There are such writers - included in and, in general, into history, the fate of which becomes a lesson and reproach to the writers of all subsequent generations. How is it possible and impossible in the life of a creative person, what is valuable, what is priceless, and what is generally unthinkable in our - so different and so similar - circumstances of the “workers of the Russian language” - everything can be seen from their completed biographies, but we accept study with difficulty and continue make your own mistakes.
In the book of Irina Vinokurova “Only a genius ... The fate of Nikolai Glazkov ”, the reader will just find a similar lesson.
Nikolai Glazkov is the famous creator of the term “samizdat”, as well as the author of the quatrain, which in the 60s of the last century was absolutely known to everyone who was at least somewhat interested in literature:
I look at the world from under the table
Twentieth century - an extraordinary century.
What is more interesting for a historian to a historian,
So sad for a contemporary!
He called himself a genius and a Scythian, led a half-hearted life, of course, did not print and was an idol for his literary environment and a legend for everyone else.
“Glazkov brought glory to his poems of the late 1930s and 1940s, which stood in direct opposition to the official canon,” writes Irina Vinokurova. But it is good for the descendants to talk about the eccentricity, opposition, and avant-garde of the poet. And he himself feels it, in a room where there is only half the ceiling, where there is no heat, there is no food and there is nowhere to take it all, and no one wants to print "wrong" verses, all the more, pay fees for them.
And now, having become insolent and desperate, the poet writes an “Explanatory Note”, speaking in it about why he ties up with true creativity and begins to work for officialdom:
... I've done enough for after,
For later, for centuries, glory for;
And I want tangible benefits
From me not recognized day.
Unfortunately (for his work, not for life), Nikolai Glazkov managed to carry out his task. He began to be published, but ... As David Samoilov writes in his Diary: “You begin to fear that his usual position has ceased to be deceit, but has become kind. The stupid cap has grown to the head. The poems (I read his little books from the 56th to the 62nd year) are very bad, shallow ”... That is, the poet died before his death, giving up his credo turned out to be fatal for talent. And yet he foresaw, probably ... The artist Aleksey Bazlakov cites in his memoirs the words Glazkov said to him: “The main thing is to recognize oneself and not lose oneself,” he said in a hurry, with a tongue twister ... “(Arion, 1996 city, No. 2).
Remembering the fate of Nikolai Glazkov , his volitional decision that the poet ruined, I think of our writers who sell their pen - even if it’s expensive - to one or another force, adjust to the current moment, exchange their talent, creating an imperishable under any then certain prizes ... You see, after all, someone else's life cannot be a lesson for us. However, nevertheless, each of us will have to admit that God is not a fraer, and his faithful companion - literature never forgives the creators of the betrayal of her interests.
Galina Ace, writer