Return: stories of repatriates. Russian Anglomania See also in other dictionaries

At our table is a film and television director Petr Pomerantsev; author of the guide "Afisha. London" Petr Favorov; editor-in-chief of the journal "Foreign Literature" Alexander Livergant; translator Viktor Golyshev; poet, translator, literary critic Grigory Dashevsky and critic Anna Narinskaya, special correspondent of the Kommersant Publishing House.

Despite the fact that "spy" scandals periodically arise in Russia around some strange stone and some journalistic and political horrors associated with London, London still remains the favorite city of both oligarchs and ordinary citizens. There is some special love for England in Russia, and it is rooted in history. But let's start with why you personally love England and what you don't like about it.

Anna Narinskaya

Anna Narinskaya: Three points immediately came to my mind. And if we don’t talk about what I bow to, kneel on, namely, I love England, then it’s probably Dickens, Alice in Wonderland and The Beatles. And exactly these three points for which I love her, for which I do not love her. Because they are in different time I was so captured that I still listen to The Beatles like a fool, and my children look at me like I'm crazy, and no one can even understand me in this sense. And in the same way, Alice in Wonderland seems to me almost the best book. And with Dickens - it's generally some kind of madness. When Grigory Dashevsky was looking for some quote from Dickens, he typed "Bleak House" on the Internet, the first thing that came out was my article, where it was cited as something of the best. And it is addictive, these English things are still some kind of drug addiction. Therefore, perhaps, in this sense, both love and dislike, they are here and ended up together.

Grigory Dashevsky: I have England and love for her (or dislike for her) is somehow separate from single, individual names. When I think about how much I love Blake's poetry, I don't get the idea that I also love England. England is some kind of separate phenomenon, which, rather, can be the background in books of the second row, in children's books, starting with "Treasure Island" and ending, for example, with "spy novels" by Le Carré. I feel something like, in my opinion, at the beginning of Anna Karenina, she is reading an English novel, where the characters go to their English happiness. And this is the feeling that arises from these genre, let's say, books, some kind of closed world in which there are some rules that do not arise, perhaps, when you read anyone's literature.

Grigory Dashevsky

Although all people live in some worlds and according to some rules, it seems that the British themselves learned to look at their world and their rules in it a little from the side a long time ago, and therefore you can connect to their view. Here is the feeling that they themselves are a little bit alien in relation to their own life, they themselves see it as some kind of closed system of rules. And maybe that's why, as a local person, as a Russian, you are especially envious of this, because the local life is not amenable to consideration from the outside: everyone is busy here and can not see what, in fact, the rules we live here - or rise above it even a meter to see it as a closed whole. And in English literature or culture, this ability to take a step back and look at their own world as closed seems to be the most contagious of all.

Victor Golyshev: Well, you love - you don't love, I don't know, you respect ... The first is for respect for the individual, for "privacy", which has no borders in England. There, corpses are found in a strange area, which have been lying there for 10 years, but no one goes there. The second is for some conservatism, and this is connected with self-respect, they respect themselves, and we need to learn this for a long time. And the third - probably for the sense of humor that permeates everything. That's what Grisha was talking about, some detachment, it happens with the help of humor. Probably for these three properties.

Alexander Livergant: We very often love a person from the contrary - for what this person has, but we don’t have. That's about the same love, the same feeling we have for England. England is farther away from us in all respects - literary, ideological, cultural, whatever, and political, all the more so - farther than Germany and France, which are close to us. England is a distant country for us, and a country largely opposite to us. And those features that my colleagues and friends here called are English features, and at the same time not inherent in us. And restraint, and self-respect, and conservatism - this is all that we would like to have, but do not have.

Alexander Livergant

As for my feeling for England, I would say that it arose when ... it is not enough to say that I was not in England, but, like all of us, I never dreamed of being there. Therefore, love for an object in a strange, paradoxical way arose before the appearance of this object. Sometimes it seemed to me, at least (and maybe to all of us), that neither England nor America existed at all, that this was a fiction. Therefore, by the way, this love looks literary, it is directed to literary objects in the absence of any other. I came to England for the first time in 1995 at the age of 48. And I must say that I experienced, perhaps (I will say a strange thing), even disappointment rather than joy from meeting this country. Because the feeling for her was much stronger than the one you experience when you see the object of your love with your own eyes.

- Let's now listen to the young people who lived in England.

Peter Favorov: From the point of view of a person who lived in England and returned, I can answer as briefly as possible this way: I love England because it is the most reasonable, well-organized country in the world, but I can’t stand it because I have no chance become "their" person there.

Petr Pomerantsev

Petr Pomerantsev: For me, as in the context of this conversation, a representative of English culture and a product of English culture, to say that I love England - well, I can’t say that, because it’s just vulgar and not in English. It is simply impossible to talk about why you love your country. Sorry.

And for what I hate - I will name a lot of things. This is a country where people go to bed at 11. Except for a couple of pubs in London, in most cities pubs, bars close at 11. Even in crazy Scotland everything closes at 2 o'clock. This is a completely sick country, a completely repressed country. The class system still exists. And unfortunately, I have to bear the burden... as an immigrant, I happen to be a product of the "upper-middle class", the snobbish English culture. And I have to carry this stupid burden of the high English classes all the time, and I have nothing to do with it at all. I am a Ukrainian Jew. But when I open my mouth, then immediately: "Oh, you beat us, you repressed us. Oh, you are evil snobs," and so on.

- And because of what, Peter, because of your pronunciation, because of your in English?

Peter Pomerantsev: Yes Yes. England is a linguistic country. And they define you with your accent. I studied in Scotland, unfortunately, which is even worse than England...

Why "unfortunately"?

Peter Pomerantsev: Because I was an Englishman in Scotland. I grew up in London and have always lived in the south of England. And I didn't know there was a country right next to England that didn't like England very much. And when you open your mouth - everything! Well, it's like the Muscovites came to Western Ukraine. Very understandable, very deep and very childlike hatred in Scotland. And there are many countries where you open your mouth... You go to Jamaica, in so many parts of India, in spite of superficial love, deep hatred, of course. And you open your mouth and you are a product of this imperial culture. I'm talking about life.

Anna Narinskaya: My English friends they told me the same things. Some people who studied, as they say, in public, but in fact in private schools, come to a pub and order a beer, and every person in this pub already knows the approximate biography of the applicant, and how annoying it is, and so Further. But still, I think you're exaggerating. Outside of England, all these concepts are mixed. India, as a former colony, maybe.

But I would like to tell an anecdote about how my friend, an elderly lady, emigrated to America. And she began, not knowing English at all, to learn it a little. She lived in New Jersey. She got on a bus in New York to go home. And next to her sat an elderly black man (or should I say African American?). And she, in order to train her English, decided to start a conversation with him. And so she says, says ... And he asks: "Tell me, where are you from?". And she coquettishly says: "Guess." He thought for a long, long time, looked at her and said: "British?". Therefore, after all, the understanding that in other countries the accent is so immediately ... But at the same time, it really turns out even here that the perception of an Englishman as something alien in the world, of course, exists. And how to treat this stranger - with enthusiasm, as we treat here in the majority, or with distrust, and so on - well, this is a question.

We started with this open country and people who can look at themselves from the outside, at their shortcomings and joke about themselves, and now ended up being a closed country, with class system. And Pyotr Favorov said that "I do not like this country because I will never become my own there," and Pyotr Pomerantsev said that there is a class division. But it seems to me that the first thing is still more important - the ability to look at oneself from the outside and the ability to criticize oneself.

Petr Favorov

Peter Favorov: It seems to me that the strange development of the conversation is due to the fact that we are talking a little about different England. When imagining if we lived in the Middle Ages, we always imagine ourselves as knights, not serfs. In the same way, all of us, people external to England to a greater or lesser extent, when speaking about England and English culture, we talk about this "upper-middle class", we look somewhere there. And Peter has a more realistic view of England, as a country where 99% of the population, perhaps, have nothing to do with this "upper-middle class", and do not really appreciate Dickens, Lewis Carroll and ... well, "The The Beatles" probably still appreciate ...

Peter Pomerantsev: No.

Peter Favorov: Well, over 40 people appreciate it. It was still a mass phenomenon. Therefore, this must also be taken into account. When I talk about not being able to fit into England, I am of course talking about not being able to fit into the "upper-middle class". Because in the orderly ranks of Polish waiters and Trinidadian garage workers, I could fit in without any problems, it seems to me.

Alexander Livergant: I began to say that we love England from the contrary, but we, by the way, are ironic about England also from the contrary. And there are at least two such mentions in Russian literature. One of them has already been named - this is in "Anna Karenina". But you quoted Tolstoy, forgetting about the possessive pronoun: it said "their English happiness." This is the first. And the second. Remember when Anna Karenina read this obviously primitive English novel about their English happiness? As she rode her misfortune. She was going to St. Petersburg and already understood that she was in trouble, speaking in today's word. English literature and English culture were perceived by Russians as something alien, distant, perhaps somewhat primitive, shallow.

And another comic shade is, of course, Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky from The Young Lady-Peasant Woman, who, as Pushkin says, played pranks. When he got Miss Jackson, who was 40 years old, who toiled and re-read Pamela twice a year, this, of course, is all very funny. And this Miss Jackson, against the backdrop of Berestovye and Russian fields, looks all the more ridiculous.

Therefore, on the one hand, we love England, and on the other hand, as already partly said here, this country, far from us, evokes some kind of ironic feeling. And here again we are different from them, because they adore our Chekhov, consider him more of their own than a whole host of English writers. And our attitude to England, at least, the literary attitude, perhaps, is like this.

Anna Narinskaya: Despite Chekhov's description of an Englishwoman who fishes while he begs her to turn away. And they completely forgave him.

Grigory Dashevsky: Of course, the subject of the local "Anglomania" is in many respects a fictional, fabulous country. Therefore, when we speak in the same conversation about the properties of real England and about the love of Russians for England number two, we are really talking about slightly different entities. It seems to me that our common attitude towards England over the last, say, 150 years, and especially the Soviet intelligentsia, is close to the attitude of people towards the world invented by Tolkien, for example, where identification with some kind of hobbits is possible. And a person who, like Pyotr Pomerantsev or Pyotr Favorov, says "actually so", indeed, it is as if a living hobbit said: "We have a difficult life ... Everything is not so sweet, it is not so good to dress in our costumes ". It seems to me that this important point.

And I would like to remember one of my friends. When I studied at the university, there were people around me who loved both French and German culture and so on, but they loved there what they loved here too - they loved high literature. And the Francophile adored Valerie. And my Englishman friend memorized the English teams of the second division. That is, a person wholly imagined himself there, he ceased to be that lover of books, high art, and so on. He completely moved to this fabulous country.

It seems to me that we are in an institution that is an example of what Grisha talked about. It's a place made for football fans and it's called John Donne. Only a person who knows well who John Donne is can appreciate the humor of the people who gave this place its name. They recently watched a broadcast of a match between the Russian national team and the Wales national team, perhaps these were characters similar to those that Grigory described.

Viktor Golyshev

Viktor Golyshev: After Grisha, I want to say this. That we love fabulous England... The fact is that everything we relate to in this country or in any other, we are through some kind of crooked prism, we treat any country as fabulous, including our own. We know something about her, we don't know something. They say that there is some special attitude towards England in this sense, that we know it through literature or through pop music. Unfortunately, we also know Russia.

Peter Pomerantsev: The question of "Anglomania", as a kind of manifestation of Russian culture, is very interesting to me. I have been in Russia plus or minus the last seven years, and it is very interesting to watch how London has become a fetish city over the past seven years: England has become a cult not only among the intelligentsia, through literature, but in general in the generation of MTV or REN TV, or TNT and so on. I am doing popular culture in Russia, and somehow I am aware of all this. And it is very interesting that England is not only "Anglomania", but there is also "Anglophobia", and they go together. And the more love, the more hate. I don't think these things can be considered separately. This case with Litvinenko and there were several other scandals. Russia was maniacally looking for some kind of hell and paradise and decided to find it in England. And it definitely is. England is the most evil place... And there is such an idea that England is somehow still fighting in Russia and in the historical process, that the evil English will destroy us (this is England, a helpless country with a tiny economy). At the same time, London is a heavenly city. And these things together: both hell and heaven. And the British, of course, look at it very strangely. And there is already such a word "Londongrad" in London. Russians in England do not meet with the British, they live there in their own world, in a fictional London. But it is very interesting why London was chosen as both the greatest evil and the greatest good. Why not Paris? Why not New York? Maybe you can answer me?

Peter Favorov: London, even more than in the last seven years, it seems to me, has become the capital of foreign countries for Russians. And in this sense became like main city outside of Russia, it has become an alternative to Russia. And accordingly, this is not heaven or hell, but just some kind of reflection, in which, of course, there is everything very bad and everything very good, well, almost everything in general. There are 200 thousand Russians in the city, we have few of them outside the CIS, we don’t have any at all. That is, it became what Paris was in the 20s or New York in the 70s, something like that.

Alexander Livergant: London was chosen precisely because it is the farthest from Moscow, and not only in terms of distance. London is some opposition to Moscow, some opposition to Russia. And when you leave for London, you leave Russia much further than when you leave for Berlin or Paris.

- Because England is on an island?

Alexander Livergant: Because England is on an island, because England, as I have already said, is diametrically different from us in many ways.

Grigory Dashevsky: Something like a note or consideration to the mention of the local "Anglophobia". It hasn't come up yet, though. This is a 19th-century tradition, and its background was the struggle of England to ensure that there was no dominant influence of any power on the continent. And when Russia threatened to become such a power, then indeed the British had a policy ... not purposefully, as they feared here, Russophobic, but a constant English policy of the 19th century against the predominance of any power. Plus, the struggle of empires is already in the East, in Afghanistan and so on. But it seems to me that now people ... I don’t know if they are in the government, but in some kind of near-cultural environment, it seems to me that they definitely chose England as the source of evil, and they reproduce this formula of the 19th century, “an Englishwoman crap”, as an explanation for various troubles , simply because it is a cultural and harmless version of the "conspiracy theory". There are two options: wild, barbaric, that the Jews are to blame, and some part of the people want a "conspiracy theory", but they no longer want wild and barbaric ones. And therefore, instead of the "Jewish conspiracy" they say "English", as if fanned by the noble prehistory of the 19th century. People feel included in this, as Kipling said, big game when they say this, and not in some terrible, dark tradition of anti-Semitism. Although in terms of the structure of the brain, this is about the same thing: the search for a behind-the-scenes puppeteer.

Anna Narinskaya: It seems to me that, after all, dislike for England is not an official, semi-official thing, I don’t know what word to choose, not implanted from above. Here Mamontov tells us on television about some kind of spy stones or something else, but to say that this inspires confidence or makes people feel something about this ... Still, dislike is a feeling, this is not a consideration about stones. And that we know a lot of people who really don't like England have that feeling - I don't think that's true. We know far more anti-Semites than Anglophobes. And it seems to me that a completely different kind, from Dickens to the Gorillaz group, interest and even enthusiasm going to England - it prevails. I am now going to turn the conversation in a different direction, it just seemed to me that the moment that Alexander Yakovlevich noticed was terribly interesting, namely, for lovers of England, about the inevitable disappointment that befalls you (or overtakes) when you arrive there. An amazing and sad phenomenon that so many who come to England with this love in their hearts and an idea of ​​​​what it is, they endured it when everything is not as described. There is no weather and no fog. Generally not so.

Peter Pomerantsev: No, this England is. But you just need to look for it and you need to get away from the guidebooks. It's there, but just well hidden. I was at a wedding in Scotland, very very old English family. It's all there. This is a strange country. There is tolerance... You can come, but do not go into the house. And because of that there are wild social problems. Because a lot of people from the former colonies came, they seemed to be accepted, but they were not accepted ... And they are insanely offended. And because of this, there are huge social problems in England.

And "Anglomania" is now universal - it is in Italy, in America ... England sold itself very well and presented itself. And now London has become... it'll pass, I guess soon, but for a while it's become the capital of the world, like New York used to be, or Paris. It's a pretty well thought out thing. But I'm interested in something else. When we talk about England, we are, of course, talking about an elusive nature, that England is almost gone, and definitely no longer as a dominant.

What England has given to the world is games. This is a country where there is a cult of games. If you ever go on a weekend with the English, they will play different games all weekend. There is no self-talk there. Non-stop games. They make up games all the time. This is the country that gave rugby, cricket, football. England's biggest gift is games. Games and dramaturgy. Because after all, their genius is Shakespeare. And everyone from childhood should participate in school plays. If you speak a little English, you will know that every conversation in England on the street is always some kind of dramaturgy and game. This is a huge, huge theater, and everyone plays it, even those who have arrived, foreigners. And England somehow leaves, leaving itself as a kind of playground where other countries can play these games.

They left a beautiful, beautiful theater, and they themselves are leaving. And the Italians, the Russians come and continue this cult of the game, inventing for themselves "England hell", "England paradise". Well, in principle, they play on this insanely beautiful stage. And the British themselves somehow leave, leave ... And soon there will only be talk about "Anglomania", and the British will modestly go somewhere in a corner and die. Of course, a great culture that has created a scene where people can play some games. But directors and actors do not leave, you understand. Still, we are talking about an elusive nature, it, in fact, does not exist.

Victor Golyshev: I want to support Grisha Dashevsky. It seems to me that they talk about "Anglophobia" - these are mostly political cases, and they happen quite constantly. And as for private individuals who come to England and know that they will never become "their own" there. And where will you become "yours"? You will never become "their own" anywhere, neither in America, nor in France. And if you go to another country, then you just need to know that you will die and you will still be a stranger there, you will be a guest. And why did it suddenly become the capital ... It seems to me that it somehow happens from time to time, but there is a living culture there, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s pop music, literature, theater. The English always play very well for some reason. These periods change. Once France, Paris was the capital of the world, say, between the wars. And now there seems to be a more vibrant culture going on. It doesn't matter if it's first class or second class, but it's happening now. And this, I think, largely explains the current "Anglomania".

Peter Favorov: I will speak a little from an Anglophobic position. Because it seems to me that Peter, as a real representative of the English "upper-middle class", used the method of understatement, which is quite characteristic of English culture and ideology. And this incessant English that "we are leaving, we have already left, we are a small, powerless nation, very poor" and all that, in fact, it still does not seem to be true. And the British are not going anywhere, but simply changing their ways of influencing the world. Of course, there is no longer the British Empire, but there is the Anglo-Saxon culture, which still determines absolutely everything in this world. And do not think so much that the phrase "everything was invented by Churchill in the 18th year", which Anglophobes still repeat, is so irrelevant. Indeed, Churchill came up with quite a lot in 1818, to his credit. Well, you have to live with it.

Alexander Livergant: Everything that we exalt in the British, it's funny that in the United States of America, in a country that is often compared (and completely in vain) with ours in terms of, it seems, the breadth of some kind, emotionality, and so on, causes a backlash. Conservatism, restraint - for Americans, this causes a lively irony. They perfectly portray British speech. And they treat England with a condescending smile of a winner. Because from the end of the 18th century, the United States gained independence in painful agony, they became during this time (we will not hide this) the rulers of the world, and England turned into what was once the uninhabited States of America. And they still look down on the British. And this restraint, self-irony - everything that we raise on the shield seems to them somehow funny, smallish, museum or something.

Peter Pomerantsev: The first time I got into a discussion of what Russians really think about England, and it's extremely interesting. But one thing about love and hate. Purely from the director's position: there can be no hatred from above. Love and hate are always together. And one example where Russian love and hatred for England are completely mixed. This is a Russian cult of adoration for the English aristocracy - Wodehouse, Jerome Klapka Jerome, who are not read at all in England, they are only loved in Russia. From the outside, this looks like some kind of displaced Russian love for the aristocracy that Russia has lost, and at the same time they cannot forgive England that England kept it, and Russia killed its aristocrats. So love and hate, they are always together. Politicians used to say: "We can only manipulate the hatred that is already real." It's laid down. Of course, we hate that we did not save all this. We destroy everything all the time. It's together.

Anna Narinskaya: I would like to pass the ball to Viktor Petrovich, because we were just talking before the transfer, and I expressed the idea that England and America are opposed. Viktor Petrovich, who brought us so many wonderful English and American books, said that "I loved England, and then it turned into love for America." And I said: "How can this be?! Together they will not come together." To which you said that this is not at all the case for you. That would be very interesting to listen to.

Victor Golyshev: I observed several Englishmen in America, though they were professors or poets, but I did not see any condescension on the part of the Americans, firstly. Secondly, it was said about the Anglo-Saxon culture. In America, more Germans live than Anglo-Saxons, and at the same time the culture is Anglo-Saxon. And there are probably already more than half of the “colored”, visitors. Nevertheless, for some reason there is an incomprehensible force in this device, and in law, and in literature, in everything, and it does not seem to me that the Americans have a condescending attitude towards the British. I think that, on the contrary, there is some reverence that is also experienced here. But how do the British react? It also seems to me that after the war the attitude towards America changed a lot. They began to consider it more of their own than, say, in the 40s or 50s.

Peter Favorov: I have a remark to Pyotr Pomerantsev: you have a somewhat distorted perception of Russian society. I think that the percentage of people who read Wodehouse is approximately equal in Russia and in England.

Peter Pomerantsev: The Wodehouse TV series Jeeves and Wooster is hugely popular here, it is played in prime time.

Peter Favorov: He has a huge popularity here in a rather limited social circle, I'm afraid, as well as in England, probably, too.

And it seems to me that it is very interesting to think about what Viktor Petrovich said - about the strength of this device, the law, why it is so strong. I personally formulate this for myself: because England is the only place where all this happened in a natural, natural way, where nothing really was copied from anything. Even the excellent French institutions, they are still a little insane, they were a little invented. And English institutions really grew out of this soil, therefore they still retain, with their monstrous sometimes illogicality and often senselessness, both a sense of reasonableness and a very great charm.

Alexander Livergant: Two short remarks. In the first place, as far as the English aristocracy is concerned, then someone else, and she gets the most from English literature. We are now publishing a modern piece by Alan Bennett in the Foreign Literature magazine about a queen who loves to read more than anything in the world. I take the opportunity to advertise this event. And there is precisely the attitude towards the aristocracy ... we recall Evelyn Waugh, we recall all these anti-aristocratic attacks of English literature, in which, yes, there really is bewilderment, there is irritation, but there is, probably, in essence, in the depths of some amazing heat. Probably, in relation to America there is about the same thing. Yes, I would agree here that perhaps these bonds are so close and deep that they cannot be explained by mere neglect and irony. However, the wonderful Oscar Wilde said, in my opinion, best of all, that "we have everything in common, except for the language." And this is, in a sense, a decisive aphorism in relations between these two countries.

Victor Golyshev: The transition from Anglomania to Americanmania occurred, probably, due to the fact that America has a more democratic structure of society. There is no this cruel stratification into the aristocracy, the middle class, the lower class. But the fact is that Leontiev believed that this is a guarantee of a strong country when there is no initial mixing. Maybe that's why they last so long, maybe Leontiev was right in this sense.

I want us to remember the history of Anglomania in Russia. When does the first Anglomania start? If I understand correctly, this is the beginning of the 19th century.

Alexander Livergant: I gave an example with Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky. Yes, this is probably the beginning of the 19th century, because I don’t know anything about the Russian 18th century in the sense of Anglomania. But I want to emphasize once again that there is a lot of irony in this Anglomania, there is a lot of ironic attitude towards England, as something far away, unlike something that we will never be like, and in general, probably, we shouldn’t . Hence the Russian, Pushkin's word "prank". For a Russian person living in Russia, to imitate the British is a prank.

I'll remember English clubs and Russian gentlemen who wanted to be like English gentlemen. Was it just a toy of the aristocracy?

Peter Favorov: No, of course, it was not the plaything of the aristocracy. But it was often real monkeying. We spoke about England as about a distant country, but we must also take into account that somewhere in the 16th century England was not a distant country at all, but was the only foreign country accessible to us. Because the access to the sea was in the White Sea, and there was a way from the Archangel to London, and it was much more difficult to get to Germany and France. And Ivan the Terrible still wanted to marry Elizabeth of England, and not anyone - also a kind of early example of Anglomania.

And one more thing: of course, only a Russian person can perceive Evelyn Waugh as anti-aristocratic, because in England now Evelyn Waugh is perceived rather as a psychotic snob, it would never occur to anyone to consider his novels anti-aristocratic. This again goes back to what Peter was saying about different perceptions.

I perceive Evelyn Waugh as the most humanistic, most human writer in the world. In this sense, he is my favorite writer.

Grigory Dashevsky: You asked about the history of Anglomania in Russia. It seems to me important to remember who is the bearer, the subject of this Anglomania. Because we are used to saying some kind of vague "we", behind which it is not very clear who stands in Russia. But all the same, it is one thing - the Russian pre-revolutionary aristocracy, like Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky, who has an estate that he can arrange according to the English model, and can write Mrs. Jackson, and can hunt, he can embody his Anglomania in real forms. And we can call it caricatured, parodic, but, generally speaking, our new rich people are in the same position, who can express their Anglomania in not only, say, escaping to England or settling temporarily, but sending their children to Eton, Cambridge and so on. And this is one line, behind which there is one bearer of love for England.

And there is another, I would say, intelligent. And this, it seems to me, is rather a Soviet phenomenon. Because the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia was also looking for real models for action. They were Germans for educational projects, for universities, they were French for liberation projects, for revolutionary circles. And the late Soviet intelligentsia, it seems to me, fell in love with the British in many respects as a country where there is no intelligentsia, in our understanding, as a separate class of restless intellectuals who criticize without any hope of participating in government. And it seems to me that the love of the local intelligentsia for England is largely a reflection of the desire to turn into an ordinary middle class, not to bear this burden of restlessness, and so on. This is England, a country where, it seems to us, at least there is no social outcast for educated people.

Victor Golyshev: I want to remember two things about the 19th century. Firstly, the beginning of the 19th century, the first half, was very strongly influenced by Byron. And Pushkin was under his influence, and Lermontov, probably. And it seems to me that a natural person with a scent for the people and for everything Leskov is more important, he has a story "About the Quakers" and there is "Lefty", and there is a wonderful attitude towards the British. Although it’s enough for something wonderful, not in " Quakers", in "Lefty", but remarkable. So, probably, this tradition is caused not only by the fact that the English sage invented a car from a car, but also, in my opinion, there was great admiration in the humanistic sense already in the 19th century .

- It seems to me that English literature is the most humane literature in the world, and there is no better literature.

Peter Pomerantsev: Russian is also quite humane.

Victor Golyshev: I think they think so too.

- Do the British think about the Russians?

Victor Golyshev: Yes. About the classics of the XIX century - of course.

Anna Narinskaya: It seems to me that this conversation turns out to be, as it were, two-dimensional. We talk about two different things all the time. And in fact, we are not talking, as it seemed at first, about one England, which we see, and another England, which is felt by the British or people who habitually feel it as their country, but about Anglomania, roughly speaking, social or about England, as about a dream place where you can live, for example, or let your children live, and about the culture of Anglomania, which is still the main thing for us. And it seems to me a slight pretense of trying to define oneself in relation to England, as a state, empire, organization, and so on.

All of us present here and many with whom we will talk about this, they define themselves precisely in relation to the English culture, which turned out to be so good for us. She turned out to be at our court with her writers and everything else. We're just talking about ourselves. Of course, you are absolutely right, England has turned out to be the root country of the whole world now, both regarding pop music, and regarding some other things, even modern art, which maybe we all don't like here, like Hirst or someone, but this is a fact. And we decide on this. Therefore, these things are more gustatory and emotional than social, in my opinion. And this may be a secret. I don't have an answer as to why English worked so well for all of us. It's just a fact.

Alexander Livergant: All this time I have been thinking about how the discussion would have looked if it had been organized not by Radio Liberty but by the BBC, and the British were talking about Russia. I think that the main thesis would be this: the opposition of humane Russian literature and exotic or even wild Russian social life, society, and so on. It seems to me that our love, our feeling for England, is to some extent due to the fact that in England there is no such opposition.

Peter Pomerantsev: We were recently sent a script on the channel, which is unlikely we will ever be able to launch, but I really liked it, and it is very relevant to our discussion. The story is about a Russian provincial teacher, she lives in some very distant town, she is a complete English speaker, she has puzzles hanging everywhere, she collects them. She has a little son without a dad, and the son always thinks that he is Beckham, runs around the yard and says: "I am Beckham!" She has a bag of Harrods that she irons all the time. A real Russian, a little crazy... It's a typical comedy. An Angloman who has never been to England. And this is some kind of oil city. She has only one room. And a real Englishman comes to her, because he has to work on oil rigs. And he's some northern Englishman, "geordie." It's part of England, but it's almost... well, who in Russia is considered an "untermensch" Russian? In England, "geordie" is always "untermensch": he drinks beer, he farts, he walks around like Kadyrov in sportswear all the time. And he lives with her. She is horrified. And she slowly tries to make a real English gentleman out of him. Well, a modern version of Pygmalion. And I really liked the script. But we said that it is too complicated, and people will be offended.

Anna Narinskaya: Will the English be offended?

Peter Pomerantsev: No. On the Russian channel. The British would have liked such irony on themselves. By the way, about English. There are very funny scenes, how she makes him wear an English tweed robe. All in all, a nice script.

Svetlana Romanova

Story one

Talk about emigration does not stop: some are actively discussing which country is best to move to for permanent residence; the second make lists of reasons why they should have left long ago; the third, who have already finally decided to escape from Russia, are looking for the most simple ways escape. A sociological study by the Levada Center showed that about 22% of the adult population of the country would like to live outside of Russia - however, only 1% of compatriots do not just speak, but collect documents for departure.

Slon.ru looked for counter examples: found citizens who had already emigrated, but after living abroad for some time, changed their minds and nevertheless returned to their homeland.

Petr Favorov, journalist of the Afisha publishing house, lived in London from 2000 to 2002

An annotation to the first domestic guide to London in Russian, published in 2005, reads: “Everyone who could only migrated to London. Now it has its own little Beirut, its own little Istanbul, Tangier, Saigon, Sydney, Paris.”

Pyotr Favorov, the author of this guide, also lived there for two years. He, like the heroes of his texts, could well have stayed in England forever, but he preferred his native Moscow to London. When Favorov was leaving, he thought for a long time whether to go at all. But still he decided: he got to the Varfolomeev School of Medicine in order to continue his career as a microbiologist, begun at the Faculty of Chemistry of Moscow State University. He began to conduct seminars with Indian students, conducted gene research on mice. He worked in the City, lived in the historical parts of the city. Laboratory work did not interfere with cultural life: he locked the door strictly at 18:00 (in England, they honor labor Code) and went to the premiere in the theater or cinema.

He settled down quite well and quite fit himself, at first glance, into English life. And the circle of communication with compatriots, as is often the case with emigrants, was not limited. Favorov was friends with the British: he went to visit them, was friends with journalists from the Economist and Financial Times. I thought I would stay in London forever.

“I completely went beyond the Russian diaspora. But suddenly I realized: English society is arranged in such a way that I will never become one of them. The fact that I would forever remain a foreigner was terribly unpleasant. In England, in the environment in which I aspired and attributed myself by right ... I don’t even know what, I could only become a pretty stranger, ”recalls Favorov.

He was also aware of himself as a stranger when he arrived, for example, in Cambridge. The son of intellectual scientists, he felt disappointed because he knew much more about the history and culture of the city than the locals. “On the one hand, it was all mine, but on the other hand, it was not, despite my knowledge of history. This did not suit and irritated. There were other things as well. For example, in England, thin walls and single-layer windows in houses depressed me. So life outside of Russia seems somehow lightweight and immaterial. We used to think that she is unusual, but, in fact, she is not real. Like thin walls and single-layer windows,” he recalls.

During his time in England, he came up with a whole theory explaining why a person should return to their homeland: “If you live in one place for years, this is an incredible bonus. Memories pile up in you, in ten years you can go to old acquaintances who live right there. You need to leave from where there are difficulties, and you cannot do some things. Get an education or find interesting work, still for some reason you can not live normally. But Moscow is clearly not one of those cities. It does not limit anything,” Favorov is convinced.

It has been 8 years since Favorov settled in Moscow. Life in England did not pass without a trace, and he, in his words, became "a real Russophile." Putin is its president, and talk about the oil needle, corruption is fed up, because "money flows into his pocket, but there is no point in refusing to pay." He is sure that if in the 1990s the Russians knew what life would be like today, they would not believe that everything is so good. Talk about emigration is also annoying. Crazy and unhappy people squeal about her, who think that somewhere out there they will be fine. In fact, they won't - at least until they learn to solve their own problems, which are completely independent of location. Everything is in their heads.

After returning to Moscow, Favorov repeatedly visited England. Still loves London and often flies to this city. But every time he arrives from Heathrow Airport to the city, and the characteristic London smell hits his nose, he says to himself: “What a blessing that I didn’t stay here.”

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