Origins
Pushkin scholar Cherkashina comes from Volkovysk
Larisa Cherkashina, literary critic and historian of literature, is a leading Russian Pushkin scholar. She was born in Belarus, in Grodno Region. She often comes to different places of this Belarusian region full of blue rivers and lakes. She knows very well not only Grodno, but also Vitsebsk and Polotsk. Larisa Andreyevna follows the life of Belarus with interest. Our conversation with the Russian writer is about this, about different Belarusian addresses.
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— Larisa Andreyevna, your origins, your native land is in Volkovysk, Belarus. How close are you to Belarus! Do you often visit the places where you were born, spent your childhood? — Volkovysk is my favorite city. It’s my homeland, and it speaks for itself. The win‑ dow to the world. Along with the date of birth, Volkovysk is imprinted not only in my passport, but in my heart, no matter how pompous it sounds. When I am asked where I was born, I answer: in the same city with Cinderella. However, I have to explain that the wonderful actress Janina Żejmo, the best Cinderella on the screen, comes from my Volkovysk. And she visited Volkovysk just recent‑ ly, in February this year. Together with my brother, marine writer Nikolay Cherkashin, also a native of Volkovysk. On Zenitchikov Street there is still our house, made of stone,
Presentation of the Homer Diploma in Crete. On the right is the writer's brother Nikolay Cherkashin. Heraklion, 2019.
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it is more than a hundred years old. There is also a former military hospital, near Volya Street, where I was born. This memorable trip would hardly have been made if my brother and I hadn’t been invited to partici‑ pate in the 27th International Book Fair in Minsk, which was held in the framework of the Year of Our Small Motherland, de‑ clared in Belarus. My childhood was spent in Shchuchin, Slonim, Smorgon, Baranovichi. Father Andrey Cherkashin commanded the regi‑ ment, and we often moved to the place of his service. He “got acquainted” with Bela‑ rus during the Great Patriotic War, liberat‑ ed it from the Nazis — in February 1944 he was seriously injured near Vitsebsk. …I went to the first grade in Smorgon. Five years ago together with the broth‑ er I visited Smorgon and we were photo‑ graphed at our school, — the same-looking photo was made in those distant years in which I — the first grader, the brother — the third grader, are both in school uni‑ forms, with school-bags in our hands. It is kept in our family album. Before I did not know that I lived in such a historic city, especially famous for its resil‑ ience during the First World War. Famous writers fought near Smorgon: Mikhail Zos‑ hchenko, Konstantin Paustovsky, Valentin Kataev. The daughter of Lev Tolstoy, Al‑ exander, stayed as a sister of mercy on the battle positions. It is surprising that my own grandfather, Mikhail Romanovich Sokolov also fought near Smorgon in 1916… When my husband’s parents were alive, I often visited them in Polotsk. My fatherin-law, Pyotr Kupriyanovich Patsey, was a wonderful man: during the Great Patriotic
War he was the commissar of the partisan detachment; in his peaceful life he was the principal of the Polotsk Pedagogical College named after Francis Skaryna. He was awarded the title of Honorary Citi‑ zen of Polotsk. He was on friendly terms with many Belarusian writers and poets, in particular with People’s Poet of Belarus Grigory Borodulin. He had a large library and liked to read me poems in Belarusian. — You are engaged in literary studies. And you probably don’t deal much with Belarus… But maybe there are some binding threads in your work that are somehow connected with Belarus? — First of all, it is Alexander Ser‑ geyevich Pushkin, our Slavic genius. Sev‑ eral years ago I published a book “Pushkin travels. From Moscow to Erzurum.” There is a chapter on Belarusian Pushkiniana in it. — Larisa Andreyevna, while studying the life and work of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, do you pay attention to literary local history? — Yes, and I like it when ancient, figu‑ ratively speaking, prayed-in manors are transformed. Here’s an example. In the vicinity of the famous Boldino manor, where Alexander Sergeyevich spent three truly miraculous autumns, in the vil‑ lage of Lvivka there is an ancient house, which was inherited by Pushkin’s widow Natalya Nikolayevna, and then her eldest son Alex‑ ander. For many years this house was bare, uninhabited! And relatively recently it was decided to develop it into a branch of the me‑ morial estate and to house in it the Museum of Literary Heroes “Belkin’s Stories”: thus, a room of the count from the story “Shot” ap‑ peared — there is a real dueling pistol on the
