Felix Krivin: “It’s summer in our apartment...” (parables from different books).

Non-Heroes And in December, not everyone is a Decembrist. The fire is crackling and
breathes the summer spirit. Sitting like this and whistling outside the window,
catch the blizzard whistle with your accustomed ear.
Sit and think that it’s winter all around, that the wind is bending
passers-by like straw, because they lack intelligence in such a
don't leave the house at night.
Throw some wood. Smell your pajamas. Lazy spoon
chat in a glass. Sip some tea. To the newspaper
take a look - what's the weather like in Magadan?
And again listen to the whistle outside the window. And doze off - until
the very dawn.
After all, not everyone is a Decembrist in December.
The fire is crackling.
It's summer in our apartment

A ship does not sink when it is in water. It sinks when there is water in it. It doesn't matter what happens around us. What matters is what happens inside us.

Don't be afraid to give warming words,
And do good deeds.
The more wood you put on the fire,
The more heat will return.

Every person is superior to me in some way; and in this sense, I have a lot to learn from him.

Now we have everything: snowdrops in December and tangerines in May. But people lack humanity and tenderness.

It's better to sit alone and enjoy your company than to be surrounded by fake people.

You don’t need a lot of intelligence to get married, but try to make her smile every day and set you as an example.

Another difficult year has passed, leaving us with one ray of hope.
May it be good for you in January, and may it be three hundred times better in December!!!

Live long, laugh often! Find the essence of things in goodness. Let happiness begin in January, but not dry up in December!

I'll try not to call again
Don't wander over you in the arms of the night.
And don't tell anyone else
That I need you, dear, I really, really need.
I'll try not to write anymore,
And don’t shed tears, thinking that the other
Ready to kiss just as greedily,
Drowning in my beloved arms.
I'll try not to dream anymore
After all, you are not mine, but I always wanted
So that every day and again and again
Your smile warmed my soul.
I'll try not to love anymore.
There really are a lot of people like you.
But you know... never forget
You... so dear...

Read poetry on this page "1-13. Non-heroes" Russian poet Felix Krivin, written in the year.

And in December, not everyone is a Decembrist. The fire is crackling and the summer spirit is in the air. Just sit like that and catch the whistling outside the window, the blizzard whistling with your accustomed ear. To sit and think that it’s winter all around, that the wind bends passers-by like straw, because they don’t have the sense to not leave the house on such a night. Throw some wood. Smell your pajamas. Lazyly swirl it around in the glass with a spoon. Sip some tea. Look in the newspaper - what is the weather like in Magadan? And again listen to the whistle outside the window. And doze off until dawn. After all, not everyone is a Decembrist in December. The fire is crackling. It's summer in our apartment...

Felix Krivin. Scientists' tales. Uzhgorod: Karpaty, 1967.

Other poems by Felix Krivin

» 1-08. Slavery

Tullius Cicero was a slave to his eloquence. Gnaeus Pompey was a slave to his own success. Julius Caesar was a slave to his own greatness. One was in Rome free man: slave Spartak....

» 1-09. Discovery of America

No, Columbus was not the first to discover America. The first ones were completely different. It was they who settled the uninhabited land and fell in love with it, not knowing other lands. They crossed the continent from end to end...

» 1-10. Newton's apple

- Listen, Newton, how did you make this discovery of yours, about which there is so much talk now? - Yes, as usual. It just hit my head. They each stood in their own yard and talked...

» 1-11. Glasgow City Cabbies

The cab drivers of the city of Glasgow gathered for their next gathering, officially called a meeting of transport workers. The weather was chilly and slushy. It's good in this weather...

» 1-12. One step

“From the great to the ridiculous is one step,” said Napoleon, and yet he did not take this step. But Napoleon had followers......

» 2-01. Homer

But old Homer was once a young man. He sang about mighty Achilles, cunning Odysseus and Elena - a woman of mythical beauty. “You know, there’s something in this Homer,” they said...

» 2-02. Condemnation of Prometheus

- Well, judge for yourself, dear Prometheus, what position you are putting me in. Old friends, and suddenly - you! - Don’t be sad, Hephaestus, do your job! -- Do not worry! In your opinion, chaining a friend to a rock is...

To break the chain of people in Rus'...

(F. Vadkovsky “Desires”; after 1828)

Petersburg. Senate square. Frosty December morning. December 25, 1825. Shots ring out. Chains of advancing soldiers are moving along the Neva ice... Commands from officers are heard... Calls are thundering... "Freedom! Equality! Brotherhood!"... Sudden news from the Winter Palace plunges everyone into shock! The king is captured and killed... Victory... Units loyal to the emperor take flight and surrender to the mercy of the rebels. No Furthermore, to whom they swore allegiance, which means there is no longer any point in further struggle... Everything is as in chess game... These were the rules of those years...
I repeatedly, even as a boy, imagined these minutes. In general, I often drew pictures of what would have happened if those whom we now call the Decembrists had won that battle. What would have happened if the commander of the Chernigov regiment had not committed stupidity by declaring a day off for Christmas and had not lost precious time...
Everything was simpler then, in my dreams. Like after the film "Chapaev". Sabers, a soldier's "Hurray!", the thunder of victories and fleeing enemies. But now, wise with life experience and more or less knowledgeable in history, I would like to imagine the whole situation: what would await our long-suffering Russia if the Decembrists overthrew the tsar and led the country “in its fatal moments”...

From the editor
Yes, from the “technical” side of the matter, the victory of the rebels was quite possible. Especially if, instead of a crumpled “improvisation”, exactly the uprising that was actually planned the previous evening had taken place on the not yet Senate Square. This, of course, is a separate question - but in " public consciousness"Legends still prevail. It is very difficult to convey to the average history buff, for example, the truth that Trubetskoy, in fact, at the decisive moment did not chicken out and did not betray the uprising - but who betrayed him and actually failed was Yakubovich . Nevertheless, even in such an “impromptu” option, the matter could well have ended in the loss of the government forces. Who would have won is another matter. For example, with a very high, even preferable probability, the option could have worked, as a result of which Nicholas I was not even killed , but was categorically removed from power - and until adulthood little Alexander II, this power is concentrated in the hands of the Regency Council, headed by the completely surviving Miloradovich (moreover, those who are now known to us as “Decembrists”, as a result, find themselves on opposite sides of the political barricades - but... these barricades have a chance to remain political, and Russia - to become a constitutional monarchy!). Of course, another scenario cannot be ruled out, much less optimal, bloodier, more stupid. But there is clearly no need to talk about the obviously “doomed” uprising (no, not like that: about the obviously greater likelihood of the pro-government option that came true “in real life”). So we, in an amicable way, now live in a variant alternative history. And quite unlikely. After all, if we consider the Decembrist uprising not a “revolution”, but an attempted coup, then this is the first in the Russian Empire failed coup d'état!

Russia started (and until the middle) XIX century was a slightly different country, with people having a slightly different mentality than now. Russia was a patriarchal country. And, what is most unpleasant for the Decembrists, it is 80% peasant. No, the peasants were not completely downtrodden and gray, as it seems to us today. Russian empire had its own ideology, which permeated the masses to the marrow of their bones. The ideology of Russia was Orthodoxy. The cult of the Tsar - sanctified in religious doctrine - was indestructible. “The Tsar is God’s Anointed! He who encroaches on the Tsar encroaches on the Lord himself!” It would have been difficult for the Decembrists to cope with the masses of people, who sacredly believed in every word of the village priest and were brought up from a young age that not only the sovereign, but even the landowner was their own father...
Let's digress from the topic and remember that in the year of the abolition of serfdom, having learned that the landowner no longer owned them, the peasants with pain in their hearts went to the tsar to ask that at least their village be returned to "the breadwinner father, the master -boyar"... THE OPPOSITION, CONTAINING THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION OF THE EMPIRE, WAS PROVIDED TO THE DECEMBRISTS!
Immediately - and this would be the very first thing the Decembrists would do - they would deprive the Orthodox opposition of the symbol that could unite them. The murder of the king was part of their plans, and this was point No. 1. For the people, the king was a symbol of their unity. The murder of the tsar would be followed by the murder of his heirs, relatives, and supporters of the monarchy among the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia of those years were the nobility. This was a layer of society capable of uniting the resistance movement and confronting intellectually the supporters of the republic. The Decembrists understood that, having destroyed the nobility not just as a class, but physically, they would behead the supporters of the monarchy, in in this case peasants

From the editor
Yes, of course - if any of the extreme, “terrible” pre-December plans had been adopted. But such plans can always be adjusted real life. (Especially if you consider that the Decembrists are a complex, heterogeneous movement... as, indeed, are their opponents: those forces that we very conventionally call the “government party”!) Alexander I for a long time and quite seriously prepared the country for the adoption of a constitution, abolition of serfdom, etc., etc., but subsequently abandoned these intentions (how justified is another question). The Romanovs were planning to conquer Constantinople several times, and sometimes they were extremely close to this (so out of place, Konstantin, who was inserted into the Decembrist plot, received his name precisely with an eye on the throne of Constantinople, where it was planned to place him almost immediately after his birth; the result would have been a kind of federation of vassal monarchies was created - and even if these plans failed a couple of years later, the entire Balkan knot, which in our history gave rise to the First World War for sure, would inevitably have started differently). As we know, due to the disruption of these “meetings,” the history of Russia did not stop at all, but smoothly switched to a fallback option. As for the Decembrist victory... Who said that Pestel's dystopia was subject to greater implementation than, say, Nikita Muravyov's constitutional project, which assumed the preservation of a “ceremonial” monarch deprived of power? (Especially if you consider that at the time of the uprising Pestel’s place was near the bucket in the very literally words - and the victorious Decembrists would hardly have forgotten the ridiculously pitiful situation in which such a formidable leader of Southern society recently found himself, meekly and without the slightest sign of heroism, going under arrest. So Pestel’s “Russian Truth” is, perhaps, the LAST thing that could be realized in true history!)
Even chaotic, announced in stressful situation The "Catechism" of Sergei Muravyov-Apostol did not at all lead to an immediate attack of cannibalism. Moreover, it did not lead to any rapid, significant “falling away” of the rebel soldiers from Muravyov, although the declarative anti-monarchism of the “Catechism” could indeed have contributed to this. The most curious thing is that the form and content of this revolutionary document ( "Orthodox Catechism", which began with the words “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit...”) were quite acceptable so that the first available priest immediately agreed to solemnly read it in the city square, thereby actually blessing the rebels and reconciling his flock with them ... But we're talking about not about a metropolitan freethinker, but about a typical, “average” priest from the outback!
As for the plans to kill the Tsar, as we already know, the future Decembrists were not at all united in this. However, many plans for the uprising (which was still not conceived taking into account the fact that the tsar would suddenly die so suddenly and in such a bad corner!) did provide for elimination Alexander I. But fate gave the rebels a truly magical version of the “interregnum”, and even accompanied by the abdication of the official heir, who in the people’s and soldiers’ minds had already become an emperor. Under such circumstances, the death (or rather involuntary renunciation: it could well have happened like this!) of Nicholas I would certainly look like God’s Punishment, deservedly falling on the head of an impostor - about whom the “broad masses” know almost only one thing: he just now publicly abdicated the throne, took the oath to Constantine, but now for some reason he again tried to stir up trouble and climb into kingship, but was stopped in one way or another.
Also, let's be logical. One might think that the Decembrist plans (unrealized!) were the first case of regicide in Russia... Even Nikolai, a very young man, perfectly remembered the last coup d'etat, which ended with regicide (by no means the first!).
If we talk about “80% of the opposition”, then, to be honest, one gets the impression that the existing government, contrary to the Decembrists, actively took into account the opinion of this non-ruling majority, took into account its requests, etc. In general, as historical experience shows, raising the peasants to revolt (or, conversely, keeping them submissive) is a rather tricky business: reasons that seem to be completely obvious to an “outside person”, a representative of an educated minority, often do not work here. If only because the unwritten code of the peasantry contained a clause regarding high degree humility available power- in any case, until it crosses certain boundaries. And it may turn out that the Decembrists, who in some cases understood their contemporaries - after all, their own! - much better than we, descendants, are ready to allow them (it’s not for nothing that they were so afraid to look like regicides, even agreeing with them be!), would be able to establish relations with Russia, which is subject to them, that do not amount to direct terror. Another question is that the losses along this path would still be terrible: on the part of both the “opposition” and the “revolutionaries” (quotes are probably needed in both cases). But, as we know, the historical option that came to fruition ultimately led to a number of victims that, by the standards of 1825, was completely unthinkable - even if in relation to 1825 itself they were among the “deferred problems”...

The next, no less terrible enemy for the Decembrists was the church, the bearer of the ideology of the Russian State. The Decembrists would urgently try to get rid of it. Fighters against censorship, guardians of freedom of thought, the Decembrists would simply have established a brutal police regime, starting persecution of these dissidents even greater than the tsarist government had carried out against freethinkers before them. This would alienate the masses from them. Terror against the church would give birth to many new martyrs, many resistance groups united by the Orthodox faith, who would look up not to anyone but to the first Christians, likening themselves to them. These groups would produce great amount preachers-agitators who would easily capture the minds of people. Ordinary people would understand them...

From the editor
See above. It cannot be said that such an option is absolutely, by definition, excluded, but it is hardly worth ascribing to the people of that era the “rules of conduct” of the times of the Schism - or, conversely, the Red Terror. By the way, let us remember once again that Muravyov-Apostol likened himself and his companions to the “first Christians” (it was not for nothing that his program document was the “Orthodox Catechism”, and not, say, the “Manifesto of an Atheist Party”), and in this likening he was, firstly, he is absolutely sincere, and secondly, he is far from alone. And these thoughts quite naturally pushed towards the rejection of the supremacy of royal power - for there is only one Lord above us, yet all earthly people are equal, and freedom and happiness are due to them from God. And the Jacobin triad “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” although used in its own circle, was by no means intended just like that for “unprepared” soldiers and peasants!

The peasant masses never united independently into a single whole. There have always been their Minins, Pozharskys, Pugachevs and Razins. They themselves acted only in “small partisan groups.” There was not just one Russian rebellion, but many at once. Public performances in the first years of the Decembrist reign would have arisen in several centers. That is, a kind of “White Guard peasants” could easily take control of individual volosts. Of course, a “Russian Vendée” would not have arisen, but the Russian Jacobins would have made their response to the counter-revolution with punitive operations with possible mass executions, pouring blood Eastern Europe. Let's not forget that the Decembrists were direct ideological followers of their French comrades, who recently drowned France in innocent blood. The only difference from french revolution The Russian had what the French people craved, but the Russians did not want a revolution! In Russia by 1825 the revolutionary situation had not yet matured. Even individual performances in 1819 in Chuguev, in 1831 in Staraya Russa and several similar ones were not revolutionary speeches. The rebels did not proclaim revolutionary political slogans. Ustim Karmelyuk, who literally terrorized Podolia, did not proclaim them either. All of Karmelyuk’s ideas boiled down only to the robbery of landowners’ estates and revenge for individual grievances of individual fellow countrymen. And the uprisings in military settlements had economic rather than political reasons.

From the editor
Still, it still seems to us that modern researchers too often inadvertently make people of a very specific era hostages of the “past” or “future.” And having abandoned such allusions, it is very difficult to see in the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Decembrist thoughts and actions “ideological following of their French comrades.” Rather, it’s the other way around: the complex of Decembrist ideas as a whole is clearly imbued with an anti-Jacobin (and, by the way, anti-Pugachev!) spirit - and the “revolutionism” is fueled not so much by the abstract desire to liberate the people, but by the confidence that the supreme power is unreasonable herself is leading the country to the abyss of Jacobinism or Pugachevism (and Karmelyuk is the guarantee of this!), so we need to save the situation even at the cost of an uprising before it’s too late...

Punitive expeditions of troops against peasants would have catastrophic consequences for the country's economy. The undermining of the economy in those years did not mean inflation, but the most natural famine... For the Decembrists themselves, this meant political collapse. Revolutionary terror would turn into terror against the common people, against those for whose freedom they spoke. Even a small part of the peasants and townspeople, who might have greeted the revolution joyfully, would have instantly recoiled from the Decembrists. People power And people's government would remain popular purely nominally.

From the editor
Of course, this would have happened if the peasants (and revolutionaries) of 1825 had turned out to be the peasants (and revolutionaries) of 1917. But since all the classes of 1825 were not someone else, but themselves, they would have had to try VERY hard to, through joint efforts, plunge the country into the abyss of precisely these, completely “alien” dangers at that time: as if they didn’t have enough of their own dangers!
Not the best examples of Soviet science fiction (if anyone thinks that science fiction of that time was even remotely close to “It’s Hard to Be a God” - he is deeply mistaken!) is characterized by a plot: a progressive hero ends up in a backward-feudal society and, knowing how to, manages to carry out a successful uprising in it masses. Now completely different science fiction novels are in fashion: a modern monarchist-statist who clearly knows how to, falls into the wilds native history- and forcibly imposes his vision on his ancestors revolutionary events(With which necessary fight) and counter-revolutionary forces (which, of course, necessary help in every possible way). But how can we not confuse who is who? However, it is much more difficult to confuse, and even not to confuse, than it seems, because the real participants in the historical drama play “different” rather than opposite roles...

In addition, the Decembrists had another enemy - an enemy who firmly believed not so much in the divine origin of royal power, but in Orthodoxy and the monarchy as the only source of their liberties and freedoms. This enemy of the Russian Republic (as well as any republic in general) is the Cossacks!
With the Cossacks, whose territory extended from the Carpathian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, two scenarios are possible.
First: the Cossacks instantly declare independence and declare their secession from Russia. Moreover, there was a precedent for this then. Those who remembered the Cherkasy and Zaporozhye freemen were still alive. Most likely, several states would have been formed under the control of military governments - supporters of the monarchy, and one of them would have included all of Siberia. The eastern borders of Russia would be limited to the Urals, and in the south the border would run along the border of the Earth All-Great Army Donskoy. Access to the Black Sea would also be lost forever. Ukraine would not be slow to revive the Hetmanate, taking over the lands of the former Crimean Khanate. Such a development of events would prompt Turkey to immediately challenge the ownership of Crimea and Novorossiya, using troops as an argument... And let’s not forget that Ottoman Empire those years in this issue there were some allies in Europe... Russia gets incredibly restless neighbors, uncontrollable Cossacks. Some of them are waging war with Turkey, while others are step by step liberating the districts from revolutionary power. The people greet them precisely as liberators. For them, the Decembrists are regicides who encroached on the Anointed One of God. This liberation campaign of the Cossacks would have stopped on the Voronezh - Samara line, where the Cossack lands ended. But the Cossacks would never have taken Moscow. Not because they wouldn’t have enough strength, but because they simply wouldn’t need it. In the Cossack style - impose an indemnity...

From the editor
The belief in “Orthodoxy and the monarchy as the only source of liberties and liberties” is, of course, characteristic of the complex of Cossack ideas - but by no means defines it entirely. Again, one might think that it is new for the Cossacks to go against the central government, as well as to nominate “kings” from among themselves, absolutely aware of their fictitiousness. And as if in the Russian (Ukrainian, Polish - emphasize what is necessary in the right century) there were forces other than the Cossacks that were capable of switching en masse, for example, to serve “under the Turks” or “under the Persians,” or even “become crazy” , although for the near-medieval consciousness this is still an extraordinary step, fraught with an afterlife “tower” in the flames of hell. Moreover, “indemnity” is far from the most painful option. With great likelihood, all sorts of “buckwheat sowers” in all liberated (more precisely, captured) territories would be forced, at a minimum, to bear for the benefit Cossack army various kinds of duties. And these duties would turn out to be a much heavier burden, dressed in a less “civilized” form, than the usual serfdom... from which the Decembrists actually intended to free the peasants. So the people would not greet the Cossacks “as liberators” for long.
However, the very formulation of the question is speculative: the Cossacks of that time were people of 1825, and not 1640 or 1918. Therefore those forms civil war, which were possible “before” or “after” are by no means projected onto “during”!
Exactly the same should be said about the Ottoman Empire. She could do a lot “before”, she could do something “after” - but it was “during” 1825 that she was absolutely unable to make sudden movements...

The second scenario: after all, a leader could be found to lead the Cossack campaign against Moscow and St. Petersburg. This leader could be, for example, one of the heroes Patriotic War 1812... Let's say, Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf. If he had managed to rally troops to fight the rebels and regicides, then the age of the Decembrists would have been short-lived...

From the editor
And the best candidate for such leaders seems to be... already known to us, Sergei Muravyov-Apostol. And the Hetmanate, if it had been realized, would have had an advantageous chance of passing under his sign. He, of course, is not the only great-grandson of the famous Danila Apostol, the last of the elected Ukrainian hetmans, in the vicinity of Kiev, but not every great-grandson has such a trump card in his hands as the Chernigov regiment devoted to him (and after the defeat in St. Petersburg, Muravyov-Apostol managed to use only one regiment, and with a more favorable outcome, the Akhtyrsky, Poltava, Alexandrinsky regiments, which were under the control of Southern officers, would have joined in - you can’t count them all here...).
Could he, in this status, quarrel with the Northerners? In principle - yes (Pestel would have been able to do it without the principle, but we have already said Where, to everyone’s luck, there was Pestel’s place...). But this would become an event like the discord between Napoleon and the Directory; that is, in no way in the name of the former monarchy...

Absorbed by a mini-civil war, reduced to the borders of the 14th century, Russia would have been dealt a decisive blow at the moment by Poland, fighting for its independence (the concept of “Poland” then had a broader meaning than now; these are the lands of almost all of present-day Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus to Smolensk and Ukraine to almost Kiev). It is unlikely that the revolutionary troops would be able to resist the Polish rebels under a united general command, unlike the Russian peasants. In addition, Great Britain, which has always fought with Russia for ownership of the Baltic waters, would most likely have extended a helping hand to the Poles... The achievements of the Age of Peter the Great and the Golden Age of Catherine would have been lost forever...

From the editor
Yes, we, of course, have every right to reproach those people. Indeed, in our realized version of the no-alternative history, Russia managed to avoid the falling away of all these lands, maintained extremely friendly relations with the peoples inhabiting them... It managed to avoid the falling away of those regions that broke with Russia in 1825, no matter who was in charge of its government helm, even in a nightmare I could not imagine (for example, for the then Georgia, the patronage of the then Russia was truly a “light in the window”) - as well as those who were yet to turn out to be annexed. And she avoided the fratricidal nightmare of the civil war... And as a result she did not end up with the worst example of a pseudo-monarchical dictatorship, in comparison with which the notorious “oppression of tsarism” looks like the same flowers as the hypothetical “horrors of Decembrism”... And she was not plunged into the bloody meat grinder of two world wars, and in both cases with, again, the worst losses among any of the participants... And... And...
(Not to mention the fact that disciplined, strictly obedient to a single command Polish rebels- in our opinion, something from too much alternative history!)

Conclusion:

Russia, reduced to the borders of the times of Alexei Mikhailovich, deprived of access to the sea, and therefore of the fleet, drowned in the blood of massacres of the peasants who remained faithful to the Anointed of God... Russia, deprived of virtually all its resources and wealth, which were then drawn from Siberia. It will never again play a role in world politics. Conditions are dictated to her by Türkiye and England. The peasants are broken, intimidated, resigned. Led by a small junta of officers, led by Prince Trubetskoy - ideological inspirer Decembrists - a Russian imitation of Napoleon, but not Bonaparte... Ultimately, he will be forced to return to the version of the monarchy and proclaim himself the Russian Tsar... But for the people he is no longer anything other than an impostor...

From the editor:
Again, we would not dare to say that the above option is absolutely, in principle, impossible. But it is akin to such an unlikely tragedy as death (or severe disability) from what the 19th century called “childhood diseases”: mumps, measles, whooping cough... However, maybe, if you were destined to get over a childhood disease anyway, then Would it be better to do this in childhood, developing immunity for the rest of your life? Because without such immunity there is too great a risk of contracting such a disease (for example, the “childhood disease of leftism”) in mature age. And this is already extremely fraught with severe complications, dangerous both for life and for potency- the opportunity to create a fulfilling future...

P.S. Having already completed this dispute, both participants turned to the arbitrator. We present his comment here.

A. Valentinov
The fruits of long-standing ideas that revolutionaries are honest people fighting for the good of the people (or, conversely, some “infernal demons” who have no connections with their time and their country, jumping onto the historical stage like a jack-in-the-box) turn out to be very tenacious. A hundred years ago you could still believe in this, but now it’s time to give up naivety.
If we discuss the problem as an adult, then it now becomes clear that no one would have allowed the Decembrists to “win” in their understanding. In this regard, it makes sense to refer, for example, to recent studies by V. A. Bryukhanov. The situation was simple: several rebel regiments (and “several” is at best), and against them - the ENTIRE St. Petersburg garrison of Miloradovich. That is, they would let them play enough, raise the same Nicholas with bayonets (this was precisely what was seriously envisaged), and then they would shoot, anathematize - and live peacefully under the regency of Maria Feodorovna and the wise care of a group of respected generals and dignitaries. Apparently, this was the real plan.
The victory of those whom we traditionally classify as the Decembrists was completely impossible also because both of their “dictators” - Trubetskoy and Obolensky - were literally Miloradovich's people and carried out HIS order, and not the will of some “Secret Society”.
Everything did not work out according to plan, mainly due to the mistakes of Miloradovich himself, who overestimated his personal influence directly on the troops (he was unable to take control of the situation at the right moment, “lost the pace,” lost face) - and underestimated Nikolai, who really didn’t want to die. And everything was decided not even by the three cannons from which they opened fire on the insurgents, but by Nikolai’s guards engineer battalion, which defended Winter Palace, turning the terrible rebels into mongrels freezing in the middle of Petrovskaya Square. And he personally saved Nikolai, of course.
One way or another, I would not seriously consider the option of “victory” of the Decembrists at all. But not allowing Nicholas to the throne and creating an extremely conservative government in an outwardly liberal package (to be sure, they would have carried out some cosmetic reforms, say, renamed the serfs “obligated”, promising to free them “a little later”) - quite.
But no “Russian Truths” would be implemented. Muravyov’s plans are even more so, since his “Constitution” is a simplified plan of Tsar Alexander, which was prevented from being implemented by the same company that stood behind Miloradovich’s coup.
I don’t dare to invent the further course of history in the case of such an “alternative,” but Russia in any case would have behaved more closed, there would have been fewer wars, as well as all kinds of “progress.”

Captions for illustrations:

1) Alexander I.

2) Constantine I as Emperor: engraving published during the interregnum.

3) Miloradovich: the real organizer supra-Decembrist "putsch of oligarchs", potential leader of the future Russia?

4) General Bistrom, " right hand"Miloradovich, one of the key figures in the planned general's putsch.

5) Maria Feodorovna (nicknamed “Maria Cast Iron”), “empress-grandmother”, widow of Paul I, mother of Alexander I and Nicholas I. If Miloradovich’s plans were implemented, it would be she who would lead the regency until the coming of age of her grandson, the future Alexander II - and would actually be a "puppet ruler".

6) Elizaveta Alekseevna, widow of Alexander I (at the time of the uprising she, already terminally ill, was far from the capital). "Spare" version of the puppet ruler.

7) Mikhail Pavlovich, the youngest of the royal brothers. According to any of the versions (including the realized one) he is not a candidate for the throne.

8) Nicholas I, the “unexpected” winner.

* Another thing, of course, was that circumstances could have come into play. For example, the Life Grenadier Regiment - the same one that the Guards sappers, literally tens of seconds ahead of it, prevented from capturing the Winter Palace along with the entire royal family located there - a few minutes later, already heading towards Petrovskaya Square, suddenly came across... the very king And although subsequent historians somewhat exaggerate the degree of Nikolai’s “defenselessness” at this moment (for, of course, there were no sappers sent to protect the palace with him - but, in addition to his close retinue, there was also a cavalry guard escort), still he himself believed that in the event of a fight, “our fate would be more than doubtful.”

Felix Krivin

It's summer in our apartment...

(parables from different books)

(From the book “Circles in the Sand”)

- Maria, brilliant idea! June 11 is the birthday (born 1928) of Felix Krivin, a wonderful writer and poet. I fell in love with him somewhere in the second half of the sixties. He is alive, now lives in Israel. Make a page for his birthday. Write about him and make his poems. Or here’s something else for you - “Scientific and historical tales” ... - the co-founder of the magazine and its author, Boris Lukyanchuk, suggested to me.

Heeding Boris's advice, I went to the library and brought back four books by Felix Krivin. I looked into the thickest one - "Peacock's Tail" - Uzhgorod. — Publishing house "Karpaty". — 1988.

I skimmed through the Contents and read the preface by Zinovy Paperny:

“Felix Krivin loves to combine reality and dreams, truth and fiction, legend and allegory in his narration. The objects he describes, like a shadow, cast a second allegorical meaning. The second feature, equally important and integral, is related to humor. Krivin's narrative combines fantasy and irony. The writer creates a completely unprecedented, implausible, “impossible” plot and smiles at it. You can’t create science fiction with a scientist and a serious look. This is a fun thing."

However, in the summer heat, in the incredible heat, crushing thermometers - street and indoor - my consciousness could perceive only one fairy tale: the tale of hot water, flowing incessantly through the pipes in the apartment, happily running to the shower, bathtub and kitchen sink. After all, it was turned off for a whole month and a half this year instead of the scheduled two weeks.

Now “it’s summer in our apartment...”, which cannot be said about the street. There grey sky, gloomy low clouds, damp cold air, wind trying to get under your jacket. And only two young birch trees, which I look at from the window of my room, under the cover of the wall shopping center still retain yellowed foliage. This lifts your spirits, even if the temperature drops in November at the same time.

And soon it will be December, “and not everyone is a Decembrist in December.” It's time to open the books of Felix Krivin, at least the same "Peacock's Tail", under the cover of which his other books published in different years, and choose something for our readers.

I’m sitting here, choosing, thinking “that it’s winter all around,” thinking about the magazine and its columns, about its wonderful authors and how you can nicely make fun of them with Krivin’s parables, thinking about cats. Yes Yes! It's about " square cats in winter scarves", which are wonderfully drawn by my author Irina Kovaleva from Kyiv, although her main occupation, besides work, is writing poetry.

These cats will wander between parables and fairy tales, go outside and return home to drink tea with raspberry jam.

Maria Olshanskaya

Why do turtles live so long?

Turtles live a very long time, although many things shorten their lives. Maybe they don't notice the passage of time? Maybe they are protected by shells on which time glides without leaving traces? Or are they in no hurry? Everyone around is in a hurry to live, and only the turtle is in no hurry to live.

But she’s in a hurry, she’s still in a hurry! The average snail reaches speeds of up to forty-five kilometers per year, and the average turtle - up to forty-five kilometers per month. And when the turtle rushes past the snail at full gallop, the snail shrinks away (though quite imperceptibly): “Oh, reckless people, reckless people! And why are they running around at breakneck speed?”

A snail’s head is more valuable to it, but it, the snail, doesn’t live long. Her entire life for some hundred kilometers. And the turtle rushes around the world like crazy, and at the same time lives for two hundred years.

Is in the world Galapagos Islands, Turtle Islands (as they are called in translation from Galapagos), and these islands were once home to gigantic turtles. This was the kingdom of the Galapagos, the kingdom of the Galapagos, the dream of all the Galapagos in the world, or, in other words, the turtles. But why say otherwise if every turtle, a simple, inconspicuous turtle, becomes a gigantic Galapagos as soon as it gets to the Turtle Islands? All the turtles in the world know about this, believe in it and that’s why they are in such a hurry. And they swim and crawl and hurry as quickly as they can to the Galapagos Islands, where gigantic turtles once lived.

Once upon a time there were, but now they have all been destroyed...

(From the book “Yesterday's Tales”)

First love

When there are many of you on earth, you can show both coldness and indifference, but when there are two of you and you are alone, how can you resist mutual interest...

This is how the first two met on earth.

“Look at the stars,” she said, becoming interested in the structure of the Universe for the first time.

“But you are the best of them,” he said, trying his hand at poetry.

“You say that...” she was embarrassed. “They are small, but I’m so big.”

He carried her to the rock and climbed to the top with her.

- How good! - she sighed. - Did you see a stream there, it flows somewhere... Where does it flow?

- It flows down, and there it flows into the river... You see, there, behind the trees, among the tall bushes...

And this was the beginning of geography, and this was the beginning of botany, and this was the beginning of all beginnings, as always happens when two people meet under the stars...

("Carriage of the Past", 1968)

At the heights of the mind

Reason rises to the heights, leaving behind everything unnecessary along the way: the madness of the brave, the madness of the loving, the foolishness of the compassionate, and any foolishness and madness. And he settles on top, building his happy life the way he understands it.

But he does not feel happiness, because he is only able to understand. And he doesn’t feel love, so he says: love is understanding. From his understanding, he constructs love, just as scientists construct the appearance of an extinct animal. Of course, love does not come to life, but this is not required of it. It’s even easier with a non-living person - it’s easier to understand each other.

As if you can understand something in love. You can understand only when it is not there, when instead of love there is only understanding.

The weakness of pure reason

When the mind tries to replace feeling, it needs all its strength, all its erudition - where feeling only needs one breath.

Master and Margarita

Goethe named his tragedy after the hero; the hero, the creator, with his quest was important to him. eternal youth. Goethe lived a long and relatively prosperous life, in which he lacked only youth.

Bulgakov lacked a lot, and he puts at the center not the seeker, but the sought-after - Margarita. Therefore, he gives the name to Margarita, but leaves the Master without a name. It is not the person himself that is important, but what he strives for, his love is important. Not youth, but love.

For Goethe, youth gives birth to love. For Bulgakov, love gives birth to youth.

For Goethe, the most important, most difficult path is to youth, and from there it’s just a stone’s throw to love.

At Bulgakov's Main way- to love, and then it’s just a stone’s throw to youth.

The blade of grass fell in love with the Sun...

Of course, it was difficult for her to count on reciprocity: the Sun has so much on earth that where could he notice the small, unsightly Blakina! And a good pair: Linka - and the Sun!

But Bylinka thought that the couple would be good, and reached out to the Sun with all her might. She reached out to him so stubbornly that she stretched out into a tall, slender Acacia.

Beautiful Acacia, wonderful Acacia - who now recognizes her as the old Bylinka! This is what love, even unrequited love, does to us...

1963

Two footprints in the sand

We met two footprints on the seashore. One was large and obviously older: it had been left here a full minute ago. And the second one was smaller, and he was two or three seconds old.

They connected and made one trace, directed in different directions, they connected all meetings and partings...

Time stopped.

This is such a trick of the times: in happy moments it pretends to have stopped, but in fact it goes faster and faster... It is possible that time is just a joke that space has come up with.

Met forever - isn't this a joke?

Seconds fly by - forever, forever!

Separations, meetings - forever, forever!

But then a wave came and no one was there. As if it never happened...

But never - this is also a joke!

Look: on the sand near the sea, two footprints met again. And both look in different directions - so that you cannot understand whether they have met or separated.

1983

Fight for love

For so many centuries, Cupid has tried all types of weapons: arrows, guns, cannons, bombs of different systems...

And all this so that people fall in love with each other.

(From the book “Carriage of the Past”)

Square cats in winter scarves
go for a walk in the rain

It was quiet.

It was dark.

In the darkness - through the window - the yellow pupils of the stars glowed.

In the silence - outside the window - there were some rustling sounds.

The mouse said:

- When I grow up big, I will definitely become a cat...

1966

Window to the world

In the old days, people liked to sit by the window, but now they sit more in front of the TV.

TV generally shows more; on it you can see not only the street, but also different countries. But the window invites you to take a walk, fresh air to breathe, and it’s more pleasant to watch TV when everyone is sitting at home. Front of the TV.

Everyone is sitting, and he shows how other people are walking there, breathing fresh air. Those who breathe air have such a good complexion...

Especially on a good color TV.

1979

We are opposite the house

The house opposite us forms a street. She is in the middle, and we are on the sides. She's downstairs and we're upstairs. We are big with the house opposite, ten stories high.

True, the street existed before us, we were not the first to form it. There were others here - one-story ones, close to the ground. Now no one remembers them, although they should be remembered...

This is how we reason with the house opposite at the level of our first floor.

But at the fifth floor level we think differently.

You can't remember everyone. And there's no point in that.

Well, they were. Well, they formed a street. But what kind of street was this? And there’s nothing to look at - looking from the fifth floor.

And at the tenth floor level we don’t look at all. We don’t look down, we’re not interested.

Street? What street? Who said that we form a street?

At the tenth floor level we form the sky.

1981

Feeling that her beauty was beginning to fade and wanting to somehow prolong her summer, Berezka painted herself in yellow- the most fashionable in the autumn age.

And then everyone saw that autumn had come...

1960

Hourglass

When hourglass They start counting time, they have a lot of future, but no past at all. But gradually the future is poured from the upper vessel into the lower one, in which the hourglass collects the past.

At first, the grains of sand fall carefree and cheerfully, and it seems that the future is playing with sand. But in the end you begin to notice that sand is pouring out of him.

The future is in the upper vessel, the past is in the lower, and where is the present?

It is here, in the narrow passage through which the future pours into the past.

Maybe that’s why it’s inconvenient to live in it?

In the future it’s spacious, in the past it’s spacious, but in the present it’s cramped, there’s no room to straighten up, no room to crowd. And when you push through, lo and behold, you’ve already passed through.

One hope: maybe the clock will turn over, and then the past will become the future again.

1980

(From the book “Once upon a time there were three geese”)

Square cats in winter scarves
let's go eat raspberry jam

Briefly with the Universe

The Earth communicates with the Universe on short waves.

In short... Even shorter...

Only short waves make their way into space, while long waves are unable to tear themselves away from the Earth.

Therefore, we will be brief so that we can be heard.

Connection of worlds

Pulsars... Call signs from space... Who are they calling, what are they in a hurry to report?

The Earth is waiting for good news from space; it wants to hear something pleasant and joyful. About distant civilizations, about intelligent worlds...

But pulsars bring other news... A catastrophe in the area of the Crab Nebula, a catastrophe in the area of the Vega-X nebula...

Signals, signals... According to heavenly laws, far from the needs of earthly ones, worlds in the Universe communicate with each other - mainly by giving distress signals.

On a starry night, grains of sand look at the sky as if in a mirror, and each one easily finds itself among other grains of sand similar to it.

It's so easy to find yourself: you just have to look into the sky and look for the brightest star. The brighter the star, the easier it is for a grain of sand to live in the world.

Life of light

The star beam pierces right through space, it clearly sees its path in the dark, lifeless space... And once on Earth, the beam begins to tremble, stumble over every lantern, until it completely disappears, gets lost in the earth’s atmosphere...

A ray of light in a dark kingdom feels good.

He dies - in the light kingdom.

The power of the small

Small particles fly away from the Sun... Huge planets do not dare to fly away from it, obeying the force of its gravity, and tiny particles fly away from the Sun.

Where do they get this courage, or rather, audacity (because the courage of small ones is usually called audacity)? Maybe they don't understand the laws of gravity?

Maybe they don’t understand... But most likely, it’s because they have neither mass nor orbits that have been lived in for centuries, thanks to which the planets revolve around the Sun. They have nothing that is usually treasured in the Universe, and therefore they fly, and carry light with them, and light up the northern lights above the Earth...

Dimension of Infinity

Millions of light years - what is it: time or space?

This is space, which exists only in time, and this is time, which exists only in space... Space is huge and empty, and time is huge and empty... There is where to turn around, but there is nothing: everything that makes sense in the world is measured in hours and meters, Emptiness is measured in millions of light years.

Emptiness... It begins where the line between time and space is erased.

Lightning among lightning

There are eccentrics among lightning. Idealists...

Reasoning wisely, what does lightning on earth need? She needs some kind of house, some kind of garden, something to cling to and prolong her lightning-fast life.

Then, of course, it will go out, but it will still leave some kind of trace. Let it be small, like lightning leaves on the ground...

But there are eccentrics among lightning: they fly not towards the ground, but in the opposite direction. Having fallen from the cloud, they rush upward into unearthly worlds. They will never reach these worlds, because life is short, lightning has a short life and is designed for the earthly journey. And the path of lightning is short, a path trodden for centuries - to the ground.

And they rush into the sky. Weirdos. They fly and go out, not having time to fly far, unable to extend their lightning-fast life. Why did they flare up? What will they leave behind?

They will leave the earth, its gardens and houses, the unburned world, which would have long ago turned to dust if there were not such eccentrics in it... Idealists...

(From the book "BEEFS")

Colors and paints

The speed of sound does not keep up with the speed of light, so best paints visible in silence, and best sounds heard in the dark.

("Axioms")

Old books

Sheets of old wise books turn yellow like the leaves of trees, but they are never green...

Or maybe all the wisdom is in this green...

Construction of the past

I live in ancient Greece, I go out with the Decembrists to Senate Square... Unreal life, but there is something in it excellent quality: You can build anything from it.

It is difficult to build from reality; it is difficult to change. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to move one brick. And unreality changes with one movement of thought. And what kind of people live in it: Socrates, Michelangelo, Dostoevsky... And everyone is available, meet whoever you want, you can even gather those who have never met each other, from different countries and times...

And our present - when will it become the past? Would anyone want to live in it? We are not only building the future, we are building the past - for all future times.

(From the book "The Peacock's Tail", 1981–1987)

City age

The age of a city is usually determined by when the city was first mentioned.

An excellent way to hide your true age.

Let's say I live and am not mentioned anywhere. And you are mentioned all the time: in conversations, at meetings, on the pages of newspapers and magazines. And now you are growing old before your eyes, and I have not yet begun to live.

This happens with cities and poets. The poet is also considered young and even a beginner until he begins to be mentioned.

(From the book “On my way to Samarkand”)

Square cats in winter scarves
drinking tea at a round table

Black humor

Black humor is not laughter through tears.

It's laughter instead of tears.

(From the book "The Peacock's Tail", 1981–1987)

Premeditated murder

I could hear separate phrases: “What was the name of the victim?” - “He had many names.” - "Age?" - “About seventy.” - “And you think this is a deliberate murder?”

Silence. Then I heard: “Bring in the accused!”

And they brought me in.

The hall was crowded, only one bench was empty. I had to sit on it.

- Your profession?

- Writer.

- Strange. Such a humane profession... Are you familiar with the charge that is being brought against you?

- You see... - Out of professional habit, I started from afar. - I have never loved detective genre...I have no heart for all these murders...

- But you are accused of murder!

- This is a mystery to me. I didn’t do anything like that... I didn’t even see this person.

The judge shook his head sadly:

- You were strangers, but perfectly aware of each other. The victim treated you with respect, I would even say, with trust. It is possible that meetings also took place.

Here the lawyer presented a certificate that his defendant spends all his time at his desk, that he is a big homebody and rarely leaves the house. Defense witnesses were quick to confirm this.

- Are you familiar with this thing? - and the judge handed me a very familiar thing. - Is this your thing?

The thing was mine.

- Can you say that this thing came to you by accident, by mistake, by oversight or misunderstanding, at second hand, through the fault of third parties, and so on?

I couldn't say that.

“Can you deny in this case premeditation, premeditation, a premeditated and carefully thought-out plan that led to such sad consequences?”

I couldn't deny it.

And then the accuser stood up.

“The investigation has established,” he said, “that the accused killed a man.” Not rudely, not primitively, but very subtly, insidiously, deliberately. The accused wrote a story. The story seems to be humorous, but there is nothing funny or instructive in it, and reading it is a waste of time. True, it takes little time, no more than ten minutes, but it was printed in such a circulation that in total it took the readers seventy years of life.

-Whose life? - asked the lawyer.

— The lives of several million readers.

- But how do you claim that the accused killed a person?

— Seventy years is the life of one person. And this life was taken away by the accused, spent entirely on reading what was not worth reading. Seventy years! So it turns out that the accused killed a seventy-year-old man.

“At seventy you can die a natural death,” said the lawyer. - If we think like this, then the writer A., who writes not stories, but novels, kills fifty people at once, and the novelist B. kills a hundred and two hundred at a time. In their hands, literature is a weapon of mass destruction, and my client wrote only a short ten-minute story...

The judge gave a certificate: the case of accused A. and B. will be considered at the next hearings.

Then they gave me the floor, and I said:

- Citizens judges! Citizens accusers, witnesses and just readers! I wrote a story. Average story, neither good nor bad. True, humorous. But not funny. I didn’t put any special thought into it, didn’t care about any special artistic form. I wrote average story, which are written in the hundreds every day. But I didn’t know that literature could be a weapon of mass destruction. I didn’t think that when a person kills time, time kills him... Forgive me, citizen judges!

The court retired to deliberate.

("Simple Stories", 1967)

Answer to Shakesmarlov scholars

I reject the hypothesis that William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were the same person.

You, learned men, venerable Shakespeare scholars, may accuse me of ignorance, perhaps even ridicule me and pillory me - well, I will stand nailed, but not convinced. Or rather, convinced, but not of yours, but of his own rightness. For I believe that Shakespeare and Marlowe are two separate writers.

You will, of course, refer to the fact that they were born in the same year. So what, I ask you? Shakespeare and Galileo were also born in the same year, but you wouldn’t say that it was Galileo who wrote Romeo and Juliet.

Your second argument: Shakespeare did not pick up his pen until Marlowe had dropped it forever, and does it not follow from this that Shakespeare picked up precisely this dropped pen? But, firstly, this is not entirely true. Shakespeare was already writing when Marlowe was still writing. Of course, it is possible that it was not Marlowe who wrote, but Shakespeare, and it is equally possible that it was not Shakespeare who wrote, but also Marlowe, but now try to figure this out.

You say: “It’s not for nothing that “Shakespeare” means “Shaking the Spear.” Why, they say, would he shake a spear if they had not already tried to kill him once? Yes, you say, they didn’t kill Marlowe, they only tried to kill him, and he, to intimidate his enemies, called himself Shakespeare - the Terrific Spear.

As if there were no more reasons in the world to shake a spear. Especially for someone dealing with tragedy.

And finally, your last argument: doesn’t a simple comparison of the works of two writers indicate that Marlowe is the early Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is the late Marlowe?

No, no and no, honorable men, enlightened Shakesmarlov scholars. Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Marlowe is Marlowe, and each has its own place in literature.

Want another hypothesis? It does not pretend to be scientific, to the reliability of facts and the undeniability of arguments; it is based not on knowledge of the life of Shakespeare and Marlowe, but on knowledge of life in general, which can also be interesting.

So - a hypothesis.

Yes, there was Shakespeare, but he was not a writer. He had nothing to do with literature. Maybe in early youth he tried his hand at sonnets or tragedies, but abandoned this activity without discovering his talent. Talent is not given to everyone, and this needs to be understood in time.

You are wondering: who was the writer in this case? If Shakespeare is not a writer, then who is the writer?

I answer: the writer was Marlowe. Who was Shakespeare? Shakespeare was, as we know, an actor.

And there was also an actress there - according to this hypothesis. Beautiful, like Ophelia, or maybe like Desdemona. And Shakespeare, an ordinary actor and also a failed writer, fell in love with this Desdemona-Ophelia.

Of course, Desdemona-Ophelia fell in love not with him, but with Marlowe, a young but successful writer of his century. But Marlowe did not notice this. Busy with his great tragedies, he passed by the small tragedy of the girl who loved him hopelessly.

So, Desdemona-Ophelia loved Marlowe, and Shakespeare loved Desdemona-Ophelia, and this created a very clear tragic triangle. How did you, astute Shakesmarlov scholars, not notice the triangle?

Now imagine: Shakespeare plays Marlowe in the tragedy, but he loves not as Marlowe writes, but on a larger, deeper, stronger scale - in Shakespeare’s way. Because he loves not only on stage, but also behind the scenes, he loves everywhere - this is what his life consists of.

The young actress is scared by these Shakespearean passions: after all, she lives in pre-Shakespearean time. Although Shakespeare already exists, the time for his passions has not yet come.

And the actress loves Marlowe, whose time has come.

And at this very time, Marlowe suddenly dies.

He is killed, as in a mediocre tragedy: without the slightest motivation. A trivial quarrel in a tavern - and great writer killed.

The tragic triangle is deprived of a very important angle, but continues to exist, because using two known angles it is not difficult to restore the third. It is restored in the memory of Shakespeare and Desdemona-Ophelia, and this aggravates their grief. They both loved Marlowe, although in different ways. And they both suffer. Yes, yes, although Shakespeare got rid of his rival, he suffers. He knows how to suffer for others. And this is the guarantee that he will eventually become a writer.

You do not agree with me, certified Shakespeare scholars, you are accustomed to believe that Shakespeare was a born writer. People are born with squint, flat feet, or some other disease, but they become a writer. Life makes a writer. Not uterine, not embryonic, but conscious.

Shakespeare saw how his beloved girl was suffering, and he decided to replace the deceased. Not primitively, not vulgarly, as nonentities replace each other, but large, significantly, as greats replace greats. He decided to continue Marlowe not in love, but in literature. He decided to continue Marlowe's work.

It was then that he took this name for himself - Spearshaker - not in order to become the Shakespeare of literature, not in order to occupy a high position, but solely to defend the cause of Marlowe. Some people shake a spear all their lives, thanks to which they achieve a high position in literature, but they do not become Shakespeare, no matter how much they shake a spear.

And Shakespeare did. Because he loved this girl. He didn't love Marlowe, and he remained Marlowe. And never - hear: never! — he failed to become Shakespeare.

It's all about love. Whatever Shakespeare wrote about love, it is not Shakespeare who creates love, but love who creates Shakespeare. She makes a literary genius out of a failed writer.

This is the hypothesis, many wise and highly respected scholars of Shakesmarlov. However, it has already been confirmed so many times in life that it has long since become a law instead of a hypothesis. Who would Dante be without Beatrice? Who would Petrarch be without Laura?

As for Desdemona-Ophelia, she fell in love with Shakespeare because Shakespeare's time had already come. This is how these beautiful girls are made: they love those whose time has come. And girls forget those whose time has passed.

(“Simple Stories”, 1982)

Let it glow!

Everyone rejoiced at the light.

Everyone said: let there be light!

But the device for turning on the light, just in case, was called a switch.

(From the book "The Peacock's Tail", 1981–1987)

The independent literary “Russian Prize” is awarded annually for literary and journalistic works, published in last years and written in Russian or Rusyn languages by authors living and creating in virtual Subcarpathian Rus.

Laureate of the “Russian Prize 2006” Felix Krivin received the prize for the fact that he lived in the city of Uzhgorod from 1955 to 1998 and did so much here... as well as for conversations with the Negev desert, for moods and memories of Subcarpathian Rus' in stories, dialogues, antics and poetry."

Autobiography

I was born in the happy year 1928. If the sum of the two left digits is equal to the sum of the two right ones, the year is considered lucky. The place where I was born was also happy: the port of departure was the port of Mariupol.

After the death of my father, who did not swim out of the Black Sea, we moved to Odessa, and I kept hoping that my father would swim out. In the next happy year (1+9+3+7) they said about my father that he got off happily.

The war found me in Izmail. It also turned out to be a port of departure, but one that couldn’t be worse. Evacuation is a departure into the unknown, about which all we know is that we are not expected there. Upon returning to Izmail in 1945, I used this port for its intended purpose: I set sail on the self-propelled barge “Edelweiss”.

The third happy year was the post-war year (1+9+4+6). Having gone ashore, I worked as a night proofreader for the newspaper Pridunayskaya Pravda. In the evenings I went to school, which was called evening school. At the very beginning of this year, my poems were published for the first time.

Then I studied at the Kiev Pedagogical Institute (language and literature - Russian department), and upon graduation I was sent as a teacher to the starting port of Mariupol, along with another student who became my wife. She was from Kiev and missed Kyiv, but we were able to return there only after three years, having served the required period.

Kyiv didn't recognize me. He didn’t want to hire me anywhere. And in the year of the innocent Horse, I found myself unemployed.

But after the Year of the Horse came the happy 1955. Year of the Happy Scapegoat from Kyiv to Uzhgorod for publishing work. There he worked as editor of the Transcarpathian regional publishing house from 1955 to 1964. When you have a job, you can look around, look around. I looked and saw a fabulous paradise. But, as happens in life, it was too early to write fairy tales, and I began to write half-fairy tales. The book “In the Land of Things” was published in Moscow, and “Pocket School” was published in Uzhgorod. About the next happy year, 1973, I can say that I got off happily - after the book “Imitation of the Theater” was put under the knife. At that time there was nothing wrong with this. In 1990 - laureate of the Republican Prize named after V.G. Korolenko - a year before the happy 1991, and this happens.