'I made a choice between prison and New York': the rules of life and the fate of the immigrant Sergei Dovlatov

Russian and American writer Sergei Dovlatov was born on September 3, 1941 in Ufa and died on August 24, 1990 in New York. Today he could have turned 79 years old. On the writer's birthday, we recall his quotes and the history of immigration.

Monument to Dovlatov in St. Petersburg. Photo: Shutterstock

Dovlatov performed a kind of rehearsal for emigration in 1972. After moving from Leningrad to Tallinn, he got a job as a correspondent for the newspaper "Soviet Estonia", the memories of his work were included in the collection of stories "Compromise". Here, the author first encountered the system of Soviet power. Two weeks before his book was due to be published, the KGB banned it, says Gazeta.ru.

In 1976, Dovlatov returned to Leningrad, where he was accepted into the staff of the magazine "Koster". In the 1970s, it was the era of stagnation and censorship that led to the flourishing of underground culture: during this period the writer was published in samizdat, and in 1976, some of his stories were published in the West in the magazines Continent and Vremya I Us. For this he was expelled from the Union of Journalists of the USSR.

On July 18, 1978, Dovlatov was arrested. The writer's wife Elena and their daughter Katya had already moved to the United States by that time. In August of the same year, he also decided to emigrate. Together with his mother Nora Sergeevna and the dog Glasha, the journalist flew to Vienna. Soon, he, Nora Sergeevna and Glasha were announced the date of their departure to America.

On February 26, 1979, Dovlatov arrived in New York.

“I left to become a writer, and I became one, making a simple choice between prison and New York. The only purpose of my emigration was creative freedom. I didn't have any other ideas, I didn't even have any special complaints about the authorities: I was dressed, shod. And as long as pasta was sold in Soviet stores, I could not think about food. If I had been published in Russia, I would not have left, ”he admitted.

Dovlatov's wife Elena worked as a proofreader for Novoye Russian Word, at that time the main Russian media outlet in America. Some time after his arrival, the writer began to publish the émigré newspaper New American, and in 1980 became its editor-in-chief. The publication was soon to be a great success. The New American spread rapidly outside of New York and made journalists into real stars. However, economic difficulties and lack of promotional offers eventually led to the collapse of the company in 1982.

In emigration, the works of the prose writer began to be published for the first time. "Solo on Underwood", collections "Compromise", "Zone", "Reserve", "Ours" and others - the books came out one after another. Over the twelve years of his life there, the author published a total of twelve works that were sold in the United States and Europe.

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By the mid-1980s, Dovlatov had achieved immense reading success. The New Yorker magazine offered cooperation to the Soviet emigrant - before that, Nabokov was the only Russian writer published in a prestigious publication.

Despite the fame and long-awaited recognition of his creative achievements, Dovlatov was never able to get along with Western culture. According to the recollections of his friend Yevgeny Rein, shortly before his death, the writer fell into a depression - Russian and Soviet themes had already been exhausted, but the author could not write about America.

The writer died at the age of 49 on August 24, 1990 in New York from heart failure.

Photo: video frame YouTube / pismenny

The rules of life of Sergei Dovlatov

“I thought for a long time about how to formulate my nationality, and decided that I am Russian by profession,” quotes a writer Esquire.ru.

My profession - to be a Russian author.

I was born into a not very friendly family. Mediocre at school. Was expelled from the university. He served for three years in the camp guard. He wrote stories that he could not publish. He was forced to leave his homeland.

I thought for a long time, how can I formulate my nationality, and decided that I am Russian by profession.

All my life I've been telling stories, which I either heard somewhere, or invented, or transformed.

I was guarding some barge on the Nevafrozen into the ice. She did not represent any value at all, it seems that everything had already been stolen from her that could be stolen. But around the clock, three people - the other two were with higher education - guarded her.

I was not typed. I could not earn literary work. I became a psycho, I became very drunk. I was surrounded by the same drunken unrecognized geniuses. But no matter where I brought my stories, all my life I have only heard compliments. No one has ever expressed doubts about my right to engage in literary work.

I do not regret the endured poverty. According to Hemingway, poverty is an indispensable school for a writer. Poverty makes a person vigilant. It is curious that Hemingway realized this as soon as he became rich.

I leftto become a writer.

The only country on the globewhere a person of unknown origin who speaks an Eastern European language will feel natural - this is America.

When I lived in Leningrad, then I read either "tamizdat" or translated authors. And when in some American novel it was described how the hero walked into a bar, threw half a dollar on a zinc counter and ordered a double martini, it seemed so real, genuine ... just Shakespeare!

Now in emigration love to talk about the experienced suffering. Nobody threw me out, did not force out, did not send. Just life itself is like that. In handcuffs, nobody forced me to go there - they simply advised me.

Traditional emigrant version at that time - the wife works, and the husband, lying on the couch, talks in the manner of Lokhankin, makes plans and thinks about the fate of democracy. Which I have been doing for several months.

In America, I never did rich or successful person. My children are reluctant to speak Russian. I reluctantly speak English.

I'm a weak man, and I’m unlikely to be a persistent dissident.

I'm not interested in facts, I confuse, I lie a lot, I am not scrupulous, not energetic, in short - not a journalist. Although all his life he earned just that. And, finding himself in emigration, he developed a genre for himself. Since I didn’t know American life, didn’t know the American press well, didn’t follow American art, I introduced a genre that in Russia is called “look and something”. Dovlatov rants about what will happen.

In Russia, success is an unequivocal concept. It includes money, fame, comfort, fame, positive press, reputation as a decent person, etc. In America, there can be ten, twelve, fifteen successes. There is market success, there is success among the university professors, there is success among critics, there is success among the common people. My case in English is called "critic eclame" - noticed by critics.

From time immemorial in Russia not technology and trade were at the center of popular consciousness, and not even religion, but literature.

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I'm not sure that I consider myself a writer. I would like to consider myself a storyteller. They are not the same thing. The writer is busy with serious problems - he writes about what people live for, how they should live. And the narrator writes about how people live.

There are people who have a difference between trash and personal creativity. not so noticeable. And I, apparently, some other sections of the brain are busy with this. If I do something custom, I do not write from the heart, then this is obviously bad.

Not a single writer left voluntarily their creative activities. There are plenty of deserters among the technical intelligentsia, but there are almost no deserters among them.

Now I was no longer young, and it turned out that neither Leo Tolstoy nor Faulkner left me, although everything I write is published. And some strange things came to the fore: it turned out that I had a family, that marriage was not just a fact, it was a process. It turned out that children are not an investment, not an object for your maxims and not humble beings, which for some reason you must educate, being the devil himself who knows what, but that these are some creatures of God that you depend on and criticize and with whom you must maintain normal human relations at all costs. This turned out to be the most important.

Irony is a favorite, and most importantly the only weapon defenseless.

Of Russian writers has achieved undoubted success. one Joseph Brodsky. The rest, as a rule, lie.

Russian writers abroad very rarely switched to a foreign theme. Even in Nabokov, notice that Russian characters are alive, and foreigners are conditionally decorative. His only living foreigner is Lolita, but she is also a typical Russian lady by character.

I realized that I would never write about Americanever switch to english.

Three things a woman can do for a Russian writer. She can feed him. She can sincerely believe in his genius. And finally, a woman can leave him alone. By the way, the third does not exclude the second and first.

Life is short. The man is alone. I hope all this is sad enough so that I can continue to engage in literature.

I personally write for my childrenso that after my death they would read all this and understand what kind of golden dad they had. And then, finally, belated tears of remorse will pour from their shameless American eyes!

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