Chudakov Alexander Pavlovich: biography, creativity and interesting facts. Big man, interlocutor of the great Who is the writer of eccentrics

On October 3, he died in the hospital after his injuries. The injuries were allegedly incompatible with life, but his truly powerful, heroic body fought to the last. Nothing foreshadowed the death of this large, vigorous man, full of plans and strength. It is impossible to believe what happened - he was always so lively, active, interested in life, he loved so much about it and still wanted to do so much. A completely unnatural, savage death.

They will talk a lot about the scientific merits of Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov, and they will probably say it better than me. They, these merits, have not yet been fully comprehended. One thing is clear - a truly great philologist has left, and with his departure the connection between our generation and the great Russian philology of the first half of the 20th century, of which he was a direct heir, has already been completely broken. They will still write about all this, articles and books will be published in his honor, and this is good, but is that really the point? During his lifetime he was not deprived of fame, but he did not acquire anything - no positions, no bonuses, no simple opportunity to calmly go about his business, without worrying about his daily bread. We know his wonderful books about ("The Poetics of Chekhov", 1971; "The World of Chekhov", 1986; "Anton Pavlovich Chekhov", 1987; "Word-thing-world. From Pushkin to Tolstoy", 1992)), his articles about Pushkin , Gogol, his works on the history of Russian philological science, but how bitter it is to think that the titanic work on a complete Chekhov bibliography has not been completed, the mind-blowing “total commentary” to “Eugene Onegin” has not been written, the book of memoirs that he was working on remains unprepared I really wanted to work lately, but there was no publishing order for it, an order that would allow me to drop everything and sit down to finish writing a book - this is what he dreamed of. And no one will ever be able to realize these plans. To live is to do what someone else won’t do for you. Alexander Pavlovich lived and did his job - and this life ended so abruptly and terribly, so suddenly for everyone!

But he managed to write his main book - the novel “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps”, which caused so much noise, almost received, but did not receive the Booker - a wonderful Russian book, which, not without reason, was compared with Herzen’s “The Past and Thoughts”, and I would She also compared it with Pushkin’s “Onegin” in the sense that the author revealed himself in this book with all possible completeness. From its pages, not only the authentic, preserved Russia appeared to us, but also its author himself - in an image that was unexpected for many, in a way that he was not very well known in “narrow scientific circles.” Then, when the book gained unconditional success and recognition, he, as if justifying himself, said that he was simply forced to write it - he was so bursting with the knowledge he had acquired throughout his life. And this knowledge was truly immense and sometimes stunning - both in the natural sciences, and in the humanities, and in theory, and in practice. “I wanted to somehow free myself from all this,” Chudakov said, as if embarrassed, “and so I found this form: a novel.” In academic circles such “sideways steps” are not held in high esteem, but how voraciously this book about life in distant Chebachinsk was read by wide circles of open-minded intelligentsia, both “humanitarian” and “technical”! They read it because this book is, first of all, talented, because its author was fully endowed with the talent of knowledge, the talent of words and, most importantly, the talent of living.

How could you not admire him when, putting his glasses in his boot on the shore, he covered a hundred meters of water with a luxurious butterfly stroke, or, on the contrary, went under the water to emerge on the other shore in a few minutes! A couple of years ago, he said with regret that he used to easily swim a hundred meters underwater, but now only 70-80. Swimming was his special love, and perhaps his calling - in his youth he was predicted to have a brilliant sports career, he did not follow this path, but with what pleasure he carried out swims in Pushkin's Soroti - one, I remember, was a swim in honor of the storming of the Bastille, the other - named after A.P. Chekhov. And when he came ashore, he, a strict academic scientist, put on a white shirt, tie, jacket, brought with him in neatly folded form, exchanged sneakers for boots and went to make a report at a conference on “Eugene Onegin”. And in the evening, having exchanged his white shirt for a vest, he sat in the kitchen, telling endless stories from his own and other people’s lives and patiently waiting for real, properly cooked boiled buckwheat porridge, which he was a big fan of. And for children, he composed on the fly, with a calm face, and one of these stories, told to my daughter during her early childhood, was about two brothers - one ate more and more candy, and the other - buckwheat porridge, and then they went to India to a weight lifting competition, and the correct brother, of course, won, but the wrong one was put to shame and then, of course, he also switched to buckwheat porridge.

He never missed an opportunity to sit and talk, and to have first, second and compote, or better yet vermouth, but other things are possible, and how wrong are those who believe that you should drink ascendingly and without mixing. They, he said, deprive themselves of the variety and joy of life. I only remember the joy of communication from him. Nothing irritated him, he was in agreement with people and in agreement with the world, which was completely open and completely interesting to him. He knew every tree and every bird, was a true friend of cats and dogs, was well versed in soils, in camel breeding, for example, and in whale breeding, in all natural sciences, it seems, and in all the humanities, and in various technologies, and only he it was possible to reliably find out whether it was worth insulating the chimney with alabaster. He was very interested in whether I was building a country house correctly, he taught me to put a thirty on the edge under the roof - it turned out well.

Anyone who visited Alexander Pavlovich’s dacha had the opportunity not only to understand something important about himself, but also to think in general about man’s relationship with the world around him. Almost everything there is made with your own hands and you can see how a person can change the living space around him, bringing beauty and order, culture and intelligence into it. He uprooted stumps and “stepped into the swamp” (this was pronounced with taste, with pride), grew an ideal lawn, fencing it with a special curb stone, built a fence from boulders, transporting them on a bicycle rack from the surrounding quarries. With the help of some Egyptian lifting mechanisms, these boulders were raised to the required height, placed on the mortar, and over the summer the wall increased by two meters. I gasped when I saw in what orderly and beautiful order the tools were kept in his shed - the quotes in his last printed text were arranged in the same beautiful order. And in the winter - birthdays were traditionally celebrated at our favorite dacha - he gave us guest felt boots and led everyone into the forest in twenty-degree frost, complaining that the forest was not cleaned and now it was dying, and the whole village had to get together and clean it, otherwise it would overgrow.

I want to say something special about his last text, and not only as the compiler of the “Pushkin Collection” and the customer of the material. We are talking about his article “On the problem of total commentary " Evgenia Onegina " " - from it we can judge what his grandiose research plan was, how it could be implemented and what we lost. I cannot resist the need to cite the beginning of this text:

The empirical world around us is physically continuous, and this continuity is absolute: man in his non-speculative existence (and not associated with such phenomena as particles, antiparticles) is not given a space free from any materiality.

But for consciousness, the empirical world is heterogeneous and separate. Only in this way does a person have the opportunity to orient himself in it from childhood, only by speculative effort establishing the substantial community of classes of things and their hierarchy. Relations of mutual assistance, biological symbiosis and other ecological connections do not violate global heterogeneity. A lichen growing on a stone remains a lichen, and a stone remains a stone. The more actively a lichen uses its “foot”, the more it becomes a plant and the more it differs from a stone. It can be argued that organic bodies will sooner or later turn into organic humus. But while they are externally and morphologically independent, for ordinary consciousness they are heterogeneous.

Science has long been accustomed to seeing all things in their connections. The substance of a dish cannot be described biologically and gastrologically without the most distant links in the chain: sun - soil - grass - water - lamb - kebab.

Objects of the artistic world are initially homogeneous: all things of a literary work, regardless of their conceivable material quality, are subject to laws common to all of them and express a certain unified principle. However, literary descriptions of literary texts, by analogy with the empirical world, usually work with discrete units: hero - motive - plot - realities - word, etc. An "item-by-item" consideration of these problems does not study all the elements together, in their natural interrelation in the process of the forward movement of the text. Such a study can only be carried out through slow, non-selective reading and analysis.

“Eugene Onegin” needs such commentary reading most of all - continuous reading, without gaps, word by word, verse by verse, stanza by stanza.

We should not delude ourselves with the thought that our ideas coincide with the readers of Pushkin's time - even about the simplest things, for example, about the sled in Chapter I. To compensate for this at least partially, it is necessary, as in the scientific description, to resolve a chain of issues, in this case, the harness and crew issues. How does the sleigh on which Onegin rides to Talon differ from the village ones? Are they big? Where did you usually ride them? Are they open or closed? How many horses? What is the harness? Russian? German (without arc)? With lines or shaft? What place do these sleds occupy in the crew hierarchy? Why does Onegin go to the ball “in a Yamsk carriage”?

I am writing and writing out all this hot on the heels of his death, his voice rings in my ears, and in these questions I hear his always insatiable interest in the details of the surrounding world and his close attention to the details of the literary text. These two interests have a common root in the depths of his personality. At one of the presentations of the novel, Alexander Pavlovich said that the list of vital things that Robinson Crusoe rescued from a sunken ship once made a formative impression on him. Here are the origins of his philological predilections (remember his works on the objective world and the role of detail in Chekhov’s work), here are the origins of his novel, in which preserved material culture is elevated to the rank of the highest spiritual value.

Alexander Pavlovich has spoken a lot about the total commentary on Eugene Onegin in recent years, made brilliant reports and read fascinating lectures to students. It seems to me that this was his favorite idea, which combined his interest in the material world in literature with the linguistic-stylistic analysis of the text in terms of the “structural interaction of verbal units.” A favorite student of V.V. Vinogradov, he was, perhaps, the only living philologist who could carry out such an analysis. We talked with him about how good it would be for him to go to our pathetic Pushkin group IMLI and, as part of his planned work, sit and write this endless total commentary, receiving a meager academic allowance for it. But even this seemed unrealistic then. And so he left, and with him went his plans, his capabilities, his unique research approaches, his colossal overflowing memory, his bright personality, his special physical appearance - everything collapsed suddenly and wildly, and, looking around, I see with horror, that there are almost no great people left from that older generation of Russian philologists with whom my life connected.

Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov (1938–2005) – Doctor of Philology, researcher of Russian literature of the 19th–20th centuries, writer, critic. He is known to a wide circle of readers as the author of the novel “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps...” (Russian Booker Prize 2011 for the best novel of the decade), and in the philological community as the leading expert on Chekhov’s work. In the diaries of A.P. Chudakov there is an entry: “And they also say - there are no signs, no predestination. I arrived in Moscow on July 15, 1954. It was all covered with newspapers with portraits of Chekhov - it was his 50th anniversary. And I walked, looked, read. And I thought: “I’ll study it.” And so it happened.” The monograph “Chekhov's Poetics,” published in 1971, when its author was in his early thirties, received international recognition and provoked fierce resistance from scientific conservatives. The discoveries made in it and in the next book, “Chekhov’s World: Emergence and Confirmation” (1986), largely determined the further development of Czech studies. A.P. Chudakov was one of the first to propose precise methods for describing the writer’s narrative system, introduced the concept of the “material world” of a work, and his main thesis – about the “accidental” organization of Chekhov’s poetics – invariably causes interesting debate...

• September 15, 2015, 12:00

Genre: ,

The collection is dedicated to the memory of Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov (1938–2005), a literary critic, writer, best known for his books about Chekhov and the novel “A Darkness Falls on the Old Steps” (Russian Booker of the Decade Award, 2011). After the sudden death of Alexander Pavlovich, his memoirs, diaries, records of conversations with great philologists, a book of poems that he compiled for friends and relatives remained - they were included in the first part of this book along with the biography of A.P. Chudakov, written by M. O Chudakova and I. E. Gitovich. The second part contains obituaries of A.P. Chudakov, memoirs and articles of his colleagues and friends. The life of Alexander Pavlovich and his living image are reflected in numerous photographic materials, as well as in some of his autographs.

The book was prepared for the 75th anniversary of the birth...

• 8 April 2014, 13:39

Genre: ,

The book is intended for high school students. Doctor of Philological Sciences A.P. Chudakov introduces schoolchildren to the life of A.P. Chekhov. The book shows what conditions, circumstances, impressions of childhood and youth prepared a unique artistic perception of the world, how a great writer grew from an employee of humor magazines, who opened a new page in the world...

• 25 February 2014, 19:35

Genre: ,

The novel “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps” was recognized by the jury of the Russian Booker competition as the best Russian novel of the first decade of the new century. The outstanding Russian philologist Alexander Chudakov (1938–2005) wrote a book that many literary scholars and readers considered autobiographical - the concentration of historical truth in it is so high and the feelings and thoughts of the characters are so reliable. But this is not a biography - this is an image of genuine Russia in its most difficult years, “the book is homerically funny and incredibly sad, creepy and life-affirming, epic and lyrical. An intellectual Robinsonade, a novel of education, a “human document” (“Novaya Gazeta”).

The new edition of the novel is supplemented with excerpts from the author’s diaries and letters, allowing us to trace the history of the creation of the book, the idea of ​​which he formed in the 18th century...

Chudakov Alexander Pavlovich is one of the most interesting philologists, literary critics and writers of the Soviet Union, a successor to the academic traditions of philology.

Alexander Pavlovich devoted most of his literary career to the work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. His sudden death left many questions and unfinished works.

Family and study

It was a harsh year in 1938. Alexander Pavlovich was born in the small town of Shchuchinsk in Northern Kazakhstan (at that time the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic). This was not just an intelligent family, but a family of teachers - one of the few in the whole town. Despite their positions, his relatives often spoke negatively about the actions of the Soviet government and Stalin's leadership. However, by a coincidence of favorable circumstances, the parents were never convicted or repressed precisely due to the fact that they were almost the only teachers in the small Kazakh town.

However, the most interesting time began in 1955, when Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov came to Moscow and, on the first try, entered the philological faculty of Moscow State University. From the very beginning, he was among the top five students in the course and stood out for his unique style of explanation and extraordinary thinking.

While studying at Moscow State University, in his first year, Alexander Pavlovich met a very interesting woman - Marietta Khan-Magomedova, whom he later married and lived with all his life.

Creative path

Four years after graduating from university and graduate school, Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov began working at the Institute of World Literature. In addition, he taught at Moscow State University, the Literary Institute, and the Russian State University for the Humanities. Later he was invited to give lectures at leading universities in Europe, the USA and Asia.

As a continuer of the academic traditions of philology, Alexander Pavlovich attached great importance to language and words and tried to preserve the traditional, powerful Russian language, without replacing verbal concepts.

Alexander Chudakov, whose biography ended very unexpectedly, published more than 200 articles, monographs and studies on Russian literature. In particular, he dedicated most of his works to A.P. Chekhov. His famous 1971 work “Chekhov's Poetics” made a lot of noise in the world of philology and won the hearts of both critics and researchers.

In addition, the literary critic studied the semantic poetics of Pushkin and devoted an entire study to the topic of the “beaver collar” of Eugene Onegin.

Conversations with the greats

“Interlocutor of the greats” - that’s what many called Alexander Pavlovich. This is because the philologist was known for his incredible notes and soul-stirring conversations with the great literary scholars of the 20th century. Sergei Bondi, Lydia Shklovsky, Yuri Tynyanov - this is an incomplete list of the literary critic’s interlocutors. Throughout his life, he carried a notebook with him in which he wrote down all the opinions, stories, aphorisms and quotes of famous philosophers.

While working in Seoul, Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov published the work “I’m Listening. I'm studying. I'm asking. Three conversations." This rather rare book was published in only 10 copies. It reflects conversations and literary opinions from the 1920s to the 1970s.

“Darkness falls on the old steps”

This is his most famous novel - memories of his childhood and the life of his family in Kazakhstan. It was in it that the author conveyed that indescribable Chekhovian atmosphere that was preserved in his family.

This book is not only memories of family and childhood, it is memories of an era, of people with a core and high spirituality. They were able to overcome everything and survive in a different, unfamiliar world of an exiled small town. Once upon a time, intellectuals now had to build their own house, install a stove and grow crops to feed themselves.

Chudakov Alexander Pavlovich, whose biography is completely devoted to Russian literature, wrote an idyll novel. It was published in the magazine “Znamya” in 2000, nominated for and after the writer’s death received the “Russian Booker of the Decade” award in 2011. Two years later, the Vremya publishing house released the book in a separate edition of 5,000 copies. Moreover, the novel sold out in the first few days.

Grandfather of Alexander Pavlovich

The main place in the book is occupied by the grandfather, whose prototype was the grandfather of Alexander Pavlovich himself. At one time he was a priest and a professor at the same time. Life forced him to give up everything and move with his family to a small town on the border of Siberia and Kazakhstan. He combines the image of a mighty Russian peasant and a deep intellectual at the same time.

It was he who had an incredible influence on Chudakov personally and creatively. His friends recalled how the writer, physically working at his dacha in the village, then went to write his articles. It was thanks to his grandfather that the famous writer decided to write a historical “encyclopedia of Russian life.”

Personal qualities

According to friends and colleagues, Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov was a powerful man both in life and in his work. At the age of 60, he could go to give a lecture, and before that, swim in the lake and play sports.

Being a powerful man, he could become a good athlete. Leonid Meshkov, the famous Soviet swimmer and coach, suggested that Chudakov take up swimming professionally, but the literary critic remained faithful to the world of the pen and the word.

This is such an extraordinary biography of a wonderful man named Alexander Chudakov...

Books

Chudakov’s books are a whole “phenomenon of Russian life.” This is exactly how friends and colleagues described the work of the literary critic. Liveliness, optimism and incredible energy were combined with a subtle mind and academic thinking. Being a liberal and a man of high humanism, Chudakov reflected all his feelings in his works. The content of most of his articles and works can tell a lot directly about the biography of the critic. He was a truly lively person, with humor, who knew how to find beauty in any, even not entirely aesthetic, fact.

Death and creative legacy

On October 3, 2005, Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov died under absurd and strange circumstances. The cause of death was severe traumatic brain injury. He was 69 years old and only a few months shy of turning seventy. The accident occurred at the entrance of the house where the writer lived. A light bulb burned out on the landing. Chudakov, climbing the steps, slipped and fell. Due to a serious fall, the head was injured, which was the cause of death.

Many contemporaries, colleagues and close people say that this was precisely an untimely death, since the writer had many creative plans and ideas that he never managed to implement. One of these works is a collection of conversations and conversations with the great philologists, philosophers and thinkers of the 20th century listed above. Chudakov is still considered one of the best experts on the work of A.P. Chekhov.

Throughout his life, Alexander Pavlovich found himself in funny situations. In the mid-eighties, while in Amsterdam with his friends, Chudakov visited a student literary club. There, one of the Dutch students, having learned that in front of him was a famous literary critic, an expert on Chekhov, was wildly surprised and delighted. Unexpectedly, he offered Chudakov a cigarette with hemp. According to Alexander Pavlovich himself, it was then that he realized that he was famous and loved by many, both venerable critics and ordinary students.

What do reviews say about the work of such a writer and philologist as Alexander Chudakov? Quotes from his works, judging by the posts on forums on relevant topics, are liked by many. However, this is not surprising. They are literally imbued with philosophical meaning and humor. People who knew Alexander Pavlovich personally emphasized that he knew many stories and could entertain anyone with a good joke or a story from the lives of legendary writers. Finally, here are a few quotes from the beloved novel “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps.” Perhaps, after reading these phrases filled with deep meaning, you will want to get to know the work of this wonderful author better and look through the pages of his other, no less interesting works. So:

• “We need to protect the psyche of modern man from the rapidly growing aggression of things, colors, from a too quickly changing world.”
• “Honest poverty is always poverty up to certain limits. There was poverty here. Scary - from infancy. Beggars are not moral."
• “Grandfather had two punishments: I won’t pat you on the head and I won’t kiss you goodnight. The second was the hardest; when my grandfather used it somehow, Anton cried until midnight.”
• “... it seems that Khrushchev asked how their mortality rate was. He replied: “So far, one hundred percent.”
• “Other grandmother’s sayings also got stuck in my head, apparently because they were somewhat unexpected. - Like any prince, he knew turning. “Like all real aristocrats, he loved simple food: cabbage soup, buckwheat porridge...”
• “My grandfather’s political economy was simple: the state robs and appropriates everything. The only thing that was unclear to him was where it was going.”

The Vremya publishing house has published a new edition of Alexander Chudakov’s book “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps...” What is the name of the city referred to in the book by Chebachinsky? Why does the author call a novel about the life of exiled migrants an idyll? Is it easy for an applicant from the Siberian hinterland to enter MSU? This and much more was discussed at the presentation of the book, which last year won the Booker of the Decade Award.

Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov died in 2005. He is known primarily as a researcher of Chekhov's literary work, publisher and critic. Since 1964 he worked at the Institute of World Literature, taught at Moscow State University, the Literary Institute, and lectured on Russian literature at European and American universities. Member of the International Chekhov Society. Alexander Pavlovich published more than two hundred articles on the history of Russian literature, prepared for publication and commented on the works of Viktor Shklovsky and Yuri Tynyanov. The novel “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps...” was first published in 2000 in the magazine “Znamya”. In 2011, the book was awarded.

The presentation of the new edition of Alexander Chudakov’s book “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps...”, published by the Vremya publishing house in 2012, took place in the Moscow bookstore Biblio-Globus. In addition to the writer’s widow Marietta Chudakova, his sister Natalya Samoilova was present at the event.

The book is subtitled “an idyll novel.” And this definition suits her very well. There is no contradiction here. You should not, having read in the annotation: “the book tells about the life of a group of “exiled settlers” on the border of Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan,” imagine a gloomy and harsh biography in the spirit of “The Pit” or “Kolyma Tales.” On the border of Kazakhstan and Siberia there lies a small town, which someone “at the top” mistakenly considered a suitable place to exile prisoners. And the town, called Chebachinsk in the novel, turned out to be a real oasis. During Stalin's time, Alexander Pavlovich's family moved here from Moscow on their own, without waiting for exile. Several generations of one big family lived and worked together, trying to preserve what was left of the country called Russia. Reading this unique Robinsonade, written in real Russian, lively, flexible and moving, is incredibly interesting. Post-war life in a small town with one-story houses, where teachers live next to students, a blacksmith and a shoemaker are figures known throughout the city, where all layers of life are mixed, and thanks to the constant influx of fresh people from all over the country, it is possible to learn a lot first-hand.

Marietta Chudakova:“No one who starts reading the book will be disappointed. Alexander Pavlovich managed to see such a success of his novel. For many years I tried to persuade him to write about his childhood. But he doubted whether to write or not. As much as he doubted his scientific concepts, he doubted whether he should write a novel. And from the very first months of our life together, I was shocked by Alexander Pavlovich’s stories about the town in Northern Kazakhstan, where he spent his childhood, an exiled place, where life was completely different from the one I imagined, a Muscovite born on the Arbat in the maternity hospital named after. Grauerman".

For me, as a student in my second year, Khrushchev’s report became a spiritual revolution. Literally - I entered the Communist Auditorium on Mokhovaya as one person, and came out three and a half hours later as a completely different person. The words rang in my head: “I will never support ideas that require millions of people killed.” But for Alexander Pavlovich there was nothing surprising in this report; this was his childhood, and his whole life. His grandfather, the main character of this novel, always called Stalin a bandit. He was not imprisoned, he remained free and died a natural death only because in this small town with twenty thousand people, Alexander Pavlovich’s grandfather and parents learned two-thirds of the city. The level of teaching in this town was unexpectedly high. The local school was taught by associate professors from Leningrad University. In general, exiles were forbidden to teach, but due to the complete absence of other personnel, this prohibition had to be violated.”

Alexander Pavlovich and Marietta Omarovna Chudakov met in the first year of the philological department of Moscow State University and lived together most of their lives.

Marietta Chudakova:“Alexander Pavlovich entered Moscow State University on the first try, without any cronyism. He came to Moscow with two friends (“the three musketeers,” as they were called), they arrived alone, without their parents. Alexander Pavlovich entered the philology department, one friend entered the physics department, and the second entered the Mining Institute. Wherever they wanted, they went there. When people tell me how difficult it is to enroll now, I can’t say that I feel sympathy for today’s applicants. Because in the year when Alexander Pavlovich and I entered, the competition for medalists was 25 people per place. And I don’t know how many people were in place on a general basis. We had a head start - first the interview, if we had failed it, we would have acted on a general basis, but both of us, he and I, passed after the interview.

The preparation of an applicant from a Siberian town turned out to be no worse than that of Muscovites. Six months after admission, when it became clear who was who, Alexander Pavlovich took his place in the top five of the course, the rest were Muscovites, and he was from the outback.”

Without giving your portrait

According to representatives of the Vremya publishing house, a circulation of 5,000 copies of the new edition of the book, which arrived in Moscow in February 2012, was sold out in three working days. This is a unique case. In the new edition of the book “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps...”, edits were made, photographs were added, and it also included excerpts from the diaries and letters of Alexander Pavlovich, prepared by his widow. This addition allows you to trace the history of the book's creation.

Marietta Chudakova: “About a year ago I decided to take the first notebook of Alexander Pavlovich’s diary from his early student years, and saw that the idea for the novel arose in him even then: “ Try to write the story of a young man of our era, using autobiographical material, but without giving a portrait of yourself" But soon this plan was pushed aside by scientific work, into which we plunged, as they say, “up to our ears.”

While working on the afterword to the book, I set myself three tasks: to show the reader who the author was, what his profession was, and what he did in it; as far as possible to give an idea of ​​his personality through the diary; show the history of the idea.

Alexander Pavlovich was a naturally modest person, which is a rarity in the humanitarian community. And he could not get used to the fact that the reading public appreciated his novel so highly. And he was stopped at the book fair, even on the street, by women with real, as they say today, tears in their eyes. He was a little upset that the novel was mistaken for a memoir, and yet entire chapters there are fictional (for example, the first), but they cannot be distinguished from truly autobiographical ones.

I had no doubt about the success of this book. This is one of those rare books that contains Russia as such. I have always been especially partial and demanding of my own people, and Alexander Pavlovich, laughing, told me that “after my praise, only the Nobel Prize.” But in this case, I think this novel is worthy of the Booker of the Decade.”

Language as a tool

Marietta Omarovna said that she had to have long conversations with the translator of the novel, a man with Russian roots, an excellent expert on the Russian language, who turned to her in search of English equivalents of Russian words unfamiliar to him. Here, for example, is a “pesky road” - a road with potholes.

Marietta Chudakova:“The richness of the Russian language in Soviet times was leveled by all editors: “This word should not be used, the reader will not understand this, this is rarely used.”

In this book, the richness of the Russian language is used organically, as a tool, and not, as happens now, - inlay, decorating the text with rare words. We ourselves used these words at home. Sasha once wrote memoirs about his teacher, Academician Vinogradov, and used the word “disrespected” and about this I had a long argument with our classmate, a famous linguist. He said: “How can you use a word unknown to the majority? For example, I don’t know such a word.” Sasha grew up in Siberia, I grew up in Moscow, we met and used this word easily! And in this dispute, I derived a law, which I then checked with the best linguist in Russia, Andrei Zaliznyak, and he confirmed it for me. And the law is this: “If a native speaker of the Russian language uses a certain word... then this word exists in the Russian language! If another Russian speaker doesn’t know this word, that’s his problem.” We don’t invent words, so he heard this word from a person of another generation.

My younger comrade and I, he is an “Afghan”, traveled around a third of Russia, delivering books to libraries. And at every meeting with schoolchildren in grades 1-11 and students, I give quizzes on the Russian language and literature. When asked what the difference is between the words “ignoramus” and “ignoramus,” neither schoolchildren nor students can answer! This is something we need to seriously think about. I am not as concerned about the influx of foreign words as I am concerned about the leakage of Russian words. If we preserve the soil of the Russian language, then everything will take root and everything will take its place. And I believe that Alexander Pavlovich’s novel will successfully serve to preserve the soil.”

Through the eyes of a sister

The presentation of the book was attended by the younger and only sister of Alexandra Chudakov, Natalya Pavlovna Samoilova: “I really liked the book. But some parts, especially the last chapter, which deals with death, are difficult for me to read. It's been six years since my brother died, and I can't calmly read this. The book is partly autobiographical, partly fiction, but everything is intertwined and fiction cannot be distinguished from memories.

Were your family believers?

Yes. But this was carefully hidden. My grandfather received a religious education, but for various reasons did not become a priest. My grandmother kept icons all her life, sometimes she hid them, and sometimes she displayed them. When they told her that she would be imprisoned, she replied: “Plant her along with the icons.”

What was the real name of the city?

Shchuchinsk. This is Northern Kazakhstan. There is a giant lake of volcanic origin. Such an oasis. The places there are wonderful.

Distinguishing between good and evil

At the end of the meeting, we asked M. O. Chudakova several questions.

- What is the main meaning of Alexander Pavlovich’s book for you?

We must acutely feel that Russia is our country. For me, this is the main point of the book. Secondly, strive for the truth. Don’t let your head be clouded by lies coming from above, from the authorities. It is important to maintain clarity of consciousness. In the book, the grandfather teaches this to his grandson. In this book, Alexander Pavlovich also describes his other grandfather, who gilded the domes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He was from the village of Voskresenskoye, Bezhetsky district, Tver province, and only the most honest people were hired as dome gilders, especially as foremen. And when in November 1931 he saw how the temple was being destroyed, he came home, lay down, and in the next few days he became seriously ill, it turned out that he had stomach cancer, and soon died.

What did these people rely on in their movement against the tide?

To the sense of conscience and truth, the sense of distinguishing between good and evil, which is implanted in us by God. A person may follow the path of evil, but he always knows that he is following the path of evil. It is about this sense of distinction, of boundaries, that Chesterton said through the lips of Father Brown: “You can stay at the same level of good, but no one has ever managed to stay at the same level of evil: this path leads down.” These are absolutely wonderful words, everyone should remember them. We must strive to fight evil. With corruption, for example, which has engulfed the entire country...

How can an ordinary person fight corruption?

Well, I won’t be able to give a lecture on this topic now... It’s enough that you set yourself such a task, then you will find ways.