Poet and journalist Sergei Gogin told the Ulyanovsk - UNESCO City of Literature portal about how the political division of literary journals can affect literature and authors, why he began to study psychology and dancing, and whether literature can be therapy. The author also shared his thoughts on why today it is necessary, first of all, to read journalism, and about the role the city plays in his life. Interviewed by Gala Uzryutova.

You periodically write materials for literary magazines. In your opinion, what is happening with literary magazines in the country now? Is there some kind of transformation going on?

I write book reviews for two magazines - "New Literary Review" and "Emergency Reserve". Of course, I am interested in literary journals, but it is impossible to keep track of all new publications. Publishing in a thick literary journal is still prestigious and important for the author. This is good feedback from a professional editor (even with the inevitable taste): publication in a thick literary magazine is still a sign of the quality of your text. Therefore, in a sense, a magazine is like a temple for authors: you went there to pray, left a note in the form of your poem or story, and with a good coincidence, your prayer will be heard and published.

Literary journals (I mean authoritative editions from the existing national magazine magazine) are an important cultural institution that ensures the sustainability of Russian literature. In addition, almost every magazine conducts additional work with authors, publishes books, such as "Znamya" and "Neva". Magazines often travel to the regions, editors meet with readers, conduct master classes, for example, at the forums of young writers (known as "Lipki"), the next of which will soon be held in Ulyanovsk. This is a direct contact with young authors who, as a result of the forum, receive publications and scholarships. It's good when magazines are not some kind of closed corporation, when they interact with the environment.

I am concerned about the divorce of magazines at the ends of the political spectrum - the division into conditionally liberal and conditionally soil-based (patriotic) magazines. It is sad that such a division exists. It turns out that literature is divided not into high-quality and low-quality, but into some warring clans. I don't think this is good for literature and writers. I am sure that everything that is written in good Russian is already patriotic. A person who writes well in Russian in Russia is already a patriot. As well as the one who writes in Russian, living in another country.

Why did you decide to study to be a psychologist?

Psychology has been interesting to me since my youth. I started studying Gestalt Therapy in 2009. This happened largely by accident: I went to training for a company with another person and stayed in this area for a long time. Probably nothing is accidental. Perhaps I was just going through a midlife crisis at the time, so I came across this teaching group at the right time. This year I am completing the second (therapeutic) stage of training under the program of the Moscow Gestalt Institute, I have experience working with clients as a consultant. Perhaps it was worth getting an education in the field of psychology a long time ago. After graduating from the Polytechnic University, having worked for three years in distribution, I passed vocational guidance tests. The tests showed that music, psychology, journalism, foreign languages, and investigative work are suitable for me. Since then, I have been moving along this list: this year it will be 30 years since I have been working as a journalist, I actively use English, I do translations from time to time, in particular, I translated Emlin Williams' play Kukusha (the translation was promised to be published in a good magazine). Now I am "catching up" with psychology and psychotherapy. As for music, in my youth I had a chance to play in the group "Premier", where we performed the pieces of our composition. I have two or three dozen good songs, sometimes they invite me to perform, though rarely lately.

Did your psychology study somehow influence your lyrics?

Texts change naturally in the process of life. If a person develops, grows, overcoming himself in some way, this cannot but affect the content and quality of the texts.

How are your early lyrics different from those you are writing now?

I have not published the earliest texts anywhere and I will not publish them, because this is the usual kind of "relational" lyrics. Relatively speaking, poems on the topic "Why doesn't she love me." Every author must go through this, but it is important to draw the line in time, because, as a rule, there is no development on this path. Just imagine how many poems about love are written in the world every day, but we still read and remember only Pushkin's “I loved you ...” and a handful of textbook texts. In general, in my early lyrics there was a lot of me and a lot of "her". Now - less than me, less than her, the word "love" is practically gone, even if the feeling remains. Now in the texts I am more turned towards the world around me, people, remaining an observer and a "reflector". This is a natural evolution: first you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, then, say, through green or blue glasses, then through those that polarize light. Your personality changes, along with it the texts change. For example, I invented my “Little Man with a Big Heart” (vers libre cycle), I have never met such a person in real life, and this is a step forward for me. The image was born in an ideal way, from the head, then I, as usual, saturated it with details from life. That is, he placed a fictional image in a real context. It seems to me that today, as an author, I have more civic feeling, philosophical contemplation and generalizations, plot verses, but there are fewer intimate lyrics. And I, as I see it, became easier to write.

Can literature really be therapy?

Poetry is considered as part of art therapy. The therapeutic function of poetry is undoubted, although it is secondary in relation to the creative and cultural-aesthetic. There are two aspects to this. Let's say a person is tormented by some feeling or thought that haunts. You can get rid of this obsession, which is probably familiar to every person, if you express it in an image, in a literary text, for a start, at least for yourself. You can express yourself in music, dance, painting, but words are more accessible. Poet Sergei Ostrovoy once said: "I wrote poems about love today - I closed the topic." Sometimes, in order to close a topic for yourself, you need to write about it. While you are writing, you think, formulate, experience, realize your feelings, which, perhaps, you were not aware of until that moment. And this awareness in itself can have a healing effect. You understood, understood, calmed down and began to act. Perhaps he changed his priorities. Writing texts helps even in moments of anxiety. Someone needs 150 grams of vodka to calm down, while someone needs to write a poem to throw all the accumulated emotional burden into the text. The poet has this privilege. And then from this raw material of words, from the stream of consciousness, many interesting poetic ideas are born mystically. There is sublimation and compensation. With the help of literature, you do what seemed inaccessible to you in another sphere, you finish building yourself up to a certain whole. Or you embody unfulfilled needs in texts. Of course, this is a Freudian approach. But this is better than drinking vodka or resorting to violence, destroying oneself or another. Still, I repeat: poems are important and necessary in and of themselves, as a pure act of creativity, as a product of an ideal mental ether, and not because they are able to cure or calm someone. Therapy is an applied aspect, and poetry and creativity in general are fundamental.

You are doing gestalt therapy. What is the most difficult text gestalt that has ever happened to you?

I have an Ideas file on my computer. These are all unclosed gestalts. But out of a dozen ideas that are stored in this dock file, only two or three have been implemented. The other day I got an idea - I saw the end of the play, such a bright one, in details. It remains only to write it. But I don't know if I can do it. This, in addition to a professional skill in drama, will require volitional effort, time management. I also once started writing a story long ago: there is a beginning, I know how the plot will end, but I don’t know what is in the middle, so I want to ask one smart person to sit with me, "twist" the plot.

Have you ever written prose or wanted to write it?

There are a dozen stories, some have been published, but it never went further. Prose is more difficult for me to write than poetry. Prose is a more serious commitment to oneself. Once I happened to hear such a thought: prose is the bread of literature, and poetry is cakes. I agree. When you begin a poem, you assume that the end is not far off, that it will be completed within a reasonable time frame. Although I have such things that I finished many years later, I put off the topic for years. Prose takes discipline. Although I noticed: if you sit down at the computer to write, after a while the excitement arises, something starts to work out. However, I have not written stories for a long time, although there are themes. Maybe it's just laziness of a purely Oblomov nature.

In what condition and in what environment do you write?

If poetry, then - in different ways. For example, I wrote one poem entirely in my head while I was on the bus, and wrote it down at home. The first two stanzas of another poem appeared in a dream. When he woke up, he quickly finished writing the rest. At the airport or in a cafe, I cannot write a thing from beginning to end, only some sketches or excerpts. Then I return to this already at home, in silence. Now I have a period of silence, a lull. I'm waiting for the next wave to arrive. When the wave comes, I can write several poems in a row, for example, one verse a day. When the tide starts, you sit on the shore and accumulate impressions. Creative euphoria is nice, but it's rare. In general, one poem is written for several days, some even for several years.

Is there some kind of physical process that you can compare to writing?

Writing, perhaps, can be compared to the work of a sculptor, which cuts off everything that is unnecessary. You have a piece of material, you saw a certain image in the bud and you start to "hew". Then it all depends on what tools you use and in what style you work. You can work with "large strokes", leave rough chips or - clean everything down to the smoothest stroke, so that it is difficult to find fault yourself.

How do you understand that the poem is written?

This happens when, having written the text, I put it off for three weeks and then re-read it. If there is a feeling that I am reading someone else's poem, not my own, then everything is fine. You need to let the text lie down. The principle of alienating the text from the author is important. If the text starts a life of its own, then it is most likely a good text. Held and wealthy.

You created a literary studio "Eight" in Ulyanovsk, where people come to discuss books and literature. What interesting things have you noticed in your work? Why was it created? Do you have a certain sense of literary loneliness in the city?

This year the G8 will be five years old. The studio was originally conceived as a place of literary study, a community for reading and discussing texts by local authors. When a person is ready to give his text for criticism, it gives him a creative temper. You learn to react normally to criticism, you develop. But few responded to this idea. It is very difficult to admit that you are not Pushkin. In addition, for young people, the fact of self-expression is often important. The man came out, threw something to the public with pathos, left, and he is not even interested in what the next author after you will read. Then, when it turned out that there were no hunters for traditional literary studies with analysis of texts, we in the studio just started talking about literature, about poets, discussing different authors, genres, then moved on to topics at the intersection of literature, philosophy and history. For example, the last meeting was devoted to village prose, before that they discussed issues of literary translation, and even earlier - the prose of Platonov, Pelevin, Strugatsky, literary modernism, some modern poets, dramatic thinking on the example of Vampilov, read some stories from school anthology through the eyes of an adult and talked about it. People who are completely different in profession come to the studio who like to read, think, discuss literature. Discussion always reveals something that you have not even thought about before. Some kind of field of meanings arises. I think people are going for this. Each time an interesting conversation turns out, albeit for a small group of people (however, maybe there shouldn't be many of them?). While at least a few hours.

Are writers today determining the worldview of people, or have writers lost their influence?

I am sure that the literature is alive, there are many significant authors. The talent has not gone anywhere. But the situation, of course, is not the same as, for example, in the 19th century, when the word of a writer meant a lot. The writer is not a guru today. This is not even the situation in the late 1980s, when the writer's voice was heard and could influence political decisions. Then many authoritative authors, relatively speaking, took up a megaphone, that is, they became publicists. But then they were listened to, they had influence. Today this is not the case, but this does not mean that creative people should not express their opinions, react to events, and make collective appeals. Do what you must. I would here join Solzhenitsyn's call "to live not by lies." That is, at least not to participate in it. At the moment, this is a necessary and sufficient moral minimum for a writer, which, if the situation goes according to a very bad scenario, may turn out to be the maximum.

Does Ulyanovsk affect you?

Ulyanovsk is a very strange city. A good friend of mine compared him to the Zone (as in the novel "Roadside Picnic"), which fulfills only genuine desires. This city will accept a person who knows exactly what he needs here, who can formulate for himself a certain meaning of existence. Otherwise, you have to look for meaning elsewhere. I have never written poetry about my city, with the exception of one: "In this city it is dusty and they smoke ...". This is about a certain city by the sea (and the Volga is so wide that it gives the impression of the sea), about my difficult relationship with this city. Nevertheless, I have lived and worked here all my life. And I constantly overcome this city in myself, in myself and for myself. It disarms in many ways, sucks out energy, and you need to make additional efforts to replenish this energy, to do something here.

Sometimes it is very difficult to pull yourself off the couch. Can this be attributed to the influence of the city, or the mythological Simbirsk anomaly, or are these my personal qualities? Do not know. Once I tried to escape from Ulyanovsk and went to Moscow, worked there for a year, but the pull of the sofa overpowered. Maybe in a different city, in a different environment, I would write and do more. People in Moscow, for example, live at a high pace, they probably do more. On the other hand, in Ulyanovsk, with a measured pace of life, you do many things slowly, more deeply. Although, perhaps this is an illusion. My experience in journalism suggests that articles and reports that are made under deadline pressure sometimes do as well, if not better, than articles for which you have time, when you swing and write slowly.

Which places you've been to have influenced you the most?

I have been influenced by every country I have visited. When you go to a country, live there for a while, you grow together with it. You are interested in the people who live there. For example, I lived for a month and a half in Yerevan at the end of the 80s, and when I returned, I became interested in everything that happens in Armenia. No longer a foreign country. It's the same with England, with America, where I studied for a year. You grow into places and countries that you have been in contact with for a more or less long time. They affect your outlook, outlook, so you definitely need to ride. I think people who deliberately refuse the opportunity to travel, rob themselves, voluntarily put on ideological and ideological blinders. Each new country is a whole bunch of important neural connections in your brain. You open the door to a new world for yourself, your picture of the world becomes polyphonic. Each country is talented and original in its own way. It is especially interesting if you know the language of this country.

Why did you start doing social dancing?

For some time now, this is an important part of my life. For me, this is a movement towards people, a way of socialization. In social dancing, you don't need to be a professional if you don't teach them. The concept of social dance is this: you do not need a constant partner or partner, as in ballroom dancing, you can dance with anyone who has the same basic skills as you. Ideally, anyone can dance with anyone. Popular social dances include tango, bachata, salsa, Brazilian zouk, hustle, swing and many others. All this can be recommended, in particular, to those who, to some extent, need to overcome themselves, their shyness, when it is required to achieve a clearer role identity related to gender. Feminists will not like my words, but in social dance a man learns to be a man, to lead, to make decisions, to control the situation on the dance floor, to think for two, a lady learns to listen to a partner, respond to his impulses, decorate, “arrange” the partner's plan with her body. Social dancing is a model of relationships in a couple, in this regard, dance works as a diagnostic tool (a typical situation: a strong woman in a couple does everything by herself, she doesn't need a partner). Thanks to these lessons, the psyche becomes more flexible, you learn to tune in to another, to perceive yourself together with another, to adapt to different dance partners. There is a kind of psychocorrection that helps outside the dance floor. But, as our teacher and leader Anton Kurin says, the main thing in dancing is to have fun. This is what I have been learning for the past three years.

Photo by Tatyana Khaibulkina, Natalia Burenkova, and also from the archive of the Ulyanovsk dance studio "Latin Quarter

Sergey Gogin's page in the "Journal Room"

For reference

GOGIN Sergey Vladimirovich

Was born in 1964 in Uralsk. In 1981 he graduated from secondary school №1 in Ulyanovsk, in 1986 - from the Ulyanovsk Polytechnic Institute. Since 1989 - in journalism. He worked on the regional radio and television, in the city newspaper "Simbirsky Courier", hosted the author's program at the Europroject TV and Radio Company, worked for the journal "Journalism and Media Market" (Union of Journalists of Russia, Moscow). In 1996, he graduated from the American University in Washington, DC with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. Currently - a freelance journalist, translator, gestalt consultant. He translated four books on Gestalt therapy from English.

Poems and stories were published in collections and almanacs, including the magazines "Neva", "October", "Strannik", "Journal of Poets". Published three collections of poems: "Wells of Dreams" (2000), "Night of the Watchmen" (2008), "Circles of Light" (2016).

From 2014 to 2017, on the stage of the Ulyanovsk Regional Drama Theater, there was a one-act play "A Little Man with a Big Heart" based on Sergei Gogin's cycle of vers libre "About a Little Man", today this performance is in the repertoire of the Ulyanovsk Youth Theater.

Since September 2014 he has been managing the Literary Studio "Eight", since February 2016 he has been running the English speaking club "Crossroads". Performs with songs of his own composition.