Zenkin, Sergey Nikolaevich. Sergei Zenkin: “Shklovsky teaches creative overcoming of life’s failures” Awards and prizes

Zenkin Sergey Nikolaevich

Zenkin Sergey Nikolaevich (born 1954, Moscow) is a Russian literary critic, translator, and specialist in French literature. Graduated from Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov (1978). Doctor of Philological Sciences (2002). Leading researcher at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities. He teaches courses on literary theory and semiotics. Since 2004, Chairman of the Commission on Literature and Intellectual Culture of France at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Member of the editorial board of the journal “Foreign Literature”. Laureate of the Leroy-Beaulieu Prize (1996, 1997, 2000). Knight of the French Order of the Academic Palm (2002).

The main sphere of scientific interests of S. N. Zenkin as a literary historian is French romanticism. At the same time, S. N. Zenkin, as a translator, commentator, and author of numerous introductory articles, played a significant role in familiarizing the Russian public with the methodological and theoretical quests of French humanitarian thought in the last third of the 20th century (J. Baudrillard, R. Barthes, J. Starobinsky, A. Companion, etc.).

Selected works of S. N. Zenkin on French literature:

Theses:

1. Zenkin S.N. The work of Théophile Gautier: on the problem of late romanticism in France (1830−1860s): Dis. ... candidate philol. sciences, spec. 01/10/05. M., 1986. 306 p.

2. Zenkin S.N. The work of Théophile Gautier: on the problem of late romanticism in France (1830−1860s): Author's abstract. dis. ... candidate philol. sciences, spec. 01/10/05. M., 1986. 24 p.

3. Zenkin S.N. French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture: Dis. ... Doctor of Philol. sciences, spec. 01/10/05. M., 2002.

Publications:

4. Zenkin S.N. Abastado K. Myths and rituals of writing [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1981. No. 5. P. 16-21.

5. Zenkin S.N. Voisin M. Letters imaginary in the works of Théophile Gautier [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1983. No. 1. P. 15-19.

6. Zenkin S.N. Saval J. Revelation, metamorphoses and duality: A study of Théophile Gautier’s literary prose letters [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1983. No. 5. P. 84-88.

7. Zenkin S. N. Milner M. Phantasmagoria: Essays on the fantastic optics of writing [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1984. No. 1. P. 32-37.

8. Zenkin S. N. Snell R. Théophile Gautier: Romantic critic of the fine arts of writing [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1984. No. 2. P. 115-118. Zenkin S. N. Theophile Gautier’s novel “Mademoiselle de Maupin” // Memorable book dates. 1985. M., 1985. P. 148-150.

9. Zenkin S. N. Theater and acting in the fiction of Theophile Gautier // Bulletin of Moscow University. Series V. Philology. 1986. No. 3. P. 50-57.

10. Zenkin S.N. Shapira M.-K. Narcissus's gaze: Novels and short stories by Théophile Gautier letters [abstract] // RZh. Social sciences abroad. Ser. 7. Literary criticism. M., 1986. No. 3.

11. Zenkin S.N. Baudelaire’s modernity // Lit. review. 1987. No. 6. pp. 72-74.

12. Zenkin S. N. Overcome vertigo: Gerard Genette and the fate of structuralism // Genette J. Figures: In 2 vols. M.: Publishing house im. Sabashnikov, 1998. T. 1. P. 5−56.

13. Zenkin S. N. Spoiled paradise // Foreign literature. 1998. No. 8.

14. Zenkin S. N. Works on French literature. Ekaterinburg: Ural University Publishing House, 1999. 316 p.

15. Zenkin S. N. Genesis of text and history of literature // New literary review. 2000. No. 41. pp. 342-348.

16. Zenkin S. N. Lives of great heretics (other figures in literary biography) // Foreign literature. 2000. No. 4.

17. Zenkin S.N. French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture: Aspects of the problem. M.: RSUH, 2001. 141 p.

18. Zenkin S.N. Preface // Companion A. The Demon of Theory. Literature and common sense. [Transl. from fr. S. Zenkin]. M: Publishing house named after. Sa-bashnikov, 2001. P. 5−10.

19. Zenkin S.N. Gerard de Nerval - tester of culture // Nerval J. de Mystical fragments. St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2001. pp. 8−40.

20. Zenkin S. N. French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture: Unnaturalness, plurality and relativity in literature. M.: RSUH, 2002. 288 p.

21. Zenkin S. N. About Zhan Starobinsky // Starobinsky Zh. Poetry and knowledge: History of literature and culture: In 2 volumes. M.: Languages ​​of Slavic culture, 2002. T. 1. P. 7−15.

22. Zenkin S. N. Roland Barthes and the semiological project // Barthes R. System of Fashion. Articles on semiotics of culture. M.: Publishing house named after. Sabashnikov, 2004. P. 5−28.

23. Zenkin S. N. Maurice Blanchot and the image // Republic of Literature. France in world intellectual culture. M.: New Literary Review, 2005. pp. 433−448.

24. Zenkin S. N. From the history of literary urban planning: Paris of the future as depicted by Charles Duveyrier and Théophile Gautier // http://ivgi.rsuh.ru/article.html?id=72204

25. Zenkin S. N. Denon, Balzac, Kundera: from pre-romanticism to postmodernism // http://ivgi.rsuh.ru/article.html?id=72205

26. Zenkin S. N. Dreams and myths of Eugene Sue // http://ivgi.rsuh.ru/article.html?id=73402

V. P. Trykov

Personalities: Researchers of French literature. Bibliography and scientific applications: Bibliography.

Sergei Zenkin was born in Moscow, graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University (1978), defended his PhD thesis there in 1986, and his doctorate at the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2001.

Editor of the publishing houses "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura" and "Soviet Writer" (1978-1991), researcher at the Institute of World Literature of the Academy of Sciences (1990-1993), editor of the theory department of the magazine "New Literary Review" (1993-1996). In 1997-2000 - doctoral student at IVGI, and since 2000 - its employee. He teaches courses in literary theory and semiotics at the Russian State University for the Humanities and Moscow State University.

Since 2004 - Chairman of the Commission on Literature and Intellectual Culture of France at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Member of the editorial board of the journal “Foreign Literature” and the guild “Masters of Literary Translation”.

Awards and prizes

Three-time winner of the Leroy-Beaulieu Prize (1996, 1997, 2000; the prize is awarded by the French Embassy in Moscow and the Foreign Literature magazine for the best work dedicated to France). Knight of the French Order of the Academic Palm (2002).

Translations

Translated into Russian the books by Jean Baudrillard “The System of Things” (M.: Rudomino, 1995) and “Symbolic Exchange and Death” (M.: Dobrosvet, 2000), both with a number of reprints, Antoine Compagnon “The Demon of Theory” (M.: Dobrosvet, 2000), Sabashnikov Publishing House, 2001), Roland Barthes “Roland Barthes about Roland Barthes” (M.: Ad marginem, 2002) and “Fashion System. Articles on the semiotics of culture" (Moscow: Sabashnikov Publishing House, 2003), Roger Caillois "Myth and Man. Man and the Sacred" (M.: OGI, 2003), Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari "What is philosophy?" (M.: Institute of Experimental Sociology; St. Petersburg, Aletheia, 1998), Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht “The Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey” (M.: New Literary Review, 2006), the second volume of Astolphe de Custine’s book “Russia in 1839” year", as well as individual works by Jean-Paul Sartre, Fernand Braudel, Gerard Genette, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Starobinsky, Maurice Blanchot and others.

Proceedings

• "Madame Bovary" et l'oppression realiste. - Clermond-Ferrand: Association des publications de la Faculte des Lettres et Sciences humaines, 1996.
• Works on French literature. - Ekaterinburg: Ural University Publishing House, 1999.
• Introduction to literary criticism: Literary theory: Textbook. - M.: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2000.
• French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture (Aspects of the problem). - M.: RSUH, 2001.
• French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture. - M.: RSUH, 2002.

Sergei Nikolaevich Zenkin(b.) - Russian literary critic, translator from French.

Biography

Sergei Zenkin was born in Moscow, graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University (1978), defended his PhD thesis there in 1986, and his doctorate at the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2001.

Proceedings

• "Madame Bovary" et l'oppression realiste. - Clermond-Ferrand: Association des publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences humaines, 1996.
• Works on French literature. - Ekaterinburg: Ural University Publishing House, 1999.
• Introduction to literary criticism: Literary theory: Textbook. - M.: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2000.
• French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture (Aspects of the problem). - M.: RSUH, 2001.
• French romanticism and the idea of ​​culture. - M.: RSUH, 2002.
• Non-divine sacred: Theory and artistic practice. – M.: RSUH, 2012.
• Works on theory. M.: New Literary Review, 2012

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Links

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• on the website of the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies

An excerpt characterizing Zenkin, Sergei Nikolaevich

Broadcast from 02/19/2018. Guests in the studio: Nikita Shklovsky-Kordi, hematologist; Ilya Kalinin, cultural historian, author of the concept and compiler of collected works; Sergey Zenkin, literary critic, leading researcher at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Presenter: Andrey Maksimov. Part 1.

Sergey Zenkin

Maksimov A. Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky, a wonderful writer and amazing person, is 125 years old, and a complete collection of his works is being published. My question is: what strikes you personally most about Shklovsky?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. For the last ten years I have been amazed by the letters he wrote to me when I was little. These letters seem to me to be his best work.

Maksimov A. Subjective view.

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E.. Yes. Well, I have already lived up to such a right. It seems to me that the risk of writing a letter to one person who may not understand you, to a boy, “and I will invest my whole life in this moment,” into this letter - everything that you believe in, that you hope for, inspires respect. This is a good example for those who write text messages and use the Internet. Guys, act like this.

Maksimov A. Sergey Nikolaevich Zenkin, Doctor of Philology, chief researcher at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Zenkin S.N. In “Sentimental Journey,” Shklovsky wrote about his ability to “fit into any shoe.” And in another of his texts, a letter to one of his friends, published around the same years, he spoke about his art of not making ends meet. I like this mobility of Shklovsky, which in the language of literary theory can be called self-deconstruction, the ability to be different and not be reduced to a system.

Maksimov A. Ilya Aleksandrovich Kalinin, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg University, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine “Emergency Reserve”.

Kalinin I.A. In 1913, Shklovsky’s first work was published, which made him famous, “The Resurrection of the Word,” which, in addition to numerous theoretical discoveries and breakthroughs, has incredible energy and muscular style. And seventy years later, in 1982, in his last book, “On the Theory of Prose,” he wrote “The Story of the Opoyaz,” where he returns to the beginning. And so, reading this text by Shklovsky, I feel the same energy and the same vigor, light breathing

Maksimov A. That is, in seventy years he has not aged.

Kalinin I.A. Here! How can you be in literature for seventy years and not lose this enthusiasm? How to maintain your breath over such a long distance - this is the most amazing thing for me

Maksimov A. Let's talk about this too, let's also remember Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky - today we will look at this man several times. first fragment.

Shklovsky V.B. Time flows, changes and asks us other questions. I won’t tell you that in my youth apples were larger or sweeter than they are now. I will say one thing: that the apples fell according to Newton’s law, they ripened from the sun. People were happy and unhappy. They lived differently and were needed differently. And almost all the people I knew, I knew moments of happiness and unhappiness. These are what we call options, these are attempts to understand time. Understand what question time has asked you. Not for yourself, but for him and for others. (“Once upon a time there were.” Fragment 1)

Maksimov A. In life he also talked like that, wasn’t it just in a simple way?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. He had two states. He loved one thing: when he was inspired, in this storm he felt like Shklovsky.

Maksimov A. But you talked about the letters he wrote to you. Did he also talk to you, the child, in aphoristic and strange ways, or not?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Yes. He didn’t talk too much, didn’t talk about trifles. When he was ninety years old, a stranger came and asked to talk. We left them in the office. Suddenly we hear a terrible scream. And we see that Shklovsky pushes this man out of the room and tries to hit him. We pulled them away and asked: “What happened?” - “He asks boring questions!” Well, he kicked him out like that. So, the grandfather himself didn’t ask people boring questions, and when they talked about stupid things, he didn’t listen either, or he didn’t listen to that.

Maksimov A. You know, I will say honestly that I am more interested in the figure of Shklovsky than in his collected works. But the question about the collected works must be asked, it’s such an informational occasion. What kind of collected works is this, what is it like, on what principle is it compiled, when will it be published?

Kalinin I.A. I am the responsible editor and compiler of this collected works, the first volume of which has just been published by the New Literary Review publishing house. The next volumes are expected to be published within the next five years; perhaps this collection will continue after the fifth volume.

Maksimov A. Is it structured chronologically?

Kalinin I.A. No. Shklovsky's legacy, the very diverse corpus of texts that he left us, poses a difficult task for the compiler. It is impossible to solve it through a linear sequence of texts that follow each other in order. This is off target. It seems to me that we need to work with Shklovsky the way he himself worked when compiling his collections, namely on the basis of the principle of montage, comparing texts that are very different in subject, different in genre, different even in their mode of writing - dedicated to the theory of literature or history literary process, or literary criticism addressed to modern times, or autobiographical texts. And so we build each volume around some core idea. The first volume is organized around a historical figure of the revolution, which, of course, I think we will talk about today. Because this is an important thing for Shklovsky, not only in a biographical, but also in an intellectual sense - revolution. It becomes clear how Shklovsky's biographical trajectory interacts with the historical context, of which he was a significant part not just as an observer, but as a participant. How his thoughts develop on literature, art, cinema, culture as such, and television, about which he also managed to write a lot. How these different planes and edges creep onto each other's edges.

Maksimov A. Come on, since you started talking about this, we have a fragment where Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky talks about the revolution. (“Once upon a time there were.” Fragment 2)

Shklovsky V.B.. ... I was a soldier in an armored division. During the February Revolution, our cars went out onto the city streets. Well, we shot a little, there was little enemy. We went to the Nikolaevsky (back then it was Nikolaevsky) station. Someone there sent artillery towards us. Moreover, long-range artillery. One that can't do anything when it's not unloaded. We drove up to them in armored vehicles and said: “Do you know what, are we giving up?” They say: “Of course, you gave up a long time ago.” The air of revolution was the air of a strong wind, a time that had already arrived. They were already singing: “This is our last and decisive battle.” But the revolution drove us, demanded that we start all over again. This is what we will wake up in the morning and build the city from scratch. Those songs that seem too familiar to you were a discovery for us. “We are ours, we will build a new world...” It was almost a minimum program. It was necessary to build science, art, and social relations. And that was youth. Youth of the world. Revolution is not exported. But the youth of the revolution, the art of the revolution, transcends the boundaries of the revolution.

Maksimov A. Sergei Nikolaevich, perhaps not all of our viewers know that Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky received the St. George Cross from the hands of Kornilov, and then he became, as it were, for “ours,” for the Bolsheviks. How do you explain this transition?

Zenkin S.N. Not certainly in that way. Firstly, we must generally speak about the versatility of Shklovsky’s personality and his diverse contribution to culture. We are now saying that he was a writer. Indeed, he was a great writer. And, at least in the 20s, he was one of the best Russian prose writers, and this means a lot, because it was one of the most brilliant eras of Russian prose. Imagine when Bulgakov, Zamyatin, Babel, Tynyanov, Russian poets who wrote prose - Andrei Bely, Mandelstam, Pasternak, Russian emigrant writers, first-class masters of prose - worked simultaneously. In general, Shklovsky occupied a very serious, honorable place in this series. For me, Shklovsky is important in world culture primarily as a theorist. Literary theorist, cultural theorist. And by the way, he is one of the very few Russian humanists of the Soviet period who received worldwide recognition and their ideas were actually assimilated by world science. What was the main idea that Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky introduced into science? The idea of ​​dynamic form. Not just forms, but dynamic forms, forms consisting of the interaction of forces. And here we can just remember his biographical experience, which served as some support for him, if not the source of this idea. I mean his experience of revolution and war. Because Shklovsky really was a military man in his youth. He fought for a short time on the front of the First World War, and was indeed seriously wounded and received the St. George Cross directly from the hands of General Kornilov. And later he went through the Civil War, although he had a very difficult position, because he was against the whites, but not entirely for the reds, not for the Bolsheviks. He tried to pursue his own conspiratorial line in favor of the right Socialist Revolutionaries without much success, and even fled into exile for some time. And so, a military man, he differs from civilians who are accustomed to planning and constructing reality in that he knows: in life everything will never go according to plan. Because the enemy has his own plan, and he will collide with yours, they will deform each other (a favorite expression of Russian formalists), they will spoil each other, and something unexpected will happen. This is such an unforeseen conflict form - this is the dynamic form that Shklovsky and his comrades came up with.

Maksimov A. You told a very interesting story, but you didn’t answer my question at all. Nikita Efimovich, maybe you can answer? And why did he come to Soviet ideas as a result?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. He said: “Guys, let this damned government exist, but we need to mind our own business.” He saw it as reality.

Maksimov A. That is... Why didn’t he emigrate? That is, he emigrated, but returned?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E.. He did not emigrate because the element of language and words was fundamental for him - he did not live in a communal apartment, but in the “House of Arts” - in the Russian language.

Maksimov A. That is, language is more important than power?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Language is more important than power - “...do not spare the sounds of life.” Even for letters.

Kalinin I.A. But there is another important point here. Shklovsky indeed was not with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, but this is not because he was not with the revolution. He was simply more revolutionary than the Bolsheviks...

Maksimov A. What does this mean?

Kalinin I.A. This is very tightly integrated into his theoretical optics, which is based on the famous “principle of defamiliarization,” the transformation of familiar things into strange ones. Revolution does something similar to social and political reality. It makes habitual routine practices strange and unusual, brings about some disruption, and turns the world upside down. That is, it does the same thing that literature does, from Shklovsky’s point of view. So, if from the point of view of the Bolsheviks, the revolution is accomplished and after that a new life begins to be built with its own routine practices, with its own stable relationships, then for Shklovsky the process of defamiliarization, “deformation” (also his words), shift, demolition cannot be stopped. In this sense, he is, say, closer, if we talk about any political analogies, to Trotsky’s ideas about permanent revolution, which cannot be identified with the ideas of a world revolution, which will sooner or later end, going around the whole world. The permanent revolution, like the process of defamiliarization, in principle cannot be completed

Maksimov A. I want to understand: here is a person who lives most of his life under Soviet rule. It seems to me that it is impossible to imagine more incompatible phenomena than the absolutely free, wise, paradoxical Shklovsky and the Soviet government. However, there were no repressions with him, nothing special happened with him. And now, thank God, he remained alive. How did he then accept Soviet power?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Under Soviet power and the people who were part of this power, relatives, wives and children were imprisoned. It was a systematic approach. But Shklovsky’s three brothers and sister were killed. His older brother, Vladimir Borisovich, was constantly in prison, and his grandfather visited him in 1936. And in 1937 he was shot. Therefore, repressions were quite real for Shklovsky.

Maksimov A. How did he feel about this?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. He was treated like a nightmare, and, as we were told by the NKVD documents that published the denunciation, Shklovsky said in 1943: “What torments me most is that nothing will change in this country. That even when we win, everything will still remain against free literature, against the free expression of what the artist thinks ... "

Maksimov A. As you say, he should have lived and suffered then.

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Well, yes. Undoubtedly.

Maksimov A. But he didn’t leave because of the language.

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Later it was no longer possible to leave. But he had nowhere to go at all. Like Dante, he was chained to his Florence. Although it was not only in Tuscany that Italian was spoken.

Zenkin S.N. He himself tried to formulate, at the very beginning of this period, after returning from Berlin, some aesthetic and philosophical program for coexistence with Soviet power. He explained that a modern writer-theorist needs to integrate into modern power, but not to succumb to it passively, but to face it and experience its deforming (that same word again) influence, to change oneself and again enter into a new clash with the surrounding reality. This is a dialectical model of self-overcoming, self-development, and conflicting influence with the environment. It was an attempt to project onto his own life, onto his own destiny, the very idea of ​​dynamic form that he developed for fiction. And it came at a very heavy price. Because not only did he lose relatives (he had a completely tragic family history), but he himself also had to pay heavily for his even such conflictual cooperation with the surrounding reality. He had to renounce his ideas. He had to travel, say, to the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal, which was being built by the NKVD. I remember he said about it, that I felt there like a fox in a fur shop.

Maksimov A. So you say some things, and I have questions: this is a person who said: “Now I will live according to such and such an idea.” And then he seemed to charge his computer, he charged himself with this idea, and then he lived by this idea. Was this the situation?

Zenkin S.N. He tried to do this.

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Yes, she lived in him all the time, and she meant that he lived on his own terms of “defamiliarization.” That is, he did not live in the proposed conditions, but he constantly broke these conditions.

Kalinin I.A. It seems to me that the point is not only in the language, not only in the fact that Shklovsky remained with the language. It was important for him to remain with history, that is, with a certain movement, with the same deformation, which, of course, is always painful. Like any change. Of course, a sharp change is more painful, a gradual change is less painful. However, pain, suffering, grief remain.

Maksimov A. Let's look again ("Once upon a time." Fragment 3).

Shklovsky V.B. Art is impatient. Because it's fair. "...it's time, my heart asks for peace." We made a revolution, we considered ourselves right. Why is there no revolution in Germany? And this is gullibility. So what can we say? We made it, but we thought it was a five hundred meter run. And this is running - a long marathon. And now we are running, and every step is needed. “And we live, and we are like Robinson Crusoe, we fight for every hour. And faithful Friday, the lyrical muse in exile, does not leave us.” This is how Soviet literature was born. Literature of hope, loyalty and firm knowledge that the future is ours.

Maksimov A. Shklovsky wrote, I want you to comment: “Change your biography, take advantage of life, break yourself over your knee.” What is the difference between “breaking yourself over your knee” and “betraying yourself”?

Zenkin S.N. The fact that he did something consciously, according to his own creative program. That this new broken “deformed” state will become your new image, which you will present to the world around you and will interact with it “again” (23.21 - 23.35)

Maksimov A. But did he do that?

Zenkin S.N. Yes

Kalinin I.A. You know, I want to show one picture that, it seems to me, explains a lot. This is the cover of the 23rd year collection “The Knight's Move”. And here, especially at his request, a bizarre sideways move of a knight on a chessboard is depicted. Shklovsky conceptualized this move as the only productive movement that is necessary for a thinker, scientist, intellectual, artist, and writer. And for him, this is “break your life over your knee”, “change your biography” - this is a way of responding to the pressure that time and era imposes on a person. In the same “Third Factory” of 1926, he wrote that he needed this pressure. He needed to have this resistance of the material, which he used as a creative challenge. There he writes: “Give me freedom, and I will go to a woman or to a publisher for unfreedom.” That is, to some kind of obstacle that will pose a difficult task to overcome. Shklovsky writes: “Why does the horse walk sideways? Because the direct road is forbidden to him.” So Shklovsky needed this barrier, which he had to constantly jump over or go around.

Maksimov A. So this means that he lived in constant, let’s say, confrontation? Did he need to constantly fight with someone?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Yes. Either with yourself or with someone. And, in general, it’s easier with someone than with yourself.

Maksimov A.(“Once upon a time there were.” Fragment 3).

Shklovsky V.B. ... We, artists, we turn the world so that it can be seen. We have the word “image”, a complex word. The dictionary says: “Image is likeness.” On the other hand, it is said: “You will do it in such and such a way.” Here they coined the word “reception”, art as a reception. We took this from the ancient tradition. There the technique was called “Semata”. “Semata” is a gesture of answering “good” - a spear thrown upward. That's right - "Semata". At the same time, art takes advantage of violations of customs

Maksimov A. Tell me, Nikita Efimovich, he died, how old was he?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. I almost, almost didn’t live to be ninety-two.

Maksimov A. Respectable age. Moreover, as far as I understand, he was conscious until the last minutes? How did a person who is constantly in confrontation, in struggle, and, it would seem, have to exhaust his body very quickly, live to such an age? So now I’m asking you as a doctor.

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Yes. This is exactly what helps. Members of the Stalinist government, who were always hanging by a thread, they also lived in good health to a ripe old age. This is useful.

Maksimov A. Useful what?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E. Voltage.

Maksimov A. What about stress?

Shklovsky-Kordi N.E.. And stress. Stress is good, distress is bad. That is, when you give up. The frog who churned the butter benefited from stress. And it is harmful to the one who drowned. Very simple.

Maksimov A. And you know, I bought this book in a store, in the House of Books. I bought it myself, it’s called “The Most Shklovskoye”. And what did I want to ask? Come on, Ilya Alexandrovich, you tell me first. So I come to the store, there is a huge amount of books there, it’s incredible. I find Shklovsky and buy it with pleasure. And I have a question that I want to address to you: what can Shklovsky give the reader today, why publish the collected works, what will Shklovsky give that no one else will give? Why should you buy Shklovsky, and not a lot of wonderful writers?

Kalinin I.A. Shklovsky still sounds much more modern than many contemporary authors. And I think that it sounds modern precisely because for him time is the moment of collision between man and the surrounding world. He uses this collision to create texts that cross all possible genre boundaries in a varied and bizarre way. The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, the boundaries between science and literature, the boundaries between the personal and the public. In the era of Web 2:0, in the era of messengers, Twitter, text messages, and so on, Shklovsky, including stylistically, with his short, succinct, formulaic writing, turns out to be an extremely modern author. Plus also a person who can respond with text to absolutely any significant or insignificant event, making it interesting. This is exactly what sounds incredibly modern today. (28.09 - 29.20)

Maksimov A. You are talking mainly about style, as I understand it?

Kalinin I.A.. If we talk about thought, then - again - this is some kind of idea of ​​\u200b\u200b"defamiliarization" that never ceases to inspire. It is the key to mental, and perhaps physical, bodily health. Because we are surrounded, in general, by quite banal, trivial, boring things.

Maksimov A. That is, Shklovsky teaches us to “defamiliarize ourselves.”

Kalinin I.A. Shklovsky teaches us to look at the boring and boring in such a way that it turns into an incredibly interesting, phantasmagoric, bewitching picture. How to make boring reality interesting - that’s what Shklovsky and our collection of his works are about.

Zenkin S.N. I would say it a little differently, although this all roughly corresponds to what was said. Shklovsky teaches creative overcoming of life's failures. For many, the revolution was a huge setback in life: some lost the Russia in which they were used to living, others lost in their attempts to change it the way they wanted. And Shklovsky’s early autobiographical books are continuous stories about failures. About how he tried in vain to lead soldiers into attack on the front of the First World War. How he, as a commissar of the Provisional Government, could not cope with the collapse of the army, how he failed with his conspiratorial activities against the Bolsheviks. His other book, Zoo, is a love story gone wrong. “The Third Factory” is also, in general, an admission of failure, of the fact that a person has to come to terms with and get used to a reality that he did not want. This is a very important, widespread and, probably, very relevant life experience for many today.