Konstantin Kedrov: biography, works, scientific activities. Reviews about creativity

Kedrov Konstantin Aleksandrovich - poet, doctor philosophical sciences, philosopher and literary critic, author of the term metametaphor.

Creator literary group and author of the acronym “DOOS” (Dragonfly Conservation Voluntary Society) (1984). Member of the USSR Writers' Union (1989). Member of the executive committee Russian PEN Club. Member International Union nobles along the line of the Chelishchev family (certificate No. 98 11/13/08).

Born in 1942 into the family of Alexander Berdichevsky (1906-1991, Moscow) and Nadezhda Yumatova (1917-1991, Moscow), theater artists in the city of Shcherbakov (now Rybinsk Yaroslavl region), where they were temporarily evacuated until 1945.

Since 1960 he has lived in Moscow. He studied for one year at Moscow State University at the Faculty of Journalism (1961-1962), after expulsion he transferred to Kazan University. Upon graduation, he returned to Moscow. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kazan University, and in 1968 entered graduate school at the Literary Institute of the Writers' Union.

In 1973, he defended his dissertation at Moscow State University for the degree of candidate. philological sciences on the topic “Epic beginning in the Russian novel of the first half of the 19th century century (“Eugene Onegin” by A. S. Pushkin, “Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov, “ Dead Souls“N.V. Gogol)”. At this time, he met the philosopher-nameslav, a student of Pavel Florensky - A.F. Losev. From 1974 to 1986 he worked as a senior lecturer in the department of history of Russian literature at the Gorky Literary Institute. Here, a circle of poets from among students interested in the avant-garde line of development of Russian verse formed around Kedrov - among these authors, in particular, Alexey Parshchikov, Ilya Kutik and Alexander Eremenko. In 1983, Kedrov formulated general principle their poetry as a meta-metaphor.

In the same year, Kedrov wrote the poem “The Computer of Love,” which, as S. B. Dzhimbinov notes, “can be considered as an artistic manifesto of metametaphorism, that is, a condensed, total metaphor, in comparison with which an ordinary metaphor should look partial and timid.” A year later, Kedrov came out with a new manifesto, proclaiming the creation of the group “DOOS” (Voluntary Society for the Protection of Dragonflies).

In 1986, after the appearance in Literary Review No. 4 of 1984 by Rafael Mustafin “At the intersection of mysticism and science” with references to statements by Yu. Andropov and K. Chernenko about the inadmissibility of idealism, K. Kedrov stopped teaching activities at the Literary Institute and writes an application for the transition to creative work. According to documents issued to K. Kedrov at his request by the archive department of the FSK in 1996, a case of operational verification was opened against K. Kedrov under code name"Lesnik" (on suspicion of anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation), destroyed in August 1990. Quote from the report of the 5th Directorate of the KGB for 1984: “By the measures taken, the Lesnik facility was withdrawn from admission to membership in the Union of Writers of the USSR.”

After this, K. Kedrov was unemployed from 1986 to 1991. At this time, he had to sell the paintings and graphics of his great-uncle Pavel Chelishchev, inherited in 1972. Now these paintings are in the “Our Artists” gallery on Rublyovka. Among them is a portrait of grandmother Sofia Chelishcheva (in marriage Yumatova), painted by Pavel Chelishchev in 1914 on the family estate of Dubrovka, Kaluga province, which belonged to K. Kedrov’s great-grandfather, landowner Fyodor Sergeevich Chelishchev. The portrait was published in the album “Pavel Chelishchev” of the gallery “Our Artists” (“Petronius”, 2006. - P. 35). Reproductions of other paintings by P. Chelishchev were also published there with the indication “from the collection of Konstantin Kedrov.” In 2008, the Kultura channel showed a film about Pavel Chelishchev, “The Odd-Winged Angel,” based on the script by K. Kedrov and N. Zaretskaya, filmed in Moscow and New York.

Since 1988, Kedrov began to participate in international poetic life, traveling abroad for the first time to participate in the festival of Soviet avant-garde art in Imatra (Finland). In 1989, the publishing house “Soviet Writer” published Kedrov’s monograph “ Poetic space", in which, along with the concept of metametaphor, the philosophical idea of metacode - a single code of the living and inorganic cosmos - was developed, with the involvement of wide literary and mythological material.

In 1991-1998, Kedrov worked as a literary columnist for the Izvestia newspaper, where, according to Sergei Chuprinin, he “turned the corresponding section of the national newspaper into a comfortable get-together.” According to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, on the contrary:
“Unlike anyone - unique both in his essays, and in his poetic experiments, and in his teaching of the unique, in a word, a uniqueist, a theorist modern look on art, a defender of the new wave, who, unlike the pessimists, believes that now is not the flowering of literature, but its collapse; as editor of the literary department of Izvestia, he turned it from a mouthpiece of officialdom into a sermon of the avant-garde.”

During this time, Izvestia published: the first interview in Russia with Natalya Solzhenitsyna, an interview with the Chief Preacher of America and confessor of three presidents Billy Graham, a series of articles against death penalty and an interview with the future head of the Pardon Commission under the President of the Russian Federation, writer Anatoly Pristavkin, an interview with Galina Starovoitova about human rights and norms international law, articles about previously banned and semi-banned writers and philosophers (V. Nabokov, P. Florensky, V. Khlebnikov, D. Andreev), as well as about V. Narbikova, E. Radov, unknown to a wide circle of readers at that time, and about underground poets ( G. Sapgire, I. Kholina, A. Eremenko, A. Parshchikov, N. Iskrenko, G. Aigi, A. Khvostenko). After a split in the editorial office of Izvestia, together with editor Igor Golembiovsky, he moved to the newspaper New Izvestia.

In 1995, together with other members of the PEN Club (A. Voznesensky, G. Sapgir, I. Kholin, A. Tkachenko), Kedrov founded the “Newspaper Poetry” (12 issues were published), in 2000 transformed into the “Poets Magazine” (published 10 numbers). Twenty issues were reissued in 2007 under one cover and the title "Software Anthology".

In 1996, at the Institute of Philosophy, he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on the topic “The ethical-anthropic principle in culture.”

On March 21, 2000, on the initiative and under the leadership of Kedrov, UNESCO World Poetry Day was celebrated for the first time in Russia at the Taganka Theater with the participation of the theater director Yuri Lyubimov, poets Andrei Voznesensky, Elena Katsyuba, Alina Vitukhnovskaya and Mikhail Buznik, and actor Valery Zolotukhin.

On November 28, 2008, Kedrov took part in the opening ceremony of the monument to Mandelstam in Moscow. On June 22, 2009, Kedrov participated in the presentation of the monument to Academician A. Sakharov and his sculptural portrait works by G. Pototsky in the Manege.

AWARDS

1999 - International mark named after the father of Russian futurism, David Burliuk
2003 - Winner of the GRAMMy.ru award in the category “ Poetic event of the year" for the poem "Computer of Love"
2005 - Twice winner of GRAMMY.ru in the category “Poetic Event of the Year”
2007 - Laureate of the Year " Literary Russia"for the poem "Violet"
2008 - Diploma of the participant of the Bible project laureate Nobel Prize Agnon Book Exhibition(Israel)
2009- Laureate of the N. A. Griboedov Prize “For faithful service to Russian literature” (Decision of the Moscow city organization and the Translators Section of the Union of Writers of Russia dated November 17, 2009)
Medal from the Internet community of the Literary Club and the Board of the Union of Internet Poets
2013 - Manhae Award - international prize Republic of Korea (South Korea)

Main works

Books

Poetic space. - M.: Soviet writer, 1989. - 333 p.
Computer of love. - M.: Fiction, 1990. - 174 p.
Negative statements. - M.: Center, 1991.
Shipyard. - M.: DOOS, 1992.
Vrutselet. - M.: DOOS, 1993.
Hamlet's Gamma of Bodies. - M.: Publishing house of Elena Pakhomova, 1994.
Either he or Ada or Ilion or the Iliad. Evenings at the Sidur Museum. - M., 1995.
Ulysses and Forever. - M.: Publishing house of Elena Pakhomova, 1998.
Metametaphor. - M.: DOOS, 1999. - 39 p.
Encyclopedia of metametaphor. - M.: DOOS, 2000. - 126 p.
Parallel Worlds. - M.: AiF print, 2001. - 457 p.
Insideout. - M.: Mysl, 2001. - 282 p.
Angelic poetics. - M.: N. Nesterova University Publishing House, 2001. - 320 p.
Beyond the Apocalypse. - M.: AiF print, 2002. - 270 p.
Or ( Complete collection. Poetry). - M.: Mysl, 2002. - 497 p.
Self-ist-dat. - M.: LiA Ruslana Elinina, 2003.
Metacode. - M.: AiF print, 2005. - 575 p.
Philosophy of literature. - M: Fiction, 2009. - 193 p. ISBN 978-5-280-03454-9.
Conductor of Silence: Poems and Poems. - M.: Fiction, 2009. - 200 p.

From the book of fates. Konstantin Kedrov was born in 1942 in the city of Rybinsk. Poet, philosopher, candidate of philological sciences, doctor of philosophical sciences, member of the Moscow Writers' Union, member of the Russian Pen Club. In the early 80s he created a school of metametaphors. Kedrov's poetry was not published until 1989. He worked at the Department of Russian Literature of the Literary Institute. In 1986, at the request of the KGB, he was removed from teaching. In the 80s, Kedrov was the author and presenter of television curricula, essay on different topics. In 1989, he published the monograph “Poetic Space” outlining the theory of metacode and metametaphor.

In 1996, Kedrov defended his doctoral dissertation. Participant in festivals of the international poetic avant-garde in Finland and France.

From 1991 to 1997, Konstantin Kedrov worked as a literary columnist for the Izvestia newspaper. From 1997 to 2003 - literary columnist for Novye Izvestia. Since 1995 - Chief Editor publication “Journal of Poets”, since 2001 - Dean of the Academy of Poets and Philosophers of Natalia Nesterova University. On the recommendation of Genrikh Sapgir, Konstantin Kedrov was elected president of the Russian Poets Association, UNESCO (FIPA).

...Konstantin Kedrov asserted his sovereignty when our people’s revolutions had not yet even dreamed of. The period of stagnation rested entirely on the Kremlin elders, and the poet had already managed to open inner freedom, and it turned out to be in no way smaller than the entire surrounding world. He discovered for himself the secret of internal and external, words and events, transitory and eternal - he discovered the formula of their flickering unity... He took it and jumped out of three-dimensional space coupled with the fourth coordinate, called time, I learned to move freely through all systems of the universe along the inside-outside axis. He preferred an open world to the closed world of individual poetry: not the glove of poetry according to the poet’s hand, but an inverted one - according to the measure of the cosmos.

I do not undertake to draw a line (Kedrov does not like boundaries) between his ups, prophecies and self-delusions, going off scale, catching a verbal high. The main thing in it is an infectious will, the abolition of supports; he feels in the oceanic thickness of culture like a fish in water, moreover, he easily crosses the boundary of environments like a flying fish.

Konstantin Kedrov is bigger than himself. Whether in poems, articles or lectures, he first of all gives generous scatterings of freedom, unexpected mutual reflections, becoming somewhat similar to Velimir Khlebnikov, who mined gold ore for future jewelers. Eat creative personalities phenomenal properties. It seems to me that K. Kedrov has a much stronger impact on the younger generation of poets than on readers. The critics are simply in shambles - they do not have the necessary criterion in their arsenal: there is something immeasurable and excessive here. No wonder its bright challenging book"Poetic Space" (1989) was met with unanimous silence from both the left and the right. It was as if Don Quixote walked between two warring camps, walked without looking around, directing his enchanted gaze to the stars, only visible to him in broad daylight.

At the end of the seventies, Konstantin Kedrov was one of the instigators of spiritual emancipation in literature; by the way, he was also used as a springboard - Parshchikov, Eremenko and his comrades “started off” from him, they took off on the pages of the press before their inspirator. Therefore, to my joy, in connection with the release of “Computer of Love” - a collection of selected poems and poems by Konstantin Kedrov (M., Khudozh. lit., 1990) there is also a taste of bitterness mixed in: this “train” arrived late, the audience on the platform had time fed up with unexpected meetings, and in addition, her attention is distracted by anxiety, shouts of protesters demanding the resignation of the government. There has been a breakthrough in society political freedom words, but at the same time - alas! - it turned out to be unprepared for artistic pluralism: it is not surprising that poems for Stalin were replaced by poems against, but how do you want to understand: “space is an unfolded horse, cats are cats of space,” and “man is the wrong side of the sky, the sky is the wrong side of a person”, etc.? What is this? Idle fun or “verbal adventures” in Nabokov’s words? A return to the “slap in the face of public taste”?

No matter how many “excesses” Konstantin Kedrov has (and sometimes he deliberately shocks), and there is amber on the shore - here it is! The one who said “I will never come closer to you than a flower approaches the sun” is a poet, for only a poet can open the image and destroy astronomical distance between a flower and the sun. I am convinced that only a poet can write: “ state border lies inside... between the right thigh and left lung", "the cheek came separately from the kiss, the kiss came separately from the lips", "the hawk acts like a pattern - it carves out the whole sky, I carve out all the time..."

Execution and treasury are two vast kingdoms

This special property time called “irreversibility”...

If there is no execution

there is discipline

for without discipline execution is impossible

although the discipline is execution.

Let the poet increase the production of sadness

the commandment began to strengthen the discipline of execution

This is how the global execution grows

disciplined measured

painted like a coffin in Marengo

and squinting to the side...

So Polezhaev and Taras Shevchenko

two comrades two soldiers

have served the time

and slipped away into eternity.

Eternity is

undisciplined time

(“Execution”, 1983)

Before our eyes, monstrous rationalism collapsed, the one about which was written on the day of Mayakovsky’s funeral: “The deceased was a singer of revolutionary RATIONALITY. Let’s bury him as a materialist, as a dialectician, as a Marxist... Let’s pour his memory, like cast iron, into the cups of proletarian hearts and skulls.”

What about the dragonfly? Konstantin Kedrov felt Mayakovsky DIFFERENTLY, saw a poet ready to sew himself a yellow jacket from three arshins of sunset.

The receipt I received is

The sunset is blazing, -

writes Kedrov in the poem “DOOS”, where it is said that “unstopped blood is not accepted back.” But what is DOOS? Please remember: Voluntary Dragonfly Conservation Society.

I don't want cast iron over the cups of hearts. I'm endlessly tired of him. Let dragonflies with alien eyes chirp.

(Fragment of an article from the magazine “Youth”, 1990)

Konstantin Kedrov - great poet Russia, who invented such terms as “metacode” and “metametaphor”. His theory about the world order is very logical and thought out, like all poetry. But there is still debate about who Kedrov really is? Some call him a poet, others a philosopher. Even Konstantin’s old friends cannot give a definite answer. But one thing can be said about him for sure - this outstanding personality, who embodied great ideas about the universe and human essence in brilliant poetic lines.

Childhood and adolescence

Konstantin Kedrov was born in the city of Rybinsk, which is located in the Yaroslavl region. The biography of the future literary critic and poet began in 1942, on November 12. His father, Alexander Berdichevsky, and mother, Nadezhda Yumatova, were theater artists. The family lived in Rybinsk until the evacuation of 1945. From childhood, Konstantin began to be interested in poetry. Already at the age of fifteen, he surprised the famous journalist Yakov Damsky with his work, who said that Konstantin’s poetry amazes everyone who happens to read it. It was hard to believe that such mature ideas and colorful images appeared from the pen of a fifteen-year-old boy.

years of education

In 1960, Konstantin Kedrov moved to Moscow. For one year he studied journalism at Moscow State University. After expulsion, the young man decided to transfer and continued his studies at the Faculty of History and Philology at Kazan University. Upon completion of his studies, he returned to the capital. In 1968, Kedrov wanted to continue gaining knowledge at the Literary Institute of the Writers' Union, where he completed his graduate studies. Konstantin studied the work of such Russian classics as A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol and other geniuses of the pen. In 1973 Kedrov received academic degree candidate of philological sciences, having defended his dissertation at Moscow State University. During the same period, he met A.F. Losev, a philosopher and adherent of the doctrine of name-glorification.

New principle in poetry

For twelve years, Konstantin Kedrov taught the history of Russian literature. His place of work was named after Gorky. It was here that he met Alexey Parshchikov, Ilya Kutik and Alexander Eremenko. These were bright personalities who were interested in the avant-garde side of the development of Russian poetry. In the creativity of young authors and in his works, Kedrov identified a general principle called metametaphor. It was a kind of breakthrough in literature. After all, such metaphors did not exist before. Basically everything was compared. A poet is like the sky, or like a current, or like the air. But Kedrov formulated new point vision. He argued that a person is everything he talks about and writes about. In metametaphor, every thing takes on a universal meaning. That is, the flower does not exist separately from the earth, and the cosmos does not exist separately from man. Everything is interconnected and there is no division.

"Dangerous" creativity

Konstantin Kedrov was a fan of the avant-garde line in poetry, so his works were independent in form and content. At that time, poets were allowed to publish only with the approval of the Writers' Union and only after a global check for consistency with communist ideology. For this reason, Kedrov’s work was considered semi-legal. The poet was suspected of anti-Soviet agitation. In the early 1980s, the FSK opened an operational investigation case against him, which received the code name “Lesnik.” The process ended only in August, 1990.

Favorites

Kedrov is a poet with a fine spiritual organization. He was always keenly aware of any changes in the world around him. Poems by Konstantin Kedrov tell the reader about the searches and observations of the poet himself. The author's goal is to show the people his point of view on various difficulties in all kinds of life spheres. Kedrov’s most famous books are “Poetic Space” (1989), “Computer of Love” (1990), “Parallel Worlds” (2001), “Beyond the Apocalypse” (2002), and “Philosophy” literature" (2009). Kedrov also worked in the genre of drama. Several plays came from his pen: “Hurray Tragedy”, “Voices” and “Dedication of Socrates”. Reading Konstantin’s poems, one cannot help but notice that the poet has extensive knowledge in the field of history, religion, literature and art. Such poems as “Kant”, “Mandelshtam”, “Conductor of Silence”, “Transformations”, “Poem of a Niche” perfectly demonstrate the unique inner world Kedrov, his search for himself and answers to the main questions of human nature.

Philosophical ideas

In 1988, Kedrov reached the international poetic level. He went abroad for the first time, to Finland, to take part in a festival that was dedicated to Soviet avant-garde art. And in 1989, Konstantin published a monograph entitled “Poetic Space.” Here the author seems to connect artistic images with a scientific touch. It gives poetry an obvious philosophical overtone. Moreover, Kedrov introduces a new concept - metacode, which denotes the established concept of astronomical symbols common to various cultural areas. Konstantin Kedrov, an avant-garde poet, created a logical theory about a single code for the living and inorganic universe. In his work "Poetic Space" Kedrov combines his innovative views on philosophy and literature. New concepts about metacode and metametaphor are organically intertwined in the lines of the monograph.

Creation of DOOS

In 1984, the DOOS organization appeared, the abbreviation of which stands for Voluntary Society for the Protection of Dragonflies. The name is associated with I. A. Krylov’s fable “The Dragonfly and the Ant,” namely with the following lines: “Did you keep singing? This business". The poems of Konstantin Kedrov have always been distinguished by experimental rhymes and extraordinary semantic load. The avant-garde character of Kedrov’s poetry found expression in the birth of DOOS. This is an amazing community where the art of singing was proclaimed as the main thing for creative person. Members of the organization believed that this activity had nothing to do with politics or moralizing. But this idea was announced only after the collapse Soviet system. The Voluntary Society for the Protection of Dragonflies is over thirty years old. Once upon a time its members were: famous poets, like Voznesensky, Kovaldzhi, Rabinovich and others. But they were all united important principles: freedom in thinking, finding new ones poetic forms, word creation and, of course, metametaphor as the basis common point view of poetry.

Life today

Multifaceted personality, philosopher, creator of the theory of metacode Konstantin Kedrov, personal life who has remained beyond the reach of the public, hides intimate details from her past and present. It is only known that he has a wife. Her name is Elena Katsyuba. She is a poetess and faithful friend her husband. Kedrov's wife also lives in the DOOS society and shares its literary and cultural precepts. Konstantin met her at the beginning of perestroika. Then he first saw his future wife at the Youth Palace. She recited her poems. Kedrov was struck by the poetess’s unusual rhymes, and he decided to get to know her better.

The poet deliberately hides intimate details from his past and present. But it takes active position regarding the most important political and cultural events of the country. Kedrov does not stop publishing in media mass media, and also takes part in various public events.

Nabokov's last secret
Kedrov-Chelishchev
Farewell article by K. Kedrov in Izvestia under the leadership of Igor Golembiovsky before the destruction of the editorial office by order of Chernomyrdin, who ordered Lukoil and then Onexim Bank to buy up the shares of the newspaper and remove Igor Golembiovsky. After the article, K. Kedrov, together with Golembiovsky and Latsis, left the editorial office.

NABOKOV'S LAST SECRET

It is known that Vladimir Nabokov was very critical of religion and cheap mysticism. He was close to the Shakespearean sense of life as a kind of riddle, puzzle, charade, which is interesting to puzzle over in your spare time. However, the solution often turned out to be quite evil even in his novels. Writer in search of success for a long time disguised his innermost thoughts under one or another traditional plot. However, after the dizzying success of Lolita, the opportunity finally opened up to follow the free path where a free mind leads. The degree of freedom increased as we approached the inevitable end of life for everyone. It was during these years that Nabokov wrote three novels, one more mysterious than the other. "Pale Fire", "Ada", "Transparent Things". In Russian, these novels became available to the reader in translations by Sergei Ilyin. However, Russians now apparently have no time for Nabokov. How else can one explain the stunned silence of critics after the release of three novels? Reviews, of course, appeared, but most likely they are of an informative nature.
The point is that these things are far ahead of their time and will be truly understood in the next century. No one had ever considered Nabokov a modern writer before. Everyone understood that he was from somewhere in another time and space. Or maybe from a completely different galaxy. Only “Mashenka” and “Other Shores” and even his nostalgic poetry are somehow tied to this land. The remaining novels were written by that same “agnostic,” Cincinnatus, who cannot even be executed due to the complete immateriality of his body.
If Nabokov was seriously interested in anything throughout his life, it was the possibility of creating an illusion that could not be distinguished from reality. Sometimes he called it a game of “netki” or the “camera obscura” effect, and in latest novels this is an image of a pale transparent flame and equally transparent, seemingly immaterial things. He even his life in last years turned into a kind of impenetrable transparency (not to be confused with ghostliness) for others. On the one hand, everything seems to be known about him, but, in fact, nothing is known.
Yes, he generously endowed literary heroes properties of your character. Luzhin, like Nabokov, is obsessed with chess and sees his entire life as a series of chess studies, sometimes beautiful, sometimes unsuccessful. Pnin too biographical image. Teaches Russian
literature in American outback some idiots. He values his place terribly and ultimately loses it. Not a word about Humbert so as not to cast a shadow on the author; but the childhood love of two teenagers, of course, is not fiction.
Poor agnostic Cincinnatus, accused by everyone of immateriality, is certainly Nabokov, whom everyone accused of everything. The god of Russian literary emigration, Adamovich, denied Nabokov the right to be called a Russian writer, since he completely trampled all the traditions of our classics. After this, Nabokov had no choice but to leave the place of execution along with Cincinnatus and establish his invisible kingdom in quiet Switzerland.
"Pale Fire", where the exiled king is simultaneously a professor of literature in the American outback and a great poet writing his mirror poem in
cards - this, of course, is also Nabokov. The kingdom is simultaneously similar to pre-revolutionary Russia and pre-fascist Germany. And as always
Nabokov, either this is a theatrical set, or it really is a castle. The assassin's bullet eventually overtakes the professor-king-poet, just as it overtook Nabokov's father.
No less mysterious Wonderland Russia-Europe-America, where Nabokov resettled
all their heroes in the novel “Ada”, with its water elevators and some kind of clepsydrophones. In fact, he believed in only one reality, whose name is imagination. He studied butterflies and even discovered a species unknown to science of these fantastic creatures of God, more similar to angels than other creatures. However, ruthless science with the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud invaded this realm. It turns out that a person is not free in his fantasies. And some people dominate here ridiculous laws, completely alien to man. While polemicizing with Freud in almost every novel, Nabokov still could not escape the same pattern. At the end of the novel, a murderer or suicide always appeared. And it was the hero himself. Dostoevsky also knew that crime nests in the soul of every person. Nabokov did not argue with this. He only denied that it was possible to find any reasonable motivation for the crime committed. Every person harbors a murderous double. Sometimes it separates from its host, and then the hero is killed by someone else, and in fact, his double (“Pale Fire”). In other cases, the killer does not leave the body of his double, and then suicide occurs ("Transparent Things").
In a somnambulistic state, the hero kills his beloved, and then, leaving the madhouse, he, as if hypnotized, follows the trail of his crime until he finds himself in the very hotel, in the very same room where he had already strangled his beloved once in a fit of somnambulism. But this time he is consumed by a fire caused by deliberate arson. However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the hotel was set on fire by the hero himself.
Nabokov understood more deeply than any other writer of the 20th century the unmotivated nature of evil. He managed to create a world where there is simply no good and evil. There is a man with his actions indistinguishable from a sleepy obsession. He is not interested in the assessment of an action, but in the course of a chess study. Quirks human psyche are now collected by the writer, as rare species butterflies impaled on a pin and euthanized with ether.
The world is freed from meaning imposed by man or God. But he continues to amaze with the bizarreness of his intrigue and the variety of psychological mirages. If Nabokov had been a mystic, he would have been delighted by the very act of the illusory nature of all realities. But the writer is very far from the mystical hobbies of the century. Mirages interest him like butterflies interest an entomologist. He does not study, but rather collects the quirks of the human psyche, without giving them any ratings with the sign of “good” or “bad”.
Only straightforwardness and vulgarity shock him. Everything else in equally interesting or uninteresting.
At the end of his life, all material things became transparent for the writer, like the pale flame of a candle. He burned himself and now saw how, in essence, any thing, even the most material, burns. Sometimes the flame bursts to the surface, but this is only at the moment of climax. More often, things burn without visible flames until they turn into
nothing.
Nabokov's last novels are similar to transparent tracing paper, where instead of drawing lines
only an imprint from the drawing board. The drawing remained somewhere there, on rough paper. Only some outlines of transparent things remained on the tracing paper.
The same thing happened with literary plot. Any attentive reader,
Any attentive reader who absorbs “Ada” constantly feels in the novel the ghosts of “War and Peace,” “Anna Karenina,” “Eugene Onegin,” or all of Dostoevsky’s novels. This is some kind of flying Dutchman of Russian literature, all inhabited by ghosts from the classics. Perhaps Nabokov’s prose is a kind of elysium of shadows, where the countless hosts of heroes of Russian literature have finally found peace. There is no writer more modern than Nabokov, who completely rejected all modernity.
Literary success did not affect his latest works at all. They either politely read them or didn’t read them and immediately tried to forget them. But it was not there. Try to forget your most illusory and most fantastic dream. Nothing will work out. Only the banal reality is easily forgotten. The fantastic is not forgotten. Sooner or later, even if repressed for a while, it will rise from the subconscious and create something like a fire in the hotel in Transparent Things. So it's better to remember.
Tolstoy discovered the holy man. Dostoevsky discovered sinful man. Nabokov discovered a ghostly man who, like a chrysalis, matures in the soul of a saint and a sinner, but sooner or later he will spread his wings and fly out like a butterfly to freedom, leaving his earthly caterpillar body far below. Chekhov wrote on behalf of Kashtanka. Tolstoy - on behalf of the horse Kholstomer. Nabokov moved into a butterfly leaving the chrysalis of its earthly body.