Russian culture did not die because it did not exist

Yakov Krotov, priest

I try not to watch social networks, but then skidded. There was a feeling that there was a mighty cry about the death of the great Russian culture.

I have a lot of good news! Firstly, the great Russian culture did not die, because it did not exist. There were three great writers. Everything.

The second good news: it was not and is not necessary! There is only one culture - terrestrial. Any closure of culture within national boundaries is disastrous for culture.

The third good news is that the great Russian cartoon has died. For some reason, fans of the idiotic term “Russians” always call anyone like that, but not themselves, and they don’t use the adjective from this word. So: the culture that gave birth to Bykov* and Nevzorov*, Venediktov* and Shargunov, Big City and Novaya Gazeta is a great Russian culture. The culture of intellectual glamor, the culture that stood on sawing Kremlin grants, Soros grants, Zimin grants, in general, on anything, but not on creativity and not on intelligence. The culture of circles, hangouts, looped self-praise.

Now all these locusts have taken off and flew away - happily! Its fate is unenviable, because now they will not give grants to Russians, and even before, they were fattening mainly at the expense of the Kremlin. But I hope they don't die of hunger. I remember an optimistic report on the radio about how a former designer sells garbage - she fishes all sorts of little things and dryuchki from the garbage heaps of the rich, cleans and sells. Enough garbage for our age!

Of course, this does not mean that all those who have flown away are locusts. The eagles and doves also flew away, but they are a tiny minority. As for one Brodsky, there were forty thousand Brighton Beachers.

The fourth piece of good news: if anyone needs it, veercult can be created from scratch. Come on, fathers and mothers, sit down and write, compose, think. What is the problem? Nervous, compassionate, tormented, and okay, sit down and work.

By the way, there is a serious problem here. The famous poem by Milos (Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) - an outstanding Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner, - ed. ) about a carousel that (really) worked right next to the wall of the Warsaw ghetto, so that on one side of the wall there are children's corpses, and on the other kids are spinning. Like “shame on you”, “there can’t be a carousel next to the ghetto.”

How idiotic laws still exist that there can be no drinking establishments near the temple - well, I don’t remember, closer than forty meters or a hundred. So Yefim died, mourned for forty days, mourned for a year, and forward, you can have fun. But in a year, however, you will forget how to have fun!

I’ll say it from myself unequivocally, if not my uncle Benjamin (“My uncle Benjamin” - a novel by Claude Tillier, - ed. note): at my funeral, I ask you to laugh, mock the dead man, throw banana skins at him, in general, do not deny yourself any what kind of entertainment. Actually, my whole life was spent in 1984, in Donetsk, which, of course, is not the Warsaw ghetto, but not Brighton Beach, by any means. So what? Should the world dress in black and weep inconsolably like a drunkard who's been robbed of his last quarter? Not the last! I have the right to weep “it’s bitter for me, it’s bitter,” but I rarely use this right and only in front of the public, and the public should not weep, but should do what they want, from each according to the needs of others, to each according to his ability with a rolling pin, frying pan, secateurs .

* * *

I read an article by Sergey Grabovsky (my peer) in connection with the fact that some Ukrainian musicians refuse to perform Tchaikovsky as a representative of an enemy culture. A Ukrainian publicist defines culture as a Marxist - in terms of quantity and power. If the majority of Russians are imperials, then Chaadaev and Tolstoy are outcasts. But where culture begins, quantity ends and quality begins. Erasmus is a culture, and the scholastics, who were a thousand times more, are marginalized. And in modern Europe there is a mass - vulgarity, yellow press, all sorts of zhizheks - but there is quality. Not much, but it is culture. And to take revenge on the gay Tchaikovsky for the bombing of Kyiv - well, as a neurosis generated by the bombing, this is understandable ... Although, according to my observations, those who were really under the bombs just don’t hysteria, but those who once again try to saddle a hot topic will hysteria and fry some pancakes on it. And Tchaikovsky has no relation to Russian culture as Wagner has to German culture. Both of them are simply great composers.

* Recognized as foreign agents in the Russian Federation