed?" " Yes." "Yes." "In any case..." "They aren't even new." "Words are like the cells of the periodic table of elements." "All the elements exist already." "People can ignore them." "Still they exist." "One may use a word..." " That is, a word may exist without being pronounced?" " Right." " So, words can exist without people?" " They exist." "Accidentally, this stem has never been used... with such a prefix." "Now they are put together." "We can discuss it." " Still, at some point words must be created by man." " They are... you know, language is like..." "It is there, and it can have any shoots." "Don't say: "He's an innovator." "He makes up new words."" "They always call me an innovator, as if I invent things." "I invent nothing." "I only take what already exists." "That's all." "Language is a living tree." "A living stem." "There's everything." "Go and look, to make sure, to see." " Are you fond of the sound of words?" "I believe this must be important for you." " I'll tell you." " You put words in writing, but I feel you always hear them." " Right." "The phrase should easily be read aloud." "Without a stammer." " So literature should be read aloud?" " Yes, aloud." " Not silently, but aloud." " The most significant, fundamental literature... cannot live without an oral... an oral context." " I agree the sonority should be there." "But on the other hand, for example, take a poet." "The poet is mediocre. "Yes, but how he recites his verse!"" "That's his business." "His contemporaries may be at the reading." "But the verse on the paper should be such that I could read and like it without the author reciting." "The verse should ring by itself, on the paper." " I agree." " And we have such a saying:" ""Don't mind if he's unreadable." "Come to his concert, he recites so well."" "Perhaps he recites, howls or sings; that's possible." "But it isn't literature any more." "I don't accept it." " When you were writing Cancer Ward, did you also imagine... the sound of the words, of the phrases?" " I think that..." " Did it exist inside you in an oral version, or did it become a human story from the beginning?" " You know..." "Of course, in the Cancer..." "A perfect fusion with the language, the highest fusion is there when I write my miniatures." "I have some principles for my language." "We can discuss it." "Still, in Cancer Ward this wasn't my main concern." "My main concern was to describe the ill people." "It's a heavy impression, when you come to stay in a ward, where everyone has cancer." "With different forms and development." " We speak of a tragedy..." " A tragedy." " I understand it's a tragedy, not a medical matter." "A human tragedy." " A tragedy." "How a man overcomes his illness or surrenders to it." "But when I gave Cancer Ward to Tvardovski, he said:" ""You have put it so that" ""I wouldn't object to being treated there." "People can live there, too."" "One should look for a catharsis." "For a purification." "In each text, each story you are writing." " And if the soul aches so that you can't?" "You have the right to write." " I have that right." " Without necessarily knowing the issue." " I have the right." "Of course, I do, but the greatest quality will be achieved if the chaos is overcome within the book's limits." "The best quality." "You may also overcome nothing." "Post-modernism, on the contrary, creates chaos." "Nothing to overcome." "The more chaos, the better." "What's the use?" "Dead after 10 years." "Even less." "Nobody needs them any more." "They can produce and produce nonsense." "But the struggle of humanity against chaos is a historical one." "On a world scale, or within a part of one's life, or within a life, or within a single work of art." "The entropy, makes all the potentialities equal." "An artist must fight against that." "An artist must combat entropy and create different potentialities." " He must?" " He must." "Well, what does that mean?" "There is no law to make him responsible, but morally he should." "He must find a solution for chaos, for entropy." "Against confusion and despair." " So, it's only in this case... that a work of harmony can be created." " Yes." " If there's struggle, there will be harmony." " Should be." "There should be victory." "Even without full harmony, catharsis purifies us for victory." "Victory may be far off, but we should move towards it." " An author may conceive this struggle and grasp its necessity, but to attain harmony won't he need, writing book after book, more than one life?" "Now he is ready..." "but his life is over." " It can well happen." "And only if each work is better than the previous, which is not always..." "A conflux of your inner emotions, of the material, of external circumstances." "A conflux..." " I can understand this regarding cinematography." "But in literature, I can't see..." "You must be able to control..." "While we were preparing the shoot, you were working." "One word, a comma, next word, a pause... a preposition, one more word." "You are building your world." "So why is a writer not always able to create harmony?" "He who is aware of it..." " One should have, Pushkin said, a happy disposition of the spirit." "Such an exceptional disposition, that everything goes right." "When a work goes right, it's like a chess game, when you're winning, and it happens by itself, no matter which move you make, you win." "There, you see a fork, there's an easy prey..." " Does your work direct you?" " My work?" " Does it show you the way to go?" " And you, it seems to me, you are led by your work." " Very often." " I see it." "And I approve it, I approve it." "You know, in different cases it may be different." " Pushkin used to say he didn't know how the story would end." "I like that." " That's good." " It isn't always possible." " On the other hand, for such a huge work as "The Red Wheel", everything was decided by History." "I can't change its course, I can't change a single fact." "My business is to find the right facts, as many as I can, and knit them so tightly that no space is left unfilled, no room for argument." "All the facts are together." "No empty space." "Facts everywhere." " That is to say, "The Red Wheel" could become for you a basis for a "War and Peace"?" " Why, what for?" " I mean, we may call it so." " Not me." "I have refused any attempts at all." " I didn't mean it." " No, there's no comparison to be made, because..." "I accepted to reduce the presence... of fictional characters" "in order to describe historical figures as my own fictional characters." "I took several dozens of them and described them like people I knew in my life." "I spent decades with them, all those leaders of February, of the Revolution." "I perceive "The Red Wheel" as a gigantic chronicle, whose counterpart is not to be found anywhere." "Does it have to be followed by a further step?" "A creative crystallisation of something else." " Oh, something else." "Because about this about the February revolution, I have said everything I wished." "That's all." "No, what do you want..." "I am too old for big works." "I must choose, and finish what I have begun." " At present, does your work demand a lot of you?" "Was it always so or only now?" " Now I work less because I take more time to begin my life in the morning." "I tire earlier in the evening." "When I do work... before, I worked 14-16 hours a day, and now perhaps 5-6 hours." "Yes, the creativity question is very interesting..." "Of course, it's much the same as with all the arts." "So, what I say of literature, can often be applied to art." "Art, of course, includes literature." "But some questions are purely literary and, cannot else be raised." " It's strange." "Speaking of modern literature, what is the biggest problem of its present condition:" "The absence of big forms, or the absence of new talents?" " I think it is... the writer's lack of responsibility towards" "a higher power." "This is the main reason of the decline of literature." "In the early 1900's there still were masters, in Russia, even later until the authorities stifled them," "who wrote not to "express themselves"," ""here I want to show myself", no, because I feel a kind of inner duty." "I've a kind of sacred relation to writing." "I'm fulfilling some kind of obligation." "It is the decline of their responsibility, before God." "Even if some do not refer to Him but to some higher power, or duty, something greater than one's self." "The decline of this responsibility is the main reason." "Today writers allow themselves just to play the buffoon, to write utter nonsense." "He invents Beria as a relative of Nicolas II, then he builds his novel around that." "Or Chapaev as a mystic." " This we mustn't even discuss." "It's clear." " True." "Chapaev is a mystic." "What else?" "What is this gibberish for?" "It can be weaved endlessly." "This decline comes from the general spiritual decline of humanity." "Hence the decline." "And then..." " Because of progress?" " Yes." " First of all?" " Because of civilisation." "And also..." "When the great musical works were being created, at that time" "they were created for a few connoisseurs." "Mozart plays music at the duke's court and knows there will be 2-3 true judges." "What will they say?" " Yes." "And he reached..." " He reached for it." " Yes, for them." "For their praise." "And now you have to please millions." "But their tastes aren't developed." "They are different." "To please millions, quality decreases." "But in fact, my idea is that that in fact" "mass culture must not necessarily be low-level." "Folklore is the proof." "Folklore is a high-level art." "And for the masses." " But it's different." "Folklore is not professional art." " Why isn't it professional?" " However it isn't, whereas modern art is." "At the time it was professional." "One's only occupation was to sing songs, another sang when free," "the others listened." "No, it isn't..." " He sang, but during the day, he worked." "Even if he sang better than others." " So what?" " One played accordion, another something else." " It doesn't exclude..." " Each time, in an original way." "...it doesn't exclude professionalism." " I believe the art of folklore is an art of improvisation, a deep understanding of it." " If it were true..." " Aleksandr Isaevich, what I believe important in folklore, is that man is only creative for that moment, when it's natural, when his heart can't help but sing." " But this is also true for a writer." " Can't help but cry." " Still, among professionals it's rare." " Improvisation, yes, but why have millions accepted it?" "Improvisation?" " They improvise too." " No." " To a certain extent, they do." " But they accepted it." " Yes, and they develop it." " They develop it, and hence it becomes... a mass art." "And its level..." "One should only judge a work within its level." "I listen to a traditional Russian song and I find it perfect." "Why should I... be worried about Beethoven being even more perfect?" "I'm speaking not of Beethoven now, but about this song." " But it will be sung in Orel this way, that way in Vologda, and still another in Nizhni." " Already..." " This is exactly..." "Fortunately, nothing is rigid in folklore." "All evolves." "In professional art, quality is set at a certain point, and everything stops there." " It wasn't for this aspect that I cited folklore." "I cited it for the purpose of giving an example, of how folklore can attain, on one hand, a high level, and on the other, popularity." "But in the art of today..." " Folklore is individual..." " Even if it isn't, this is not what matters in today's art." "It can, even remaining individual and professional, attain both a high level and mass accessibility." "That can be attained." "We mustn't think that we are condemned to produce low-end rubbish." "We aren't condemned to that." " Yes, I see." " The only thing I maintain is we aren't condemned." " Folklore is something full of life, something alive..." "This is how the traditional songs survived." "All these songs survived till today because they evolved." " Yes, Aleksandr Nikolaevich they survived, and now they are dead." "Now they are blocked." " They'll be back." " Not sure." " Objectively." " Before, in my youth, at each concert there were folk songs." "Now, never." "I listen to the radio Orpheus, thank God, it broadcasts folk songs." " If they're there," "I'm sure, they won't disappear." "PART FOUR" " To what extent does the Biblical tradition" "influence literature?" "Is the Biblical tradition a kind of canon that makes writing" "easier and gives it its principal direction?" " First of all, you should distinguish between the Biblical and the Evangelical traditions." "Though they are connected, they are different." "Both of them have a great influence upon culture in general, the whole culture of mankind," "but in a very in such a way that cannot be traced directly." "One can't define the limits of such influence." "Except when writers take their characters from the Scriptures." "When they refer directly to its themes." "But when they don't, when they go through only its atmosphere..." "Yes, it has a grandiose influence but is sometimes difficult to trace." "Almost impossible." "Even the author... who experienced it, may not know it." "May be unconscious of it." " It is a beautiful influence." " Beautiful." "But don't mix the Bible and the Gospels." "They are different in tonality, and so on." " It seems so simple." "So much has been said about man, his choice, his destiny." "And the very words of the Bible and the Gospels give us... so many motifs..." " Motifs, yes." " While literature, you say, is undergoing its most severe crisis." " All those centuries of biblical references are gone." "Only a general influence of the Bible's atmosphere is left." "But don't forget:" "Christianity, contrary to Judaism, lays a straight path to life after death, while Judaism doesn't accept life after death at all." "Not at all." "That is their biggest difference." "And it finds... the most distinctive resonance in their influence too." "That's why I speak of the Evangelical and the Biblical." " Which of them most pertains to Russia?" " To Russia, the Evangelical." "But the Biblical is universal, it has graced... all the world's literature." "Well, except that of Antiquity." "Antiquity gave its own..." "It gave much." "Renaissance..." " Which colour did your mother like?" " Which colour?" "Well..." "Her piano was dark red." "Mahogany." "She used to play." "Mahogany..." " What did she play?" " That, I can't say." "I was..." "When we lived with her, there was no piano any more in our tiny room." "Friends kept it, then she sold it." " But what music did she like?" " You know, she tried to teach me music, but with no success." "It was my son Ignat who was to learn music." "Not me." " Are you like your mother?" " Oh, I can't tell." "Hard to tell." "Hard to tell how." " She often smiled?" " Life didn't make us... smile too often." "A lonely widow, from 'former owners', that is to say, persecuted." "They kept refusing her employment." "She had to bring up her son." "Worked ceaselessly." "Was often ill." "Got tuberculosis." "Of course, there were... youthful companions, a good family of friends." "She asked me: "Will you sleep alone?" "Of course I will"." "She locked me in at home and ran to spend the evening with them." "I slept well." "Was never afraid." " Did she ever speak with you about life, about destiny?" " 'Destiny' is such a word..." "Destiny as such..." "It's hard to imagine our life." "You know, for you it's hard to imagine." "What you are asking about, goes back to the 1920's." " I was asking about the spiritual exchange between mother and son." " Our spiritual exchange was through religion." "She believed in God." "We had an icon, a lamp, although it was already prohibited." "This was our spirituality." "Our family didn't know any spirituality outside religion." "We were of a simple origin, and general things like spiritual philosophy were unknown to us." "Everything was God:" "The Gospel, the church, mass, the icons." "This is how we understood spirituality." " Would she never sit next to you, take your hand and say: "Sashenka," ""my soul is aching, I'm having..." ""...a hard time." " No, she asked my advice." "Even for important decisions in her life." "My usual resoluteness made her ask me: "How should I behave, like this or like that?"" "She often hesitated, and I was firm:" "This - no, that." "She listened, or not." " Did she love you?" " You ask!" "She devoted all her soul to me." " Could a father do it?" " Mothers are more apt to it." "There are different fathers, too." "Different..." " When did you read Andrei Platonov?" " Late." "When did I read him?" "In the end of 1960ies." "I still want to write about him, but can't find the moment." " How could it come into being?" "Can you help me to understand?" "What's this language?" "Where from?" "I have the impression his language was formed under the influence of the provincial Soviet press of the time." " Not the press." "Not the Soviet." " Of some people who..." " No." "... who wrote much as if his language was formed in a quite different way." " No, he did not absorb an influence of a high culture." "Thanks to God." "Were he not an assistant to a locomotive-driver, were he to began from the Academy, we would have no Platonov." "He is... such a..." " His language is a living one." " He is just a living image... of our simple people," "who are caught by the revolution and try, by their own understanding, to understand and to express it." "Hence, his expression is like groping." "The world is so complex, intersecting the traditional world, where he had grown, his parents, his family and the rest, and this incredibly new Soviet world he wants to believe in, he wants to believe," "he's not a "malicious anti-Soviet critic" as they described him, he wants to understand by himself." "This is why he gropes, almost like a blind man." "He is touching his words, looking for their combinations." " Is it stylistics or philosophy?" " Both." "The process of cognition." "His style, his syntax is an imprint of the cognition." " Of the language, of life?" " Of both." "Language is only an accessory tool." "He is studying life." "But his expression is always from the inside." "And his amazing combinations of words show what we were speaking about, only we were speaking of words, that all of them already exist." "But syntax too!" "The syntax, the constructions, and the government, the government of words, it's all there." "It's all there, but before him..." "And he only started it." "Still, he was not the first." "Some combinations can be found..." " How do you imagine him?" "What kind of man?" "How did he walk, speak?" "What was he like?" " Like a genial self-taught man." "A genial autodidact invents a steam engine." "Like Polzunov." "Who else did we have?" " He's not a count-writer?" " No, no." "Not a who?" " A count-writer." " No, no, no, no." "An absolutely genial autodidact." " Interesting." " Yes." "I studied his syntax." "To write about him, and I want to write about him," "I have to work a lot." "No time..." "Perhaps one day I'll have time." " How terribly sad it is, that his life was so hard, so unbearable." "All was so cruel." " That disaster with his son." "He was forced to write some pro-Soviet things." "I feel pity for those who wrote anything pro-Soviet." "He wrote just a bit of it." " Yes, just a bit." " A bit." " But still it is amazing, and resembles nothing." " No one." " Suddenly a man appears, like a plant, like a unique plant in a forest..." "He could have not existed." " He could." "A unique one." " Now look:" "Such a writer appeared, but what changed in the Russian literature?" "Or such people doesn't matter so much?" "They make a tremendous impression on us, the readers." "They are a part of our life, as literature in general." "Nothing is so important as literature for our life." "But among the fellow writers, among the literary workers, what does mean the arrival to the world of such a..." " You mean, internationally?" " Even if only... for the Russian practice." " Remember that in Russia, the Bolshevik censorship made many work underground." "Poems and novels were born without anyone knowing them." "They returned to the surface with such a delay, unpardonable." "In their time, they could have tremendous social effect." "They were weakened by being released only 50 years later." " For example, Astafiev, Belov, ...Rasputin?" " They came in time..." " I know they did." " Yes, yes." " Were they... influenced by that extraordinary language..." " Of Platonov?" " Does a writer feel such an influence?" " They all have succulent language." "A fine vocabulary." "All have good, bright vocabulary." "By its origin, a natural vocabulary." "But the syntax..." "Platonov, on the contrary, doesn't have any special vocabulary." "He's all syntax." "But in the syntax of all the three, I can't see any Platonov's influence." "I don't know." " I'm not even so interested in the influence of his literature, as in the influence of his personality upon the milieu of writers." " Platonov is too uncommon..." " No way to capture it?" " No." "No, there were such cases before, even there were such combinations," "one could start..." "Not long ago I gave an example of a pre-Platonov writing." "An early Platonov." "There was a bit of it in the works of..." "Apollon Grigoriev, of Hetzen," "some few and scattered elements." "I mean only syntax." "Expressions." "Government of words." "I had one more example, I forgot it." "Before Platonov, but very alike." "But of course, Platonov is the king." " Did you have many drafts for "Ivan Denisovich"?" " I wrote it in 40 days." "Re-wrote it once, and that's all." " But did you think it out before?" " No, I didn't." "I didn't." " You simply had to write it?" " My material was so abundant, that my only task was telling them:" "Not you, not you, we have enough." "To choose only the most inevitable." "You only reject the superfluous." "The worst is to look for something to add." "That's the end." "If there's no density, the work has no value." "Only density." " The density is an artistic criterion?" " Yes!" "For literature in any case, the density is, not only for literature, the main criterion." "The density." " Is literature emotional?" " Art in general?" " Is literature an emotional or a rational art?" " Emotional." " Emotional?" " Yes." "There are rational elements in it." "There are even elements of scholarship, of analysis." "But emotions must be there, otherwise it's boring." "So, literature is a structural art, by its nature, isn't it?" "Is it close to architecture, if one wants to understand?" " What is it closer to?" " There's the strict science of culture." "The accuracy." " Closer to architecture than to anything else." " Not to music?" "Not to music?" " It's poetry that is..." " Yes." "...closer to music." "The prose is closer to architecture, you're right." "To architecture." " With its space, its laws, its freedom?" "Its history." " And the cinema, to the theatre?" " Nowhere." "It goes nowhere." " No to the theatre?" " It's not an art at all." " Not an art?" "It's wrong." "It is an art." "Must I convince you?" "This is an art." "And in your works, it is an art." " No, it just charms people." "Charm is temptation." "Charm is not love." "It is temptation." "Literature is an art." " Do you know any talented Russian sociologists?" " Perhaps there are many." "Can't recall at once." "Sociology is a bit vague..." "A vague definition." "A sociologist, a philosopher, an economist, all of them are contiguous." "Now all the discoveries are made on the boundary of disciplines." "They are contiguous." "Sociologists..." "Sociologists..." "What to say..." "Plekhanov was not a bad sociologist." " Plekhanov?" " Yes." "Plekhanov's fate was remarkable." " He's now quite in the shadow." " Quite." "We have so much forgotten." "We had many sociologists." "I can't even muster my brain to recall." "No time." "For this, one must think in quite a new way." "To look up the names..." "or the decades." " Which changes in the moral geography of man are irreversible?" " Interesting." "Which changes..." " In the moral geography of man are irreversible?" " Biography?" " Geography." " Are irreversible." " Why the geography of man?" " There's such a space with its physics, its motion and its stationary features, some depth..." "Biography is a plane vision." "And geography..." "Perhaps it is an amateurish idea." " I don't understand it." "I like the complexity of the question:" "Which changes are irreversible." " Yes." " But this geography disturbs me." " Good." "Let's keep 'biography', if it's clearer." "Because I understand 'geography' as a notion... somewhat more specific to the human life." "Human life is not biographical, but geographical, because... there are time and space, physical processes, the man's immobility, his physical nature and his artistic capacities." " You see..." "I will answer you simply from... a Christian point of view." "The Christians believe everything is reversible, any sin, even any crime." "While man is alive, he can understand and repent." "In this respect, it is reversible." "But you can't repair anything." "The result of your crime cannot be repaired." "It's in the past." "Nothing to do." "Only to grieve and to change." "Still, Christianity appreciate it very much, this renewal of the soul, whenever it happens, even at the very end." "This is Christianity." "Otherwise..." "In our days." "These turns of enlightenment become rare." "One follows assuredly one's wrong path." "The Age tells him: "Go on"." ""Go on, everyone behaves so."" "This "everyone does"" "ossifies souls completely." "People condemn themselves to complete perdition." " Crime and punishment?" " Yes, it is..." "The punishment is that man can't repent any more." "...lost in this stream and in this stream, he's not even a person." "The reason is:" ""Everyone does so"." "This is the most terrible idea." "Oh, Lord..." " Speaking of "Crime and Punishment", what's most important to me, more important than the rest, is that Raskolnikov finally goes to prison," "and the novel ends there, but for me it only starts there." "How can one live with this memory, despite one's repentances or with this deed, this guilt, which will always haunt one, for the murder one committed." " Christians say:" "Pray, pray, pray." "To ask for help your soul." " And to not repeat those errors." " Not only that." "He stays away from it, but his past is still there." " What to do with one's past?" " What to do..." "At Christian confession, the priest, if you tell him" "about a sin of the past, will say:" ""You did confess, it's pardoned"." "Wrong." "It's never pardoned." "Until death," "it is not." "This is very important." "The higher power is always God." "The higher power is always God, and those who cannot attain religious conscience, must have at least... some humility towards existence." "Remember the tree yesterday." "Each tree makes us stand in awe." "And is it only trees?" "What about birds?" "Animals?" "Rivers?" "Mountains?" "Humility towards existence." "Understanding our limitedness, our wretchedness." "If not believing in God." " We are looking at Russian history, trying to understand... what point it has reached, we worry about today's events, but I believe that the same questions, acute pains and acute diseases of Russian life," "were present at Catherine's time, and in the 1900's." "I see it from your books." " Of course, on one hand..." " When you cite Derzhavin..." " The state is necessary to maintain the lives... of masses of people." "Big masses can't live without the state." "On the other, how can justice become the foundation of state government?" "It's difficult because the people in power are imperfect." "Not just imperfect, but also wicked, or full of inflated ambition - we know of... many examples." " Why in Russia are they so inadequate towards their mission?" " Not just in Russia..." " I mean in Russia." " It's incorrect because this way... we place all the guilt on Russia." " We speak of Russia because we live here." " We live on the Earth, within humanity." "There are heavy crimes in Russian history, but don't think the West has less." "England, France, Germany will not be defeated by us in crime." "The United States, the torch of freedom, exterminated Indians like cockroaches." " Yes." " Yes!" "So don't say Russia is special." " But the instability..." " Instability..." "We're unlucky, because... we make..." "Our government is making one error after another." "The Provisional Government was unable to think anything through." "Much alike today's reformists, undertaking reforms without understanding them." "That Government ruined Russia." "Look, in the 1990's we could have... chosen a more reasonable way of leaving Communism." " But for some reason..." " Not 'for some reason', but 'some people'." " Who?" " As if there was a vote." "You know the names, why repeat them?" "All those flashing names are "who"." "They chose this idiotic way to worship the International Monetary Fund, to try any recipe from abroad." "Never to live from one's own wit, to put all the oil in private hands?" " No one can stop them?" " No one, they're in power." "They're at the very top." "How can you stop them?" "With an armed revolt?" "They occupy the top positions and do what they want." "They're all criminals, all of them." "How can one abandon Russia's national wealth to private hands for nothing?" "!" "For 1% of the price?" "!" "They did well!" "You think they did it for free?" "Of course they took bribes." "To give away our national wealth!" "Look at neighbouring China." "Production is growing." "They quit Communism, too." "The East Europeans." "It wasn't the people who chose that." "We have yielded to the belief... that our powers were democratic." "They aren't democratic at all." "I employed when I first stepped back on Russian soil" "I said: "We have not democracy, but oligarchy"." "The word didn't take root then, and today everyone accepts it." "But in a distorted form." "'Oligarchs' is supposed to mean financial magnates." "Not only!" "Them too, but not only them." "The president's men, the government, top lawmakers are oligarchs too." "Oligarchs are those 200-300 who are dawdling at the top and who make all the decisions between themselves." "The people have no say." "What could the aim of human life be?" "I formulate it so." "The aim could only be such:" "To manage, within one's lifetime," "to develop such qualities, that would, if only a bit, surpass our natural faculties." "The best." "That is to say, we have good and evil inclinations..." "If we only spend our natural gifts, this aim is not reached." "If we only preserve them without developing them, our existence remains aimless." "But to finish life at a level higher than you began, could be the only aim of human life, and nothing else." " Does religion help?" " It does very much." "It's there to help us." "But unreligious people can do it as well." "It's wrong to say not believing in God shuts off possibilities." "One can attain it through one's own interior work." "It's the only aim and purpose of human existence on Earth." " What place is there for art?" " Art has a big place, it helps to develop... the tender features of the soul." " Softens it." " Softens and refines it." "Plotin, he was a... an Alexandrian philosopher, Plotin," "has said:" ""Beauty's... the light of truth seen through matter."" "When truth reaches us through matter, this is beauty." "Beauty ennobles." "Sorry, what did you say?" " What does it mean in our time of progress, this softening art is trying to achieve, or is fighting for, amidst the world's increasing harshness due to "progress"?" " Progress does not facilitate this process." "It can hinder it, but can't facilitate it." " Progress and art..." " In art, there's no progress." " They are incompatible, aren't they?" " In any case, they are 'not coplanar', not on the same plane." "Different planes." " Art suffers pressure from progress." "So, not different planes." " They are in the same space." "Planes of the same space." "Yes, you see, unfortunately progress... did not, as we see it..." "The progress we know made its biggest steps in the last 4-5, no, 4 centuries." "Before, it was very slow." "Millennia went on slowly, with very few changes." "But from the start today's progress" "has overlooked the soul." "The emptiness of the soul." "People began to lose their soul to material growth, to civilisation." "We have spoken of this." " This is true." "Art prepares man for death, in one way or another." " Softens him..." " For death in particular, but not only." "It prepares him for life, too." "It opens to him the richness of life that he himself might not have fully experienced." "We see one landscape after another, by great painters." "And, for example, I don't understand nature." "But after these paintings," "I see: "Oh, this is how I should look at it!"" "It helps to get a sense of life." "To become aware of its charm, of its beauty, of its fullness..." "And among other things, of death." " Why do you think you haven't this sense of nature?" " Why, I do have it!" "I was speaking of someone who'd come to such understanding." "On the contrary, I like nature." "I grew up with it." "I love it." "I meant, if someone doesn't perceive it, painting can help him." " Art can." " Yes." " But art comes to man very late, when he is..." " To an artist?" " To anyone who perceives it." " Wrong." " Some people never encounter it." "Now then, it comes to people already through child's toys!" "Art enters life early." "One can remain unaware of its presence, but it is there in one's toys, in melodies, in any songs one hears..." " I was speaking of art as a drama, as a dramatic or a tragic feeling." " It is not necessarily dramatic or tragic." "It depends." "By the way, I wanted to speak about realism." "How to consider realism, or how do I see realism." "I'm not the one... who looks for 'isms' to classify artistic trends." "Realism, romanticism, classicism, modernism and so on and so on." "To speak of the literature that is dear to me, there are as many styles as there are talented authors." "You can tell each author from a few lines." "After a few lines at random you see who is it." "There aren't any trends that adhere strictly to canons." "Which is better." "On the other hand, the human mind needs classification." "Impossible to do without it." "So, they classify, and give us some direction." "Here is realism." "Realism supposes a high degree of correlation with reality," "and only a much lesser degree with the artist's arbitrary will." "A 19th century French artist, Courbet, called realism a truly democratic art." "Right." "But what's interesting:" "Our democrats, who speak only of democracy, as soon as they come to art, they start to... they spit upon its reception by our contemporaries, and keep making their kind of jumble." "They aren't democrats." "Since they aren't realists, they aren't democrats." "Realism means supposing that... you intend" "to be understood by your contemporaries." "I have an expression, a notion of... 'the back shore'." "When an artist... is working, in every kind of art, including literature, it is as if he were crossing an unknown river." "But all the people whom he came to know, who are still there, are left on the shore." "So, when you cross the river, mind that shore." "Never lose a sense of it, never get entirely carried away to the new shore." "To my mind, this is realism." " Without a historical context?" "You consider realism an extra-temporal category... of literature?" " Of art." "A category of art." " So, there are works of realism in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries?" "Is this a principle?" " But each author may vary..." "For example, I'm writing a novel, with a great deal of realism, but not only." "Some lines or pages are quite romantic, some are fantastic," "some are utterly ironic, the ways are different." " If I understand well, the plot is the main feature which proves the author's principles are realistic." "Is the plot required for this?" " No, not necessarily." "There are a lot of plots." "A lot, but the entire texture of a work" "is only then acceptable," "I accept it..." "I regard it as something healthy, as in my life," "in a delirium from a fever," "I can have a lot of visions, but that's an illness." "I don't want a delirium," "I don't." "I want to be as close as possible to reality." "To discover the depths of reality, indeed." "And when needed, to digress from it, to give a symbol." "Symbols are present in our life, only we can't see them." " And Nabokov?" " He has a lot of plots." " Entirely based on plots, or not?" " Well, he gives himself great freedom." "He can't be called a realist." "It is something else." "Nabokov is not typical of the Russian literature that preceded him." "Now many are copying him, yet unable to do as good." "A lot of imitators." "When I first read him, I couldn't imagine he'd have so many imitators." " Perhaps it's not too difficult." " No, because it's irresponsible." " Phantasmagoria is always like chaos." " Irresponsible, yes..." " Chaos..." " Irresponsible." "Yes." " How... important, for one's development," "for one's morality, are the trials one is put through?" " Enormously." "Enormously." "Suffering forms the soul as nothing else can." "As nothing else." " And if suffering is humiliating?" " What?" " If suffering is humiliating?" "If man goes through humiliation?" " Humiliation?" "It too may be for the good." "For the raising of the soul." "No, the worst is total well-being." "The end of the soul." "Suffering..." " Does the soul of man not have its own problems, without any influence from the outer world?" " Only in deep personalities, who are concerned with their soul." "The majority, if nothing happens outside, have no concerns." "No, you know, well-being," "the absence of suffering, leaves the soul underdeveloped." "Not that one should go after suffering." "It would be unnatural." "Accept it with courage." " Is suffering beneficial for the soul?" " One must have courage to accept it and to understand it is sent for a reason." "It has a very important aim." "To guess it, to develop in the right way, is not easy." "They put you in prison." "First, you think it's unbearable, it's the end." "But time passes, month after month, 2 or 3 years," "40 months, and you begin to understand that, oh, this life is really very deep and very enriching for the soul." "I must take my lessons from it." "I think that if I hadn't been put in prison, my progress would have been much poorer." "Much poorer." " I see, but it's hard to accept." "For my heart, it's hard to accept." "What then?" "What is happening with our logic?" "To all of us, all the people who live in Russia, destiny sends suffering..." "Ought we to become better?" "Instead, we are always speaking about our great concern for morality and for change." "Why?" "What to do?" " What's going on is decay, violent decay, not trial by suffering." "Trial by suffering too, since half of the population is starving." "But much more of decay." "Through the TV, the newspapers, the general atmosphere of greed." "Each one lives by pushing aside the others." "This is much more destructive, and this is not suffering at all." "This is what brings decay." "When one... has been ill..." "See how those who've been bedridden a lot in their youth, for a number of years, with some trouble - an arm, a leg," "their bones or something other acquire an astonishing depth of soul." "They develop during their youth like others who play football, never do." "I know a lot of them." "A wretched youth, later a talent." " Strange." " It's like that." " Talent, a punishment or a gift?" " A gift of God." "A punishment, if you can't handle it." " And if it tortures its owner, never lets him live in a normal way?" " One should manage it." " But how?" " How?" "Of course, to revel in it, to keep saying: "I am talented", to boast of it at every occasion, will just turn your head." "No." "Talent is a heavy responsibility." "You need skill to bear it." "A film by Alexander Sokurov" "Camera:" "Alexander Degtiarev" "Sound:" "Sergei Mochkov, Vladimir Persov" "Editors:" "Konstantin Stafeev, Vladimir Vasilyev" "Camera assistant:" "Dmitri Sheveliov" "Production managers:" "Mikhail Krsitch, Anton Ratnikov, Galina Kotchetkova" "Production supervisor:" "Tatiana Antsiferova" "Producer:" "Svetlana Voloshina" "Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowski, Susanna Scott" "© "Nadezhda", 1998."