In the midst of the 8th "SlovoNovo" forum in Montenegro, Sobesednik sat down with its founder, Marat Guelman.
SlovoNovo is the premier festival of Russia’s new emigrant culture. However, "festival" sounds far too lighthearted for an event that gathers Russian-speaking writers, essayists, musicians, and politicians. Boris Grebenshchikov and Andrei Makarevich periodically perform on the SlovoNovo stage, while Zemfira and Alla Pugacheva meet behind the scenes. Yet, this is not about a high-society get-together; it is about the search for meaning. In the midst of the 8th SlovoNovo forum in Montenegro, Sobesednik spoke with its founder, Marat Guelman.
Sobesednik: Marat, previously we could see many of your projects in Perm. Now you are organizing SlovoNovo in Montenegro, and the forum has also gathered in Tel Aviv during the summer. How fundamentally different is the situation now that the Russian-speaking cultural space finds itself outside the country’s borders?
Marat Guelman: We have been organizing SlovoNovo in Montenegro since 2018. Back then, we faced slightly different goals, and one of the primary ones was to demonstrate that those who left are not mere shards, but substantial pieces of the Russian cultural space. Today, it is simply impossible to claim that Moscow is the metropole and there is some fractured piece that broke away from it. Moscow is no longer the center of Russian culture; that is a clinical fact.
Russia is a literature-centric country. Let us start from that premise. Vladimir Sorokin, Mikhail Shishkin, and Boris Akunin retained their massive audiences and print runs inside the country. Writers who previously split their time between Europe and Russia have now emigrated. The exact same can be said about classical music. And about popular music, too. Let’s take music specifically as an example of a "people’s" art. Five years ago, Zemfira, Boris Grebenshchikov, Alla Pugacheva, Oxxxymiron, and Noize MC were an integral part of the internal environment. Without exaggeration, the majority of Russian writers, pop figures, and a significant portion of Russian visual artists live in Europe today. From my perspective, Moscow has lost its status as the capital of Russian art. And this situation is not unique: in Russian literature, there have already been periods when everything most vital, everything most significant, transpired and was written beyond the borders.
Sobesednik: Does the place of residence affect the word spoken in the Russian language?
Guelman: Right now, in the city of Budva, where we are located, half of those holding residence permits are citizens of Russia. And in the country as a whole, about 12% of the population is Russian-speaking. At the same time, Montenegro is a country accustomed to the existence of cultural minorities. There are Albanians, Bosniaks, and Serbs here. And Russian culture manifests itself here not as an immigrant culture, but as a cultural minority. Precisely because there is no longer a link to Moscow. The exact same thing is happening in Prague or, for example, in Kazakhstan. For the Russian language, this is a brand-new experience, one that is not backed by a massive territory. It allows us to look at ourselves from the outside. This is how European culture functions. Fundamentally, my main thesis is that Russian culture, which has its roots inside European culture, is now, having detached itself from that massive territory, simply becoming a part of European culture. Without quotation marks and without prepositions.
Sobesednik: The culture has left, but what about the audience?
Guelman: The audience remained in Russia, while the people of art are here. Diverse people, by the way. The writer Alexei Ivanov is quite a traditionalist "soil-bound" author, yet he lives in England now too. It’s simply that freedom acts as the blood for art. Whatever your views might be, I believe that without freedom, you cannot function. Therefore, a writer relocates to a territory outside of state control and, from this territory, speaks to those readers of his who remained to live in Moscow.
And there is absolutely no negative attitude toward those who stayed. One can speak negatively about the circumstances in which Russia finds itself today. One can and must articulate their position. Unquestionably, communication is being disrupted, and the primary disrupter is the state, which bans free voices. When Europe suddenly debates the cancellation of Russian culture yet again, it turns out that the vast majority of bans leveled against prominent Russian directors and writers originate inside Russia itself.
We have formulated a rather Christian principle: do your duty, come what may. Yes, a result will only manifest if like-minded people remain inside the country. And they do. In the publishing business, in terms of communication, things are far better than in cinema or theater. For this forum, we published an almanac titled “The Exit” (Vykhod). It is a collection of prose and poetry featuring 50 authors; literally everyone is in there. And we already have a tremendous number of orders from Russia.
Our task is to be on free territory and to speak out. The channels exist. There is YouTube, which displays what is currently transpiring beyond this wall being erected by the state. For instance, Alla Pugacheva’s audience structurally coincides with Vladimir Putin’s audience. Therefore, what she and Maksim Galkin say is highly vital. Meanwhile, Mikhail Shishkin will speak to professors. Everyone speaks to their own audience. This is our duty and our responsibility.
Sobesednik: But the state has earnestly occupied itself not only with cutting off communication with this audience, but also with its "education," as well as handing out unflattering labels to people like you...
Guelman: We have no alternative. But I believe that for a generation that just five years ago absolutely legally and deservedly admired the works of Chulpan Khamatova, former idols cannot instantly become alien. This means a person at least begins to doubt. To critically process the information they receive from the state. To doubt even their own perceptions of the world around them. If this situation continues for another five years, of course, the conversation will be entirely different. But for now, I feel and know that the efficiency of what we are doing is exceptionally high.
Sobesednik: For some—by virtue of age—Zemfira’s cosmos does not exist, but there is already the conventional performer Shaman.
Guelman: So far, I see that they aren't succeeding very well in replacing Zemfira. First of all, in art, every single place is unique. Zemfira herself creates the space that she occupies. This means Shaman cannot occupy this specific space; he must create his own. Second, within this brief timespan, the maximum they managed to accomplish on behalf of the state was a more or less successful exploitation of the dead—places where Pushkin and Brodsky can no longer speak. They dig up certain quotes to prove that "Pushkin is with us." Medinsky convened an entire congress of descendants. There were great-grandchildren of Tolstoy and grandnephews of Pushkin. There aren't many of them, but they exist—those who chose to join the authorities today to play this game.
Sobesednik: Is Russian culture great?
Guelman: This is not a question of greatness. We are, first and foremost, an equal culture. No more great than any other, but certainly not "backward." That category is only necessary to ascend to a certain step and dissolve into general civilization. That step was surpassed by Russian culture more than a century ago—back when the Russian novel, which was essentially a universal novel, captured the entire world. Today, the works of Mikhail Shishkin are the works of Mikhail Shishkin, not of Russian culture. Aside from belonging to a culture, every author possesses their own name.
Sobesednik: "SlovoNovo 2023" takes place in the resort of Luštica Bay, and during the summer, in Tel Aviv. Why is the current forum not an insular get-together, not a resort discussion among aesthetes, as someone in Russia might assume?
Guelman: Many traveled here seeking different things. My feeling is this: right now, in the world and in art, a highly vital turning point is occurring. For several decades, everyone argued that nothing new was happening. And suddenly, everything aligns in such a way that we stand on the threshold of something genuinely new. On one hand, it is difficult when culture is "divorced" from the state. But on the other, this provides additional opportunities. Finally, we are responsible for what transpires on behalf of the country, while simultaneously existing within it as outcasts. From both sides. Ukrainians maintain at least a distance toward us: politically, for them, there are no "good Russians." It’s a complex landscape.
Sobesednik: What, in your view, became the pivotal event of the forum—a clear, vivid, and unequivocal statement about what is happening now and what will happen tomorrow?
Guelman: The core issue is that military actions are ongoing. And from all sides, a question is directed at us: what are you doing? It is formulated in various ways, in the spirit of "When the cannons speak, the muses must fall silent," "Yield your place to Ukrainian directors," and so on. Meaning, a certain demand for silence reverberates.
At previous forums, we formulated several strategies. First: yes, one can remain silent. Gag yourself, yield your place. Second: one can resist. For example, if you are inside Russia—engage in street art. Well, right now it has become clear to us that we can no longer remain silent. Silence becomes a sign of solidarity or agreement with the state. This is a vital moment that concerns the entirety of the current SlovoNovo forum.
Art is not made in a single day. Everything we had in our address books and computers remained pre-war art. Right now, however, we all possess that content which was acquired over the past eighteen months. And that strikes me as the most fascinating part. Previously, Boris Grebenshchikov was asked to perform well-known compositions. At the concert on September 27, the audience expected his new songs. You know, he released a four-track album, “Bogrukinog.” That is a vital marker.
Furthermore, previously we didn't do theater at all. Right now, we have two highly potent theatrical projects: Ivan Vyrypaev presented the play “The Cherry Man.” It was commissioned by the National Theatre in Prague, and its premiere will take place on the historic stage on October 26. We hosted a staged reading of the play. The second event is a performance based on a play by Alexander Guelman, my father, titled “Almar. The Declassified Letters.” It was directed by a director from Ukraine.
Sobesednik: The Russian audience has practically ceased its dialogue with Europeans today. Am I right in understanding that the current SlovoNovo forum is partly an attempt to initiate that kind of conversation?
Guelman: Yes, representatives of the European Commission participated in one of the round tables. They are attempting to locate the seeds of a future Russia—meaning that Russia which will emerge after this dark spell somehow dissolves, so to speak. We are contemplating the creation of a Russian-language magazine, and in the long term—perhaps a university. It is already clear that the situation is not only not resolved in three days, as Vladimir Putin hoped, but it isn't resolved in six months either, as we had hoped. We need to construct a foundation upon which to build a structure.
Such an intense integration of Russian culture into European culture has never occurred before. How did it used to be? Cultural diplomacy: the Hermitage, state agreements, massive exhibitions. Right now in Berlin, there are four permanently operating Russian-language theaters—can you imagine? Dmitry Krymov, whose name was crossed out in Russia, is currently directing six productions a year—two in America, four in Europe. Previously, he directed two productions in Moscow. Another example: in 2019, I gifted 200 works to the Tretyakov Gallery. I had an agreement that there would be a hall dedicated to my collection. I could be sitting in Moscow, skimming the cream, and giving interviews. Instead, I am opening a gallery in Berlin.
Sobesednik: You have surely read Vladislav Surkov’s brief essay, “The Greatness of the North.” Do you concede that the construct described by the former deputy head of the presidential administration—a "triune northern geopolitical cluster"—is not a phantom?
Guelman: Surkov is attempting to construct a model for educated people who reject all this nonsense surrounding the "Russian world." A model that, at the same time, would not contradict the Kremlin's current cultural policy. I know this concept of his: Europe, America, Russia—three cultural empires. That is not the case. One needs to live out here for a bit to understand that fundamentally, the concept that we need to gather inside, build arks, and subsequently meet via these arks is incorrect. Everything must operate at the level of an interface that possesses a thousand channels of interaction simultaneously; that is when it begins to function, that is when mutual enrichment transpires. Today, the interface is destroyed.
Slava Surkov constructs certain things that might entice someone with their architecture. But one could discuss, debate, or even accept this as a model if military actions were not ongoing.
From my perspective, Surkov’s message fails because in its language, it is turned toward one audience while addressed to another. To proponents of the "Russian world" or "Eurasianism," this language is alien, while for people of a European consciousness, the very appeal to the state as some independent subject that unites or shows solidarity with someone is alien. I repeat: in culture, every artist stands for himself; he does not represent a country.
Sobesednik: Is morality universal? Or do Russia and the world outside its borders now maintain different standards of morals and ethics?
Guelman: You can't argue with brute force. We can speak from the position of universal morality or Christianity. But the example of Evgeniya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk, who are currently under investigation, demonstrates that this, too, fails to satisfy the authorities. A moral stance means always asking a question. Always checking: is this good or bad? That is what morality consists of. But for an answer to be obtained, one must have the opportunity to ask the question. Even that opportunity is absent—there is only prohibition. Just as it was during the Soviet era, presumably individuals will emerge who will locate a method to speak out. Even in such a landscape. This is not a generalized recipe, but every time a specific instance of a specific artist. Recall Vladimir Vysotsky.
