However, the author calls his new book of poems «anti-government.» Can poetry express mass feelings today? And how do we learn to deal with despair, accept responsibility, and choose adulthood?
Psychologies: Your new book, if not a dialogue with the authorities, then, in any case, about the authorities. What is the purpose of such a dialogue?
Timur Kibirov: There can be no dialogue with the authorities. As for the possible and desirable impact of poetry, I needed to finally clarify my attitude to what was happening. I can’t do anything about it, as they said in my childhood, “for a number of reasons.” My job is to formulate and aesthetically shape what is happening around me. What seems important to me may seem unimportant to another poet, but if it touches me, overwhelms me, makes me rage, suffer, laugh, hate, I, as a lyric poet, must translate it into the form of a poem. If I am an honest lyric poet, I must not conceal these experiences.
Do you think these verses are lyrics? Isn’t this political poetry?
T.K.: In the 90s, I wrote a declarative poem that said that now I can deal not with these stupid things, Chernenko and Brezhnev, but describe the color of my favorite hair and heaven, that now I am free. And it was really so, because when I wrote, relatively speaking, anti-Soviet poetry, it was not political poetry, because there was no politics in the USSR. Politics is the struggle of social groups or parties for power. Political poetry is that which takes a stand in this struggle and lends its strength to it. But there was nothing like that in the Soviet Union, so my poems were not political: I tried to express my feelings and describe the world around me. When politics appeared, it ceased to be interesting to me. But now the situation is returning when there is no politics. And the choice I make in this book is not political, but moral and aesthetic. I don’t judge from the point of view of political ideals — I don’t have them, I don’t understand anything about it. I don’t know which state system is better, but I know what is good and evil, what is beauty and ugliness, and most importantly, I know what a lie is. And who her father is, I also know. In this book, along with completely new poems, there are poems from the 70s and 80s, almost unchanged.
And they do not fall out of the general context …
T.K.: No, they do not fall out, and this, in my opinion, is curious, although unpleasant.
If you are unhappy with what is happening around, why don’t you leave the country?
T.K.: Why should I leave? Yes, everything is disturbing here, and it is not clear where we are going, but still I sit and give an interview after a book that can be called anti-government. In the USSR, perhaps, they would not have noticed it, but if they had, they could have paid for it. Those who left in the 70s were in a different situation: they escaped from prison, and if I had the opportunity then, I don’t know what I would have done, but now I don’t even have such thoughts. In addition, I don’t like to travel around Russia either, I like to stay at home and walk with my dog in Bitsevsky Park, which is wonderful, and I hope it won’t be destroyed.
- “We are friends with those with whom we internally coincide”
And yet, in your poems, emotions are close to despair. Now many are experiencing something similar, hard experiencing their powerlessness, the inability to influence the situation. And how do you deal with it?
T.K.: Despair must be fought, and I’m trying. As for powerlessness and the feeling that nothing depends on us … It is not known what would happen if it depended. What would we do and not do something worse. The most terrible example is 1917. Or the 90s, when we simply squandered our freedom, did not defend and succumbed to all sorts of temptations.
T.K.: Why do you think this happened?
T.K.: This is understandable, because everyone knew everything about the temptations of the Soviet government and were ready to resist them. The choice was clear: either I would be tempted and go to curry favor with, say, the Writers’ Union, or I would remain true to my principles, but then I would never be published anywhere. And no one was ready for new temptations. Freedom is adulthood. And we lived … you can say: a prison, a barracks — or a kindergarten — everything is arranged in approximately the same way: there is no freedom, there is no responsibility. And when freedom surged, it was necessary to choose, but no one was ready. The decisions that many made in those years were infantile, and often people were driven by temptations: to earn more money, to get something not entirely honestly … People found themselves in an unknown world and not ready for responsibility.
- Sergei Gandlevsky: “With age, you value life more, especially without torturing it with meaning”
What is responsibility?
T.K.: This is the first sign of sanity. When we understand that our actions have consequences. And when making a decision, we take this into account and then we don’t say: “Oh, I didn’t know that it was like that.” This is the most important thing, in my opinion. Responsible for the market. Be an adult.
But we can’t always foresee all the consequences, can we?
T.K.: We cannot predict, but we must try.
Is there a poetic and prosaic time?
T.K.: Probably, it happens, but for the readers, and not for the poets themselves. For me it is always poetic, because it is the only thing that I own. But in culture, readers’ attention to poetry sometimes weakens, and sometimes becomes unusually sharp and even close to madness. On what it depends, I do not really understand. It is easiest to assume that the presence or absence of significant poets: there is Pushkin, and everyone goes crazy about his poems, then there is no Pushkin, Lermontov is also killed, and the 40s of the XIX century begin, which are considered classic non-poetic times … But Afanasy Fet is already wrote, and continued to write Yevgeny Baratynsky. It’s just that prose came to the fore, and there was attention to it.
And what time is it now?
T.K.: I do not presume to judge. On the one hand, not just a constellation, but a milky way of wonderful poets. On the other hand, it is obvious that these poets are read much less than before, practically not read. I am afraid that the return of those golden times, when thousands of people read and waited for new poems, new poets, is impossible. When those same notorious stadiums gathered, this will not happen again. They will never gather in stadiums for the sake of poetry. At best, for the sake of a good rock band. This function — to formulate and express the feelings and thoughts of a large mass of people — was taken over by rock bands.
- Dmitry Vodennikov “We haven’t even taken off yet!”
What has changed?
T.K.: In the 60s it was still possible to express mass feelings and aspirations and at the same time remain within the bounds of poetry, and not outright pop music. Now this is impossible, and an attempt to speak with the masses in a language they understand inevitably leads to vulgarity and primitiveness and takes the author beyond the borders of the field of poetic art — wide, but still limited. Even at the end of the 80s it was still possible, and at some modest level, I also used it and received massive expressions of gratitude from readers. And to achieve this now, I would have to give up my poetic principles. But I am not ready to distort my idea of what poetry should be for the sake of any success in popularity. I can understand what needs to be done to be as popular as possible now, but it seems to me that this is too high a price. As Lermontov said, «I will not buy your glory at such a heavy price.» What is more important to me is that I myself and my prospective — maybe non-existent — reader like my texts. It should be built like this, not simpler, not more complicated, but like this. Therefore, in the current situation, it is impossible for people who adhere to this, the only possible position and, as a result, the only productive position for the poet, to inspire stadiums. And I’m not sure it’s bad.