Approximately two years ago, the thick tome «Традиция и футурошок: Образы не нашего будущего» (translated as “Tradition and Future Shock: Visions of a Future that Isn’t Ours”) by Askr Svarte (Evgeny Nechkasov) arrived in the mail. It was a privately circulated manuscript whose first readers both seriously and jokingly called it “the most dangerous book in the world.” The package came with very specific instructions: “Burn this book after you read it.”
Now, two years later, the book’s selected readers in Russia continue to burn it, often in ritual, whereas in the West it is publicly available from PRAV Publishing since February. I am not ready to offer any full interpretation of this peculiar contrast, but I can share the intuition that there is something mysteriously symbolic in this: in Russia, such a radical book is read, assimilated, and burned in full consciousness, whereas in the West it is freely available on the market (for now), yet who is actually ready to read it , much less with the imperative of fire in mind?
Alexander Dugin once wrote: “I don’t think books are created just so that they must be read. Some books are simply sweet to have, some are for shredding, some are for tossing, some are for avoiding. Texts, thoughts, phrases, languages, and dictionaries are forests and fields of ideas, numerous populations, and figures…Books are like frozen birds, they want the fire of our eyes, but you never know who wants the fire of our eyes…Wooden artifacts, the fumes of sacred beech, the shafts of poisonous yew, bushes of lines…These are dangerous things…"
In our materialistic, destructive age of cancellations and book bans, it is curious and initiatic to think about burning our own books. Do we even remember what it means for a book to be written and published?
Now, two years later, the book’s selected readers in Russia continue to burn it, often in ritual, whereas in the West it is publicly available from PRAV Publishing since February. I am not ready to offer any full interpretation of this peculiar contrast, but I can share the intuition that there is something mysteriously symbolic in this: in Russia, such a radical book is read, assimilated, and burned in full consciousness, whereas in the West it is freely available on the market (for now), yet who is actually ready to read it , much less with the imperative of fire in mind?
Alexander Dugin once wrote: “I don’t think books are created just so that they must be read. Some books are simply sweet to have, some are for shredding, some are for tossing, some are for avoiding. Texts, thoughts, phrases, languages, and dictionaries are forests and fields of ideas, numerous populations, and figures…Books are like frozen birds, they want the fire of our eyes, but you never know who wants the fire of our eyes…Wooden artifacts, the fumes of sacred beech, the shafts of poisonous yew, bushes of lines…These are dangerous things…"
In our materialistic, destructive age of cancellations and book bans, it is curious and initiatic to think about burning our own books. Do we even remember what it means for a book to be written and published?