Eduard Limonov very clearly felt Russia, understood it perfectly.
There is such a unique property of inseparability from it, inseparability.
No matter how life beats or throws, there was no pose of bitterness and vindictive despair, but, on the contrary, even greater ingrowth and empathy.
From this arises a special prophetic gift, which is the cross.
Foresight.
And the writer just knew everything in advance.
He knew that it would be exactly like this, or that there would be nothing at all - only a draft and a growing emptiness.
All these are absolutely unique human qualities.
For example, they were fully manifested by the Russian thinker Alexander Zinoviev, whose path in many respects echoes Limonov's.
Despite the fact that Limonov was a literary loner - that is, the leader who goes ahead, he has a certain affinity with the writers of the soil.
For example, on the very eve of Gorbachev’s perestroika, Valentin Rasputin writes his story “Fire” - about a flame that “started in such a place that, having ignited, burned without a trace,” indicating an “evil accident” or intent.
About the disunity of people involved in extinguishing, many of whom do not even care about the destructive flame, they only care about themselves and about themselves.
Rasputin called the time of perestroika "carbon monoxide", when people experience an unprecedented clouding of their minds and they lose their common sense.
In the same way, Eduard Limonov, arriving in perestroika Moscow, immediately gives an accurate diagnosis of everything that is happening: he hears the howling of the beast of decay, released to freedom.
He crawls out of the dense snows and is about to "trample and devastate the country."
This monster was awakened among the people by seductive demons promising "sausages and tights in exchange for souls."
Or offering that notorious can of Bavarian beer...
In the epilogue of the book "A Foreigner in the Time of Troubles", Limonov's hero tells his woman a fairy tale "about a strong and powerful people", who, in the absence of a "real muscular enemy", got bored and began to listen to alternative voices telling the whole "truth" about his life and being and history.
He listened so much that he came to the conclusion about his depravity.
This nation began to perceive its history as unjust violence and a chain of crimes.
In addition to external forces, educated people, the intelligentsia, showed incredible zeal and diligence in this rethinking or twist.
As a result of this crisis of the “mental sphere”, the people “ceased to be Great”.
Because he believed in a lie and began to live by it, and also began to "strive for abstract sterile justice."
Troubles will continue to fall to his lot, and he himself will become smaller,
He observed and described how, in front of everyone's eyes, the very history of the country turned into a synonym for crime.
An unprecedented and destructive experiment was carried out to instill historical nihilism, through which people were torn away from their country.
There was an instillation of false ideas, other people's thoughts, and under this mute, the viruses of destruction stormed.
Limonov not only identified and ascertained them, but also pursued, sought to strike that he was a fighter.
His trips to hot spots are not accidental: from Transnistria, the former Yugoslavia to the burning Donbass.
This is not a search for thrills, but a kind of pursuit of that very beast of decay and split.
This is because Limonov was genetically and inextricably linked with a great style, with a great country - a native of the great era of post-war titans.
Again, this is not an exaggeration formula: there was something special at that time, something completely unique in people who, through victory, were transformed, rose above their human nature.
And Limonov watched all this, absorbed it, and could not betray in any situation.
Even then he wrote that "the revisionists of the whole world" would "try to push the Russian people out of the war, out of victory."
Slander him.
He also watched how the gradually destroyed large country turns into the image of our "Ancient Rome".
But it's not about nostalgia.
Not that the page of history has been turned, but that Russia itself is becoming lethargic, "dozing off in the cool."
That she fell asleep "without dreams", remains without any understanding of her prospects, goals and objectives, the image of the future.
Therefore, he called out to her: “Go!
Intervene!
Beast!"
As now Alexander Prokhanov calls: “Russia, mother, my beloved soul, bristle!”
Eduard Limonov can in many ways be called a "cursed hero."
This is a formula from Zakhar Prilepin's novel "Sankya", applicable to a follower of a political writer.
This very “damned hero” is ready for any form of self-sacrifice, he thinks not so much in terms of the individual, but in general, of the same soil.
He always goes first, sees many orders of magnitude ahead.
Already in the troubled nineties, he calls for the return of Crimea, for the protection of compatriots, opposes the nationalist infection and the cult of dough that devours everything around.
Why and was perceived as not from this world.
Freak.
But history, unlike its interpreters, is an extremely objective judge.
Quite a bit of time has passed, and much that Limonov spoke and wrote about is beginning to be realized.
And what is especially symbolic, the date of recognition of the republics of Donbass was combined with his birthday.
That is what he fought for.
In history, nothing just happens and any rhymes are extremely important and significant.
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Eduard Limonov was not a dreamer and an abstract thinker.
He, like the same Alexander Zinoviev, perfectly understood that sooner or later Russia would return to its real self.
That the veil of darkness will fall from her eyes.
That her very social regeneration will happen.
That its general civilizational logic will be continued, that, no matter how you drop the roly-poly, it always rises.
What will begin to gather around itself ruined and scattered, that the desire for unity in it is stronger than any split.
It has long been noted many times that literature in Russia directly influences the course of history.
Shalamov also blamed the titans of the 19th century for the misfortunes and sorrows that befell Russia in the 20th century.
We can also say that, for example, Alexander Solzhenitsyn twice influenced the course of national history.
The first time was the "Gulag Archipelago", and the second time - "Russia in a collapse."
The life and work of Eduard Limonov is the same book.
It is lasting, unfolding, it contains the pulse of national civilization.
And the same great era, and "our ancient Rome."
But the main thing is an active faith in the restoration of historical Russia, in the fact that it will again become a magnet, organizing integration processes around itself, that it will not leave and retreat, but recognize and protect.
That her heart will again work for expansion, that the features of that very great era will manifest themselves in the present,
Russia is back.
Limonov, gone to eternity, goes parallel with it.
And in the liberated Donbass, a street named after him must certainly appear.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.