Аннотация: A dear comrade - the little Leonid Ilyich. The note.
A dear comrade - the little Leonid Ilyich. The note.
'Once, having returned from Sofia, where the "children's assembly" was held, I brought Brezhnev a medal of the participant of this children's holiday and, being at his reception, presented him with this memorial sign.
- Which side to wear it? - asked the General [Secretary], examining a beautiful medal on a blue ribbon.
- Apparently on the right [side]! - I answered.
- No place I have, on the right [side], - Brezhnev said thoughtfully and put the medal aside.
I think that there would be no place on the left side either.
Inexplicably quickly Brezhnev lost touch with reality. "
These are lines from the book by Sergei Mikhalkov 'I was a Soviet writer. Signs of a time ".
These words of Sergei Mikhalkov come to mind today, April 26, 2021, after another portion of the morning news about the receipt of the next cinematic award by the film "Dear Comrades". It seems like one of the filmmakers acquired something as well. Did the second filmmaker get something?
A quite good literary specialists wrote for Leonid Ilyich his books. But all this literary activity aroused among the people only bewilderment and irony.
No one of their own free will bought Brezhnev's books. Perhaps, for convenience, some of the secondary school pupils could have bought Brezhnev's book - during the lesson pupil was supposed to say something about this book, and it was more convenient to have a copy of the book with himself. No one voluntarily bought these books, and they were treated with derision.
The endless awards that Leonid Ilyich was receiving caused a complex indescribable emotions among Soviet television viewers.
In this set of emotions was present, among others, one distinct - this is a shame. - It was the shame towards own personalities, the shame to own country, the shame to the rulers who are at the head of the country.
In general, these rulers were relatively good people.
Brezhnev did not detonate a hydrogen bomb (or a torpedo?) next the shores of Novaya Zemlya, he tried not to bring relations with the Western powers to the point of crisis.
He met with Western leaders, tried to pursue a policy of detente and declared the USSR a country of cultural values.
No writers appeared next to dear Leonid Ilyich who would able to write for the Soviet, Western, world reader about the historical merits of Leonid Ilyich - about his desire to start something like a convergence policy, to drag the USSR up to the level of Western powers ...
But there were literary specialists who wrote works for dear Leonid Ilyich (the works, that were disgracing him) and performed other useful functions.
So, dear Leonid Ilyich went down in history not with his bright aspirations, but with his awards, with his incoherent manner of speech and other achievements.
He has become a kind of typical image, a kind of meme that reproduced and continues to reproduce itself - even after almost forty years ...
Big dear comrade Leonid Ilyich gives birth to dear comrades - little Leonids Ilyiches. - It's a characters with their works, which are not interesting to anyone, historically dubious (by and large), and which evoke emotions - and shame, and nausea, and ridicule ...
April 26, 2021 08:46
Translation from Russian into English: April 26, 2021 13:57.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Дорогой товарищ - маленький Леонид Ильич. Заметка'.