Writer and teacher Anna Elkova got a job in a bilingual private kindergarten at the Mary Club school in Kommunarka in September 2022 and approached working with her daughter. In a comment to socialbites.ca, she admitted that she works unofficially, as an educator and English teacher.
In October, Elkova first published the horror story “Asya” in AST publishing house’s anthology “The scariest book of 2023”. The compiler of the collection, Parfenov MS, describes the work as a difficult and bleak story that touches on harassment, harassment and bullying. Also, Elkova led a public opinion about horror films on the VKontakte social network.
As Anna Yelkova said, the school principal viewed her page on the social network only in mid-May 2023, listened to the audio recording of the story, and was “horrified.” Despite the fact that after Anna’s first words she closed her page from strangers and stopped holding society in fear, the director invited her to a chat and announced her dismissal. This was because Anna was not only interested in horror, but also wrote dark stories. According to officials, the teacher is “filled” with a theme of horror.
“They put me in front of the fact that I just finished two weeks and left. I worked informally, and it was irresponsible on my part, but that’s how it is, – said Elkova.
“It’s not just about the page. I turned it off right away. The thing is, it’s all in my head. So at least I can’t work there with children.”
He stated that to some people, the passion for the subject of fear does not fit the image of the teacher. According to Elkova, she only discussed her work with her colleagues and did not show the children any scary material:
“At the end of the day, it’s all in the middle, everyone can come to the lecture and hear it. If you follow me like this in a year, there will be problems.
Anna does not plan to appeal the decision of the kindergarten administration to protect her rights. She explained her decision with feeling for her colleagues that this “could affect in some way”. Also, Elkova said about the requirements for the appearance of teachers:
“I think the requirements for teachers to appear are poorly combined with pay and working conditions. If we talk about the same regions, the administration should be grateful for coming to work in their own institutions. Of course there is a principle of reasonableness and a measure of self-expression when working with children, but the problem is that everyone decides for himself.”
The author Parfenov MS noted that the absurdity of the situation is not even the fact that the leadership of a private school and kindergarten condemned its employees for writing a horror story. He noted that Anna did not initially make a fuss about this situation, but reacted with understanding to the words of the authorities, moved forward and closed access to her page, began deleting information about her work from there, and presented herself as someone who did not exist. – conflict person.
“But he was still” asked to go out, “and the reason was clearly stated – they say, you are not like that, you are not high, you can be dangerous for children,” Parfyonov was angry.
According to the author, Yelkova’s discrimination disturbed all writers and readers with horror, because “in Anna’s person, everyone in the crowd was written as “mentally ill” and “dangerous.” added.
“Scary tales were composed, among other things, by our great classics – Pushkin, Gogol, Karamzin, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky and others. Are they sick and dangerous too? said Parfenov. — My friends include horror writers and readers, teachers, educators, doctors, librarians, government officials, and police officers. People of various professions, ages, political and religious views. Are they all maniacs? And of course there are many mothers and fathers among us. But in all my years (decades!) of my passion for horror, the ones I’ve definitely not met among horror experts are lunatics, serial killers, and criminals in general. Just because we write or read about monsters and maniacs doesn’t mean we are like that. It is stupid and stupid to think like that. It is important and interesting for us to just write about such aspects of life, to touch on these problems. We also entertain the audience by scaring them “as if”.
The author greatly appreciated Anna’s first story and noted that it is far from just a “horror story”: the story deals with important and sensitive topics, it is very strong psychologically.
“Whatever the genre, it is undoubtedly gifted prose. Of course it can happen by chance – that happens too. But we look forward to Elkova’s new work with great interest – judging by the story “Asia”, it has great potential,” said Parfyonov.
The school and kindergarten declined to comment on the situation.