Martin Amis e Olga Slavnikova

Martin Amis e Olga Slavnikova parlano della Russia, della letteratura russa contemporanea, dello stalinismo, in una conversazione molto interessante con Leonard Lopate. 

Olga Slavnikova: Stalin and Stalinism have a presence, unfortunately, in any Russian prose today.

Lopate: Even the prose of the young writers who grew up in the post-Soviet situation?

Slavnikova: Of course, yes, even for them. The fact is that my grandfather, Nicholas—when Stalin died he cried, he cried for the first time in his life. But he cried not because he was sorry for the great leader but because he no longer had the opportunity to kill him himself with his own gun. It is a whole family saga: my grandfather was repressed. He spent time in the camps. He was a natural marksmen. He literally, as the old hunters did, could hit a squirrel in the eye. And when he emerged from the camps he would hunt and he would hunt the biggest game Russia had to offer. One day I’ll write a book about it, but now I just want to say one thing: my grandfather’s story about the hunt made a great impression on me. Stalinism is not only what the state does; it’s also what the people do, how they react to what the state does. And the fact that the people really did participate in this—that they would demand that “enemies of the state” be dealt with—is also an important part of the whole situation. newyorker.