Yevgeny Bunimovich is known for at least three roles: teacher, public figure and writer. How to combine in your personality different professions, circles of communication, languages, while maintaining integrity? Or was it this fusion that became his personal way of being himself?
Psychologies: Are you a humble person?
Evgeny Bunimovich: No, of course, I have always had a fair amount of ambition. It’s just that these ambitions are on a somewhat different plane, which is sometimes mistaken and mistaken for modesty.
It seems to be about creativity. What other ambitions do you have?
E. B .: And also, for example, to be yourself. In any circumstance. Oh, this is an interesting activity! When I suddenly went to the polls for everyone and for myself — and won, the first question that my friends and buddies asked at the meeting was: “Well, when will you get ugly?” It seems to be a joking question, but it seems to be a statement … I thought — is it really so inevitable? There are more temptations, but it is not difficult to refuse this, there is no ineradicable need to get ugly, do not believe it.
- Evgeny Bunimovich: “The root of the problems is dislike”
What does it mean to you to be yourself?
E. B .: Throw away, give up what is not yours. How is Michelangelo? “You just need to cut off everything superfluous.” He talked about creating a sculpture from a block, but the essence is the same. For some, cutting off the excess is more difficult, for others it is easier. I usually feel when it’s not mine. Just not mine — and falls off by itself. You don’t even need to cut it off. But sometimes, of course, there is temptation, and self-interest, and one wants to be deceived so much … It is more difficult here. But in general, being yourself is not a painful effort for me, but a natural form of life.
And how can one come to this natural form?
E. B .: For me, for example, the process of finding my voice, my intonation — only mine and no one else’s — turned out to be quite painful. When I was a fifth-year student of the Mekhmat of Moscow State University, my poems were published in the then Moskovsky Komsomolets (yes, yes, they even printed poems then!). And there was also a comment by Sasha Aronov: I liked the poems, but there is a feeling that four different people wrote them. And it hit me, and it hit me because it was true. And the search for my voice, my intonation — all this has become something very important for me, almost maniacal. And I refused many lines if I felt that it seemed to be not bad, but it was not me, not quite me.
Have you always been able to speak with your voice?
E. B .: When I became a deputy — and this was a sharp turn in my biography — the question arose for me: what language should I speak? After all, everyone speaks, write letters, reports, reports in such a special bureaucratic language. I could probably master this stationery too. But no matter how well he mastered, this is not his own language, a foreign one. And in some ways it is a rejection of oneself. And when an adult begins to speak a foreign language, the accent is noticeable, it is inevitable. And I continued to speak my language. They were surprised, they didn’t always understand, for some it caused irritation, rejection, but gradually their pluses were revealed: the unusualness of speech, intonation makes you at least listen.
- «Why did I learn 20 languages»
Is it possible to be sincerely mistaken, taking evil for good?
E. B .: They say it happens. But I do not believe. More often people just find excuses for themselves, acceptable versions of the truth. I remember how, at the beginning of perestroika and glasnost, a well-known writer said on TV: “I didn’t know, I didn’t even suspect what it was” (about the scale of repressions). Wow writer! After all, even if you don’t know for sure, you can feel it in your gut. And you can only convince yourself otherwise. It seems to me that in such cases we deceive ourselves, because we do not have enough spiritual strength to admit to ourselves what we see, feel …
This is also evidenced by my current experience as a Commissioner for Children’s Rights. I don’t want and can’t blame those who turn to us for help, these are often the most complicated and dramatic stories, but often I see that a person, feeling that something is wrong in the family, due to mental timidity or other reasons, deceived for a long time himself, pushing reality away from himself until he ran into it like a wall.
In the book, you quote Sotnikov’s harsh words from the story of the same name by Vasil Bykov: «Don’t get into shit, you won’t wash off.» What is it about for you?
E. B .: Probably, these words stuck in my head, because they sounded at the right time. I read the story in adolescence, when ideas about the world and about myself are formed. I remember how I read at the same time in Boris Pasternak — “one must live without imposture” and thought: it’s all written, why don’t people live like that?
And Sotnikov’s words are, among other things, a clear and effective criterion for making decisions in difficult circumstances. Temptations, as we have already said, periodically arise — and here it may seem: well, just think, I’m not the first, I’m not the last … But if there is a feeling of uncleanliness, dirt, then you don’t even have to come close. The smell will remain, will haunt. And although today dubious offers are no longer made in a dark alleyway and not in a country bath, as it was in the most crazy years, but in cozy restaurants and respectable offices, the essence remains the same. And the smell is the same.
- Narcissists know they are obnoxious. But continue to love yourself
What helps us to keep our «I» in different circumstances?
E. B .: The prerequisite is memory. Once, we, students of the Moscow State University Mechanics and Mathematics, were sent to military training for two months in the summer to make officers out of us. People, having found themselves in a different context, sometimes allow themselves to do what they would never do among their relatives or friends, justifying themselves by the fact that this is normal here, everyone behaves this way. And there, at the training camp, I saw that something strange was happening to some of the guys from my group, the worst that happens in the army germinates in them — the jokes went barracks, vulgarity, rudeness, almost hazing, pushing others around … Once in environment where this seems to be the norm and even encouraged, they mimicked. It’s like the memory is completely gone. Although in a couple of months they were to return to the students, to the university — even this did not deter them. I think it’s the memory, the memories that keep it from happening. And if you feel like yourself, if you remember yourself — even if others behave this way, you will not join them. Impossible, embarrassing in front of yourself, in front of what you remember and know about yourself. Remembering yourself is more than just remembering your name. For me, this is family, home, parents, children, teachers, friends, environment, books — the best, the main thing that determines your life, your personality.