“There are writers, but there is no such profession”: a poet who returned from the Northern Military District spoke about injustice

2023-12-02 16:02:28

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“Something needs to be done about this”

Having recently returned from the SVO zone, where he went voluntarily as a military serviceman, poet and volunteer Alexei Shorokhov took part in a “discussion of writers’ problems” on December 1 at the Central House of Writers. “He said something unpleasant,” Shorokhov wrote on his Telegram page, where he outlined the essence of the problem.

“The LDPR, represented by its leader Slutsky and the relevant deputy chairman of the State Duma Svintsov, has been closely involved in the problems of writers since September. But they exist. Starting with the fact that there is no such profession in the Russian Federation. There are writers, but there are no professions. Accordingly, there are no pensions or social guarantees either.” “MK” has already found out that the domestic Literary Institute named after. Gorky (a unique phenomenon in world practice) produces not “poets” or “prose writers” with the appropriate diplomas, but “literary workers”. But it’s hard to believe that writing as a professional activity in Russia remains “uncodified.” But it is so.

“It is, of course, abnormal that in the country of Pushkin and Dostoevsky there is no official profession of a writer. And the point is not even in status, not in prestige, but in the fact that seniority is not accrued. Any plumber in this sense is more socially protected than a writer,” agrees Shorokhov’s colleague in the humanitarian project “Loaf” for Donbass,” poet and publicist Igor Panin.

Our interlocutor said that a long-term employee of Literaturnaya Gazeta, poet and memoirist Sergei Mnatsakanyan had been asking for an increase in his pension for many years, but no one took into account his length of service, and the books and publications published were not even considered as proof that a person had been worked in the literary field.”

“It’s high time to do something about this,” says Panin.

– Igor, if a writer was included in the creative team, if he went to perform in front of the military and residents of “front-line” cities, can he count on compensation and social protection if, God forbid, he comes under fire?

– If a business trip is from the media or an agreement with a certain organization engaged in such events, then compensation is possible there. But if you, being a writer, came to Donbass privately and got into trouble, you shouldn’t count on anything.

– If a writer is wounded in the area of ​​military operations, will he not receive the status of a participant in hostilities?

– There will be no talk about this, but to some extent this is true: there are people who are at war, and there are people who are creative. It is impossible to equalize them – this is wrong in relation to the first ones. But it would be nice if the latter had some guarantees. Dangerous tours must be assessed somehow.