Introduction. From Editors to a Reader
The Last Gambit · перевод (English) · раздел 3 из 17
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Introduction. From Editors to a Reader
1991: it was the time, when the majority of Russians displayed interest in current conflicts between different political parties, either within the society or within CPSU, for giving the reforms this or that orientation. That’s why that part of the society, who regarded themselves as not indifferent to the future of Russia, watched TV regularly and bought and subscribed to numerous newspapers, where they could find out quite contrary opinions and agitations. Many of those publications written by authors, who felt themselves uncontrolled by CC [6] and KGB any more, contained some profound thoughts, but there was also lots of rubbish, because of the increasing commercialisation of mass-media, when publishers sought to get larger circulation - and income - by attracting readers with various preposterous and “exotic” things. It was the sign of time.
On Friday evening of June 28, 1991, a company of friends were driving to the country for the weekend, anticipating a moment of respite far from city bustle and a quiet exchange of opinions about the current events and the main political trends. Along with the usual country chattels, they brought some newspapers that remained unread during the week. Among them it appeared to be a Leningrad weekly “Chas Pick” (“Rush Hour”), dated by June 24, 1991, № 25 (70). This issue attracted their attention by a page full of drawings named “The Historical Picnic in a Name of Artemis”.
The first thought was: “What’s that? Do they have nothing better to fill their pages with?” But other, more urgent affairs vied for their attention and the question “What does it mean?” was dismissed - “We’ll see later…”
Later, on August 13, someone brought another issue of that very weekly “Chas Pick”, from August 5, №31 (76), where even two full pages were occupied with similar texts and drawings under a generic title “The Defence Picnic”. Again a question arose: «If “Picnics” have become a system in the “Chas Pick”, what this “system” might be and what could it express?» Then, on August 19, 1991, “a putsch broke out”, and “Chas Pick” with its “Picnics” was forgotten for some time. They surfaced later again, after the conspiratorial Treaty in Belovezhskaya Puscha, on the pages of the magazine “Molodaya Gvardiya” (“The Young Guards”), №1-2 of 1992, where the pictures of the “Historical Picnic” were supplemented with some commentaries under the title: “Masons knew all about the putsch beforehand”.
After that, they always remembered the “picnics” and other seemingly senseless publications (though senseless, if understood only in a direct sense rather than allegorically). Moreover, different people exchanged opinions about them, either in Russia or abroad. And it’s remarkable, that some readers got intrigued by those mysterious publications in the Mass Media on their own quite independently from us.
Meanwhile the third “Post Historical Picnic” appeared in the same weekly - “Chas Pick”, August 17, 1992, №33 (130), as if on purpose, on the eve of the putsch anniversary.
The conversations about those “strange” pictures and texts went on. And at last Victor V. Pchelovod [7] (this is his surname; but his profession is hunting “rats in the attics” and driving them out from there), getting tired of the endless oral discussion of all the same drawings and apparently senseless texts, within his spare time, unoccupied by his principal job, decided to render the materials of general oral discussion in writing. The result of this work is offered to the judgement of the reader.
The author’s original text, representing the results of observations, reflections and collective creative activity, was supplied with footnotes added by editors. They offer some explanations of different circumstances and terms.
December 16, 2001.
The second edition differs from the first one, published in December of 2001, with the additional errata correction and new interpretation of the questions about vectors of aims and vectors of deviation of ruling inversion within different conceptions of ruling and about the appropriate changes of the negative feedbacks to the positive and vice versa, which were left in reticences in the first edition. New footnotes were added. Moreover, quality of some defective illustrations was improved.
June 1, 2002.