“Tabia thirty -two” is an artistic novel of the philologist and literary critic Alexei Konakov, the author of the study “The Decreasing World: the History of the“ Incredible ”in the Late USSR” is about the craving of Soviet citizens to mystical practices - and the biography of the writer Evgeny Kharitonov, one of the most unexplored authors of the 20th century. The world of “Tabia” describes Russia of 2080 - the country is in complete isolation after a certain redevelopment, there is no Internet on it, and all the literary -centric Russian culture familiar to us died; The authorities decided to replace it with the culture of the chess - streets, previously named after writers, now they bear the names of the grandmasters, and in the speech of people, chess jokes were replaced by book aphorisms. The main character of the book by Cyril, however, suddenly finds out that chess will come to the end soon. The cooperative of independent journalists “Coast” talked with Alexei Konakov about how he managed to write one of the brightest novels of 2024 - and why he would not exist without self -studying in a chess game.
- People who play chess a lot call your novel perhaps the most chess in the history of Russian literature. More chess than even Luzhin’s protection. There really are a lot of crafts, technical details and theory. At the same time, you do not play chess yourself.
- Yes, I actually do not play. Chess was my school hobby. Maybe the hobby of the early student years - then I really played quite a lot. But since then I have not been engaged in chess, although I try to follow them - to keep abreast of the news of the chess world. And this world is quite dynamic and interesting.
- Did you want to play while you wrote a novel?
- You know, yes. Twenty years ago I stopped playing - and all these twenty years I want to play. But I am in many ways an analog person, and now chess is playing, as a rule, with the help of computer programs or via the Internet. And for some reason I don't really like this format.
Last September, the Publishing House "individual", where Tabia thirty -two came out, organized a literary festival in Peredelkino. Among other things, there was a small chess tournament - alive, with real wooden figures. I took part in this tournament, and, honestly, I did not feel so happy for a long time.
- And how did this tournament go for you? What were the successes?
- The middle is half. Not all parties lost, won something. Although, of course, I did not reach the prizes. In addition to lovers, there were professional chess players - either candidates, or even masters of sports.
-The events of the novel unfold in the 2080s. According to the plot, the creator of the ideology of the new Russia Ulyashov is about 90 years old. It turns out that he is my peer-born somewhere in the 1990s.
-Yes, something like that.
-I am poorly believed that one of my peers, if suddenly such an opportunity will present to him, will build an ideology of renewed Russia with an eye on the experience of the 1950-1960s, as Ulyashov does. The world of the 2080s, which is based on its ideas, is similar to Soviet idyll. Why was he inspired by that period?
- It seems to me that this is just quite logical for a person who is well versed in the history of chess and loves chess culture. You know, probably, you can draw a parallel with a ballet. Maybe if someone in the future wants to build a ballet picture of the world, he will turn to the era of Marius Petipa, because it was the golden age of the Russian ballet.
The end of the 1940s is a real heyday of Soviet chess. The first Soviet champion appeared. A huge number of theoretical innovations, a whole galaxy of titans.
We, as younger people, perceive Soviet chess through the prism of another time, for example, matches of Karpov and Kasparov. These are really outstanding chess players, maybe Kasparov is generally the strongest chess player in history. But there was no such overwhelming dominance of chess then-it was in the late 1940s. Because already in the 1960s, Robert Fisher appeared. He showed that with the Soviet chess school you can fight quite successfully.
That is, Ulyashov, the main ideologist of the new Russian life, refers to the end of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960, because there was a heyday of chess. And not because the people of that time were, for example, more controlled.
-That is, first of all, chess, not power and ideology are still important to him?
- Certainly. Another point-Russia in Tabia thirty-two crawls out of some big war, which brought destruction and poverty. So the support in the post -war decades looks very logical: all this optimism did not arise under Khrushchev, but even under late Stalin. The war ended, the construction of Stalin's heights began, the construction of new huge hydroelectric power stations. Soviet physicists received Nobel prizes one by one. Despite the fact that there was poverty and devastation around, optimism was spilled in the air.
- Before Tabia thirty -two, you wrote the book “The Decreasing World: the History of“ Incredible ”in the Late USSR”, where you studied anti -scientific myths and practices that the Soviet man used in his life. There you associated this optimism and enthusiasm with a thirst for knowledge, including otherworldly. In Tabia thirty -two, it seems, there is no mystical motive at all. Why?
- Yes, this enthusiasm led Soviet people to talk about the Tunguska meteorite, about the hopes that Mars is inhabited or that the moon is actually an artificial satellite of the Earth. Everyone was waiting for some achievements-and not from mystical teachers, but from Soviet scientists.
This enthusiasm, probably, rhymes chess enthusiasm, because chess is still a science, knowledge of options, moves, calculation capabilities. But otherwise I did not use this mystical motive. Maybe single remarks come across - for example, there is an episode in the book where the art critic shows its dissertation, which has reptilians who play chess with the American president. The real episode from the life of the great chess player Viktor Korchno, who caused the spirit and played chess with him, is also mentioned. But this, of course, is a separate large topic - how chess is connected with all kinds of beliefs in telepathy, in telekinesis, the possibility of reading thoughts. I did not add this motive to the novel, although I had such thoughts.
Probably, this motive will be decorated in the form of another text - half an artistic, half research.
- Why are you as a researcher interested in a stagnant period? How did you start studying it?
- Modern Russia inherits to a very large extent this time. We, our contemporaries, do not imagine how much this inheritance is. The same celebrations of Victory Day - very magnificent, becoming more magnificent every year - this is a cosplay of Brezhnevi...
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