{"id":3814,"date":"2019-09-18T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosefest.rs\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2020-09-03T08:13:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T07:13:42","slug":"victor-erofeyev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosefest.rs\/en\/2019\/ucesnici-2019\/victor-erofeyev\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Erofeyev"},"content":{"rendered":"

Born on 19th September 1947 in Moscow to the family of the political assistant to Molotov and Stalin\u2019s personal interpreter for French, Victor Erofeyev lived in Paris for several years as a child with his parents. Graduating from the Faculty of Philology at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, he went on to obtain an MA in Philology from the Institute for World Literature. Erofeyev\u2019s first articles were featured in periodicals in 1968.
\nErofeyev caught public attention with the publication of an essay in the journal Literary Issues about the work of Marquis de Sade (1973) entitled Marquis de Sade, Sadism and the 20th Century. 1975 saw him defending his PhD thesis Dostoyevsky and French Existentialism.
\nHe is the founder of the literary almanac Metropol. In 1979 he was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers because of his involvement with the samizdat almanac Metropol and his prose was not published again until 1988.
\nHis novel Russian Beauty<\/strong><\/em> was published in 1990, first in Paris and then in Russia, and has been translated into more than twenty languages, becoming an international bestseller.
\nV. Erofeyev\u2019s story Life with an Idiot<\/strong><\/em> was used as a basis for an opera composed by Alfred Schnittke, which premiered in Amsterdam in 1992. A year later, in 1993, the same story provided the basis for the film of the same name directed by Alexander Rogozhkin. Besides Russian Beauty<\/strong><\/em>, among his works published in Russia, Europe and the USA (where Erofeyev frequently stays as a guest lecturer at universities) are his books of stories, the compendium of literary-philosophical essays In the Labyrinth of Accursed Questions<\/em><\/strong>, and the novel The Last Judgment<\/strong><\/em> (1996). His works also include Russia\u2019s Fleurs Du Mal, Men, Five Rivers of Life, Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul, Akimudi\u2026<\/em><\/strong>
\nIn the period between 1994 and 1996 his collected works in three volumes<\/strong><\/em> were published in Moscow, and from 2019 the publisher RIPOL classic plans to publish 14 books of the EROFEYEV COLLECTION<\/strong><\/em>: stories, novels and essay.
\nHis autobiographic novel Good Stalin<\/strong><\/em> has been translated into a number of languages, including Georgian, published in 2018. His new novel Pink Mouse<\/strong><\/em> (2017) is an account of an eleven-year-old girl whose intellectual-emotional capacities are somewhere between Alisa\u2019s and Lolita\u2019s.
\n2018 saw the publication of his book of literary-philosophical essays The Crack<\/strong><\/em>, while Russian Apocalypse<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 thoughts on Russia, and The Light of Devil<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 author\u2019s travels around the world, are to be published in 2019.
\nErofeyev is the author of a television programme Apocrypha (1998-2011) on the Culture channel, as well as the radio programme Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul (2004-2007) on Radio Freedom.
\nHe has been awarded the V. V. Nabokov Prize<\/em><\/strong> (1992), N. V. Gogol Prize<\/strong><\/em> (2018) and International Literary Award \u201eMilovan Vidakovi\u0107\u201d<\/strong><\/em> (PROSEFEST, Novi Sad, 2019) for the novel Pink Mouse.
\nHe has been given the French title of the Order of Arts and Letters<\/strong><\/em> (2006) and named the Knight of the Legion of Honour<\/strong><\/em> (2013), as well as the highest Polish Order of Merit Cross of Commander<\/em> <\/strong>(2014).
\nHis books published in Serbian include: Ana\u2019s Body and the End of the Russian Avant-garde<\/strong><\/em>, (Knji\u017eevna re\u010d, Novi Sad, 1998), Russia\u2019s Fleurs du Mal<\/strong><\/em>, (Zepter Book World, Belgrade, 1999); Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul<\/strong><\/em>, (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2001); Men<\/strong><\/em> (Plato, Belgrade, 2002); Russian Beauty<\/strong><\/em> (Plato, Belgrade, 2003); Five Rivers of Life – Book of Wondrous Travels<\/strong><\/em> (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2003); Good Stalin<\/strong><\/em> (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2004); De Profundis<\/strong><\/em> (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2007); Body<\/strong><\/em> (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2016); Pink Mouse<\/strong><\/em> (Geopoetika, Belgrade, 2018).<\/p>\n

\"Viktor<\/p>\n

About the books<\/strong><\/p>\n

Encyclopaedia of the Russian Soul<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Victor Erofeyev, one of the most controversial Russian contemporary writers, writes talented and recognisable artistic prose, at the same time being active as a serious literary critic and theoretician. This combination keeps the spirit of the best Russian literary culture (Rozanov, Shklovsky, Tynyanov), where literature, its theory and history, stand shoulder to shoulder, with their respectable limits imperceptibly merging, complementing and enriching each other.
\nWorking our way through the thicket of Erofeyev\u2019s text, frequently taking issue with his open irony and autoirony, unbridled cynicism and autocynicism, stumbling on drastic references from all stata of life, ideology and art (including lay-bys of the gentlest lyricism, stylistic sufisticaiton and refreshing sprays of bubbling humour), we feel that we are breaking through towards the light, towards the exit from the dark tunnel.<\/p>\n

Draginja Ramadanski<\/strong><\/em>, from the book, 2001.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Men<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The collection of trans-genre texts entitled Men for the only reason it had to have some kind of a title, while it is actually a freestyle reflection on various topics? Hum, Men is just that, and much more, but primarily a dazzling example of maturity and self-awareness of a flexible mind of an accomplished author coupled with an explosive writer\u2019s talent and that \u201coh, so Russian\u201d ability to have a deep insight into things from a point of view beyond intellect while staying absolutely true to \u201crealistic storytelling\/essayism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teofil Pan\u010di\u0107<\/strong><\/em>, Vreme, 2002.<\/p>\n

Erofeyev accumulates witty puns, sharp paradox and (un)imaginable cynicism. He is a creator of a personal philosophical theory, damnism, marking a breakdown and reaching bottom. Such a classical Russian death is overcome by Erofeyev with vital cynicism that is the summit, a symbol of the intellectual superiority of a brilliant analyst of the people and the era he comes from.<\/p>\n

\u041cilan \u017divanovi\u0107<\/strong><\/em>, Dnevnik, 2003.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five Rivers Of Life<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Erofeyev has arranged these five \u201cfluvial journeys\u201d with a novelist\u2019s logic into that kind of prose pattern that owes nothing to the novel, but lends it, rent-free, \u201cwings of a story\u201d and a \u201csmall parachute\u201d that the novel can fly on and land with in its \u201cdead work\u201d of flowing in and out of one or the other character of the text. That\u2019s why Erofeyev rolls up his travel journals into the scrolls of novel. In its undedicated vials for \u201canalysis\u201d of that which is called the \u201ccement of Russian myth\u201d, or \u201chighway of tears\u201d. That which lurks from the inside, behind the text, for \u201cdeathly sorrow and cynical smile\u201d In a certain sense, this is a novel of the post-modernist understanding of the game of, for instance, hide-and-seek, but also a novel about African bureaucracy in fragments. A novel that is read like eating ice-cream or drinking kapibas. All in images of \u201cpromised surprises\u201d. And rivers of life, as fields of novel.<\/p>\n

Zoran M. Mandi\u0107,<\/strong><\/em> Dnevnik, 2003.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Good Stalin<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This Victor Erofeyev\u2019s novel is perhaps a turning point for what is to come from this author in the future.
\nThe book that gives an account of a family\u2019s (auto)biography, with the surname of the one who has written it. And as much the very motto of the novel attempts to distance it from faction, this simple and excellent motto is untrue! But, let\u2019s attribute it to post-postmodernism.
\nA parallel story about his own father and the father of the nation (Stalin) is actually the history of the Soviet Union, diplomacy, East and West. The symbolic patricide here equals natural death of the Leader. Father is a gentleman diplomat, by definition, indeed, a regime\u2019s lackey. Son is a member of the opposition, he destroys Father\u2019s career, but shows courage not to accept the regime\u2019s offer of exile, thus paradoxically \u201csaving\u201d them both.
\nWhether this was Erofeyev\u2019s debt to his father or not, Good Stalin is, all in all, an excellent literary creation, and a study of parenthood (\u201cCan parents be considered people?\u201d author asks.)
\nIn this novel too Erofeyev is, perhaps less explicitly, an audacious provocateur, but also a subtle psychoanalyst who found his escape in literature a long time ago as well. In short \u2013 less confrontation, more compensation. Especially in emotions.<\/p>\n

Vladislav Bajac<\/strong><\/em>, from the book, 2005.<\/p>\n

Building the novel (autobiography) on the motif of a father-son conflict, fundamental not only for Russian literature (Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Bely), but also for major currents of contemporary prose writing (in which philosophy is substituted by psychoanalysis), Erofeyev is, as always, a storyteller, critic and theoretician at the same time. Re-examining the relationship between (historical) true and (mythologizing) fiction in culture and politics, as well as in human mind, he devises memories using fictitious events. \u201cWith a piece of mirror from Andersen\u2019s fairy tale at heart, this Slavic literary Diogenes, an expat in love with an inexistent Russia, examines everything through a Swiftian magnifying glass of monstrosity; he is a paradoxical artist, simultaneously clever and blinded, attractive and unbearable.<\/p>\n

Vesna Triji\u0107<\/strong><\/em>, Blic, 2005.<\/p>\n

This indispensible novel, a masterpiece of a powerful author\u2019s maturing, is also a kind of sequel to Encyclopaedia of the Russian Soul, as it picks its sensitive spots and historical burdens again; Erofeyev writes, for example, about why \u201cRussian soul\u201d still, deep inside, idolises the cruel Georgian dictator, and is a very educative text for our part of the world\u2026 Indeed, the Soviet Union is long gone, but \u201cSoviet man\u201d is still here, together with this colourful Balkan version. This system toyed with individual human destinies with oriental ease: it was horrible for living in, but writers like Erofeyev have succeeded in transcending these accounts about enumerable and almost nameless \u201cstraws in the whirlwinds\u201d into the literature written by no one else and nowhere else, a kind of literature that probably cannot be written without the experience of being a guinea pig in a mad historical Experiment.<\/p>\n

Teofil Pan\u010di\u0107<\/strong><\/em>, Vreme, 2005.<\/p>\n

Good Stalin is undoubtedly a novel that will earn Erofeyev new fans. The novel, which is a picaresque melange of autobiography and fiction, where author spares neither the hero and his parents nor the reader, is unique in Erofeyev\u2019s opus, as well as in the contemporary Russian literature.<\/p>\n

Sanja Domazet<\/strong><\/em>, Danas, 2005.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

De profundis<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In an artful coupling of fantasy and reality, Writer does not hide his interventionist presence. Quite to the contrary, in the most delicate moments in the plot, he teleports the reader into the storyteller\u2019s brain almost cynically demonstrating the technology of designing the story. This sudden presence brings the reader in the position to cut into the theatre backdrop with his nose…
\nBut instead of dream-like landscapes \u2013 he is met by a denuded provocation of a nightmare.
\nOne could conclude that today\u2019s Writer lives off his heroes frustrations. Read the final sentences of these stories: (each) hero has (almost) died!<\/p>\n

Draginja Ramadanski,<\/em><\/strong> from the book, 2007.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Body<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A lot has changed since 1979 when Victor Erofeyev, one of the founders of the literary almanac Metropol, was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, but despite this he has remained an enfant terrible of Russian literature, set on surprising the readers with his prose time and again. He remains true to himself, refusing to fit into the literary mainstream, managing to keep his old fans, who love him for his very rebellious spirit and disobedient word and thought, and attracting young readership of the 21st century.
\nErofeyev is still amusing, keen-witted, sharp-minded and -tongued, a master of short form, who, while staying true to himself for decades, keeps shocking conservative public opinion and shaking the bears\u2019 cage with his verbal jabs.<\/p>\n

Natalija Nenezi\u0107<\/strong><\/em>, from the book, 2016.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pink Mouse<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pink Mouse is a book that follows the journey of the heroine, a girl called Marusia, through a fantastic world where she finds her escape from the reality threatened by her parents\u2019 divorce. Like the rabbit and Carroll\u2019s Alice, Pink Mouse leads Marusia into the parallel universe where she will walk an initiation path on her road to maturity. (And go through a figurative death gate marking her transition to the world of adults.) Particularly lively and witty dialogues are undoubtedly one of the best qualities of Erofeyev\u2019s style, brimming with ironic nonsense humour typical of Russian literature, coupled with dynamic contrasts of imagery from reality and everyday life on the one hand, and the twisted world \u201con the other side\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nastasja Pisarev,<\/strong><\/em> Dnevnik, 2019.<\/p>\n

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