Margarita Meklina

Russia is Guest of Honor at 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair

The practice of appointing a country as guest of honor at the world’s largest book fair has existed since 1976. Italy, Brazil, and Australia, for example, have already been picked. Last year it was Lithuania, one of the former Russian republics. This year Russia was chosen for the first time, with the inauguration motto “Russia: New Pages.” As we read on the fair website, “The organizers made it a point to break stale mental stereotypes, which to this day dominate many Europeans’ idea of our country.”

The fair was a six-day event with eighty-two countries present, and Russia, which was allotted a 3,000 sq. m. pavilion, was taking it seriously --maybe even too seriously. Pompous speeches were given, ministers were present, and conversations with Russian cosmonauts floating in weightlessness were broadcast right in the conference hall.

At the fair, Russia made an attempt to present itself as a completely new entity, which had cleansed itself from the stains of its Stalinist past. And indeed, how remarkably different was a writer’s existence during the Soviet times! Back then you could build a career composing ideology-laden songs praising Komsomol leaders or laborers in the collective farms. Everything prudent was applauded; avant-garde was frowned upon. Individuals supporting the “party line” were on top; dissidents were underground, occasionally appearing on the surface by smuggling their writings abroad. Opportunists stood in line to receive autos and apartments for their first books praising the totalitarian regime.

Now, they say, all this has drastically changed. Russia is shedding its bad reputation, presenting itself at the fair as a country where free speech is not only allowed, but encouraged and published.

We would like to introduce you to two writers who visited the fair, gave readings and attended discussions. One of them is the Nizhnii Novgorod-born critic and historian, Kirill Kobrin, employed by Radio Liberty in Prague. In spite of living abroad, Kirill, similarly to other Russian émigrés who live in Milan, Chicago, Berlin, Paris, and other cities, takes an active part in Russian literary life. The author of seven volumes of prose, he edits one of the major cultural theory magazines and relentlessly reviews books published in Russia.

Taking into account Kirill’s prominence, it’s distressing to note that he, as an expatriate, was not considered by the Russian Ministry Press as a potential Press candidate for a free trip to Frankfurt. Kirill then opted to go to Frankfurt on his own.

Another writer we talked to is Dmitrii Bavilsky from Chelyabinsk, who, to boost his literary career, moved recently to Moscow. Dmitrii, who often writes for glossy magazines, belongs to the generation of new Russian professionals who earn considerable incomes and flaunt their flats in a bohemian district close to the metro station “Aeroport.” For these people, a salary of $1,500-2,000 U.S. dollars a month is common (people in Russian provinces still earn around $30 a month).

Dmitrii, it seems, found his niche, combining business and art by writing pulp novels for a foreign audience. Surprisingly, his book translated into German sells much better and gets better reviews than in Russia. The rights to one of his soap-operish, yet thoughtful novels, were recently purchased by the French publisher “Gallimard.”

MM: How do you explain that Russia was chosen as the guest of honor this year? Does it mean that finally it is recognized by the West as an equal?

Kirill Kobrin: It is only rotation. Every year in Frankfurt, there is a new guest of honor. Also, in Germany the year of 2003 is the year of Russia. And, vice-versa, in Russia it’s the year of Germany.

MM: Was the Frankfurt Fair considered by the Russian government a political or cultural event?

KK: On the Russian side, the fair was organized and planned by the Russian Ministry for the Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass-Media. I have no idea what was in their heads, but the event had all the typical features of a government enterprise. Bureaucrats emphasized that the fair was a great birthday present to President Putin.

There was also an official exhibit there – not belonging to the government per se, but to Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow. This tells you something! The mayor of the capital was introduced to visitors by books penned by him and by his own blown-up portraits decorated with quotes from Alexander Pushkin. To me, it looked rather disgusting. However, the cultural aspect of the fair was pleasant. The Russian side initiated discussions and readings, and brought books, even though there could have been much more of the latter…

MM: I heard that many important publishing houses, Text, for example, weren’t present. Could we assume then that the government sponsored the “friendly” publishers and tried to stop the “undesirable” ones?

Dmitrii Bavilsky: Publishing houses like the aforementioned Text were there, but maybe they were not so noticeable, since they weren’t in the official part of the program… They financed their attendance by themselves… And the fact that many independent publishers appeared in Russia over the last decade is positive evidence of a trend toward a more open society. What was once controlled and censored by the State now has been privatized.

MM: How would you characterize the group of the Russian writers brought to Frankfurt?

DB: The only thing they share is language. They all write in Russian.

KK: I don’t agree! Here is the image of a typical Russian writer for you – a half-drunk, gloomy man, who hardly speaks any European languages, who hardly speaks any languages at all after hang-over… who talks only to his compatriots, carefully avoiding all foreigners and who has never set his foot in neighboring pavilions with books of other countries…

I’m sorry to tell you but this is the truth. Can we assume that this is the fate of the Russian writer? But no, let’s think for a moment – is this really the way Pushkin, Viazemskii, Andrei Belyi or Vladimir Nabokov behaved?

I can’t imagine that they really like to be a mixture of a somber, bearded Dostoevsky and unkindly-intoxicated Venichka Erofeev [Venedikt Erofeev is the literary genius who wrote the novella “Moskva – Petushki,” in which he described, besides Russian spirituality, every kind of spirit you might consume while on a train – MM].

Can’t they come up with something brighter? Personally, I prefer the sober behaviors of Victor Pelevin and, especially, Vladimir Sorokin, even though I can’t be considered a big fan of their prose [Pelevin and Sorokin are popular, post-modernist, money-making machines with clean-cut trendy looks - MM].

As for the one hundred writers list compiled by the Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, I’m not surprised by its inadequacy… The minister ordered his advisers to bring him the list; they put on the list somebody they once heard about; other writers just had important connections – and that’s how they got written in… Many authors just came by themselves, or were invited by their publishers…

MM: Which writers attended the fair?

DB: We, Russian participants, were flown in by a special plane… There were approximately one hundred thirty of us there… We were joking between ourselves that if the plane crashed, Russia would be left without literature. At the fair I met such notable writers as Vladimir Sorokin, Boris Akunin, Vladimir Makanin, Evgenii Evtushenko, Ludmila Ulitzkaya, Andrei Voznesenskii, Tatiana Tolstaya, Boris Strugatsky, Daria Dontzova, Vasili Aksenov, and many others…

MM: What impression did you have of Russia at the fair? I heard that they brought bears with balalaikas and gypsies…

DB: The time of ethnographical interest in Russia has passed. Russia is now perceived as an integrated part of Europe. I think the fair helped to establish Russia’s image as a country with a thriving cultural life.

KK: I didn’t spot balalaikas and bears, but I heard that they had some incredible Siberian dishes… How did the literary Russia look at the fair? As usual: a lot of talent, a lot of incredible things, great amount of foolishness and, as before, monstrous government…

MM: What should Russia do to achieve European standards?

KK: They need to work, to think, to learn foreign languages and to forget about their “exclusivity.” It’s necessary to study book design – this advice is a must especially for those publishers specializing in mass-produced books. They should learn how to organize PR campaigns. Look how in Europe they promoted the very average Brazilian writer Paolo Coelho!

MM: In your opinion, which publisher really came into the limelight? I know, for example, that the Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (New Literary Review) whose editor recently received a prestigious Government prize, called everybody’s attention…

KK: New Literary Review, which came to Frankfurt without asking for any government sponsorship, was virtually the only publisher who tried to connect with foreign writers, scientists, and publicists… They looked like true Europeans! Their staff spoke many languages; they organized many forums; they had their own conference hall… And their authors were marvelous – the conceptualist poet D.A.Prigov, philosophers Boris Grois and Ekaterina Degot, the painter Grisha Bruskin and many others. I think that the New Literary Review and its boss Irina Prohorova truly deserve to be mentioned.

MM: Was there any contract signed? As far as I know, besides being a cultural event, the fair is mostly a business.

DB: I think that the most interesting part of the fair was to see how writers were learning to represent themselves. Not just their country, like it was in Soviet times, but themselves personally.

MM: Do you think that people who would read your books would understand the details of Russia’s everyday life?

DB: My books are being translated, because my stories have a universal feeling to them. They are about love, and hence the events I describe can happen in any country, in any city. Any mother can fall in love with her son’s friend. Every friend can overstep the boundaries separating friendship and love. Every human being is lonely and therefore looking for a safety net in arts…

I had meetings with German readers. They were mostly women, members of The International Women’s Club or visitors of a literary café in Magdeburg. They took my stories rather personally, and I was very touched by such feedback.

MM: Please tell us about a brand-new literary genre that recently appeared in Russia… I know that, together with your co-author Victor Novichkov, you published a book about Chelyabinsk businessman Pavel Rabin… It looks like modern businessmen just love to have this kind of hagiography…

DB: This is the life story of a self-made person. When perestroika started, he was 45. At that age you think that you already have everything and you stop exploring other possibilities. But Rabin discovered himself anew. He wasn’t afraid to stick out in crowd, and he paid the full price for it – he was jailed, he took part in war-like competitions… But he didn’t lose his humane qualities. His business success is an example for others. Using him as a model, I wanted to show the history of the new Russia. I wanted to show how Russians are entering capitalism.

MM: Are there going to be other fairs in the future, similar to the Frankfurt one?

DB: Next year, Russia is going to be the major guest of honor at the book salon in Paris. Let’s meet then and check out what has changed.

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