On April 1, after a long and serious illness, at the 81st year of her life, Natalya Leonidovna Trauberg, a wonderful translator, thinker, and deeply religious person, passed away to the Lord. Her contribution to culture can hardly be overestimated - thanks to her translations, our compatriots still Soviet time recognized Clive Lewis, whose “Chronicles of Narnia” became the door to Christianity for many children and teenagers. Natalia Leonidovna translated Chesterton, Wodehouse, Graham Greene, Dorothy Sayers and many others. Translated from English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese languages.

She was born in Leningrad on July 5, 1928 in the family of the famous film director Leonid Trauberg. From early childhood, her grandmother and nanny raised her in Orthodox faith, and religious education was not a formality, a tribute to tradition - according to Natalya Leonidovna, from the age of six her faith became the core of her life.

Natalya Leonidovna graduated from Leningradsky in 1949 State University. Later she defended her PhD thesis in philology. In 1975, she became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, and was a member of the editorial board of the journal Foreign Literature. She lived in Lithuania for a long time, remaining an Orthodox Christian.
Trauberg is not only a translator, but also a deep thinker who knows how to speak briefly and clearly about the most complex things.

Andrey Desnitsky

Just Natalya Leonidovna

It is very difficult, almost impossible, to write about the newly deceased nun John - Natalya Leonidovna Trauberg. Write some kind of memoir? Surely it will be written by those who knew her much better than me, and it will be good and correct, but she herself said about the memoirs: “They take some kind of section and give the person a little scary trial. But we don’t know how God sees him, the only one who has correct vision.”

No, we, of course, will only say the very best about her. Why, she already spoke about this, for example, recalling B.L. Pasternak: “Georgians would envy him: all his men were geniuses, and a woman - not just “beauty will save the world,” but this particular aunt. We tried, out of modesty, not to take his words seriously, but it was difficult.” Well, after such a thing, you can write something laudatory about her? This is all the same as praising her favorite heroes Wodehouse or Chesterton: everything immediately turns into self-irony, into an inoculation against pathos and enthusiasm.

Maybe talk about how many people she helped, how many she taught and encouraged? About the high standards she set in the art of translation, about the books, articles, lectures and radio broadcasts that so many people listened to? But she herself defined: “My spiritual guidance boiled down to pity and prayer.” She didn't look like a guru.

Should I create her biography? There are already such, first of all, the autobiographical book “Life Itself”, in which, as in life itself, everything is mixed up, there is no exact addresses, no verified dates. This is somehow useless, because the main thing is not in the dates.

The meaning of these dates, by the way, can be unraveled like a charade: it fell on the first of April, “Fools’ Day,” and at the same time on the bicentennial anniversary of N.V. Gogol, and at the same time - on the evening when the most difficult and penitential Lenten service is celebrated in our churches - “Standing of Mary”. And they buried her on the anniversary of the founding of the society P.G. Wodehouse, at the same time - on the feast of praise of the Most Holy Theotokos. How can you put it all together? And somehow she succeeded. She generally managed to combine many things in her life that seem incompatible to us.

We are all passionate debaters. First, we decide: you are for those, and I am for these (or even more precisely, you are against these, and I am against those), and then we begin a battle, usually meaningless and merciless, for our understanding of the truth. “How does the worldly man desire? To another - truth, but to me - mercy, moreover, more. But vice versa? - she talked about this.

And most importantly, she lived like that, “on the contrary,” and therefore she really succeeded. This is what I’ll probably write about: this ability to combine seemingly incongruous things, as if balancing on a wire. “The royal middle path,” someone might say, but for Natalya Leonidovna this is too loud, she herself reasoned like this: “Together with the knowledge that “there is a God,” I received a strange system of values, where they are harsh towards themselves, merciful towards others, “ gentle weaker cruel” and the like. Here we're talking about not about whether I followed it well - of course, poorly; but I knew that God said so.”

Her homeland is St. Petersburg and Moscow, two eternal rival capitals. She was born, raised, and studied in St. Petersburg, but moved to Moscow, where she lived most of her life, and the already departed generation of bohemians perfectly remembered the Moscow beauty and clever Natasha. But her earthly homeland is Lithuania, her “city of Kitezh,” where she literally fled from the bohemian bustle of the capital and from the official abomination of developed socialism. She called her most anti-Soviet republic of the USSR “a picture for Chesterton’s book.” She married a Lithuanian Catholic, and not only in form, but also in essence, “acquired Catholic habits,” as she herself defined it.

And yet, life in Catholicism, hard work translating the works of the Catholic G.K. Chesterton became a kind of bridge through which her return to the Orthodox faith took place, instilled in her in childhood by her grandmother and nanny, a woman from the common people. She was a constant parishioner of our Church of the Assumption on Gazetny Lane almost from the very moment of its restoration. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, how this transition was formalized, I don’t even know if there was any formal transition to Catholicism and back: she simply returned home, to herself, but did not lose anything of what she had learned and what she acquired in other parts.

When people talk about “mere Christianity,” as Chesterton called it, they too often imply fundamental promiscuity and omnivorousness, but in her case this was not the case: it was a search for the very, very essence that can be found in different traditions and different people. “Be respectful of everyone, and keep your shoes straight,” this advice was once given before the confirmation of Natalya Leonidovna’s daughter, Fr. Stanislav Dobrovolsky, and this expression became a kind of motto on the shield. Well, yes, a lot of people will tell us about the intricacies of dogma, asceticism, canon law - but this is such a small addition, but very important, without it it is too easy for all these subtleties to turn out to be thick clubs.

So, from Lithuania she returned to Moscow. For Chesterton’s centenary, “six adults, a girl and a cat” gathered. We ate ham and cheese, drank beer and formed the Chesterton Society." Six adults are S. Averintsev, brothers V. and L. Muravyov, Y. Schrader and A. Yanulaitis, and Natalya Leonidovna herself (her daughter Maria was a girl). The Chesterton Society was founded in England on the same day, but no one knew it then. The main principles of the society were proclaimed - “Christianity and freedom”, and a cat with the sonorous name Innocent Cotton Gray was appointed as its permanent chairman, in order to avoid forced seriousness, presumably. Natalya Leonidovna always had complete mutual understanding with cats, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. What can some unofficial society do in the dark Soviet era? What kind of Christianity is there, what kind of freedom is there? Don’t put up leaflets, don’t go to the barricades...

Perhaps the main thing that these people did was to build a parallel reality. They didn’t fight Soviet power, but they ignored it as best they could, learning to live as if it didn’t exist. And maybe it wasn't last reason, due to which this power one day disappeared. And it also seems to me that this is exactly what we lack now: the ability to live differently, without party committees and local committees, which we invent for ourselves all the time and are very sad when they don’t exist.

Westernism, all this Westernism... I don’t argue. But at the same time - soil cultivation, because this is how the soil of Russian culture was cultivated, it was in it that seeds were thrown, it was on it that shoots appeared. Natalya Leonidovna is a person with a very Russian character, and she worked precisely for the Russian, and not the Lithuanian or English reader. If at the same time she managed to learn the famous English irony or Lithuanian seriousness, then this is also for us, so that we too can learn. I don’t really imagine how she would live now somewhere other than Russia, and she, having traveled to last years around the world, I also didn’t seem to have much idea.

The core of her life is “simply Christianity,” but by no means a naked theological scheme or preaching assertiveness. “Quietness”, not “importance”, as my grandmother and nanny taught. This is the desire to embody one’s faith in the bustle of everyday life, to hold on to it in the turbulent stream of history, to find it among the treasures of world culture and to introduce all this to everyone who wants such an acquaintance. Her profession is translation, or rather, retransmission of those Western manifestations of Christian culture, which it was really important for Russian society to become acquainted with at the end of the 20th century.

Back in Lithuania, Natalya Leonidovna set herself the goal of translating 25 essays or one treatise by Chesterton into Russian a year, and then no one could have imagined that these translations would be fully published, that this would be the case, in fact, a whole school would be created for the translation of English Christian literature. literature of the 20th century. Translation is a high art, but also a craft, and sometimes a difficult craft. It was as if she didn’t know how to refuse at all, and when she was given a hastily put together translation “to edit”, which could only be completely rewritten, she meekly rewrote it for a modest editor’s fee, but could neither publish a hack job nor refuse the work she had undertaken. So until the very end, colleagues could not teach her to say “no”. But, in fact, isn’t this what the Gospel is about: whoever forces you to go through one race, go through two with him?

She is also a writer. But it didn’t happen right away, and she herself explained it this way: “I haven’t written for thirty years so as not to fall into the world of some kind of super-values. I grew up among those who lived by art, and I realized that for them it was of great value.” Actually, Natalya Leonidovna’s writing is strange, it’s some kind of continuous stream of notes, associations, notes. She doesn’t talk about the main thing, because it’s simply indecent to talk about the main thing loudly (the grandmother and nanny explained this in early childhood), but you can quietly lead a person to this main thing, and let him choose further for himself. “Prose only for her own people” was sometimes called her books, and this was indeed true, she did not so much write as she wrote down (or even they wrote down after her, I don’t know exactly) her memories and conversations, and this intonation of the conversation was preserved on the book page. For our own people, yes, but it was incredibly easy to become one of our own - you just had to come up and listen. For her, who painfully experienced all vulgarity and vulgarity, there was no greater vulgarity than discussions about “people not of our circle.”

Liberalism or conservatism, our favorite debate? She did not use such words, she was afraid of them, for her all liberalism was “take everyone into account,” and all conservatism was “place your shoes evenly.” And most importantly, both must be done at once, and not separately. Her respect for the freedom of others was almost limitless, and even where a person was obviously wrong, she never insisted on her own. But she did not compromise on her own views (“obscurantist”, by her definition). She was horrified by the current rampant political correctness, and looked back with nostalgia to those times when they were not afraid to call black things black, and they were not afraid to die for white things. But back then, “Christians burned Christians—that’s monstrous. God endured and endured - well, as long as possible! And humanists abolished executions for convictions. The era of enlightenment is like radiation for a tumor: the immune system decreases, we become weaker, but at least the tumor disappears.”

Natalya Leonidovna does not fit into any framework; not a single party can enroll her in its ranks. And at the same time, she is her own for everyone. At the funeral service there were a lot of people, like at Easter, different people, so different that in other circumstances the chances of meeting them were almost zero. But they all stood at her coffin with great gratitude, love and... quiet prayerful joy. Joy, because the very long and hard work of the nun Joanna was successfully completed, and no one had any doubt about its outcome. Even in the Chesterton society, they developed a certain concept, it was conventionally called “alef”. She defined it this way: “aleph combines many things: joy, frivolity, lightness, truth, freedom, but it is opposed to falsehood, heaviness, importance...” Her face was light, bright and joyful at the funeral service.

Natalya Leonidovna’s departure was long and difficult. These were operations, and hospitals, and multiple stays in a hospice, where people who are no longer curable are admitted. It turned out that in last time she went to the hospice on Sportivnaya exactly the day my mother died there. And when, a month before, my mother appeared in this place, frankly speaking, not very joyful, she and I were told that Natalya Leonidovna jokingly called the hospice her “house of creativity.” When she lies down there, she has no everyday worries, and she can write and translate freely...

And sometimes it was enough for all of us just to look at her to re-experience the meaning, taste and joy of life. Life itself - you couldn’t say anything better about it.

Natalya Leonidovna Trauberg- Soviet and Russian translator from English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, essayist, memoirist.

Biography

Natalya Trauberg was born on July 5, 1928 in the family of film director L. Z. Trauberg and ballerina and film actress V. N. Lande-Bezverkhova. He spent his childhood and youth in Leningrad. The girl was greatly influenced by her grandmothers, who raised her in the spirit of Christian morality. The theme of religion, morality and morality aroused interest in the Christian fairy tale and later became the main motive for her life choice. Thanks to the translations of N. L. Trauberg, readers discovered the names of such authors as G. K. Chesterton, P. G. Wodehouse, G. Green, C. S. Lewis, P. Gallico and others.

In 1945–1949, Natalya Trauberg studied at the Romance-Germanic department of the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad State University. Her teachers were famous philologists: V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. Ya. Propp, Yu. M. Lotman and others.

After graduating from university she taught at the Leningrad Institute foreign languages, but was forced to leave there due to the outbreak of the struggle with the cosmopolitans.

After moving to Moscow in 1951, Natalya Trauberg began translating for the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura”, defended her PhD thesis in 1955, and then lived for some time in Lithuania.

The first published translations by Natalia Trauberg appeared in 1958, these were mainly stories for adults by G. K. Chesterton and L. Pirandello. In 1975 she was admitted to the Writers' Union, for a long time She was a member of the editorial board of the journal Foreign Literature.

The first translations of C. S. Lewis and P. Gallico, intended for children, were made in 1991, and a year later all seven of Lewis's books that appeared on sale were instantly sold out.

Together with her philologist friends, Natalya Trauberg organized the Russian Chesterton Society and taught at the Biblical and Theological Institute. St. Andrew the Apostle, conducted radio broadcasts on the Christian Church and Public Channel on Radio Sofia.

Books

• Burnett, F. E. The Little Princess: a story / F. E. Burnett; per. from English N. Trauberg. - St. Petersburg: Bible for everyone, 2001. - 208 p. : ill. - (Library of Narnia Friends).
• Gallico, P. Jenny; Thomasina; Donkey Miracle / Paul Gallico; per. N. Trauberg; artist A. Korotich. - Moscow: Family and School, 1996. - 256 p. : ill. - (Children's Library "Families and Schools").
• Gallico, P. Jenny/Paul Gallico; per. from English Natalia Trauberg; [ill. N. Kuzmina]. - Moscow: Pink Giraffe, 2012. - 136 p. : color ill.
• Gallico, P. Tomasina: story-parable / P. Gallico; per. from English N. L. Trauberg. - Moscow: Variant, 1991. - 91 p.
• Gallico, P. Tomasina / P. Gallico; per. from English N. L. Trauberg. - Moscow: Soviet composer, 1992. - 95 p. - (Reading circle).
• Lewis, K. The Chronicles of Narnia: Tales: [in 2 hours] / C. S. Lewis; per. from English N. Trauberg, G. Ostrovskoy; artist M. Ovchinnikova. - Moscow: MNPE “Gandalf”.
• Part 1: The Sorcerer's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Horse and his boy [Text]. - 1992. - 382 p., l. color ill.
• Part 2: Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or Sailing to the End of the World; Silver chair; Last fight. - 1992. - 382 p., l. color ill.
• Lewis, C. Miracle/C.S. Lewis; note and comment. M. Sukhotin; per. from English N. Trauberg. - Moscow: Gnosis: Progress, 1991. - 208 p.
• MacDonald, D. Fairy Tales: The Weightless Princess. The Lost Princess / D. Macdonald; per. from English N. Trauberg, S. Kalinina; artist Yu. Soboleva; post-last C. S. Lewis. - Moscow: Narnia: Triad, 2000. - 207 p. : ill.
• MacDonald, D. Weightless Princess. The Lost Princess: Tales / J. Macdonald; per. from English N. Trauberg, S. Kalinina; artist N. Domnina. - Moscow: Narnia Center, 2004. - 223 p. : ill., 1 l. portrait - (Chest of Fairy Tales).
• Paterson, K. I loved Jacob: a story / K. Paterson; per. from English N. Trauberg; artist A. Vlasov; entry Art. D. Marsden. - Moscow: Narnia Center, 2007. - 251 p. : ill. - (Pilgrim's Path).
• Paterson, K. Bridge to Terabithia / K. Paterson; per. from English N. Trauberg; artist A. Vlasova. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Narnia Center, 2007. - 185 p. : ill. - (Pilgrim's Path).
• Webster, D. Daddy Long Legs: a story / D. Webster; per. from English N. Trauberg; artist A. Vlasova. - Moscow: Astrel: Ast, 2001. - 171 p. : ill. - (Girls' favorite books).
• Webster, D. Dear Foe / Jean Webster; [per. from English N. Trauberg; artist A. Vlasova]. - Moscow: Globulus: NC ENAS, 2003. - 206, p. : ill. - (Little women).
• Chesterton, G. K. The Dragon Playing Hide and Seek: a collection of fairy tales and parables / G. K. Chesterton; per. from English N. Trauberg. - Moscow: House of Hope, 2002. - 256 p. : ill. - (Library of Narnia Friends).
• Chesterton, G. K. Charles Dickens / G. K. Chesterton; per. from English N. Trauberg; preface and comment. K. Atarova; ed. M. Tugusheva. - Moscow: Raduga, 1982. - 205 p. : portrait
• Chesterton, G. K. The Ignorance of Father Brown: A Collection of Stories: [for intermediate school age] / Gilbert K. Chesterton; [per. N. Trauberg and others]. - Moscow: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2018. - 268, p. : color ill. - (Books by Gilbert Chesterton).

About life and creativity

• Bogatyreva, N. “The secret of life is in laughter and humility” / N. Bogatyreva // Reading together. - 2011. - No. 8/9. - P. 40. - (Read with parents).
• Gift and cross. In memory of Natalia Trauberg: collection of articles and memories / [comp. E. Rabinovich, M. Chepaityte]. - St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2010. - 418, p., l. ill., portrait - [Kept in the Russian State Library].
• Trauberg, N. L. About Harry Potter and not only about him / N. L. Trauberg; led the conversation

A fairy tale - can it talk about Christ, while remaining itself? Will it turn into a boring edifying "chewing gum"? How to prevent this? Where are the boundaries of what is acceptable for a fairy tale? Which of the writers managed to create something undeniably valuable in this genre? We talked about all this in 2007 with Natalya Leonidovna TRAUBERG, a famous translator, largely thanks to whom Clive Lewis and Gilbert Chesterton became famous in our country.

Andersen as a textbook of life

- Natalya Leonidovna, what fairy tales did you love as a child?

I was born in 1928, when there were practically no “Soviet-produced” fairy tales - with the exception of the works of Korney Chukovsky and, perhaps, Marshak. In those years, there was a general struggle against fairy tales; it was believed that this was a regurgitation of bourgeois culture, that workers’ and peasants’ children did not need it.

But, fortunately, I was raised in a family far from everything Soviet. I was baptized in infancy; my grandmother and godmother were deeply religious people. Of course, there were many pre-revolutionary books in the house - including fairy tales, in Russian, English, and French. There were also simply children's novels - for example, books by the now completely forgotten writer Alexandra Annenskaya, wife of brother Innokenty Annensky. It's like Charskaya*, but much better. For me, all this was Christian literature, I really listened to it, I believed that these were direct instructions on how to live. And at the same time, I didn’t think at all that fairy tales could contain something pagan - after all, it was written by Christians and for Christians.

I also read fairy tales from the magazine “Sincere Word”, a story by Zinaida Tarkhova, also now forgotten. It would be nice to find them now and republish them... But let’s return to fairy tales. Of course, we had Andersen, and a pre-revolutionary edition - without all the cuts to which his fairy tales were subjected in the Soviet era, when everything in the slightest degree connected with religion was cut out. Then - Gauff, I read it in Russian, although we also had it in a German edition. But I read Charles Perrault and other French fairy tales in French. And, of course, we had Russian fairy tales - many of them were published in Russia, starting almost from Pushkin’s times. Alas, most of the books perished during the siege - they had to be used to heat the stove.

In general, my grandmother and godmother did their job - they convinced me that Christian preaching is good. And I began to read books, already understanding: I must find out how God manifests Himself in the world, how He speaks to the world.

Of course, Andersen influenced me most of all. In fact, in those years he became a textbook of life for me. Then - Gauff and Perrault. I treated them with less reverence, feeling an element of play in their works. Moreover, Perrault rather amused me; I saw something frivolous in him, perhaps even sinful. But Gauff was scary. Especially the fairy tale about the icy heart, where I saw a certain extreme depth of evil, some special, perhaps specifically German knowledge of evil, which is not found either in “Dwarf Nose” or in “Little Flour”. At five or six years old, of course, I couldn’t formulate all this, but that’s how I felt.

Of course, I was a completely atypical child. A completely different life was going on around us, completely different books were being read. My grandmother and godmother tried to keep me as far away from all this as possible. But it never occurred to any of them that the fairy tale was incompatible with Christianity. Both my grandmother, a traditionally Orthodox person, and my German teacher, a Lutheran, and my French teacher, a Catholic, were sure that a fairy tale was needed, that a fairy tale was good.

And once, when I was seven years old, I read a story in some magazine - either in Pioneer or in Kostya. A mother and daughter live in a small house on a cliff. Mother paints delicate watercolors, pink and blue. It was implied that she was very bad - far from the people, not participating in the common struggle. And then a security officer in a leather jacket comes to this house and re-educates them. Makes them just like himself. This seemed to me a monstrous violence, much more terrible than Gauff’s in “Heart of Ice.” I felt real horror. Everything that was most valuable to me then - the mysterious and hidden life of old people, children and animals walking under God - turned out to be destroyed and corrupted. For the first time I felt evil not only within myself, but also outside. This made me sick: I had a nervous breakdown. Apparently, this was providential, because it saved me from the delights of the Soviet school - I was sick a lot in the elementary grades, constantly missed classes, and from the fourth grade I was generally transferred to home schooling. And I returned to my books and fairy tales, and still read them.

- So now you also read fairy tales?

Of course I read. I constantly reread the same Andersen, although I know him almost by heart. Then, recently I translated fairy tales by the English writer Frances Bernatt. The first fairy tale will be published soon, and then, I hope, a whole collection.

- Do you see anything close to a Christian fairy tale in Soviet literature?

The Soviet era, starting from the second half of the 50s, was characterized by a special kind of “Aesopian humanism”, when traditional moral values ​​were quietly pushed through. This manifested itself very clearly, for example, in cinema. That is, God is removed from the picture of the world, but in work of art He is supposed to be present in the background. Apparently, this is considered the highly moral art of those times. Sometimes it was done very well, sometimes worse.

As for the fairy tales that we read with the children... My children really loved the works of Kir Bulychev - not as Christian fairy tales, of course, but simply as fantasy. By the way, I knew him. He did not seem to believe in God, but he wrote very cozy, kind things. In a word, in Soviet years There was good literature, and in the absence of anything else, it had a very strong effect on people.

Illustration by S. N. Efoshkin for the audio performance "Gerda". Archive of the Novospassky Monastery, Moscow

With a Christian entourage - be careful

- Do you think adults need fairy tales at all, or is this exclusively children’s reading?

I definitely need it myself. And if I remember those whose opinions matter to me, whose tastes I value, they also love fairy tales. Simply put, good people love fairy tales.

- What fairy tale would you call Christian?

Here, of course, there are no clear criteria. But still, there is a difference between a Christian fairy tale and a simply good one. A Christian fairy tale should lead readers or listeners to that space where God reigns, where the lame begin to walk, the blind begin to see, where there is a feat of sacrifice... If, thanks to the fairy tale, people feel that this is exactly how life is, then the fairy tale is Christian.

Are you now talking about the effect of the fairy tale or about its surroundings? That is, can one be considered a Christian fairy tale where angels, demons, saints, and God act? Or is all this unnecessary for a Christian fairy tale?

One could frivolously answer that without Christian surroundings there is no Christian fairy tale. But what then to do with Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”? In my opinion, this is certainly a Christian reading, despite the fact that there is no Christian terminology there. For example, nowhere in The Lord of the Rings is the virtue of humility spoken of, but it is humility, in its Christian sense, that both Frodo and Sam exhibit. The word “mercy” is not used there, but only mercy towards Gollum allows Frodo to fulfill his mission. So in a fairy tale it is not only possible to do without Christian surroundings, but in many cases it is even necessary. This shows special chastity.

However, one cannot say the opposite - that, they say, a Christian setting is always contraindicated for a fairy tale. After all, we have Andersen. He has prayers, and angels act, and the Lord. So it's a matter of moderation and taste. We just shouldn’t forget that sacred things lend themselves very easily to kitsch and parody - and then things can get bad.

From McDonald's overcoat...

The genre flourished in England in the first half of the 20th century literary fairy tale- Tolkien, Lewis, Williams. Moreover, they were all seriously believing Christians. What do you think prompted them to choose this particular form for creativity? And was it by chance that they began writing Christian fairy tales during these years?

Here it is necessary to mention predecessors. This is Gilbert Chesterton, who also wrote fairy tales - in bookstores you can find the collection “The Dragon Playing Hide and Seek”, which contains all his fairy tales, this is also George MacDonald (1824-1905), less known in Russia, who had a tremendous influence on Tolkien and Lewis.

The fact that in one country, in a short period of time, so many storytellers and preachers were “crowded together” is a whole literary event. Sometimes its significance is compared to a Russian novel of the 19th century. I don’t think that this is a phenomenon of the same magnitude in a general cultural sense, but in a spiritual sense, perhaps these are comparable things.

If you allow me, I will say a little more about MacDonald. However, he also has predecessors, but in literary quality they are, of course, much inferior to him. So, George MacDonald was a Congregational minister. Congregationalism is a Protestant trend that, like Calvinism, professes a belief in predestination, that God predestined who will be saved and who will perish, and nothing depends on a person. Macdonald once delivered a sermon against it, and was cast out of the priesthood in disgrace. But he is married, he has many children, they need to be fed. And then he began to write fairy tales for children. Later, this became for him not only his income, but also his mission, his life’s work. He believed that in this way - through literary creativity - he continues the ministry of the priest. And in the 19th century, his fairy tales enjoyed incredible success, became a real revelation for children. We think it was Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear who had the minds, but they were mostly admired by adults. And the kids loved McDonald. A characteristic detail: immediately a lot of imitations appeared, "fan fiction", as in our time with Tolkien. Such was the English Andersen, whom, according to many literary scholars, no one has surpassed - neither Tolkien nor Lewis.

Unfortunately, his fairy tales are practically unknown to Russian children, he was translated little in our country, and even then it was published not as children's literature, but in fantasy or mysticism series.

- And how much, in your opinion, did the tales of all these English writers-preachers move people towards Christianity?

The British themselves believe that their influence is enormous. Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, social tension was removed, England did not follow the revolutionary path. And this, according to the British, has two reasons: Christian socialism of the last quarter of the 19th century and the impact of Christian fiction. Including fairy tales. After all, the rebellious revolutionaries relied on envy, on a badly understood social justice: rob the loot, and so on. And the Christian fairy tale brought up a completely different attitude towards poverty and wealth.

But this is the external side of the problem. But how much the fairy tale influenced the deep conversion to Christ is a difficult question. Well, how do you define it? I'm not a scientist. I can't judge by myself or by my closest friends, no one has conducted sociological research. My beloved godson, the recently deceased Ilya Kormiltsev, believed that books had no effect on anyone at all, that they were just a game. Then, however, he admitted that he was not too sure about this. But my experience tells me that they do, and how. Why does a literary work influence one person and not another? This is a mystery, this is the secret of the human soul.

Let's get back to English literature. About the most famous of those whose names we mentioned, Tolkien, it was said more than once that his “Lord of the Rings” is not a fairy tale, but a fantasy. Do you agree with this approach?

Let's start with the fact that in Tolkien's time no concept of “fantasy” - as a literary term - existed at all. The word fantasy simply meant a fantastic story. I have no information that Tolkien somehow differentiated what he wrote into genres. It was important for him to convey his thought, his “message” to the reader, and in what form is the tenth matter. He started with “The Hobbit” - an undoubted fairy tale written for his eleven-year-old son. And “The Lord of the Rings” can, if desired, be considered both a fairy tale and a fantasy - especially since this term itself is still quite vague.

Illustrations by J. R. R. Tolkien for the book "The Hobbit"

Fruits of the Good News

Fairy tales as a genre have certain characteristics. A fairy tale requires a bright setting and an enticing plot. Couldn't this form somehow obscure or obscure the content - that is, the Christian component, if it exists there at all?

I remember a conversation with Vladimir Muravyov, when in the early 70s he gave me the English original of “The Lord of the Rings” to read. Then we argued about it. And Muravyov, with his characteristic ardor, convinced me that the surroundings not only do not interfere with the Christian content, but, on the contrary, help to manifest it. In general, he really liked all these bright details - the hobbits' furry heels, their double dinners, and so on. All this life. I objected to him, but now I doubt it: maybe he’s not so wrong after all? What do you think?

I think there is a problem here. At some point, it seems to me, Tolkien became so carried away by constructing the world of Middle-earth, composing the Elvish language, and the history of the elves, that it became something self-sufficient for him.

I definitely agree about the language and elven genealogies. As a reader, this bothers me, unlike “coziness.” It's his own game and we don't have to participate in it. All this has nothing to do with the Christian meaning of the trilogy.

-What do you see as the Christian meaning of The Lord of the Rings?

Read the magazine “Thomas” - there, in an interview with Father Maxim Pervozvansky, this Christian meaning is wonderfully outlined.* I can only completely agree with him.

But for decades now there have been debates about the Christian content of The Lord of the Rings. Many insist that Middle-earth is a completely Old Testament world, in which there was no Incarnation, no sacrifice on the cross, no Resurrection...

Indeed, they are not there. Tolkien, unlike Lewis with his Chronicles of Narnia, did not describe these things even in metaphors. But the fruits of the Good News are quite noticeable in The Lord of the Rings. The characters behave like Christians. For example, Frodo's pity for Gollum, Sam's extreme humility - these are all completely New Testament forms of behavior. That is, although the external realities of Middle-earth fit into the Old Testament framework, the behavior of the heroes, and most importantly, their motivation, no longer fit into this framework. And this is a very bold move. Yes, there is not a word about the Trinity - and thank God! Because otherwise it could have turned out to be profanity.

By the way, if we compare Tolkien and Lewis, then the latter has much more to a greater extent the propaganda intent is visible. An unbelieving child often perceives Lewis's tales as obsessive catechesis. Tolkien will never be perceived this way.

We are not afraid of Santa Claus

It turns out that with the help of a fairy tale one can more effectively convey Christian truths to the reader than with a direct sermon?

I think yes. In a fairy tale there is a depth of heart, there is beauty. A fairy tale introduces a person to a transformed world, while a direct sermon appeals more to the mind than to the heart. However, this is true not only for fairy tales, but for all fiction, and more broadly for art in general. This is a very powerful remedy.

But, on the other hand, there is more risk here. We know many examples of such “Christian” fairy tales that make you want to howl. Such tales do not lead to God, but, on the contrary, push away from Him.

There are many Christians who are extremely wary of fairy tales, who believe that there is too much paganism in them, and that the plots of fairy tales are often incompatible with dogmatic theology...

Such people are afraid of Santa Claus. But seriously, I see two problems here. Firstly, regarding paganism. If we are talking about fairy tales for children, then we should not forget that a child, unlike us, is much closer to the spiritual world. It can be said to be in sacred space. And to a greater extent than adults, he is protected from demonic influences. But, since he also has a tendency to sin, then if you do not follow upbringing, it will certainly manifest itself - both in cruelty and in anything else. A child can cultivate such paganism in himself that no fairy tale can teach. The danger is not in fairy tales, but in the fact that adults are often indifferent to the inner world of a child. To protect a child from a pagan worldview, he must be raised as a Christian, and not deprived of fairy tales. In a normal Christian family, everything will be explained to the child correctly. And if the family is far from Christianity, then, as they say, when you take off your head, you don’t cry over your hair. Hypothetical harm from some fairy tale is far from the worst thing that threatens him spiritually.

But here we must remember the banal truth. To benefit a child, a fairy tale must be supported in some way in his real life. If the tale is about love, he must see examples of love around him. If forgiveness is talked about, he must have experience when he is forgiven and when he himself forgives. If heroes help each other out, he needs the experience of mutual assistance. If evil is punished in a fairy tale, he needs to see that evil is defeated in his life. Let all this happen on a small, “childish” scale - but it must be. Otherwise, the fairy tale will remain an empty phrase for him.

Now regarding dogma. Unfortunately, there are people who do not understand at all that the basis of any art is always a convention, that in the same fairy tales many things should not be understood literally. An elementary example is “Pinocchio”. Well, yes, there is a fairy at work there. But it is obvious that this is a metaphor for an angel, and not a sorceress-warlock. That's why it's a fairy tale, because there's a hint in it. One cannot reduce everything to a textbook of dogmatic theology.

When we talk about a fairy tale (or poetry), we enter the space of beauty, and such a flat, black-and-white approach cannot be applied in it. A child, by the way, never perceives a fairy tale as a “symbol of faith.” This is an exclusively adult approach - to sort everything out.

Is there still something that a fairy tale should not touch? Should things be absolutely taboo for a Christian writer who writes fairy tales (or fantasy)?

Yes, such barriers are necessary, but they flow naturally from the very essence of Christianity. There are things that are generally forbidden for any Christian, not just a Christian storyteller. Moreover, we are, of course, not talking about external restrictions, but about internal ones that the writer sets for himself.

Firstly, it is completely unacceptable when in a Christian fairy tale good wins exclusively through brute, physical force, without spiritual achievement, without transformation. Such a fairy tale can have any Christian surroundings - crosses and posts, domes and bells, angels and saints - but, in essence, it teaches pagan morality: “he who is stronger is right.” The highest virtues in such a fairy tale include valor, courage, and resourcefulness. Of course, these are all good things, but there is nothing specifically Christian about them.

Just don’t understand me in the sense that in fairy tales I preach non-resistance to evil by force. In both Tolkien and Lewis, heroes sometimes act not only with a kind word, but also with a sword. However, this sword is only a metaphor for a spiritual weapon, and not something self-sufficient. Victory over evil there occurs primarily through the spiritual transformation of the heroes, through self-deprecation, overcoming one’s sins, and mercy. And when you hear about some “Orthodox” fantasy, where angels destroy demons with grenade launchers, you become sad. “You do not know what kind of spirit you are” (Luke 9:55).

Secondly, what we have already talked about in connection with dogmatics. Writers of fairy tales need to be extremely careful when using religious settings. After all, fairy tale realities are always metaphorical. And if priests, angels, saints are explicitly introduced into the narrative, church services- it is very easy to give them purely fairy-tale features, so to speak, to blur the boundary between foreground and background. I already remembered Pinocchio. There we see a fairy and realize that it is actually an angel. But imagine a fairy tale where an angel appears, but gives the impression of a fairy. Where the saints act, no different from the magicians from typical fantasy novels. Again, this does not mean that you cannot write about angels in a fairy tale. Andersen wrote, and he succeeded. But here you need appropriate talent. But a mediocre author will either create something seductive or simply funny. How can we not raise a new generation of atheists using such fairy tales...

And finally, there are things that simply do not belong in a fairy tale. There is something in our faith that does not allow any similarity, no metaphor. For example, the sacrament of Communion. Body and Blood of Christ. About the sacraments, oh Holy Trinity we must learn not from fairy tales. Otherwise, profanation and even blasphemy may result.

I repeat - the point here is primarily in the spiritual level of the writers themselves. If you want to write Christian fairy tales, first become a Christian. Not in letter, but in spirit.

Natalya Leonidovna TRAUBERG(July 5, 1928 – April 1, 2009). Graduated from Leningrad State University. Translator from English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian languages. Translated Lewis, Chesterton, Gallico, Graham Greene, Wodehouse and others. Candidate of Philology.

Natalya Leonidovna TRAUBERG graduated from Leningrad State University. A. A. Zhdanova (1949). In the 1960s, she was married to the Lithuanian writer and translator Virgilius Cepaitis, lived in Vilnius on Antokol, met Tomas Venclova and his entourage.

Candidate of Philology. Member of the Union of Writers of the USSR (1975), member of the editorial board of the magazine “Foreign Literature”.

Tertiary of the Dominican Order. Member of the board of the Russian Bible Society, Chesterton Institute (Great Britain). She taught at the Biblical and Theological Institute named after St. Andrew the Apostle, and regularly conducted radio broadcasts on the religious and public channel “Sofia”.
Translator from English (Palham Grenville Wodehouse, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Clive Staples Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Graham Greene, Francis Burnett, Paul Gallico), Spanish (Federico Garcia Lorca, Julio Cortazar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Angel Asturias, Josemaria Escriva), Portuguese (Esa de Queiroz), French (Eugene Ionesco), Italian (Luigi Pirandello). Most of these authors first became known to the Russian-speaking reader thanks to Trauberg's translations.

Trauberg did some of the translations “on the table”, since the translated authors could not be published in the USSR. She has been engaged in such translations since 1959. The first translations were four stories by Borges and a work by Ionesco. These translations have been lost. Since 1960, she translated Chesterton's essays, which could not be published due to their religious orientation. Some of Chesterton's translations survived and were published in 1988, others were lost, and Natalya Trauberg translated the essay again for the publication of the book.

Natalya Leonidovna TRAUBERG: interview

CHRISTIANITY IS VERY INCONVENIENT

Natalia Leonidovna loved to talk about what Chesterton called “simply Christianity”: not about retreating into “the piety of the holy fathers,” but about Christian life and Christian feelings here and now, in those circumstances and in the place where we are placed. About Chesterton and Sayers, she once wrote: “There was nothing in them that turns away from “religious life” - no importance, no sweetness, no intolerance. And now, when the “leaven of the Pharisees” is again gaining strength, their voice is very important, it will outweigh much.” Today, these words can be fully attributed to her and her voice.
It so happened that Natalia Trauberg gave one of her last interviews to Expert magazine.

- Natalia Leonidovna, against the background of the spiritual crisis experienced by humanity, many are waiting for the revival of Christianity. Moreover, it is believed that everything will begin in Russia, since it is Russian Orthodoxy that contains the fullness of Christianity throughout the world. What do you think about it?
- It seems to me that talking about the coincidence of Russianness and Orthodoxy is a humiliation of the Divine and Eternal. And if we begin to argue that Russian Christianity is the most important thing in the world, then we have big problems that call us into question as Christians. As for revivals... There have never been any in history. There were some relatively large appeals. Once a certain number of people thought that nothing good was coming out of the world, and followed Anthony the Great to escape into the desert, although Christ, we note, spent only forty days in the desert... In the 12th century, when the mendicant monks came, many suddenly They felt that their life was somehow at odds with the Gospel, and they began to set up separate islands, monasteries, so that it would be in accordance with the Gospel. Then they think again: something is wrong. And they decide to try not in the desert, not in a monastery, but in the world to live close to the Gospel, but fenced off from the world with vows. However, this does not greatly affect society.

- In the 70s in the Soviet Union, a lot of people went to church, not to mention the 90s. What is this if not an attempt at revival?
- In the 70s, the intelligentsia, so to speak, came to the church. And when she “converted,” one could notice that not only did she not show Christian qualities, but, as it turned out, she also stopped showing intellectual qualities.

- What do you mean - intellectuals?
- Which remotely reproduce something Christian: to be delicate, tolerant, not to grab yourself, not to tear off another’s head, and so on... What is a worldly way of life? This is “I want”, “I wish”, what in the Gospel is called “lust”, “lust”. And a worldly person simply lives as he wants. So here it is. In the early 70s, a number of people who had read Berdyaev or Averintsev began going to church. But what do you think? They behave as before, as they want: pushing the crowd apart, pushing everyone aside. They almost tear Averintsev to pieces at his first lecture, although in this lecture he talks about simple gospel things: meekness and patience. And they, pushing each other away: “Me! I want a piece of Averintsev!” Of course, you can realize all this and repent. But how many people have you seen who came to repent not only for drinking or committing adultery? To repent of adultery is welcome, this is the only sin that they remember and realized, which, however, does not prevent them from leaving their wife later... And that a much greater sin is to be proud, important, intolerant and dry with people, to scare away, to be rude...

- It seems that the Gospel also speaks very strictly about adultery of spouses?
- It's been said. But not the entire Gospel is devoted to this. There is one amazing conversation when the apostles cannot accept the words of Christ that two should become one flesh. They ask: how is this possible? Is this impossible for humans? And the Savior reveals this secret to them, says that real marriage is an absolute union, and adds very mercifully: “Whoever can accommodate, let him accommodate.” That is, whoever can understand will understand. So they turned everything upside down and even made a law in Catholic countries that you cannot get divorced. But try to make a law that you can’t yell. But Christ speaks about this much earlier: “He who is angry with his brother in vain is subject to judgment.”

- What if it’s not in vain, but to the point?
- I’m a bad biblical scholar, but I’m sure that the word “in vain” here is an interpolation. Christ did not pronounce it. It generally removes the whole problem, because anyone who gets angry and yells is sure that they are not doing it in vain. But it is said that if “your brother sins against you...convict him between you and him alone.” Alone. Politely and carefully, as you would like to be exposed. And if the person did not hear, did not want to hear, “... then take one or two brothers” and talk to him again. And finally, if he did not listen to them, then he will be like a “pagan and a publican” to you.

- That is, as an enemy?
- No. This means: let him be like a person who does not understand this type of conversation. And then you step aside and give space to God. This phrase - “make room for God” - is repeated in Scripture with enviable frequency. But how many people have you seen who heard these words? How many people have we seen who came to church and realized: “I am empty, I have nothing but stupidity, boasting, desires and the desire to assert myself... Lord, how do you tolerate this? Help me get better!" After all, the essence of Christianity is that it turns the whole person upside down. There is something that came from Greek word“Metanoia” is a change in thinking. When everything that is considered important in the world - luck, talent, wealth, one's good qualities - ceases to be a value. Any psychologist will tell you: believe in yourself. And in church you are nobody. No one, but very beloved. There a person, like a prodigal son, turns to his father - to God. He comes to him to receive forgiveness and some kind of presence, at least in his father’s yard. His father, poor in spirit, bows down to him, cries and lets him go forward.

- So what is the meaning of the expression “poor in spirit”?
- Well, yes. Everyone thinks: how could this be? But no matter how you interpret it, it all comes down to the fact that they have nothing. A worldly person always has something: my talent, my kindness, my courage. But these have nothing: they depend on God for everything. They become like children. But not because children are beautiful, pure creatures, as some psychologists claim, but because the child is completely helpless. He does not exist without his father, he will not be able to eat, he will not learn to speak. And the poor in spirit are like that. Coming to Christianity means that a certain number of people will live a life that is impossible from a worldly point of view. Of course, it will also happen that a person will continue to do what is typical for us, pathetic, unhappy and funny. He can get drunk like a gray horse. You may fall in love at the wrong time. In general, everything human in him will remain. But he will have to count his actions and thoughts from Christ. And if a person accepted it, opened not only his heart, but also his mind, then conversion to Christianity occurred.

- Most Christians know about the existence of different faiths, some are interested in canonical differences. Does this matter to the daily life of a Christian?
- I think no. Otherwise, it turns out that when we came to church, we simply came to a new institution. Yes, it is beautiful, yes, there is wonderful singing there. But it’s very dangerous when they say: they say, I love such and such a church, because they sing well there... It would be better if they kept quiet, honestly, because Christ never sang anywhere. When people come to church, they find themselves in an institution where everything is the other way around.

- It's ideal. And in fact?
- In fact, this is very common today: ours-yours. Who is cooler - Catholics or Orthodox? Or maybe schismatics. Followers of Father Alexander Men or Father Georgy Kochetkov. Everything is divided into tiny batches. For some, Russia is an icon of Christ, for others, on the contrary, it is not an icon. It’s also common among many of us, isn’t it? I took communion, went out into the street, and I despise everyone who hasn’t joined the church. But we went out to those to whom the Savior sent us. He called us not slaves, but friends. And if, for the sake of an idea, persuasion and interest, we begin to spread rot on those who do not live according to our "law", then we are not Christians, really. Or there is an article by Semyon Frank, where he talks about beauty Orthodox churches: yes, we saw a world of wondrous beauty and loved it very much, and realized that this is the most important thing in the world, but there are people around us who don’t understand this. And there is a danger that we will begin to fight them. And we, unfortunately, are moving in this direction. For example, the story of the miracle of the Holy Fire. To consider that we, Orthodox, are the best, because only to us, on our Easter, the Holy Fire appears, and to everyone else - figs, it's amazing! It turns out that people who were born, say, in France, where Catholicism is, are rejected from God. From God, who says that a Christian should, like the sun to a man, shine on the right and the wrong! What does all this have to do with the Good News? And what is this if not party games?

- In fact, this is hypocrisy?
- Yes. But if Christ did not forgive anyone, then only the “self-righteous,” that is, the Pharisees. You cannot build a life according to the Gospel using the law: it doesn’t fit, this is not Euclidean geometry. And we also have delight in the power of God. But why? There are many such religions. Any pagan religion admires the power of God, magic. Alexander Schmemann writes, yes, maybe they wrote before, that Christianity is not a religion, but a personal connection with Christ. But what is happening? Here are young guys, smiling, talking, going to communion... And behind them are old women with chopsticks, after surgery. And it wouldn’t even occur to the guys to miss the grandmothers. And this is immediately after the liturgy, where in Once again everything has been said! I didn’t go to take communion several times out of anger at it all. And then on radio “Radonezh”, which is usually on Sunday, she told listeners: “Guys, today I didn’t take communion because of you.” Because you look, and already in your soul something is happening that, not only to take communion, but also to be ashamed to look at church. Communion is not a magical act. This is the Last Supper, and if you have come to celebrate with Him the now eternally celebrated evening before His death, then try to hear at least one thing that Christ added to Old Testament and which turned everything upside down: “...love one another as I have loved you...”

- Commonly quoted as “Don’t do what you don’t want to do.”
- Yes, love is for everyone good man means this is the golden rule. Quite reasonable: don’t do this and you will be saved. The Old Testament matrix, which was later taken over by Islam. And Christian love is a heartbreaking pity. You may not like the person at all. He may be absolutely disgusting to you. But you understand that, besides God, he, like you, has no protection. How often do we see such pity even in our church environment? Unfortunately, even this environment in our country is still most often unpleasant. Even the word “love” itself is already compromised in it. Threatening the girls with hellfire for having abortions, the priest says: “And the main thing is love...” When you hear this, even with complete non-resistance, there is a desire to take a good club and...

- Isn't abortion evil?
- Evil. But they are deeply private things. And if the main Christian activity is the fight against abortion, then there is some charm in this - in the original understanding of the word. Suppose some girl wanted, like everyone else normal person, love and found myself in a position in which it is difficult to give birth. And the priest tells her that if she dies during the abortion, she will immediately go to hell. And she stamps her feet and shouts: “I won’t go to any of your churches!” And he’s doing the right thing by stomping. Well, come on, Christian, go ban abortion and scare the hell out of the girls who have heard that there is nothing higher than falling in love and that you can’t refuse anyone because it’s old-fashioned, or un-Christian, or whatever. It’s terrible, but Catholics have such habits...

- What about the Orthodox?
- We have more on the other side: they ask whether it is possible to keep dogs in a house where icons hang, and one of the main topics is fasting. Some strange pagan things. I remember when I was just starting to broadcast on a small church radio channel, they asked me a question: “Please tell me, is it a big sin if I eat before the star on Christmas Eve?” I almost burst into tears then on the air and talked for two hours about what we are talking about now.

- And how can we be here?
- But there’s nothing so terrible about it. When we didn’t have the concept of sin for so long, and then we began to accept anything as sin except self-love, “the ability to live,” self-will, confidence in our righteousness and perseverance, we need to start all over again. Many had to start over. And whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. Here, for example, is Blessed Augustine, a great saint. He was smart, he was famous, he had a wonderful career, if we measure it in our terms. But life became difficult for him, which is very typical.

- What does it mean: it became difficult for Augustine to live?
- This is when you begin to realize that something is wrong. Now people relieve this feeling by going to beautiful church and listen to beautiful singing. True, then they most often begin to hate it all or become hypocrites, never having heard what Christ said. But this was not the case with Augustine. A friend came to him and said: “Look, Augustine, even though we are scientists, we live like two fools. We are looking for wisdom, and everything is not there.” Augustine became very excited and ran out into the garden. And I heard from somewhere: “Take it and read it!” It seems that this boy was shouting to someone on the street. And Augustine heard that it was for him. He ran into the room and opened the Gospel. And I came across the message of Paul, on the words: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not turn the cares of the flesh into lusts.” Simple phrases: deny yourself and take up the cross, and don’t turn concerns about yourself into your idiotic desires, and understand that the most important worldly law in the world - to do what my head or, I don’t know what else, wants - has no meaning for a Christian meanings. These words completely changed Augustine.

- It seems that everything is simple. But why does a person so rarely manage to deny himself?
- Christianity is actually very inconvenient. Well, let’s say they let someone be the boss, and he must think that it is very difficult to behave like a Christian in such a situation. How much wisdom he needs! How much kindness is needed! He must think of everyone as of himself, and ideally, as Christ does of people. He must put himself in the place of everyone who walks under him and take care of him. Or, I remember, they asked why, when I had such an opportunity, I did not emigrate. I answered: “Because it would kill my parents. They would not dare to leave and would remain here, old, sick and lonely.” And we have a similar choice at every step. For example, someone from above flooded your apartment, and he doesn’t have the money to compensate you for the repairs... You can sue him or start arguing with him and thereby poison his life. Or you can leave everything as is, and then, if the opportunity arises, do the repairs yourself. You can also give up your turn... Be quiet, not important... Don't be offended... At all simple things. And the miracle of rebirth will happen gradually. God honored man with freedom, and only we ourselves, of our own free will, can break. And then Christ will do everything. We just need, as Lewis wrote, not to be afraid to open the armor in which we are shackled and let Him into our hearts. This attempt alone completely changes life and gives it value, meaning and joy. And when the Apostle Paul said “Rejoice always!”, he meant just such joy - at the highest heights of the spirit.

- He also said “weep with those who weep”...
- The thing is that only those who know how to cry can rejoice. Shares their sorrows and sorrows with those who cry and does not run away from suffering. Christ says that those who mourn are blessed. Blessed means happy and have all the fullness of life. And His promises are not heavenly, but earthly. Yes, suffering is terrible. However, when people suffer, Christ offers: “Come to Me, all you who suffer and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.” But with one condition: take My yoke upon you and you will find rest for your souls. And the person really finds peace. Moreover, there is deep peace, and it’s not at all like he will walk around like he’s frozen: he just begins to live not in vanity, not in disarray. And then the state of the Kingdom of God comes here and now. And maybe, having learned it, we can help others too. And here is a very important thing. Christianity is not a means of salvation. A Christian is not the one being saved, but the one who saves.

- So he should preach, help his neighbor?
- Not only. Most importantly, he brings into the world a tiny element of a different type of life. My godmother, my nanny, introduced such an element. And I will never be able to forget that I saw such a person and knew him. She was very close to the Gospel. A penniless servant, she lived as a perfect Christian. She never did harm to anyone, never said an offensive word. I remember only once... I was still little, my parents went somewhere, and I wrote letters to them every day, as we agreed. And one woman who was visiting us looks at this and says: “Well, how to deal with a child’s sense of duty? Never, baby, do anything you don’t want to do. And you will happy man" And then my nanny turned pale and said: “Please forgive us. You have your own home, we have ours.” So once in my entire life I heard a harsh word from her.

- Were your family, parents, different?
- My grandmother, Marya Petrovna, also never raised her voice. She left the school where she worked as a teacher because there she had to say anti-religious things. While grandfather was alive, she walked around him like a real lady: in a hat and a formal coat. And then she moved in with us. And it was not easy for her, a very tough person, apparently by type, with us, careless people. Here is my mother, her daughter, here is her unmarried husband, a film director and a bohemian in general... My grandmother never said that he was a Jew, because a normal Christian cannot be an anti-Semite. And how much she suffered with me! I, a seventeen-year-old cretin who didn’t go to school, went to university and there I almost went crazy with delight, success, falling in love... And if you remember all the stupid things I did! Fell in love and stole my grandfather's wedding ring, believing that the great feelings that I experienced gave me the right to stuff this ring with cotton wool, put it on my finger and walk around with it. The nanny would probably have said more softly, but the grandmother would have said harshly: “Don’t do this. Nonsense."

- And this is tough?
- For her - very much. And my mother, in order for me to dress more fashionably than I thought possible after my grandmother’s and nanny’s upbringing, could bang my head against the wall to prove something to me. But she, tormented by the bohemian life, also alien to her due to her upbringing, which she, however, was forced to lead, cannot be judged. And she always believed that she had to dissuade me from faith, since I was ruining myself. Even Messinga invited me to bring me to my senses. No, she didn’t fight Christianity, she just understood that it would be hard for her daughter. And not because we lived in the Soviet Union, where they declared that there was no God. In any century, parents try to dissuade their children from Christianity.

- Even in Christian families?
- Well, for example, Anthony the Great, St. Theodosius, Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi... All four stories have Christian parents. And all about the fact that all children are people like people, and my child is a cretin. Theodosius does not want to dress as smartly as he should in his class, and devotes a lot of effort and time to good deeds. Catherine takes care of the sick and poor every day, sleeping for an hour a day, instead of going out with her friends and taking care of the house. Francis refuses happy life and father's inheritance... Such things have always been considered abnormal. Well, now, when the concepts of “success”, “career”, “luck” have practically become a measure of happiness - even more so. The pull of the world is very strong. This almost never happens: “stand on your head,” according to Chesterton, and live like that.

- What is the point in all this if only a few become Christians?
- But nothing massive was envisaged. It was not by chance that Christ spoke such words: “leaven”, “salt”. Such tiny measurements. But they change everything, they change your whole life. Keep the peace. They keep any family, even one where they have reached absolute disgrace: somewhere, someone, with some kind of prayers, some kind of feat. In the same place, a whole world of this seemingly strange opens up: when it's easy - do it, when it's difficult - speak, when it's impossible - pray. And it works.
And also humility, with the help of which alone it is possible to overcome the evil that triumphs around.

About a Person: Andrey Desnitsky about Natalia Trauberg

Natalya Leonidovna TRAUBERG (1928 - 2009)- translator, essayist, memoirist: .

JUST NATALIA LEONIDOVNA

It is very difficult, almost impossible, to write about the newly deceased nun John - Natalya Leonidovna Trauberg. Write some kind of memoir? Surely it will be written by those who knew her much better than me, and it will be good and correct, but she herself said about the memoirs: “They take some kind of section and give the person a little scary trial. But we don’t know how God sees him - the only one who has correct vision.”

No, we, of course, will only say the very best about her. Why, she already spoke about this, for example, recalling B.L. Pasternak: “Georgians would envy him: all his men were geniuses, and a woman was not just “beauty will save the world,” but this particular aunt. We tried, out of modesty, not to take his words seriously, but it was difficult.” Well, after such a thing, you can write something laudatory about her? This is all the same as praising her favorite heroes Wodehouse or Chesterton: everything immediately turns into self-irony, into an inoculation against pathos and enthusiasm.

Maybe talk about how many people she helped, how many she taught and encouraged? About the high standards she set in the art of translation, about the books, articles, lectures and radio broadcasts that so many people listened to? But she herself defined: “My spiritual guidance boiled down to pity and prayer.” She didn't look like a guru.
Should I create her biography? There are already such, first of all, the autobiographical book “Life Itself”, in which, as in life itself, everything is mixed up, there are no exact addresses, no verified dates. This is somehow useless, because the main thing is not the dates.

The meaning of these dates, by the way, can be unraveled like a charade: it fell on the first of April, “Fools’ Day,” and at the same time on the bicentennial anniversary of N.V. Gogol, and at the same time - on the evening when the most difficult and penitential Lenten service, “Standing of Mary,” is celebrated in our churches. And they buried her on the anniversary of the founding of the society P.G. Wodehouse, at the same time - on the feast of praise to the Blessed Virgin Mary. How can you put it all together? And somehow she succeeded. She generally managed to combine many things in her life that seem incompatible to us.

We are all avid debaters. First, we decide: you are for those, and I am for these (or even more precisely, you are against these, and I am against those), and then we begin a battle, usually meaningless and merciless, for our understanding of the truth. “How does the worldly man desire? To another - truth, but to me - mercy, and more. But vice versa? - she talked about this.

And most importantly, she lived like that, “on the contrary,” and therefore she really succeeded. This is what I’ll probably write about: this ability to combine seemingly incongruous things, as if balancing on a wire. “The royal middle path,” someone might say, but for Natalya Leonidovna this is too loud, she herself reasoned like this: “Together with the knowledge that “there is a God,” I received a strange system of values, where they are harsh towards themselves, merciful towards others, “ gentle, weaker, cruel,” and the like. Here we are not talking about whether I followed this well - of course, poorly; but I knew that God said so.”

Her homeland is St. Petersburg and Moscow, two eternal rival capitals. She was born, raised, and studied in St. Petersburg, but moved to Moscow, where she lived most of her life, and the already departed generation of bohemians perfectly remembered the Moscow beauty and clever Natasha. But her earthly homeland is Lithuania, her “city of Kitezh,” where she literally fled from the bohemian bustle of the capital and from the official abomination of developed socialism. She called her most anti-Soviet republic of the USSR “a picture for Chesterton’s book.” She married a Lithuanian Catholic, and not only in form, but also in essence, “acquired Catholic habits,” as she herself defined it.

And yet, life in Catholicism, hard work translating the works of the Catholic G.K. Chesterton became a kind of bridge through which her return to the Orthodox faith took place, instilled in her in childhood by her grandmother and nanny, a woman from the common people. She was a constant parishioner of our Church of the Assumption on Gazetny Lane almost from the very moment of its restoration. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, how this transition was formalized, I don’t even know if there was any formal transition to Catholicism and back: she simply returned home, to herself, but did not lose anything of what she had learned and what she acquired in other parts.

When people talk about “mere Christianity,” as Chesterton called it, they too often imply fundamental promiscuity and omnivorousness, but in her case this was not the case: it was a search for the very, very essence that can be found in different traditions and among different people. “Be respectful of everyone, but keep your shoes straight” - this advice was once given before the confirmation of Natalya Leonidovna’s daughter, Fr. Stanislav Dobrovolsky, and this expression became a kind of motto on the shield. Well, yes, a lot of people will tell us about the intricacies of dogma, asceticism, canon law - but this is such a small addition, but very important, without it it is too easy for all these subtleties to turn out to be thick clubs.

So, from Lithuania she returned to Moscow. For Chesterton's centenary, "six adults, a girl and a cat" gathered to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chesterton's birth. We ate ham and cheese, drank beer and formed the Chesterton Society." Six adults are S. Averintsev, brothers V. and L. Muravyov, Y. Schrader and A. Yanulaitis, and Natalya Leonidovna herself (her daughter Maria was a girl). The Chesterton Society was founded in England on the same day, but no one knew it then. The main principles of the society were proclaimed - “Christianity and freedom”, and a cat with the sonorous name Innocent Cotton Gray was appointed as its permanent chairman, in order to avoid forced seriousness, presumably. Natalya Leonidovna always had complete mutual understanding with cats, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. What can some unofficial society do in the dark Soviet era? What kind of Christianity is there, what kind of freedom is there? Don’t put up leaflets, don’t go to the barricades...

Perhaps the main thing that these people did was to build a parallel reality. They didn’t fight Soviet power, but they ignored it as best they could, learning to live as if it didn’t exist. And maybe this was not the last reason why this power one day disappeared. And it also seems to me that this is exactly what we lack now: the ability to live differently, without party committees and local committees, which we invent for ourselves all the time and are very sad when they don’t exist.

Westernism, all this Westernism... I don’t argue. But at the same time - soil cultivation, because this is how the soil of Russian culture was cultivated, it was in it that seeds were thrown, it was on it that shoots appeared. Natalya Leonidovna is a person with a very Russian character, and she worked specifically for the Russian, and not the Lithuanian or English reader. If at the same time she managed to learn the famous English irony or Lithuanian seriousness, then this is also for us, so that we too can learn. In general, I don’t really imagine how she would live now somewhere other than Russia, and she, having traveled around the world in recent years, also, it seems, didn’t really imagine.
The core of her life is “simply Christianity,” but by no means a naked theological scheme or preaching assertiveness. “Quietness”, not “importance”, as my grandmother and nanny taught. This is the desire to embody one’s faith in the bustle of everyday life, to hold on to it in the turbulent stream of history, to find it among the treasures of world culture and to introduce all this to everyone who wants such an acquaintance. Her profession is translation, or rather, retransmission of those Western manifestations of Christian culture, which it was really important for Russian society to become acquainted with at the end of the 20th century.

Back in Lithuania, Natalya Leonidovna set herself the goal of translating 25 essays or one treatise by Chesterton into Russian a year, and then no one could have imagined that these translations would be fully published, that this would be the case, in fact, a whole school would be created for the translation of English Christian literature. literature of the 20th century. Translation is a high art - but also a craft, and sometimes a difficult one. It was as if she didn’t know how to refuse at all, and when she was given a hastily put together translation “to edit”, which could only be completely rewritten, she meekly rewrote it for a modest editor’s fee, but could neither publish a hack job nor refuse the work she had undertaken. So until the very end, colleagues could not teach her to say “no”. But, in fact, isn’t this what the Gospel is about: whoever forces you to go through one race, go through two with him?
And she is also a writer. But it didn’t happen right away, and she herself explained it this way: “I haven’t written for thirty years so as not to fall into the world of some kind of super-values. I grew up among those who lived by art, and I realized that for them it was of great value.” Actually, Natalya Leonidovna’s writing is strange, it’s some kind of continuous stream of notes, associations, notes. She doesn’t talk about the main thing, because it’s simply indecent to talk loudly about the main thing (my grandmother and nanny explained this in early childhood), but you can quietly lead a person to this main thing, and let him choose further for himself. “Prose only for her own people” was sometimes called her books, and this was indeed true, she did not so much write as she wrote down (or even they wrote down after her, I don’t know exactly) her memories and conversations, and this intonation of the conversation was preserved on the book page. For our own people, yes, but it was incredibly easy to become one of our own - you just had to come up and listen. For her, who painfully experienced all vulgarity and vulgarity, there was no greater vulgarity than discussions about “people not of our circle.”

Liberalism or conservatism, our favorite debate? She did not use such words, she was afraid of them, for her all liberalism was “take everyone into account,” and all conservatism was “place your shoes evenly.” And most importantly, both must be done at once, and not separately. Her respect for the freedom of others was almost limitless, and even where a person was obviously wrong, she never insisted on her own. But she did not compromise on her own views (“obscurantist”, by her definition). She was horrified by the current rampant political correctness, and looked back with nostalgia to those times when they were not afraid to call black things black, and they were not afraid to die for white things. But then, “Christians burned Christians - that’s monstrous. God endured and endured - well, as long as possible! And humanists abolished executions for convictions. The era of enlightenment is like radiation for a tumor: immunity decreases, we become weaker, but at least the tumor disappears.”

Natalya Leonidovna does not fit into any framework; not a single party can enroll her in its ranks. And at the same time, it is something for everyone. At the funeral service there were a lot of people, like at Easter, different people, so different that in other circumstances the chances of meeting them were almost zero. But they all stood at her coffin with great gratitude, love and... quiet prayerful joy. Joy, because the very long and hard work of the nun Joanna was successfully completed, and no one had any doubt about its outcome. Even in the Chesterton society, they developed a certain concept, it was conventionally called “alef”. She defined it this way: “aleph combines many things: joy, frivolity, lightness, truth, freedom, but it is opposed to falsehood, heaviness, importance...” Her face was light, bright and joyful at the funeral service.
Natalya Leonidovna’s departure was long and difficult. These were operations, and hospitals, and multiple stays in a hospice, where people who are no longer curable are admitted. It turned out that for the last time she went to the hospice on Sportivnaya exactly on the day my mother died there. And when, a month before, my mother appeared in this place, frankly speaking, not very joyful, she and I were told that Natalya Leonidovna jokingly called the hospice her “house of creativity.” When she lies down there, she has no everyday worries, and she can write and translate freely...
And sometimes it was enough for all of us just to look at her to re-experience the meaning, taste and joy of life. Life itself - you couldn’t say anything better about it.

For many years, Natalya Leonidovna Trauberg was known only as a translator from several languages; she became famous as a writer in the last years of her life, when she began publishing her memoirs, reflections and articles. Of these, she managed to compile and release only two collections: “The Invisible Cat” and “Life Itself.” Few knew that Natalya Leonidovna wrote prose and poetry in her youth, except perhaps a narrow circle of friends and acquaintances.

N. Trauberg. Moscow, Strastnoy Boulevard, on the balcony above Pushkinskaya Square. 1958 V. Chepaitis

Five years

I once read from Father Solovyov that the “last five years” of Nicholas’s reign were completely unbearable. In 1948-53 - without even hoping, in 1980-85 - already hoping, but timidly, we remembered this. These years, all three times, have common features- some kind of strange peace, which later, in nostalgia, may seem cozy. Either everyone is sitting at home, or they are intensely enjoying something very simple, but there really is a feeling of a perverted, unbearable idyll. I remember very well how it was. When someone else remembers, we hasten to say: “God do not give anyone such peace.”

The second five years were clearer - at the very end of ’79, my daughter and I left for Vilnius, and in the summer of ’84 we returned to Moscow. 84-85 " academic year“turned out to be very difficult, without a hint of an idyll, but now I’ll try to remember the Lithuanian years. As for the first five years, I taught for a year, then I was kicked out, and since the fall of ’51, my mother again and again sent me from St. Petersburg to Moscow, where it was easier and work was expected, albeit hourly. It turns out that in its pure form, suffocating peace refers only to 49-51 years.

OK then; I'll try to tell you about it. Lewis writes in The Dissolution of Marriage that the past is either heaven or hell. He went too far, but when you know the end, you can see how much this past has given. However, an important caveat is needed here: you can only look at yourself this way; Such reasoning is inapplicable neither to another, nor to a country or the world there. Otherwise, you will get a phenomenon popular in the church environment, which Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev compared with the speeches of Porfiry Golovlev.

Like serious illnesses These years have been throwing me up. During the first race, I started going to church again, but it’s better not to tell such things. The entire second five-year period passed among secret priests and Christian samizdat. With one of these priests we remember his visits to Vilnius, when he bought fried chickens at the market and it was called curarium; but we remind each other of the painful listening to “Solidarity” or the BBC, and Poland, and Afghanistan, and that night when he brought all sorts of books to the Lithuanian monastery (also secret), and another priest and I sat until four o’clock in the morning in the kitchen, they were waiting for him. Miraculously, it turned out that he fell asleep, and when he woke up, he realized that we would be completely exhausted by the morning, and went through empty city. You can also recall how the secret Dominican women, whose addresses are named in the novel “Daniel Stein,” rang a bell during the service, no one got up from their knees, and then there was no one on the site. Why, many have something to remember and it is blasphemous to forget.

Help dragged on, it's time to move on to thinking. The first winter in retrospect may seem idyllic, or rather the beginning and partly the spring of ’51. After January 1, I went to Moscow and lived with the Garins, and this in itself can be called help. There was no life in St. Petersburg, but there was in Moscow. The students read poems that we also read to each other in 1945-49, but some of us were imprisoned, some were fired, the rest sagged and/or drank themselves to death, and the ones here almost didn’t. They told how “Emka” or “Alik” were sitting, but they themselves were alive, unlike, say, me. I remember that Frida Vigdorova began to say in the summer of 1949 that she saw a lawyer to help Ilya Serman’s wife (he was given 25 years without the right to correspondence, so there was no talk of help). I started crying terribly. Petersburg forgot about lawyers. One of them, Alexander Aleksandrovich Krolenko, said that he really wanted to defend young physicists accused of “mockery of Soviet science” (they did something in the spirit of “physicists are joking”), but he himself knew that this was a pure utopia.

And so - who drank, who made lampshades (my mother and I), who worked in small towns. But even this is not reflection, although it is nevertheless a reference. How, apart from troubles, did this five-year period differ from the previous one? What follows will be very subjective, for others it will be different, but then I discovered three phenomena that were new to me. The beginning of 51 was associated with Georgy Petrovich Sviridov, he came to us and helped. I think he was the one who reminded me that you don't have to like Proust or Hemingway. For all their differences, both were included in the indispensable set, but still not Babaevsky! - and I read them diligently, but during the same years I fell in love with Wodehouse and Chesterton. I was probably ashamed to admit my tastes to my older friends, although they soon had no time for Proust, they sat or waited for boarding. Sviridov renounced the spirit of those years no less than they did, but he loved Leskov—he loved him, he believed him, and did not consider him some kind of “master.” He probably went to church, but we didn't talk about it. He knew Voloshin’s poems, which I then discovered, say, “Demetrius Imperator,” very well. In addition, he sang, simply sang “Khovanshchina”. All this surprised my Westerner dad, made my grandmother (my mother’s mother) happy, and helped me a lot.

However, nearby was that distortion of such a spirit, which the Latins would call per excessum or per abusum. After the death of Mikhoels, anti-Semitism immediately burst out from somewhere. He was also attributed to Sviridov, but he helped my father. Perhaps some explanation is needed here. The cosmopolitan, expelled from Lenfilm, began to write texts for others, including some kind of operetta in the style of his “Maxims”, with May Days and so on. The imaginary author, or maybe just a co-author with a decent surname, approached him so that his father would ask Shostakovich to write music. It is worth recalling how Shostakovich lived; This is probably more normal and moral than even fighting. He literally couldn't breathe. And so, having arrived in St. Petersburg, he left dad a note with a refusal, begging him to understand him. Dad almost died and didn’t forgive, but Dmitry Dmitrievich sent Sviridov in his place. The unfortunate operetta went and gave some money.

So, anti-Semitism. Before that, I was almost the only one who at least somehow singled out Jewishness, because I believed in God and read the Bible. It says there that the people are special, warnings and promises were given to them - and I internalized them. And so, among the intellectuals, no matter what this word means, no one thought about it. No, someone probably thought, but it’s unlikely that they spoke.

However, somewhere everything accumulated and blossomed in the shortest possible time. Next winter I noticed that accountants or dentists, and most importantly, their wives, live in communal apartments some kind of special, one might say, sacred life. Reading from Mandelstam about utensils and comfort, I no longer imagined Greece, but rooms with an orange lampshade, screens, and a piano. For example, we went to see the sister of one of the mocked physicists, a music teacher. Her neighbors were extremely kind to her, but (what was new) they clearly considered her and her brother to be foreigners. Among the surviving intellectuals, reference to the atrocities of the commissars was not used. Those who thought about them reminded themselves that they had driven the people to the brink, and they committed atrocities. There was no doubt that these were atrocities. In addition, many repented for their people. Almost no one seemed to remember the biblical side of the matter.

The third was "English". Between painting lampshades, I read, one after another, late Victorian and Edwardian books - not the classics and not Hardy or Huxley, but women's novels, adventure stories, detective stories, Strand magazine. When I arrived in England half a century later, it seemed to me that I had already lived in it. What saved me was not only her comfort and not only her freedom, but also their combination, which is unmerged and inseparable there. It was revealed to me precisely in the winter of 50-51.

For five years in a row I dreamed that Runya and Ilyusha were returning, waiting in some English hotel, and I was running there. The next “last five years” (80-85) I dreamed that the Glazovs, Shragins, Tomas Venclova came from abroad, and I was already running to them. Now I dream of those who are not in this world, and I deduce that there will be no new five years.

Book by N.L. Trauberg “Home Notebooks” was published by the St. Petersburg publishing house “Seance”