The great and terrible Zakhar Prilepin! About the meeting with Putin.

Do you care?

Lately, we have often heard categorical statements, for example: “I don’t owe anyone anything.” They are repeated, considering it good manners, by a considerable number of people of all ages, especially young people. And those who are older and wiser are even more cynical in their judgments: “There is no need to do anything, because while the Russians, having forgotten about the greatness that has fallen under the bench, drink quietly, everything goes on as usual.”

Are we today more inert and emotionally passive than ever? It's not easy to understand right now, but time will tell eventually. If a country called Russia suddenly discovers that it has lost a significant part of its territory and a significant share of its population, it will be possible to say that at the beginning of the 2000s we really had nothing to do and that during these years we were engaged in more important matters than preserving statehood, national identity and territorial integrity. But if the country survives, it means that complaints about the indifference of citizens to the fate of the Motherland were, to say the least, groundless.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for a disappointing forecast. Quite often there are young people who perceive themselves not as a link in an unbroken chain of generations, but as nothing less than the crown of creation. But there are obvious things: life itself and the existence of the earth on which we walk are possible only because our ancestors treated everything differently.

I remember my old people: how beautiful they were and, my God, how young they were in their war photographs! And how happy they were that we, their children and grandchildren, were getting mixed up among them, thin-legged and tanned, blooming and overcooked in the sun. For some reason, we decided that previous generations owed us, but we, as a new subspecies of individuals, are not responsible for anything and do not want to be in debt to anyone.

There is only one way to preserve the land given to us and the freedom of the people - to gradually and persistently get rid of the mass paroxysms of individualism, so that public statements about independence from the past and non-involvement in the future of our Motherland become at least a sign of bad taste.

I care

Lately, categorical statements like: “I don’t owe anyone anything” have often been heard. They are repeated by many, especially young people who consider themselves the crown of creation. It is no coincidence that the position of extreme individualism is a sign of almost good manners today. But first of all, we are social beings and live according to the laws and traditions of society.

More often than not, traditional Russian stories are meaningless: a pipe burst here, something caught fire here, and three regions were left either without heat, or without light, or without both. No one has been surprised for a long time, because similar things seem to have happened before.

The fate of society is directly related to the state as such and the actions of those who govern it. The state can ask, strongly recommend, order, and ultimately force us to do something.

A reasonable question arises: who and what needs to be done with people so that they are concerned not only with their own fate, but also with something more?

There is a lot of talk now about awakening civic consciousness. It seems that society, regardless of the will of others and orders from above, is recovering. And in this process, as we are convinced, the main thing is to “start with yourself.” I personally started: I screwed in a light bulb in the entrance, paid taxes, improved the demographic situation, and provided jobs for several people. And what? And where is the result? It seems to me that while I am busy with small things, someone is doing their own, huge ones, and the vector of application of our forces is completely different.

Meanwhile, everything that we have: from the land we walk on to the ideals we believe in, is the result not of “small deeds” and cautious steps, but of global projects, huge achievements, selfless asceticism. People are transformed only when they burst into the world with all their might. A person becomes a person in search, in feat, in work, and not in petty soul-searching that turns the soul inside out.

It’s much better to start by changing the world around you, because you finally want a big country, big worries about it, big results, big earth and sky. Give me a map with a real scale so that at least half of the globe can be seen!

And we care!

There is a quiet, itching feeling that the state on this earth owes nothing to anyone. Maybe that’s why lately we’ve heard so often from people that I don’t owe anyone anything. And so I don’t understand: how can we all survive here and who will defend this country when it collapses?1

If you seriously believe that Russia has exhausted its resources of vitality and we have no future, then, honestly, maybe we shouldn’t worry? Our reasons are compelling: the people are broken, all empires sooner or later fall apart and therefore we have no chance.

Russian history, I don’t argue, provoked such declarations. Nevertheless, our ancestors, stricken by skepticism, never believed in this nonsense. Who decided that we no longer have a chance, and, for example, the Chinese have more than enough of them? After all, they also have a multinational country that has experienced revolutions and wars.

We actually live in a funny country. Here, in order to realize your basic rights - to have a roof over your head and daily bread, you need to perform somersaults of extraordinary beauty: change your home and jobs, get an education in order to work outside your specialty, go over your head, preferably on your hands. You can’t just be a peasant, a nurse, an engineer, just a military man - it’s not recommended at all.

But despite all the, so to speak, “unprofitability” of the population, tens of millions of adult men and women live in Russia - capable, enterprising, enterprising, ready to plow and sow, build and rebuild, give birth and raise children. Therefore, a voluntary farewell to the national future is not at all a sign of common sense and balanced decisions, but a natural betrayal. You cannot give up your positions, throw down flags and run away without even making an attempt to defend your home. This, of course, is a figure of speech inspired by the history and smoke of the fatherland, in which spiritual and cultural upsurge, a mass desire for reconstruction have always been associated with great upheavals and wars. But they were crowned with Victories that no one could achieve. And we must earn the right to be the heirs of these Victories!

Zakhar Prilepin

You're right. My God, how right you all are

About those who did not manage to jump on the bandwagon of History

In October, the country turned into a big crossroads.

It was a dry autumn, there was a lot of free wind and little sun.

At the crossroads there were workers, peasants, high school students, and poets. They talked an indefatigable amount: so many words have probably never been spoken in Russia. Everyone seemed to have regained their speech. Often the words came out clumsy or flat, but each exhaled word added another bit of energy and warmth to the unwinding vortex; no, even so it’s a whirlwind.

Someone screamed, someone took off their hat, not daring to throw it up or at their feet. The sailor clicked his teeth. The Cossack played with his nodules. Rozanov hated him. Blok listened to the hum.

When History begins, everyone is right.

Well, here are the cadets. And the monarchists dissolved among them. Do you know Vasily Shulgin? Who doesn’t know Vasily Shulgin. His father, a professor and publicist, once concluded his article with the words “This is a Russian land, Russian, Russian!”, and the son believed his father forever.

The son was like this: a volunteer of the First World War, wounded in the attack. An anti-Semite who passionately opposed Jewish pogroms. Ironic, caustic, smart, with excellent manners. He later said about February 17th: “Machine guns - that’s what I wanted.” Participated in negotiations with Nicholas II on abdication in favor of his brother, Mikhail Alexandrovich.

At the beginning of October he left for Kyiv and headed the Russian National Union. After the revolution, he created the ABC organization, which fought both Bolshevism and Ukrainian nationalism.

If Vasily Shulgin were my uncle or my father’s friend, I would certainly join the Russian National Union, and then ABC.

When History begins, there is an inordinate amount of rightness. Especially if the air is full of triumph and hope, and there is more and more air, and the music comes in waves.

By the way, in October the Mariinsky gave a new ballet with Karsavina - and, you know, the halls were full of happy people. During those same days, a former theatrical hairdresser from the Mariinsky explained to the big-lobed man that the wig for him would take at least two months to prepare.

Maybe you have some ready-made? - the man quickly asked, rubbing his tenacious hands. He urgently needed a wig to return to Petrograd without being captured by the first patrol.

The finished wigs were collecting dust behind the curtain. Forehead chose a wig with gray hair. “For goodness sake,” the hairdresser was indignant, “you are still young, and in this wig you will give you all sixty…” “Do you care what kind of wig I take?” - the big-headed man interrupted. Of course, he didn’t pronounce the letter “r”.

At the same time, the drama “The Death of Ivan the Terrible” was resumed at the Alexandrinsky Theater. John Reed recalled how at this performance a student of the page corps in full dress uniform stood at attention during all intermissions, facing the empty imperial box from which the eagles were torn off.

My heart would be with him, with a student of the page corps: what do you want - acquaintance with the monarchists would have an effect.

However, allow me. There was another wise man, already an old man, who returned to Russia after thirty-seven years of exile and, by the way, also, like another exile, who gave a speech at the Finlyandsky Station, and also about the revolution.

His name was Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov. He had his own small organization called Unity, which gathered around the newspaper of the same name, which he published. Leading this small fragment of the RSDLP, Plekhanov professed conservative social patriotism, advocated the continuation of the war, and, it must be said, few people liked this.

Except that Admiral Kolchak cried big, transparent tears in October of that year on Plekhanov’s shoulder, talking about the state of affairs at the front. “If necessary, I will serve you, socialist-revolutionaries, just to save Russia,” Kolchak said, and added in a dull voice: “I confess, I don’t like Social Democrats.”

What a touching and honest position both the old socialist and the admiral had in those days, who later hanged all kinds of socialists like dogs.

And again, how accurately and aptly Plekhanov scolded the “April Theses” of one big-headed man as “a mad attempt... to sow anarchic unrest in the Russian Land.”

No, I would be with Plekhanov. If he were my uncle or, say, my father's friend. He would come to Unity, see Kolchak crying, and he himself would blink away a young tear, and stroke the old man on the knee, and fearfully touch his shoulder.

However, there was another group: “New Life”. She also got her name from the newspaper - the newspaper was published by Maxim Gorky. The group united several admirers of Gorky, several workers, and representatives of the intelligentsia, of course - where would we be without them. It was in some ways, of course, similar to Plekhanov’s circle, except that it professed internationalism.

How could one not become a fan of Gorky in those days? His authority was enormous, his fame was deafening, and joining the “New Life” would have been a great honor for me. Well, let it be internationalism, so what? I would definitely come there. If, of course, my father had not dissuaded me; but he never talked me out of a single stupid thing.

Another question is that Gorky did not want and did not know how to participate in real politics, get into fights, encroach on places in the Duma, meetings and committees. And soon I would understand that I needed to look for another group that brought together real people.

“Perhaps they are real Mensheviks?” - I would think.

After all, there were real Mensheviks, already far from Plekhanov, who insisted on the need for an evolutionary approach to socialism. How subtle it is: insist on evolution; how new this is.

But no, no, no - after all, they were rapidly losing their authority; in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Mensheviks had three percent, and it was unlikely that even a single standing person could be beaten to them by a draft.

And there were standing people. Let's say, if I had known Savinkov in those years... Oh, if only I had met him!

By that time I already knew the story “The Pale Horse.” With icy hands and a cooling heart, I read this real black book of any thinking teenager. What about a teenager: Valery Bryusov spoke of Savinkov’s work as superior in quality and design to any work by Leonid Andreev. But Savinkov simply saw in the face all the demons he summoned, while Leonid Andreev was just fantasizing.

You know Savinkov, right? Yes, yes, a terrorist and a poet. It was he who figured out how to kill Interior Minister Plehve in 1904, and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich a year later. He was sentenced to hanging and fled to Romania. Of course, he fought in the French army in World War I. After the Tsar's abdication he returned to Russia. He had strict ideas about what needed to be done: war to a victorious end, the introduction of the death penalty in the army for desertion and cowardice, and in general a dictatorship was desirable.

How all this is in Russian. Everything, everything, everything. And monarchy, and internationalism, and dictatorship, and evolution. How amazingly everyone was right.

Savinkov supported the failed dictator Kornilov and tried to unite him with Kerensky. Nothing worked. As a result, he quarreled with Kornilov, and he did not really respect Kerensky anyway.

Everything fell apart, nothing fell into their hands, none of them had any luck.

Few people remember that on October 25 Savinkov tried to liberate the Winter Palace from the Red Guards. Oh, if Savinkov and his cheerful Cossacks had been lucky, what the hell would Russian history have pulled out. What copious amounts of blood would have spread, no worse than under the Bolsheviks.

But it was already too late. Lobasty had taken off his wig by that time.

A few days before Savinkov’s adventure, the big-headed man wrote in a swift hand: “...In order to treat the uprising in a Marxist way, i.e. As an art, we... without wasting a minute, we must organize the headquarters of the rebel detachments, distribute forces, move loyal regiments to the most important points, surround Alexandrinka, occupy Petropavlovka, arrest the general staff and government, send such units that are capable of dying, but not..."

What a style, my God. Poetry! And how indomitable the energy is. If he had not torn off his gray wig, the wig would have caught fire on his head. And even Savinkov, on his pale horses, looked before him as nothing more than a noisy and angry child.

Oh, why are your pale horses, Savinkov? Oh, close your pale legs.

None of Vladimir Lenin's opponents were able to control power that October.

They never managed to find a common language - Miliukov, Nabokov, Shulgin, Rodzianko: “fuck them by the leg,” Mayakovsky rhymed. And, in addition: Kornilov, Kerensky, Savinkov, Tsereteli, others, others, others.

But Lenin was not looking for a common language with anyone: he simply caught exactly the moment when he could jump on the iron step of the train rushing past (this was History). A moment later it would have been too late. But he jumped up, grabbed the iron rib, and no one could tear his icy hand off.

The train burst into Russia like hot iron into the white snow, leaving black furrows in ash and blood. Time has moved aside. The planet cracked like a watermelon. The voices at the crossroads fell silent.

In those days, I say again and again, probably everyone was right. Many, many were right. But what's the point of being right if none of them could demand everything at once: power, era, nation, thank you, no change needed, whatever you have in the corner, over there, right... religion? let's go here.

Such greed offended many in the best of feelings.

For the next three years, each of the insulted demanded at least a little power, at least a little glory, at least a little land, at least a little era. Everyone was given exactly what they asked for: a little glory, a breath of power, a glimpse of an era, a piece of land. The Lord does not offend anyone: He gives to everyone according to their needs.

You may ask: what did you, the young people of October, do? What could we do, lost in the drafts?

Gaito Gazdanov, a fifteen-year-old youth, a future brilliant writer, asked his uncle at the end of the Civil War:

Who is right: red or white? “Red,” answered my uncle.

Gaito went to fight for the whites: only because their units were closer.

At a time when real History descends upon us, choice makes no sense: everyone is the creator of a common cause. Each one, with his cheerful, angry, scorched or clean breath, strengthens the whirlwind inside the black funnel that swirls and lifts the unfortunate country to the very heavens.

...This is a Russian, Russian, Russian country...

I only remember that on the night of October 25, my daughter, still a little girl, began to cut her teeth. She screamed: “Daddy, daddy, usko!”

She was shot in the ear. I held my daughter close to me.

Gunfire was heard in the city, but far from us, far away. We waited out the night, and now, calmed down, a forehead, bright pink with a blue vein across it, appeared outside the window.

Dad, you're a monster! - my daughter pronounced using only vowels and sibilants, forgetting both “d” and “v” in horror. “I’m afraid,” she whispered, looking out the window, and I laughed. “There’s no one,” I said. - Everything will be fine.

And we fell asleep.

From the book Our Tasks - Volume I author Ilyin Ivan Alexandrovich

We were right. Our fate, the fate of the Russian people of the twentieth century, is unparalleled in its severity. This is the first time in history that such forces of evil have been mobilized; methods of such terror were invented for the first time, compromising the healthiest principles of statehood; first created

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The Serbs will blame us and they will be right. So, we won. We conducted a blitzkrieg against the Serbs so thoroughly and with such passion that today I walk the streets of Belgrade as a humble citizen of the victorious country. While negotiations continued on the border with Macedonia, we bombed

MOSCOW, RIA Novosti

Writer Zakhar Prilepin , who this year wrote the text for the “Total Dictation” campaign, told RIA Novosti that the material turned out to be quite complex, on a patriotic theme, and the author is going to test it on his own 13-year-old son.

The “Total Dictation” mass literacy test event will be held on April 21 in 60 cities in Russia and abroad, about 25 thousand people will take part in it. With its help, everyone who wants to test their literacy will be able to write a dictation text in Russian, specially prepared by Zakhar Prilepin. The first “Total Dictation” was held in 2004 at Novosibirsk State University. Last year, the dictation received the national award in the field of public relations "Silver Archer". Over the years, the text of the dictation was prepared by Boris Strugatsky, Dmitry Bykov and Psoy Korolenko.

“Initially, worrying about the people who would have to experience all this, I meaningfully wrote a simple text. But my customers - the organizers of the “Total Dictation” - came up with a completely different form of writing, which made me forget about any simplicity and write in such a way as to maximize accurately express my thoughts. Because of this, the text turned out to be quite complex. It is still in the process of being finalized, but it is already clear that writing it as a dictation will be problematic for many people. Last year, only one percent wrote the dictation with an A, and the rest - two. I think this year even fewer people will get an excellent mark. Although, maybe I’m exaggerating,” admitted Prilepin.

According to him, the text turned out to be three times longer than that of the previous authors of “Total Dictation”, due to the organizers’ decision to make it three parts. Instead of three hundred words, like Strugatsky and Bykov, Prilepin got a thousand.

“I wrote about those things that interest me personally, and that personally hurt me - about the perception of young and not so young people of Russia as such, its future, the basic foundations of our national consciousness, which, it seems to me, have been seriously affected for a long time of our troubled, sick time. I wrote about things that should not be forgotten. The title of the text will be invented later," the writer said.

He is confident that the meaning of what is written will be clear to anyone over 12 years old.

“I’m going to try dictation on my 13-year-old son. Dad wrote, let his son take it easy now. He’s a good student,” Prilepin noted.

“But these interests were not associated with drinking strong drinks, but with a passion for rock music, poetry, literature. I dropped out of school for the sake of the philological field. But then I entered the philological department, and until the third year I was practically an excellent student. I have an average score of 4 ,7 and in the Russian language, and in other subjects related to linguistics. So I would probably write this dictation with a B. In any case, when I help a child with school assignments, I never make mistakes,” he added.

According to Prilepin, he has a bad attitude towards the idea of simplifying the grammar of the Russian language, believing that too much in modern society is being simplified.

“We somehow strive to simplify everything everywhere - starting from literature, media, music and ending with the general perception of life and existence. It is necessary, on the contrary, to set the people, the nation, the highest possible standard. The majority will not reach it, but those who will succeed , there will be normal, sharp, effective thinking, a mobile mind. After all, in any field, success is associated with the ability to perceive a text of any complexity, remember it, understand, retell it. It all starts with language. Without language, there is no science. In no case can it be simplify and undermine the basic principles,” the writer is sure.

Zakhar Prilepin’s text consists of three parts: the first part was written in New Zealand, the Far East and Eastern Siberia, the second in Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Urals, and the third in the European part of Russia and foreign European countries.

Zakhar Prilepin read the text in Novosibirsk. In Moscow, those reading out the dictation included the famous writer Dmitry Bykov and TV presenter Tina Kandelaki. In Ulyanovsk, the text was dictated by the regional governor Sergei Morozov.

Text of total dictation

Part I of the dictation

Do you care?

Lately, we have often heard categorical statements, for example: “I don’t owe anyone anything.” They are repeated, considering it good form, by a considerable number of people of all ages, especially young people. And those who are older and wiser are even more cynical in their judgments: “There is no need to do anything, because while the Russians, having forgotten about the greatness that has fallen under the bench, drink quietly, everything goes on as usual.”

I remember my old people: how beautiful they were and, my God, how young they were in their war photographs! And how happy they were that we, their children and grandchildren, were confused among them, thin-legged and tanned, blossomed and overcooked in the sun. For some reason, we decided that previous generations owed us, but we, as a new subspecies of individuals, are not responsible for anything and do not want to be in debt to anyone.

Meanwhile, everything that we have: from the land we walk on to the ideals we believe in, is the result not of “small deeds” and cautious steps, but of global projects, enormous achievements, and selfless asceticism. People are transformed only when they burst into the world with all their might. A person becomes a person in search, in feat, in work, and not in petty soul-searching that turns the soul inside out.

But despite all the, so to speak, “unprofitability” of the population, tens of millions of adult men and women live in Russia - capable, enterprising, proactive, ready to plow and sow, build and rebuild, give birth and raise children. Therefore, a voluntary farewell to the national future is not at all a sign of common sense and balanced decisions, but a natural betrayal. You cannot give up your positions, throw down flags and run away without even making an attempt to defend your home. This, of course, is a figure of speech inspired by the history and smoke of the fatherland, in which spiritual and cultural upsurge, a mass desire for reconstruction have always been associated with great upheavals and wars. But they were crowned with Victories that no one could achieve. And we must earn the right to be the heirs of these Victories! (304 words) - are there more than enough?; ...and, for example, the Chinese have them - more than enough?

It is acceptable: ...tens of millions of adult men and women live in Russia, capable, enterprising, enterprising, ready to plow and sow, build and rebuild, give birth and raise children.

Zakhar Prilepin burst into literature like a shot from a grenade launcher. A former commander of a special forces unit, fought in Chechnya, worked as a security guard, father of many children, National Bolshevik, admirer of Limonov, shaven-headed intellectual - in Prilepin everyone saw what they wanted. Some are representatives of the “new youth”, heirs of the 90s (Prilepin writes especially often about the 90s). Others are of a cult writer, whose total circulation of books in just four years has exceeded a quarter of a million. Still others are an ambitious provincial who came from Nizhny Novgorod to conquer the capital. People never tire of arguing about Prilepin; he evokes no less violent reactions (actions, statements, columns, judgments) than his books.

Zakhar... by the way, what is your middle name?

Just Zakhar.

The other day you, which celebrated the best book of the decade. That is, we can say that you are the best Russian writer of the last ten years. Do you consider yourself like that?

Well, I'll become a patient in a schizophrenic hospital if I treat myself like that. The prize is, in a certain sense, a lottery. There are a variety of elements at work: an element of luck, fortune, some hidden springs that we do not see and do not know. I take it calmly that I received the “Supernational Best”. This is not the first award in my life, and I hope not the last. I am not the worst writer in Russia, but among my fellow writers I know a dozen writers whom I myself value as highly as possible, and any of them could become a laureate of this prize. It just happened that way.

You started in the 2000s. How do you assess today's publishing industry? How easy is it for a young writer today to break through and become famous?

I didn't get through at all. I wrote the first book, “Pathologies,” and sent the text by e-mail from Nizhny Novgorod to three addresses - to Dmitry Bykov, to the OGI publishing house and to the Andreevsky Flag publishing house. And everything started spinning by itself. Bykov read and published the chapter in the newspaper “Konservator”, where he then worked, “OGI” offered a publishing contract, but it was very cheap, “St. Andrew’s Flag” offered a more expensive contract, I sold the manuscript there. She didn’t go out there for a long time, no one knew me then, but that’s another topic.

I don't think the situation is fundamentally different now. If there is a high-quality text, it will find a publisher, don’t even doubt it. Because today it is not texts that are looking for publishers, but publishers (for example, Sasha Ivanov from Ad Marginem) are looking for texts. And they howl loudly - there are no good texts, no new names. And the myth that now in order to publish your book you need to meet someone and give them cognac is really a myth, because the interest in bright texts on the part of publishers is very serious, extremely.

But, as far as I know, you yourself actively promote young promising writers. Just now the anthology “Ten” has been published, a collection of works by writers of the “zero”, you edited the anthology, looked for authors...

Yes, I didn’t have to look for anyone, after all, there weren’t that many of us in sight... “Ten” is an experience in summing up the results of the “zero” years, literary results. The zero years are over, now the tenth years have begun. And the new authors will already belong to the generation of “ten managers”, it sounds funny. Now I receive a lot of manuscripts, sent to the address of the publishing houses where my books are published, to the website, and to my blog on LiveJournal. I try to read everything, but when I raise my head and look around, I realize that I didn’t notice anything particularly outstanding. But in any case, real talent will not fly past the cash register. It's not the right time.

What are the people who send you manuscripts writing about now?

Mostly young people write, of course. And our time is reflected through these texts. Although if young people write, then most write about their own life experience, or rather, about the lack thereof. In such a state, I would say - non-epic - society lives, nothing happens in the country, society lives in a state of such light, meaningless vanity, there is nothing to write about except about oneself loved. There is no big style, no big step, no big problem. This is, of course, visible. Although there are no fewer writers. Some of them have gone to the Internet, but still the number of those who sit and write large texts is huge. Hundreds of people and hundreds of texts pass through the Debut Prize alone every year.

By the way, the fact that “Debut” has now raised the age limit for participants and authors can now enter there not up to 25 years old, as before, but up to 35 - what do you think is connected with this?

I'm okay with this. In Russia, these age standards have really shifted a long time ago, and by our age - 30-35 - what kind of debut can we talk about? At this age both Lermontov and Yesenin died. By the way, I myself was 29 years old when “Pathologies” came out, I flew past “Debut”, I didn’t fit the age. And if the bar had been higher then, it would have been useful to me at that time. I don’t see anything wrong with the fact that today they raised the age to 35. Many people today start writing later, and it’s good that later. Because when a person starts writing prose at the age of 20, it seems to him that he is like Limonov. And explores the world through his genitals. And he doesn’t realize that Limonov’s other organs are also working perfectly. This, unfortunately, is a common situation among young writers: guys receive some kind of advance and start writing, although, by and large, they still have nothing to write about.

Do you think it is possible to learn to be a writer?

No, I believe that this cannot be learned. What does formal education, a diploma, provide? Self-training, self-discipline, the ability to work with literature, with sources, and after graduating, for example, from the Literary Institute, it is possible to achieve a certain level. But at the same time, the main element remains, forgive the pathos, of literary gift. On the other hand, I have a higher philological education, and I periodically feel a certain head start in relation to my fellow writers who have not studied anywhere. In this sense, education helped me, because in my youth I was simply forced to read some important books, masterpieces of world literature, and some kind of intellectual structure developed. I studied Latin, I know world literature, I believe that my consciousness is more, so to speak, harmonized.

What do you earn now? What is the income of the writer Prilepin?

Yes, I make good money. Both on books and journalistic work. I have three children, we are expecting a fourth, so the expenses in the family are large, and, accordingly, the main tool for earning money for the family is my right hand, with which I type texts on a laptop. I am the editor of the Nizhny Novgorod representative office of Novaya Gazeta, but I earn 70-80 percent from books.

Zakhar, can a good journalist become a good writer? The fact that the average writer can work successfully in journalism is practically an axiom, and cases of the reverse transformation are rare.

No, no, no, this is a far-fetched dilemma. Previously, there was no such division - this is literature, and this is journalism. Everyone whose texts were published in magazines was called journalists - Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tolstoy, and some insignificant reporter. Not a single writer shunned journalism, essays, and journalism. Look at the legacy of Gorky, or Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky - their classical literary works are supported by a huge array of non-fiction, non-fiction texts written in newspapers, magazines, on the topic of the day. Silver Age - everyone wrote both criticism and essays. It is today that poets do not read prose writers, prose writers do not read poets, and almost everyone prefers to sit in their ivory towers. And so writers from my generation, who started in the “zero”, and German Sadullaev, and Sergei Shargunov, and writers of the older generation - Prokhanov, Limonov - all write articles and columns for regular publications, and no one considers this a problem. There is no boundary between literary and journalistic texts. It's all artificial.

You have already said the word “generation” several times in relation to writers who debuted in the last ten years. How much do you feel like you are part of this literary generation? Do you communicate, do you have some common principles, beliefs, ideas? After all, it’s difficult to imagine you next to, for example, Sadullaev.

Why?

Well, because you both have books about the Chechen war. But if “Pathologies” is a look at the war through the eyes of a special forces soldier, a federal officer, then “Shalin Raid” or “I am a Chechen” is a look from the other side, from the other side of the front. Figuratively speaking, if you had not met in literature, you could have met in Chechnya as soldiers of two warring sides.

This is unlikely - when I was in Chechnya, he was in some other place. Sadullaev has some claims against me, I have no claims against him. In “Shalin Raid” he wrote something like that, some hints. I respect Sadullaev. “I am a Chechen” and “Shalin Raid” are his main, signature books. Everything else he wrote may fade over time, but these books will definitely remain. And I respect that he does not exploit the Chechen theme alone, he has excellent journalism, a collection was recently published... Until recently, we were friends, yes...

As for others, I communicate with many. I read almost everyone who started publishing in the 2000s. And I’m glad that they exist, that they are known, read, noticed. Because it’s very easy for us not to notice the whole phenomenon. For example, we slept through the whole neo-soil movement in the 90s - Vasya Golovanov, Misha Tarkovsky, Alexey Varlamov - amazing writers who were simply leaked, they did not receive the recognition they deserved. Here Tarkovsky is a great Russian writer, the main heir, I believe, of the Astafiev-Rasputin-Belov line, but he is not in Moscow stores, not on a national scale as a significant name, and this, I think, is not good . In general, that part of our literature that was called “village prose” in Soviet times has failed. And she has the right to exist, she has the right to the future. As long as there is Russia, there is a village in Russia. I believe that domestic literature should not be urban, and we live in an era of the absolute primacy of urban prose, books written by city dwellers for city dwellers and about city life. Not all of Russia lives in cities, if that's the case.

What will your next book be about?

There are so many plans and ideas that I can even say what book I will write in five years. I have three or four texts that, God willing, I will be working on in ten years. And there are texts that, I know, will turn into books in the next three to four years. Now I am finishing a collection under the code name “Eight”. There will be eight big stories. Such flashbacks to the 90s. It’s not that I’m once again calling for you to think about the 90s, but I myself am interested in figuring out what was happening then, because it’s obvious to me that it was an incredibly interesting time, and people are gradually realizing that this is exactly the case - despite poverty, bandits, devastation and other horrors.

I have also now collected a huge collection of poems by Eduard Limonov, about 700, and I did this completely free of charge, for myself. And there are a lot of unreleased texts. Well, I promote young people too. After all, both in age and experience, I am already a representative of the “older generation” for those who are now writing their first book.

And how do you feel about this?

Fine.

Arkady Suhovolsky for
Photo from the official website of Zakhar Prilepin

“Zakhar Prilepin, perhaps the most significant living Russian writer, went to war - he became a political instructor of the special forces battalion of the DPR army created by himself or with his participation. I don’t like much of what he says in this regard, but I understand perfectly well that he could not do otherwise.
Any teasing about this is disgusting to me.
In Zakhara, like few of our colleagues, there was always a strong sense of duty. I can say this with all responsibility, since I have known him quite closely for almost fifteen years.
I really want him to stay alive.”

Leonid Yuzefovich

The wretchedness of the discussion around this quote is striking. An honest soldier of the Evil Empire - the Soviet empire, went to fight with the breakaway part of the Evil Empire, which wanted to become a normal country, despite all the generic problems of the post-Soviet space. Can a soldier of the Evil Empire fight out of conviction? Maybe. Is he honest about his personal choices? Honest. In the case of Prilepin, this is not a personal choice as a writer, but the choice of his superiors. Serving your superiors is an honor and professionalism of the riot police. Is it easier for the victim that he will be destroyed by a convinced National Bolshevik, shaking his consumptive ideological beard, singing a Ukrainian song? The Evil Empire continues the traditions of Russia as the gendarme of Europe. Zakhar Prilepin is a professional gendarme with a specific picture of the world.

“Zakhar Prilepin, perhaps the most significant living Russian writer”... A wretched idiom, a cliche, a cliche, suffering from night blindness and limitations. The public is amazingly oblivious to the connections between certain phenomena. The liberal regional committee cannot recognize a writer in Prilepin, it cannot be for its own flags. It is necessary to fanatically and firmly call him mediocrity, mediocrity, and a graphomaniac. The Patriotic Regional Committee is also not allowed to use its own flags. It is necessary to fanatically call Prilepin a great writer of the Russian land. Neither one nor the other has anything to do with literature. Zakhar Prilepin is not “almost the most significant living Russian writer,” but perhaps the most notable of the Russian writers actively publishing and endlessly going on TV. In an atmosphere of sectarianism in the literary world, the depressing state of the Russian publishing system and the dominance of television, the main writers (according to the totalitarian consciousness) are appointed.

Sasha Sokolov said: “Krymnash” - he was instantly found in Canada and appointed, perhaps, one of the most significant living Russian writers. Zakhar joined the Deener battalion and became an icon of patriotic literary greatness. And two discussions were immediately imposed on society - about Sokolov and Prilepin. But society is not capable of independently deciding who is great; the media must trumpet it. They trumpet on ideological grounds. Possessing Zuckerberg's limited set of tools for signaling their visibility, Internet writers are marginal devotees, whether by their own or someone else's will, the public will see them as someone when the media trumpets about it. In the list of living great writers (let’s make a reservation that he hasn’t read many of them), Sasha Sokolov does not indicate any Prilepin, and those whom he indicates will remain within the framework of the link by which Sasha talks about this. The leading media will not trumpet them. Showdowns within the literary world, with the fury of aesthetic sects - splinters, key media are cutting down the forest.

Zakhar Prilepin is perhaps a unique, only case in the history of Russian literature. A convinced riot policeman, a professional Stalinist, capable of burning with both words and napalm. He consistently brought to the end the favorite thesis of all times and peoples. Today the thesis looks like this: “There is no point in lying on the couch and hamstering in nets. Go ahead and fight.” But the writer did not just get ready for war, like some military correspondent. Their darkness, now and forever. He went to war as a professional - a disperser of demonstrations. If the country is led by someone who has worked with dissidents “with a clear eye,” then a writer who has worked with dissidents through the knees, through the backbone, an expert in the embittered, aggressive people’s soul, is going to Donbass. The next stage in the spiritual evolution of the “new Gorky” (Dmitry Bykov’s definition) will be conversion to devout faith, with the burning of manuscripts and traces of war crimes.

Wonderful are your works, literary Lord. The consistency of a Russian writer is unprecedented. From underground fascism, on the run through forests and EnBEP meeting points, through literature, with liberal blessing, to large-scale fascism applied in practice. This is not for you to move with a pen. A writer cannot survive on royalties. I need somewhere to work. Zakharushko of All Rus', Nizhny Novgorod and crazy, Donbass and touring, works in his specialty. There are no former evil ones, they will erase new sincere ones, as many Sharikov - cats, as many as they can, as part of the cleansing of the literary field, and the Donbass field with soldiers and skulls.

Any mockery about Prilepin is inevitable, as well as vice versa. In the current state of Russian society, all sorts of teary-buttercups and virginal delicacy are not in honor. Everyone kills everyone, senselessly and mercilessly. All writers of any significance were called both geniuses and graphomaniacs. Insults are put on stream so that the Orthodox, barracks, Russian-liberal god can hear how hearts are torn.

But this is not enough for the public. She tears the hearts of writers even after death, together with “honest literary critics.” Such streams of daily evil rush from the trenches that it is pointless to deny the existence of the Evil Empire. It grows from below, from above, from all sides. She cruelly takes revenge on Ukraine, which has gone AWOL, dreaming of catching her and sending her to a punishment cell, where, according to Prilepin, she will be forced, under torture, to read a Soviet history textbook for the seventh grade.
And the honest riot policeman, the literary channeler of this evil, swore allegiance to the guards, who will definitely devour him if he does not die in the war for a Soviet textbook for the seventh grade of a very high school, with adaptation to a school for fools.