Cosmic collegiality – “very close subject”

A man often tries to imagine what would be if… Listeners of the lecture read by researcher Nikolay Smirnov within the framework of the project “Cultural Conversation” could not only connect with the human depths and the magic of Ivan Yefremov’s creative work, but also think what would be if – overcoming all space-time borders – two very different writers - Ivan Yefremov and Vasily Belov - had met.

These two men met as a writer and a reader. A text was between them that was usual for such communication. And the text built communication without the meeting of people. This is cosmos!

It is interesting that there are three books of Ivan Yefremov in the museum collection and all of them – “Andromeda Nebula”, including the first edition of 1958 published by “Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard)”. This book with worn covers, yellowed with age pages, some marks and drawings in the margins near the paragraph is about a capability of long-distance transmission of pictures, sounds and energy. A lot in this very book is about the role of art on the earth that was certainly reflected and produced new texts. This is a quote from the book of Vasily Belov “Lad (Harmony)”: The thirst for infinite perfection and the drive to embody the ideal are hidden in the soul of any nation. One of the evidences of it is existence of art at all times and among all people… It is impossible to imagine the highest peak without other mountain ranges. It is also impossible when a genius artist appears alone without plenty of other less gifted fellowmen. Art masterpieces cannot be created out of a clear blue sky”. Vasily Belov wrote a lot about beauty, dialectical unity, integrity, “nothing could exist outside the entire or appear out of turn” both in the space and human realm.

The lecture “Cosmic Collegiality of Ivan Yefremov” was formed like a huge tree – a tree of narration: every fact of Ivan Yefremov’s biography was like a separate branch upwards – to the space where everything is well-ordered and regular (there are no incidents). Every branch of the narration built a spiral along the trunk skyrocketing and completing the image of the dialectical tree. The lecturer told about Ivan Yefremov’s childhood and adulthood, the writer’s education and true erudition and wisdom, his writing style that “originated from the geologic note-books”, the values of life, the magic of creative work and the ancient magic of gender (the unity of male and female), the joint ethics (“you to me – and I to another”) – the ethics of open world helping to transform the world.

The audience didn’t let Nikolay Smirnov go for a long time. That difficult in the moment of expression probably became simple and their own for listeners, but deeply hidden or not greatly demonstrated in daily routine and thoughts for some time. It is not by chance that we can read the following in the opinions: “a very close subject”. Unite the topic of the lecture “Cosmic collegiality” and “a very close subject” and you will be slightly surprised at this combination.

After the event, Nikolay Smirnov wrote to us, “It is always interesting to get to the space created by an unusual man. Especially, when you enter into a dialogue with this small cosmos introducing your own changes into it. It turned out that a lot of people gathered in the cosmos of Vasily Belov to learn about the space of Ivan Yefremov. The invisible meeting of two thinkers and writers resounded in our reality with the reflection of the audience about fates and meanings inspiring and encouraging to strenuous work of mind. And it is the main result of the event”.

Lectures within the framework of the project “Cultural Conversation” will be continued in August. They will be about the folk tradition and word in the modern culture (this lecture will be read by Arina Medvedeva, linguist and ethno teacher from Perm), the top of literary museums, including memorial flats, in Russia and abroad (the lecturer is Yulia Veretnova, art critic from St. Petersburg). Follow the news of the museum!

The July lecture within the framework of the project “Cultural Conversation” was about the meeting of two writers (Vasily Belov and Ivan Yefremov) if it had taken place…