They say our literature is going through hard times. They say the Pushkins and Tolstoys are long gone, replaced by worthless mediocrities who can't string two words together. Who would deny that the level of contemporary literature cannot be compared to that of bygone days?
Where are the heirs of Mayakovsky, shouting poetry at the top of their lungs? Where are the new Dostoevskys, capable of penetrating the very soul? Where are the Creators with a capital C?
I hasten to inform you: they exist and they create. But first things first.
Let's start by understanding why people love the Pushkins, the Lermontovs, and all the others. Yes, they erected monuments to themselves with their own hands, monuments to which the public path has not yet grown over—that's true, but is that the real reason?
Some believe it wasn't just a matter of talent—history played a role. The era of the Nekrasovs, the Tolstoys (or anyone else)—these were times when people witnessed one war after another, people's strikes, and revolutions. These were times when literature had enormous social significance. The people's emotional upsurge fostered the development of literature as a mass phenomenon. People didn't watch television or spend time online; they read poetry magazines and immersed themselves in stories and novels. For them, literature was a mirror of the soul, a reflection of the times.
What do we have today? It's all the same, with one exception: the mirror of the soul is no longer literature. Poetry and prose have faded into the background; today, the internet and television rule. Why? It's simple: since the time of the Akhmatovas and Turgenevs, the world's population has grown. To over seven billion. Cities have expanded, the pace of life has increased. There's no longer time to search between the lines for the true meaning of something. Information is needed here and now. The mirror of the soul should depict a clear silhouette, not a “blurred-portrait-by-Malevich.” On the internet, everything is accessible, beautiful, relevant, and illustrated.
And here the internet and television come to the rescue: everything is accessible, everything is relevant, even pictures are available. It's a celebration. The people themselves have rejected literature: who needs images, who needs hidden meaning, who needs this literature?
It's a well-known fact that demand creates supply. And anything that doesn't meet demand is either thrown away or sent underground—a dark, useless place where rats roam, but where one can live and develop peacefully. That's precisely where literature went.
The reason was, firstly, the people: I hasten to reveal a secret: people don't need literature per se; they need the proverbial mirror of the soul. Today, television and the internet fulfill this function, and literature has nothing to offer against them.
And the second reason was history: it had become both more boring and more brutal. People didn't care about literature either because nothing was happening, or because something truly terrible was happening, like the events of the 1990s. History was no longer a helper for the Creators with a capital “C.”
But literature lives on. It lives and thrives. New books are published one after another. The overall quality is lacking, but how could it be otherwise? That's what it's called—it's quality—to reflect a false picture of what's happening. Looking at the overall figures, one might conclude that every second or third person on Earth is an educated guru in a specialized field.
When choosing books, it's essential to seek out masterpieces. They definitely exist; they couldn't have simply vanished with the passing of the Mayakovskys and Pushkins. Behind the “general quality,” behind the piles of low-quality commercial literature, no one notices the literature of genius—the very same literature bequeathed by the Dostoevskys and Blok. That very homage to art.
Names? Here they are: Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Evgeny Vodolazkin, Inna Kabysh (does anyone know them?).
Bookstore shelves shouldn't be full; they should be emptied. The very reason people love books must be sought out and celebrated, so that people finally understand that literature is alive. Moreover, it's progressing:
New genres are being invented, poetic styles are being combined, and prose is being experimented with. Literary websites, forums, and video-sharing channels are popping up online. Contemporary poets' poems are being set to music and broadcast on every radio station. Excerpts from contemporary prose writers' works are being published on social media, visible to anyone with even a passing eye. Good books are being written and published en masse.
Simply put, we live in a world of beauty. A world that no one wants to notice.
