Книжная полка: Евгений Богданов и его "Поморы"

      "Про наш Архангельский край столько всякой неправды да напраслины говорят, что придумал я сказать все, как есть у нас. Всю сущу правду, что ни скажу - все правда. Кругом земляки, соврать не дадут. К примеру, река наша Двина в узком месте тридцать пять верст, а в широком - шире моря. А ездили по ней на льдинах вечных. У нас и ледяники есть. Таки люди, которы ледяным промыслом живут. Льдины с моря гонят да дают в прокат, кому желательно..."

Так писал известный северный сказочник Степан Писахов о суровом поморском крае - шутками-прибаутками, но сказка ложь, да в ней намек, так и жили поморы - традиционное древнее свободное население побережья студеного Белого моря, - а сказка, шутка, присказка только и помогала им преодолевать безжалостную стихию, смягчала неласковую северную погоду, помогала выжить на море и на суше.

Немного написано в нашей литературе о поморах. В основном память приносит имена Марфы-сказочницы (Марфы Семеновны Крюковой) с побережья Зимней Золотицы, Степана Писахова, Бориса Шергина. Мало кто знает о Евгении Федоровиче Богданове - писателе, посвятившем свое творчество описанию скромного северного поморского края.

источник фото  Поморы на промысле в Белом море

Роман-сага Евгения Федоровича Богданова "Поморы" представляет собой цикл произведений, состоящий из трех самостоятельных романов ("Поморы", "Берег розовой чайки", "Прощайте, паруса"), объединенных героями, местом действия и единой временной цепочкой повествования, начинающейся в 1930-е годы и заканчивающейся в конце 1970-х - начале 80-х годов. 

Основное действие происходит на побережье Белого моря в деревне Унда, обычном старинном северном рыбацком поселке, которых, к сожалению, так мало осталось в наши дни. Главные герои произведения - поморы - жители деревни, прозванные так по старинному обычаю величать древние свободные племена, селившиеся по берегам студеного Белого моря. 

источник фото   Поморы на зимнем промысле утельги - тюленей

Как видно, роман охватывает довольно большой временной период: автор начинает повествование от коллективизации ("Поморы"), проводит своих героев через войну и трудные послевоенные годы ("Берег розовой чайки") и заканчивает семидесятыми годами ("Прощайте, паруса").  

Каждый роман, каждый временной отрезок, описываемый в романе, имеет свою ярко выраженную тематическую проблематику - так, например, в романе "Поморы" рыбаки решают нелегкую для себя задачу о вступлении в рыболовецкий колхоз, красочно описывается старинный парусный способ лова рыбы, опасные многодневные экспедиции по забою тюленей, ручной тяжелый способ работы, трудные условия, ненадежный, утлый примитивный парусный флот. 

В романе "Берег розовой чайки" две линии повествования: первая - это жизнь рыбаков, главным образом рыбачек в военные годы, которые в отсутствие мужчин выполняли всю самую сложную мужскую работу, и вторая - фронтовая, где описываются военные будни их мужей и сыновей. 

Роман "Прощайте, паруса" посвящен болезненному для традиционного многовекового рыбацкого хозяйства переходу на машинный флот, на траулеры в море и вертолеты при заготовке шкур и мяса тюленей. 

В общем, этот цикл произведений напоминает уже довольно известные и некоторые экранизированные произведения о советском крестьянстве - например, роман Георгия Маркова "Строговы", цикл произведений Василия Белова, начинающийся романом "Кануны", романы Анатолия Иванова "Тени исчезают в полдень", "Вечный зов", роман Вячеслава Шишкова "Угрюм-река" и другие. Однако уникальная северная рыбацкая специфика, с любовью описанная автором суровая северная природа, тяжелый северный морской рыболовный промысел, переданный личный опыт, личные впечатления автора о родной своей северной земле поморской - все это делает цикл романов "Поморы" заметным среди подобных. 

Как известно, автор - Евгений Богданов - писатель-самоучка, писал о своем северном быте, о своем народе. Поэтому, мне показалось, что первая часть ("Поморы") намного слабее написана по сравнению со второй и третьей частями трилогии. Как раз до "Поморов" я читала о страшном для крестьянства периоде коллективизации в романе  "Час шестый" Василия Белова. По сравнению с другими произведениями, по сравнению с рассказами моей бабушки лично пережившей все ужасы и несправедливости этого фатального для русского крестьянства периода в северной вологодской деревне, Евгений Богданов описывает этот период в ярких утрированных красках, типичных, к сожалению, для литературы советского реализма эпохи застоя, сознательно упрощая характеры, примитивно мотивируя поступки героев. 

Это, пожалуй, единственный недостаток романов. В целом, это интересный, красочно описаный экскурс в историю моего родного архангельского края, погружение в поморский рыбацкий сельский быт начала века, своего рода единение с предками, что не может не быть всегда позитивным и познавательным опытом.

Еще хочу сказать пару слов о другой книге Евгения Богданова - сборнике из девяти рассказов "Когда отцветают травы".

Каждый из них - это чудесное самостоятельное произведение, капелька утренней росы еле колышащаяся на невидимой серебристой паутинке между веточами ивняка, скромно притаившегося на окраине туманного утреннего поля, где-то в самой глуши северных, архангельских земель.

источник фото Борис Студенцов "Северная деревня" (2002)

Рассказы написаны о деревне, про деревню, про деревенских, простых людей (за исключением, пожалуй, только "Рубиновых серег" - это рассказ о войне). Рассказы с простым сюжетом, о простой, но удивительно мудрой, расставляющей все по своим местам жизни простых людей ("На северной дороге", "Время сплава").

Здесь нет закрученных психологических сюжетов, нет типичных ярких характеров, нет надрыва: пожалуй, вся проза Евгения Богданова как северное лето:

"Наше скромное, неяркое северное лето вначале часто бывает дождливым и холодным. С востока непрестанно дуют резкие ветры с дождями и изморосью. Но иногда в июне вдруг установится хорошая погода. Южные ветры то очищают небо до праздничного блеска, то приносят грозовые дожди, короткие и шумные. Поля и перелески обильно зеленеют, травы становятся сочными, а воздух, влажный, согретый солнцем, обволакивает все своим ласковым дыханием."

Природа описана автором замачательно - только тот, кто родился и вырос на этих северных просторах, красотах Каргопольского края, кто впитал с молоком матери понимание земли родной, только тот так просто и красиво может описать родную, неброскую, северную скромную красавицу, труженицу-землю. О ней, о простых трудолюбивых людях, населяющих её пишет Евгений Федорович.

"Это — край неброских пейзажей, задумчивой тишины, край славных людей, искренних, простых и трудолюбивых. Тихие лесные речушки, молчаливые ельники, низинные луга и болотца с кочками, поросшими осокой, небольшие косоугольники полей на склонах холмов, пыльные большаки и старинные села, — всё это имеет особую прелесть."

Проза Евгения Федоровича Богданова проста. Она тонко касается потаенных уголков в душе каждого читателя, способного чувствовать, сопереживать, и самостоятельно, согласно своему внутреннему сокровенному мерилу интуитивно определять добро и зло.

Итак, если вы устали от выматывающей повседневности, и дни сменяются со скоростью вам уже неподвластной - почитайте Богданова. Его проза проста, в чем то, по сегодняшнему дню, немного наивна, но добра, ясна, светла и утверждает вечные человеческие ценности - добро, простоту, чистоту, верность и любовь.

Copyright © 2014 by Olga Johannesson

"Pretty woman walking down the street..."

We live in a world of stereotypes - we are born into it and by that same fact of birth we acquire a predetermined inventory of characteristics. Then having absorbed with the mothers milk the core attributes of femininity or masculinity on a long road of maturity we are becoming more of what the society expects of us: "Aren't you a boy to be whining like a girl?", "You have to be clean and pretty - you are a girl!"

And, gradually, chiseled by everyday judgments we are shaped into what we have to be: pretty, clean, shy, weak, or strong, decisive, rugged and ambitious - you know, sort of blue or pink, skirts or trousers.
As a Russian woman ("pink", "modest", "timid", hmm... "pretty"? , "blushing", "with long hair", "coy" and "shamefaced" (whatever that means) living abroad I want to discuss intercultural gender misunderstandings that I faced being brought up "in a pink-bow-Russian way".

source of photo
In one famous and most revered Russian (Soviet) movies ever, which got most of the all possible prizes abroad - "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" - the plot is banal and as conventional as it can be: three simple girls came to Moscow from the province in search of a better life in the middle of the 60s. The obvious embodiment to a better life was a fortunate marriage which could establish a position of a woman and secure the rest of her life.

Consequently, in a rather archetypal and fairy-tale manner, one gets married to a simple worker, the second in an ongoing search of something better ends up alone having lost her quite a decent husband to alcoholism, and the third, having been knocked up by some ambitious charming scunk, after 15 years turns into a self-sufficient director of a huge and successful plant, sort of a self-made woman - bitter, cold and decisive single mother in well-made Soviet pants, spending her scanty free time with a married lover - quite a widely-spread and accomplished image these days.

The movie touches upon many issues (if you come across a version with English subtitles - as a winner of a Golden Bear in Berlin 1980 and an Oscar in 1981, it should most certainly exist in  English - I implore you - watch!), the main being the fate of a woman in a society.  

None of these women is happy without a man, the successful one being utterly unhappiest of all three. Envied by many, she confides into her friends: "Just don't tell your sons that when you get everything in life, the only thing you feel like doing is to howl as a lonely wolf" (- Только ты пока ребятам не рассказывай, что как раз когда всего добъешься в жизни, больше всего волком завыть хочется"). 

Until (of course - this movie got an Oscar) she meets the real man - sort of a Soviet Mr. Big - who sets the priorities right - "And by that remember: from now on, everyday, everything is decided only by me. With one simple reasoning that I am a man". (- А заодно запомни, что всё и всегда я буду решать сам. На том простом основании, что я - мужчина").

And what happens with that forty-year-old woman, the head of an enormous industrial enterprise in Moscow, the strong woman in man's pants? She weeps with happiness - I am not joking!

In a society like Russian, despite all the hard work of Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, life, still in many respects, is organized around good old Domostroi (a 16th century book or a code of a patriarchal rules of family life), of course, changed and adopted by the compliments of the XXI century. But a woman - in a notion of a woman - is supposed to be pretty, skinny, well-dressed, high-heeled, red-lipsticked, long-and-polish-nailed, educated (preferably, but not to use it), smart (optionally), good cook, good mother, good friend, good (inventive) lover, strong, fit, and by all that - stand by the side of a man. Just a man. With no attribute.

All that, no doubt, made a Russian woman a proverbial model wife all over the world with no obvious realization and acknowledgment from her side. Because we are brought up this way, we find nothing special in being a woman.

When my moderately handsome boyfriend, back then, was visiting me in Russia, I found it so rude that even stopped speaking to him for 30 minutes or so, after he left the bus ahead of me without offering me a hand. Then, this uncultured (so I thought) schmuck went through every door in a city first, never waited for me to take my place in a taxi, never offered (of course I would have declined gracefully, but still) pay a bill in a coffee shop. Never. never, never. So that eventually my inner lady-in-pink felt so cheap and neglected that I even considered an immediate break up.

Now it seems like charming memories from the past. But still the difference exists. We are, in our personal imaginative way, princesses in an ebony tower waiting for our knight in a shining armor (preferably on a white horse, produced in Germany). Even if we never admit it.  

And we let them think we are a bit stupid, naive and weak because...
we are not.


Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

On the Victory Day: Iceland which helped us live

If I were to write something, anything about war what would it be? What do we, people, born and brought up as remote from war as possible know about it? Movies, photographs, stories, chronicles, memoirs can give a general picture, but hardly any real understanding, any realization of the proportions of every human's tragedy involved. 

War is not only about heroism and deaths on the battlefield, it's just as well about a life of a child born in the hot summer of 1941, it's about the whole life of a mother who lost her toddler in the bombed train, it's about every day of a wife who is waiting for her husband, of a mother who still hopes for her son to return, waiting through deaths of children and hunger. 

Year after year somehow I find more and more details about the World War II. Having moved to Iceland,  I discovered Hvalfjörður - a birthplace for at least ten Arctic convoys, seven from which ended in my native city of Arkhangelsk between 1941-1942, bringing food and supplies, giving hope and saving our lives. 

on the photo - the most famous and tragic Arctic convoy PQ-17 is being assembled in Hvalförður

It's a Victory Day in Russia today - on the 8th of May, 1941, the World War II officially ended, as Field-Marshal Keitel signed Wehrmacht capitulation papers in Berlin. Interestingly, due to the time difference, it was already the 9th of May in Moscow, since then we keep this date to remember.

World War II is a huge historical field in terms of topics, actions, direction, events, places, people, etc. Arctic convoys is one of them, undoubtedly, influential for the whole course of events. More importantly for me, as it has always been tightly connected with my native city, and now as I have found out, with my new homeland. 

A lot has been researched and written about Arctic convoys, but just to make a small picture:  in the period between August 1941 to May 1945 there were 78 convoys, sailing from the United Kingdom, Iceland and North America to the two most northern ports of the Soviet Union: Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. 

Let respected historians forgive me for the small possible inaccuracies, but as far as most of sources state in 1941-1942 fourteen convoys started from Iceland: ten from Hvalfjörður and four from Reykjavík. Seven out of ten coming out from Hvalfjörður ended in Arkhangelsk. The importance of them is difficult to underestimate: a complete new vein brought blood to the dying, exhausted heart of the country, reviving the huge organism for the victorious fight. The great value of the convoys was not only in terms of supplies or food, but in terms of hope - suddenly the victory seemed closer, possible, soon.

Every year Arkhangelsk becomes a meeting place for those who survived, sadly, less and less of them with every year. Every year we, children, were in the streets to look at those old dignified foreigners, who seemed strangely alike our grandfathers, walking side by side with them; every year, we, students of the language department, were volunteering with translation; every year, marveling at their courage, theirs and our grandfathers´ feat, which gave us possibility to live. We grew up with the knowledge of the convoys, but somehow to my shame Iceland literally has never ranged the ship bell in our heads.

Last year a couple of my very good friends were visiting Iceland. On the road from Borgarnes, approaching the tunnel, my friend asked about convoys. The answer of my moderately handsome husband took me by surprise as he mentioned Hvalfjörður which we were passing by at that moment. How come this peaceful, most breathtakingly beautiful place on Earth was involved in the war. How come there is a direct link between this place and my home. How come the lives of my parents, my life and the lives of my children depended on this particular part of the world. How come I didn't know...

The war, the end of which Russia celebrates today, is exceptionally multifaceted and manifold. There's hardly a person in Russia who has never been touched by it. And it still echoes to us - through the other times, through the other places.

At this moment I want to thank Icelanders who helped us live.

beautiful and peaceful Hvalfjörður almost 70 years later

source of photo



Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

Christ has risen!

On the holy day of the Orthodox Easter, Sunday, 5 May, indeed as the situation required, I thought of God. Then I thought of the seventy years of the soviet times when the Mighty Position had been secured by Vladimir Lenin with a twenty-year interim intermission of the ever more almighty, loving and punishing - Stalin.
Thinking back into the history, Russians have always had an extremely grievous and hard relationship with God, which, combined with the inherent mysticism and fatalism as parts of the national character, engraved religious traits even on the all-negating stoned stance of the atheists.  

In the Orthodox religious tradition the icons - the depictions of God and the saints - were present in every house. According to the rule they were positioned in the so-called "red corner"  ("red" in the old Russian language meaning "beautiful", "honorary" - c.f. the Red Square). The icons were supposed to be in the Eastern corner of the house, as praying, sending our thoughts and talking to God we face the appearance of the sun and, thus, symbolically greet the Advent.

In the Soviet years religion becomes quite a dangerous puppet in the hands of the master - just think what a believer may do for the God. Some clever man, unfortunately the history keeps his name a secret, offered - no, no, not just to abolish God - that would be impossible for the country where religion was so tightly intertwined with the everyday life - but to replace Him. And who comes into the picture?

The decision was exceptionally smart and worked for many decades. Even the honorary red corner was kept to fit yet another deity.

The portraits of Lenin were adorning the walls of every institution, every establishment, every official room, on a frequent occasion enforced by the bronze or gypsum busts, the honest and strong look coming from the different sizes. The Bible, the Testaments and the Gospels were banned, instead we were given the Stories of Lenin - now I cannot tell what part of truth was there, but looking back I realize how much of a hagiography or menology (the lives of the saints) it reminded of and certainly served the purpose well. There was even a children's version of the Acts with pictures - just like Noah's Arch story.

Interestingly, the religious rituals were still kept going - we baptized children, painted eggs for Easter. But the pure religious meaning of them was a bit tarnished - baptism, for example, started to bear more of a pagan belief of the holy water protecting a child from the illnesses. Still, most of the children were baptized - secretly, at home, by an isolated priest. Consequently, we even had a mummified deity (whose remains are still by the way kept uncommitted to earth in the Red Square, the spirit haunting economy and politics - so far the only obvious, undeniable, unquestionable explanation of the ongoing Russian misfortunes), a religious doctrine - a successful mold of communism and spiritism, a set of rituals - books, learnings, common meetings, portraits -"icons", in other words, even when we didn't have it, we had it all.

Nowadays, the busts are on the dump, the pictures faded in the cellars. With the life so cruel and grim, fiercely grinding people by its millstones, people are seeking for the alleviation and looking for God once again...

In Russia on the holy day of Easter we greet each other with the traditional words: "Christ has risen!" and for many He has finally risen indeed.




Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson

And then he asked "Why?"

And then he asked "Why? Why do people long for the old times? Wasn't it just for the better that these turbulent 90s brought freedoms of all sorts, democracy, goods to the shops, money to the wallet, free thinking, free press, new economy, private enterprises, private property, travel, the hoards of brokers, shoppers, marketologists, merchandisers, business advisers, analysts and agents with endless possibilities and what not...?" 
A shining fluorescent neon word "globalization" sparked above yet another "window to Europe" instantaneously finishing the decades of GULAGs, Stalin, oppression and stagnation. So, why haven't we just been jumping in the highest exaltation possible on this new glistening trampoline of freedoms since?

Then I started to feel that I owe an explanation.

source of the photo
My (moderately handsome) husband, having read the previous post and being a product of a completely different system, asked me this seemingly simple and logical question. The Western World for the decades of the Cold War and beyond was showing a dull, hungry and uneventful world of the Soviet State, where all of us were wearing ear-flapped grey hats with a red star on the forehead, marching in lines in the grey empty streets, eating cold potatoes with its grey skin - a sort of James Bond- or Schwarzenegger- movies with ludicrous and stupid military Russians and non-existing realia.

On the other side we were shown "the decaying capitalism", where poor decent people were dying in the streets under the cold and impersonal lights of advertisements.

Most interestingly, it worked. We were sympathizing chained Afro-Americans, exploited by the fat ugly millionaires in "that rotting America", so that even we - children - pioneers - were collecting our lunch money to send to them. And no one was stupid, no one was to blame: the propaganda worked well yet again.

History is a fickle mistress, who willingly changes its stories by the wish of the client: time, age, geography, events, attitudes, relationships, anything. I realize that, but having lived there I have the right to tell my story.

I was born in 1979 in the depth of the soviet stagnation (this story of a Russian girl could easily be mine, as well as of millions of other soviet children). These were the last years of Brezhnev and the General Secretaries started to fall like leaves on a windy day, being too old to rule for more than a couple of years, until Gorbachev started in 1985 and finished the Great Soviet Epoch as the first and the last President of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Understand me right - I do not thoughtlessly applaud to the good old days, but I certainly miss them. The life itself was simple, uncomplicated, non-criminal, non-chaotic, with no hatred, no fuss and stress, no unpredictability. In short, it was a strictly organized society built by a majority of simple uncomplicated honest people who worked all their lives.

Yes, we were deprived of the freedom of expression - everything had to be approved by special committees. Instead, we had free education, which was one of the best in the world, free kindergartens, free swimming pools, free after-school activities.
We were (relatively) deprived of the freedom of speech - we couldn't praise the life abroad or criticize Soviet routines. Still my father had self-made copies - the so-called samizdat - of the famous soviet exiles: Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Dovlatov.
We were short of the products in the shops. But the quality of what we had was impeccable - no chemistry in the food, no toxins in the plastic. Apples and oranges were always there with tangerines and bananas always for the New Year´s Eve, sometimes even with Pepsi.
We couldn't travel abroad. But the local flights were so cheap, my mother was taking planes from our city to Moscow going shoe shopping; we were regularly flying to the Black Sea resorts; people were coming to see us from Vladivostok. The countryside with villages and farming industry was flourishing.

I could go on with this list, but there's something which most of the Russians share today - a longing for the stability and safety - the most basic needs of a human.

Of course, it wasn't the best state in the world, as it was ringing in every song we were singing, but it was certainly the state where its people shared kindness, compassion, honesty, hard work and eternal humane values, most of which are conveniently forgotten now.

So we didn't have a freedom of speech... but we were happy and, therefore, free.







links with photos about the soviet times which you may find interesting to see:
http://offline.by/o-nashem-detstve-v-sovetskom-soyuze/
http://offline.by/interesnoe-puteshestvie-v-istoriyu-sovetskogo-soyuza/
http://offline.by/razval-sovetskogo-soyuza/
http://offline.by/deti-sssr/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHW0zL9dSMM


Copyright © 2013 by Olga Johannesson