Natalia Klyuchareva has been keeping it since February 24, 2022, throughout the first year of the major war. The entries reflect on what is happening within her and around her. In this book, published by Suhrkamp (translated by Ganna-Maria Braungardt), she portrays herself and contemporary Russian society.
Natalia Klyuchareva: Diary of the End of the World
Voice of a generation
42-year-old Natalia Klyuchareva has become one of the leaders of the Russian-speaking prose of the early 21st century. Her first novel, 'Russia: The Common Carriage,' and the story 'One Year in Paradise,' captured attention, with the latter receiving a literary award. The significant event was the novel 'Russia, the Common Carriage,' depicting a young nonconformist, seeker, and wanderer confronting the political regime. This debut novel by Klyuchareva has been translated into German, French, Polish, Serbian, Finnish, and Greek.
Natalia wrote prose, poetry, plays, engaged in teaching, and human rights work. Productions of her plays were staged in Moscow and the provinces. She is a member of the Russian branch of the International PEN, PEN-Moscow organization. At the same time, Klyuchareva split her time between Moscow and Yaroslavl, a city on the Volga River, 280 kilometers from the capital.
Two of her books were previously published in Germany, 'Endstation Russland' ('Russia, the Common Carriage,' 2010) and 'Dummendorf' ('Village of Fools,' 2012).
This year, she left Russia. Natalia now lives with her family in a small town in Bavaria.
Drama of personality and the agony of society
In the new book, published in German from the Russian-language manuscript, Klyuchareva 'with a keen ear maps the sphere of the unofficial in Russia. The Diary of the End of the World is a courageous testimony that provides us insight into the currently closed society.' Like paralyzing fear, shame, and horror settle within you, while life around continues as if nothing is happening. How people dare to take to the streets in protest, despite the threat of draconian punishment. And how protest dissolves, disappearing into an emergency. How the sufferings of Ukraine are experienced (or not).
And how language and spoken word come under pressure: how can people talk and communicate with each other in a country that bans the use of many words?
"What should I do when the only thing I know how to do is speak, and I can't speak?"
"Many Russians still haven't learned to think independently. Instead of their own brain, they turn on state television," explained the Russian writer in an interview with a German publication. But the opposition underground still exists, says Klyuchareva: "Critically minded people continue to secretly gather at home parties – private gatherings where they exchange opinions, read anti-war texts, stage anti-war plays, sing protest songs. Such events are still held today, although they always involve great risk." However, unfortunately, there are also "Russians who inform on others as their profession. Every day they expose people on the Internet, immediately report their suspicions to the police or the prosecutor's office, and then boast about their heroic deeds".
Document screaming to the Heavens
In Die Tageszeitung (August 26), reviewer Jens Uthoff is impressed by the diary of a Russian dissident that cannot be published in her homeland. Instead, it introduces the German audience to the views of regime opponents who, despite everything, have remained in the country. Uthoff reads about the internal tension that characterized the author's life, about how one can still defend oneself against the regime, but also about how to survive under a dictatorship.
Ilma Rakusa in Neue Zürcher Zeitung on October 11 noted:
"Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, Russian writer Natalia Klyuchareva has been keeping this diary for a year, and its publication by a German publisher meant that she had to leave Russia with her two daughters".
Thanks to Klyuchareva's tone, the critic can almost vividly feel the "emotional roller coaster".
The critic now holds a document "screaming to the heavens" - She reads about nightmares and fits of crying in silence, attempts at demonstrations with like-minded people, and state repression. She horrifyingly learns about the hatred propagated by state media, about the indifference and submission of Russian society.
