Whats Happened

Literary and political website of the writer
Dmitry Kosyakov

Recent updates

Translated to English my article about Russian rock band «Aquarium». It is part of the big work named «Rock-portraits».

Translation of a poem I wrote in 2005. I was religious back then. But I think that roots of my worldview remained the same.

Timothy Leary is a cult figure of the 60s. You can’t talk about rock music and counterculture without mentioning the “psychedelic revolution”, and you can’t talk about the “psychedelic revolution” without remembering Leary.

Along with the breaking out of the ideological and artistic framework of the folksinger movement, Dylan’s work became more formless, his position began to hide behind the colourful phrases and complexity of symbols and metaphors.
For example, in the song “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” Fedra and Rasputin suddenly pop up. What for? God knows. The author flaunts erudition and invites the listener to play a quiz with him — to guess what relation the listed characters have to the next lines of the song. Guessed? Well done. There is no need to draw conclusions — it’s time to move on to the next song...

The historians of «The Beatles» point to the Bob Dylan’s influence on «The Beatles», which was already noticeable in the 1966 Revolver album. George Harrison himself claimed that the four played his discs to the holes. But here we should take a closer look not at Bob Dylan himself, but at what is behind him. Bob Dylan is certainly a talented author, but he wouldn’t be so popular if he hadn’t responded to the problems that worried the youth, and if he hadn’t offered the solution to these problems that it (the youth) had already found for itself.

Modern russian society has divided into two large groups: one loves money, and the other — Stalin. Liberals (those that love money) also talk a lot about Stalin — as a dark and bloody devil. Like, if you do not want Stalin to come with repression, then love money. And the Stalinists speak of him as a light demigod, they say, since this demigod made repressions, it means that it was necessary.

So why did Stalin persecute?

Russian historian Vadim Rogovin answers…

As you know, the “magnificent four” appeared in Liverpool, a port city, because records of overseas stars got there faster. The Beatles, like other young Britons, imbued with American music and began to imitate Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, slowly seeking for their own style.

But the matter is not only and not so much in the Beatles themselves, as in the representatives of the British music business. They, of course, have long sensed that rock and roll smells like money, that it is gaining more and more popularity, and were jealous of seeing the flowering of American pop music. In this case, flowering is understood not as an increase in artistry, that is, of formal and substantive complexity, but as showiness and profitability – In fact, this is the essence of mass culture.

It was important for our generation. The first thing we asked a new acquaintance: “What are you listening to?” It was a way to distinguish friends from outsiders. Today there is no point in such a question: young people are listening to tons of music provided by streaming services and they are not able to choose their favorite musicians, not only because they often do not know their names, but also because the choice involves a hierarchy of values, a rejection of something. And this is contrary to the ideology of consumerism.

A short horror story, actually ripped out from my early novel «The Last Flight» and later added into my other novel «What’s Happened», which gave the name to this site.

Today we take our year-old dauhgter Ulyana to the playground in the nearby park. It’s really close and even can be seen from our window. But for her it is a true journey, so we take a pram with us…

A short love story taking place in Siberia.

It started in 2002 in one Siberian city. I was finishing my studies at a local university but still didn’t have a girlfriend. Although I had many friends and even obtained some authority among them, I still desperately needed to become someone’s property and to make someone my property in return. I wanted to get rid of my hated freedom.

A short story of mine about new smart technologies, digitalisation of our life and maybe about something else.

Russian linguist Dmitry Likhachov said, that after the revolution old russian orthography and culture as a whole had been «trampled upon and distorted by the enemy of the church of Christ and the Russian people».

Linguist gets an answer from the famous Soviet writer Yulian Semyonov through the mouth of one of his characters.