Evgeny Vodolazkin is the author of the novel "Solovyov and Larionov" (finalist of the "Big Book" and the Andrei Bely Prize), a collection of essays "The Instrument of Language" and other books.

A philologist, a specialist in ancient Russian literature, he does not like historical novels, "their obsessive ethnographism – kokoshnikov, povoynikov, ports, zipuns" and other dull stylization. Using the intonations of ancient Russian texts, Vodolazkin bizarrely mixes different epochs and linguistic elements, giving the reader not a herbarium, but a living bouquet.



The hero of the new novel "Laurel" is a medieval doctor. Having the gift of healing, he nevertheless cannot save his beloved and decides to walk the earthly path instead of her. This is how life turns into living. He nurses the plague and the wounded, the poor and the infirm, and the more he sacrifices himself, the more obviously his gift grows stronger. But is it possible to save a person's soul by love and sacrifice, failing to protect its earthly shell?





There is something that is easier to talk about in the Old Russian context. For example, about God. It seems to me that the connections with Him used to be more direct. The important thing is that they just were. Now the question of these connections occupies a few, which is puzzling. Have we really learned something radically new since the Middle Ages that allows us to relax?

Evgeny Vodolazkin