"Art" #1, 1999

The section "The Orthodoxy on the threshold of the third millenium" which is given a considerable amount of space opens the first issue of the magazine "Art" in the year 1999. Thus the magazine makes its own contribution to the comprehension of this major and serious subject. In spite of the fact that this magazine is not a purely religious edition, it gives at the same time rostrum for polemics, controversies, for the diversity of views and opinion pertaining to the trends and developments of the Orthodoxy and spiritual heritage. Both religious leaders and theologists as well as people who are not indifferent to these issues may voice their opinion on the pages of this magazine. It is no mere chance that the interview of the editor-in-chief Galina Butyreva with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexiy II features prominently on the opening pages of this section.

The texts of "The Legends about Evangelists of Perm of the 18th century", "Miracles of the Ust-Vym Sanctified" and "Acathistus", which has not yet been published, - all of them quite difficult of access and not readily available for broad masses of readers - have been prepared for publication by our regular author Natalia Petrenko. In the introductory article headlined "Great miracle-workers: truth and legends", that proceeds the publication, N.Petrenko, expressing her opinion, writes that these texts "give a complete picture of the Perm agiographic tradition".

In the section "Literature and Critique" readers' attention is drawn to the final part of Yu. Yekishev's novel "With Peace according to the Lord's Word. With Love according to my own Law" This final part is defined by the author as "The Supplement", because it looks as though it were an independent oeuvre standing quite apart. Some time ago it was published in the form of a narrative that consisted of three short stories in the magazine "Continent", the editor-in-chief having introduced this young and really talented Zyrian writer. This publication was welcome by metropolitan readers and critics. Victor Kushmanov's verses have been far-famed for a long time in our republic. As A. Suvorov, literary critic, put it: "Victor Kushmanov has defined the separate poetical stratum against the body of our literature. His manner of creating the image, somewhat casual, illogical and paradoxical on the surface of it, his sort of reiterated stylistic devices he employs do not pall on the reader though strange it may seem, but they set up the aura of recognition of something familiar. Both his deep-rooted culture, tact and exposed emotions are so unique, unparalleled that the author's authentic original style, accent and tone are easily conceived and identified by the reader in each verse created by Kushmanov. Vladimir Timin, a Komi poet, is well-known in our republic with his civic and love lyrics. Nevertheless he submitted to the magazine "Art" a selection of philosophical lyrics that he himself named "Thoughts about myself". These are lyrical reflections and meditations about the world, the eternity, and about the place and role of an individual in this world. Alexei Polugrudov, a young Komi prosaist, submits to the reader his three new short stories. This prose writer made his debut in the first issue of "Art" in the year 1997 with a short story and the response it evoked was far from being unanimous and unambiguous: it ranged from hostility, dislike to admiration excited with literary devices which had not been and were not considered to be traditional and indigenous to the Komi prose. New short stories written by Alexei Polugrudov do not appear to be so defiantly avant-gardistic they used to be, but still one can't but feel the growth of his artistic mastery and skill, they having gained a new impetus.

We have started up a new section in our magazine - "Kuratov Studies" — to commemorate I.Kuratov's 160th anniversary. We are planning to publish articles and materials devoted to the creative work of the poet. P.Limerov's article "Ivan Kuratov: his creative work and his fate" opens the above-mentioned section of this issue. The article deals with the poet's artistic conception, forms of its expression in the lyrics and its influence on the fate of Ivan Kuratov. Three articles this article is followed by represent genealogical research studies of the poet's relatives and descendants. These articles were submitted to us by the genealogical association "ORDPU".

Another section of the magazine is also a novelty. Its title is "EPISTULAE. LETTERS'. A section of letters mailed during the First World War from the camps, where prisoners of war were detained, situated in Germany and Austria, opens this section. These letters were sent by the natives of the Komi homeland. "I am forlorn in this strange alien distant land... Take me home..." - the letters are quite short but they are permeated with Weltschmerz of the First World War. The author of the publication and commentaries is O.Bondarenko, a historian from Syktyvkar. "The life of Verkhoziorsk peasant Stephan Artemiev" is a sort of curriculum vitae - a story of the life of to be more exact the story of the death of a peasant's family reconstructed and compiled on the basis of different documents from the peasant's archive found by ethnographers: promissory receipts, taxation notifications, writs of execution sent by bailiffs, personal letters. This family perished because they did not enter the kolkhoz (a collective farm) in those fatal 1930s. The author of this publication is A.Sivkova, a journalist from Syktyvkar. G.Shikiriava's publication of S.Dovlatov's letters from the army headlined "Zone. Notes of a warder in love" pretends to become a real sensation. These letters bring home to the reader the story of tender amorous feelings of a former student - an unknown soldier of internal troops at that time - and a girl who was a student of Komi pedagogical institute. But this love went under and did not come true. It was from those letters that what is known to be Dovlatov's prose is thought to have come out.

A.Sivkova's article headlined "A forgotten name" which is published in the section "Art-fact" shall inevitably arouse readers' interest. This article is devoted to a preceptress of the Old Belief - a book copyist - who perished in 1937 in the GULAG jail. Her name is O.P.Korovina. A.Sivkova's article is illustrated, the illustrations having been taken from a handwritten collection "Spiritual Flower garden" created by Olga Petrovna Korovina with her own hand.