Evil spirits novel summary. Devilry

Annotation:
"Unclean Power" - a book that Valentin Pikul himself called "the main success in his literary biography"- tells about the life and death of one of the most controversial figures Russian history- Grigory Rasputin - and under the pen of Pikul develops into a large-scale and fascinating story about the most paradoxical, probably for our country, period - a short break between the February and October revolutions ...

I have not read this book, but I have listened to it. I listened to the voice acting of Sergei Chonishvili. All at the highest level. Interesting, captivating, in faces.
BUT! Disappointingly abruptly, harshly, unexpectedly. Like a tub with ... filler!
The emperor appeared before me as an uneducated, bloodthirsty, and useless henpecked man.
The Empress is an ambitious slut and hysterical.
Very hard-hitting images that go against everything I've ever read. It left a nasty aftertaste. But it's well written and voiced just amazingly well.
In any case, there is something to think about on a large and small scale.

Well
Criticism (because the abstract does not really reveal the nature of this book):
Pikul's works conveyed an unofficial, although very rarely incorrect, view of historical events. His novels were censored. The author could not print what he wanted.
Pikul's historical works have often been and continue to be criticized for careless handling of historical documents, vulgar, according to critics, style of speech, etc.
Most of all, in this sense, his last completed novel, Unclean Power, got it (magazine version: last line”), despite the fact that the author himself considered him “the main success in his literary biography”.
The novel is dedicated to the period of the so-called. "Rasputinism" in Russia. In addition to the story about the life of G. Rasputin, the author historically incorrectly portrayed moral character and the habits of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna (now included in the Russian Orthodox Church to the face of the holy martyrs), representatives of the clergy (including the highest). In the same manner, almost the entire royal environment and the then government of the country are depicted. The novel has been repeatedly criticized by historians and contemporaries of the events described for its strong discrepancy with the facts and the "tabloid" level of narration. For example, A. Stolypin (the son of the former Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin) wrote an article about the novel with the characteristic title "Crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies" (first published in the foreign magazine "Posev" No. 8, 1980), where, in particular, the author said: “There are many places in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a state of law, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court.”
The Soviet historian V. Oskotsky in the article "Education by history" (the newspaper "Pravda" for October 8, 1979) called the novel "a stream of plot gossip."

In a reference article about V. Pikul in the newspaper " Literary Russia”(No. 43, October 22, 2004), literary critic V. Ogryzko spoke about the effect the novel had on writers at that time:
The publication in 1979 in the journal Our Contemporary (Nos. 4-7) of the novel At the Last Line caused more than just furious controversy. Among those who did not accept the novel were not only liberals. On July 24, 1979, Valentin Kurbatov wrote to V. Astafiev: “Yesterday I finished reading Pikulev’s Rasputin and I angrily think that the magazine has soiled itself very much with this publication, because such “Rasputin” literature in Russia has not yet been seen in the most dumb and shameful time. And Russian word has never been so neglected, and, of course, Russian history has never been exposed to such disgrace. Now, even in the latrines, they seem to write more neatly” (“Infinite Cross”, Irkutsk, 2002). Yuri Nagibin, in protest after the publication of the novel, resigned from the editorial board of the journal Our Contemporary.
Despite this, the widow of V. Pikul believes that “... it is the“ Unclean Force ”that, in my opinion, cornerstone in understanding and, if you like, in knowing the character, creativity, and indeed the whole life of Valentin Pikul.

Mikhail Veller in his book Perpendicular put it this way:
... all historians, on a signal, began to write that Pikul was misrepresenting history. It is not true. Pikul did not distort the story. Pikul used history. He took those versions that he liked best because of their scandalousness and sensationalism. He is in historical figures took those features that he liked more and were more suitable for this book. As a result, the books turned out to be quite fascinating.

The old Russian history ended - a new one began. Creeping in the lanes with their wings, the booming hooting owls of reaction shied away through their caves ... The first to disappear somewhere was the excessively quick-witted Matilda Kshesinskaya, the most unique prima weighing 2 pounds and 36 pounds (a fluff of the Russian stage!); a brutal crowd of deserters was already smashing her palace, smashing her fairy gardens Semiramis, where overseas birds sang in captivating bushes. The ubiquitous newsboys dragged away notebook ballerinas, and the Russian layman could now find out how the daily budget of this amazing woman was formed:

For a hat - 115 rubles.
A person for tea - 7 kopecks.
For a suit - 600 rubles.
Boric acid - 15 kopecks.
Vovochka as a gift - 3 kopecks.

The imperial couple was temporarily kept under arrest in Tsarskoye Selo; At workers' rallies there were already calls for the execution of Nikolashka the Bloody, and from England they promised to send a cruiser for the Romanovs, and Kerensky expressed a desire to personally escort the royal family to Murmansk. Under the windows of the palace, the students sang:
Alice must go back, The address for letters is Hesse - Darmstadt, Frau Alice is going "nach Rhine", Frau Alice is aufwiederzein!

Who would have believed that until recently they were arguing:
- We will call the monastery over the grave of the unforgettable martyr:
Rasputin! - said the empress.
“Dear Alix,” answered her husband respectfully, “but such a name will be misinterpreted among the people, for the surname sounds obscene. The monastery is better called Grigorievskaya.
- No, Rasputinskaya! the queen insisted. - There are hundreds of thousands of Grigorievs in Rus', and Rasputin is only one ...

They reconciled on the fact that the monastery would be called Tsarskoye Selo-Rasputin; Before the architect Zverev, the Empress revealed the “ideological” plan of the future temple: “Gregory was killed in accursed Petersburg, and therefore you will turn the Rasputin Monastery towards the capital with a blank wall without a single window. The facade of the monastery, bright and joyful, turn to my palace ... ”On March 21, 1917, on Rasputin’s birthday, they were going to lay the monastery. But in February, ahead of the tsar's schedules, the revolution broke out, and it seemed that Grishka's long-standing threat to the tsars came true:
“Here it is! I will not be - and you will not be. It is true that after the assassination of Rasputin, the tsar lasted only 74 days on the throne. When an army is defeated, it buries its banners so that they do not fall into the hands of the victor.
Rasputin lay in the ground, like the banner of a fallen monarchy, and no one knew where his grave was. The Romanovs hid the place of his burial ...

Staff Captain Klimov, who served on the anti-aircraft batteries of Tsarskoye Selo, once walked along the outskirts of the parks; by chance he wandered to the piles of boards and bricks, an unfinished chapel froze in the snow. The officer illuminated its vaults with a flashlight, noticed a blackening under the altar. Having squeezed into its recess, I found myself in the dungeon of the chapel. Here stood a coffin - large and black, almost square; there was a hole in the lid, like a ship's porthole. The staff captain directed the beam of the lantern directly into this hole, and then Rasputin himself looked at him from the depths of non-existence, eerie and ghostly ...

The well-known slanderer of the elder Grigory Rasputin and the holy Tsar-martyr, the pseudo-historian writer Valentin Pikul, finishing his novel “Unclean Power”, wrote “According to the definition of V. I. Lenin, “the counter-revolutionary era (1907-1914) revealed the whole essence of the her to the "last line", revealed all her rottenness, vileness, all the cynicism and depravity of the royal gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head ... "That's exactly what I wrote about!"

Oh, how the slanderer Pikul tried to please the then communist government. How! After all, against the background of the “royal lawlessness” described in the book, she looked like a lamb! But the famous spiteful critic did not take into account something. The authorities turned out to be not as vile as the writer himself. By 1979, by the time the abridged version of Pikul's novel was published in the journal Our Contemporary, something had changed in the communist government. It is no coincidence that after the publication, L.I. Brezhnev's inner circle was confused. The secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M. V. Zimyanin, even called the presumptuous writer “on the carpet”.

Then, at the All-Union Ideological Conference, a member of the Politburo of the CPSU spoke critically about Pikul, chief ideologue USSR M.A.Suslov. And after that, a devastating article appeared in the newspaper "Literaturnaya Rossiya" by a senior researcher of the USSR Academy of Sciences, candidate historical sciences I.M. Pushkareva, directed against the novel at the "Last Line" (author's title "Unclean Power"). The learned historian Pushkareva bluntly declared Valentin Pikul’s poor knowledge of history and noted that “the literature that“ lay on the table ”of the author of the novel (judging by the list that he attached to the manuscript) is small ... a novel ... nothing more than a simple retelling ... the writings of white emigrants - the anti-Soviet B. Almazov, the monarchist Purishkevich, the adventurer A. Simanovich, etc. ”.

The editorial conclusion, signed by the head of the editorial office of fiction E.N. Gabis and the senior editor L.A. Plotnikova, also stated the same: “V. Pikul's manuscript cannot be published. It cannot be considered a Soviet historical novel…”.

So, the end of the 1970s. The era of stagnation. And the communist government is nevertheless reconsidering its views on history. And therefore, Pushkareva, in the editorial opinion of Lenizdat on Pikul's manuscript, writes quite patriotically: “The manuscript of V. Pikul's novel “Unclean Power” cannot be accepted for publication, because ... it is a detailed argument for the notorious thesis: the people have such rulers as they deserve. And this is insulting to a great people, to great country…»

When Lenizdat terminated the contract, Pikul handed over his manuscript to Our Contemporary and the novel Unclean Force, albeit with large cuts, and under the title At the Last Line, nevertheless came out. The well-known critic Valentin Oskotsky commented on the publication in Nashe Sovremennik in the following way: “The non-historicity of the author’s view, which replaced the social-class approach to the events of the pre-revolutionary period with the idea of ​​the self-decomposition of tsarism, was clearly reflected in the novel.”

In a communist way? Yes. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that all critics agree on one thing - Pikul's novel is not historical. Distortion of history and (according to Pushkareva) "an insult to a great people, a great country" - these are the reasons why Pikul's work was not accepted by Soviet censorship.

For the same reasons, a meeting of the secretariat of the board of the SP RSFSR determined the publication of the novel in the journal Our Contemporary as erroneous. Valentin Savvich, of course, fell into depression. In one of his letters he wrote: “I live in stress. They stopped printing me. How to live - I do not know. The writing didn't get worse. I just don’t like the Soviet government…”

But not only the Soviet authorities did not like the zealous communist Pikul. The anti-communists did not like him either. So, the son of the tsarist Prime Minister P.A. Stolypin, Arkady Stolypin, wrote an article about the novel entitled “The crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies” (first published in the foreign magazine “Posev” No. 8, 1980). In it, he stated: “There are many places in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a rule-of-law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court.”

Valentin Pikul did not like his fellow writers either. For example, the prose writer V. Kurbatov wrote to V. Astafyev after the publication of the novel “At the Last Line” in Nashe Sovremennik: “Yesterday I finished reading Pikulev’s Rasputin and I angrily think that the magazine really messed itself up with this publication, because such a “Rasputin Literature has not yet been seen in Russia even in the most mute and shameful times. And the Russian word has never been so neglected, and, of course, Russian history has not yet been exposed to such disgrace ... Now, even in the latrines, they seem to write more neatly. And Yuri Nagibin, in protest after the publication of the novel, even left the editorial board of the magazine Our Contemporary.

But other times have come. The so-called perestroika broke out (not by night, be remembered). The conservative patriotic communists were replaced by liberal communists, Westerners who did not care about historical Russia. Censorship weakened and since 1989 the novel by Valentin Pikul began to be published in various publishing houses, exposing Russian history, according to Kurbatov, "to shame." It is regrettable to talk about this, but the current chairman of the Union of Writers of Russia V.N. Ganichev personally wrote a preface to one of the books. And in 1991, he published Pikul's novel "Unclean Power" in his "Roman-gazeta" in more than three million copies. Thus began a large-scale replication of historical lies.

But we must pay tribute to the extreme interest of our people in history. Especially during the perestroika years. And especially to the novels of Valentin Pikul, which were read by millions of readers. In fairness, we note that they are written really talentedly. Critics and readers agree that Pikul's novels captivate with their plots and are read with great interest. Maybe it is so ... Maybe the drunkenness and debauchery of the Kings and Queens is really interesting for those who are trying to justify themselves. Probably, for millions of Soviet people, "gray scoops", it was important to understand that great person just as vile and vile as "every man"? At one time, Alexander Pushkin wrote about such an “interest” as follows: “The crowd eagerly reads confessions, notes, because in its meanness it rejoices at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small like us, he is vile like us! You lie, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - otherwise! … It is not difficult to despise the judgment of people; it is impossible to despise one's own judgment."

It can be assumed that Pikul deliberately lied about the abomination of the great. After all, he knew, for example, about the positive historical view of Grigory Rasputin. L.N. Voskresenskaya, who knew Valentin Savvich well, recalled: “What kind of “evil spirit”? This, in his / Pikul / opinion, was Rasputin. Here I completely disagree with him. And although he personally showed me the documents on which he relied in his book, that Rasputin was a debauchee, I still told him that this was not true. Then someone, as if to spite him, gave me a small book by Nikolai Kozlov about Rasputin the day before. And in it the author asked himself: how could Rasputin be a libertine if the Holy Couple had chosen him? And he answered that the slander was provoked by the Masons. And Rasputin was only a small pawn for them, since the goal was to compromise the Tsar and His Family... In this book, Kozlov cited memories of Rasputin's meetings with priests, elders, and even with the archbishop. Such spiritual meetings, such conversations, and suddenly - debauchery? It couldn't be like that. Well, it didn't fit. And I immediately thought: “Oh, what kind of enemies our Tsar had - they went through Rasputin.” And I told Pikul all this then.

In our time, the replication of the historical lies of Valentin Pikul continues. But it should be understood that his works for Orthodox Christians are blasphemous works. Lies about Orthodox Russian Tsars and Tsarinas, lies about the Orthodox Russian monarchy, slander against the holy Tsar, the martyr and the person closest to him from the people - the man of God Grigory Rasputin, you can’t call this anything but blasphemy. And therefore it is very regrettable when the Orthodox refer to the books of Pikul, defending their point of view (in particular) on Grigory Rasputin. Although, of course, it is not appropriate to commemorate Pikul's works, not only for the Orthodox, but for everyone who tries to defend their views on history with references to him. In conclusion, I would like to recall once again the words of Arkady Stolypin that in Pikul's work there are "many places not only incorrect, but also base-slanderous, for which, in a rule-of-law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court."

Based on the materials of the article of the same name by S. Fomin ("Russian Bulletin" of December 19, 2003 http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=1402) and "Encyclopedia of Great Russian Films. "Agony" (http://top-rufilms.info/p1-84.html), with additions and comments by the author.

Year after year, and several times a year, TV "Culture" (as well as some other TV channels) again and again shows E. Klimov's film "Agony" - a film that has been so popular since 1985, as well as full of old ones (already from 1916\1917) false myths about G.E. Rasputin and royal family. (I don’t track it on purpose, but in 2010 on the Kultura channel in December I got, it seems, already on the third show).
It would seem that in last years Much has already been written about the streams of slander and lies that fell upon the Tsar's family under the Provisional Government (from March to November 1917) and then in the Soviet of Deputies. Having begun as streams of dirty rumors back in 1916, they then turned into stormy fetid streams. February Revolution these flows flooded only the drunken and hysterical Petrograd, the Provisional Government deliberately and purposefully brought them down on the whole of Russia.
And now, it turns out, the vile nine-month flow of slander in 1917 was enough for a long time. For a very long time ... For almost 100 years!
We'll have to talk about all this in more detail.

INTERIM GOVERNMENT. FALSE AND SLANDING IN "THE MOST FREE COUNTRY"
After the February Revolution of 1917, almost all newspapers and magazines were literally filled with slander and often absolutely fantastic lies - and no one could speak out against this (I remind you that monarchist newspapers and organizations were banned immediately after the abdication of the Sovereign). This fetid stream flowed like a wide river from the pages of books, from postcards, caricatures, from the theater stage and from the screens of the cinema. The theaters were filled with vicious farcical performances. In Petrograd there were plays by M. Zotov "Grishka Rasputin"; in Moscow, except for those listed - "Tea at Vyrubova's"; in Vyborg already on April 27, 1917, the premiere of a play by a certain “Marquise Dlyaokon” (S. Belaya) “Tsarskoye Selo Grace” took place, in which, in all, blatant lies were peppered with foul language and even pornography - and, in modern slang, “people” in both capitals enthusiastically “hawal” all this, but not always, and not everywhere.
During March-November 1917, more than ten films about Grigory Rasputin were released. The first such film was the two-part "" sensational drama "" "" Dark forces- Grigory Rasputin and his associates "" (production of the G. Liebken joint-stock company; Grigory Libken is a well-known sausage manufacturer and director of the Magic Dreams film studio, which became famous for scandals back in the 1910s). The picture was delivered in record time, within a few days: on March 5, the newspaper "" Early morning"" announced it, and already on March 12 (! - 10 days after the abdication!) She came out on the screens of cinemas. It is noteworthy that this first false film as a whole failed and was successful only in the outskirts of small cinemas, where the audience was simpler .... Later, judging by press reports, the demonstration of the film caused a stir in the Tyumen cinema "Giant", where the audience met with "Grishka the horse thief, Grishka the arsonist, Grishka the foolish, Grishka the lecher, Grishka the seducer". However, it was not Rasputin's adventures in the palace that caused the excitement and excitement in the hall, but the demonstration of Khionia Guseva's assassination attempt on Rasputin in 1914 and his murder in the palace of Prince Yusupov.
It must be said that the appearance of these films led to the protest of a more educated public because of their ""pornographic and wild eroticism"". In order to protect public morality, it was even proposed to introduce film censorship (and this was in the first days of the revolution!), Temporarily entrusting it to the police. A group of filmmakers petitioned the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky to ban the demonstration of the film "Dark Forces - Grigory Rasputin" and stop the flow of "film dirt and pornography". Of course, this did not stop the further spread of the kinorasputiniada across the country. G. Liebken's firm launched another series - "Rasputin's Funeral". In order to somehow support the shattered reputation, the company donated 5,000 rubles to the disabled and reported this in the newspapers. Other films "on the topic" followed: "People of Sin and Blood", "Holy Devil", "Mysterious Murder in Petrograd on December 16", "" Trading house Romanov, Rasputin, Sukhomlinov, Myasoedov, Protopopov and Co.", "Tsar's guardsmen", etc. Most of them were issued by the same joint-stock company of G. Liebken.
Streams of dirty falsification spilled over the whole country. Those who "overthrew the autocracy" were in power, and they needed a justification for this overthrow. They needed it all the more because, as the main Russian liberal P. Milyukov testified back in May 1917, the people throughout Russia (except perhaps Petrograd and two other three large cities) were set up monarchically. And in general, by October 1917, massive flows of slander about Rasputin and the Royal Family did their job - the country believed in this lie.

Bolsheviks, USSR. TWO WAVES OF SLANDER ABOUT RASPUTIN AND THE ROYAL FAMILY
The Bolsheviks after October 1917 approached the matter more fundamentally. Of course, the Rasputin movie waste paper got a second wind, but much wider and deeper steps were taken to falsify history. The multi-volume Protocols of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission created by the Provisional Government, falsified by P. E. Shchegolev and others, were published; from beginning to end forged by the same P. Shchegolev with the "red count" A. Tolstoy ""diaries"" by A. Vyrubova. In the same row is the widely shown play "A. Tolstoy's "The Conspiracy of the Empress." According to some reports, in the 1920s, the "chief Soviet historian" Pokrovsky (even his party comrades called him "a dashing old man") forged with the help of graphologists from the GPU many documents relating to the Royal Family, including the Diaries of Nicholas II, as well as documents on the murder of the Royal Family (the so-called "Yurovsky Note") - a solid and "solid" foundation was laid for future falsifications by both historians and and "engineers human souls", Soviet writers.
It wasn't until around 1930 that this company of falsifying history and mass-stupefying people began to wane as the new generation entered the adulthood in the Council of Deputies, it was already quite zombified.
***
A new campaign of massive stupidity and falsification of the history of the Tsar's family and Tsarist Russia began to unfold in the USSR in the second half of the 1960s and into the 1970s. Why exactly then? Let me remind you that in those years in the West, a lot of attention of the press, radio and TV was attracted by a long trial to identify Anna Anderson, who proved that she was Anastasia Romanova, the escaped daughter of Nikolai and Alexandra. A series of trials took place in Germany from 1961 to 1977, and until the very end of the process, many were convinced that Anderson was right. The sympathies of many were on her side, and a wide interest in the history of the Royal Family arose in the West. In 1967, Robert Massey's Nicholas and Alexandra, the first book by a foreign author, was published in the United States and gained wide popularity. And in 1969, a film based on this book (under the same name) was already shot in Hollywood, which immediately gathered a huge audience even by Hollywood standards.
Finally, let me remind you that in the USSR itself, approximately from the beginning of the 1970s, although not a massive, but pilgrimage to the Ipatiev house in Sverdlovsk began, and the KGB reports on Sverdlovsk more than once noted bouquets of flowers lying in the mornings on the sidewalk near this house.
Of course, all this could not go unnoticed by the leadership of the KGB and the Politburo. A “government order” like “our answer to Chamberlain” began to take shape as early as 1966.
Significant works of the 1960s and 1970s, when no one was allowed to talk about it aloud, were the book by M. Kasvinov ""Twenty-three steps down"", the novel by V. Pikul ""At the last line"" and the film directed by E. Klimov "Agony". The work of an almost unknown historian, a novel by a writer popular by that time, and the work of a famous film director.
As I wrote above, the false and, I will add, in many details and in general blasphemous in essence, the film "Agony" is shown from time to time by some central TV channels, even to this day. So, in December 2006 the film was shown on the 5th channel, and on July 8 of this year. - on the TV channel ... "Culture", and again - on November 7 this year.
Let me remind you that Agony was filmed in the 1970s, and, of course, a film about the Royal Family could not have been different then. But even the fact that Nikolai and Alexandra were shown, albeit weak and unworthy, but living people (who could cause at least a little, if not sympathy, then pity), even this led to difficult fate film (in the USSR, it was released only ten years after the end of filming, in 1985). We will talk about this in more detail later, and also tell you more about the opuses of M. Kasvinov and V. Pikul.

"TWENTY-THREE STEPS DOWN" by Mark Kasvinov.
With its documentation, the opus of Mark Kasvinov, published in 1972-1974. in the Leningrad magazine "Zvezda", attracted a considerable number of readers. For the first time, the Soviet reader was able to get acquainted with a wider range of facts than in the traditionally strictly metered works of Soviet historians, who were subjected to severe ideological inspection by Goslitov officials and self-censorship. Judging by the links, the author had access to many archives, including Polish, Czechoslovak, Austrian and Swiss, closed party and personal archives; books, many of which were not even in our special stores. This unwittingly inspired some confidence. Of course, despite the fact that the very content of the book was sustained completely in the spirit of the former lies and slander against the Royal Family, only wrapped in new wrappers of pseudo-documentary, carefully selected for the main old Bolshevik assessment. A brief annotation even in 1988 testifies:
"23 years of reign last representative The Romanov dynasties were marked by many serious crimes, and the people pronounced their just verdict on him. Book by M.K. Kasvinov tells about the life and inglorious end of Nicholas the Bloody, gives a worthy rebuff to those bourgeois falsifiers who tried and are trying to present him as an innocent victim.
But who is the author himself? Before the publication in 1995 of the second volume of the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia, it was difficult to answer this question. On the pages of this edition we read:
"KASVINOV Mark Konstantinovich (1910, Elizavetgrad, Kherson province - 1977, Moscow), journalist, historian. Graduated from ist. f-t Zinoviev ped. in-ta. From 1933 - corr., head. foreign policy otd. "" Teacher's newspaper ""; printed in the center. newspapers, prepared materials for the radio. In 1941-45 - at the front, in 1945-47 he served in Germany and Austria. In Vienna, he edited gas. owls. Occupation Forces "Osterreichische Zeitung". From 1947 he worked on the radio, in the department of broadcasting to German-speaking countries. Since the late 1960s collected materials for the book ""Twenty-three steps down"" (journal published in 1972; the censor removed the chapter ""Evenings in the tavern on Taganka"", dedicated to history Black Hundred movement) ... "".
The first mass edition of the book was published in 1978 and 1982. in Moscow and in 1981 in the Bulgarian Partizdat. The second edition saw the light only after the beginning of perestroika - in 1987. A third edition followed the same year.
Then there was a "volley ejection" (according to the well-known model of the book "The CIA against the USSR" by N. N. Yakovlev): Moscow - reprints of 1988 and 1989, Alma-Ata - 1989, Frunze - 1989, Tashkent - 1989. Finally, in 1990, the 3rd revised and enlarged edition was published in Moscow. The total circulation was about a million copies. Undoubtedly, this is the product of a far from ordinary ideological operation of the special services.

"EVIL FORCE" by Valentin Pikul
Less than a year after the publication of the first separate edition of the book by M. Kasvinov, the magazine "Our Contemporary" began printing the novel, popular at that time and certainly talented writer V. S. Pikul ""At the last line"". There is also another interesting coincidence. According to the writer, he sat down to write the novel on September 3, 1972 - chronologically, after the appearance of the beginning of Kasvinov's book in the magazine (the August issue of Zvezda, 1972). V. Pikul completed it on January 1, 1975. "Our Contemporary" published it in four issues in 1979. For anti-Jewish and decongestant (choking Russian beginning) pathos in the editorial board overlooked the anti-Russian (implicit and for the most carried away author) lining.
""... The demon beguiled him to compose this false and slanderous novel about Nicholas II and Grigory Rasputin," A. Segen, the current head of the prose department of "Our Contemporary", assesses this work of Pikul. - Why? Unclear. Knowing, for example, that the scar on the head of [Emperor] Nikolai had remained since his trip to Japan, where an overzealous samurai attacked the Russian Tsar with a saber, Pikul composed a scene in which young Nikolai urinates in an Orthodox Serbian church and for this he receives a well-deserved blow to the head with a saber from a Serbian policeman. And such examples in Pikul's novel are a dime a dozen. This is all the more offensive, since Valentin Savvich was a truly remarkable writer and patriot of our Motherland!"
The first separate edition of V. Pikul's novel was published precisely in the year of the "volley ejection" of M. Kasvinov's book (1989). Since then, this work, published under the title "Unclean Force", was published annually in mass editions until 1995. During this time, the total circulation of the two-volume edition amounted to more than 700 thousand copies.
1990 The height of the prayer standing of the Orthodox for the glorification of the saints royal martyrs. "July 13," writes A. Segen, "Pikul celebrates his 62nd birthday. Three days later, on July 16, he does not feel well all day, and on the night of the 16th to the 17th, precisely on the anniversary of the night of the execution of the Royal Family, Valentin Savvich dies of a heart attack. What's this? The Omen? If so, a sign of what? The fact that Tsar Nicholas called him to court, or the fact that the Tsar forgave the writer? .. ""
One way or another, Pikul's "Unclean Power" is in the same unclean series of falsifications of history as Kasvinov's "Twenty-three Steps Down" and Elem Klimov's "Agony".

"AGONIA" by Elem Klimov
Mosfilm", 1975. In 2 series. Script by S. Lungin and I. Nusinov. Director E. Klimov. Cameraman L. Kalashnikov. Artists Sh. Abdusalamov and S. Voronkov. Composer A. Schnittke. Cast: A. Petrenko, A. Romashin, A. Freindlich, V. Line, M. Svetin, V. Raikov, L. Bronevoy, G. Shevtsov and others.
Perhaps none of the "shelf" paintings were born so painfully and for so long. Work on the film began in 1966. It was filmed in 1974. Passed in 1975. Released on screens in 1985. Director Elem Klimov said about this: ""Agony" is half of my life. The film abruptly turned my whole fate. In working on it, I tasted everything - joy, and luck, and despair. If I could tell everything that happened on this film and around it, then it would probably turn out to be a real romance ... "
As far as I understand, the talented director Elem Klimov, having received a state order for this topic, made his way from the original completely distorted and farcical, Kondo-Bolshevik understanding of history, to the truth, but he got stuck halfway, on half-truth - and in those years he could not find the truth about the Royal Family in the archives of the USSR, no matter how much I search. But let's talk about this in more detail.
Some concrete facts of his biography played some (not yet quite clear role) in this.
October 1942 First-grader Elem leaves Stalingrad with his little brother Herman and his mother. Houses blazed up to the sky. The fuel spilled into the river after the bombing was fuming. Burning Volga. The city was on fire. ""... We reached Sverdlovsk," the director recalled, "then we were transplanted and taken to the village, it's 20 miles from the city, which was called Koptyaki, now the whole world knows it ... Then I found these pits, where they were, so they are called ""Royal pits"" in the forest, climbed into this pit, the guys took a picture of me there. And I'm in it pine forest I think: My God, but no one knows about it, I found out by chance. But there must be some sign here, some call sign. I look, one pine tree - it’s not so thick - the skin is peeled from it, it stands white, it blooms, it grows, it lives, but someone is like a sign - then it was impossible to even talk about it, - so these are the things "").
Probably, communication with the actor Georgy Danilovich Svetlani (Pinkovsky, 1895-1983) was not in vain. The only one in life leading role he played in the film "Sport, sport, sport" (1970) by E. Klimov - a tape that preceded "Agony"
Klimov received a proposal to put on a picture of the royal favorite from Ivan Alexandrovich Pyryev himself: “Grishka Rasputin! This is a figure ... I beg you - get it and read the protocols of interrogations of the Provisional Government Commission, in which Alexander Blok worked. And, most importantly, do not miss Rasputin there !"
This, we recall, is about the falsified Shchegolev documents of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission of the Provisional Government. Then E. Klimov told: - I agree with Semyon Lungin and Ilya Nusinov, and the three of us are leaving for the Moscow region to write the script. He was then called "Antichrist" (20).
- It's about about Ilya Isaakovich Nusinov (1920-1970), the son of an old Bundist who was arrested in 1949 and died in Lefortovo prison, and Semyon Lvovich Lungin (born 1920), who also suffered during the post-war campaign against cosmopolitanism.
In May 1966, the Luch association approved an application for the script "Holy Elder Grishka Rasputin" ("Messiah"). In August, the script was already discussed at the artistic council. It was called "Antichrist". “In my first films, I had a bias towards satire,” Klimov said. “He also made himself felt in The Antichrist. The film was conceived in a farcical vein. We had, as it were, two Rasputins. The other is folklore and legendary. The image of the "folklore Rasputin" was made up of incredible rumors, legends, anecdotes that at one time went about Rasputin among the people. Everything was exaggerated, caricatured, grotesque. As if, being a German spy, he was in the most incredible way made his way to the royal palace, crawled almost through the chamber pot of the empress, got through secret passage behind the front line, etc. etc.".
Here Klimov, boastfully declaring that he had read ""on the subject""""tons of literature"", for some reason not named by him, deliberately, to put it mildly, misleads (this time the readers): they were not folk tales, but prudent inventions of the enemies of the Tsar and His Russia.
“We have already chosen nature for filming,” writes Klimov, _ and it seemed that everything was in order. In any case, I experienced an extraordinary spiritual uplift and did not yet understand that the atmosphere in the state had changed. And now I'm returning to Moscow with a finished script. I bring it to Pyryev, I show my storyboards
The discussion of the script at the artistic council went off with a bang. Pyryev was pleased: “I haven’t read such a professional script for a long time. The genre of the thing is sustained exactly. A farce is a farce. Today it is the most interesting, convenient and intelligent look at the last days of the Romanovs. positive character. And this is good. It has the indefatigable power of the people. This force exists not only in Rasputin, but also in the people. The people are shown as wise - stories, legends, parables...
On August 30, 1966, the literary script "Antichrist" was submitted for approval to the Main Screenwriting and Editorial Board (GSRK).
Staff editors rejected him. E. Surkov, the editor-in-chief of the GSRK, suggested that the authors finalize the script: "The film about Rasputin can and should become a film about the need for revolution, about its inevitability, but also about kindness, justice. In short, it should be a film that tells about what the party saved Russia from in the October days and what was tsarist Russia against which the Bolsheviks fought.
In April 1968, after the death of Pyryev, work on the film was stopped. Five days after the stop (April 14), E. G. Klimov addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, P. N. Demichev: “In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the West in the events of Russian history in the first quarter of the 20th century. For several years now, the film "Doctor Zhivago" has been on the screens, enjoying incredible success even for commercial cinema. The memoirs of Prince F.F. Yusupov, telling about last days autocracy and the murder of Rasputin. These memoirs were immediately filmed by French director Robert Hossein and American television. A report has recently been published that the largest American producer Sam Spiegel has begun work on the super action movie "Nicholas and Alexandra", in the center of which are the images of Nicholas II, the Tsaritsa and Rasputin..."
Attached to the letter was a translation of an article from a French magazine about this new American film based on Massey's book Nicholas and Alexandra. Part of it was supposed to be filmed in the USSR. The release was planned for 1969. The letter itself ended with the words: “Now the time has not yet been lost, we still have the opportunity to release our film on the Soviet and world screen before it is finished. american painting, and thus neutralize its effect on the viewer. Our film (it is called "Agony") can have very high distribution prospects both domestically and abroad. It can become a serious weapon of counter-propaganda. The rejection of its production frees the American cinematography from the battlefield in the ideological struggle. The high addressee was assured: ""if any comments or suggestions are made, we will try to make the necessary changes to the script without disrupting the earlier scheduled release dates for the picture"".
The change in the name ("Agony" instead of "Antichrist") in the text of the letter should be taken as a transfer of the center of gravity (to appease the "outsiders") from the personality of G. E. Rasputin to the interpretation of the historical events of the pre-revolutionary period officially adopted by the Soviet ideology . All this, of course, was done exclusively for the "" "sleep"" of the guards.
Documents have been preserved that testify to the subject of concern.
"" The figure of Rasputin, - considered the chairman of the Committee on Cinematography under the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.V. Romanov, _ despite all its repulsive essence, in some episodes of the script it suddenly acquires features that allow one to admit the idea that this person, in some to the extent expressing the aspirations of the people "" (27).
““The figure of Rasputin is placed at the center of this work, the interpretation of his actions and actions in individual episodes is given without the necessary social clarity””, - such a conclusion was made by the head of the department of culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU I. Chernoutsan and the head of the sector F. Yermash.
Filming began in August 1973, but was interrupted several times. On October 10, 1974, Klimov was given a list of amendments for mandatory execution from Goskino. The director resisted, but not everything could be defended. For example, the demand to remove the Tsarevich came from Yermash himself: “Are you out of your mind? How can we show this boy, who was elevated to the rank of a holy martyr in the West? and for what they were executed at all ... otherwise, in passing, no, it won’t work! .. "
But most of all, of course, the authorities were afraid of the moment of possible allusions. There was an episode in the film in which Vyrubova sighed heavily about the tsarist prime minister Goremykin: "Oh God, God! At such an age to rule such a country!" Yermash, catching a hint of the Kremlin elders, immediately said to Klimov: "I beg you! I beg you! Cut it out immediately so that it doesn't even go beyond the editing room!"
The film "Agony" was finished in the final version in 1975. But the picture was not released on the screen for a long time. There were rumors that someone from the top party leadership looked at it and was dissatisfied.
An opinion is known dated August 1, 1975, that is, after all the revisions of the script, the chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yu. Lungin and I. Nusinov, which shows the "Rasputin" period of the Russian Empire. According to the information available in the security agencies, this film distorts the historical events of that time, unjustifiably much attention is paid to showing the life of the Royal Family ... "
For three years the painting lay motionless. There was complete uncertainty.
In 1978, the film was returned to Klimov for revision. They allowed me to finish something, remount it. Taking the opportunity, the director improved something. And besides, he introduced a quote from Lenin, filmed his friend Yuri Karyakin and Larisa Shepitko in the episode. As soon as he managed to finish all this, a book about Rasputin "At the last line" by Valentin Pikul appeared and a huge scandal erupted. "Agony" was decided not to be released on the screen.
For five years, Klimov was not allowed to shoot anything. Only after tragic death in the car accident of Larisa Shepitko, he was allowed to complete the painting "Farewell to Matyora" begun by his wife.
Finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Klimov was asked to make two versions of Agony. One - full, for abroad. Another (truncated by an hour) - for the Soviet audience. The director agreed only to the full version.
I will quote an even longer excerpt from S. Fomin's article "Protracted Agony":
http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=1402
From the memoirs of E. Klimov: “I still repent that I refused the final. This is an episode of Rasputin's funeral. I wanted to make this scene very strict. Here is the body (a stuffed animal, of course, because Petrenko, after all the upheavals that he had to endure on these shootings, of course, would not lie in a coffin). Close-up, average. Here is the priest at the tomb, who with hatred sings the funeral service for this "reptile". Here is the Tsarina, Vyrubova, the Tsar, next to her daughter. And the boy is standing - the Tsarevich, whom he is holding, is almost covered by the huge hand of the sailor-nanny. And the boy, he's definitely made of porcelain. He looks around, looks at his father and suddenly turns to some disturbing sound. And we see his profile, which could later be printed on all medals and coins. And a wide, snow-covered field, across which some strange creatures are running, advancing from everywhere: giants, dwarfs, holy fools of inconceivable beauty ... Soldiers holding a strict chain look out from behind their shoulders. And then the Tsaritsa appears and with her Vyrubova. They look into the eyes of these people, looking for and not finding a new Rasputin.
So I also cut out this fragment. Himself, with my own hands! And how the Queen approaches the sleigh and shouts with a strong accent: “I hate it! I hate this country!" "That's not in the movie either."
How it is necessary to hate Russia, its past and future, in order to see, shoot like that, and then, after many years, also write, youthful: here, they say, what I am. And at the same time, lie like this: “While working on the picture, I read tons of literature, tons! Spent many months in the archives. It seemed that he knew everything about Rasputin.
But how could it be, after reading so much literature, not to understand where the truth is and where the lie is? (Unless, of course, there was a desire to know the truth, and not act according to someone else's instructions.)
The fate of the tape after 1975 was discussed at the "highest level" (secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU) was discussed at least twice more: in 1979 and 1981. By the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU of April 9, 1981, "Agony" was given a "green light", but so far only for a foreign audience. In 1982 Agony won the prestigious FIPRESCI award at the Venice International Film Festival. With the beginning of perestroika, "Agony" was immediately taken off the shelf and went on the wide screen (1985). Her hour has come.
But that was another option. Quite symptomatic was the transition from the purely artistic in the first version to the historical and chronicle (in the final version) presentation of the material. Film critics note "the copious inclusion of chronicles and documentary-like scenes" in the film. All this, again, was supposed to make the viewer believe in the "truth" offered to him by the authors. And most importantly: the Soviet audience was prepared for the perception of Klimov's tape, on the one hand, by Pikul's novel, on the other, by Kasvinov's book.
Of course, even then, when not a single truthful line about Grigory Efimovich had yet been printed, not everyone swallowed the poisonous bait. Known, for example, the reaction of Rasputin's fellow villagers, who then received special attention. "" On the day of the premiere, as a sign of protest, the inhabitants of Pokrovsky, almost every one left the hall, having overlooked the tapes and to the middle ""

In conclusion of his article "Protracted agony" S. Fomin writes:
Be that as it may, these three works - books by Kasvinov, Pikul and Klimov's film - played a strong role in the formation of consciousness Soviet man on the eve and in the first years of the so-called. "perestroika". It is on the basis of such "works" and various falsified "documents" that doctor of historical sciences Yu. unreliability that poisoned the public consciousness.
Let's hope that this poisonous dope still dissipates in recent years.
***

For those who want to know more about G.E. Rasputin, I recommend reading more, for example, my article "The Truth and Falsehood about Rasputin" (

Dmitry Bykov: Well, in 1989, the project "One Hundred Years - One Hundred Books" finally got to the release of Valentin Pikul's novel "Unclean Power".

The history of this novel is amazing. First, it was completed in its entirety in the mid-seventies, submitted to several publishing houses, submitted to the magazine Our Contemporary. Everyone understood that it was impossible to print it, and yet they printed it. They printed it in a greatly abbreviated form, about one and a half times, and, frankly, distorted.

These four issues of Our Contemporary, inhumanly shabby, are still kept at our house, because they always went from hand to hand, because it is interesting. We subscribed to many magazines, but very rarely did we manage to get so lucky. Usually everything interesting is published somewhere by others, sometimes in some most unexpected "Technique of Youth", like the Strugatskys. And here we are. We subscribed to Nash Sovremennik, a rather boring soil journal, and bam! - Pikul's most popular novel.

Pikul generally considered this book to be his best. It was called "Unclean Force", as a result it was called "At the last line." In 1979, she was honored with a dressing directly from Suslov. Alexander Yakovlev, later the architect of perestroika, saw in this novel - quite rightly - anti-Semitism and wrote a rather harsh article.

Yakovlev told me, I remember how I read this book and was amazed at the completely open sermon of anti-Semitism that was contained there, and discussed it with Gromyko during my dinner. He then served in Canada, and Gromyko came to Canada to visit, they had dinner and Yakovlev asked: "What is this being done?" And Gromyko said: "Yes, you know, I'm also perplexed."

At the top, the novel aroused strong displeasure, but I think that this displeasure to a large extent did not depend on the fact that there was supposedly anti-Semitism there. Indeed, there was, in general, you can see it there. But the problem with this novel is not anti-Semitism. The problem with the novel is that it shows the decay of the top.

Of course, Pikul did everything possible to support himself from all sides. He wrote: “Yes, there are no revolutionaries in my novel, there are no underground members, there are no communists. But I have already described all this in the two-volume novel “In the Backyard of a Great Empire” and I see no reason to repeat myself. Of course, if he had inserted a couple of scenes with Lenin in Zurich or, say, with Dzerzhinsky in hard labor, maybe the book would have acquired a slightly more Soviet sound.

But in fact, the novel was written about the degeneration of the Soviet elite. And then there were four works that, in fact, existed semi-legally, but were very popular. The first is the completely legal, but difficult to obtain work of the completely Soviet historian Kasvinov “Twenty-three steps down”. Here, you see, they described, in fact, the steps down the Ipatiev House, and the twenty-three years of the reign of Nikolai Romanov were described as descending the historical stairs into a terrible basement, a bloody basement in which the history of the Russian monarchy ended.

It must be said that this book was written from an extremely objective position, not so rabidly Marxist, and, in general, it even contained some sympathy for the emperor and his family, although this had to be read between the lines.

The second such text - I don't know to what extent a motion picture can be called a text, but nevertheless - was Elem Klimov's film Agony based on the script by Lungin and Nusinov. The picture was also mutilated, it was supposed, as Klimov said, to shoot it as a myth, with two Rasputins: one real, the other existing in the popular imagination. But nevertheless, it was such one of the main texts about the Soviet empire - and about Russian Empire, and about Soviet parallels, which, precisely because of these completely obvious parallels, could not be released in any way.

It is clear that Klimov's film nevertheless had an absolutely Soviet and clearly Soviet pathos. But nevertheless, there was a feeling of great sympathy for Nikolai, played by Romashin, for Vyrubova, played by Freindlich. In general, everyone was somehow sorry. And the empire was sorry. And Rasputin-Petrenko looked like a completely charming character in general.

The third such text, which was very limitedly available at that time, was a copy of the alleged diaries of Vyrubova, which was widely circulated in samizdat, and which was published in the journal Byloye. Of course, this fake had nothing to do with Vyrubova and her diaries, but I remember well that this fake was very popular among the Soviet intelligentsia.

And many, by the way, studied that situation based on the play by Tolstoy and Shchegolev “The Conspiracy of the Empress”. This play was absolutely yellow, absolutely scandalously boulevard, very offensive to the entire Romanov clique, as it was called at that time, but nevertheless it was all popular. Why? Because the parallels were striking.

And finally, the fourth such text is a novel by Pikul, who was then, to a certain extent, the banner of the so-called Russian party. What is the Russian party? Yes, there were then pochvenniki. Pochvenniks always offer themselves to the authorities as the blacksmiths of a repressive project: give it to us, and we will hand over all these Jews! Why should they be transferred? Yes, they are all liberals, they are all pro-Americans, they are all intellectuals! But we are real. They considered themselves to be real, primordially, on the basis of the fact that they wrote very badly. And so they offered themselves all the time as an instrument of the new oprichnina.

It must be said that Valentin Savvich Pikul, a remarkable prose writer, belonged, in general, if not organizationally, then ideologically, to the party of Our Contemporary. And, of course, he criticized the authorities. Of course, they all criticized the authorities, but not from the left, like liberals, but from the right. Because it is not cruel enough, because it is not ideological enough, because it does not press hard enough on Jews and other nationalists. “There is no need to help the nationalists, there is no need to build an empire, we need to give power to our Russians!” - it was on this basis that they criticized, of course, corruption, and depravity, and ideological emptiness.

Strictly speaking, Pikul's novel is about how the Jews destroyed Russia. Here is Manasevich-Manuilov, who, by the way, also acts in Klimov's film, a Jewish journalist, schemer, manipulator who controls Rasputin and with his help knocks the tsar off his pantalik. Here is the entire Jewish press, here is a whole conspiracy ... which is written in full text by Pikul. By the way, describing the same Manasevich, he utters a sacred phrase: "A handsome fat boy attracted the attention of famous ...". It was some kind of wild courage in Soviet times, it was believed that ... does not exist, and it is not known whether Jews exist.

In short, all this incredible courage at that time pursued the only goal - to show the authorities that she was again going down twenty-three steps, she was again repeating the terrible path of Nikolai Romanov, which led him to the Ipatiev House. Probably, indeed, the number 23 is somehow fatal in a certain sense. Brezhnev, however, reigned longer, but nevertheless, Nikolai Romanov’s 23 years is indeed a bit too much, and therefore his too late abdication, apparently, could not save anything, could only hasten death. And in general he was betrayed, what to talk about?

If we talk about the objective result, then here the interesting begins. Once upon a time, Vladimir Novikov ironically called Russia the country that reads Pikul and Semenov the most. Yes, but not only them, of course. But I must tell you that against the background of the current mass culture and paraliterature, Pikul and Semenov are titans of thought. Yes, these are, of course, really rotary machine sharks.

These writers, even if they wrote fiction for those times, knew history very well, owned many closed sources. Pikul's library in Riga, where he lived, consisted of 20 thousand volumes, and there were unique rarities. He dug through a huge amount (I think no less than Solzhenitsyn) of archives relating to 1912-1917, the period of the most gloomy reaction. Naturally, he supported himself with Lenin's epigraph about a bloody gang headed by the monstrous Rasputin.

He is a post-Stolypin reaction, from 1911, and even a pre-Stolypin one, starting about a year from 1903, and indeed a reaction from 1907, when the revolution was crushed, Stolypin as such from 1907, until he was killed, until 1911 - he studied all this enough thoroughly. It must be said that, like all Russian conservatives, he was perhaps too enthusiastic about Stolypin. But it must be said that in the novel "At the Last Line" there are no illusions that Stolypin could save the day. It is quite clearly written there that everything was rolling into the abyss.

And look, what an interesting thing turns out. Pikul was, of course, a man of very conservative, very grounded views. When he painted ideological things, like, for example, some of his miniatures, all his talent disappeared somewhere. But when he wrote the actual material, history, Weller is right here, who was and remains one of the few supporters of such a writer's rehabilitation of Pikul.

It was believed that Pikul was a vulgar person. But we must not forget that Pikul is an appetizing, fascinating storyteller. This is especially evident in wonderful novel"Favorite" about the era of Catherine. This can be seen from The Pen and the Sword, Word and Deed, the best Russian novel, I think, after Lazhechnikov, about the story of Anna Ioannovna. "Word and deed" - great book, because in it the whole horror of Bironism is captured with incredible strength and disgust.

And strictly speaking, even his “Three Ages of Okini-san” is also a very decent essay. Yes, he has a lot! "Paris for three hours", "Pen and sword". You can have different attitudes to his "Requiem Caravan PQ-17", but nevertheless, when he did not touch on the immediate history, the old one came out both juicy and colorful, and appetizing, and disgusting. In general, he is a serious writer.

And when Pikul describes the decay of the Rasputin monarchy, the monarchy of Rasputin's time, the monarchy that is directly controlled by our friend, when he describes the full depth of this rot, this decay, one cannot help but take away from him both his pictorial power and persuasiveness. And the main thing here is what is interesting: Pikul admires some of his heroes. The same Manasevich-Manuilov, whom he hates, the same Andronnikov (Bag), right? But most of all, of course, he admires Rasputin.

I was recently asked whether Rasputin can be called a trickster. Objectively no, objectively he was a rather dull fellow. But the Rasputin described by Radzinsky, and especially the Rasputin described by Pikul, can be called a trickster. This is a jester at the throne, a man of incredible physical and moral strength, great attraction, a merry fellow, a reveler. And this famous Madeira Rasputin, Madeira with a ship on the label, and his indestructibility, and his endless women, his fascinating relationship with Vyrubova and the queen, and especially, of course, such a mysterious legend that Badmaev, the great doctor, treats him some means to maintain male power.

All this legendary, and erotic, and cunning, and stupid, and somewhat naive figure, who allowed himself to be so foolishly lured into a trap and killed, develops in Pikul into some strange symbol of the indestructibility and cunning of the people. Here is his Rasputin - this is folk hero, a bit like Ulenspiegel. And he's terribly charming he comes out. Probably, this was one of the reasons why the book was banned, a separate edition was not published under the Soviet regime, and Pikul himself was deprived of publication for a long time.

Because he makes Rasputin incredibly charming. And when, after the death of Rasputin, they remember him and sing: “God rest with the saints, he was such a man, he liked to drink, eat and ask for another,” we also somehow begin to mourn for him. A great, in essence, insignificant, naive, amazingly talented, amazingly stupid person who flew higher than he was supposed to, and died on this.

Please note that both Rasputin and Nikolai were in fact quite frequent heroes of Russian poetry of that time. After all, Bunin in the poem "God's little man", and Gumilyov in the poem about Rasputin - “He enters our proud capital - God, save! - enchants the queen of boundless Rus' ", and Antokolsky are the most various poets after all, poems were dedicated to him. There was something in him.

And this legendary figure of Rasputin defeats both Pikul's prejudices and his rather conservative views. She turns his novel "Unclean Power" into a crazy fascinating reading. As the Moscow Art Theater Theater Hall correctly said, in my opinion, Markov, yes, Markov, about Bulgakov’s play “Batum”: “When a hero disappears, you want him to appear sooner, you miss him.” And indeed, everything that does not concern Rasputin in this novel is such a rather amusing exotic from the time of the collapse of the empire. But Rasputin appears, and immediately there is an electrical voltage. He managed to write about it.

Needless to say, there have been such attempts. There was, say, a three-volume novel by Nazhivin, published in exile, rather boring, to tell the truth, although there are brilliant places there and Gorky highly appreciated it. But Pikul managed to write a cheerful picaresque novel about the collapse of the empire, sometimes scary, sometimes disgusting, but cheerful in its main intonation.

And when we see today the various crooks exposed by Navalny, we, of course, understand that Navalny is right, but at the same time we look at them with some kind of very Russian enthusiasm. Well done guys! How cunningly they do it all! Wrong, of course, but how do they do it!

Andrei Sinyavsky was absolutely right when he said that a thief in a Russian fairy tale is an aesthetic figure, he is a rogue, he is the hero of a rogue novel. It's nice to follow him, he's an artist, an artist. And Pikul's Rasputin is the same artist. This is often the case with writers who manage to fall in love with the subject of their portrayal. To tell the truth, in none of his novels did Pikul achieve such an effect. He had never been such a charming scoundrel.

To tell the truth, the mystical component of Rasputin's personality, his mysterious gift, his ability to speak blood and teeth, he absolutely discards. He admires this, as Alexander Aronov correctly wrote then, “this Russian Vautrin”, this crook from the bottom, who flew so high. And, in general, he turned out, oddly enough, the only folk hero in all of the then Soviet literature.

Naturally, when the book came out in 1989, it no longer caused the same excitement. But even against the backdrop of 1989, when an abyss of anti-Stalinist literature and emigre prose was being printed, this novel nevertheless thundered. And Valentin Pikul, I think, will remain in Russian literature not just as a novelist, but as one of the great prose writers, oddly enough, great prose writers, with all the inevitable disadvantages. Either way, this book reads like new today.

Well, let's talk about the 1990s, about the book The Defector by Alexander Kabakov, which, one might say, determined the entire literature of the 1990s.