the Winner of “Russian Booker” and “Big book”, poet, writer Alexander Ilichevsky with 2013 lives in Israel, where he works at the Department of radiotherapy of the haddasa hospital in Jerusalem. However, this does not prevent him from creating new prose. His novel “the Drawing of Newton” was a finalist in the “Big book” of 2020. In an interview with “MK” Ilichevsky told about the second wave of the pandemic, the relationship of science and religion, metaphysics oil and the concept of home.
– Today many talk of an impending second wave of the virus. How is the situation in Israel?
– the Situation in Israel is alarming. The second wave is a reality. Now statistics show that the number of cases for each day was again compared with the data that was available in the first wave in its worst period. The Ministry of health once again sounded the alarm – quarantine measures tightened. For example, we have to work is prohibited more than five people in the room, and the beginning of next week it is expected a sharp increase in elderly patients, i.e. those who need ventilators. This will give a huge strain on hospitals in General, to work intensive care units in the first place, of course. So the rest we can only dream.
– You work in the Department of radiotherapy. How to you were these months of a pandemic?
the Hospital is a place where people should be in security, and there is absolutely quarantine: no one’s messing around, all wearing masks, gloves, inlet protection measures the temperature. Patients themselves must comply with quarantine measures, but it depends on the consciousness of the whole society. Cancer patients – people with a weakened immune system and body even if they are not received in the recent past, difficult treatment, such as certain types of chemotherapy and radiation. Therefore, the danger increases for all. We are waiting for, alas, the new adventures regarding quarantine, and we are preparing for it in full. Not sure you can predict how the situation will develop, but it is obvious that it is on the eyes getting worse and nothing does not portend a good future. Let’s wait and see. As they say, man is not a flea can get used to anything.
– Generally doctors became, perhaps, the main characters of the present time. How, in your opinion, it may be reflected in future literature?
– the Literature tend to imitate and upgrade your life, to ask her new track, to consider various models of behavior and by their example, the example of their break-in to decide how best to change to adapt better to what is happening. Undoubtedly, the new circumstances will affect the topics that will be written. Pandemic is too serious an event for the humane��tion to literature ignored it in modern times. Obviously, the new heroes will often wear a medical form. Medicine is one of the major humanitarian aspects of civilization existence, it is founded on basic ethical principles, humanity and, of course, will continue to play a vital role in the field of human relations, which exacerbated the pandemic and put in the foreground.
In the novel “the Drawing of Newton” are you trying in some sense to reconcile science and religion. To the extent possible in current conditions?
I’m not trying to reconcile science and religion, and at least outline the way out of the clinch, in which they found themselves. This is my old dream, and for a long time I thought about the problems of the present from this angle. Religion can not evolve further without having to consider the physical aspects of the origin of the universe, and metaphysics of consciousness all the more perplexed with the development of science. For example, the fact that our knowledge of the distant universe far beyond the knowledge of what is closer to us – the knowledge about the structure of the brain should lead us to deep reflection on what the universe is. The complexity of science, especially mathematics, was such, that already exceeds the capacity of the human brain. It is becoming increasingly clear that the science of the universe is, above all, the science of man – and, roughly speaking, without knowledge about the underlying structure of man, we can not do when learning that, for example, how stars. And knowledge of man cannot be complete without addressing certain metaphysical aspects of existence. After all, what is metaphysics? It is a science about the nature of reality, the world and existence as such. In other words, the device of stars, gravitational waves, and so on – depends on the knowledge about the origin of life on earth, how how people. And unless the latter can be solved without taking into account the phenomenon of faith? The universe is only someone told the story. The universe is in some sense composed, because everything in it is words: DNA, and numbers. And how could the story exist without faith in the words that he created? And again. It is very likely that the evolution of life on earth should be seen in a deeper perspective than has been done before. That is, since the Big Bang from the very inception of the universe. In other words, the universe arose in order to allow people, not planets, and brain, and the soul, if you like, is directly related to the device of the stars, and proteins. Here, about such issues concern the main character of the novel, physicist by profession.
– part of the action of the novel takes place in Jerusalem. To think that every person who visited this city, it means something OS��Bennie. And what’s your Jerusalem?
“What, for you, Jerusalem? — asked the great General Saladin at the end of the negotiations, king Baudouin. ‘Nothing,’ said he, springing to his pranowo horse, turned around, Nothing, and the whole world.” A sly grin, which was uttered these words, still smoldering over the city. Jerusalem overshadows the stones its own ruins and buildings, pristupa over the hills in the Golden sunset. Which city was many times destroyed? The residents of a city many times cut out after a successful siege? The destruction of what the city meant the death of an entire civilization? Babylon, Assyria, Greeks, Romans, Persians, crusaders, Saracens, Turks, British — all the world has ever raised the dust to heaven, the Jews, dust, prisivashya to the ground shortly blood. Not for everyone Jerusalem is full of God. Not for everyone it Them red hot. There is nothing easier than to see in this city a pile of stones, laid out on steep slopes. But man is also a flesh and ashes, and only; to believe in its divine origin — the work of consciousness.
– are You a graduate of the famous Institute. The well-known dispute physicists and poets. You to which category might include?
– I think this separation had long been distinguished. At the age of twelve, I entered the extramural physico-technical school at MIPT, then the Kolmogorov boarding school, then at MIPT. The Institute has been the theoretical group of academician Lev Petrovich Gor at the Institute of theoretical physics named after Landau in Chernogolovka. As a scientist, I don’t have much luck: interest in science began to wane with the growth of interest in literature. When people are creating scientific models and “the sleep of reason” reflects the real properties of the universe, it seems utterly unimaginable. The first thing that comes to mind: if a person created in the image and likeness of the Creator, there is feedback, and the universe reflects in our mind. Literature, in fact, the same theory. Creating a model of the universe in the form of artwork, we have exactly the same (or very similar) “reveal” in this work some fundamental laws. If you’re lucky. By and large, I would not shared by physicists and poets. If the person is engaged in the development of civilization, he must learn the basic science and then move on to humanitarian areas. The primacy of science is obvious, and God in her, sometimes more than in any other region. Now comes the time of Orthodox modernism, in the sense that all spheres of human activities should include the achievements of science.
In the novel “Matisse” former graduate student of the Institute of technical physics Leonid Korolev, becomes a bum. And to what extent you have the feeling of homelessness?
Me personally, the concept of home is very important. No less important than his, house, no. In a sense, childhood is my home. It’s too big. We all come from childhood. It is connected with physiology, what is inside our brain. Exactly seven years it reaches its maximum development and the imprint of what we were at this time, we carry through all our lives. I recently read a wonderful book Vladimir Gumilevskogo about how civilization through the prism of the mechanism of the brain. This is a remarkable book, written to be as exciting as it is deep. In a nutshell, our creativity and our brain – a real God’s gift, all the brains are so mysterious and complicated that no wonder about its nature often more difficult to talk than on the nature of the universe. In other words, our consciousness is our home. And homelessness is how we are able at times to separate from ourselves. If the person is conscious of himself – he already has a feeling of home, he is no longer homeless. My character in “Matisse” just conducting an experiment on ourselves in this regard, realizing that the world and consciousness are connected in the concept of home with work, and not as a result of the purchase of real estate.
You once said that in the novel “Persian”, among other things, you were interested in the metaphysics of the oil, as you understand it?
– the Role of oil is extremely high in a person’s life. If we were ancient people, we certainly would have appeared the deity of oil. The whole apocalyptic twentieth century was associated with oil, eat oil. I was born in the oil-rich Azerbaijan and oil for me has a universal value. Oil to me – the subject of comprehensive reflection. It specifies parameters specific experience of becoming. It starts with family history, but has gradually expanded to the history of the XX century and further to biological origins of life and the metaphysical source of being. In my first novel oil becomes a source of meditation about the past of our family, about how and what happened to my great-grandfather who left his wife and daughter to disappear in the U.S. in 1920. The novel “Persian” makes a move “meditation oil” is even more extensive. The flow of the motifs in the novel, from Stenka Razin to Baron Rothschild, from Khlebnikov to Proust – is divided into many branches, each of which returns to its source – to the depths of oblivion, whose matter is the oil. Oil sink into oblivion, as the Volga, the Caspian sea, on the shores of which unfold the oil metamorphoses of the novel. Oil was chosen as a symbol of the unconsciousness: no one knows the mechanism of the origin of oil, it keeps life millionaire, oil fuel contains all of these millionaire. It turns out that the unconscious, its geological humus, gives powerful source of energy that powered civilization, its being ablethe EU ETS.
the Geography in your books is very extensive: Russia, Israel, America, Azerbaijan, Central Asia. Do you have a favorite place on earth?
– a Favorite place – Tarusa, Kaluga oblast. High Bank of the Oka, the bend of the river, the dome of St. Peter’s Church, cloud, solemn and a little sad the sky… My mind is inseparable from this landscape.
