Doomed to freedom. “Prose requires a lead backside,” or the World Club of Odessa residents, the Babel Prize, take two On the establishment of the Isaac Babel International Literary Prize

MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI TOOK THE LITERARY PRIZE FROM DARIA DONTSOVA February 19th, 2016

The article “Mikheil Saakashvili will take away the literary prize from Daria Dontsova” () was published on January 14. A couple of days ago, a very interesting message appeared on the Babel Prize website (http://babel-premia-odessa.org.ua/).

LITERARY PRIZE NAMED AFTER ISAAC BABEL
TRANSFERRED TO NEXT YEAR

I inform all interested parties that the reason for the postponement, alas, is purely formal. It’s just that, due to the lack of proper experience by the initiator of the Prize (that is, me), the preparation of all the documents necessary for the official establishment of the competition was delayed, and they are still not ready and signed. So I was obviously in a hurry when announcing the start of the premium season. Guilty. I hope that in the coming months all issues will be resolved and by the end of the year we will be able to return to this topic more prepared.

I apologize to all potential participants in the competition for premature concern, and to those who accepted my offer to be members of the jury, I will personally apologize.

Once again, I sincerely thank the Chairman of the Odessa Regional State Administration, Mikhail Nikolaevich Saakashvili, for supporting the initiative of the World Club of Odessa residents to establish the Isaac Babel Prize, as well as for understanding our proposal to postpone it to a later date.

Valery Khait

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the Isaac Babel Prize is being postponed. It's a tradition. If someone wants to count how many times it was transferred, then he can do it easily and naturally. To do this, you just need to look at the beginning of the article “Daria Dontsova became the laureate of the Babel Literary Prize” (). 2017 will be an anniversary year for the Babel Prize, as it was first announced in 2007. And if Khait came up with such a city-wide holiday as “Babel Monument Day”... Don’t rub your eyes or think that I’m putting you on the spot. Such a citywide holiday does exist, here you go “Monument Day” ()...
In a word, now the scam artist Khait, in connection with the 2017 anniversary, may well create a citywide holiday “Isaak Babel Literary Prize Day.” He'll be fine. Just look at the text about transference, where Khait defiantly sprinkles ashes on his head: they say, it’s all his fault...
It is quite possible that the psychiatrist will believe Khait, who did not forget to lick the sole of the governor’s shoe in this text. Despite the fact that in fact the bonus is being transferred because instead of the money that had long been written into the budget expenditures approved by the legislative power of the province, the executive power, as it is very easy to guess, gave instead a large and tasty poppy seed.
Now Hayit is forced to behave like a gentleman, shielding a lady whom he would strangle with great pleasure... Sha, here is a link to the post “Saakashvili’s Deputy encroached on the sacred...” (), written before the gentleman from the Synagogue became apologize to everyone.
And for a snack the funniest thing is. Let’s assume the incredible: the regional administration agreed to all the conditions for which Khait advocated during his brawl in the council. And in 2017 the competition will still be held. But on that site there is still a pile of ashes that fell from Khait’s bald head

MORE ABOUT THE ISAAC BABEL AWARD, postponed to 2017.

To all authors who managed to send their works to our previously announced competition, we once again apologize and inform you that texts sent by you before February 15, 2016 remain with the Prize organizing committee and will be considered in 2017, regardless of the time of their receipt. Texts sent later will be considered in accordance with the deadlines specified in the Regulations.

The Isaac Babel International Literary Prize for the best short story (novel) is a continuation of the project to perpetuate the literary heritage of the outstanding writer.

THE IDEA belongs to Valery Khait - vice-president of the World Club of Odessa residents, laureate of the municipal literary prize named after Konstantin Paustovsky, compiler of the volume “Odessa Humor” in the “Anthology of Satire and Humor of Russia of the 20th Century” (Moscow, “Eksmo”, 2004) and the volume “Odessa Humor” . Century 21" (Moscow, "EXMO", 2015). Valery Khait is the initiator and editor of the literary project “Books of Marianna Goncharova” (More than 10 books; for the story “Dragon from Perkalab” M. Goncharova was awarded the title of winner of the International Literary Competition “Russian Prize” 2013); author of the idea of ​​a nationwide fundraising and project manager for the installation of a monument to Isaac Babel in Odessa (the monument was opened on September 4, 2011); editor-in-chief of the Odessa humorous magazine "Fontan".

The founders of the award are the Odessa Regional State Administration and the World Club of Odessa Citizens. Co-founders are the Odessa Literary Museum, the Rainbow magazine (Kyiv), the almanac “Deribasovskaya - Richelievskaya” (Odessa), the Odessa National Scientific Library, as well as the writer’s daughter Lydia Isaakovna Babel (USA).

Funding for the award is provided from the regional budget and charitable contributions from citizens, organizations and enterprises (trust funds: Isaac Babel Foundation). Amount of monetary reward: 1st place - 60 thousand UAH, 2nd place - 30 thousand UAH, 3rd place - 15 thousand UAH.

“Regulations on the Isaac Babel International Literary Prize” explains the conditions of the competition. The prize was established as an annual one with the aim of identifying and supporting the best examples of modern literary fiction in the genre of short stories (short stories), written in Russian in Ukraine and other countries of the world. Acceptance of works for the competition is from January 15 to April 15.

The Prize Directorate is appointed to perform organizational functions on a paid basis. A Council of Experts is elected, consisting of writers, critics, literary scholars, philologists, library staff, and journalists. Members of the expert council, working on a paid basis, compile a “Long List” of pre-selected works, which is announced no later than May 15 of each year and published on the website and in the media.

The prize laureates are determined by a six-member Jury formed by the Prize Directorate, who elect a chairman. The “Short List” is formed by the jury from the works of the “Long List” and is announced no later than June 10 of the current year. The decision of the jury is documented in a protocol, announced at the award ceremony, and posted on the website and in the media.

The award ceremony takes place annually on July 13, the birthday of Isaac Babel, in the Golden Hall of the Odessa Literary Museum.

The winners of the competition are awarded the title of laureate of the Isaac Babel International Literary Prize, awarded a corresponding diploma and paid a monetary reward. The winner of the First Prize is paid a monetary reward, awarded a diploma and the Grand Prix - a miniature figurine “Wheel of Fate” (sculptors G. Frangulyan and M. Reva).

The Jury of the first award season, along with Valery KHAIT, included: Andrey DMITRIEV (chairman of the jury, Kiev) - writer and screenwriter, laureate of the Apollo Grigoriev Prize, Znamya and Oktyabr magazines, Yasnaya Polyana and Yasnaya Polyana awards Russian Booker"; Yuri KOVALSKY - editor-in-chief of the literary magazine "Rainbow" (Kiev), laureate of the Vladimir Dahl literary prize; awarded the medal “Honorary Distinction” of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine and the honorary badge of the Union of Writers of Belarus; Andrey MALAEV-BABEL - grandson of Isaac Babel, actor, director, teacher, writer (USA); Sergey MAKHOTIN (St. Petersburg) - author of works for children, laureate of the Marshak and Chukovsky prizes, laureate of the Scarlet Sails prize, holder of the Honorary Diploma named after. Andersen International Council on Children's and Young People's Books; Boris MINAEV (Moscow) - writer and journalist, laureate of the “Treasured Dream” award for the best book for children and youth, laureate of the “October” magazine award.

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A new literary prize named after Babel was established in Odessa. Starting next year, it will be awarded for the best Russian-language story. This event became an occasion to discuss the fate of the genre today. If one of the highest achievements is Babel's story, then what texts will be worthy of it? What is “Babel’s story” as a phenomenon, to what extent is it Jewish, to what extent is it Russian? Lechaim asked these questions to Stanford University professor and Babel scholar Grigory Freidin, writer and editor, one of the founders of the Babel Prize Valery Khait, writer and prize jury member Boris Minaev, writer Inna Lesova, writer and critic Valery Shubinsky.

How it was done in Babel's story

Grigory Freidin → In its richness, end-to-end harmonization of elements, flash of consciousness (éclat, epiphany, breakthrough into eternity) and with a minimum volume, Babel’s story is close to the lyrical poetry of his contemporaries. In terms of its themes - violence and sex, both together and separately, but always in resonance with the breakdown of the social, if not world, order - its path lies in the plane of the Western literary tradition, which originates from Homer and the Holy Scriptures. Babel’s contemporary Osip Mandelstam formulated this position aphoristically and accurately: “If not for Helen, / What is Troy alone for you, Achaean men?” (“Insomnia. Homer. Tight Sails”, 1915). In other words, the world conflict is a cosmos, and a microcosm is a knot of love, jealousy, violence in one microsociety, and vice versa. We say “love and jealousy,” but we mean “war” or “revolution,” or we say “war,” “revolution,” but we mean “violence and love.”

Similarly with the Holy Scripture and its role in the Western literary tradition: whatever we are talking about in particular - about the forefathers or tribes of Israel, whether about Joshua or Jesus of Nazareth - the narrative determines the entire cosmos, the entire world of God... Of course, what true for the whole tradition, will be true for all those who belong to it. The peculiarity of Babel and other modernists of the beginning of the last century - Mandelstam, Khlebnikov, Akhmatova, Joyce - is a clear awareness of both the origins of this tradition and its exhaustion. And they fought against exhaustion through a newly realized return to fundamental principles (a move similar, for example, to fundamentalism in religion, psychoanalysis and extreme political ideologies). In this perspective, modernism, especially Russian, makes a bid for the Renaissance. Thus, the colossal richness of Babel’s miniature story is determined by the fact that it allows one to discern in the sharp everyday life of the vicissitudes of the sacred text, and in the rough noise - a variation of the melody played by the entire world orchestra.

And one last thing. Like contemporary Russian lyrical poets, such as Blok (“The Incarnation Trilogy”), Mandelstam (“Stone”, “Second Book”, “Voronezh Notebooks”), Akhmatova (“Evening”, “The Rosary”, “Anno Domini”) , Babel wrote in cycles (“Odessa Stories”, “Cavalry”, “Stories about Childhood”, etc.), mainly in the first person single narrator with (auto)biography, which is directly related to the events described. Thus, with all the miniature and lyricism of a single short story, Babel, building stories in a cycle, creates an epic space for the narrator’s voice, similar to a modernist novel with its internally reflective hero, and at the same time retains the dazzling expressiveness and plot flexibility of a small form. In this regard, he remains unsurpassed, although he has brilliant followers, such as the American writer Grace Paley.

The question remains: Russian or Jewish writer Isaac Babel? He is fully both, as, for example, Gogol (Ukrainian and Russian), James Joyce (Irish and English), Philip Roth (Jewish and American), James Baldwin (Negro and American), or Vidiadhar Naipaul (Trinidadian). Indian and English). The subject matter, the author's voice - mainly, but not exclusively - connect Babel with recent life modernized Jewry of Odessa, a port city on western outskirts of the Russian Empire. Odessa Jewry was numerous, some of it was distinguished by its prosperity, education and breadth of outlook; being a Jew in Odessa did not mean being hopelessly disadvantaged, as happened in the Pale of Settlement and beyond. The port city was filled with foreigners, and Odessa residents from the educated environment of the city, including Jews, felt no less Europeans (sometimes more) than subjects of the Russian Empire. Thus, the French became Babel’s first teachers of literature. This is where the amazing relaxedness with which Babel deals with the Jewish theme comes from. I believe that freedom from typical Russian-Jewish oppression was what struck Gorky in young Babel.

The earliest of the “Odessa Stories,” “The King,” already gives an idea of ​​how Babel, “much beaten, but not killed” in the Polish campaign of 1920, built his palimpsest short story, layering “unholy” modernity on archetypes sanctified by tradition .

“The King,” first published in June 1921 in starved and impoverished Odessa, begins with a description of the courtyard kitchen where food is being prepared for the wedding of Benny Krik’s sister. Countless piles of food, streams of chef's sweat and the Homeric feast itself refer to carnival Rabelais' novel and set the overall parodic-utopian tone for the story.

The nickname of the Odessa gangster, put in the title, suggests another plot - this time taken from the Jewish Holy Scripture: the coming of the Messiah, that is, the king (King), the anointed of G‑d, with a strong hand, capable of establishing peace and justice. This is what Babel’s King does, albeit in an ironic way. Benya starts a fire in the police station, the police chief is forced to call off the raid, and the world of the Odessa Moldavanka gathered at the wedding - and therefore the world in general - can enjoy the ancient Jewish utopia - to calmly “drink and eat” and not worry about “this nonsense.” And the place of the persecutor of the Jews, the sovereign emperor, is taken by the Jewish king of bandits.

Two more key plots emerge in the insert story telling about the marriage of Benny Krik to the daughter of the dairy magnate Eichbaum. Consonant with the famous formalist Boris Eikhenbaum, the surname hints at a literary motif, emphasizing that the supplier of dairy products with an unmarried daughter is nothing more than a parody of Sholom Aleichem, the author of stories about Tevye the milkman and his five unmarried daughters.

Thus, the inserted tale forces the reader to compare the new art with the old, and Babel with his great predecessor, whom Benya promises to bury with honor in the first Jewish cemetery “at the very gates” and erect for him “a monument of pink marble.” Let's reveal the comparison. Sholom Aleichem is the father of Yiddish literature, and he, Babel, creates Russian Jewish literature; Sholom Aleichem's hero, Tevye, is defenseless, he - lactic, and Babel’s hero is a pistol-waving urban bandit; Sholom Aleichem's Jews are patriarchal and kosher-observant, while Babel's Jews are modernized: they do not care about the taboos of Judaism, and they slaughter heifers so that the calves “slide in their mother’s blood.” In The King, Babel leaves the world of Sholom Aleichem behind, although he admits that he has moved beyond it.

Another innovation is Babel’s interweaving of the love theme with violence, that is, the knightly motif. In itself, it is trivial, but only if you don’t consider that the Jewish literary tradition does not know love covered in violence - such as that of Paris and Helen, Dido and Aeneas, Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova. The King of Babel falls in love with the milkman's daughter Tsilya at first sight during a raid - under the shots of "friendly Brownings" firing upward, as it should be in a utopia, because "if you don't shoot in the air, you can kill a person."

In The King, Babel weaves a Jewish thread into the Western literary canon. And here, for the first time, he outlines the map of the future Russian Jewish literature of his own version. In less than four years, he will populate its space with Jewish bandits from Odessa, their “cousins” - Cossacks from Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army and Galician Hasidim, adding to them numerous relatives and neighbors of the boy Babel (as his mother calls him in the story “First Love” "), who survived the pogrom in Nikolaev and reached maturity in Odessa, in the port...

Return to Odessa

Valery Khait → I am not a literary critic, not a researcher, not an expert on Babel’s work. I'm just an attentive (I hope!) reader. Regarding what was stated in the topic, I can only say that in the early 1920s Babel called his future “Odessa Stories” “Jewish.” Why he later abandoned this, I don’t know, I may have my own assumptions, but I am sure that professional researchers have already written and thought about this. As for my personal opinion, for me Isaac Babel is a great Russian and a Jewish writer of the same caliber, writing in Russian. Like, say, Vladimir Zhabotinsky, who wrote in Russian an outstanding novel about Odessa, “The Five.” And I understand that I am invited to participate in this serious conversation solely as the author of the idea of ​​​​establishing the Odessa International Literary Prize named after Isaac Babel.

So about this... Babel wrote in his memoirs about Eduard Bagritsky: “It’s time to leave other people’s cities... it’s time to return home, to Odessa, rent a house in Near Mills, write stories there, grow old...” These dreams were not destined to come true during the writer’s lifetime. Isaac Babel was shot at Lubyanka in January 1940. But his return to his hometown, albeit slowly, is still happening. So, on September 4, 2011, on one of the days of celebrating the next anniversary of Odessa, at the intersection of Richelievskaya and Zhukovsky streets, a monument to Isaac Babel was unveiled (the author of the monument is sculptor Georgy Frangulyan). The monument to Babel was erected just opposite the house on Richelieu Street, where Isaac Emmanuilovich lived with his family.

We sometimes talk about some work of art: “just like in life.” Implying by this some kind of approval. I think it's just the opposite. “Like in life” is not a compliment for art. If art is real, then this does not happen in life. And only, perhaps, in moments of supreme passion does life coincide with art. When love is a passion, then people do things like in books, like in plays. And love-passion is tension of the soul and body, very, so to speak, concentrated. A person, as it were, loses his will and becomes an actor, a player of some higher drama and acts according to its laws, and not according to the laws of life and society. This conflicts with life, hence personal tragedies. By the way, I once watched a wonderful Spanish film “Carmen” by Carlos Saura. So, in this film, at the very end, the plot of the ballet and the plot of the relationship between the choreographer staging this ballet and the dancer coincided. I remember that it was an incredibly strong artistic impression. Catharsis in its purest form. This very essence of art, based on life impressions, but incredibly concentrated, brought to perfection, is present in almost all of Babel’s stories. He created a new reality, an artistic one, and in this sense he was a real creator, and in the most original, high sense of the word.

Boris Minaev → Despite the fact that the Odessa public, represented by the wonderful Valery Khait, the permanent vice-president of the World Club of Odessans, invited me to the jury of the Babel competition, still calling me a “Specialist in Babel’s story” would be a bold exaggeration. Therefore, all my thoughts on this matter, I want to warn you in advance, may repeat someone’s long-established judgments, or they may completely miss the mark. So, understanding Babel’s story as part of Jewish literature and even Jewish mentality still seems to me to be a completely wrong message. Babel writes about “Jewish Odessa,” yes, maybe that’s true. For him this is a theme, a material, a texture. But nevertheless, it is impossible to consider him a Jewish writer. And it’s not just a matter of language, Jewish literature in general is developing in a very complex way, and before the Second World War it was one kind of literature, and after the Second World War it was completely different. The point is primarily in the position itself and in Babel’s artistic method.

His Jews, in short, are not really Jews. The optical illusion is that they look like Jews, smell like Jews, talk like Jews, are described with diabolical precision, in brilliant detail, but written from a human perspective from outside. From an external position. Benya Krik and other raiders, dressed in Babel's stories in crimson vests, orange suits, with iron muscles, coldly pouring lead on their enemies - what kind of Jews are these? Of course, the value of his stories from an ethnographic point of view lies precisely in the fact that he described not the monolithic world of a shtetl, but a colorful, rich, complex world of a big city, in which free different Jews live in the unique world of Odessa, in which the Jews got some freedoms that were simply unthinkable for the rest of Europe and for the Russian Empire. But this is written, that’s the most important thing, by a person who, generally speaking, does not feel like a Jew. Here many examples could be given both for and against this version, but I will give only one, here is his description of a Jewish wedding: “The apartments were turned into kitchens...” This is, as it were, Rabelaisianism mixed with physiological disgust, an endless description of excess corporeality , fat, meat, feasts, smells and fumes, in general, all this infinity of material things is, of course, not the “Jewish world”. An important question about the reasons is why the great writer Babel saw it this way and wrote about it this way? Like many then, he suffered because of his Jewishness, because of his hateful belonging to this absolutely closed, hermetic and disappearing world. He wanted to break out of it, and in this sense, the “Jewish hero,” the bandit Benya Krik, is his personal antithesis to “ordinary Jewry.”

And finally, the main reason why he took up this topic at all is purely historical: Babel sincerely, passionately, ardently hated the world of pre-revolutionary Russia, like a real revolutionary. All this Jewish origin, from names and subjects to the general linguistic flavor, is for him just part of “internationalism”, a powerful aesthetic challenge to white ideology, thrown in the face of the White Guards who carried out terrible pogroms against Jews - “Babel’s glove”. In a sense, all these stories, including the “heroism” of Benny Krik, the physical strength of the inhabitants of Moldavanka, their rebellious disposition and stubbornness - all this is his response to pogroms, current and future. No, we are not like that! We are not submissive Jews! We are capable of rebellion and action. We are different.

As for the value of Babel’s stories from the linguistic, stylistic side, their structure in the context of all literature - both Russian and non-Russian... For me personally, it is clear that Babel - like many other Russian writers of his generation - is, oddly enough, a straightforward heir to Leskov and his method. The depiction of mythological people in mythological language comes from there, from Leskov. A little later, the same challenge was accepted, and, probably, even on a more gigantic scale, for example, by Faulkner or, for example, Amadou, García Márquez and others. “Mythological realism” - in our Russian case, it, of course, all comes from Babel. On the other hand, the internal inconsistency of this prose, which I tried to talk about above, led to the fact that the “Jewish theme” began to be seen and heard “according to Babel.” Of course, we will not escape this “brilliant pressure” of Babel, however, we need to realize that many people wrote about the Jewish world in Russia. And they wrote deeper. I will certainly forget someone here, but in my memory of this are the wonderful stories of Margarita Khemlin, and some very bright things by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Dina Rubina, and books by Asar Eppel, Efraim Sevela and many others. Therefore, you can enjoy the structure and language of his stories, but... “without bothering” with this seemingly Jewish melody. It's just a melody, just beautiful, just strong. But not Jewish.

Illustration by Meir Axelrod for the story by I. Babel
"The story of my dovecote." Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center

Inna Lesovaya → Nowadays, when people don’t have enough time for anything, including reading “thick books,” a story can become a leader, overtaking both stories and novels. The story will fit even in the format of a message on a social network. In terms of content and plot, it is often equal to a novel, and bringing it to perfection is much more realistic. For many writers - even very great ones (Sholom Aleichem, Bashevis Singer) - some stories seem to me more significant than their larger works. The story, in fact, has always been popular. Biblical stories - about Sarah and her maid, about the birthright, about the marriage of Jacob - these are, of course, his classic examples.

And what is a Jewish story? A story written by a Jew? A story written about Jews? What makes a story “more” or “less” Jewish? For me, the stories from Babel’s “Cavalry” are more Jewish than his “Odessa Stories.” Why? I don’t know... Maybe the Jewish despair of “Cavalry” is closer to me than the grotesque love of life of “Odessa Stories”? Or is it the fact that in “Cavalry” the Jewish narrator is opposed to a non-Jewish environment, and in “Odessa Stories” the author is one of “his own”? Or something else, deeper and more indefinable?

I remembered one story... I am an artist by profession. One day, a stranger came to take a painting exam in our course. I saw him for the first time. When he laid out his works, for some reason I became terribly excited, although the drawings themselves did not make much of an impression on me. These were unpretentious landscape paintings, sketches of churches, portraits of some semi-rural workers. I didn't understand what was happening. I couldn’t just remain silent and let this guy leave. She followed him and for some unknown reason suddenly asked: “What city are you from?” He was surprised and named the city in which my parents were born and raised. Kamenets-Podolsky. I remember that I even trembled: I had never been to this city at that time.

It’s probably the same with the “Jewish story.” We could, of course, talk about his literary roots. But I think that this is the basis of both modern and classical stories - our Jewish talkativeness, our willingness to tell anyone our biography, lay out our most intimate things, endlessly analyze, “cool” tragic situations with comic details - which, by the way, is why they seem even scarier.

On the bench in our yard, the Jewish old women did not speak, but broadcast. Like prophets. Their clumsy Russian language only enhanced the expression of their speech. Brilliant metaphors emerged from absurd phrases. There were Babels, Zingers, Perets and Agnons here. By the way, Sholem Aleichem directly imitated such a speech. This is how his best works were written. Babel did the same, but not so obviously. And the point is not that they remembered verbatim how some cab driver expressed himself. They understood the principle itself, the technique itself - and could simulate it as much as they wanted.

It’s strange to talk about yourself immediately after mentioning such names, but what to do if each person is his own best object for observation! Once at a literary evening, a reader admired my memory. How did I manage to remember all the expressions and words of Zina or Aunt Musya? I had to disappoint her. I, of course, remembered something - but just a little. But she could answer any question all day long in the style of Aunt Musya or Zina. One of them was not very smart, the other was completely mentally retarded. But God, what storytellers they were!

Of course, everyone drew from the same well. And my beloved Margarita Hemlin, and Asar Eppel. I could name other names - but they are already known to everyone. Eppel, in my opinion, is closer to Babel’s story. Hamlin wrote what is now called a “mini-novel.” But Karine Arutyunova’s stories are written like poetry.

What is the fate of the Jewish story? I think he will live and thrive, but he will become completely different. Jewish geography and demographics changed. The same old women who once spoke on the benches are no longer there. Today's Jewish grandparents speak Russian fluently. And there is much less prophetic inspiration and national pathos in their speech. And their Jewish children and grandchildren, who are lucky enough to have them, often speak Hebrew or English fluently. Well, the more difficult, the more interesting it will be to convey this new originality. Moreover, young people have grown up and take their Jewishness quite seriously.

Fellow Traveler (about a short story, Russian and Jewish)

Valery Shubinsky → Great prose in English and French began with the novel. Great Russian and Jewish (in Yiddish) - with a story (or “story”, which meant a medium-length story). But they started out very differently. The differences are related to the so-called “skaz”.

Two of the three great Jewish prose writers of the 19th century, Sholom Aleichem and Mendele Moikher Sforim, because they wrote in a language that they themselves rarely spoke in everyday life, the language of the common people, used the mask and skaz as an attribute of the mask of a folk talker. The more Yiddish literature moved away from the status of “literature for the people,” the more (as it seems to me and as far as I know) Jewish writers abandoned tale forms.

In Russian literature, the opposite happened: the legitimization and valorization of skaz. It’s not that Zoshchenko was a greater writer than Leskov (I think, on the contrary), but Leskov was not a fringe recognized by his contemporaries, and Zoshchenko was an important bird, to whom he dedicated special resolutions of the Central Committee. What is Zoshchenko - the late Bunin, the aristocrat Bunin writes “The Good Life” and “Cold Autumn”! If we look at the “Russian-Jewish” writers, then Yushkevich, a contemporary of Sholom Aleichem, uses skaz. Babel often resorts to it in “Cavalry,” on non-Jewish material, and in “Odessa Stories” he uses the “author’s” language, without a speech mask. I think this is a characteristic detail. Babel, the author of “Salt,” overcame Tolstoy and Chekhov. Babel, the author of “The King,” overcame Yushkevich and Sholom Aleichem. He gave the “Odessa language” to Bene Krik and Froim Grach, leaving for himself the Maupassantian luxury of descriptions.

The second significant question is the plot, or its fictitiousness. It seems to me that an important divide here in Jewish literature is between the Singer brothers. In Russian literature, the tradition of the “story where nothing happens” dates back to Chekhov, and was picked up by Dobychin in the next generation. In addition to the natural tastes of the mass reader, it was opposed by Serapion’s plot, symbolically associated with Westernism. Babel, in principle, was in the same row. As a singer of “people of strength and action” (and he was one, there is no escape from this, no matter how terrible it sometimes caused him), he could not accept a world where action has no meaning and consequences, and the spoken word is meaningless hangs in the air.

This dispute was, in a sense, removed by Kharms. His prose is always plot-driven, built on action, but this action is filled with mysterious and funny nonsense. But this decision is not forever. And if in Leningrad in the 1960s Viktor Golyavkin or Valery Popov almost accidentally picked up the Kharms tradition, then next to him was Reed Grachev with his Dobynsky tremulous melancholy and young Sergei Wolf with his “Hemingism.” Each writer had to find his own path, and this was extremely fruitful (another thing is that nine-tenths of all the Leningrad prose of that time went into the sand without receiving a continuation, but this is a separate topic). In Moscow at the same time, Shukshin combined the fantastic forms of the twenties with an anecdote story that came from the same place. Then a Moscow women's short story appeared, so different from Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Tatyana Tolstaya, Nina Sadur. Then - a short story from the 1990s, which for me (personally for me!) is marked by the names of Oleg Yuryev, Dmitry Bakin and Lev Usyskin (Yuryev began writing novels in the 2000s; Usyskin, almost the only one who successfully practiced in small forms of skaz, turned to documentaries and “large-format” children’s prose; Bakin fell silent and died).

Nowadays everything is in order with the short story in Russian literature. There are good young authors (Irina Glebova in St. Petersburg, Evgeny Babushkin in Moscow, Maxim Matkovsky in Kyiv). There is a tradition. But even in foreign-language literature (including Jewish), the Russian reader and Russian publisher seem to be greedy for the short form. And I think it has to do with the pace of life. Once upon a time, Pisemsky, criticizing Tolstoy for the excessive thickness of War and Peace, from his point of view, said: the novel should be such that it could be read on a train between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The train then took 14 hours. Now it’s four. This is the average reading time for the average modern novel. The average modern story corresponds in length to the average subway ride: about twenty minutes. Prose is a conversation with a fellow traveler. Ivan Sevastyanovich, Robinson Crusoe, Menachem Mendel. Or with a writer, an invisible travel companion, telling our consciousness about his world in his (our) language.

It could also be a Jewish conversation.

The life of Isaac Babel is shrouded in myths, which he himself willingly supported, and his creative legacy can easily be reduced to a few clichés - to which Babel’s sharp, aphoristic style lends itself. “What should I say to Aunt Hana about the raid? “Say: Benya knows about the raid.” Or even more famous: “We both looked at the world as at a meadow in May, as at a meadow along which women and horses walk.” And, finally, an open manifesto, in the same recognizable style: “Already at that time - twenty years old - I told myself: it’s better to go on a hunger strike, prison, wandering, than sitting at a desk for ten hours a day. There is no special prowess in this vow, but I have not broken it and will not break it. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born to enjoy work, fight, love, we are born for this and nothing else.”

In fact, when a writer can be recognized by one phrase, this is a sign of his class. And this rough rule applies to Babel to the fullest extent. None of the whole galaxy of Odessa writers of the 1920s (from Bagritsky to Olesha and the Kataev brothers) did so much to create and consolidate the image of “Odessa-Mama” - a place of Babylonian mixing of peoples and, as a result, a center of incredible vitality that found its complete embodiment in Babel’s Odessa Stories.

It's time to leave other cities...
it's time to return home to Odessa,
rent a house in Near Mills,
make up stories there, grow old...
Isaac Babel

POSITION

about the Odessa International Literary Prize

named after Isaac Babel

The Odessa International Literary Prize named after Isaac Babel (hereinafter referred to as the Prize) for a short story (novel) is a logical continuation of a unique project to perpetuate the memory and popularize the literary heritage of an outstanding writer. The monument to Isaac Babel erected in Odessa and the Prize named after him should support and strengthen the international status of Odessa as a city with deep cultural traditions, capable of modernization and a new mentality. The award provides educational and educational aspects and is aimed at creating a new cultural context in the life of the city; it should become an innovative creative platform and claim to form the aesthetic and artistic tastes of modern society.

1. General questions
1.1. The founder of the Odessa International Literary Prize named after Isaac Babel is the World Club of Odessa residents.
1.2. The co-founders of the Prize are: Odessa Literary Museum, literary magazine "Rainbow" (Kyiv), literary almanac "Deribasovskaya - Richelievskaya" (Odessa), Odessa National Scientific Library, Lydia Isaakovna Babel (daughter of the writer, USA).
1.3. The prize was established with the aim of identifying and supporting the best examples of modern literary fiction in the genre of short stories (short stories), written in Russian in Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the world.
1.4. The prize is awarded annually for the best short story (novel) in Russian.
1.5. The prize does not establish restrictions for authors of works based on age, citizenship, place of residence and place of publication.
1.6. The Prize is financed at the expense of the patron of arts in accordance with the estimate presented by the Prize directorate.
1.7. Amount of monetary reward Prize: 1st place – 60 thousand UAH, 2nd place – 30 thousand UAH, 3rd place – 15 thousand UAH.
1.8. The announcement of the beginning of the award season, the procedure and conditions for nominating works for the Prize, the amount of the Prize's monetary reward (I, II and III place), the procedure and timing for announcing the laureates are published in the media and on the Prize's website babel-premia-odessa.org. ua.
1.9. The premium season is announced no earlier than January 15 of each year. Acceptance of works for the Prize begins on the day the award season is announced and ends on April 15 of each year.
1.10. The main criterion for selecting works for the Prize should be, according to Babel, “the tyranny of taste.”
1.11. All stories that are winners of the Prize will be translated into Ukrainian and proposed for publication in literary magazines and anthologies of Ukraine.

2. Directorate of the Prize
2.1. The Directorate of the Prize is appointed and dismissed from duties by the decision of the founder and consists of the Prize coordinator, director, administrator and press secretary.
2.2. The Directorate of the Prize determines the procedure for nominating works and processing documents.
2.3. The Directorate of the Prize nominates members of the jury.
2.4. The Directorate of the Prize presents a sketch (layout) of the main prize, the form of the Prize diploma; approves the form of the score sheet and makes an announcement about the start of the next bonus season.
2.5. The Directorate of the Prize organizes the work of the jury, forms the secretariat of the Prize, searches for the best works of authors writing in the genre of short stories (short stories), organizes the publication of books, almanacs, round tables, master classes, creative evenings, meetings, concerts, scientific conferences, “ Babel readings”, etc.
2.6. A representative of the Directorate may be a member of the Prize jury.

3. Procedure for nomination for the Prize
3.1. Works for the Prize are nominated by the author (authors) of the work, publishing houses, the media, creative unions, and literary critics.
3.2. When nominating for the Prize, the following information is provided to the Directorate:
- information about the nominee (person or organization) who nominates the work for the Prize;
- necessary contact numbers, address;
- a brief creative biography of the author (co-authors, if the work was written in collaboration);
- written consent of the author of the work for nomination and consent to the collection and processing of personal data, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Personal Data”.
3.3. Works for the Prize are nominated from among those published:
- in literary magazines and literary and artistic almanacs of Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the world;
- publishing houses of Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the world;
- in the media, including electronic ones, in Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the world.
3.4. Works that were published between March 1 of the previous season and March 1 of the award season are nominated for the Prize. (Works published before March 1 of the previous year (no more than five years old) may be nominated for the Prize in the First Award Season, if at least three members of the jury agree to this.)
3.5. Works cannot be nominated for the Prize again.
3.6. One author may be represented by no more than two works (including those written in co-authorship), if the date of their publication complies with the terms of this provision.
3.7. The volume of a story (novel) is no less than 0.25 and no more than 1 author’s sheet (an author’s sheet is a text of 40 thousand printed characters, including spaces). A cycle of short stories under a general title, with a volume of at least 0.25 and no more than 1 author, can also be nominated for the prize. sheet
3.8. In the absence of a complete package of documents, the Directorate of the Prize has the right to withdraw the work from consideration.
3.9. Works nominated for the Prize are sent by email to the Prize. [email protected]. Font - any, font size 12, spacing - 1.5. Works must be delivered to the Prize no earlier than January 15 and no later than April 15 of the award year.
3.10. All works nominated for the Prize are registered with the Prize secretariat and receive registration numbers. Authors are informed of receipt of texts and documents.
3.11. Works nominated for the Prize are not reviewed and are not returned. There is no correspondence with the authors.

4. Prize jury
4.1. The Prize winners are determined by a jury.
4.2. The jury consists of six people, including the chairman. The candidacy of the Chairman of the Jury is proposed by the Directorate of the Prize.
4.3. The jury is formed by the Directorate of the Prize on the principle of broad public representation. Professional writers, literary scholars, cultural figures, and journalists may be invited to join the jury. (In 2017, members of the jury were Boris Minaev (Moscow), Valery Khait (Odessa), Sergey Makhotin (St. Petersburg), Andrey Malaev-Babel (USA), Yuri Kovalsky (Kiev).. Chairman of the jury - Andrey Dmitriev (Kyiv) .)
4.4. Members of the jury select works for the “Long List,” which is announced no later than May 15 of the current year.
4.5. The “Short List” is formed by the Prize jury from the works of the “Long List” and is announced no later than June 10 of the current year.
4.6. Based on the “Short List”, the jury members determine the winners of the Prize - holders of 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.
4.7. Each jury member has one vote. In case of equality of votes, the chairman of the jury – two votes. Jury members have the right to vote both in person and by submitting appropriate letters.
4.8. If a jury member wishes to participate in the competition, he must refuse membership in the jury and a new one must be invited to take his place.
4.9. The term of office of the jury is one award season. The next season's jury may remain the same, be partially replaced, or be completely renewed.
4.10. The list of jury members is published in the media and on the official website of the Award.
4.11. The decision of the jury is documented in a protocol, announced at the award ceremony, and posted on the Prize website and in the media.
4.12. The jury's voting decision is final and cannot be revised.

5. Award ceremony
5.1. The Award ceremony takes place annually on July 13, the birthday of Isaac Babel, in the Golden Hall of the Odessa Literary Museum.
5.2. Persons who are awarded the Prize are given the title of laureate of the Odessa International Literary Prize named after Isaac Babel, awarded a corresponding diploma and paid a monetary reward. The winner of the Prize (1st place), in addition to a diploma and a monetary reward, is awarded the main prize - a miniature figurine of the “Wheel of Fate” (sculptors G. Frangulyan and M. Reva).
5.3. If a work written in co-authorship becomes a Prize laureate, the monetary reward is divided between the co-authors in equal shares, and if they take first place, the main prize and diploma are given to each.