The future is not enough
In January 1959, a little over a year before his death, Boris Pasternak wrote the poem “Winter Holidays”. It, among other poetic texts, was forwarded by him abroad – in his homeland Boris Leonidovich was hounded for the novel “Doctor Zhivago” and was not published.
The future is not enough.
Old, new is not enough.
It is necessary that the Christmas tree
Eternity has become the middle of the room.
For the mistress to stick
A scattering of stars in her dress
To everyone for the holidays
Sisters and brothers arrived …
In this poem, Pasternak expressed his longing for Christmas with extraordinary force, opposing the Christmas tree to the state-owned Soviet Father Frost and “The Christmas tree in Sokolniki.” For the poet, it was wildness that earlier the main, albeit invisible, guest of the holiday was the born Christ, and after 1917 – Lenin, playing hide and seek with the children. (Recall that the leader of the world proletariat was childless, at least officially – an important detail).
Unlike Pasternak, Mikhail Zoshchenko, the classic of humorous literature, was quite happy with replacing the Christmas celebrations with the New Year. In 1939, several years before he fell out of favor himself, Zoshchenko portrayed the infinitely kind Ilyich in Tales of Lenin. There, the leader buys a toy for an unfamiliar boy and generally behaves like Kuprin’s “Miraculous Doctor”. With the difference that Doctor Pirogov dragged a dying girl and her hungry relatives away from the brink of the abyss, and Lenin takes care of an ordinary woman who came to Smolny to ask for a pension.
Zoshchenko, the thief of Christmas
Mikhail Zoshchenko is an amazing writer. His “Lelya and Minka” can be recommended for family reading as an example of absolute classics. At the same time, he could not help revealing his childhood traumas associated with the tree in the story of the same name. Where the young hero did not get sweets because of the lanky older sister eating the lozenges from the tall branches of the tree. That resulted in the collapse of the main attribute of the celebration, damage to gifts and a general scandal, because of which the guilty children were put to bed.
This resentment in Zoshchenko’s mind grew and grew stronger, and now he is already writing “The Last Christmas” – a brilliant, but obviously God-fighting text about train passengers stuck at a trifling station:
– Among the passengers there was still a very neat-looking old man in a fur coat and a high fur hat. At first, the old man, good-naturedly chuckling, consoled the passengers, affectionately looking into their eyes, then he began to sing along in a quiet goat tenor voice: “Your Christmas, Christ our God.”
This “devout-looking” grandpa offered to get some food to celebrate the birth of the Infant God – even if on the train:
– Orthodox Christians, we are, of course, used to spending this solemn day among our friends and acquaintances. We are accustomed to watching our little children jumping in indescribable delight around the Christmas tree … We like, dear sirs, for human weakness, to eat on this day and ham with green peas, and a circle or two of sausage, and a slice of goose, and a glass of something something of this …
Ugh! said the fishmonger, looking at the old man with disgust. The passengers moved in their chairs.
Yes, dear sirs, the old man continued in the thinnest voice, we are used to spending this day in celebration, but if not, then you will not go against God … They say there is a church nearby … I will go there … I will go, dear sirs, shed a tear and put a candle …
The old man collected money from his fellows in misfortune for a “ham” and, defiantly not taking a penny for candles, dumped it with the resulting amount. Because of what Christmas has finally become the last for the writer.
On such incidents Zoshchenko most often built atheistic propaganda. To “destroy” Easter, he depicted a deacon in a naturalistic way, accidentally stepping on a cake and scraping it off his boot with a splinter. (“Easter occasion”). It would seem a trifle, but now the hero of the work says: “Now I am eating such cakes, unchastened. The taste is the same, but much less troubles. “
Such minor troubles are completely insignificant outside the attitude of Zoshchenko, who suffered from verminophobia (pathological fear of microbes as sources of illness and death) and who saw salvation for people in the development of medicine, thanks to which people can supposedly gain eternal life.
All these fears and “old scores” with God made Zoshchenko a champion of the “new world”, while Pasternak stood for the “old” (or rather, for the eternal). But, be that as it may, the antipode of Zoshchenko was not Pasternak, but another classic of the humorous genre – Arkady Averchenko.
How black thoughts will come to you …
Recipe for depression from “Mozart and Salieri” by Pushkin (How black thoughts will come to you / Uncork a bottle of champagne / Or re-read “The Marriage of Figaro”) because of the mention of sparkling wine, they seem New Year’s, and I will add them – “reread the best at the same time Arkady Averchenko “.
This will be appropriate in moments of joy and sadness. Of course, one should not begin acquaintance with this writer with the partly propagandist of Dozens of Knives in the Back of the Revolution. (Averchenko was forced to leave Russia during the “great exodus” of whites from Crimea and “ran into” the Bolsheviks while in exile).
But even during the civil war, the writer did not leave his love for life, children, family (love and give birth to as many children as possible – this is the formula of patriotism from Averchenko). He was characterized by healthy hedonism. Orthodox holidays are an occasion to gather all together at a richly set table. (“Turkey with chestnuts” will take you 10 minutes, but 100% will make you laugh and fill with light).
To live is to rejoice. Enjoy delicious food. Drink – or a modest glass of liqueur before dinner, or get drunk to unconsciousness, showing the breadth of the Russian soul. Take care of “women”. A little bit of hooliganism. Wake up in a police station, where even the smell is familiar. And then repent after hearing the ringing of bells. And cry with happiness.
Of course, Christmas and Easter were the main events on Averchenko’s calendar. Moreover, he managed to joke about a boy freezing on Christmas Eve.
The Boy Who Lived
Dostoevsky’s “Boy at Christ’s Tree” is a textbook story that took place “in some huge city in a terrible frost.” A six-year-old baby, who came with a sick matter from a remote province, wakes up from the cold in the basement where they found shelter – and goes to look at rich ladies eating pies and at dolls dressed in red and green dresses, pacified with delight near each shining showcases. But then local boys beat him, took away his cap – and none of the adults noticed a child running into the gateway, asleep and falling on the Christmas tree to Jesus Christ. (After which the janitors found a small corpse behind the wood).
Was this touching masterpiece a parody of Averchenko? Of course not. The fact is that, being a laughing man, Arkady Timofeevich was also a successful publisher – he published the most popular satire and humor magazine in the Russian Empire, Satyricon (New Satyricon since 1913). By that time, the topic raised by Fyodor Dostoevsky had already been played up by editorial writers a million times. From year to year, tearful articles on the theme of suffering children appeared in print – with a deliberate edifying finale. The population got tired of these compositions even more than the stories about the party – the inhabitants of the USSR.
And now from the pen of Averchenko comes “The Thousand and First Story about a Freezing Boy”.
It was Christmas Eve evening.
The cold kept increasing, and the wind blew in rough, haphazard gusts, freezing the nose, cheeks and everything that a carefree passer-by carelessly exposed outside …
And above, over the roofs of multi-storey buildings, the wind was completely lost: it howled, jumped from roof to roof, climbed into the chimneys and fell down with renewed vigor.
The writer of Sighs and the artist Poltorakin walked briskly along the snow-covered sidewalk, wrapped in warm fur coats.
Both were hurrying to the Christmas tree arranged by the newspaper’s publisher, Sidyaev, both looked forward to the warm living room, the sparkling Christmas tree, the chirping of children and the quiet laughter of the girls.
And the frost grew stronger.
– It’s awfully difficult to write Christmas stories, – muttered, answering some of his thoughts, Sighs. – You write, write – and you will definitely either fall into triviality, or you will wind up such horrors that you are ashamed yourself …
He paused and turned to the hollow of the unlit, half-covered with sticky snow, entrance.
– Look! What is it over there?
The friends approached the entrance and saw a small crumpled figure at the door.
– What is he there?
– Hey boy, how are you! What are you doing here?…
Two, as they would now say, “media staff”, finally saw with their own eyes the stereotyped dying boy – and continued on their way:
The voices of the talking fell silent in the distance. The boy in the corner of the staircase also fell silent. Gradually, his dark figure was completely covered with white snow.
And he was so cold, completely frozen, not even suspecting that this was a well-worn plot.
Averchenko will also show the “summer version” of the parody in other texts. His comical story “Boy Kazya” is built on an analogy with a Christmas freezing boy, which enabled the author to “neglect even such seemingly important contradictions as those that:
1) Boy Kaza was already 26 years old …
2) It didn’t happen at Christmas, but in the month of June …
3) It was not a 20-degree frost, but, on the contrary, a 28-degree heat.
(Kazya did not die further, but met a stupid landowner, got a job with him as a “manager” and robbed him to the bone).
Another summer adventure is the cheerful text “Mother”, about a spouse living in an empty country house, who posted an advertisement in the newspaper:
“A young childless couple living in a dacha in an excellent healthy area has an extra room, which they offer to a boy or girl who cannot live with their parents in the dacha. Conditions – thirty rubles for everything ready. Loving attitude, attentive care, delicious, plentiful food. “
And they received a request to temporarily shelter “little Pavlik, who this year is deprived of the opportunity to breathe and frolic in the fresh air,” who turned out to be a 19-year-old child with a pack of cigarettes. If you want to know why Pavlik was drunk with cognac and thrown into an empty freight carriage with the words: “God, Protector of the weak! .. Protect the baby …” – find this story. And, if possible, “make friends” with Averchenko.
Enjoy reading!
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