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10.09.07
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From Sobchak To Tolstoy And Everything In Between
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By Dmitry Babich
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Moscow International Book Fair Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
Twenty years ago, when the first Moscow International Book Fair (MIBF) was held, it was perceived by the general public as a rare opportunity to get a glimpse of Western life. Ellendea Proffer, head of U.S.-based Ardis Publishers, which specialized in publishing Russian dissident fiction in the 1980s, remembered that when she came to the first MIBF in 1987, she knew that all her sample books would be stolen by the fair’s visitors and had no bad feelings about it. Books were like breaths of fresh air, and at the time it was necessary to be indulgent with a public that had been denied this “oxygen” for decades. The mere fact that Proffer, the head of an anti-Soviet publishing house, was even allowed to visit the Soviet Union made that book fair a sensation.
“People craved for good serious fiction then, we were ready to spill our blood for an opportunity to publish an honest book,” remembers former Soviet dissident writer Vladimir Voinovich, 75. “When I came to the United States in the 1980s and heard that fiction there was nothing more than a form of entertainment, I had to change my whole mindset. But maybe this is just the way it is. Good books are not highly appreciated in open society, there are too many distractions.”
This year, the MIBF is just one of many windows to the world for a Muscovite, and not only to the Western one. This year 70 countries are represented at the fair, with China being the honorary guest since 2007 is the year of China in Russia.
If distractions are indicative of an open society, then today’s Russia is one of the most open societies in the world and it was obvious at this year’s 20th annual MIBF. The distractions included meetings with two of the most successful authors of AST Publishers: Ksenia Sobchak, the scandalously glamorous daughter of the late St. Petersburg mayor who wrote Zamuzh za millionera (“Marrying a Millionaire”), and the no less glamorous Lena Lenina, a self-made Parisian of Russian origin who offers her Russian readers tips on the pursuit of happiness in the reclusive circles of French millionaires.
Good grammar obviously is not high on the millionaires’ matrimonial list of requirements, as Lenina herself acknowledged insisting on “writing the words the way I see them”, despite the humble protests of the copy editors at Russia’s AST and the EKSMO publishing house, where Lenina has published her works. The price for Lenina’s books fluctuates in the range between $10 and $20, obviously in a bid to bar stingy Parisians of today from buying her books and learning about the sophisticated traps set for them by this femme fatale from the Siberian steppes.
EKSMO tried to woo readers not only with this kind of handy glamour, but also with some less pragmatic writing, including new books by Voinovich, a respected satirist, and by Vasily Aksyonov, also a former dissident and one of the inventors of the “polyphonic youth prose” of the 1960s. However, in EKSMO’s plans, Voinovich’s and Aksyonov’s fiction is dwarfed by the voluminous creations of Darya Dontsova and her colleagues, authors of the so-called female detective stories. A predictable and recognizable set of characters, as well as an obligatory happy ending never let the public off the hook.
The stands of the more intellectual publishers – Amfora, Logos and NLO – were much more modest than the rostrums of AST and EKSMO, but the number of customers and visitors belied the rumors of the “death of reading” in Russia. Intellectual readers still live in Russia, even if the aggressive marketing of Sobchak and Lenina has pushed them into a sort of a ghetto.
In fact, there is more than one intellectual ghetto now. The dynamic growth of the Russian publishing industry, which now produces more than 100,000 titles per year, has made it possible for every group of readers to be satisfied.
Amfora specializes in introducing quality foreign fiction to Russian readers, beginning with Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and ending with Michel Ouellbeck, the enfant terrible of modern French fiction, whose sincerity in disclosing the darker side of a modern man’s mind borders on the obscene. The other important intellectual niche is Russia’s past, which every year seems to fascinate readers more and more with its drama. For example, SLOVO publishers presented a book on German trophy art in Russia and Russian art’s losses during World War II by Grigory Kozlov, a recognized expert on the subject. SLOVO also featured several important memoirs, including those of Sergei Tolstoy, a grandson of Leo Tolstoy, which featured a full list of living and dead descendants of the great Russian writer. Geleos publishers continued this trend, recently publishing the memoirs of Isadora Duncan, a famous American dancer and the wife of the 20th century Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.
Even Soviet fiction refuses to die, finding its own group of devoted readers. The small publishing house Golos survives on the republication of the books whose copyright was passed to it by Sovietsky Pisatel (Soviet Writer). This former Soviet monopolist, which could boast of being the largest publishing house in Europe before 1991, is now one of many, but it is not dead.
As for the fiction writers who could not make a name for themselves in the Soviet era, their road to mass readership lies through the Vremya and Vagrius publishing houses. These companies publish modern Russian writers, including not only the winner of 2006 Russian Booker prize Denis Gutsko, but also a member of the now banned National Bolshevik Party, Zakhar Prilepin. Prilepin was not the only “extremist” represented at the book fair, however. The mysterious Russkaya Panorama publishing house offered its audience a book called Russian Special Forces, written by a former special forces officer, Vladimir Kvachkov. The only problem is that Kvachkov is in jail awaiting trial for the attempted murder of Russian privatization guru and head of RAO UES Anatoly Chubais. This is not the kind of author Sovietsky Pisatel would have published in its heyday, but after all, publishing imprisoned authors is considered good manners in what Vladimir Voinovich calls open society. |
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