As part of Bloggers’ Portrait project, I and a few bloggers/colleagues/friends have recently had a conversation with a Russian author, blogger and an avid Twitterer, Vadim Ivanov. Born in January 1965 into a Russian family in Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan), Vadim has always loved Moscow and longed to come to live here. His dream finally seems to have come true, whereby we were all able to meet him, ask a few questions, and take a few photos.
Aloof and unassuming, Vadim arrived to his citizen journalist press-conference with his favourite smoking pipe. What followed was an hour-long conversation on all subjects, from literature and the author’s responsibility for his work (from me), national problems (from Oleg at chuma3.livejournal.com), and youth upbringing and hopes for the future (from Kirill at kirill-kuzmin.livejournal.com). More questions were subsequently asked by Mikhail (shok_darvina.livejournal.com) and Vassily (motyletsve.livejournal.com).
For the Russian day and age, Vadim is certainly a curious figure. Not striving to be published (although he admits he’d love to see his grotesque novel in print – for no other reason but the impressive unity of text and illustration). Very public, yet sometimes only sharing thoughts and emotions with a selected few. A blogger since 2006, he had to significantly change his style, to accommodate the short attention span and the intellect of an average web user. The result was a more laconic, more versatile manner that has now made Vadim a successul dispenser of aphorisms on Twitter. Unlike most of us, not only does he manage to fit his thoughts into 140 characters, he also does so 400 times a day.
Most importantly, as the author Vadim is preoccupied with such topics as loneliness and solitude and love. In a way, both topics must be a reflection of his experience of growing up and living in the country where the Russians were an ethnic category. His childhood was marked by fights for indepence and dignity; and his older years were the time when Tatarstan very nearly broke off from Russia, of which it is a part. Even for his avatar in LiveJournal blog Vadim chose an image of a wolf – an animal he describes as “noble”. In spite of those experiences, they seem to be making little way into Ivanov’s work. A lot of it is written in the genre of a tale, some very reminiscent of H. K. Andersen’s narrative style; others are more down-to-earth stories about modern-day Russia. Yet there is still barely any trace of those “global” problems, like nationalism. Instead there is a theme of longing – for a friend, for a soulmate, for love. For an antidote to loneliness, in effect.
“Very often”, he explains about love, “people pursue their own egotistical ends, when declaring love. Love is unconditional, it is the ability to just give your all to someone you love. But more often than not you can hear: “I love him/her so much, why do they not see me?” This is a typical selfish response”. And yet he does not have the answer, how to change the state of things. What he does, standing in a silent corner of a Moscow street, is giving a short talk about loving the person for what they are, not for what they may give you.
Which reminds one of Erich Fromm: “An immature love says, “I love you because I need you”. A mature love says, “I need you because I love you””.
Vadim’s audio interview in Russian:
http://static.video.yandex.ru/lite-audio/marylou/2wgilonfk3.2729/
You can read other posts in Russian here: “Blogger’s Interview” (Mikhail, shok_darvina), “My dear Muscovites! ” (Oleg Zorin), “Taste buds and the act of creation” (Kirill Kuzmin) и “A word about an author” (Vassily, motyletsve).
cool
Лайк ванс – кажись так…
@kukmor – thanks 🙂
@Кирилл – или вайз 😉