Опубликовано в журнале Дружба Народов, номер 10, 2006
AFANASIJ MAMEDOV. One Million Birds Coming Towards a Friend. A triptych.
This new composition by our regular author is a kind of a sequel to his previous novel “Frau Shram”, which in 2004 had reached the final of The Russian Booker Prize.
ZAKHAR PRILEPIN. The Wheels.
A short but very insightful story by one of the brightest representatives of the so called “new prose”.
ALEXANDER MELIKHOV. “Threat and Temptation”. A writer’s meditations on the modern liberalism, which, after the author’s thought, needs to acquire a human dimension. That means that the liberal-rational tradition must plunge economical processes into the psycho-emotional context which is a much more significant indicator of a person being happy or unhappy then efficiency of labor and standards of consumption.
ROY MEDVEDEV. Russian Language at the Expanses of the Ex-Soviet Independent States.
A well-known historian and publicist analyses the process of the Russian language being superseded by national languages in the post-Soviet states and comes to a conclusion that on the whole it has withstood there and is still being not only a means of international contacts but a kind of mediator in all spheres of social relations as well as the language of the science and culture.
ALEXEJ TORK. Half Million Dreams of Baktria.
The essay presents a comprehensive metaphor of the Exodus of Russians and “half-breeds” from Tadzhikistan over the past 15 years. The second publication of this young new author discovered by “DN” (see his short story “Pension”, “DN”, 2006, № 7) will surely not disappoint the reader.
ALLA MARCHENKO. “In a Blackish Mist Is Paris”.
— Well, it’s nothing but “Romeo and Juliet” performed by persons of a Royal House, – quipped Joseph Brodsky having read Akhmatova’s memoirs about her rendezvous with Amedeo Modigliani in Paris (1910—1911). Anna Andreevna seems to apprise the joke. But how was it in reality? The version suggested by A.Marchenko in her half-documentary narration seems to be interesting and rather convincing.