Alexander Arkhangelsky: "I suffered for the great Jewish people." But you say you don't owe anyone anything? When was the last time you cried

Alexander Arkhangelsky

- When you last time was it really scary?

When my eldest son called me and said that my mother had a stroke. My brother was there, but I was not close and could not do anything. Then it was scary, and everything else - you can’t call fear. Anxiety, fear, but not fear. Fear can only be for life, I can't imagine any other fear.

- What do you miss in life?

Time.

- How are you doing?

No way. I work all the time, which is wrong. But how do I "work all the time"? I don’t have such concepts as a day off, vacation, but I also don’t have such a concept as working in the office from and to.

I work - I can fly away for 10 days to write, but when I write, it does not mean that I sit from early morning until late at night. I discharge, I drink, I can walk for a long time, at the same time thinking about what I will do tomorrow. I can afford to watch the series. But such that I had at least one day without work - no.

- Are you tired?

I'm getting tired. I'm tired of being scattered, of the inability to go into one thing with my head. It's like you're swimming, you want to dive, but you can't dive. You must stay on the surface at all times. It's hard.

The second thing that oppresses is the endless unfulfilled obligations. Someone always owes something, but you want to do what you want in this moment. Moreover, so that you can afford not to know in advance what you want to do in an hour.

- The main buzz in your profession?

I have several professions. Common denominator one - I am a writer, I sell combinations of words. The buzz is when you finish a big job. I emphasize, it is big. Because big job, for example, a book that is not assembled from articles, but written from beginning to end, is a completely different level of depth. But not in the sense of the statement, but the depth of life. It's something that took you, demanded service from you. These are not lofty words, this is not service to society or truth, but service to the book that you have been writing for many years.

The book slowly eats you up.

Bosch has a picture where the authors stick out of their books, and the book gradually, chewing, swallows them. But at some point you break it. And each next page is a release, you break out, you hit the bottom and got out. This, of course, happiness is incomparable with anything.

- When swallowing occurs, there is never a desire to throw a book?

Many times.

- How are you doing?

No way. This is some form of mania: if you are not a maniac, you will never write a big book.

- How big is the dissonance between your public image and your inner state?

I'm probably the wrong person. A public person must choose a mask in advance and demonstrate it. I don't have a mask and never have. I never thought about how I would like to look in the eyes of other people. Moreover, to be honest, I never had a life plan to be in the public eye.

I came to TV when I was 40. I will leave it as easily as I came. I have no addiction, no illusions that my presence in the public space has any meaning. This is the way, it is as convenient as it is inconvenient. Convenient, because it is easier for a famous person to achieve something, easier to realize. If you come to a publishing house, they talk to you differently if you a famous person. These are all pluses. But there are also many disadvantages.

For example, they begin to expect from you that you should. You owe something to society, you owe something to the reader.

I don't owe anything to anyone.

I don't owe anything to anyone.

I want to do something, and to the extent that I want to do it. I do it.

What are you most ashamed of in your life?

I do not want to answer.

- What was your most difficult life choice?

Leaving work for the first time.

Then there was a completely different system, there was Soviet power. It was harder to get a job in any noticeable place, there was a system of blat, a system of party quotas. It was hard to make a decision that I was leaving the Soviet radio. There was no experience. You are going nowhere. soviet man, going nowhere, is a lost person, a person who has fallen out of the system of habitual connections.

I'm lucky in that sense. Still, radio was not my first place of work. The first place of work was the Palace of Pioneers, where I started working in 1980, in my 2nd year at the institute. But the first media place of work is radio. My mom took me there for a reason. I worked for nine-something months and realized that I was just going to die. I physically began to disintegrate. I have sunk below my compromise point, everyone has their own compromise. That's where I crossed mine.

- What is a compromise for you?

Then or at all?

- And then, and in general.

Look, I was a believer, I worked at Pioneer Dawn. I despised the Soviet government, and worked, in general, in the ideological system. I hated pro-Soviet children's literature: pioneer stories, this cheerful spirit.

I worked in the very center of the peppy spirit, I produced it and broadcast it.

I wrote a dissertation on Pushkin and thought about censorship, and at the same time I interacted with the censors every day. Until the censor in Ostankino signed the folder with the transfer for tomorrow, I could not leave work. All this began to destroy me.

Fortunately, they took me to the magazine "Friendship of Peoples" without any cronyism, from the street. I just brought the texts. It was a completely different story. It was not an anti-Soviet body, it was a completely Soviet institution, there was also censorship. The Press Committee was fierce in all the texts, but this was the measure of my compromise. I was offered to play a pretend role for which I was ready. The role of a liberal, loyal, Soviet intellectual.

I'm not saying right now if it's good or bad. I'm just saying that I could have matched this role then. I did not feel absolutely catastrophic discomfort. And on the radio, there was discomfort every day - it's painful.

I remember exactly the moment when Gorbachev arrived. On March 11, the fight against alcoholism and drunkenness began. We cut out on May 9 legendary song performed by Shulzhenko "Blue Handkerchief" the line "Come on, comrade, one at a time"(in the original "Let's smoke a comrade one at a time" - I.S.). Or it’s a complete crime - I’m writing a dissertation about Pushkin and the editorial office where I work is cutting out Pushkin’s poem “October 19, 1825” on the grounds that there is a healthy toast.

You either become a completely dead cynic, or you go crazy, or you run. It was impossible not to run away from there. But the light, cheerful cynicism of the Soviet writer, the liberal writer, did not disgust me then.

Without compromise, the profession in which I find myself is generally impossible. You just decide every time where the limit is.

- The last compromise you made, which was on the verge of this limit?

Every time we do a "Meanwhile" show, it's a sharp compromise.

- Why?

Because it is a state channel.

On the channel "Culture" there is no politics as such. But guests are not required to comply with this rule. They say something that violates the unwritten convention, and we drill it out. Every time we decide where we compromise our conscience and where not.

This decision is always informal. You go for it or don't go, and somewhere you start saying to yourself: "Stop!", But somewhere - no.

I have no complaints. This does not mean that someone is forcing me to do something bad. I, having gone to a certain channel, subscribe in advance to the fact that I am loyal to the corporation.

If a corporation has such rules, then I cannot say that the corporation is bad, but I am good, I chose this corporation myself.

If we go back to 1986, when Rybakov with Children of the Arbat had just started publishing in Friendship of Peoples, this is a completely different level of freedom. And she fought back, we gnawed her bit by bit, each next number we competed what else could be tried to print something that could not be printed back.

- You live on the Arbat. What is it like to live there?

Very good. I lived in many places in Moscow and realized that it is best to live either on the very outskirts or in the very center, because there is a village both there and there. Very quiet and calm. The worst thing is to live in the industrial gap between the outskirts and the center. We lived on Begovaya - it was very noisy, dirty and there was nothing to breathe.

Inconvenient from a household point of view - there are no shops. There was one unfortunate "7th continent", but it was closed.

- "Crossroads" is still nearby.

Well, "Crossroads" - I have to drag myself across the road. There is also Azbuka Vkusa nearby, but it is still expensive. Plus the price doesn't match the quality. And it’s clear how it will end - “7th Continent” started out as an expensive store, and in Russia there is no middle layer, either it’s cheap, like Magnit or Magnolia, or it’s expensive, like Azbuka Vkusa. "7 Continent" was average. As soon as he disappeared - "Azbuka Vkusa" will descend into this niche.

In the meantime, I'm dragging myself to the Crossroads across the street.

- What are your rules for raising children?

First you need to be hard, and then more and more soft. From authoritarian to democratic. And then to the anarchist.

You still need to trust. I have many children, and I can no longer jump out of automated habits. I always climb with advice, all the time I try to manage something. From washing dishes to crossing the road. Although the eldest is already 30.

There's nothing you can do about it. I understand that they laugh at me, but I can’t change myself. This is already such a social instinct - to control something all the time. But I do not climb into fate. They must choose for themselves.

- When was the last time you cried?

I don't know, I don't remember.

If you could get carte blanche from fate right now to master absolutely any new field, what would you master?

I would not explore any new area. I would have excelled in the areas I was involved in because I was fed up with quantitative accumulation. I would like depth. I simply do not have the time, energy and talent to go deep.

You see, at some point the body begins to send us signals: “Dear friend, you are living wrong.” It is clear that there are diseases, diseases, but there is poor health, which is always associated with how you live. The body must be listened to, it is a barometer.

What have you been thinking about the last week?

About the fact that I have to remove previous teeth and insert an implant. It is unpleasant, vain and dreary. You have to take tests, come at 10 in the morning, sit for several hours, then everything will swell, you will have to keep ice. In general, I am a small fan of these activities, but nowhere to go.

What writer do you associate yourself with?

With none. It's wrong, it can't be. There are writers whom you love very much and who are in your personal life played very big role. In my youth it is Pasternak, then Pushkin. Do I associate myself with them? No. Haven't lost my mind yet, I hope.

And as for what you write yourself, it's better to be very small yourself than big someone else. You can't associate yourself with anyone.

- "And we must leave gaps in fate, and not among the papers." It turns out?

Well, still, “you don’t need to start an archive.” Pasternak did not like the idea of ​​life-building. But there is no ready recipe. Pasternak did not love, but there was a conditional Brodsky, who was engaged in life-building. And there was Venedikt Erofeev, who was simultaneously engaged in life-building and the destruction of his own life. There is no prescription.

I keep repeating the same formula of Prishvin: “We need to find a collar around the neck”, under my own neck my own collar. You can't do without a collar.

No one can give any ready-made recipes.

- What is a clamp for you?

I have several role positions: on the one hand, I am a professional, on the other hand, I have my own ideas that do not necessarily have to bring money, I have a family in relation to which I have responsibilities, I have a public duty that connected with the fact that I can do something. I have to endlessly choose what I am doing at the moment: I am making money, I am fulfilling myself, I am fulfilling my obligations to my family, I am serving the community.

I would like to do only self-realization.

- Self-realization - what is it?

I am very fond of writing books, this is the sweet flour that interests me the most. But I can't afford to do just that. I have not been able to build a life model in which it brings income. Well, it happened. I have no connection between what I want to do and what I live off of. So, I'm constantly maneuvering.

- Tacking exhausting?

It's exhausting, but on the other hand, who knows, if I could be cooped up the way I wanted to, I wouldn't be crazy about it?

- Your speech at the Presidential Council on Culture and Art. What did you feel when you spoke?

I didn’t feel anything, the rule there is simple - you must pull yourself together, you must maintain the right tone, this tone cannot be either ingratiating or rude. It must be the tone free man who respects the institution of the presidency, but who values ​​freedom above all else. It's a complex combination. You must, as an actor, take the upper tone. If you took it, you must keep it to the end.

I know what not to do. Just from experience with this person. I know that you can’t look at him, you have to turn around, because he is a master of his craft, he knows how to shoot down, give such a signal that you start to get nervous, but you can’t be nervous. Your job is to speak, so speak. The text must be written, not improvised. You can not think about the consequences, neither good nor bad.

- Together with Tatyana Smirnova, you wrote a new textbook on literature. Can you name its cons?

The first minus is that we must focus on an insufficiently flexible canon school literature, not everything from this canon makes sense to leave, from my point of view, but there is nowhere to go.

The second minus is the textbook as mandatory condition requires a talented teacher. Without a talented teacher, he is difficult. There must be a teacher who will take the student by the hand and lead him through the labyrinth.

The third disadvantage is that we do not have an elementary school. In a good way, of course, it is necessary to start building buildings from the foundation. But we didn't primary school. I don't know if we will. I don't understand the policy of the state - this textbook cannot be a private matter, because there are no private schools in Russia. 700 schools per country is a joke.

This is the business of the state. I had a lot of dealings with the state - it's a hard story. It all depends on what policy it will pursue. Will there be updated textbooks or will there be an unshakable monolith of the two? What will be the requirements for breaking textbooks? Will the requirements be ideological or only methodological? If ideological, then there is generally a skiff.

Let's face it, I couldn't have written a history textbook. There my measure of compromise would have been exceeded from the outset. Even the most best textbook, corresponding to the cultural-historical standard, does not meet my standard. The question is not which of us is good - me or him - but the question is that I would not be me if I agreed to do this.

Literature has not yet been presented with such requirements, but they can be presented not ideologically, but insanity. For example, to study the same works in all classes of the country. Not just a list, but divided into classes. This is insanity! And it will end with half of the teachers in the country putting the textbook on the edge of the table and saying: "Guys, write down what I tell you." And in the report or journal it will be written: "We studied the textbook of such and such, page such and such, paragraph such and such."

- Doublethink?

Yes, we write two, three in the mind, as with Soviet power. Under Soviet rule, there was a monolithic textbook. Who read it? Well, except for such boring club-headed Soviet teachers. I have seen and seen these. Fortunately, most were still different.

I am now on my own, and I notice from some fellow students that people come to the university with a very low knowledge of history and geography. What do you think about it?

I don't see this as a tragedy, it's fixable. The criterion is still different. The school cannot give great knowledge, it can give the habit of acquiring it yourself, it can teach creative activity, it can teach to produce knowledge. Even we receive someone else's knowledge, we must produce it within ourselves, otherwise nothing will work.

The school is a factory for the production of knowledge, not for receiving or absorbing.

School is not an esophagus, but a factory.

If a person did not get enough at school, the question is - can he produce knowledge? I'm afraid not. The root of the drama is here.

A model has been built that a bachelor's degree is the completion of secondary education. And the magistracy is the initial higher education. Then a person writes a PhD or a dissertation and becomes a scientist. Inconvenient model, but it happened.

In addition, when they say that in the Soviet school they studied better in high school, listen, friends, but in the Soviet school more than a half left after 8th grade. It was a tough, extremely tough screening. In percentage terms. Out of 5 classes, I have 2 left. Accordingly, it took more than 50%. The rest were more motivated. And these were not specialized schools. And the specialized ones were even more motivated. Today we have a stretched model of social maturation. It probably has some advantages.

- Which?

Rapid labor is worse than slow labor. Only very slow ones are terrible, because it is torment. If they are accelerated, then it ends with injuries.

Social maturation around the world comes later, but this can change in one second if history changes its tasks. As long as she doesn't demand young man early social maturity. We were not supposed to grow up early, and then there was a revolution and that's it - instantly people changed. IN Soviet time, conventionally, a playwright, for example, was considered young until the age of 50. He went through the sections of the young playwright.

about history and geography. This is a sign that these two subjects at school have died safely. Geography - quantitatively, because there are absolutely nothing left for hours, and history - because it cannot be taught like that. Even to any historical and cultural standard, it was taught as a teaching discipline: “Children, here historical event, here is his assessment, remember, please. Recorded? Questions? Everything, understand?" In short, no connection at all. In the world of timelines, how is it possible without these connections?

The student must himself approach the answer to the question of what position he occupies. He must understand that there are different assessments, different positions. We need to know the facts in order to understand how we interpret them. We must consciously take a position following some scientist in order to later learn to develop our own position. But it doesn't, so it's boring.

People do not need to take the Unified State Exam in history as an entrance exam, well, why the hell will they remember everything?

The myth is still spreading around. From Soviet cinema, new commissioned cinema to super-popular exhibitions of Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov). And from those pseudo-museum centers of the history of Russia, which are now open in almost all major cities.

History is always changing. The question is, are we giving an alternative. There are times when we give.

Soviet historical mythology was total, the propaganda machine worked for it, the school, the university, the system of professional academic selection. If a person is disloyal, then, as a rule, he could not engage in historical science. In parallel with this, there was a massive adjustment of real historical knowledge. There were niches where historians who did not want to deal with ideology could go - from archeology to source studies. These were entire schools that won a niche within the total ideological. At some point, it suddenly worked, intermediary figures appeared: Natan Yakovlevich Eidelman - on the one hand, a really great historian, on the other hand, a gifted writer.

Today we do not oppose anything to mythological matrices, so they work successfully. The myth is always beautiful and gives answers to questions immediately. And history only asks questions and knows nothing more.

What trait do you dislike the most about yourself?

Probably, it is already possible to tell about it: I worked in the magazine "Friendship of Peoples", including in the department of criticism. Georgia was one of the areas in which I was involved: I went to all kinds of meetings on Georgian literature in the Writers' Union. And now, a meeting is being held in the Writers' Union. It is led by Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko in some kind of bright checkered jacket, in a neckerchief - a parrot with a parrot.

I look - he is not just showing off all the time, but, as if, while giving a speech, he is rehearsing and at the same time looking somewhere into the distance. I look around and see that there is a long table in front of him, writers and invited journalists are sitting. Evgeny Alexandrovich from the end, and from the opposite side - a huge mirror. Evgeny Alexandrovich does not speak to us, but speaks to himself, to his reflection, and observes how successfully or unsuccessfully at that moment he turned his head or threw out his hand. You can not do it this way. This is by no means possible.

I am obliged, in principle, to look, in a good way, three times: the first time, when you write down how Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko, you need to imagine a mirror: how you will look in the frame, because then you look at yourself as an object. The second time - at the editing, the third time - before the surrender and the fourth time you have to look at yourself on the air. I can not do it anymore. But at the same time, I soberly understand that it worked out, it didn’t work out.

I can’t list you which were unsuccessful, I’m just dumping, fortunately I have a memory ... There are people with a good memory, they have their advantages, but they have one drawback - these are people with a difficult mentality. They all remember what they did, what they wrote, what they said. I don't remember, I have a bad memory - huge RAM and a very small hard drive.

Every minute, if I am involved in the process, I know a lot, but I remember very little, and in fact I know very little. This applies to the knowledge of scientists, and knowledge about oneself, about successes and failures. I don't know my failures, I just try to forget them. There is only one conclusion: we must do it differently next time.

I may or may not be satisfied with my books, but there is not one that, from my point of view, was written in vain. Even if I consider it a failure, it was a step for the next one. I would not have written the next one if I had not worked through this experience in the previous one.

- Why are you on television if you say it's torture?

If it was torture, I probably would have run away by now. There were different motives. The first is to try.

Throughout my life I have had an attempt to go to a place where no one knows me, where no one recognizes me. From academic literary studies, I went into literary journalism and criticism. When it began to work out there, he went into political journalism, textual, newspaper quite late. I was 36 when I came to the newspaper. Then I went to TV.

Every time I came to the site, they didn't recognize me. Every time it started with skepticism, it was extremely interesting, but will I take this barrier? By Japanese writers old school there was a rule: after 40 they had to take a pseudonym and win the audience over again.

The second motive is interesting. How the newspaper works, I understood pretty quickly , having gone from correspondent to deputy editor-in-chief. Television was incomprehensible.

The third motive - it has become a profession, you know how, people are with you long years work, you continue to do it, because you are already responsible to them for the future.

“But you say you don’t owe anyone anything?”

I don't owe society. I owe my family, I owe the people who work with me. I owe myself. This debt is my choice. There is no abstract debt.

Roughly speaking, I did not sign an obligation to engage in any social activities. If I didn't work out, it would be my fucking business. I personally think that this should be done, not because I have to, but because it is my choice.

Of course, you have to think about the people you work with. My situation is much easier than that of any director of a theater or publishing house. There are not many people, if something happens, they can be attached to other projects.

The fourth motive is that for a certain number of people this is important.

I have viewers, as a rule, in the regions much more than in Moscow. These people need a conversation that I can have that others can't. I don't know how many there are, because ratings for niche channels are an incomprehensible thing.

My viewers, whom I personally see, whom I meet, are either the second-hand intelligentsia: teachers, doctors, educators, university professors, museum teachers, librarians, or they are the wives of new Russians.

The wives of new Russians are, as a rule, educated women who have no self-realization. Being a wife is boring, they didn’t go into business because it wasn’t theirs, they were torn out of the profession because they had to work at home. A good, big, expensive house, even if you have a lot of servants, requires management. This is a separate profession and not all the wives of the new Russians signed up for this profession, but everyone is forced to do it, so they are looking for a way out in the intellectual space.

What is happening in / in Ukraine is a real civil war. We will never agree on who started first and who is more to blame. Although I stand by my own - we are obliged to maintain rationality, our duty is to analyze sources, compare pictures, check facts and not be led to propaganda from any side.

But it is quite obvious that whoever started, and whoever fanned the fire, and whoever provoked the crowd, those who behaved in an atrocious manner will be guilty both before the human and before God's court. It doesn't matter under what slogans. Maidan or anti-Maidan. Pro-Russian or Russophobic. And those who rejoiced at the sight of burning people in Odessa. And those who, from behind the backs of the protesters, shot at football fans. And those who took hostages in Slavyansk.

IN civil war, even if you take someone's side, you need to remain human to the last. And for me, the heroes of future novels about the Ukrainian tragedy will not be politicians who played on death, not stone-built fighters, not fiery ideologists, accusers, angry empty talk, but those who hid and saved enemies. Who, being on one side of the barricades, pulled out of the fire and from under the bullets of those who were on the other.

There are times when lack of ideas, she is following the commandment - contrary to the state, people, commune, becomes the highest idea. The account goes on one person, instead of on human masses.

"White Guard", not "Rout".

In connection with what is happening, it became finally clear that instead of the meaningless subject of life safety, it is necessary to introduce media literacy lessons at school. How to distinguish propaganda/counter-propaganda from information, how to compare sources, how to superimpose sincere but emotionally colored versions of events from both sides in order to get three-dimensional picture how not to fall for mutual fakes, how not to fall into hysteria and depression.

Actually, this is modern life safety.

It entered the life of our generation in a halo of anecdotes - it cannot be otherwise in a country devoid of a sense of history and immersed in a sleepy myth; an anecdote is a miserable echo of mythology, its last outburst, drunkenness. "Dear Margaret Thatcher ... Leonid Ilyich, this is Fidel Castro!!! ... Yes, but it is written - Thatcher."

Then it was as if they had rubbed the glass, and Margaret Thatcher was very close: during the visit of Gorbachev (not yet the Secretary General, still a young secretary for a hopeless agriculture) to the UK, it suddenly became clear that they sympathize with him, that something human flashes in him, that he and Raisa like it outside the USSR, and Thatcher takes care of the young 55-year-old politician. The people later said that she gave him a checkered mohair scarf, a universal dream of that time; however, Gorbachev did have a scarf, he proudly wore it.

And after the scarf, Margaret herself appeared - already after the election of M.S. General Secretary; her interview with Soviet political observers, the first live television interview by a non-Soviet foreign politician, blew up television audiences. What is now long accustomed to - that the Western leader responds sharply, independently and cheerfully, seemed something lunar or Martian; she didn't get mad at Silly questions, did not twist her legs, did not complex - but respectfully put the propagandists on both shoulder blades. And this meant that a real revolution had begun in the information space.

The revolution, as it should be, died down, the tides were replaced by ebb, two decades flew by - and now I find myself in London, at a reception with her participation. A little inflexible old woman walks along the rows and throws a word - with everyone. "What are you doing?" she asks Volodya Ryzhkov. He triumphantly replies: "I'm a politician." "What else can you do?" she suddenly asks sarcastically. “And I'm also a history teacher, I can teach at school,” Ryzhkov objects without being taken aback. "Then hello."

I didn’t hear that she asked Khodorkovsky, Robert Skidelsky, and what she talked about with Lena Nemirovskaya. But she faked me wonderfully.

I was the deputy chief in the then Izvestia. "Who are you?" she asked her crowning question. Newspaper editor. “So, do you publish editorials?” "It happens." “I was always surprised - nothing happens, and the next morning there is an editorial in every newspaper.”

And now she is no more.

Boris Berezovsky has died. Whatever we thought about him (and on the day of his death, either good or not), he was key figure bygone era. Epochs of historical, adventurous, bold, vile, large-scale, petty and reckless. They speak irritably about such people during their lifetime, and after death they write books and make films.

Grandiose picaresque romance finished.

To talk about Stalin and objectivity, in particular, to the latest articles and statements of M. Yu. Sokolov, respected by me. (Precisely “to” and not “against.”) Is it possible to single out villainy in Stalin’s activity in intent and execution, half-violence only in execution, non-violence in the spirit of that strange time, and not villainy at all? Of course you can. It is only necessary to determine in advance why we are doing this. For getting three-dimensional picture era, full historical knowledge? Then yes, definitely. For overall assessment personality and activities of the leader?

If we are talking about academic assessment, we should also agree and even welcome this approach. And if it's about moral, religious and (at a lower level) political, then the assessment should be total and final - it's evil in the end, or not evil. In the end - evil, and quite a satanic scale. When the Antichrist comes, he will also do a lot of good things, and honest historical analysis will oblige us to admit it, but the result will be the same - “Kids, Antichrist!”.

Alexei German Sr. has died.

Stubborn, painfully great, who did not take into account the layout of the party and the rules of cinematic aesthetics, went ahead, trusted instinct more than intelligence and calculation, created his own cinema, equally far from Hollywood celluloid and from petty arthouse ...

How lucky we were to have him.
Kingdom of heaven to him.

According to Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, Grigory Pomerants died - how to determine his profession? philosopher? not quite? theologian? Not good? religious writer? and not a writer ... a deeply religious reasoner about the meaning of life. He was born in 1918, went through the war, it was there, next to death, he experienced a meeting with eternity, and he didn’t want to think about anything, talk about anything, write about anything, and he couldn’t. Only about the main thing... The Kingdom of Heaven to a person who calmly, quietly and lightly walked the path that he considered the only right one.
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You yourself already know about it. It is important that this is not just a personal decision of an old and sickly person (I am leaving because I cannot stay), but a responsible act of a real pontiff (I am leaving because it will be difficult for the Church with me - the way I am becoming due to physical weakness). But perhaps more importantly, it is an act of contemporary view about life, responsibility and will; antiquity saw no spiritual strength in the renunciation of lifelong power. In order for such an act to become possible, it was necessary to firmly decide for oneself - something from the experience of confused, disheveled, hysterical modernity has passed the test of eternity. And above all, the attitude to power as a tool that is better to transfer until the tool falls out of hand.

Catholics may feel undignified pride in such a pope, but we have deep respect.

Ilya Kolmanovsky, great teacher and the head of the "Pocket Scientist", the director of the school fired due to the fact that Ilya publicly swung near the State Duma with supporters of the law on homosexuality. The law is completely stupid and harmful - among other things, because sooner or later, because of such laws, the pendulum will swing into reverse side; forms of protest against him in the form of same-sex couples kissing are deeply alien to me.

But what happened to Ilya is more important than both the law and the reaction to the law. One of the best teachers in Moscow, he was fired not for what he did at school (he could not do anything but good there), but for what he did outside the school - and without violating order. This is a disastrous precedent; it would be right to immediately dismiss the director, distraught with fear - for actions incompatible with the profession, and return Ilya with an apology.

Alexander Arkhangelsky - Cognac "Shirvan" (compilation)

Alexander Arkhangelsky - Poetic story by A. S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman"

Candidate philological sciences, Professor at the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Former Author and Presenter television programs"Against the Current", "Chronograph". Since 2002, he has been the author and host of the Meantime program. Co-founder of the Academy of Russian Modern Literature. Author of scientific and popular science books “A. S. Pushkin’s verse story “The Bronze Horseman”” (1990), “Conversations about Russian literature. The end of the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century "(1998)," Heroes of Pushkin. Essays on Literary Characterology” (1999), collections of literary criticism (“At the Front Door”, 1991), publicistic articles. Author of prose books “1962. Epistle to Timothy "(last edition - 2008), "The Price of Cutoff" (2008), "Museum of the Revolution" (2012), etc. The book "Alexander I" went through several editions in Russia, was translated into French and Chinese. Author of school textbooks teaching aids, Readers in Literature. Author of the films “Memory Factory: Libraries of the World”, “Department”, “Heat”, “Intellectual. Vissarion Belinsky", "Exile. Alexander Herzen" and others.

Not the hero of our time

How Lermontov, having written a novel in two parts, deceived Nicholas I and other readers

The Return of Philosophy

Who, how and why in Stalin's time began to study philosophy - a quarter of a century after its traditions were destroyed

Palace under the hood

How graduates of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University created the territory of freedom in the magazine - mouthpiece communist parties early 1960s

Incredible Institute

How advanced bourgeois newspapers were read in a Soviet academic institute, they studied theater, the hippie movement and modern Western philosophy

The noose is compressed

How Soviet Tanks Entered Prague in 1968 Ended Previous Opportunities for the Humanities

Before the barrier

What did philosophers do for schoolchildren, deaf-blind people, for literature, cinema and for changing the world

Victory and disappointment

What did Soviet philosophers give the world: the realization of the impossibility of changing reality or the revived language of philosophizing?

Zabolotsky. "Passerby"

How the poet stretched out the moment, overcame death and wrote the most in simple words cryptic poem

Trifonov. "House on the waterfront"

How Trifonov stepped over his conscience, then mercilessly condemned himself, and at the same time comprehended the mechanisms of political terror

Alexander Arkhangelsky

Alexander Arkhangelsky was born on April 27, 1962 in Moscow. In 1984 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, in 1988 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on Pushkin.

The first book "A poetic story by A. S. Pushkin" Bronze Horseman” was released in 1990. In 1991, a collection of articles written in 1987 - 1990 “At the main entrance. Literary and cultural situations of the glasnost period. The book is interesting as a documentary source from which one can study the difficult and controversial time of perestroika. In 1999, Conversations on Russian Literature were published. The end of the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century "and" Heroes of Pushkin. Essays on literary characterology. In 2000, in the famous ZhZL series, a biography of Alexander the Great was published, also translated into Russian. French. The book "Political Correction" (2002) includes Arkhangelsky's political journalism. In 2006, collections of articles "Basic Values" and "Humanitarian Policy" were published.

As a prose writer, Alexander Arkhangelsky made his debut in 2006 with the novel "1962", which was reprinted several times. The second book - "The Price of Cutoff", according to the magazine "Russian Reporter", became the "Most important novel of the year".

In 2010, the book "Meanwhile" was published, based on the TV show of the same name.

Alexander has been on television since the very beginning of the 90s. He was the author and host of the Against the Current programs (1992 - 1993, RTR). In 2002, he hosted the Chronograph program on the Rossiya TV channel, and since 2002, he has been the author and host of the Meantime program on the Kultura TV channel. (“Moskovsky Komsomolets”: “Every self-respecting TV channel is simply obliged to have a final program. One where smart people and talk about sore points (with them or with the country) for a week. On the Kultura channel, this socially useful function is performed by the talk show Meantime).

In 1993 - 1994, his program "Writers at the Microphone" was broadcast on the radio station "Liberty", Arkhangelsky was a regular guest of the radio show "Special Opinion" on the radio "Echo of Moscow".

Published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Izvestiya, magazines Friendship of Peoples, Znamya, New world”, “Literary Review”. Published under pseudonyms Arkhip Angelevich and Angelina Arkhipova.

Alexander Arkhangelsky - laureate of awards " literary newspaper"(1990), the magazines "Literary Review" (1984), "Znamya" (1996), "New World" (1996), "Friendship of Peoples" (1997), the Globe Prize in the nomination "For the best book written by a journalist" (for the novel "1962"). He was a member of the jury of the awards "Russian Booker", " Big Book”,“ Russian Prize ”, Apollon Grigoriev Prizes. In 2009, he received the Power No. 4 award as the best political commentator. Finalist of the TEFI-2005 and TEFI-2006 awards, was nominated for the TEFI-2007 award in the nomination "Host of the Information and Analytical Program".

Since September 1991 - member of the Union Russian writers. Member of the Academy Russian television. Professor at the Faculty of Media Communications at the Higher School of Economics.