Pavlov, Oleg Olegovich

After graduation, he worked, was drafted into the army and served in the convoy troops of the Turkestan military district, and was commissioned for health reasons ^[1] .

The literary debut is in many ways the autobiographical cycle of stories “Guardian Elegy”, published in 1990 by the magazine Literary Review : a story about the life of the zone, a view from the guard.

About what prompted him to write, Pavlov says in his autobiography: “Andrey Platonov spiritually influenced. It was influenced by reading Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, which was then open for reading by the New World, and came across a description of Karabas , the camp where he served ... ”

He was admitted to the Literary Institute and graduated from its correspondence department (prose workshop of N. S. Evdokimov ).

In 1994, in the magazine Novy Mir , he published his first novel The Treasury Tale, which brought the young author a great literary success and recognition of his elder brothers, “living classics” Victor Astafyev and George Vladimov . Released three years later, the novel Matyushin’s Case was criticized. The story of the camp guard who became a murderer, told with utmost psychological certainty, was perceived as a challenge to the “cultural society” with its new intellectual freedom and morality. What Pavlov wrote about before, caused a lot of controversy, although the writer was far from any ideology, calling only for compassion. Even earlier, Literaturnaya Gazeta published on its pages the story “The End of the Century” about those who “are doomed to death in modern society”. The story was based on a real case: while working in an ordinary hospital ^[2] , Pavlov saw with his own eyes how the homeless people who were brought from Moscow streets were killed in sanitation. However, the Christian pathos of his prose and journalism, exposing the world of human suffering to the utmost, sounded like a protest in which some saw a truthful testimony of life, while others saw it as a "black curse."

After the publication in 1998 of the newspaper Zavtra, the article “Total Criticism” ^[3] , in which Pavlov more than sharply spoke about those “who lacked talent, intelligence, and conscience to be artists, but who judge artists”, in the literary milieu, a re-evaluation of his work took place ^[4] .

The writer addressed autobiographical topics ^{[5] [6] [7]} . During these years, his stories “Dreams of Myself”, “Apples from Tolstoy”, the novel “Schoolchildren”, and the novel “In Godless Alleys” were published. The novel “Karaganda Nines”, published in 2001, became the new reason for disputes about his work, the final part of the trilogy “Tales of the Last Days” (translated into foreign languages ​​“Russian Trilogy”). For this work, Oleg Pavlov, by unanimous decision of the jury, chaired by Vladimir Makanin, was awarded the Russian Booker Prize. But the nomination of the writer for the State Prize was blocked.

As a publicist, after Solzhenitsyn, who published "Russia in a Collapse," in his very first highly social essays, Oleg Pavlov was not afraid to set himself the same task: "to capture what we saw, see and experience." Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn entrusted Pavlov with the publication and commentary on some of the letters addressed to his foundation in the early 1990s - and he saw and showed this tragic panorama of folk life in his work “Russian Letters”. These essays and essays are included in the books “Russian Man in the 20th Century” and “Gethsemane Time”. At the same time, Pavlov came forward with literary criticism, becoming the author of such works as The Metaphysics of Russian Prose, Russian Literature and the Peasant Question, and the collection Anticriticism.

But since 2004, the writer has withdrawn from participation in literary life, almost never published in the periodical press, and his name was surrounded by silence.

Only a few years later, his books began to be published at the Vremya Publishing House , in which the author's series Oleg Pavlov’s Prose has been published since 2007. After a long break in it in 2010, the new novel by Oleg Pavlov “Asystole” was released. According to critics, filled with many tragic situations in life, the novel causes an emotional shock, but nevertheless became one of the main literary events and attracted the attention of readers, having stood immediately several editions. This series was continued by the book “Diary of a Hospital Guard” published almost 16 years after writing - a chronicle of the admission department of an ordinary Moscow hospital, through which, as it is written in the annotation, “probably thousands of human destinies passed before the eyes of its author”.

Laureate of literary prizes of the magazines “ New World ” (1994), “ October ” (1997, 2001, 2007), “ Banner ” (2009).

In 2012, “for confessional prose imbued with poetic power and compassion; for artistic and philosophical searches of the meaning of human existence in borderline circumstances ”Oleg Pavlov was awarded the prize of Alexander Solzhenitsyn ^[8] .

In 2017, he was awarded the Angelus Literary Prize ^[9] , awarded to authors from Central Europe, whose work is dedicated to the topics that are most relevant today, to encourage reflection and deepening knowledge about the world of other cultures.

The writer's works were translated into English, French, Chinese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian ^[10] .

Member of the PEN Club (Word Association of Writers PEN Club). He taught at the department of literary mastery of the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky. ^{[11] He} died on October 7, 2018 at the 49th year of his life from a heart attack. A farewell to Pavlov took place on October 9 at 12:00 in the Hospital Church of the Holy Blessed Tsarevich Dimitry in Moscow.

• Steppe book. - SPb. : Limbus Press, 1998 .-- ISBN 978-5-8370-0213-7 .
• Treasury tale. - M .: Vagrius , 1999 .-- ISBN 5-264-00039-5 .
• Tales of the last days. - M .: Centerpolygraph , 2001. - ISBN 5-227-01543-0 .
• Russian people in the XX century. - M .: Russian Way , 2003. - ISBN 5-85887-166-6 .
• Anti-criticism. - Perm: Book World , 2005. - ISBN 5-93824-006-2 .
• In godless alleys. - M .: Time , 2007. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0094-7 .
• Steppe book. - M .: Time , 2008. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0316-X .
• Asystole. - M .: Time , 2010. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0553-9 .
• Gethsemane time. - M .: Time , 2011. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0651-2 .
• Diary of a hospital guard. - M .: Time , 2012. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0714-4 .
• Treasury tale. - M .: Time , 2012. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0773-1 .
• Matyushin’s case. - M .: Time , 2013. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0798-4 .

• Karaganda Ninths, or Latter-day Story. - M .: Time , 2013. - (The prose of Oleg Pavlov). - ISBN 978-5-9691-0838-7 .

• 1995 - New World magazine award
• 1997, 2002 - October magazine award
• 2009 - Award of the “Banner” magazine
• 2002 - Russian Booker Award
• 2012 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize
• 2017 - Angelus Award

• On the role of the writer in the life of modern Russia, confessional prose and “opposition writers” // Private correspondent , 2012
• Interview with Oleg Pavlov on the Inconvenient Literature Project , 2011
• “We Are Born for Suffering ,” Literary Russia , 2010
• “Books are silent friends ,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta , 2010
• Interview with Oleg Pavlov by the literary and philosophical journal Topos , 2005
• Conversation with T. Beck for the journal Literary Issues , 2003
• Interview with Oleg Pavlov to the Russian Journal , 2002
• Interview movie “Portrait of a Writer” , 2018

• Official site of Oleg Pavlov (Retrieved March 15, 2012)
• Publications in Russian literary magazines (Retrieved March 15, 2012)
• Oleg Pavlov - Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize Laureate (Retrieved May 26, 2014)