Why the Russian woman goes in burning log hut? Interview with Russian writer Victoria Tokareva.

Victoria Tokareva is the Russian writer, the playwright and simply unusual woman. As a classic writer, she is the bright representative of the "female literature" in Russia. She is interesting by that she knows all about the Russian woman because she is herself is Russian woman.

- Victoria, could you allocate features, characteristic for the female literature of the world, and the female literature in Russia?

- Melancholy about an ideal. All female literature in general base on it. And you should not separate Russia.

- Melancholy on an ideal? What do you mean?

- There is such folk song (chastoshka) which sense is following: "I am overcome with a melancholy, because not that man loves me, who I want to".

- And whether is it impossible to struggle with it?

- All people struggle.

- By what?

- By the life.

- Weather they win?

- It depends.

- And the Russian woman has more or less chances to win?

- All women all over the world has identical chances to win. All depends on luck. There is a saying: "be not born beautiful, but be born happy". As the destiny will develop, so will be.

- Does not the level of emancipation play here any role?

- It is so.

- What you write about?

- About people relations. The psychology of mutual relation between man and woman is mine theme.

- They say, that Russia experiences now decline of culture. Are you agree?

- No I am not. When all of us lived at the Soviet authority, and we did not have money, but there was a certain confidence of tomorrow's day (as it was spoken, "poverty is guaranteed") - we lived by another way. The channel by the name of "money" has now opened and it became obvious, that having this money it is possible to get much. In fact it was necessary to hide money before. And now, look: "new Russians" have rushed to buy the real estate, cars, jewelry … Now, when in a stream of a life this new jet has appeared, Russians began to count money, as Germans. And the charm of Russian character expressed in an openness, recklessness, "the soul wide open" disappears little by little. But it is not decline of culture. I would name it crisis of mentality.

- What will be result of this crisis?

- All will develop as in the West, by the western pattern: rich people begin to count money because having them it is possible to buy all, and poor people - because they will have too little money.

- The Russian intellectual person - what is it?

- Russian? I do not know. I have visited the West and have understood, that the most advanced Germans, I say, remind Russian very much. Because cultural people are identical. Actually, the feature of the intellectual is a goodwill. Also I appreciate kindness. When the person is kind even if one is simple, one is charming all the same.

- Can you characterize somehow different peoples, correlate them with Russians?

- I know very little about Americans. I love Germans very much. If one have to make a deal with the German, for German the oral contract has the same importance, as written one. They are people obligatory. In general saying about all peoples I have weakness for Germans. I feel good by them. Comfortably.

- But in fact Germans are absolutely others...

- If they are "advanced" Germans, they are not others. For example, my publisher is German, and his wife - how many things they have done for me at the human sense. Even native mother has not made so. To tell the truth, my mum have not such opportunities. I have seen a lot of goods and love.

- Try to compare Russians and Germans.

- Germans have habit to work, need of work. Here again they are very similar with Russians. Germans are rectilinear, and Russian soul is elastic, it can be stretched both in one and in other side. It is not without reason that during Russian weddings people fights very often. Russian always sways: from aggression - to fun, and back. At Germans this elasticity is not present.

- And they fights on weddings?

- In Germany you cannot even say about it! I saw how holidays pass at them: they gather, play on an accordion and dance - all they do accurately, pleasantly. For them it is normal, for me it is almost exotic.

- What do you think what features of Russians do not understand at all?

- Need to drink, until one fall down.

- Russian men - what kind of persons they are, in comparison with men western?

- Western man when he leaves the wife he should provide her. As a rule, he leaves her the most part of the many. And that is why western man thinks very seriously: whether he can allow divorce? And our men dump the women easily and simply. Because we do not have laws, and for some reason it is very little discussed at a level of the public.

- Besides nuances of the economic party of a marriage, whether there are exist various character features, models of Russian men behaviour ?

- I believe, that very little depends on a nationality of the man. I saw fine husbands at us and abroad. And on the contrary: here and there I saw husbands awful. It depends on education, on what kind of diskette is inside of man. Unique exception is Japanese: they demand too much homework from the wife. The japanese wife only cleans and washes. Russian wives, certainly, traditionally keep order in the house, but is far from being with such fanaticism as in Japan. To tell the truth, the Russian love all the same differs from any another.

- What it is the Russian love?

- It is when the woman endows herself. Remember how a poet say: "she will stop a skipping horse, in burning log hut will enter". Though, apparently, what is the pleasure to stop a skipping horse and to enter in burning log hut …

- But what for the Russian woman does all this?

- It is very simple: because the man does not do. The woman, as genetically most strong essence, keeps a sort and a kind. She also is made more strongly, and has more beautiful form, she lives longer. And Russian women have some aggravated understanding of it. For example, western man will never let the wife enter into burning log hut. And our man will let her and even will send her.

- Also in it is the difference between Russian man and western man?

- The matter is not in the man, but in the woman: western woman will never enter into burning log hut. She will never enter! If her log hut burns, she writes the application to the insurance company. And after some time she receives money for a new log hut. And at us if the log hut burns - that is the end. And nobody except woman will make anything to rescue or return something.

Oksana Serbinova has made an Interview.

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