The prose writer and philologist Maria Golovanivskaya has collected 104 love confessions from classical Russian prose in one book — starting from the text of the medieval Yermolai-Erasmus and ending with the books of Sergei Dovlatov and Viktor Erofeev.
How did the idea for this collection come about?
I have been collecting love confessions from various novels for a long time, and this anthology turned out to be topical as well. Russian literature in fashion. Today at the table it is considered good form to talk about Tsvetaeva’s letters to her daughter or about Anna Karenina’s feelings. Why not use fashion for an educational mission? Maybe not only schoolchildren, but also some of the adults, having read the exciting stories in the book, will reach for the original source. And besides, this is a wonderful book of recipes — more than a hundred samples of love confessions will be useful to those who are already ripe for a great feeling. They are worried: what to say? How? Here you go, cut, weighed and packaged in gold foil.
Do you think that Russian love is different from all the others?
In my opinion, yes. At least the one we know from books. Russian love is sad, often hopeless, tragic (other examples are rare). Russian love is a test, not a reward. Fortunately, in life, unlike books, it happens in different ways.
What did you learn about yourself while preparing this book?
Not all texts that we hear can be considered the best examples of love prose. And I am glad that I managed to bring back from oblivion many wonderful texts. For example, Alexander Ertel was a real discovery for me. And also, while working on the book, I suddenly noticed that Russian women are more often the first to declare their love. Why is it so? I do not know.
«Lessons of Russian Love».
Compiled by Maria Golovanivskaya.
Corpus, 592 c.