The sun, water and wind are the eternal themes of poets. How would you like this one?
“I howl at the moon, at the sky and all that exists, so that the earth will take pity, part and give me oil. Earth, look at me, shudder with horror and give me oil, for which I will get some money. Because to lose the Image of God, to become a wolf and not have money is unbearable and unthinkable…”
But oil is not coming. Neither the magical Motley cow, to which, howling, the fat wolf Mikhalych calls, nor the earth, which he prays with bewitching power and sincerity, give it.
Then the main “noble and terrible beast” enters - Lieutenant General Alexander. And his howl is not menacing, but sad: "I know you have to completely lose your shame in order to ask for oil again." After all, it will be devoured by "locusts, behind which no white light is visible." But the “shameful wolves” need it so much that they are ready to get it, even screaming to death “about their unlike country, miserable life, stupid death and the treasured fifty kopecks per barrel.”
Oh, this fifty dollars of 2004 bottling. Today, in 2022, they give about $85 per barrel of Urals. For Brent - a dollar more. But the difference in prices does not make the heroic-lyrical episode of Pelevin's novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf less poetic. In it, the anxiety and plea for oil in their original Russian version are consonant with global anxiety and plea. And horror, and trembling, and pain ...
Oil is not only news. But also cinema. The viewer knows Konchalovsky's Siberiade, Kramer's Oklahoma As It Is, and Anderson's film There Will Be Blood, known in Russia as Oil based on Sinclair's novel. And books. Biographies of Detering, Nobel and John Rockefeller are selling well. "Production" - that is, "The World History of the Struggle for Oil, Money and Power" by Yergin was given the Pulitzer Prize. Clavell's "Shamal" is often published - a love story in the era of excesses of the Islamic revolution. Oh, how many of them this oily substance flowing from the depths gave birth to ...
“... And black, earthly blood
Promises us, inflating veins,
All destroying the frontiers,
Unheard of changes
Unseen rebellions…”
- Blok prophesied about her in the poem "Retribution", dated 1910-1921. 1921 is the year of the author's death. At the same time, the French company Bellik a Grozniy issued shares at 500 francs apiece. But both her and Detering's Baku assets were taken by the red councils. So he fought communism all his life. And the poet Mayakovsky branded him:
"Means,
that's why Deterding
give me oil
and you don't need a picture!
Oil -
this means:
sit luxuriously,
air wings apart.
From clear skies
black kite
down to earth
drop a death bomb.
Oil -
this means:
do not anger the strong!
Sorry, colonies, -
get in the mouth!
Oil -
this means:
lord of oil
owner of the seas
and holder of power.
That's why
and sirs all
for oil
SS climb.
From our
Baku
back off, sir!
We ourselves need it to the point.”
Sure thing! Where there is historical inevitability, what kind of property are we talking about? In vain, perhaps, in 1920, in the Scarlet Oil, Konstantin Yust wrote to Blok in pandanus:
“... High cranes opened
hundreds of annular veins,
oil gushed out
into sweet iron captivity;
Magic oil gave to drink violent life
aortas and veins of a bloodless hungry country,
and again Peasant Russia became a tribune,
with which the nakedness calls out to the kitty saryn ... ".
So, having received the long-awaited fuel, which helps “cars to part with garages, lighting up electric eyes”, the proletariat, frozen in the darkness, yells after Stenka Razin: “Saryn on a kitchka!” - tells the crew of the captive ship to dump on the bow and not interfere with robbing.
However, one can write peacefully and optimistically. Like the same Mayakovsky in 1923:
"If the future
hard to believe -
this is because
to the brim
pours out
capitals in the heart
black
Baku
thick blood".
It can also be romantically civic, like Hikmet in Bagritsky's translation, who in 1923 wanted to "fall on his face and swallow this oil like black wine."
And even lyrically. Yesenin saw "oil on the water, like a blanket of a Persian ...".
But the farther, the deeper the horror of poets, for whom oil is the death of nature and an ominous symbol of the inexorable dominance of corporations that enslave and rape the world. The concern of scientists, who believe that three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions are caused by the use of hydrocarbons, and this is the main cause of environmental problems, they express in the language of emotions. Oil is the fierce sperm of the monster Moloch, “whose pipes,” Allen Ginsberg yells in the poem “The Scream,” and antennas crown cities! Moloch, whose love is endless stone and oil!
But it is there - in the temple of the yellow devil. And the poets of the Land of the Soviets - even rebellious ones! - the times of "developed socialism", they know: in the vastness of the homeland of wonderful oil is black gold. And where the cleansing man rules, she exchanges boots, coats and jeans for him for workers and peasants. What inspired the poet Vysotsky.
“And the oil went! We, roaming the swamps,
Not half a liter won the argument.
Tyumen, Siberia, Khanty-Mansiysk land
Through oil from open pores.
And the fountain beat, and scattered sparks!
By their light I saw God.
Bare to the waist, he is with two canisters
I took a cold shower of oil.
And the earth came to life, and I remember that night.In that land of dancing people.
I'm happy that, having exceeded the authority,
We took the risk and opened her veins!”
So Vysotsky, answering Blok in his own way, rejoiced at the Tyumen bloodletting. In the old days, doctors resorted to it - by lowering blood pressure, they protected people from a stroke. But the Siberian wells did not save humanity from tension.
“We are waiting for the approach of oil…
- writes the world poet Alexei Parshchikov, -
in the acoustics of sleepy tankers
a beautiful moment is caught - and this task is simple -
who can from the right gun
knock out the center pin
arch bridge.
Bridges connecting the shores; canals linking the seas; routes of tankers and tanks; dotted lines of infrastructures - stitches of oil pipelines, sew together the multicolor of civilizations and cultures. But "flammable!" - one of the most frequent warnings of the era. The roar of explosions, the roar of anti-aircraft guns in the night of Baghdad and the paths of rockets at dawn in Beer Sheva - carry bloody scraps of reality from the Tehran parade to the Venetian masquerade.
And why is it surprising that news services, screaming about the dependence of everything and everyone on oil prices and its owners, give rise to nightmares for both the townsfolk and poets? Half a century after Ginzberg, Letov sang in revolutionary desperation:
“People become satane, die, turning into
In fuel, toys, chemicals and oil…”.
And the hero of Semyon Slepakov (maybe even the one who does not want to be a fashion designer, but wants to be a shareholder of Gazprom) feared for his and the common future, anxiously addressing the anonymous authorities, hidden under the code "guys", like the Unknown Fathers from the "Inhabited Island" by the Strugatskys. He seems to be very concerned about
“… all these years you have pumped oil together.
You did not know the measure, grief and sadness.
So they worked day and night, serving their Fatherland,
that this money will be enough for you for ten thousand lives.
How can I live guys? I am a simple worker.
I only have kidney stones from my savings.
Very little meat on the surface of the bones.
I can't wait for good news."
And yet, while someone is worried about oil, someone is horrified, and someone sees in it a fetish and an instrument of unlimited power, there are singers in the world who yearn for liberation. Let's say Shevchuk. He sings:
“When the oil runs out, you will be with me again,
When the gas runs out, you will return to me in the spring.
We will plant forests and arrange a paradise in a hut,
When everything is over, there will be volume in the soul!
We will learn to love and be friends with our head again.
The freebie and our eternal disputes with you will stop.
All the mermaids and fairies will pray for us
When we drink all the oil, when we smoke out all the gas!
But they - scientists explain - will end only in 100-150 years. Meanwhile, in the European Union they are not waiting, but are acting. And they intend to make it carbon neutral by 2050. The Norwegians want to stop using cars with an internal combustion engine in 2025, the Dutch in 2030, the French in 2040. And in 2050, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 70% of the world's energy will come from the sun, wind and water.
Will we live in this beautiful time? That is not known to me or to you. But I would confess that I would gladly listen to songs about the sun, wind and water as "green" sources of energy. Will humanity be able to squeeze a slave out of itself with a trickle of gas and a drop of oil? Look and you can.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.
bbabo.Net