Rossiya Letayushchikh Starushek

Rossiya

Kogda-to v doistoricheskoi Gardariki knyaz' Oleg khodil voinoi na Konstantinopol'. Oleg osadil Svyatoi Gorod i povesil svoi shit na vorota. Shit Olegov, kak damoklov mech, visit s tekh por nad sud'boi Rossiiskoi literatury. Ne odin literator polozhil zhivot na svyatuyu rabotu po vozvrashcheniyu Konstantinopolya pod Rossiyskoe znamya. ``Konstantinopol' dolzhen byt' Rossiyskim'' govoril Konstantin Leontiev. ``Konstantinopol' dolzhen byt' Rossiyskim'' b'yotsya v serdtse kazhdogo chestnogo rossiyskogo pisatelya. ``Konstantinopol' dolzhen byt' Rossiyskim'' povtoryayu ya, kak molitvu. Russian literature, stranded on her quest for the Mystic Constantinople...

Pakin i Rakukin

Daniil Kharms -- stareishina Nebesnogo Konstantinopolya russkoi literatury. Konstantinopol', Tretiy Rim ili Interzona -- ty chuvstvuesh' sebya doma, vooruzhionnyi do zubov damoklovym mechom Olegovykh chudachestv. Skromnaya dan' pisatelyu.

Muzhik Sukovatov

A twin brother of Konstantin Leontiev, N. G. Pomyalovsky (1835-1863) lived fast and died young, for the common causes -- alcohol addiction being only one. Like Pisarev and Dobrolyubov, Pomyalovsky did not survive the transition of epochs, when all talents and all radicalism went to waste and the former radicals became liberals and (redundantly) police informers. Pomyalovsky remains in Eternity as an itinerant radical -- and true radicalism in politics always spills over to the avangarde aesthetics (just like truly avangarde aesthetics always spills over into extremist politics). Along with Kafka's Penal Colony and Dostoevsky's Bobok, Pomyalovsky's major work (Ocherki Bursy) transcends the existentialist, personal terror of living -- into the impersonal, superhuman, avangardist living of terror, totally devoid of hate and compassion.

And the weeping willows cry for noone...
What man is at ease in his Inn
Get out.
Wide is the world and cold.
Get out.
Thou hast become an in-itiate.
Get out.
But thou canst not get out by the way thou camest in.
The Way out is THE WAY.
Get out.
For OUT is Love and Wisdom and Power.
Get OUT.
If thou hast T already, first get UT.
Then get O.
And so at last get OUT.

                                                    -- Book of Lies, Chapter 23.
Te zhe stikhi v KOI8: Rossiya, Pakin i Rakukin, Muzhik Sukovatov, pro svinoobraznost'.

Misha Verbitsky.