There was an interesting incident regarding the new history textbook for high school students. It was reported that Sorokin’s work “The Day of the Oprichnik” was included in the list of recommended literature. Newspapers wrote it. Experts commented differently. Journalists have spoken. Then the main author of the textbook, Medinsky, spoke and said that everything is stuffing and fake.
People keep making noise. Someone didn’t hear the explanation. Someone does not believe them, sees conspiracy theories, they say that they have already corrected, rewritten. As usual someone has a residue as in a joke about spoons. And someone in the list of unfortunate references has already found new causes and names for the dispute. The situation is, of course, extremely intriguing. And it’s just that he wonders about the reaction of society, ready to jump in without realizing it.
After all, when things were just starting to turn, what complaints arose in society against the textbook? Actually only two. First: it is not allowed in the patriotic textbooks. And that’s exactly how the textbook was named, no matter who and what it understands. Second complaint: This is not allowed for children.
A storm broke out on the Internet: social networks were flooded with retellings of the dystopia about violent security guards; It was filled with scandalous quotes from Sorokin’s postmodernist novel about Stalin, Khrushchev and Hitler. Of course, the quotes and retellings were flavored with long and emotional comments. Tell me, how is this possible – yes, in fragile sensitive souls? Is this in line with the course of the country? Are such quirks acceptable in a manual describing a particular operation? Isn’t it a kind of goddamn pluralism and even blasphemy to have some different interpretations here?
By the way, the shape is really weird. It was strange for him that this question was inadequately circulated by the angry public. Ultimately, the main complaint was supposed to be about how fiction generally works in history textbooks. History, dammit. And in this sense it was logical to ask not only Sorokin, but also the Strugatskys, Grossman, Platonov, Rybakov, Efremov and many others included in this list. You may love any of these authors, you may hate them all, but what do they do on a history textbook’s recommended reading list? Somehow you still expect more proficiency from the scientific literature.
That’s just different assessments, interpretations in textbooks are possible. Accurate, balanced, with reference to authoritative sources and the opinions of well-known scientists in the relevant profile. It’s nice to share these views with facts. Very strict requirements must be placed on the communication of these facts so that there are not even minor mistakes made due to negligence. It seems that a new textbook by Medinsky also raises questions on this subject. And if there is something worth talking about seriously, then talk about it right away. All the talking with us came down to swearing at the level of grandmothers on the bench. “Uff, shame!” spit with your soul.
Of course, you can’t argue with grandmas on the bench. Their naive consciousness rejects argumentation in principle. The complexity of the world scares them, scares them to the point of denial, and every time they meet, they start screaming, waving their arms when it becomes impossible for them to ignore. Like little kids, for God’s sake. It’s urgent!
And if we continue to talk about the unfortunate textbook, then we can confidently say that the reaction will be exactly the same if the list of recommended readings there meets the author, not only with Sorokin, but also with some historians with “false” views, ” false biography” and even “wrong” origin.
It’s hard to imagine what a howl would go up if, for example, he were a liberal scientist, an Englishman or an American, in short, an alien enemy. And no, the situation could not have been salvaged if a dozen of soil historians and a modern pro-Slavic list were mentioned in the following lines. Backwards! Such a neighborhood will infuriate our humiliated and resentful ones.
As a literature teacher, I am always interested in this. Unbelievably, some parents and many parents are genuinely surprised by the diversity of the school curriculum. They do not believe that different, sometimes diametrically opposed views unite their authors. You won’t believe it, but I’ve heard complaints about talking to young people about Shalamov or Mandelstam. People seriously believed it was my initiative. When I said that these writers were in the program, the questioners rolled their eyes: “No way! Mayakovsky has been studied recently. How can Mayakovsky and Mandelstam unite with Shalamov!” There are also bends in the other direction. “Why are you torturing children with Taras Bulba, was he not removed from the program after the collapse of the Soviet Union?” they ask.
And what a whirlwind can there be on my blog when I write about something about school literature! Something terrible. I’m going to write about Radishchev, “a rebel worse than Pugachev,” and I’ll be a bad liberal, a traitor, write me off as a foreign agent, and kick me out of school with a filthy broom. I will write that I have nothing against the return of Nikolai Ostrovsky to the program – the author is completely cuckoo, hit his head a little more, and Stalin will sing the song hosanna. I will express the view that literature can be studied on any material, if once this material entered the history of literature and occupied a place there, – in my opinion, with reference to Dante (more precisely, what do I attribute to the Florentine? He did not write), the hottest in hell They prophesy their corners cause I’m an unscrupulous bitch.
People hold on to the form without understanding the content. And the form is deceiving. It is distorted under the influence of stereotypes, some random stories, just the noise of the crowd. If you start explaining something to someone, if you get caught up in that content, it will cause a protest.
The layman thinks that the Westerner Turgenev is not Western at all, like some Westerners at the moment. And when a laity read that even after the death of Ivan Sergeyevich drove the government crazy, so that during the funeral the entire Volkovskoye cemetery was cordoned off by the police, and several agents of the Third Department served on the grave, God forbid, there were no uncoordinated conversations, so God, nobody said “Russia is free He did not dare to give anything with the spirit of “it will happen”, a panic attack comes to one’s head. “Lies!” she shouts, offended by the best of emotions.
The layman does not even know what wave of hatred, as we have just said, Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example, was subjected to. How was he accused of belittling and humiliating Russian history? You know, in essence his “History of a City” was the same challenge as Sorokin’s prose. Considering the difference of ages, that is, we live in a time when taboo topics are almost gone, Sorokin is no longer scandalous.
Of course, he could be treated differently, whether he liked it or not (I don’t like it), but it is impossible to deny that his works already have a certain place in literature. in the literature. Not in history. The problem is this. In apathy.
Sorokin in the history textbook is no stranger in this sense than Efremov with the Andromeda Nebula.
The world is complex, and opposing that complexity is a sign of infantilism, if not dementia. But complexity does not mean chaos. Everything has its place in this world, there is no need to mess around.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.