Murmansk: Norway-Russian literary soiree

First sunny spring days accompanied visit of II Literature Festival participants came to Murmansk. The conference hall of the central regional library was filled with people: students, university teachers, writers and ordinary readers, who came to learn more about contemporary world of literature.

A group of Norwegian novelists led by Kjartan Fløgstad and Helene Uri came to meet their Russian colleagues, tell readers more about their work and share great inspiration based on long-term Norway-Russian contacts in literature. Øyvind Norsletten, the Norwegian Consul general, invited to the meeting spoke about strength in our cultural friendship from his personal experience. “Despite of strong lack of paper novels of Knut Hamsund were extremely popular among Soviet readers - queues to the book shops started nearly at 06:00 a.m. And today I’m pleased by revive interest to the Norwegian contemporary prose”, - he said. 

Today our borders are more open and names of Norwegian writers become more familiar for Russian readers too. Kjartan Fløgstad - one of the most famous Norwegian writers of present day, presented a short overview of his latest works. His books are read and discussed in the Russian North. He is a brilliant intellectual who sees a combination of “seriousness” and “futility”, philosophically elevated and vulgar, eternal and routine aspects as necessary conditions for artistic world perception. From 1968 he tests his reader to a limit always giving him food for thought. The greatest response was drawn by his novel “Pyramid” written as a half-documentary essay. It is about a small Russian mining settlement found at Svalbard in total desolation. A new novel “Grense-Jakobselv” signs an absolutely fresh direction in his work. “I’m done with war this time, but as a civilization we’ll never recover from the bruises made by WW2. Not within my lifetime”,- says Kjartan Fløgstad.

What does it mean to be a woman in the Norwegian society? Helen Uri knows it better than anyone else. The author of 14 books translated into 16 languages Helene Uri became extremely popular in Norway for her sarcastic female approach. “Some criticize my books for weak male characters in comparison with arrogant women there. In fact not all of them so weak, but like to be manipulated”, - commented she twinkling. The first Norwegian campus novel “The Best of Us” (2006) was on the national bestselling lists for more than a year and provoked interest among Russian readers in Murmansk. 19 easy recognizable characters from Oslo University are involved in stories which are “fictional but possible to happen with them”, - comments Helene. Being a linguist she made her books a real language masterpiece.

Dmitry Korzhov, Murmansk novelist and poet, revealed his impression by the novel and regretted that couldn’t read its original Norwegian version. His new book “Murmantsy.1942” published in 2012 openes unknown pages of Murmansk history. It is another cross-point for two countries with decline of interest in past event.

Full house and great response from the audience proved the importance of such meetings for authors from the Barents region and their readers, and became a sign of stable friendly cultural contacts over the borders, on the other hand.