2023-09-13 16:02:48
– Vladislav, tell us about the current state of the Union of Writers with “Donetsk registration”. How many people are in it, how active they are, how many of the members of the republican joint venture managed to enter the “mainland” Russian unions.
– There are currently about one hundred people in our Writers’ Union. A significant part of them live in “mainland Russia” and joined as a sign of support when the republic was unrecognized. It was a truly friendly shoulder offered to us at the most difficult moment, and I am very grateful to these writers. Even if an organization like the DPR Joint Venture ceases to exist, they will still remain our friends.
Activity? Well, she’s traditional. About 10-15 percent work for the benefit of the organization, another 20-30 percent are ready to take part in various kinds of events if they are called. Unfortunately, many Donbass writers who joined us withdrew from any work. Apparently, they thought that they were going to the joint venture for various kinds of benefits, but the reality turned out to be harsher – benefits need to be created, not received.
We have a little over twenty people in the Russian Writers’ Union. Now it is difficult to make an accurate assessment, since some left due to shelling, some for work and wages, and some serve in military units.
– Who, then, is involved in the registration of the Donetsk Republican Writers’ Organization of the Writers’ Union of the Russian Federation, the creation of which was announced relatively recently?
– It’s a small group, but in fact, Fyodor Berezin (the head of the DPR Joint Venture – I.V.) and I are handling the documents. We are currently at the stage of forming a package of documents.
– How do you manage to function under the government’s ban on public events? And if writing is an intimate activity, are the Union and a team of like-minded people even necessary?
– Writing is an intimate activity. But promoting a writer’s creative product is a social work that is best done together. Yes, now almost all the activity of the writers’ organization has moved to the Internet. Some of our people find the opportunity to leave the zone close to the fighting and take part in various conferences, forums, and seminars in other regions of the Federation. We are now willingly invited.
– How many books have you written since 2014? Are there any “Donetsk motifs”? How did it happen that Donbass turned out to be strong primarily in science fiction and fantasy authors?
– Over the years, I have written seven full-length books. Four of them are continuations of the novel Improvisation, published in 2014 in Moscow. The Heart of a Minstrel.” One is the classic “dark fantasy” novel “The Winged”.
And two books are precisely connected with Donetsk and the events of the “Russian Spring”, although they can also be classified as science fiction. True, some believe that this is magical realism, but these are details. The novel “The Guardian Magician” was published at the end of last year in Simferopol and was received with interest by the readership. In any case, I was informed that an additional edition was being prepared. The book describes the war between Donbass and Ukraine, but on a magical plane. It takes place in parallel with conventional military operations. Guardian magicians of Donetsk protect the city from attacks by Ukrainian occultists. The second book in this series, “The Magician—Keeper of the Word,” was written by me in collaboration with Vyacheslav Terkulov, Doctor of Philology, member of the DPR and the Russian SP. Here the action already covers the period of time shortly before the SVO and the time of the SVO itself. It is planned, no one except the authors and editors has seen it yet.
Why did science fiction writers take a leading position in the joint venture? We are probably the most passionate… Our poets are also good – active, patriotic, but they don’t want to deal with organizational issues. And we combine.
– The area of the Donetsk store “Izumrud”, the area of the former regional state administration and the “Covered Market” more often than other places are included in reports of attacks on the center of the mining metropolis. And right in one of the hottest spots was the building where the DPR Joint Venture was located.
— There was one “arrival” directly in the area where the DPR joint venture is located. Then they hit “Tochka-U”. Since March 14, 2022, we have no glass in the windows, and the walls, doors and furniture are damaged by shrapnel. At first, the windows were covered with polyethylene, but there were two more shellings – somewhat to the side, but with a powerful air wave from the explosions. The polyethylene was torn and the windows had to be covered with plywood. Now it’s dark here too.
– Do the leaders of Russian writing structures know about these troubles? For example, Nikolai Ivanov, head of the RF SP, and Sergei Shargunov, leader of ASPIR, were informed?
– The leadership of the Russian joint venture knows about this. We were provided with financial assistance, which we are in no hurry to spend on repairs. Let the enemy army move away from Donetsk first. For the same reason, we are not getting new windows installed: the city leadership is aware of our problems, measuring specialists have done their work, but so far we are in no hurry to install new glass. So that you don’t have to collect them in the form of fragments.
Photo: Ivan Volosyuk
– Now it’s fashionable to say how bad it was under Ukraine and how good it was under the DPR. But Lugansk residents told me that in their city during the National Union of Writers of Ukraine the situation was deadlock: in the branch of the NSPU in a completely Russian-speaking region, writers writing in Russian were ignored. Was there a similar picture in Donetsk?
– I can confirm with personal example. In 2006, I was denied admission to the Ukrainian joint venture. Moreover, at the level of the regional organization, I went through all the necessary formalities, including a strict selection committee. The documents were returned from Kyiv, citing the fact that science fiction is a frivolous, light genre. But in words they told me to convey that if at least one book out of the five that I had written and published in St. Petersburg at that time had been in Ukrainian, there would have been no problems. And I’m not alone.
– Were you present at the historic removal of signs from the former NSPU in Donetsk? The Ukrainians then accused the DPR joint venture of “seizing the premises”?
– I was not present when the signs were removed, alas… Fyodor Berezin called me in the evening and told me how it all happened. From the Ukrainian point of view, perhaps it was a seizure, but I believe that everything was done according to the law. The premises at 30A Pushkin Boulevard are municipally owned by the Union of Writers – both Ukraine, the DPR, and the newly created Russia – and are occupied under a free lease agreement with the city administration. In the fall of 2014, the Donetsk branch of the NSPU did not actually function. Its chairman Pavel Kushch left the city and settled in Kyiv in the summer. Before entering the premises and removing the Ukrainian signs, we received an official document from the leadership of the republic stating that the premises were becoming the property of the newly created joint venture of the DPR. And in the shortest possible time we entered into an agreement with the city administration on rent and with public utilities on payment for their services. It seems to me that during raider takeovers everything happens a little differently.
– Assess the situation of the appearance in Russia of a large number of poets “about the Northern Military District”, who perform in military uniform or otherwise inform the public that they speak “on behalf of” the people of Donbass. How often are members of the DPR Joint Venture invited to travel around the Russian Federation? Is enough attention paid to indigenous Donetsk authors at this stage?
– This is an interesting phenomenon. At the beginning of last year it annoyed me, and even strongly. One got the impression that the poets of Donbass were left behind. It’s a hot topic. But now the situation has returned to normal. A number of collections have been published in which our authors are represented quite widely. Therefore, it would be incorrect to say now that we are being “overwritten.” I repeat, now we are called regularly, but in most cases we are forced to refuse invitations. For objective reasons: for example, my work as a deputy of the People’s Council of the DPR took up all my time, leaving practically no loopholes for touring. Some cannot go on long business trips for health reasons, some of the poets serve in the army and cannot leave their unit.
But we receive invitations to publish our poetry and prose from various parts of Russia. And not only Russia. Quite recently, a joint collection of poets from Donbass and Karaganda, which is Kazakhstan, was prepared. It is called “Across the Donetsk steppe from the Karaganda steppe,” and its main theme can be called: Russians, help the Russians.
– Tell us about the situation when they are trying to make money from Donetsk prose writers and poets. I mean proposals for paid publications in “patriotic” collections.
– Let’s just say that the figures who are starting collections of patriotic poetry paid for by their participants are trying to make money on everyone, not just the Donetsk people. They just have a great sense of the market situation and quickly navigate the business world. We regularly received invitations to publish our poetry or prose for a certain (and quite considerable) fee last year and at the beginning of this year. I had to use fairly tough administrative methods to restrain my colleagues from trying to squander their money. Now businessmen have subsided from literature. Apparently, they could not stand the competition with normal collections, which are completely free for authors and are distributed to libraries as humanitarian aid.
Of course, from time to time they tell me that one of our poets again received a letter “we will publish you for 900 rubles per page,” but this is already becoming a rarity, which is good to laugh at among friends and like-minded people.
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