Vyacheslav Ivanov: «We are developing in leaps and bounds — and not always leaps forward»

Psychologies: Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich, tell me — both as a specialist in history and as a person who has seen a lot — how do you like our time?

Vyacheslav Ivanov: The inhabitants of almost any era considered their time very bad. We are probably no exception. I am inclined to believe that the whole of humanity is now facing many difficulties. The main troubles of our age are universal and concern everyone.

How to overcome them? Can we hope for scientific progress here?

IN AND.: Today there is no demand for really big discoveries. Our great economist Nikolai Kondratyev once established the cyclical nature of crises. And he calculated that big discoveries usually occur at the bottom of the cycle, when all the possibilities of the previous system have already dried up. There is currently no request for breakthroughs. I would define the state of science today as a dominance of underprocessed and underestimated facts. So far, many almost proven theories and almost made discoveries go through a long “digestion period” when everything is ground up by science itself and institutions associated with it. I can judge by the example of my scientific field. I am now doing a lot of prehistory of mankind, the earliest, and there are many interesting results. Geneticists discover a lot, archaeologists discover something, and we, linguists, help them. I receive weekly news — and almost every time there is something interesting. But this concerns mainly the accumulation of experimental material.

And the mankind itself develops? Could, say, an ancient Greek take root in our world?

IN AND.: I think I could. After some adaptation course, he probably would have figured out what was what. The main problems — stupidity and intelligence, human relations — are the same. Difficulties in technology, but you and I do not always manage it right away. My wife has all these iPads and iPhones, and I myself am not very good at them, although I am not an ancient Greek … So do not exaggerate the advancement of our civilization. I think humanity in general is developing slowly. At the same time, often in jerks — and not always forward.

Why?

IN AND.: Evolution is a matter of mutations. But after they have occurred, it is very important to understand what happens to their carriers. My sister was 10 years older than me. And as a child, I knew her company: very smart and talented young people, students of Moscow State University. Almost none of them survived the war. And the worst thing is that their children were not born either. We have lost two generations: those who were in their early twenties in 1941, and those who could have been born to them and determined the life of the country in the 1960s. When I came to Poland after the war, I was amazed. Of course, there were misfortunes there — we all know this — and yet Poland lost incomparably fewer people during the war. And now I saw whole generations that we did not have. Then just these people made «Solidarity».

I’m not talking about revolutions and terror, even if we take only the war of 1941-1945, then our gene pool, of course, suffered terribly. Those who could do something important, they are either no longer with us, or were not born, or live out — like your humble servant. There are biological problems in culture, and they are very serious. But young people are nevertheless born — with new brains, with new mutations. And many of them will create a new humanity, a new science, a new art.

In the film «The Color of the Nation» by Leonid Parfyonov, it is convincingly shown that today’s Russia inherits Soviet Russia, and not pre-revolutionary Russia. You can be considered an exception. Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich, are you not lonely?

IN AND.: I really do not think that I continue the traditions of the Stalin era, rather, I carry some traditions of the early revolutionary years. My mother (Tamara Vladimirovna Ivanova, nee Kashirina. — Ed.) was an actress of the Meyerhold Theater, and, of course, the enthusiasm for revolutionary theatrical avant-garde has always been very strong in her. And the father (writer Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov. — Ed.) Started almost as a futurist, then he was close to the Serapion Brothers association — in general, it was a time of seething in culture. Yes, and in science too. And having become acquainted with the search of my parents and university teachers, I, of course, also continue the great cultural explosion that began in Russia shortly after 1905 — and lasted even after 1917. And I don’t feel lonely. And never felt. I have always been friends with people much older than me. And then interesting people appeared around me. Yes, I am a long-liver and have experienced many, but my general feeling of life is that there were always those with whom I felt good with me. And if we talk about Russia in general, then I don’t really like it when people try to combine everything bad about our recent history under the word “Soviet”.

What do you mean?

IN AND.: I don’t think it’s a matter of the soviets or even the Communist Party. After all, she was very mixed, consisted of very different people, and very talented ones as well. In fact, what was the Communist Party? A collection of half-cynics. Among those who did not interfere with my science, and sometimes even (accidentally) helped it, many were members of the party. But what needs to be treated with justified hostility is an institution with different names of several letters — but usually three. I believe that our troubles came — and continue to come — from him. These three letters have always followed us and continue to follow. And in the end they won. Saved and won.

In 1991, when the putsch took place, I was a people’s deputy. I was elected from the Academy of Sciences according to the list, which included Sakharov, Averintsev … It is interesting that more votes were cast for me and Averintsev than for Sakharov. Everyone was surprised, and I said: this is because they know us less than Andrei Dmitrievich. Sakharov, of course, knew more, and there were enough of those to whom he was unpleasant. So, on the second day of the coup, I wrote a three-letter proposal to liquidate this ministry. I called it the Decree on Freedom from Fear. Everyone reacted negatively to this idea. All except for one person — Vadim Bakatin, who was just appointed by Gorbachev to lead these three letters. He literally snatched the «decree» out of my hands and said: you know, that’s what I was thinking too. But what are we to do? This is 40 thousand officers who will be left without work. After all, then we will get a real coup… That was a real problem that we have not disentangled.

The tradition of the secret police begins with Fouche, the Napoleonic minister described by Stefan Zweig*. This is a clear disease of the middle of the revolution. A revolution happens, then it kills its first leaders, and then Fouche begins. And Fouche continues. And we should not call it «Soviet» in our case. Rather, with some reservation, Stalinist, since Stalin understood the importance of the secret police. This supported him, this helped him, he created a very complex system around all this — and, perhaps, in a sense, this ruined him, but that’s another question …

You see, we need to watch our history very carefully. I think our history is very interesting because the revolution was great. She raised the country’s enormous forces, gigantic human layers. And to the extent that these forces continue to work, the revolution continues. The French Revolution took place from 1789 to 1871 — before the Paris Commune. Almost a hundred years. And Russia is much larger than France, so the revolution takes longer. I think that in the end we will come to a normal European bourgeois state. But this is still a long way off. And you still have to get rid of three letters.