Pavel Kuzmin: "We are carrying out comprehensive work with Azerbaijan"

Today, Margarita Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature presented an electronic resource, "Libraries - Witnesses of the Victory", aimed at a modern, mainly youth audience. The resourse id available in different languages ​​and unites the unique stories of the Victory that libraries store. Pavel Kuzmin, Director General of the library, spoke about the project to Vestnik Kavkaza.

- What is the novelty of the project "Libraries - Witnesses of the Victory", and what does it mean for you personally? 

- At first, I'd tell you about myself. My parents were witnesses of the war and the Victory. Father, unfortunately, has already passed away, and my mother still remembers the day when it was announced that the Great Patriotic War was over. For her, this day is about tears, and tears of pain, not joy. It is difficult to forget the horror that people have been through. The project "Libraries - Witnesses of the Victory" was preparing for the 75th anniversary of the Victory. We wanted to understand how people felt in 1945 when they learned that the war was over, the bombing was over, the deaths were over, the shelling was over. For them, it is pain and at the same time joy for the fact that they remained alive, relatives and friends will return to them, maybe wounded or maimed. This is the hope that this will never happen again. We want to keep the real truth about it.

And why libraries are the Victory's witnesses? The Library of Foreign Literature survived the Great Patriotic War. To raise this huge layer, unfortunately, is already quite difficult, because there are few witnesses. We have to look for information from sources, documentaries, statements, archival materials. Our task is to preserve the truth of feelings, the memory of truth, the true feelings that people had, regardless of their age, religion, wherever they were, on what territory of the Soviet Union they were, to reveal and remember it.

I hope that in the near future it will be possible to go to Donbass, because the project "Libraries - Witnesses of the Victory" is not limited to the Great Patriotic War. Libraries are the institution that preserves every moment of history, good or bad. The documents that we have are open to citizens. Not everyone can get into the archive, but everyone can get into the libraries. Libraries are witnesses of history, this is the deep meaning to which we want to bring our project, so that young people understand and know history from the original source. And the primary source is either parents who know how to share this information, or these are documentary truths, facts that we want to reveal and show.

- The Azerbaijan National Library joined the project in May. How much did it contribute to the project?

Certainly. We have been cooperating with the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for more than 10 years, and when we first announced that we wanted to open this project, it was immediately taken up by the Azerbaijani side. We had a trip to the National Library of Azerbaijan, we had many contacts with cultural institutions, literary lounges for the Russian language's preservation and promotion. Therefore, we immediately received a positive response from Baku, and we are very glad that this situation is the same today. People do this not because some kind of instruction has come, but at the call of the soul, the call of the heart. As long as this call remains in the heart, the project will not die.

I am very glad that the youth participated in this presentation today. I watched how they reacted. We do everything electronically, because we understand the technology of information dissemination. We want the resource to be available to the younger generation. We also want them to have full confidence in the information that is presented in this project.

- What are the prospects of cooperation with Azerbaijan on the bibliographic and cultural track?

- This cooperation covers many areas. We recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Cultural Center at the Foreign Literature Library. Comprehensive work is underway. But I would like to single out one project that is potentially very important for cooperation not only with Azerbaijan - the World Bilingual Library of Modern Literature. This project is aimed at promoting and acquainting young people with modern literature from different countries. We hope that the Azerbaijani side will also respond to this project. We presented it at the Baku Fair last year. I hope that this year we will also be able to attend this fair, and we could continue this work. The project includes several aspects: School for young translators, School for young artists, School for young designers. The underlying idea of ​​this project is that the work is written by a young author, translated by a young translator, and designed by a young artist. It is done in a bilingual form, for example, in Azerbaijani and Russian. We want to give our citizens the opportunity to get acquainted with Azerbaijani literature, modern authors, and Azerbaijani citizens to get acquainted with modern literature, which is read by the younger generation in Russia. It is necessary that the younger generation does not lose understanding of each other.

We want to include all languages in this project. In particular, when we spoke to the Azerbaijani side, it was about translating Azerbaijani literature not only into Russian. We translate into popular languages, we give an opportunity to acquaint foreign partners with this literature. We plan to invite representatives from the Russian Federation's regions, representatives of different countries, in particular Azerbaijan, to the School for young translators. We develop translation staff. Now the translation's technology is being lost. Google Translator does not make a literary translation, does not convey the soul, slang, feelings.

We've already had a School for young translators with Poland, with Belarus, and it is being prepared - with Serbia, Turkey, Spain. I see in this project the basis for preserving the younger generation's relationship. In the Soviet Union, we all lived together, understood each other and thought that it would be like this forever. Then we missed work with the younger generation, it was immediately made up for from the other side. To avoid such mistakes, we need to pay more attention to the younger generation. All our projects are aimed at this.