«Shalamov’s importance for Russia as a measurement of health — political, cultural, moral…»

«Shalamov’s importance for Russia as a measurement of health — political, cultural, moral…»

Жизнь и творчество. Мировая литература и советская история. Анализ нравственной необходимости Варлама Шаламова

(несколько фрагментов отчета шведской исследовательницы Джозефины Лундблад о прошедшей в июне международной шаламовской конференции: (на английском языке))

The woman whom the conference commemorated, Irina Sirotinskaya, once asked Shalamov: “Как жить?” [How to live?] Perhaps this third question might now rightfully be added to the two famous questions “Что делать?” [What is to be done?] and “Кто виноват?” [Who is to blame?] that have haunted Russian literature since the 19th century. And it is with his answer to the third question that Varlam Shalamov will be granted an undisputed place in the Russian canon.

At the opening plenary session, John Glad, the first English-language translator of Shalamov, expressed the view that even if Shalamov’s Kolyma had been a fabrication of the writer’s imagination, his works would still have to be considered great literature.
Shalamov’s works, as he himself put it, constitute every individual’s own uncompromising guide to behaving in a crowd. His literary trademark is short stories that appear as simple slices of camp life but through the act of slow reading transform into an experience of the depths of what it means to be human.

When I saw my own article published in the same collection — “Перекличка через столетие — через простую баню (К теме “Шаламов и Достоевский”)” [a response after a century, through a simple banya (to the topic “Shalamov and Dostoevsky”)] — it occurred to me that the girl who wrote it had been twenty-three years old at the time. When I produced my first contribution to шаламоведение, I was but a child who did not ask herself what Shalamov was or why she needed him. At the time I never wondered how to read Shalamov; I understood his voice intuitively and soon said to myself, “This is what I’m going to spend my life exploring.” Had someone asked me then what exactly this was, I would probably have answered: “Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov. Russian writer. Born 1907, died 1982.” Today my response sounds a little different. This is everything indispensible to understanding his works in their complete context — and that is always within literature and history and never without the moral necessity of Varlam Shalamov.
Shalamov’s importance for Russia as a measurement of health — political, cultural, moral — could stretch well into the 21st century: as long as Russia doesn’t know how or why Shalamov should be read, it is bound to be a country in denial. A simple writer who is more than simply a writer, Shalamov’s significance will always reach beyond his words. Instead of ending a dialogue of controversy, the conference’s search for answers made possible more questions.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 3 2011, 15-16

Источник: http://shalamov.ru/en/research/174/

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