Interview with Tatyana Shcherbina
Tatyana, you use an expression, Columbus Complex. What does travel mean for you?
Travel is an attempt to penetrate into another time space, different
customs, different people. Practically speaking, we know nothing about this world, about history, about the cosmos. When we approach it we bump our heads against the ceiling. We make vague guesses and we call this religion. So, what is history? Recently I wrote about a Portuguese poet, Pessoa, who had fifty-three different personalities. Every day he woke up as one of them and didn’t remember the others. He wrote his poems under the name of three of them and these three names are inscribed on his statue beside his actual name, Fernando Pessoa, the meaning of which is precisely “personality”. [. . .] We treat history by uniting events and facts around an axis: here is the beginning, this is what follows, and this is what comes after. When you travel you see that there’s no single history, but a multiplicity of histories [. . .]
My problems with travelling are global, ontological: time and history.
Columbus’s personality interests me. I feel some sort of kinship. He
discovered America and changed the course of history. When I discover something it helps me to understand history. I visited all the places Columbus knew: Genoa where he was born, Portugal, Cape St Vincent – the end of the then world. When Columbus reached this cape and said: “There, beyond the ocean there is land. Equip an expedition and I will find the land”, they laughed at him. I was in Sagresham, where there’s the naval school, in Andalusia, in Seville, where Columbus is buried against his wishes. True, the Spaniards followed his will literally: he said he was not to be buried on Spanish soil, so they set his coffin on a platform. History treated him shabbily. He died in poverty and America was named after another voyager. But the life of his soul after his death seems to me just as marvellous.
Would you like to be someone else?
In principle I can easily imagine myself as somebody else but it is not
important. I am sorry that in this life, by definition, it is already
impossible for me to achieve certain things, know certain things. Contrary to the well-known saying, I am not lazy and I am curious.
Tell me about your life in Paris. You have a very close relationship with that city.
I studied French for many years, first in a special school, then Moscow State University. When I was allowed to travel, I went to France, after visiting many other countries. Finally I was invited to a literary festival. There I met a French publisher who offered me a contract. As a matter of fact, I suffer from what is called topographical idiotism; I can hardly ever find my way anywhere. But when I got to Paris, for the first time in my life I had the feeling that everything was clear about the city. Most likely because at school, god knows why, we studied the map of Paris. And since Paris, I’ve been able to find my way much better in other places as well. Also, in Paris, I experienced a sensation, unknown to me hitherto, which is usually defined, vacuously, as happiness. I was happy, wandering about and speaking French. Language, for me, means self awareness. I soon began to think in French, and I have even
written a collection of poetry in French. I wrote a few articles for Le Figaro and received a grant to put together an anthology of contemporary French poetry, for which I won a prize. Paris was my home for three years. When you speak a foreign language, you activate a psychological mechanism which is dormant in your native country. The French language is so different from Russian. I remember, in Russia, they always said that the Russian language was the richest in the world (and also the greatest and most powerful!). I think French is richer. It has more nuances and is more sensual. In general, Parisian life is such a gentle life, with overtones that don’t exist in Moscow. At first I was very surprised. Many of my French acquaintances complained of depression and they took lots of anti-depressants. I thought they must be crazy! After two years of Parisian life, I also began to experience depression and soon I realized I had to get away. In Paris I restructured myself as regards feelings I didn’t possess and I couldn’t control this. I experience violent mood swings, whereas in Moscow my mood is more even. And this has to do with language. I’m organically at home in Russian; my nervous system is accustomed to it.
What makes you happy?
In general positive emotions dominate. So, almost anything can make
me happy. But there are things which irritate me, like television, or
music in supermarkets or on the street. This is almost a physical torture for me. But I do my best to ignore it, because what’s the point of getting enraged? It’s much better to shut it out. This is what home’s for, one’s burrow. I bring everything I like there (“The imperfection of my home doesn’t disturb me/ but somebody else’s imperfections irritate me”). What I don’t like about my home is that it needs redecorating. But I don’t want to waste my time and energy. This means it is not annoying me to such an extent and I can live with it. I am totally indifferent to country homes and nature in general.
There is a view that the female poet is a creature entirely unequipped for life.
I don’t understand that. Probably it’s what they say about all creative people whose brains have overdeveloped right hemispheres, which are responsible for intuition and abstract thinking. As for me, I’m ambidextrous. In my childhood they tried hard to make me righthanded. Now I hardly remember which hand I use better. I use my left hand for shooting, and I draw with my left; also I eat with the left hand, but I write, usually using a mouse, with my right. This means that both parts of my brain are active. So, the analytical part of me co-exists peacefully – sometimes not so peacefully – with the emotional side.
From Atmosfera, No. 3, 2002, Moscow
[Translated by Daniel Weissbort ]
Translated by Daniel Weissbort
Page(s) 209-211
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