Alexander Prokhanov

Early life

Alexander Prokhanov was born in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, to which his ancestors, members of the Russian Christian "Molokan" sect, had been deported by Catherine the Great. His grand-uncle Ivan Prokhanov was a leader of the All-Russian Union of Evangelical Christians (1908–1928) and the one-time vice-President of the Baptist World Alliance who left the USSR in 1928 and died as an emigré.

In 1955, Prokhanov enrolled into the Moscow Aviation Institute where for the first time he started to write poetry and prose. After the graduation he worked as an engineer at a Ministry of Defense factory, then, in 1962–1964, as a forester in Karelia and the Moscow Oblast. In the late 1960s he started writing essays and reports for numerous magazines (Krugozor, Smena, Selskaya Molodyozh), later citing Andrei Platonov and Vladimir Nabokov as major influences.

Career

Prokhanov's short story "The Wedding" (1967) garnered some critical praise and is considered his breakthrough. Two years later, he was working for the Soviet newspapers, Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta. As a foreign correspondent, Prokhanov visited Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Angola, and Ethiopia, these assignments providing him with material for future literary work. Prokhanov was the first to report on the March 1969 events on Damansky Island during the Sino-Soviet border conflict.

In 1971, his first book I Am Going My Way was published. His literary mentor Yury Trifonov provided a foreword for it. Prokhanov later remembered: "He liked the expressiveness, experiments with language, the flow of metaphors, my naive youthful pantheism. ... But my first social-oriented novellas made him skeptical, his tone became tougher and he entrusted me with another patron, Vladimir Makanin, who was my good friend at the time."

In 1972, Prokhanov became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. In the mid-1980s, he was an active contributor to Molodaya Gvardiya, Nash Sovremennik, and the newspaper Literaturnaya Rossiya. In 1990, Prokhanov emerged as a candidate for the post of Literaturnaya Gazeta's editor-in-chief, but the staff ignored him, preferring Fyodor Burlatsky, Mikhail Gorbachev's protégé. In 1989–1991, Prokhanov worked as the editor-in-chief of Sovetskaya Literatura, a magazine published in nine languages in more than one hundred countries. Enjoying his reputation of a hard-line communist, he never joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In December 1990 (while still head of Sovetskaya Literatura), Prokhanov founded Den (День, Day), and became its editor-in-chief. Initially an organ of the Union of Soviet Writers, in the summer of 1991, Den moved under the patronage of the Union of Writers of Russia. Sporting the subheading "Organ of the spiritual opposition", it became arguably the most radical Russian newspaper continually challenging Boris Yeltsin and his team of liberal reformers. Regarded by Prokhanov as the "patriotic alternative" to pro-liberal, nomenclature-led Literaturnaya Gazeta, Den managed to attract authors from the conflicting flanks of the Russian opposition movement, united by their hatred of the liberal reforms but divided in their attitude towards Communism. Among them were ultra-nationalists, whose publications caused outrage, several Jewish organizations condemning Den as antisemitic.

Works

Prokhanov debuted with a short story collection I Am Going My Way (1971), starting out as a proponent of the Village Prose movement, portraying the life of the ordinary Soviet villagers obsessed with keeping the old traditions and customs going. "The theme of Russia and Russian people for Prokhanov is not a vogue, but part of his very soul; this young author's prose is incredibly sincere," Yury Trifonov commented in a foreword. It was followed by The Unburnt Blossom (1972), the collection of sketches from the Soviet country life, and The Grass Gets Yellow (1974), a collection of stories and novellas much in the same vein.

Prokhanov's first novel The Nomadic Rose (1975) dealt with the Soviet life in Siberia and Russian Far East which he had travelled over extensively by this time. The Time is Noon (1977), The Locale (1979) and The Eternal City (1981) continued exploring the technological progress versus nature theme.

In the 1980s, Prokhanov moved into the field of war and politics, using his vast foreign correspondent experience. The Tree in the Center of Kabul (1982), the Campuchea chronicles Hunter of the Isles (1983), the Africanist (1984) and the Nicaraguan epic And Then Comes the Wind (1984) formed "The Burning Gardens" tetralogy, all four novels characterized by dynamic action, over-the-top style of language and idealized, heroic protagonists. The Afghan War was the subject of his next two novels, Drawings of a Batalist (1986) and 600 Years After the Battle (1988).

Among Prokhanov's well-known work of the time were novellas "Polina" (1976), "The Unseen Corn" (1976), "By The Moon-Ray", "Snow and Coal" (both 1977), "Grey-Haired Soldier" (1985), and "The Armourer (1986), as well as short novels The Admiral (1983) and Lighter Than Asure (1986). Prokhanov's 1989 novella "The Muslim Wedding" brought him The Anton Chekhov Prize (for the Story of the Year).

According to critic P.V.Bekedin, everything that has been written by Prokhanov since 1991 goes under the heading "the literature of Russian resistance." The Last Soldier of the Empire (1993) told the story of the 1991 Coup and the demise of the USSR. Brown-Red (1999), a surreal portrayal of the nightmarish events of 3–4 October 1993, has been defined by Prokhanov himself as "the Catechism of resistance."

In the 1990s, Prokhanov made several journeys to Chechnya and a series of Chechen War-themed books followed, writer Yuri Bondarev calling The Chechen Blues (1998) the best book Prokhanov has ever written. "Filling those pages I felt like I was painting frescos, with soldiers as angels and saints, BTRs and tanks for horses and halos," Prokhanov said in an interview. It was followed by Those Marching Through the Night (2001), the novel on the second Chechen campaign, highlighting the author's belief that Russians and Chechens were two brother nations destined to live in peace and love but torn apart by enemies from abroad.

Political activism

A controversial figure, Prokhanov is seen in Russia by some as an original author sporting "a rare combination of postmodernist ethics and imperialist agenda," and by others as a purveyor of extremist nationalistic views which formed the ideological platform of Zavtra, the ultra-conservative newspaper he's been the leader of since 1993. Another Russian ultra-nationalist, Aleksandr Dugin, credited Prokhanov with being "the godfather of the New Russia opposition movement" even if deploring his refusal to take a more active part in it and choosing instead to back up political figures Dugin referred to as "the Staraya Square monsters".

In 1991, during the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic presidential election, Prokhanov worked for the campaign of General Albert Makashov, an ultra-conservative candidate. In September 1992, Prokhanov was one of the initiators of the National Salvation Front, of which— until April 1994— he was a co-chairman. In September 1994, as one of the organizers of the All-Russian Congress of Patriotic Forces, Prokhanov was among those who signed the petition demanding the President's resignation.

In July 1991, he signed the open letter, "A Word to the People", sometimes considered a program for the August coup makers. During the failed August 1991 coup, Prokhanov supported the State Committee on the State of Emergency. In the summer of 1992, Prokhanov formed the so-called "Day Movement", as an attempt to turn the newspaper's readership into a political movement.

On 4 October 1993, the Ministry of Justice of Russia ordered a stop to the editorial and publishing activity of the newspaper Day; its office was raided by OMON, archive files and property was confiscated, staff members were physically assaulted. On the same day, after the Supreme Soviet's defenders' defeat, Prokhanov went into hiding in the woods on the outskirts of Ryazan. A week later he managed to publish several issues of Den in Minsk. In November 1993, Prokhanov's son-in-law Alexander Khudorozhkov registered the newspaper Zavtra (Tomorrow). Prokhanov became its editor-in-chief.

In the 1996 Russian presidential election, Prokhanov supported the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov. In 1997, he co-founded the Agency of Patriotic Information. Twice (in 1997 and 1999), he was physically assaulted, the first of these accidents ending with him hospitalized, suffering severe concussion.

Personal life

A widower, he has a daughter and two sons. One is the journalist Andrey Fefyolov, who is a member of Zavtra staff. His other son, Vasily, contributes to Zavtra, as a photo correspondent.