Alexander Karasev: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Today, a fairly large number of readers know who Alexander Karasev is. His unusual work attracts increased attention and resonates in the hearts of many. What makes this author so special? This is what we will talk about today.

Alexander Karasev: biography

A. Karasev came to literature relatively late. He published his first story when he was in his 30s. At that time, he had two higher educations, historical and legal, work experience in areas not related to literature (he worked as a mechanic, machinist, security guard), and several years of military service.

Karasev knows firsthand about the war. He was a participant in the fighting in the Chechen conflict. War cripples someone, if not physically, then morally, emotionally, but for someone it gives a new understanding of life, a creative impulse to throw out all the accumulated impressions, to express views on life. Alexander Karasev belongs to the second category.

In an interview, Karasev admitted thatNot only did he not dream of a writing career as a child, but he does not believe others when they talk about their childhood passion for writing. After all, a child, especially a boy, is bored with drawing letters on paper, he wants activity. It's interesting to become a driver of a big car, a policeman who catches criminals, or an athlete who sets records - it's interesting, it's like a childhood dream. And in order to want to become a writer, you need to accumulate life experience.

First literary experiments

Although Alexander Karasev always loved to read and was quite fluent in words (he was especially good at explanatory, by his own ironic admission), however, the desire to write something artistic did not arise until the age of 25-26. At this age, he was captured by the idea of writing a novel. This is the mistake of all novice authors. Attempts to write a large-scale work without working out your style and style in small genres are almost always doomed to failure. Nothing happened with Karasev either. There was an idea, there was intrigue, a love line, detective elements, but the novel died out after a few unconvincing pages.

A few years later, almost forgetting about his first literary experiences, Karasev felt an urgent need to describe what was happening around. This happened when he got to Chechnya. In his hands was the diary of a deceased colleague, where he began to enter official records mixed with abstract thoughts and descriptions of characteristic scenes of military life. So material began to be collected for his future militarystories.

Literary debut

Having accumulated a rather impressive array of stories and everyday sketches, Alexander Vladimirovich Karasev began to send them out to thick literary magazines. In 2003, the magazine "October" published the story "Natasha" about a provincial girl, ready for any humiliation for the sake of "love". An unpretentious plot, realistic characters and a complex cocktail of emotions as an aftertaste from reading - all this attracted attention to the novice author. Publications followed in the magazines Friendship of Peoples, Ural, Novy Mir, Neva and others.

At present, the name Alexander Karasev is familiar to many. The writer has more than 2 dozen publications in famous literary magazines and 2 printed books. This is not only and not so much military prose. These are stories about the lives of ordinary people in our difficult time.

Alexander Karasev - author of short stories

Each author finds the best way to express himself. Someone is better at poetry, someone feels confident, unfolding huge canvases in front of the reader with many characters, events, story plans, and for someone a short, capacious text is enough to express a very deep thought.

Karasev himself explains his commitment to the genre of the story with a special type of energy. It is easier for him to take the height in one jerk, in one breath, than to build the fabric of the narrative for a long time and systematically, weaving together the disparate threads of the plot. His style is the maximum concentration of meaning, the rejection of an infinite number of details andlyrical digressions for the sake of one goal - to be honest and simple with the reader.

Karasev's stories are distinguished by their brightness, dynamics, and a clear author's position is felt in them, based on life experience and an unshakable system of values, the main of which is life. In terms of technique, Alexander Karasev is close to impressionism. He is driven by the desire to capture life in its smallest manifestations. But behind the seeming simplicity and emphasized realism lies a great semantic load.

Heroes of Karasev's works

Each story by Alexander Karasev has its own hero. As a rule, these are military personnel, but there are also ordinary guys who are not related to military affairs. A hero for Karasev is not an idealized image without a single flaw, but a living person with his victories and defeats, weaknesses and strengths, he may have his own “cockroaches” in his head, he may make mistakes from time to time, but he is a person and acts in such a way as life tells him.

Remember, for example, the hero of the story "Starfall". Victor does not immediately deserve reader approval. He is too gloomy, sarcastic, unsociable. Despite his small stature, he tries to look down on everyone. But his appearance, as is often the case, is deceiving. When someone needs help, he doesn't hesitate to stand up for them.

The hero of the story "The Queen" - Captain Fryazin - is shown to the reader in completely different circumstances. But amid the whistle of bullets and the chaos of a surprise attack, we seeFryazin has the same distinguishing features as Viktor: courage, honesty and fidelity to his duty. This is how Alexander Karasev sees a real hero.

Chechen stories

Alexander Karasev has a cycle “Chechen stories” and there is a book with the same name, which, in addition to the cycle of the same name, includes a collection of short essays “First Snow”. The name of the collection, which evokes an involuntary association with Tolstoy's famous "Sevastopol Tales", and the memories of military operations in the Chechen Republic still alive in each of us, force the reader to attribute these works to the genre of military prose.

However, upon closer examination, it turns out that this book goes beyond the boundaries of the battle genre. There are few bloody skirmishes, abstract discussions about patriotism and war. The focus of the author's attention is not war, but a person placed in cruel, sometimes inhuman conditions. This book is more like a documentary chronicle, which, however, does not deprive it of artistic expressiveness.

Creativity of Alexander Karasev in the evaluation of critics

All critics, describing the work of Karasev, single out the same distinctive features, call it "concentrated", "impressionistic" and at the same time very simple and even mundane, devoid of any artistic details. However, in evaluating these features, critics cannot agree.

Some see in this conciseness and restraint a special author's style, which has its roots in Chekhov, Babel, Zoshchenko. They notice depth behind simplicity, behind ordinary - “something very important”. So, for Jan Shenkman, Karasev's reticence is a special talent. According to the apt expression of the critic, a few phrases are enough for him to express what others would need a novel for. Oleg Ermakov refers Karasev's stories to the genre of "minimalist" and at the same time "psychological" prose. Elena Kryukova was captivated by the "living thought" and "living heart" hidden behind simplicity.

Other critics lack artistic expressiveness, generalizing thoughts. Valeria Pustovaya tends to attribute Karasev's works to the genre of journalism, not prose. She notes that there is “little mystery” in them, but only a dry series of events. Andrei Nemzer also finds Karasev's prose too simple, understandable without any effort on the part of the reader, which significantly reduces its value.

Awards

While critics are arguing about genres and styles, Alexander Karasev himself has already found his reader. This is evidenced by numerous publications in thick literary magazines and collections, and author's books, and prestigious literary awards. He is the winner of the Bunin Prize (2008), the O'Henry Prize (2010), as well as a number of other prizes and awards.