Is it true that Mikhail Zhvanetsky is the author of the essay “On the Soviet Motherland”?

In recent years, the internet has made the rounds of a nostalgic essay highlighting the positive aspects of life in the Soviet Union. We checked whether it was actually written by the satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky indicated as the author.

In the publication number "Fifth Newspaper" for March 30, 2021, a text was published with the following preface: “Dear editors! I am sending for possible use the last thoughts of the relatively recently deceased satirist M. M. Zhvanetsky. He was a prominent representative and somewhere the leader of the so-called elite intelligentsia in the Russian Federation. It becomes all the more important that before his death [he] considered it necessary to publish his thoughts about the Soviet Motherland. As they say, they got it. <…> Sincerely, your long-time subscriber and author Yu. O. Dmitriev.”

Next came the essay itself, entitled “On the Soviet Motherland.” In it, the motherland appears as a woman - thrifty, hard-working and caring, albeit imperfect. The text ends with the words: “Are we happy? Don't know. But I know exactly what words many of us never said to her then. We paid in full for our teenage impudence. Now we understand everything that we could not comprehend with our immature minds in those years of our serene, spoiled childhood. Thank you! Don't remember us badly. And I'm sorry. For everything! Soviet Motherland."

Both after and before publication in the Fifth Gazeta, this text signed by Zhvanetsky appeared on such resources as the magazine "Samizdat", "I cried", Noi.md, "Poems.ru" , "Litberth", "Mirtesen", as well as on social networks: Facebook (there are publications with 3300, 245 And 105 reposts) and VKontakte (27,000 views).

Outstanding Soviet and Russian satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky passed away November 6, 2020 at the age of 86. About a year earlier he closed his program “Nation Duty”, and since March, after the introduction of quarantine, didn't happen not one of his concerts. It was during the period after Zhvanetsky’s death (late 2020 - early 2021) that the peak of publications of the essay “On the Soviet Motherland” signed by him occurred. Readers well acquainted with the work of the satirist were incredibly surprised by this attribution - for many decades Zhvanetsky ridiculed the shortcomings of the Soviet state. It is not for nothing that after his death some communists wrotethat “Zhvanetsky’s contribution to the destruction of the USSR can hardly be overestimated.” And in post-Soviet times, the satirist was remembered for defending democratic ideals - for example, signed letter in support of Pussy Riot.

And the readers’ doubts turned out to be not groundless. In September 2021, at the forum of the newspaper “Zavtra”, which for some time collaborated with “Fifth Newspaper”, it was published appeal to the latest edition from reader Alexander Ermoshin. He's back in May posted in his blog, the above-mentioned article by Yu. O. Dmitriev from the Fifth Newspaper and was faced with numerous comments on the topic that the essay had nothing to do with Zhvanetsky. As Ermoshin now noted, “Dmitriev most likely took this text from the ‘all-knowing’ Internet, having placed too much trust in it.” The reader quite rightly noted that over the years the text appeared almost unchanged on different resources under different names, such as Alexander Mudrik, Alexey Krasny, Sinelnikov-Orishak, bizzarogist, Vladislav Surkov. You can add more to this list Petra Voikova.

However, none of these real and fictional personalities was the first, and some later denied their authorship. Before everyone else, February 21, 2017, text published user of the cont.ws resource under the nickname Echidny Douglas. Some time passed, and the essay began to be assigned, and then attributed to Zhvanetsky. On some resources Echidny Douglas has his own page where you can see his other works, making sure that it is his original style. In 2020, shortly after the text began to be massively attributed to Zhvanetsky, the real author even posted the following preface to my work: “Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, I wrote a post that almost instantly went to the people and gained popularity that was strange to me. All of Russia, or at least a significant part of it, probably read it. Several people unknown to me even claimed their rights to it, but this only makes me happy. This means that the text turned out to be correct, important and necessary.”

Thus, the essay “On the Soviet Motherland” has nothing to do with Mikhail Mikhailovich Zhvanetsky and belongs to the authorship of an anonymous user known as Echidny Douglas.

Cover image: Wikipedia.org

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