A Book Banned, A Banned Famous Writer: on Zachar Prilepin in Poland
By August Grabski
As regular readers will know, Solidarity sides with Ukraine against the Russian invasion. At the same time we have criticised destructive cultural "derussification" in Eastern Europe. Here August Grabski, a Polish socialist, criticises the "crossroads of cancel culture and nationalist-clerical politics" in Poland.
In Poland we live in a world of appearances. Seemingly, we have a full, constitutionally guaranteed democracy and freedom of speech. And yet, for one year now, theatres have been afraid to show the works of playwrights from a certain country, concert halls have been afraid to perform the music of composers of a certain nationality, and publishing houses have been afraid to publish writers whose works were written in a certain language. In the shadow of government policy and the information industry, the directors of these cultural institutions are afraid of hate campaigns, boycott, job loss, etc. All this in a supposedly free, enlightened and democratic country where everyone is indignant when shown historical films where Nazis burn books and Stalinists withdraw some titles from the libraries. In our country, after all, the political class derives from the libertarian tradition of "Solidarity".
Of course, freedom of speech is and has been a myth. The Solidarity establishment, as it turned out after 1989, fought for freedom of speech mainly for itself - as the famous saying of the liberal "Gazeta Wyborcza/The Electoral Gazette" proclaimed - "the Left can accompish less". In addition to "Solidarity", the Catholic Church and John Paul II also remained sacred cows in the mainstream narrative, which could only be criticised in few tabloids (such as the "Nie/No" weekly). An entire catalog of topics forbidden in historical research has been developed by the Institute of National Remembrance - the powerful institution of mass historical education. Information about the Warsaw Uprising (1944) is only shown positively, about the AK (Home Army, 1942-1945) - only very positively; however, information about communists is only shown negatively, etc.
For a long time, we have been living in Poland at the crossroads of demo-liberal cancel culture and the nationalist-clerical "Good change" politics [of the ruling Law and Justice Party]. Although seemingly contradictory, both directions can find common ground on various issues: this is especially true of the authentic left and Russia. In these matters, the state media, state stations and joint liberal-conservative popular movement can make hell for every dissident on social media forums and in professional life. However, without a doubt, the war in Ukraine questioned freedom of speech in Poland in the most radical way. When the guns are thundering in strongly clerical Poland, you can even blame the Pope himself after his words that "perhaps NATO's barking at Russia's door” prompted the head of the Kremlin “to react badly and unleash a conflict." A real novelty in all Polish history! This situation with Pope Francis shows that the current institutionalised hatred is not about condemning the war (after all, the Pope condemns it), but about forcing an uncritical attitude of acceptance of all the theses of NATO propaganda.
What's the sense of banning writers?
The great thinkers who formed the foundations of our civilisation - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - accepted the institution of slavery. Hundreds of other great writers who lived before the 20th century would be surprised by slogans of religious tolerance, democracy, and women's empowerment. Ezra Pound, Ferdinand Celine and Knut Hamsun were outstanding writers and at the same time supporters of Nazism. The Polish writers Władysław Reymont, Adolf Nowaczyński, and Zofia Kossak - presented views on Jews that we would not like to remember. There are dozens of examples of this type. However, is it not possible to leave the reader free to choose today in the name of the constitutional principles of freedom of speech and publication? Additionally, we do not have to agree with the book we are reading to consider it a valuable source of information about Others (even if they are not liked), their reasons or mistakes, their way of thinking, sensitivity, etc.
Zachar Prilepin (born in 1975) is one of the most famous Russian writers. Several of his novels have also been published in Poland such as the "Sankya” (2008), "Pathologies" (2010) and "Black Ape" (2013). However, after 2014, the pro-liberal Czarne / Black publishing house, which promoted him, broke with the writer after he volunteered in the armed struggle in Donbas on the side of the separatists. Prilepin's brilliant polemic with Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" - the novel "Monastery" - was not published in "Czarne", but in 2016 by another publishing house.
At the end of 2021, the young left-wing publishing house Glowbook released one of Prilepin's two novels about his struggles in Eastern Ukraine: "Some Will Not Go to Hell." The publishing house commented on the book: "Although the book is subtitled 'The Novel-Fantasmagoria', it is undoubtedly also autobiographical in nature. The narrative is based on the author's controversial participation in the civil war in Ukraine on the side of the so-called separatists from Donbas. There are many political assessments and considerations in the novel. We present this book to the reader, aware that the ideological message it contains may arouse extreme reactions. However, it is a literary work worth getting acquainted with." However, Glowbook's caution was useless: immediately there was a wave of hatred, and after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the publishing house suspended the sale of the book and even hid the fact that it was published by Glowbook.
The writer at war
The novel presents, paradoxically, the now forgotten conflict that has been smouldering in eastern Ukraine since 2014, in which several thousand people died. After the pro-European Maidan in Kiev, many inhabitants of the East did not want to agree to the discrimination of the Russian language, the destruction of monuments to the left, the further rehabilitation of fascist Stepan Bandera, the OUN [Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists] and the UPA [Ukrainian Insurgent Army], etc. Against this background, the Luhansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic, and Russia's detachment of Crimea from Ukraine were proclaimed.
Anyone expecting Prilepin to idealise the separatists and Russian state propaganda would be surprised. Prilepin's prose is masculine, raw, devoid of sentiments and often downright brutal. We have many heroes among the separatists, but there are also dense vapours of alcohol, clouds of cigarette smoke above the novel, the intrigues and the power struggles of minor politicians are shown "in the provinces (in Donbas) of a former (Ukrainian) province (of the Soviet empire)", unpleasant enforcers sent to Donetsk from Moscow to stifle a local initiative and the mysterious murder of the self-proclaimed president of the Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko.
Prilepin went to fight for Donbas as a longtime sympathiser and activist of the nationalist left. Undoubtedly, the writer is a real homo politicus: his current politico-cultural programs on YouTube have hundreds of thousands of viewers. During the promotion of the French edition of the novel in 2019, he described himself as a supporter of "Russian Orthodox (religious) socialism". This formulation shows the crumbling of divisions among Russian nationalists: supporters of Lenin versus those who support Nicholas II. As Prilepin recalls: “We sat at a table under oilcloth eaves. As in my rural childhood: there was always this oilcloth. In the corner hung a portrait of Lenin, drawn on a wooden board. Probably in one of the houses where they were staying, the soldiers found one and brought it here for everyone to see. Kuban [one of the separatists] was always anxious to shoot it or gouge out its eyes. He stubbornly disliked the leader of the world proletariat – he comes from Cossack roots and traditions. By the way, I do not remember White Guards in the battalion, but neither the active Bolshevik element. I don't even remember anybody arguing or discussing all these topics.
"I think that the great dispute between the unburied unholy relics of Lenin and the martyr Nicholas Romanov was still significant for Kuban and for me, but for people twenty years younger (and those in the battalion constituted the majority) - not anymore. Both figures were already dead for them. However, they could hang Lenin in the kitchen, but Nicholas II - I doubt it. Lenin was irritating to our unfortunate enemy [i.e. Ukrainians], so he seemed to be on the spot for some of our soldiers but it did not disturb the rest of them”.
Although among the volunteers for separatist units there were representatives of various options (national-Bolsheviks, communists, nationalists, neo-pagans, etc.), perhaps the most serious force were those who supported the Orthodox Church: “on the eve of the Lord's Baptism, one hundred and twenty millimeters of a mortar hit our shelter. Avos and Anapa were in the shelter. The missile collapsed the entrance, the second - pierced the ceiling. The first miracle: the upper bunks collapsed on the boys but they did not die (although they should have). They were buried under rubble. However, they remained under fire. If the shelter was hit twice, it meant that it could happen a third time. They couldn't get out. Anapa, realising that this was the end, cried out to his favorite saint: ‘Get us out! Do you hear me?’ - and suddenly something hit the exit, leaving a gaping hole which they jumped out of. And then, as was to be expected, the third missile hit the shelter. But they're both still alive. And that's how we fight. We think, 'Any soldier can pick his saint. It should help, no?'”
Prilepin knew right away that he would pay a high price for his involvement - even in Russia, where the pro-Western, liberal cultural sector enjoys a great deal of influence. "In Russian show business, you could admit that you bit off a pigeon's head as a child, that your extramarital child is in an orphanage, that you drank human blood and all other human fluids, that your children were artificially bred, that you have three citizenships and not one is Russian, because it's not a country, but vomit, and you have to wash it off ... You may have confessed that you have four nipples, two navels, and special suction cups on your body ... But to go to Donbas - my God - it's monstrous, out of the question”.
The separatists' attitude to Ukraine as presented by Prilepin is complex. It shows the conventionality of easy journalistic labels that someone is "pro-Ukrainian" or "anti-Ukrainian". Prilepin recalls: "the festive, golden cartridges were nice to pick at with your fingers, you would like to say a word or a few words: 'I love you, Ukraine', or 'Surrender, chochol' [a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians]. It's even better about the word chochol: the [Russian] letter 'ch' comes out great with four rounds, although it's not allowed, it's clear. [The volunteer] Tyson, for example, considers himself a Ukrainian. Many in the battalion also considered themselves Ukrainians and fought for [the Soviet partisan] Kovpak against [Nazi collaborator] Shukhevych, for [anarchist] Makhno against [nationalist] Petliura, for [pro-Moscow] Bogdan Chmielnicki against [pro-Polish] Ivan Vyhovsky”. The author himself writes about Ukraine in a similar way: “Dear friends, I am in love with Ukraine. One thing is sad: now the words 'I have been in love with Ukraine since childhood' are in the same category as saying 'Well, I even have Jewish friends'. But how to say it differently if you love something?" However, the attitude of his former fellow writers from Kiev towards Prilepin became irreconcilable. While in Geneva, he read a leaflet of the Ukrainian PEN-Club about himself: "After a cursory reading of the paper, it became clear that in Europe there is no one more terrible than me: Kievan authors compared me to a Scandinavian degenerate who had fired into a crowd of children with a rifle not so long ago. They called for me to be detained by brute physical force, stuffed into a package and shipped to them - and they would take care of me. As justification for such radical measures, the following characterisations of me were listed: a terrorist, a killer of civilians, a maniac, a person whose behavior puts himself outside the framework of human morality, something which now does not apply to me. In times gone by, I drank beer with the signatories of this letter and we hugged each other to greet each other. "
The fighting separatists are not only the inhabitants of Donbas, but also supporters of the "Russian peace" from all corners of the former USSR and even other countries - for example, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Czechs or Serbs. Their experience of fighting and being controlled by "curators" from Moscow often contained an element of disappointment. To Prilepin, contemporary Russia appears to be a soulless bureaucratic juggernaut, full of behind-the-scenes political games, deaf to the needs of ordinary people, unable to take into account their need for freedom: “Everyone here [in Donbas] – as I'd foreseen – is waiting for Russia to come someday. Russia will come and there will be order and peace. But Russia doesn't come like that. They expect it in one form and it comes in another form. It comes like a road roller. It comes like a meat grinder. It devours everything and does not even spit out the bones – it grinds it up”.
Prilepin himself, who created a separate battalion in the Donbas using his own money and with fundraisers, falls victim to behind-the-scenes power struggles in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, after the death of Alexander Zakharchenko, whom he adored as an authentic people’s leader. Unexpectedly, he became a persona non grata there: “I crossed the border, drove away three metres and a man – with a typical Russian face, blond with an open gaze and light denim jacket - caught up with the car with a quick pace. I rolled the window down, and he said in my ear, leaning in close to make me understand everything: 'You are on our blacklist. You won't go there any more, please don't even try. You hear? You are banned from entering the Donetsk People's Republic. Goodbye'".
We've Moved Past Black and White Television
Is Prilepin's picture of war outrageous? The Czarne publishing house, which has distinguished itself in the popularisation of Ukrainian literature in recent years, published a book in 2022 by the Slovakian author Tomas Forro called "Apartment at the Hotel War. A Report from Donbas”. Undoubtedly, the author is "pro-Ukrainian" and his information contributed to several volunteers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia being repressed severely. However, his report also includes fragments which undermine the Manichean vision of the conflict in Ukraine. He writes: “International organisations record war crimes committed not only by separatists. The Office of the UN High Commissioner and the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] document cases of torture and even homosexual violence by soldiers of the [Ukrainian] 'Donbas' and 'Azov' regiments. Amnesty International documented cases of torture and murder committed by the 'Aidar' regiment. Ukrainian television reported that the militants of the 'Aidar' delivered a package with the pro-Russian rebel’s head to his mother. (ibid., p. 105). Elsewhere, Forro writes how "members of ordinary families from the nearby settlement [in Sloviansk] blocked the march of Ukrainian heavy military vehicles with their own bodies, and one of these people literally threw herself under the wheels of the mighty Hummer [off-road vehicle] from the 13th Brigade" (p. 53). This is not Putin's propaganda - these are quotes from the reportage of a pro-Ukrainian journalist who, despite this, can see that the history of the Donbas is not black and white.
The dispute over the limits of freedom of speech will last forever. Let us agree, however, that - to quote the last Polish Nobel laureate, Olga Tokarczuk - "literature is not for idiots" and let us leave it to the readers, not the censors and Taliban of all sorts, to decide.