Valentin Rasputin | |
|---|---|
 Rasputin in 2011 | |
| Born | Valentin Grigoryevich Rasputin (1937-03-15)15 March 1937 |
| Died | 14 March 2015(2015-03-14) (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | Irkutsk State University |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Years active | 1966–2015 |
| Notable works | Farewell to Matyora |
Valentin Grigoryevich Rasputin (/ræˈspjuːtɪn/;[1]Russian:Валентин Григорьевич Распутин; 15 March 1937 – 14 March 2015) was a Soviet and Russian writer. He was born and lived much of his life in theIrkutsk Oblast in Eastern Siberia. Rasputin's works depict rootless urban characters and the fight for survival of centuries-old traditional rural ways of life, addressing complex questions of ethics and spiritual revival.
Valentin Rasputin was born in the village ofUst-Uda inEast Siberian Oblast. His father, Grigory Rasputin, worked for a village cooperative store, and his mother was a nurse. Soon after his birth the Rasputin family moved to the village ofAtalanka [ru] in the sameUst-Udinsky District, where Rasputin spent his childhood.[2]
Both villages, then located on the banks of theAngara River, do not exist in their original locations any more, as theBratsk Reservoir flooded much of the Angara Valley in the 1960s, and the villages were relocated to higher ground.[3] Later, the writer remembered growing up in Siberia as a difficult, but happy time:
"As soon as we kids learned how to walk, we would toddle to the river with our fishing rods; still a tender child, we would run to thetaiga, which would begin right outside the village, to pickberries andmushrooms; since young age, we would get into a boat and take the oars..."[4]
When Rasputin finished the 4-year elementary school in Atalanka in 1948, his parents sent the precocious boy to a middle school and then to high school in the district center, Ust-Uda, some 50 km away from his home village. He became the first child from his village to continue his education in this way.[5]
Rasputin graduated fromIrkutsk University in 1959 and started working for localKomsomol newspapers inIrkutsk andKrasnoyarsk. He published his first short-story in 1961.
An important point in Rasputin's early literary career was a young writers' seminar in September 1965 inChita led byVladimir Chivilikhin (Владимир Чивилихин), who encouraged the young writer's literary aspirations and recommended him for membership in the prestigiousUnion of Soviet Writers. Since then Rasputin has considered Chivilikhin his "literary godfather".[5]
In 1967, after the publication of hisMoney for Maria, Rasputin was indeed admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers. Over the next three decades he published a number of novels – many became both widely popular among the Russian reading public and critically acclaimed.
In 1980, after researching theBattle of Kulikovo for two years, Rasputin wasbaptised by anOrthodox priest in nearbyYelets.[6]
Rasputin's literary work is closely connected to his activism on social and environmental issues. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Rasputin, called by some[by whom?] the leading figure of the "Siberian environmental lobby",[7] took an active part in the campaign for protection ofLake Baikal and against thediversion of Siberian fresh water toCentral Asian republics. In the 1990s he participated in thenationalist opposition movement. Having spent most of his adult life in Irkutsk, Rasputin remained one of the leading intellectual figures of this Siberian city.
He was a guest for many events in the city of Irkutsk, including the unveilings of the monuments to TsarAlexander III,Alexander Vampilov andAlexander Kolchak. He organized the readers' conference in Irkutsk Central Scientific Library named after Molchanov-Sibirsky.
Rasputin's daughter Maria died in the 2006 crash ofS7 Airlines Flight 778, and his wife died six years later. He died inMoscow on 14 March 2015, a day short of his 78th birthday.Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church conducted his funeral service, and PresidentVladimir Putin paid his respects.
Rasputin is closely associated with a movement in post-war Soviet literature known asVillage Prose (деревенская проза). Beginning in the time of theKhrushchev Thaw (оттепель), village prose was praised for its stylistic and thematic departures fromsocialist realism. Village prose works usually focused on the hardships of the Soviet peasantry, espoused an idealized picture of traditional village life, and implicitly or explicitly criticized official modernization projects. Rasputin's 1979 novelFarewell to Matyora, which depicts a fictional Siberian village which is to be evacuated and cleared so that ahydroelectric dam can be constructed further down theAngara River, was considered the epitome of this genre.[8][9][10] The opening paragraph below is a good example of Rasputin's writing style (exceptional even for the village prose writers), and the novel's theme of natural cycles disrupted by modernization:
Once more spring had come, one more in the never-ending cycle, but for Matyora this spring would be the last, the last for both the island and the village that bore the same name. Once more, rumbling passionately, the ice broke, piling up mounds on the banks, and the liberated Angara River opened up, stretching out into a mighty, sparkling flow. Once more the water gushed boisterously at the island’s upper tip, before cascading down both channels of the riverbed; once more greenery flared on the ground and in the greens, the first rains soaked the earth, the swifts and swallows flew back, and at dusk in the bogs the awakened frogs croaked their love of life. It had all happened many times before. (From Rasputin's novelFarewell to Matyora, translated byAntonina W. Bouis, 1979)
Rasputin's nonfiction works contain similar themes, often in support of relevant political causes. He directed particularly trenchant criticism at large-scaledam building, like the project that flooded his own hometown, andwater management projects, like the diversion of the Siberian rivers to Central Asia. He argued that these projects were destructive not simply in an ecological sense, but in a moral sense as well.[11]
InSiberia, Siberia (first published in 1991), Rasputin compares what he considers modernmoral relativism with the traditional beliefs of the people ofRusskoye Ustye, who believed inreincarnation. According to Rasputin, when burying their dead, the Russkoye Ustye settlers would often bore a hole in thecoffin, to make it easier for the soul to come back to be reborn; but if the deceased was a bad person, they would drive anaspen stake through the grave, to keep his soul from ever coming back into the world of living again. The writer is not ambiguous as to which category the souls of the "modernizers" should belong:
When reflecting on the actions of today's "river-rerouting" father figures, who are destroying our sacred national treasures up hill and down with the haste of an invading army, you involuntarily turn to this experience: it would not be a bad idea for them to know that not everything is forgiven at the time of death.[12]
Some critics accused Rasputin of idealizing village life and slipping into anti-modern polemics. The journalVoprosy literatury published an ongoing debate on the question, "Is the Village Prose of Valentin Rasputin Anti-Modern?"[13]
By the end ofperestroika Rasputin became publicly active. He criticizedMikhail Gorbachev's reforms from patriotic andnationalistic positions. His repetition (at the 1stCongress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union) ofStolypin's statement "You need great upheavals. We need a great country" («Вам нужны великие потрясения. Нам нужна великая страна») made it a phrase commonly used by the anti-liberal opposition.
He also signed several open letters, most notably the "Letter of Russian Writers" (also known as the "Letter of Seventy Four") addressed to thePresident and theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and published in theLiterary Newspaper andNash Sovremennik in 1990.[14][15] 74 writers expressed concern regarding the rise ofRussophobia in mass media and "fabrication of the "Russian fascism" myth while theZionist ideology is getting quick rehabilitation and idealization". The letter was criticized by opponents who labeled the signers as "antisemites"; many of them later signed what is considered their answer — the "Letter of Forty-Two". Rasputin himself argued that his alleged antisemitic statements have been exaggerated and taken out of context.[16] In July 1991, Rasputin along with 11 other public and political figures signed another open letter "A Word to the People".
In 1992, Valentin Rasputin joined theNational Salvation Front (a coalition of radical opposition forces), nominally belonging to its leadership. He later supported theCPRF and its leader,Gennady Zyuganov.[17]
In 2014, he signed a public letter supporting theannexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
Non-fiction:
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