Platoon officers and militias read Russian literature. Zakhar prilepin officers and militias of Russian literature

On February 24, 2017, I attended a meeting with the writer Zakhar Prilepin. He presented his new book “Platoon. Officers and militias of Russian literature. " The entrance ticket cost 800 rubles, the book "Platoon" was sold starting at 1000 rubles, apparently taking into account the possibility of getting the author's autograph.
Many came to listen to Zakhar Prilepin, because they believe him. I would like to hope that Evgeny Nikolaevich respects his readers, since our readers are very smart people: they have not forgotten how to understand the Aesopian language, and they even distinguish what is not written or said.
Our readers may not know everything, but they understand everything. They understand why they are giving literary prizes, to whom and why the “literary mafia” supports them.
Like many others, I sympathize with Prilepin (although I don't understand why Yevgeny Nikolaevich took the name Zakhar as his pseudonym). I do not envy Zakhara Prilepin, I rather sympathize with him.
I asked those who came to the meeting to answer the question of what they see as the mission of the writer Prilepin. I even managed to interview Zakhar himself.

When I listened to Prilepin's monologue for an hour and a half, the lines of Mikhail Svetlov came to my mind:

I left the hut
I went to fight
To land in Grenada
Give it to the peasants.
Goodbye, dear ones!
Goodbye family!
"Grenada, Grenada,
Grenada is mine! "

Tell me Ukraina
Is it not in this rye
Taras Shevchenko
Is the papakha lying?
Where, buddy,
Your song:
"Grenada, Grenada,
Grenada is mine ”?

Writer Mikhail Koltsov, who was sent to Spain, also wrote about Grenada. In 1938 he was recalled from Spain and on the night of December 12-13 of the same year he was arrested in the editorial office of the Pravda newspaper. On February 1, 1940, Koltsov was sentenced to death on charges of espionage and shot.

Zakhar Prilepin (real name Evgeny Nikolaevich Prilepin) was born on July 7, 1975 in the village of Ilyinka, Ryazan Region, in the family of a teacher and a nurse. He began his career at the age of 16.
Prilepin's rapid ascent to the literary Olympus is associated with his relative, Vladislav Surkov. Surkov is also a writer; he was called the “gray eminence” by ideology under President Dmitry Medvedev. Vladislav Surkov was the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, then the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation; now he is an aide to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
On March 10, 2010, Zakhar Prilepin signed an appeal by the Russian opposition "Putin must leave."
Today Zakhar Prilepin is called the “court writer”, the ideologue of the Russian epic.

In 1994, Yevgeny Prilepin was called up for military service in the ranks of the Russian army, but later was discharged, apparently for health reasons. This did not prevent him from entering the riot police. In parallel with his service in the OMON, Yevgeny studied at the philological faculty of the N.I. Lobachevsky NSU. In 1996, Evgeny Nikolaevich was sent to Chechnya to participate in hostilities, and in 1999 he took part in armed clashes in Dagestan.

I don't know if Evgeny Prilepin had to kill in Dagestan or Chechnya during the 1996-1999 counter-terrorist operation. Prilepin calls himself a believer (Orthodox). But a believer will not violate God's commandment "Thou shalt not kill." Dying for your friends by sacrificing yourself is not the same as killing a person.

In 2014-2015, Prilepin worked as a war correspondent in the territory of Donbass. Since December 2015 - Advisor to the Head of the Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko.

Since October 2016 - deputy commander of the reconnaissance and assault battalion of the DPR army. Major.

After the murder of "Motorola" and "Givi" in Donbass, it was necessary to raise the morale of the militia. And Zakhar knows how to do it.

Prilepin was declared an accomplice of terrorists for his participation in the volunteer formations of the DPR; in Ukraine, a criminal case was opened against him for participation in the activities of a terrorist organization and the financing of terrorism. The German literary agency, which represented the interests of Yevgeny (Zakhar) Prilepin on the international market, refused to cooperate with the writer.

Prilepin's new book “Platoon. Officers and Militias of Russian Literature ”contains eleven biographies of writers and poets of the Golden Age - from Derzhavin and Denis Davydov to Chaadaev and Pushkin - who knew how to hold not only a pen, but also a weapon.

Literary critic Galina Yuzefovich has studied Prilepin's book and believes that this talented, persuasive book, written with great love for the subject, is a potentially dangerous reading.
“Having collected under one cover 11 biographical essays about writers who served in the Russian army and navy in the first half of the 19th century - from Derzhavin to Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Zakhar Prilepin thereby justifies and, in fact, glorifies the participation of a creative person, intellectual and intellectual, in combat. ...
The book “Platoon. Officers and Militias of Russian Literature ”was written precisely for the sake of popularizing and approving this idea - and for nothing else. ...
Prilepin draws a direct parallel between Vyazemsky and Batyushkov, on the one hand, and himself and his associates, on the other. ...
Prilepin's deliberate rapprochement of the events of the early 19th century with today's realities for the most part looks incorrect and artificial. ...
Zakhar Prilepin artificially actualizes the old situation and, without any reason, projects it to the present day. "

G. Yuzefovich believes that this is a tendentious, propagandistic, manipulative, incorrect and in fact inaccurate book.

Zakhar publishes one book every year. Such "early maturity" cannot but affect the quality. When Prilepin described his personal memories, everything was fine. And how he began to compose and invent, it turned out unconvincing.

I understand the desire of the commander of the OMON squadron Zhenya Prilepin to enroll Derzhavin, Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Denis Davydov, Chaadaev, and even Pushkin in his platoon. "... if this platoon needs a platoon, then it is: Pushkin," Prilepin writes.
“Pushkin aimed aiming at the Turks with a rifle, several times tried to attack the enemy, sometimes with dragoons, sometimes with Cossacks, and it was more and more difficult to keep him; in the end, it came to the point that the commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Ivan Fedorovich Paskevich, scolded Pushkin, saying that his life is dear to Russia, and it is not appropriate to behave like that ... "
I wish Zakhara would heed this advice.

It is difficult to imagine how Major Prilepin, during the hostilities, could write a voluminous literary and historical study about the militias of Russian literature (who, by the way, were not militias).

It is not important that the writers were at war, it is important with what thoughts they returned. Dostoevsky welcomed the sending of volunteers to defend Serbia, because he did not know from personal experience all the horrors of war. But Leo Tolstoy knew the horrors of war in full, defending Sevastopol.

“War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and one must understand this and not play war,” said Prince Andrei before the Battle of Borodino. - “The purpose of the war is murder, the weapons of war are espionage, treason and its encouragement, ruining the inhabitants, robbing them or stealing for the food of the army; deception and lies called military tricks; the customs of the military class - the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, indolence, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, drunkenness. "

“Enough for you: the compulsory military service for the nobility was canceled even by Catherine the Great. Do you seriously think that people, by virtue of tradition, went to their death? ", - Zakhar Prilepin writes in the book" Platoon. Officers and militias of Russian literature.
"And another poet - Yevgeny Abramovich Boratynsky (1800 - 1844), who served for five years in Finland, recently conquered by the Russians." (page 708)

I love the poetry of the poet Baratynsky, so I could not help but notice a typo in the spelling of his surname.
Of course, a writer (even a philologist) writing in war, in the trenches, under fire, typos are forgivable. But they are unforgivable for the editors of Elena Shubina, who published the book at the AST publishing house.
Only those who do not know the poet Baratynsky could fail to notice such a "mistake".
This "drop of tar" spoiled the whole "barrel of honey"!
It should be a shame to publish a book with such misprints - this is discrediting the author, the publishing house "Elena Shubina's Edition" of the AST group.

Who was “wrong” in spelling the name of the poet Baratynsky: the writer Prilepin or the editor Elena Shubina, who incorrectly corrected the author?

“What is spoken aptly, is the same as written, is not cut out with an ax. And where is it aptly everything that came out of the depths of Russia, where there are no German, no Chukhons, or any other tribes, and everything is a nugget, a lively and lively Russian mind that does not go into your pocket for a word, does not incubate it , like a hen of chickens, but it sticks right away, like a passport to an eternal sock, and there is nothing to add later, what kind of nose or lips you have - you are outlined in one line from head to toe! " (Gogol, the poem "Dead Souls").

“I think that thinking propensity is not the best human habit. Reading is much better than thinking. … Thinking is a false activity, ”says Zakhar Prilepin. - "People should be given the opportunity to be cattle." "Thinking is a harmful activity."

"Well Prilepin stuck it!"

“The Russian people are expressing themselves strongly! and if he rewards someone with a word, then it will go to his family and posterity, he will drag him with him to the service, and to retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the end of the world. And no matter how cunning and ennoble your nickname later, even make the writing people take him out of the ancient princely family for a hired price, nothing will help: the nickname will croak for itself into his whole crow's throat and say clearly where the bird flew from ”. (Gogol, the poem "Dead Souls").

On April 21, 2016, Zakhar Prilepin in St. Petersburg talked with readers in the Bukvoed store. I was one of the first to ask him a question: "Do you have any big idea of your own that you would like to propose to the world?"
The answer of Zakhar, frankly, stunned me.
“I'm not talking about thoughts at all; that is out of my range. I am not a thinking person, not a thinking person. In general, I think that the inclination to thinking, to reflection, to trying to comprehend one's own path, it is false in a person and, as a rule, this does not lead to anything reasonable. It is much more useful to just read. Reading is more useful than thinking. "

Zakhar explained how and why he wrote the novel Abode. In 2014 Prilepin received the Big Book Prize for this novel.
Fyodor Abramov wanted to write about Solovki, then Andrey Bitov had such a desire. And Zakhar Prilepin wrote about the Solovetsky special purpose camp.
After reading the novel "Abode", I decided to visit Solovki again, where I arrived in August 2016.

From the staff of the Solovetsky State Museum-Reserve, I asked about the history of the creation of the novel "Abode". Many in the fiction of the author saw a distortion of the truth, a deviation from the historical truth.

Can a historical writer distort historical reality?
Why change the name of the camp chief Eichmans to Eichmanis?
F.I. Eikhmans was the head of the ELEPHANT from November 13, 1925 to May 20, 1929; later shot as an English spy.
In the novel there is the head of the camp Nogtev, there is the head of the NKVD YagOD. But distorting the name Eichmans is like calling Genrikh Grigorievich YagOda - Yagodin.

Personally, I found Zakhar Prilepin's novel interesting, but not convincing. There was a sense of creative borrowing. Without a mat, of course, not life, but the excess of obscene words does not add credibility to the narrative.
I liked how the author describes personal memories of his grandfather's sheepskin coat. But when Prilepin tries to retell what he did not personally experience, it does not seem convincing.

Critic Roman Arbitman to smithereens criticized the novel "Abode".
"Prilepin publishes a voluminous novel" Abode "in the questionable genre of" camp prose "for a Stalinist writer. ... The reader is inspired by the simple idea that the "great terror" in the USSR was started before Joseph Vissarionovich, and continued not by the associates of the mustachioed leader, but by his political opponents. ... Let's pay tribute to Prilepin: he describes the bestiality of the camp guards and the agony of the escorts in detail, with all the nauseating nuances. "

I talked about Solovki and memoir literature in New Holland with a recognized expert in Russian literature, Doctor of Philology, Professor of St. Petersburg State University Boris Valentinovich Averin.
And recently I attended a lecture by Doctor of Philosophy Alexander Iosifovich Brodsky "The Philosophy of Narrative" (I will publish the video later). Scientists propose to look for in the text of the historical narrative not what is said, but what is not said, because the main thing is concluded there, and the truth is hidden there.

If the novel "Abode" was written "to order" for subsequent adaptation, then the goal is clear - to show the horrors of the past life under the communists, so that everyone would feel how good life is now. Prilepit writes: "Solovki is a reflection of Russia, where everything is like in a magnifying glass - natural, unpleasant, clear."

I spent the night with Zakhar Prilepin in the library. Mayakovsky on the Fontanka embankment, 44 - biblionight.

Prilepin's new book “Platoon. Officers and Militias of Russian Literature ”is certainly interesting and necessary. But it looks like self-justification.
Evgeny Nikolaevich Prilepin has four children (three of them are minors).
Why did he leave his children and volunteer for the war?

Although, if we consider a trip to Donbass as a business trip with the aim of writing a new book about the war, then everything becomes understandable.

Some compare Prilepin to Hemingway. Hemingway drank heavily and eventually committed suicide by shooting himself with a gun.

Zakhar Prilepin is undoubtedly a bright star in our public firmament. But bright stars tend to burn out quickly ...
“Today I am a writer, tomorrow I am not a writer,” Zakhar admitted. - "I'm still not sure about my path."

“Everyone writes as he hears. Everyone hears how he breathes. As he breathes, he writes ... "- Bulat Okudzhava sang.

The writer Prilepin served in the OMON, fought in Dagestan and Chechnya. Therefore, the desire of the squad leader Yevgeny Prilepin to include Alexander Pushkin in his platoon is understandable.

Pushkin, as you know, encrypted the 10th chapter of the novel "Eugene Onegin". So much so that no one could decipher for a long time. Where did the poet learn the skills of encryption?
I served for three years as a cipher officer on a submarine in the Northern Fleet, and I know how difficult it is.

It is believed that, while in the civil service, Pushkin served as a cryptographer in a secret division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, engaged in political intelligence. It was created in 1832 as part of the III Gendarme Division. Its leader, Adam Sagtynsky, decided to fight anti-Russian sentiments in Europe with the help of “literary agents”, one of whom was Yakov Tolstoy.

According to the table of ranks, Pushkin was listed as a "collegiate secretary." But when Pushkin decided to re-enter the civil service, on January 2, 1832, he took the oath twice, in one case as a "collegiate secretary", and in another case as a "titular councilor".
Who did the "titular adviser" Pushkin work for?

His salary of 5 thousand rubles (which was 7 times higher than the salary for his rank of "titular adviser") Pushkin received not at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but from the emperor's secret fund, where the head of political intelligence and "literary agents" received salaries.

It is believed that Pushkin, as a linguist, was engaged in cryptography (encryption and decryption of correspondence). Pushkin's friend Baron Pavel Lvovich Schilling von Kannstadt was in charge of the encryption service in Russia. Employees were strictly prohibited from traveling abroad.
And I always wondered why Pushkin was forbidden to go abroad. Perhaps because he had access to state secrets. As a ransomware, I was also banned from traveling abroad, since I had first degree clearance and signed a nondisclosure agreement.

It is no longer a secret that widespread publicity is the result of a deal with the authorities. Power uses the writer, the writer uses power.
During the perestroika period, the “last Soviet writers” fought for democracy, glasnost, and the abolition of censorship. And under the new government, they began to "grab" what belonged to all members of the Writers' Union, and now they do not let those who want to compete with them come close. Some authors openly serve the state.

The task of the state is to control and govern. Therefore, it is natural that the government promotes authors who approve and support its policies. Such authors are made idols in order to control public opinion through them.

In Soviet times, the most famous committed author was Yulian Semyonov. Committed authors write what they are ordered: when they demand, they justify the war, when they demand, they call for peace.

Prilepin's commitment is not visible to me alone. Zakhar is probably a good person, but he fell into a well-known trap for authors. Some believe that the guy from the village has made a dizzying career and it is not surprising to get dizzy. Others believe that this is just foam on the wave of conservative patriotism.

I do not consider myself a writer, although I have written two novels. I am more of a researcher.
What makes an author different from a writer?
One is more dear that his book will be bought by a hundred people, and for another - that his book will be downloaded for free by a hundred thousand people.
Personally, the second is dearer to me.

Today, when I see on TV how Donetsk is being shelled, how civilians are being killed as a result of shelling, and in their apartments, at bus stops, in hospitals, I involuntarily ask myself: how did it happen that politicians allowed a war on our native land? !

The war in Donbass is the result of the “divide and rule” policy.
Although for me personally, this is a tragedy of fraternal peoples.

In fact, this is a conflict between the ruling elites. The oligarchs still cannot share the "Soviet legacy".
Elites are fighting, and people are dying!

Politicians who unleash a war must be brought to justice.
It is not the people who are to blame, but the politicians who manipulate people.
The whole world was divided into Russobophs and patriots.

I affirmed and affirm: patriotism is love for the Fatherland, not for the state. An honest patriot can love his homeland, but not love the ruling regime.

If the politicians still agree and once again betray their people, what will the defenders of Donbass say then? What were the feats and sacrifices for?

In the treatise "What is My Faith" Leo Tolstoy wrote:
“Recognition of any states, special laws, borders, lands is a sign of the wildest ignorance, that to fight, that is, to kill strangers, strangers without any reason, is the most terrible villainy that can only be reached by a lost and depraved person who has fallen to the degree of an animal. "

“After all, even a fool can see that people are being used as cannon fodder. Rulers have always solved their problems with our blood. And hatred is kindled for this, because no one will kill anyone just like that. Were there few wars in the world, the reasons for which are difficult to explain?

It may even give the impression that people do not want a quiet life, and therefore are fighting. What, for example, prevents Christians and Muslims from living in peace? Never mind. Is it difficult to live together as one family for representatives of different nationalities? No problem. All these interethnic conflicts are provoked by the rulers, their calculations or mistakes. After all, it is during the war that it is easiest to stay in power, having proved the necessity of your rule. "

I wrote a research novel “Alien Strange Incomprehensible Extraordinary Stranger” during the first Chechen war. I remember how the bombing was shown on TV live. It was unbearable! They showed a crippled child who was lying all bloody in a hospital bed with a leg torn off by an explosion.

Is it possible to put things in order at such a cost?
- What if there is nothing left and you have to solve the problem in this way?
- There is no problem, the solution of which would justify the murder of a person.
- And the war?
- War is a sign of intellectual powerlessness or cunning of the rulers. Thus, they solve the problem of increasing their own rating at the expense of other people's lives. The rulers who unleash a war do not love their people, if they love anyone at all. After all, a politician, like any person, is ultimately ruled by either hatred or love.
- And I know many who want to fight, and it doesn't matter where and with whom, and not even for money.
- For such people, war is just a way out of life's impasse, a way to get rid of the emptiness of existence. In fact, these are suicides.
- What, then, is the difference between killing in war and ordinary killing?
- In war they send to kill, justifying it by state interests. At the same time, the soldiers are assured that “God is with us” and that, they say, they are under the protection of the law. Thus, the rulers want to relieve the murderers from remorse. After all, they are not the ones who kill! And they don't have to die. How to justify yourself when, without wishing it, you kill an innocent child?
- War is like war.
- Yes, it's all about the price. But how much is a person's life worth? And what is the equivalent of an estimate? How can human life be appreciated? She's priceless!
- Everything has a price where everything is bought and sold.
“It’s worthless for the rulers.
- What kind of scales is it on which it is determined whether it is fair or unfair to pay with the life of an innocent child for someone's political miscalculations?
- The forest is being cut, the chips are flying.
- However, you are unlikely to agree that this chip was the head of your son or daughter. I am convinced that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is not an empty regulation, but a certain law, for violation of which reckoning will surely come ”.
(from my novel "A strange strange strange strange unusual stranger" on the site New Russian Literature

Today is March 3rd World Writers Day.
What is the mission of a writer, artist and philosopher in the modern world?
I asked this question to the participants in the meeting with the famous philosopher Alexander Sekatsky and to Alexander Kupriyanovich himself.

Personally, my "message" - my message to people - consists of three main ideas:
1 \ The purpose of life is to learn to love, to love no matter what
2 \ Meaning - it is everywhere
3 \ Love to create a necessity

Would you like to join the ZAKHAR PRLEPIN PLANT?

Half a century ago, they were close.

The one who wrote about the people of the Golden Age peered into the dark glass bottle from under the imported beer - and suddenly, as it seemed to him, he began to distinguish between people and situations.

Derzhavin has shaggy eyebrows, his eyes are old and half-blind. Shishkov clenches his stern mouth. Davydov does not want to be drawn in profile - his nose is small. Then he looks in the mirror: no, nothing. Glinka looks sadly out the window; outside the window - the Tver link. Batiushkov is frightened alone in a dark room, abruptly runs out into the hall, barely illuminated by two blinking candles, whispering to the dog - if the dog comes, then ... it means something, the main thing is to remember its name. Hey, how are you. Achilles? Please, Ahi-i-il. He tries to whistle, curls his lips - forgot how. Or rather, I never knew how. Katenin pours half a glass, then, holding the bottle at the ready, thinks about it and, after a moment, quickly refills the glass. Vyazemsky can hardly restrain a grin. Suddenly it turns out that his heart hurts terribly. He stifles a grin, because if he laughs out loud, he will faint from pain. Chaadaev is bored, but he has already invented a severity and is just waiting for the right moment to utter it wearily. Raevsky is angry and restless. Plays with nodules. Everything inside him is bubbling. Unbearable people, unbearable times! Bestuzhev examines the ladies. The ladies are looking at Bestuzhev: Vera, I assure you, this is the same Marlinsky.

Finally, Pushkin.

Pushkin on horseback, Pushkin cannot be caught up.

A flask of dark glass, thank you.

It was easier for them, who lived then, in the middle of the last century: Bulat, Nathan, or, say, Emil - it seems that some of them were called Emil, they were all called rare names. They described the Golden Age as if they were painting with the quietest, floating colors: a hint seemed everywhere, something white, pale behind the bushes, flickered.

The inhabitants of the Golden Age, according to these descriptions, hated and despised tyrants and tyranny. But only ridiculous censors could think that we are talking about tyranny and tyrants. The conversation was about something else, closer, more disgusting.

If you listen attentively to the slow current of novels about the Golden Age, you can discern the murmur of secret speech, understandable only to a select few. Bulat winked at Nathan. Nathan winked at Bulat. The others just blinked.

But in the end, much remained as if unclear, unclear.

Brilliant lieutenants went to the Caucasus - but what did they do there? Yes, they behaved risky, as if to spite someone. But who shot them, who did they shoot? What kind of highlanders are they? What mountain are they from?

Highlanders from the Caucasus mountain are dangerous people. Mikhail Yuryevich, you would have ducked. Lev Nikolaevich will be hit at an hour.

Sometimes the lieutenants fought with the Turks, but again no one understood why, why, for what purpose. What, after all, did they want from the Turks? Probably the Turks were the first to start.

Or, say, the Finns - what did they want from the Finns, these lieutenants? Or from the Swedes?

And if, God forbid, the lieutenant found himself in Poland and crushed, like a flower, another Polish revolt - it was generally not accepted to talk about this. The lieutenant must have got there by accident. He did not want to, but they ordered him, they stamped their feet on him: "Maybe, lieutenant, send you to the depths of Siberian ores?" - I think they were shouting like that.

The authors of the biographies of the lieutenants generously shared their thoughts, aspirations and hopes with their heroes. After all, the authors were sincerely convinced that they had common thoughts, aspirations and hopes, as if a century and a half had not passed. Sometimes they could even compose a poem with them (or even for them): what's the difference when everything is so close.

And what - just a stone's throw: the authors of the biographies were born when Andrei Bely was still alive, or even Sasha Cherny. Akhmatova was even seen with my own eyes. But from Akhmatova half a step to Annensky, and another half step to Tyutchev, and now Pushkin appeared. Two or three handshakes.

He pressed his hand, warmed by a handshake, to a bottle of dark glass: while its warmth was melting, I managed to make out the lines of other hands. And if you put your ear to it? Someone is laughing there; or crying; but the words became legible ...

Now, in our days, you squeeze one hand, the other - you do not feel anything: even from Lev Nikolaevich you cannot hear greetings - where is there to reach Alexander Sergeevich or Gavrila Romanovich?

For us, living, familiar - Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Pasternak: the same confusion, the same passions, the same neurosis. I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, the candle burned on the table, because someone needs it. They spoke in our words, they were no different from us: let me hug you, Sergei Alexandrovich; let your paw squeeze, Vladimir Vladimirovich; ah, Boris Leonidovich, how can that be.

The Silver Age is still close, the Golden Age is almost unattainable.

A bottle of dark glass is no longer suitable for travel to the Golden Age. You twirl it in your hands, twist it, rub it - silence. And did anyone live there ?!

In the Golden Age, you need to tune the odd-eyed radio for a long time, listen attentively to the distant thorn, crackle, tremor, as from another star.

Who is it with? About whom? To whom?

Looking at the Golden Age, you have to direct in its direction a long, like a watchtower, bending telescope. Until itching in your forehead, you peer at the combination of stars, which at first seems spontaneous, random, scattered.

... And then suddenly you discern full face, head position, hand.

There is a pistol in that hand.

Derzhavin involuntarily closed his eyes, expecting a shot, but the cannon still struck unexpectedly; he shuddered and immediately opened his eyes. Everyone around shouted: "Ataman ... their chieftain was killed!., The bastard ran!"

Shishkov rode in a cart along a wall made of frozen corpses. The wall did not end. Mentally, he wondered: this one, I forgot how, the street leading to the Neva - is it shorter? No, definitely shorter.

Davydov stood up in the stirrups, looking for Napoleon. He once met his eyes - on the day of the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit. But that was a completely different case, then Davydov could not even think that he could see him like that - being on horseback, with a saber at his fingertips, at the head of a detachment of thugs who received the order "Do not bother with the prisoners, my children."

Glinka was surprised at himself: in childhood, a bumblebee that suddenly flew in could scare him to a terrible heartbeat. Now, bypassing the enemy positions, he even spurred the horse without frenzy, regretted - despite the fact that Glinka was now being hit not even with rifle fire - it is not so easy to hit a galloping horseman from a rifle, but with buckshot.

For some time, Batyushkov thought that he had died and was buried. And they tear it apart in order to shift it more reliably, more conveniently. And they do not dig the earth, but as if they are demolishing it, pulling it together in sticky heavy layers. Finally, I guessed that he was lying under several corpses, heaped up. When Batyushkov was raised in his arms, he managed to see one of those who crushed him: he was lying on his side with a strange face - one half of his face was calm and even peaceful, the other was monstrously twisted.

Katenin looked at the back of his acquaintance - once a brilliant officer, now demoted to the rank and file. Katenin once wanted to kill him in a duel. Now he, not afraid of the shots, tall, a head taller than Katenin, ran forward with a gun at the ready. Katenin thought: "Maybe shoot him?" - but this thought was frivolous, angry, tired. Katenin spat and raised his own people to attack. Why lie there: it's cold, in the end ...

Vyazemsky listened attentively to the roar of the battle and thought with surprise: but there are people who, unlike me, hearing this roar, understand what and where they are shooting from, and for them all this is as clear as for me - the structure of the stanzas and sounding rhymes. But this is impossible: "... this roar is devoid of any harmony! .." - and listened again.

"Still, this peak is heavy ..." - Chaadaev decided distantly, as if not about himself, and at the same moment he clearly saw - although, it would seem, he should not have had time - that the person who had received a blow to the chest with a lance was clearly puzzled. The thought that flashed in his face could be read something like this: “... oh, what is it with me, why there is no more land under my feet, and why such a long flight? Such a pleasant flight, and only a little bit uncomfortable due to the acute heaviness in the chest ... ”Chaadaev's horse rushed past. The pica stood horizontally, like a tree about to blossom. It was March.

And Peter the Great, who alone is world history ?! And Catherine II, who put Russia on the threshold of Europe ?! And Alexander, who brought us to Paris ?! And (in all honesty) don't you find something significant in the current situation in Russia, something that will amaze a future historian? Do you think he will put us outside Europe? Although personally I am cordially attached to the sovereign, I am far from admiring everything that I see around me; as a writer - I am annoyed, as a person with prejudices - I am offended; but I swear on my honor that for nothing in the world I would not want to change my Fatherland or have another history, except for the history of our ancestors, as God gave it to us.

(A.S. Pushkin to P.Ya. Chaadaev)

Zakhar Prilepin is a universal soldier of modern Russian literature, gradually emerging from the confusion and disarray of the previous era. A writer, journalist, TV presenter, publicist, public figure, major of the DPR army - he is enough for everything, in any genre he acts as a master, and most importantly, he is one and complete in his artistic and life-creating diversity.

One and whole, because he believes that the thousand-year, as he puts it, “linear” history of our Fatherland continues, that its best - heroic, patriotic, spirit-uplifting - pages have not turned yellow, but breathe modernity and are able to teach us a lot that “ circle ", along which, as many believe, we have been walking in vain century after century, is the right circle, and sooner or later we will be followed by a" civilized Europe "exhausted by tolerance, that Russia will once again (after 1917) offer the world a new ideology -" mix ”of the leftist economy, expansive foreign policy, Orthodoxy and a sense of great responsibility before the space of Russia, which he considers meaningful and eternal.

One can agree with these messages, one can argue, but Zakhar Prilepin defends them in word and deed, a way of life, in which the front-line trench on the line of confrontation between the DPR army and the Armed Forces of Ukraine is organically supplemented and continued by the studio on REN-TV.

His "Platoon" should be read, because in it Prilepin, restraining his polemical temperament, diligently plays the role of a chronicler, gives the floor to his heroes - their poems, correspondence, memoirs, documents, testimonies of contemporaries and eyewitnesses. They are Lieutenant Gavrila Derzhavin, Admiral Alexander Shishkov, Lieutenant General Denis Davydov, Colonel Fedor Glinka, Staff Captain Konstantin Batyushkov, Major General Pavel Katenin, Cornet Pyotr Vyazemsky, Captain Peter Chaadaev, Major Vladimir Raevansky Alexander Best Marlinsky - and their combat path and literary searches, their reflections and assessments, their meandering and contradictory, now their straight and unwavering line of life speak for themselves. They speak strikingly clearly, convincingly and acutely. Let's listen:

Colonel Fyodor Glinka: “In Europe and in our country ... the opinion has spread that society is painful, is already on its deathbed, andYou must finish him off with an ice pick ... Others decided to heal wounds with mockery. But what is mockery? A needle smeared with bile: it pricks, annoys, but does not heal at all. Vinegar cannot soothe wounds; they need the oil of wisdom. The ancient prophets - God's ambassadors - did not play humor, did not laugh, but cried. A tear should tremble in the voice of the accuser, as in beautiful soulful music. This tear falls on the heart and revives a person. "

All officers and militias of Zakhar Prilepin's "Platoon" (with the exception of Lieutenant Gavrila Derzhavin and Staff Captain Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky) are heroes covered with "the glory of a wonderful campaign / And the eternal memory of the twelfth year" (Pushkin). And all, without exception, were literary men who skillfully held in their hand not only a pen, but also a sword, saber or gun. And everyone, without exception, realized that in the face of an external or internal military threat, one should not reflect, but defend the Fatherland with arms in hand and, to the best of talent, glorify its power and glory. This position cements the Prilepin Platoon, but does not deprive each fighter of individuality. And here we need to make one necessary remark. We knew or guessed that the heroes of "Platoon" fought even without Prilepin's book. But they knew fluently, vaguely, in the amount of a couple of lines in a school textbook or a couple of paragraphs in a scientific monograph. I myself, at one time engaged in Pushkin's "anti-Polish" odes, faced this stinginess, behind which stood, on the one hand, a feeling of awkwardness for the fact that in the 18th-19th centuries Russia was an empire with all its inherent qualities and manifestations, and with the other is the forced political correctness of Soviet criticism and literary criticism. It was understood that there was no need to once again, let alone in detail, talk about the tragic episodes in the history of our relations with Poland, France, Austria, Germany, Turkey, Sweden, all the more so - about the Caucasian wars. And our researchers unwittingly shared the fears of Gogol's Manilov: "... won't this be an enterprise or, to put it even more, so to speak, a negotiation, - so won't this negotiation be inconsistent with civil regulations and further types of Russia?" This shyness and "political correctness" ultimately played a cruel joke on us: generations grew up that represented the Europe of the century before last as a stronghold and peak of humanism, progress and civilization, the mountaineers were noble abreks, and the Russian Empire was a stupid aggressor, a strangler of freedoms and a "prison of nations." Even the tragic experience of the Second World War, the two Chechen campaigns and the current confrontation in Donbass did not teach everyone. Zakhar Prilepin seems to be the first who spoke in detail about the army, combat unit of the biographies of his heroes. Those who were proud of their participation in military campaigns, did not suffer from any syndromes about this, although they went to bayonet and cavalry attacks, stood under cannonballs and canshot, saw mountains of corpses of comrades-in-arms and enemies and made their combat experience a source of creativity. By the way, about the bayonet attacks of the 1812-1814 campaign, it is worth saying in more detail: “What could an infantry formation attacking a battery rely on? With a brisk step, turning into a run, the soldier covered the last 400 meters in 3.5-4 minutes. During this time, the gun could fire up to a dozen shots containing about a thousand buckshot bullets ... And here the infantry had to rely only on the moral factor. The rapid and orderly movement of the infantry mass forced the artillerymen to accelerate their actions and from this make almost inevitable mistakes ... Accuracy, and sometimes the speed of firing fell "(historian Ilya Ulanov). Is it any wonder that in the three-day massacre at Kulm, the Semyonovsky Guards Regiment, in which Pyotr Chaadaev served, lost 900 people killed and wounded out of 1800 payroll personnel. Prilepin's Platoon is a detailed story that courage does not contradict emotional responsiveness, fortitude does not contradict lyrical moods, loyalty to duty and patriotic impulse - freedom of thought and independence of judgment. People at the turn of the 18th-9th centuries knew how to combine one thing with the other, because over all this contradictory variety of impressions, emotional reactions, internal states, the main value for them was built on - the Fatherland in the root meaning of this word: the land of the fathers, the sacred space in which only is possible them, yours and our common self-determination, self-affirmation and self-reliance. Perhaps Admiral Alexander Shishkov realized this more fully and more accurately than others, so his pen wrote out lines of manifestos that were surprising in their power of influence on contemporaries, read in public places on behalf of Alexander I: “The adversary has entered our borders and continues to carry his weapons inside Russia, hoping to shake the peace of this Great Power by force and temptations ... With slyness in his heart and flattery in his lips, he carries chains and fetters eternal for us ... May he find his faithful sons at every step Russia, striking him with all means and forces, not listening to any of his guile and deception. May he meet in every nobleman of Parsky, in every spiritual Palitsyn, in every citizen of Minin ... The Holy Synod and all the clergy! You have always invoked grace on the head of Russia with your warm prayers; Russian people! Brave offspring of the brave Slavs! You have repeatedly crushed the teeth of lions and tigers rushing at you! Unite everything with the cross in your soul and arms in your hands, and no human forces will prevail over you. " Prilepin quotes Count Fyodor Rostopchin (Notes on 1812): “I was amazed at the impression that the reading of the manifesto made. Anger was revealed first; but when Shishkov brought to the point that the enemy was walking with flattery on his lips, not with chains in his hand, then indignation broke out and reached its climax: those present ... tore their hair off ... it was clear how tears of rage flowed down these faces ... "Platoon heroes - both professional military men and militias - thought of themselves as an integral part of this sacred space, which helped them suppress the fear of pain and death, find a high meaning in the war and transmit it to their contemporaries and descendants by means available to them. Sometimes they are quite unexpected. Prilepin cites an epitaph composed by Major General Pavel Katenin and engraved on his tombstone: “Pavel, the son of Alexander, from the Katenin family, honestly outlived his life, served the Fatherland with faith and truth, fought to the death in Kulma, but fate spared him. I didn’t do evil, and I didn’t do any good, than I wanted. ” Prilepin comments: "Sounds amazing." Agree. The vast material revealed to Prilepin cannot but evoke analogies and generalizations. And no matter how Zakhar restrains himself, he still draws some fundamental analogies for himself and makes generalizations. Thus, in the chapter dedicated to Admiral Alexander Shishkov (especially rich in texture and warmed by the warmth of the author's sympathy for the hero), Prilepin notes: “Shishkov's call to the top of state administration in 1812 and his quick removal soon after victory is in a sense our tradition. At first, in a time of military confrontation, frantic zealots and patriots of the Fatherland are suddenly needed. At the end of the war, it turns out every time that their views on life are too harsh and, in general, they need to behave a little more calmly; otherwise from your "to the gun" and "you are Russian!" a little muddied, sir. " I believe that even today, someone is "muddied" by the passage of this "retrograde" and "old dummy": “A person who considers himself a citizen of the world, that is, does not belong to any nation, does the same, no matter how he recognizes his father, mother, clan, or tribe. He, escaping from the race of people, classifies himself as one of the race of animals. What monster does not love his mother? But is the Fatherland not less than our mother? The aversion to this unnatural thought is so great that no matter what we put in a person bad morality and shamelessness; even if they imagined that there might be someone who really harbors hatred of his Fatherland in his depraved soul; however, he too would have been ashamed to admit it publicly and loudly. And how can you not be ashamed? All ages, all nations, earth and heaven would have cried out against him: hell alone would have applauded him. " As well as from the caustic judgments of the "father of Russian liberalism" Cornet Pyotr Vyazemsky: “You (Pushkin, it was written to him in 1825 - V.Ch.) planted flowers, not conforming to the climate ... The opposition - we have a fruitless and empty craft in all respects: it can be home handicrafts for themselves and in honor of their ancestors ... but it cannot be a craft. It is not valued by the people. Believe that they remember you from your poems, but they won't talk about your disgrace in a year and twice ... You serve something that we don't have ... " Continuing analogies and generalizations, Zakhar Prilepin reminds readers: “From the embittered European reaction to the suppression of the uprising in Poland, it became clear that the victories of 1812 and 1814 were not forgiven for Russia there. And those who lost to the Russians did not forgive, and those who owed their independence to Russia, too! Everyone was depressed that these barbarians began to play such an important role in Europe. Russia turned out to be too visible, too huge, she had the audacity to speak with everyone on an equal footing and even from a position of strength. What does she think of herself? " Today it is obvious that we have not been forgiven for the 1945 Victory either. And, alas, not only in Europe, but also in the relatively recently breakaway “near abroad”. Another generalization of Prilepin concerns more than two centuries of the ongoing litigation of the "liberals" with the "patriots" and "statists". Here is a remarkable and instructive chapter about the cornet Pyotr Vyazemsky, who began his long career as a "leader of a liberal gang" and ended as a staunch patriot. In 1832 he wrote to Pushkin about his poem "Slanderers of Russia":

“I am so tired of these geographic fanfare of ours: from Perm to Taurida and so on. What good is there, what is there to be happy about and what to boast about, that we are lying in a stretch, that we have five thousand miles from thought to thought, that physical Russia is Fedor, and moral Russia is a fool ?! "

And in 1849 he composes "Steppe":

Versts and space are sinking

In your infinity.

Sad! But you are sad

Do not defame and do not speak evil:

Warmed in her soul

Love glimmers holy.

The steppes are bare, dumb,

All the same, you are both a song and an honor!

All of you are mother Russia,

Whatever it is.

It is his path that allows Prilepin to draw an “eternal and unchanging” portrait of a domestic liberal: “Vyazemsky, as a liberal, formed, in fact, from the same components that in the next century will go to the construction of liberal convictions: the inevitable belief that Russia is part of Europe that outside of it we were barbarians and barbarians will remain; incessant sarcasm; chronic skepticism about national signs: well, what do you care about your icy unbearable winter? Have you seen your cockroaches? with a terrible mustache? an all-time exhortation on the topic: stop rattling swords, think better about freedom; and to top it off, like a vignette, polonophilia. "

And these are far from all the parallels and analogies that Prilepin himself draws or we draw when reading his historical and literary research.

Zakhar Prilepin's Platoon is a very timely book. Not because he skillfully selected the heroes and material, but because he allowed the heroes and the material to speak out without cuts and exceptions.

Russia has no past. She's all real. In every sense of the word.

Interview with Zakhar Prilepin, which he gave to our magazine, read

Foreword
Distinctive silhouettes

Half a century ago, they were close.

Finally, Pushkin.

Pushkin on horseback, Pushkin cannot be caught up.

A flask of dark glass, thank you.

But in the end, much remained as if unclear, unclear.

Highlanders from the Caucasus mountain are dangerous people. Mikhail Yuryevich, you would have ducked. Lev Nikolaevich will be hit at an hour.

Sometimes the lieutenants fought with the Turks, but again no one understood why, why, for what purpose. What, after all, did they want from the Turks? Probably the Turks were the first to start.

Or, say, the Finns - what did they want from the Finns, these lieutenants? Or from the Swedes?

Now, in our days, you squeeze one hand, the other - you do not feel anything: even from Lev Nikolaevich you cannot hear greetings - where is there to reach Alexander Sergeevich or Gavrila Romanovich?

The Silver Age is still close, the Golden Age is almost unattainable.

A bottle of dark glass is no longer suitable for travel to the Golden Age. You twirl it in your hands, twist it, rub it - silence. And did anyone live there ?!

In the Golden Age, you need to tune the odd-eyed radio for a long time, listen attentively to the distant thorn, crackle, tremor, as from another star.

Who is it with? About whom? To whom?

... And then suddenly you discern full face, head position, hand.

There is a pistol in that hand.

Raevsky's gunners rolled out the gun onto the road, he ran into a nearby forest to help roll out the second, and suddenly saw in the distance, on the same road, a whole crowd of enemies. They saw him too. It was necessary to understand: whether to drag the second weapon, or return to the first. Several horsemen were visible among the enemies. Will they be in time, no? "Charge!" - he shouted, looking back to his guys. Frightened by the cry, a bird flew up from the branch. Raevsky ran to the gun, cursing and almost falling. There was some amazing and strange feeling that this bird was his voice ... and now his voice flew away. How will he give the next command?

Making his way through the thickets, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky caught himself on the fact that once again he knew exactly where the shot was about to sound, after how many steps he would reach the last of the retreating and stab him with a bayonet blow, and what else was sitting comfortably on the left, on a tree shooter. Now the shooter will aim at Bestuzhev ... and miss. "And then I will shoot, and I will hit", - Bestuzhev told himself not with lightning-fast sensation, but in separate, calm words. Aim, fired, hit.

... And Pushkin, of course. Pushkin on horseback. Pushkin cannot be caught up.

We had a secret feeling that all these people never existed: because who can live like this - from war to war, from duel to duel.

No, it could not be so, all these are invented characters of some ancient, blind, semi-mythical writer of poems: can you really believe in them?

Nobody does that now; at least - from among the writers.

Nevertheless, they lived - real, bleeding, sick, suffering, frightened of wounds, captivity, death.

Their world was not black and white, faded, crumbling. No, he also had colors and paints.

Pushkin was fair-skinned, with more and more brown hair over the years. While he was dark, he laughed much more contagiously. The more channels, the less he smiled.

Vyazemsky was not looking for a career, but it overtook him; fools accused him of being bought by the sovereign, that is why they are fools - there was hardly a person in Russia who cared so little about all this fuss.

Chaadaev, it seems, had an affair with a prostitute in Poland: he left with a shrug. It seemed ridiculous and senseless - something like duels, which, however, he was not afraid of, as well as death in general. Travel became boring very soon; wine - even more so. On common thought, in the end they remained: he himself, the Motherland, God. Shuffle these cards, just shuffle these cards.

Raevsky changed his character when he left the youthful habit of protruding his jaw, which made him ugly. But he stopped sticking out - and something went out in his eyes. His eldest son still remembered his father with such a face, as if he scared someone or played with someone, and the younger ones no longer.

Bestuzhev was a caress, his mother adored him, she could press him to her and stroke his head, he liked it. So affectionate that he shouldn't have fought at all. But Bestuzhev had one anomaly: he was devoid of a sense of fear. What others were overcoming, he passed through. Then, hurting everyone in a row, Bestuzhev biting his hand from stomach pains and growling: to hell with all this, to hell, - it’s not scary at all, but it hurts terribly in the stomach.

For Katenin it turned out like this: he thought much more about culture, about theater, about poetry than about himself. But the world did not reciprocate to him so much that no matter what he said, it always turned out that about himself, about his irritation. Many did not like this, but not Pushkin. Pushkin understood everything about Katenin. A person was never born who could appreciate Katenin to the same extent as Pushkin.

Batyushkov was afraid to sleep and when he woke up, not yet opening his eyes, he checked his state of mind, naming the objects in the room and remembering their location. All the time I forgot one candlestick, in the very corner, completely unnecessary there.

Glinka seriously believed that his dreams are as complete as reality. No, from some day they became even more complete. He wrote more about them than about the prison.

Davydov was an unusually sane person - one of the most sane and calm people in Russian literature. Denis Vasilyevich rarely wrote poetry because of his mental health: why? Well, there will be one more rhyme - I wrote two the year before last, where there are so many ... Now to attack, horseback, unexpected - that would be fun.

To Shishkov, killing seemed monstrous and impossible; much better to have some candy, or, for example, raisins. But Fatherland? Fatherland seemed to him alive to such an extent that he wanted to give him hot milk, wrap him up, hide him. The feeling for his mother, whom he had so rarely seen and wanted to see so much, was superimposed on a patriotic feeling.

And what about Derzhavin? Derzhavin treated himself well, because he knew his worth. To die in war was, from his point of view, an unreasonable waste of human material.

At some point - probably it was still in the Preobrazhensky regiment - he was surprised to notice that all the people around him were dumber than him. Not that they are generally stupid, but their motivations and actions are most often predictable. This surprised him, but not very much: he quickly got used to it.

He was not ambitious. I just knew I was worthy of a lot.

Derzhavin was not one of those who sincerely believe that he is talking to the Gods. He was the first in the opposite sense: to realize the inconceivable vastness of the distance to God. However, he did not leave hope to drive this distance into a line.

He also turned out to be one of the first in our poetry who knew exactly the weight, the price of Russian words and, it seems, even their color. These were not just words with their meanings - there was an invisible power in their sound, their unexpected combinations struck sparks. Derzhavin built a speech and conducted it, forcing the words entrusted to him to rumble, scream, squeak, march, sing in chorus, wave banners.

In essence, Derzhavin was not a military man, but he understood the meaning of the war at the level of not only political, but also musical.

… Over the years, he also became tight-fisted, loved to talk about himself, his merits. So I would have listened, as they praised him, and I would have listened.

All of them, all of them were just people. You can take courage and invite them to visit.

Derzhavin stomps in the hallway, knocking down the snow. Shishkov drove up to the next block and decided to walk from there on foot. Davydov sees champagne and feels great. Glinka is glad to everyone. Batyushkov already wants to leave. Katenin won't come at all while Vyazemsky is here. Vyazemsky will never decide what is more in him: irritation at Davydov or love for this impossible, light, fearless person. Chaadaev said he was sick. Raevsky is far away, but he sent a detailed letter. Bestuzhev is even further, but also writes.

Finally, Pushkin.

Pushkin will appear soon.

“God is with us, with us; honor all rossa "
Lieutenant Gavrila Derzhavin

Oh ross! O generous clan!
O rock-hard chest!
O giant, obedient to the king!
When and where do you reach
Couldn't you be worthy of glory?
Your labors are fun for you;
Your crowns are all around the glitter of thunder;
Is there a fight in the fields - you darken the starry vault,
Is there a battle in the seas - you foaming the abyss, -
Everywhere you are the fear of your enemies.
Like water, from the mountains in spring to the valley
Falling down, foaming, roaring,
Waves, ice shake the dam,
To the strongholds of the Ross are so flowing.
Nothing educates them in the way;
Whether the regiment meets pale deaths,
Or hell rattles its mouth to them, -
They walk - as thunder is hidden in the clouds,
How the silent holmas are moved;
There is a groan beneath them, smoke behind them.

The poems are Derzhavin's.

Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin - ten years as a soldier, and four more years as an officer. Saying such toasts, he understood who he was talking about, and he could drink for himself, having finished speaking.

Derzhavin - as well as Denis Davydov and, according to family legends, Konstantin Batyushkov, as well as Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov - came from a Tatar family.

The phrase "Rub a Russian - you will find a Tatar" has nothing to do with common people. Slavic glade women, who were taken to the Horde, gave birth to Tatar chicks. Rather, the Horde peoples should be rubbed for the detection of Slavic blood. “Rub a Tatar - you will find a Russian” - this is how this phrase may sound too.

And a leisurely proposal to rub a Russian in order to find a Tatar was born, most likely, in connection with the Russification of numerous noble Horde families who joined the Russian aristocracy. That is, in fact, there is nothing humiliating for a Russian person in this proverb, because its meaning is approximately the following: if you rub another Russian nobleman, you will find a Tatar who once came to serve the Russian Tsar. The Yusupovs, Sheremetevs, Rostopchins are all descendants of the Murzas.

However, no matter how much you look at the portraits of Derzhavin, nothing Tatar is found there. Apparently, it was erased over the centuries of service.

Meanwhile, he himself often called himself "Murza". From his poems:

I sang, I sing and I will sing them
And in jokes I will proclaim the truth;
Tatar songs from under the bus,
As a ray, I will inform the posterity.

What Blok would later scare (the Scythian and Asiatic in the Russian character), Derzhavin still had in an ironic context. But these jokes had genealogical reasons.

His old ancestor - Murza Brahim - was actually baptized by Prince Vasily II the Dark. In baptism, Brahim became Elijah, receiving estates near Vladimir, Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod. Different surnames came from the sons of Brahim, including the Narbekovs. One of the Narbekovs had a son named Derzhava. Derzhavins went from him.

“The lands, however, were split between the heirs,” writes Vladislav Khodasevich in the book “Derzhavin”, “were sold, laid up, and already Roman Nikolaevich Derzhavin, who was born in 1706, got only a few scattered scraps”.

Born on July 3, 1743, Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin was named after the Archangel Gabriel, celebrated on July 13. Place of birth: Kazan district, the village of either Karmachi or Sokura; he himself considered, so as not to waste time on trifles, his hometown - Kazan. Murza!

Derzhavin writes about himself: "In infancy he was very small, weak and dry, so that, according to the unenlightenment and folk custom of that time in that region, he had to be baked in bread." (due to the fact that he lived his life as a healthy, three-core man, apparently, they still baked it: I would like to look at this blinking flour product.)

Throughout his childhood, he followed his father through the military garrisons (Yaransk, Vyatka, Stavropol-on-Volga, Orenburg); since then, serving life did not frighten him. But we will not say that he was very eager for her.

The poet's father retired as a lieutenant colonel, and died a year later. The mother, Fyokla Andreevna (also the daughter of a military man), has three children left in her arms, eleven-year-old Gavrila is the eldest.

Lived poorly; 15 rubles of the debt left after the death of his father was completely impossible to pay at first; a lot of lawsuits with greedy and peeping neighbors. Serfs had a family of ten souls.

Gavrila studied at the Kazan gymnasium. In many subjects (except mathematics) he was one of the best students; the university newspaper wrote about him. There also took place a discouraging acquaintance with the Russian piety, which conquered the ear and the mind: the big-headed Lomonosov (“Bor and dol is rustling with streams: /“ Victory, Russian victory! ”/ But the enemy that left the sword / Is afraid of his own trace”), followed by the thoroughbred Sumarokov ("A fiery sea has opened up, / The earth trembles and the firmament groans, / In the shelves of sratsin's fear and grief, / Seething rage, execution and death. our poetry began.

The poetic Russian word (we are talking, of course, about secular poetry) arose not as a lyrical murmur, but as a victorious one - in honor of military, offensive, victorious glory - fireworks.

From the gymnasium in 1762, at the age of eighteen, Derzhavin was transferred to the Preobrazhensky regiment, in St. Petersburg, as a private. He served with the recruits recruited from the serfs, and lived, out of poverty, in the same barracks with the soldiers (three married and two single, considers it important to mention Derzhavin in his autobiography).

Khodasevich: “He was dressed in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment. It was a short, dark green uniform of the Holstein pattern with gold tabs; a yellow jacket was visible from under the uniform; pants are also yellow; on the head - a powdered wig with a thick braid bent upwards; over the ears protruded bouclies, glued together with thick greasy lipstick. "

Derzhavin himself: "The strange outfit seemed very wonderful, so that he drew the eyes of the stupid."

Further, out of false modesty, he writes about himself in the third person: “... the wingman was ordered to teach rifle techniques and frunt service ... at night, when everyone had settled down, he read books, what happened where to get it, German and Russian, and dirtied poetry without any rules, which, however, no matter how much he hid, he could not hide from his companions (meaning: fellow soldiers. – Z.P.), and even more from their wives; that's why they started asking him to write letters to their relatives in the villages. "

(Morals in the Russian army have not changed, as we can see, for centuries.)

Respect for Derzhavin among the soldiers was so high that when a servant of his fellow soldier stole Derzhavin's money, the Transfiguration "rushed along all the roads and soon caught the thief, who managed to spend a little money to buy a wagon and horses."

But only in a soldier's environment. The officers could not take him for a match.

By that time, there was a funny case: while fulfilling the post of messenger, an ordinary Transfiguration Derzhavin went to see his colleague, prince and poet Fyodor Kozlovsky, whom at that time he put even higher than Trediakovsky and Lomonosov. Kozlovsky was just reading his tragedy aloud to the writer Vasily Maikov. Naturally, Derzhavin stopped at the door to listen to which Kozlovsky, frowning in annoyance, said: "Brother, go ahead, you still don't understand anything!"

Derzhavin did not forget this incident and later, having entered glory, remembered Maikov; he was embarrassed. I would also remind Kozlovsky - but he died in the Chesme battle during another Russian - Turkish one.

On June 28, 1762, Emperor Peter III was deposed, and Empress Catherine II ascended the throne.

In May 1763 Derzhavin received the first rank: corporal.

He goes on vacation to Kazan, where he starts an affair with one easy-going girl - by the way, the mistress of the former director of the Kazan gymnasium, where Derzhavin studied. The director lived in the same apartment with his wife and mistress; and here is the twenty-year-old Gavrila! Decameron in Kazan.

The girl was so charming that Derzhavin remembered her all his life, but, as he himself admits, "... while he had to go to Shatsk on the orders of his mother ... then these short-term tricks ended there: for I have never seen this object of mine again." ...

On the way, another adventure happened: the axle of the cart broke, “he ordered it to be altered”, went for a walk and, “crossing a small bush, I suddenly saw a herd of wild ... boars with small pigs. A hardened, black-haired hog, seeing him, immediately separated from the herd. His eyes shone like burning coals, the bristles on his mane stood on end, and white foam flowed out of his mouth in a stream. "

The wild boar jumped off and knocked Derzhavin off his feet: such a beast can easily kill a person. Derzhavin managed to jump up, luckily he had a gun with him, and he fired, preventing the second attack. He shot with a small duck shot, but hit him in the heart.

“Then he himself,” writes Derzhavin, “feeling weak, fell down and looked at his left leg, saw the calf, almost completely torn off from the tibia, and the blood flowing in a stream.”

“In this case, it is impossible not to recognize the miraculous protection of God,” sums up Derzhavin and lists why he thinks so: the first wound inflicted by the boar was not so terrible - therefore he was able to get up, and the gun fired, and hit right in the heart.

Returning to St. Petersburg, he moved to the officers' barracks for junior commanders; in 1767 receives a sergeant.

The traditional officer's life begins: riot, girls, epigrams, revelry, arena, shooting ... And poetry - Derzhavin writes a lot of poetry; including, as he himself admits, "obscene". He does not drink wine at all, but gradually begins to play cards.

Derzhavin in these years is obsessed with the desire to get into some kind of war. He knows that he can only climb the hierarchical ladder by performing heroic deeds.

In 1768, large-scale hostilities began in Poland: the Confederates opposed the king, supported by Russia. From the present time, it will probably seem to many that Russia tormented innocent Poland, but the situation is exactly the opposite: Empress Catherine pacified the local magnates and the Zaporozhye Cossacks who served them, who fought against the "legitimate government." That is, in fact, Russia acted as the savior of the Polish aristocracy and the Jewish population of this country - about 30 thousand Jews died during the pogroms. It is significant that France sent its troops to help the Confederates. Austria and Prussia also did not stand aside. As a result, in 1772, at the initiative of Prussia, the partition of Poland took place. Russia, as much as she could, resisted the partition, but since there was no longer a chance to save Poland, the Empress went for it with the simplest goal: to weaken the influence of France in this region. The Polish king and the Sejm ratified the treaty.

“The Preobrazhensky regiment did not take part in the wars,” writes biographer Arseny Zamostyanov. "Derzhavin could have gone there as a volunteer, but the damned lack of money did not allow him to set foot on this path."

The “lack of money” was still relative, because at the same time, according to Derzhavin's notes, his mother instructed him to buy “a small village of 30 souls,” - his mother, apparently, was resourceful, albeit illiterate.

Therefore - cards. There was no other option to get rich quickly.

Or go broke.

Here begins the adventurous biography of Derzhavin.

The money given to him by his mother to buy the village, he immediately lost. For once, the family decided to get on their feet more firmly - and here it is. Go and shoot a duck shot in your heart with a gun.

Derzhavin borrows money from a friend and buys a village. But immediately both this village and the mother's estate are pledged in the name of the one who lent the money.

Now we need to get out of the new situation. Otherwise, one day you will have to say: "Mother, I sold all of us, we are ruined."

Derzhavin meets a gang of cheaters. Having found a common language with them, he learns from them all the cheating wisdom: selection and forgery of cards, drawing newcomers into the game and other, as he himself put it, "gambling fraud."

New ones are added to these problems: the family of the parish deacon is suing Derzhavin for allegedly raping their daughter. For a week Gavrila sits behind bars, but there is no evidence, and the girl herself refuses to testify against him. Derzhavin was released, but he was also reported to the regimental office.

Next, he quarrels with a swindler who was engaged in forging bills. He lures Derzhavin to visit in order to beat or kill, for which he keeps three strangers behind a screen. Derzhavin begins to swear with this swindler; in the end, a signal is given to the people behind the screen, so that they enter into business, but suddenly one of the strangers says to the owner:

- You know, Derzhavin is right, but you are not. and if any of you touches him, I will stand up for him and break your arms and legs.

An unexpected savior is Lieutenant Pyotr Gasvitsky.

The next time Gasvitsky was rescued by Derzhavin: seeing that the sharpshooters beat the lieutenant at billiards using fake balls, he briefly whispered to him about the deception and thereby saved him from a huge loss.

Derzhavin himself in those years did not hesitate to deceive people, and he did not have much choice: using cheating methods, he gradually won back all his debts. As a result, he bought out both the “village” and the maternal estate from the mortgage, and, finally, was going to return to St. Petersburg, away from Moscow's hot spots.

On the road I borrowed 50 rubles from a friend of my mother's: clean, you can start a new life.

I met a friend in gambling in Tver - and I wasted those 50 rubles. I borrowed another 50 from another friend, endured it until Novgorod, but there I sat down at the gambling table again - and again lost to dust. This is how God punished the negligent: how long can I help you, Gavrila Romanovich — with a wild boar, with a sexton's daughter, with swindlers and cheats of all stripes ... Maybe you will settle down?

It would be wild to assume that something worthwhile can come out of this young man.

On the way to St. Petersburg, a plague epidemic began. Derzhavin is slowed down and reported: he will have to sit in quarantine for two weeks. And he has a fortune - one ruble-cross, which he took from his mother for good luck. You can die of hunger during this time. Derzhavin begs to let him go. They tell him: burn your things, then let’s let them go.

There is nothing to do: he burns the chest with all his poems and drawings: the fruits of many years of labor! Horror, how insulting.

... In St. Petersburg, I had to start all over again: I borrowed 80 rubles, won 200 from one unlucky man at once, and repaid my debts.

“In 1771,” Derzhavin tells about himself, “he was transferred to the 16th company, in which he sent the sergeant-major in its very accuracy and serviceability; so when the camp near Krasniy Kabachk was appointed in that summer, Captain Vasily Vasilyevich Korsakov, who had never served in the army and was not in the least knowledgeable of military movements, placed all his trust in the sergeant major. "

Derzhavin admits that at that time he himself was not as strong in military sciences as he would like, therefore he studied with old soldiers transferred to the guard from army regiments - and soon showed himself as an exemplary junior commander: “I deserve it,” he modestly reports Derzhavin, - respect from all the officers and non-commissioned officers who chose him as the master ... ".

In 1772 Derzhavin received an ensign; in Poland the war was already over, but the Turkish campaign was underway. Derzhavin wondered how he could get under the command of Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev, but he had to fight not in distant lands, but near his birthplace.

In November 1772, a fugitive soldier of Cossack origin and notorious adventurer Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev in Yaitsky town told the Cossack Denis Pyanov that he was Emperor Peter III who had miraculously escaped. Pyanov did not keep a secret; rumors spread.

Zakhar Prilepin

Officers and militias of Russian literature

Foreword

Distinctive silhouettes

Half a century ago, they were close.

Finally, Pushkin.

Pushkin on horseback, Pushkin cannot be caught up.

A flask of dark glass, thank you.

But in the end, much remained as if unclear, unclear.

Highlanders from the Caucasus mountain are dangerous people. Mikhail Yuryevich, you would have ducked. Lev Nikolaevich will be hit at an hour.

Sometimes the lieutenants fought with the Turks, but again no one understood why, why, for what purpose. What, after all, did they want from the Turks? Probably the Turks were the first to start.

Or, say, the Finns - what did they want from the Finns, these lieutenants? Or from the Swedes?

Now, in our days, you squeeze one hand, the other - you do not feel anything: even from Lev Nikolaevich you cannot hear greetings - where is there to reach Alexander Sergeevich or Gavrila Romanovich?

Platoon officers and militias read Russian literature. Zakhar prilepin officers and militias of Russian literature

Foreword Distinctive silhouettes

“God is with us, with us; honor all rossa " Lieutenant Gavrila Derzhavin

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Foreword
Distinctive silhouettes

“God is with us, with us; honor all rossa "
Lieutenant Gavrila Derzhavin