A few words instead of parting words

Yu. Latynina wrote a novel in the spirit of Greek stories, more than two thousand years distant from us. I think that this experience reflects extreme radicalism: having begun to restore the continuity interrupted by the tragedies of the first half of our century, we turn to our ancient sources, which, of course, primarily lead to Greece. Perhaps I myself would be inclined to transfer an equally radical approach to the narrative style itself, which in this case would get rid of academicism. But let's not impose our taste preferences on the author, let's not slip avant-garde bombs under the calm of her measured tone. I have only one objection to the author's interesting preface. The tradition of “Alexandria” in Europe did not stop as early as Yu. Latynina believes. The last example I know of is the unfinished (and preserved in several unfinished versions) novel by my father Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov, “The Treasures of Alexander the Great,” partially published only posthumously. It is precisely because of this partial disagreement with the author's preface that I am conciliatory towards her intention. If my father in the 40s, in sketches of his versions of “Alexandria” and in other things that were not published at that time (in particular, in the story “Sisyphus, son of Aeolus,” which echoes “Sisyphus” by Camus, written at the same time) was permissible to try to recreate this long-standing tradition, why don’t we give this right to a modern young author? Probably, the stylistic diversity of new Russian prose can also be achieved by expanding its temporal and spatial limits. I know Yu. Latynina not only as a productive prose writer, looking for ways to say a new word within super-traditional forms of literature, but also as an energetic researcher of these traditions of European culture. Let us wish her and with her her entire generation success on difficult paths, where the dawn of new Russian prose glimmers ahead, which, I hope, will connect the high heritage, through Byzantium and the Hellenistic East, going back to ancient Greece, with the language and style of modernity.

Vyach. Sun. Ivanov