Опубликовано в журнале Вестник Европы, номер 4, 2002
This special issue of “The Herald of Europe” (2002 sees the 200th anniversary of the founding of the journal by Nikolay Karamzin) opens with an editorial marking this date, followed by a reprint of Karamzin’s article “General Survey. Politics” of 1802.
In the “Contemporary Life” section we publish an essay by Professor Vasily Shchukin on “The Historical Drama of Russian Europeanism”. Extracts from speeches given over many years by Otto Graf Lambsdorff present the views of a prominent European liberal on the same question. Lord David Owen’s article “The Euro. Why the British are ready to risk staying out” is particularly timely, given the powerful lobbying in favour of a common European currency, as the author spells out the disadvantages of this new development. The contribution from Oxford professor Anne Daighton “A United Europe as a political objective” brings out the complexities of this problem. The section concludes with an analysis by Andrey Medushevsky of various theories of the coup d’etat, providing an answer to the question of how best to defend the achievements of a democratic system against attempts to overthrow it.
The “Literature” section opens with a new column entitled “All The Latest!”. Yevgeny Popov’s remarkable story “I Kid You Not” is the first in a series of four publications by this well-known writer, who is the first recipient of a twelve-month scholarship, just instituted by this journal. Works by Asar Eppel have already appeared in The Herald of Europe; here we publish his story “The Flying Bullet”. “D. Darya”, which will be included in Nikolay Klimontovich’s forthcoming volume “An Alphabet of Names”, is followed by some stories about childhood by Igor Klekh, who recently won the prize for “the best short story of the year”. We also publish some poems by Viktor Korkiya and a new long poem by Yevgeny Reyn.
Under the heading “Diaries. Memoirs. Documents.” in the section on history we present a hitherto unknown author, Marina Azovskaya, whose diaries, “War in Grozny. Notes from a Basement”, provide a stunningly authentic record by an elderly lady of recent events in Chechnya. We go much further back into history with a translation of extracts from John Donne’s “Appeales to the Lord in the Hour of Need and Calamity”. To mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian European Lev Kopelev we publish chapters from his and his wife’s book “Living in Cologne”. The historical dimension is extended by printing some previously untranslated poems by Alain Bosquet and a chapter from A. Schutz’s – “Mozart and the Philosophers”.
The section entitled “Culture” opens with the column “Letters of a Russian Traveller” – Viktor Yaroshenko’s “The Peloponnese” uses his notes by the roadside to give us his impressions of a recent journey to Greece, supplementing the words with some of the colour photographs he took on this journey. Irina Chmyreva continues the discussion of Greece by introducing the work of the famous photographer John Demos. Andrey Plakhov then looks at Austrian cinema and the work of Ulrich Seidl and Natalya Isayeva writes about the recent London exhibition of Vermeer. Natalya Kazmina discusses the work of the theatre director Anatoly Vasilev, Kirill Razlogov contributes a think-piece about television, and Andrey Mokrousov reflects on the interconnections between crime and utopia.
Finally there are the reviews, as well as reports on some of the latest outstanding exhibitions.