Улей

V odnoi beziemiannoi strane sluchilsia ekonomicheskii krizis, vzletela bezrabotica, i na vershinu vzoshel diktator, kotoriei reshil problemu nezateilivo: zapretil jenshinam rabotat, chtobie oni ne otnimali rabotu u mujchin. Mesto jenshinie doma, ei polojeno rojat detei i obihajivat muja, ne tak li?Tri desiatiletiia polovina naseleniia stranie jivet, ne podnimaia golovie. Bolshinstvu jenshin naznacheno biet bezglasniem prilojeniem k mujchinam i reguliarno proizvodit detei, a nekotorieh vse-taki obiazali truditsia, odnako poruchili im tolko tiajeluu i griaznuu rabotu, na kotoruu mujchinie ne soglasiatsia, i obiavili ludmi daje ne vtorogo, a tretego sorta. Vse eti godie jenshin vospitievaut sootvetstvenno — s detstva oni slieshat, chto bolshe ni na chto ne godnie, — no nekotoriee na promievku mozgov ne poddautsia. I teper, tridcat let spustia, neskolko bespravnieh rabotnic pod pokrovom temnotie v podvale zabroshennogo doma gotoviatsia k vosstaniu, kotoroe odna iz nih planirovala godami, a mejdu tem ih po vsemu gorodu ishet tainaia policiia. . . Margaret O’Donnell (1932–2019) — irlandskaia obshestvennaia aktivistka, borovshaiasia za prava jenshin, deiatelnaia uchastnica dvijeniia za legalizaciu kontracepcii v Irlandii. Antiutopiia «Ulei», na piat let operedivshaia i predvoshitivshaia «Rasskaz Slujanki» Margaret Etvud, — edinstvenniei roman O’Donnell, klassika feministskoi literaturie, na neskolko desiatiletii nezaslujenno zabietiei, — vozvrashaetsia k nam tolko seichas i zvuchit, uvie, po-prejnemu ochen zlobodnevno. Eto roman o tom, chto meniatsia muchitelno, no vozmojno i neizbejno, a iarostnaia mechta odnoi-edinstvennoi jenshinie o spravedlivosti sposobna probudit k jizni sotni tiesiach drugih i podtolknut mir k peremenam. Vperviee na russkom!

In one unnamed country, there was an economic crisis, unemployment soared, and a dictator ascended to the top, who solved the problem in a simple way: he forbade women to work so that they would not take jobs away from men. A woman's place is at home, she's supposed to give birth to children and take care of her husband, right?For three decades, half of the country's population has been living without raising their heads. Most women were assigned to be a silent annex to men and regularly produce children, and some were still required to work, but they were assigned only hard and dirty work that men would not agree to, and declared people not even of the second, but of the third class. All these years, women have been brought up accordingly — since childhood they have been told that they are no longer good for anything — but some people do not give in to brainwashing. And now, thirty years later, several disenfranchised female workers, under cover of darkness in the basement of an abandoned house, are preparing for an uprising that one of them has been planning for years, and meanwhile the secret police are looking for them all over the city. . . Margaret O'Donnell (1932-2019) was an Irish social activist who fought for women's rights and was an active participant in the movement for the legalization of contraception in Ireland. The dystopia "The Beehive," which was five years ahead of and anticipated by Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," is O'Donnell's only novel, a classic of feminist literature that was undeservedly forgotten for several decades. It is returning to us only now and, alas, still sounds very topical. This is a novel about how painful it is to change, but it is possible and inevitable, and the fierce dream of a single woman about justice is capable of awakening hundreds of thousands of others to life and pushing the world to change. For the first time in Russian!