Once Upon a Time a Former Soviet Proletarian…

…Marat Gizatulin is a master of the short story. The lyrical hero of his funny texts—a former Soviet proletarian—undoubtedly inherits the heroes and characters of Zoshchenko’s prose, Ilf and Petrov.

…The stories by M. Gizatulin do not give the impression of written prose; they are remarkably alive, squirming, disobedient—like children. When I read them, I kept remembering the oral tales of Irakliy Andronikov and Zhvaneцький’s monologues…

…Marat Gizatulin makes up almost nothing. But what he writes very often looks like a fabrication, seems like the fantasies of a seasoned liar. Yet this is not memoirs—it is indeed prose, lyrical prose, and sometimes on completely non-lyrical, rather anti-lyrical material…

…Yes, the fate of his heroes, for the most part, will be sad: the simplest, most ordinary people. There will be people drowning, going mad, dying at a chemical plant, getting drunk, and dying early—friends of the proletarian, parents of his friends, teachers and bosses…

…So why does M. Gizatulin make it funny where it should at least be bitter? First, because of the nature of his talent—everyone cries, “and the little ball flies” (B. Okudzhava). And second, for everyone who plunged headfirst into joyless Soviet reality and stayed in that airless space for many years, a smile is bound to appear when they start telling something to those who in their life have never seen and haven’t known anything worse than “a pumpkin” (at the Halloween party).

Leonid Sokolov