<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How are things with your empathy? Toward yourself, others, the world? Did this begin with COVID or the war? Can we try to piece this world back together? I\u2019m asking you specifically because I know for a fact that your books help do that. I don\u2019t really know what we can do with our books, pictures, toys \u2014 with our small, fragile hands. It\u2019s good that we have children, because for their sake, we\u2019re at least obligated to maintain the appearance of life. Whether we want to or not, there has to be food three times a day, a bedtime story. Clinging to that routine helps us hold on. I see how women \u2014 especially women! \u2014 manage to maintain the illusion of life. Maybe that illusion is<\/em> life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women come up with micro-projects, they knit, they sew. A good friend of mine in Germany started a project with Ukrainian refugees: they sew bags out of high-quality biodegradable Belgian linen. It\u2019s a complex, beautiful, and expensive concept. Everything is falling apart, and these women are weaving thin threads between countries \u2014 the bags travel to the U.S., Canada, Europe. Women are patching up the destruction, planting things in the ruins\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I probably can\u2019t say anything useful or inspiring here. I want to say: keep doing what you can, come what may. But for example, I haven\u2019t been able to write for four or five months \u2014 breaking contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I understand the war is the root of it, but can you describe what exactly has changed in you? Second \u2014 my image of the future fell apart. I used to write while envisioning the future. These children would grow up in 20 years, and I hoped they\u2019d live in a world I dreamed of for them \u2014 with open borders, mutual respect, and appreciation for differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve lost joy, but haven\u2019t we also changed how we perceive sorrow? Has the scale shifted? On one hand, you don\u2019t complain publicly \u2014 others have it worse, at least I\u2019m not being bombed. But in the scope of my small personal life, these are enormous losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sooner or later, the number of denunciations against me will cross a threshold, and my books and I will be banned in Russia. I\u2019m not labeled a foreign agent yet \u2014 but once I am, my books will disappear from the market. Oh dear, this is turning into quite the un-cheerful interview\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n There haven\u2019t been many cheerful ones in years, so we\u2019re on trend. Did you have many personal breakups or disappointments after the war started? And toward the end of the first year, the denunciations began. Reports to bookstore management, claiming Rupasova supports fascism, LGBT, childfree values, carries flags \u2014 which I rarely do, by the way. The denunciations weren\u2019t just offensive \u2014 they were painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you deal with that? What helped you get through? Have you thought about parallels between current emigration and pre- or post-revolutionary waves? Have you grieved not being able to go back to Russia? Turns out we were lucky \u2014 we lived through Perestroika, we had hope, we had the early 2000s, when we naively thought things were heading toward something better, something humane. But now \u2014 I don\u2019t know what young people and kids are supposed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we lived the prime of our conscious lives in hopes that didn\u2019t come true? That\u2019s the mechanism of ressentiment, basically. It\u2019s a chilling thought \u2014 but hasn\u2019t every generation gone through something like this? Like it or not, you start believing in karma. Have you always been an atheist? Let me ask something unrelated to the world \u2014 but directly related to you. How do you write? Do you dance it out? Walk it out? Or just sit down and go? Just yesterday, I told my husband I couldn\u2019t catch that emotional imprint for the new book. I\u2019ve started three times and scrapped them all. Last time, it came out of nowhere \u2014 one October morning I sat on the balcony with coffee, and boom. I wrote the whole book that month. It\u2019s already out \u2014 under a pseudonym, because I don\u2019t want to be declared a foreign agent yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That feeling always leads the way, whether it\u2019s a poem or prose. A strong emotion starts swirling \u2014 and you pull out a poem or a book. I miss that feeling terribly. I need it. I\u2019m under contract. Some publishers have already paid me. And inside me \u2014 silence. Total silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you can\u2019t lure that feeling out? I even thought about going on a retreat \u2014 but I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll spend all that money and come back with nothing. I don\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You probably know that concrete void \u2014 when you look inside and ask, \u201cOkay, what do you want? Let\u2019s talk.\u201d And there\u2019s not even silence in response \u2014 there\u2019s no one there. For religious people, I think that\u2019s what they call godlessness. It\u2019s the same with creativity \u2014 at least for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And with illustrators \u2014 does there also need to be a shared feeling? Since we\u2019re talking about children. Your son is growing up. Is it hard to start loosening the reins? But then I see him act sensibly, and I\u2019m happy again \u2014 another piece of responsibility lifted from me. I grieve, I rejoice. I suppose that\u2019s how it should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beloved contemporary children’s poet and author Masha Rupasova hardly needs an introduction. It seems there\u2019s hardly a Russian-speaking child today who doesn\u2019t recognize the line: “What were you doing, Grandma, in the days of your youth?” Rupasova spoke to us about the painful search for meaning in a frightening new world. The conversation turned out to be sobering, yet surprisingly uplifting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":46299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"type_post":[184],"column":[],"class_list":["post-46298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60110,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46298\/revisions\/60110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46298"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=46298"},{"taxonomy":"column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/column?post=46298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>A friend of mine, a Canadian-Israeli, told me about a book by professor Gad Saad on “suicidal empathy.” Maybe we all need to read it. Because this feeling that you\u2019re responsible for absolutely everything happening, this nonstop 24\/7 empathy over the course of years \u2014 it really does something unhealthy to your mind. It certainly did to mine. So right now, I\u2019m once again trying to read fewer news stories \u2014 not to stay ignorant, but so that the news doesn\u2019t become the entirety of my life. Every time I get to the point of needing to see a doctor, I also arrive at the thought: maybe I should take care of myself a little, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I think the war. During COVID there was still hope \u2014 that things would soon get better. Now, we already know that even if it ends, it won\u2019t get better anytime soon. We\u2019ve learned too many heavy truths about the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I\u2019ve heard that \u2014 people have told me to my face. A year ago, Nastya Izyumskaya invited me to the “Man in Search of Meaning” conference. Honestly, I felt lost then, because I myself was searching for meaning. I couldn\u2019t work, my health had collapsed to the point that I admitted myself into a clinic. The only thing I could do was read aloud some passages from my new book The Wonderful Transformations of Marya Petrovna Utkina<\/em>. Afterward, listeners wrote to me saying it felt like they\u2019d visited an old world, where things were still okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I\u2019ve thought a lot about that over the last three years. You know, I used to produce three to five books a year, plus a couple of plays. Now, at best, one or two books come out. There are a few reasons. First, I stopped feeling joy. And a children\u2019s author can only write from a place of happiness. You can write sad books, but the base emotion still has to be joy. I have little moments of joy \u2014 just enough for daily life, but not for books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Oh yes, the scale changed so much that for the first couple years, I didn\u2019t react to my own life at all \u2014 and that\u2019s not healthy. I\u2019ve even thought about creating a private community for people who feel ashamed to complain. We\u2019ve lost so much too. People often accuse me of saying things from safe Canada, but even here I\u2019ve experienced losses from this war. I can\u2019t go back to Russia. I haven\u2019t seen my mother in five years, and she\u2019s aging. I was too afraid to travel to my stepfather\u2019s funeral last year. I left loved ones without support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>For the last three years, I\u2019ve lived in constant fear. The first year was especially hard \u2014 I just sat and howled. And people come to interview you secretly hoping that a children\u2019s writer has found the answer. I was listening to Katya Shulman on YouTube, and she said: \u201cWe\u2019re bombarded with information and powerless to change anything, and people with consciences feel responsible for everything.\u201d Then she added, \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know what to do with that.\u201d I thought, well damn \u2014 if even Shulman doesn\u2019t know, what hope do I have?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Surprisingly, no. Anyone who wasn\u2019t solid probably fell away back in the Crimea days. I lost some readers, and that hurt a lot. I guess I also disappointed some of them. I openly supported Ukraine, gave interviews saying Russia was wrong. Some readers \u2014 maybe ten or so \u2014 took the trouble to write and tell me how disappointed they were. They even sent photos of my books in the trash. That hurt. I thought \u2014 guys, you know me as someone who cared about our shared future. I\u2019m not a fascist or a killer. But that\u2019s precisely what disappointed them. That was a real loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Nothing helped. I just stewed in it. You can\u2019t forget it when you see the denunciation with your own eyes. What struck me most was the lifeless, bureaucratic TV-language of the reports. Half-trash, half-official \u2014 the kind meant to appeal to some official who speaks that same dead language. And there\u2019s nothing you can do. Just accept and keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Yes. There\u2019s definitely something in common. The losers are forced to leave. I think we\u2019re a wave of the defeated, unfortunately. Maybe we had a chance \u2014 if Russia lost the war. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen. The world won\u2019t let Russia lose. So things will only get worse. There\u2019ll be nowhere for us to return to. It looks like this will go on for twenty more years. And in twenty years, our children won\u2019t go back \u2014 their home will be elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Oh yes. That grief has become part of me, part of my structure. I have a good memory \u2014 I can recall every cherished place, and I \u201ctravel\u201d there in my mind often. Maybe the repetition dulls the pain. I grieve more for what didn\u2019t happen \u2014 the future we lost. The Russia we could\u2019ve had. The children now being bombarded by propaganda. The future that awaits them. That\u2019s what brings me pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Yes. And now I understand how my parents\u2019 generation felt. They had their hopes, a stable life \u2014 then everything collapsed when the USSR fell, when Perestroika began, and everything went \u201cmarket.\u201d When people started criticizing the USSR, they felt like it wasn\u2019t just the state being devalued \u2014 it was their lives. Now they support this whole greatness narrative to reclaim that worth, both for themselves and for the country. In their minds, they are<\/em> the USSR. I get it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Which we\u2019ve now lived through ourselves. All the books we wrote, projects we started, the charity work \u2014 it feels like it was all for nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Yes, I think so too. Maybe this place is some kind of anomaly \u2014 a tectonic fault. I\u2019m an atheist, so I don\u2019t have any explanations. Just psychological ones, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Probably. My grandmother tried to raise me in the church \u2014 she was a Seventh-Day Adventist. But she never really got me interested. Intellectually, I understand faith. But emotionally \u2014 it\u2019s empty for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Vera Polozkova described it well \u2014 like making cotton candy. Inside, something starts spinning \u2014 not images or ideas, just an emotional imprint. I never have a plan or idea, but I get a very clear feeling, and the text has to match it. Once that feeling arrives, the book is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I\u2019ve tried, of course. Maybe stop eating sugar? More cardio? Walk more? Sleep more? Drink coffee? I\u2019ve tried to hack it \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t hack. Now I\u2019ve cut out all cheap dopamine: no social media, no reels. I\u2019m rereading old books \u2014 Ilf and Petrov right now. Still not working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>These days, I lose interest in the text pretty quickly \u2014 it starts living its own life. With the early books, I wanted to protect them, to have the illustrations match my vision. But artists are individuals \u2014 they do their thing. In the end, the illustrator becomes a co-author. The text is like a child \u2014 it has its own relationships: with the artist, the publisher, the editor, each reader. You can only influence it as much as you can a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Sometimes I think \u2014 what luck that I\u2019m already so ready for an empty nest, I even count the years until he leaves for college. Then he throws away the last of his toys \u2014 and I feel sad. I see this chapter of our life ending. My little boy will only live on in my memory. His babyhood and childhood matter now only to me and his dad. And when he wants that part of himself again \u2014 thirty years will have passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n