N. L. KRYLOVA, S. V. PROZHOGINA. GENDER ASPECTS OF CONFLICTS. COLLISION OF EPOCHS AND CULTURES THROUGH THE EYES OF RUSSIANS IN AFRICA AND NORTH AFRICANS IN EUROPE, MOSCOW: Institute Of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2010, 410 p. (Gender Studies, vol. 11)

The book under review consists of two independent studies: N. L. Krylova - " The clash of cultures in the space of socio-family relations. Russian-African precedent "and S. V. Prozhogina -" The fate of the Maghreb in the crossing of times (literary evidence)". They are united by the introduction "From the authors", which expresses a common belief that "the resolution of the main contradictions of the modern world (the clash of civilizations, geopolitical and religious wars, etc.) today, as well as yesterday, largely depends on the worldview and attitude of women - the main creators of human life" (p. 7).

I want to immediately object to this statement: "women are the main creators of human life." It seems that both parts of the book speak not least about how the position of women - in the moral, legal and other spheres-depends precisely on the worldview and worldview of men, who act as "the main creators of life", i.e., the conditions of existence. Men can turn the life of even a loving and beloved woman almost into hell, especially when they do not try to help women get involved in unusual, new specific socio-cultural conditions of existence in the case of interethnic marriages (which does not remove the responsibility for women's unwillingness to first familiarize themselves with these conditions) or when, in the face of a fierce ideological struggle, to realize their new post-colonial identity, they completely forget about the fate of their even militant friends in the struggle for liberation from colonialism and often re-incarcerate a woman in a " small prison "in the face of an"invasion of new barbarians".

In the introduction to her work, N. L. Krylova states in the first sentence that the conversation is about family relations, "which are based not on family, but on the personal, independent choice of the participants in this process" (p. 11). Such an independent act "in many ways hardens and tightens the situation in the space of socio-family relations", which is typical for any marriage - monoethnic marriages sometimes cannot do without a" clash of cultures " (if culture is understood in a narrower sense). Although the family is the place where people are most willing to invest their efforts in trying to achieve a tolerant and sometimes creative balance between individual freedom and development, on the one hand, and long - term comfort and security, on the other, nevertheless, the author states, conflict-free families do not exist.

N. L. Krylova examines a unique phenomenon in Russia (which was manifested in the period of the USSR's existence), when for several decades Afro-Russian interracial mixing occurs at the level of socio-family ties. The phenomenon is not widespread, but its decline, according to forecasts,is not expected. In the cases under study, the conditions of development and organization of the family, its reproduction at the socio-cultural level "are" burdened " almost necessarily by-

the problem of interaction between spouses as representatives of different cultures, who find themselves in a completely new cultural and civilizational space through racially mixed marriage" (p.13).

The study of a group of problems related to the phenomenon of conflict in a multi-racial family required new approaches. Research "from the outside", the author writes, i.e. the use of data from multidimensional statistics, legislative framework, and similar materials without research "from the inside" of the studied cultures, does not help to understand "an adequate perception of the Eurasian consciousness of the Russian woman of the culture of being in the regions of the border plan, such as Africa" (p. 13). Naturally, the peculiar in each individual case stereotypes of behavior, strictly defined norms of relations between the collective and the individual, including those that secretly exist in all areas of life and everyday life, are perceived in each ethnic group as the only possible way of communication, and "for members of the ethnic group they are not burdensome", because they appear as " an ideal, the only worthy imitations" (p. 14).

The so-called ego texts are the most vivid and expressive evidence of human intentions, aspirations and often contradictory counter-demands of life - individual, almost intimate author's recording of elements and nuances of everyday life. The use of informatively sound and reliable auto-documentary evidence (biographical, epistolary, diary, etc.) is also associated with the desire to get rid of the ideological burden of many sociological constructions and categories. In fact, the history of any person and their family is only partially unique. "The study of a single particular case allows us to take a deeper approach to the study and understanding of common problems associated with the existence and life of a family that, to one degree or another, fuses common characteristics and distinctive features, potencies and weaknesses of two different civilizations through cultural skills and cultural memory of its ancestors" (p.15). I agree with the statement that "the analysis of only one numerically small social group with high representativeness makes it possible to see and describe many global problems and models of society as a whole" (p. 14). Equally, the study of such sources allows us to "look into the authors' own cultural past in order to see and understand its connection with the present." An example of such ego texts is that which makes up a quarter of the work (pp. 150-200). An appendix consisting of a series of poems and a prose work by a certain Alina A. (widely quoted along with materials from other interviewees and respondents and in the text of N. L. Krylova's work).

In chapter 1, the author does not deny "the presence of some common sense" in the stable scheme of motives of Russian women who decided to link their fate with African men, which is accepted in practical circles (dealing with issues of marriage with foreigners), although he recognizes this scheme as "strongly ideologized"; it is noted that there are no strictly fixed criteria for motivating such marriages or any otherN. L. Krylova has conducted many personal conversations and informal interviews with our compatriots permanently residing in Africa, employees and volunteers of the Public Charity Foundation for Helping Children from Racially Mixed Marriages "Metis "(established in Moscow in 1999 as part of the Union of Charitable Organizations of Russia). employees of African missions accredited in the Russian Federation, as well as interviews, meetings and conversations with African students about the incentives for Africans to marry Russian women. The collected information in the aggregate allowed N. L. to: Krylova argues that the real variety of motives that motivate women to such a marriage "weakly correlates with official positions on this issue, on the one hand, and with stereotypes that have become established in the everyday consciousness of our compatriots", on the other (p.18).

The author focuses on the " romantic syndrome "(p.19), or" complex of romantic infantilism " (p. 21), which is a consequence of both hereditary factors and socio-political, general social attitudes of the cultural microenvironment in which a person socializes. Romanticism is defined by psychologists as "first of all underestimation (or extremely underestimated assessment) of the situation, which does not allow us to see a broad and real perspective" (pp. 21-22). However, "for many of the informants, Romanticism became a "breeding ground" when forming a decision to connect life and build a family with a representative of a different race, " and this reason gave rise to "a sense of their own discomfort in a foreign cultural environment" (p.19). I will add that the presence of this motivation does not exclude practical motivations based on mercantile attitudes.

N. L. Krylova once again emphasizes an important problem (developed in more detail in her previous works): the future "environment" as a powerful social and psychological factor often remains out of sight of the Russian wife of an African, which often turns into a "time bomb". And basic knowledge and skills in this area can be obtained at home, which would greatly facilitate the civil, social and psychological fate of a Russian woman in a new place of residence and, "perhaps, the marital selection in this group of marriages would become more thorough and verified" (p.47).

Noting that the probability of marital conflicts in mixed interethnic and multi-racial families may be higher than in monoethnic families "not complicated by different cultural practices in the marriage dyad", N. L. Krylova concludes that " not all conflicts are destructive. For any conflict is a clash of different interests, as a result of which a mutually acceptable solution to any problem may well be developed" (p.132).

The "field materials" collected and analyzed over many years give the author reason to believe that the majority of women who have been in mixed marriages for more or less a long time "have a state of integrated biculturalism (highlighted by N. S. Krylova - E. S.), which means an active presence in both cultures, in social and political life. homelands and countries of permanent residence, flexible formal communication... but at the same time, it may not accept in depth the needs that are rooted in the culture of a person close to it" (p.132).

The paper notes the presence of" toxic provincial xenophobia"," shocking and demoralizing", representatives of Africa in Russia. And as a reaction to this phenomenon-the emergence of "rebellion against one's own race" as one of the other motives for interracial marriage choice, studied by E. L. Nitoburg on the example of "black and white marriages" in North America.

Interesting observations of N. L. Krylova are that most of the Russian wives of Africans come from small industrial cities, urban-type settlements, villages, villages, and first-generation urban women who came to the city in search of work, study, etc. Those who have passed the city "selection" must necessarily have the necessary data for a more or less painless adaptation to the conditions of the new environment, the manifestation of signs of increased activity and sufficient social potential that allows them to quickly adapt to new forms of communication and behavior, including matrimonial.

The author traces a number of fates of Russian women who married Africans. These destinies were very different: some were able to make a significant contribution to the development of a new homeland, make a brilliant career in the scientific, public or business spheres, others are the guardians of the home, someone independently builds their own life and shapes the fate of Mestizo children without the participation of their husband both in Africa and in the United States. In Europe or at home; there are also "those who have put on the veil and mastered the oldest profession in the world."

"The great variability and even unpredictability of the ways and means of integrating the individual into the life of another society obliges him to make many sacrifices necessary for laying on the altar of marriage, happily "adjusted" to a unique - only for two - "psychophysical constitution"! " concludes N. L. Krylova (p. 147). And it is hard not to agree with this conclusion of the author. Because the freedom given to us in modern society to choose our life path (including the choice of a marriage partner), without a sense of responsibility to ourselves and to the people with whom we enter into any kind of relationship, not only does not lead to the expected results, but often simply ends tragically.

* * *

S. V. Prozhogina's work begins with an introductory and in a certain sense generalizing chapter "Gender differences in Maghreb literature as special types of artistic space and social conflict". First of all, the author notes that " the very artistic creativity of the French-speaking Maghrebians, which originated among the autochthonous intelligentsia, managed to get a bicultural education in the bowels of colonial society... It was based on the French (rather than Arabic) narrative tradition, where women themselves, novels, and short stories about them were given a prominent role." And the first Maghrebians, who have already become classics of national Maghreb literature, "created their best works about a woman [mainly about the Mother], sometimes making her a symbol of their country, its long-suffering history, resistance to oppressors, but more often condensing in her all the pain of social contradictions and conflicts" (p.203).

The author states that the image of the Mother perfectly corresponded to the image of the Motherland, especially during the growing struggle for independence, during which identity and independence were often understood as a set of certain patriarchal foundations and religious traditions that are not subject to evolution and progress, excluding any invasion of the "alien". But it should also be recognized that " it is precisely this invasion as a penetration into the consciousness of the Maghreb people of the very possibility of Another life in all its manifestations already in the era of French colonization... and after the collapse of the colonial system, an understanding of the need for change and openness burst into a new reality... The West, its concepts of civil rights and freedoms of the human person forced writers to concentrate in the image of a Woman both the energy of a person's breakthrough to escape from the" prison " of the old world and the pain of breaking through, meeting with the New World, losing old illusions, the pain of finding "new chains" and living only in anticipation of Freedom... " (p. 204). After all, "progress (as a transgression of the ban on the perpetuity and inviolability of the female lot) in the era of colonization, with all the separation of the European and Muslim environment, inevitably "knocked on the door", stood on the threshold of the House, persistently offered a Woman to "cross" it, go to school, get a different Knowledge of Life, see the advantage of another civilization, emancipating from the shackles of Tradition, old customs and views that believe that it is precisely ignorance, ignorance of a Woman, that is almost equivalent to the very concept of her "Purity"" (p. 206).

And the most courageous crossed this threshold, including taking up a pen to " tell about themselves, their fate, the difficulties of moving to a new world, the inevitability of breaking with the generation of fathers and mothers. This "women's problem" itself, passed through the prism of the female gaze and the female soul, remains almost unchanged to this day in the prose of Maghrebin women. In contrast to the definition of "women's" literature as "ladies ' needlework", which exists with a certain ironic connotation, the author shows the most inherent features of female writers ' attitude and worldview, which are clearly manifested in their work and make their works so significant. But despite all the tension and even drama of the conflict between "internal" and "external", expanded to the confrontation between "one's own" and" another's", which sometimes ends, especially in the works of Maghrebin women born in the West, even with the death of the heroine, "women's" literature, unlike men's about a woman, "is devoid of pathos of denial of the environment." the world order, the condensation of political meaning in the demand for the need for one's liberation and the sharpening of the symbolization of the fate of the whole society by one's fate" (p. 207).

The author notes the main opposition in terms of gender differences in modern Maghreb literature, which is manifested not least in the fact that " if male writers continue to combine women's disenfranchisement, women's lack of freedom with the unrighteousness of the world order, the power that reigns in the country, with the disenfranchisement of the entire people, with the trampled justice and freedom, then women themselves persistently they persistently try to find a real way out, to leave, to hide, to leave, finally, to radically change their lives, to adapt to another world, to break out of the chains of tradition that condemns them to seclusion and ignorance " (p. 208).

The surge of" women's " literature both in the Maghreb and in Europe among the North African emigration and among the second generation of immigrants (the so-called Bers) at the end of the 1970s and especially in the last two decades of the twentieth century was quite paradoxical, the author notes. But at the same time, it is quite natural, because "the focus of the stagnation of internal conflicts in Muslim society is women", who managed to take advantage of " albeit meager, but the gifts of independence... they tried to express themselves " (p. 209).

The author sees differences between the works of a whole galaxy of contemporary Maghrebin women writers born in France and the works of Maghrebin women living in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, despite the common language used. However, "the question of whether Bers, who are already practically integrated into Western society and have closely linked their work with its problems and their existence in it, belong to the "minority" part of French literature (both ethnically and aesthetically) or to the Maghreb proper, which develops on the "other side of the sea", remains open". The answer is possible, according to S. V. Prozhogina, only "based on the specific and even individual characteristics of the creative aspirations of the authors" (p. 211).

Based on the large array of analyzed literary works of migrants, S. V. Prozhogina concludes that they often differ both "in terms of problems and mood." In addition to the "motives of nostalgia for the lost homeland," protest and rebellious sentiments are strong, " associated with the rejection of their almost aggressively declared "Frenchness" by Western society, "difficulties in socialization, and" socio-psychological climate (distrust, neglect,

and sometimes chauvinistic sentiments on the part of the "native" French towards the Arabs)." The internal contradictions of the Western world order, its political system, problems of character and the way of integration by the "accepting"society are rejected. However, it is also necessary to note a certain "nurturing"of the Berov literature into the French culture proper, which today is acquiring a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional "composition" " (p. 212).

The author emphasizes that there are also certain gender differences in the literary works of migrants. Berok children are brought up in families where " the eastern world, the world of the patriarchal family, cannot finally fit into the context of Western society." However, the process of real socialization of "berok" is much more successful, partly due to the fact that they are more in demand in ordinary, low-skilled jobs. And in his works, Burke " focuses precisely on the moments of collision, the incompatibility of Eastern traditions of life, preserved by emigrants and immigrants, with the norms of the republican structure and morality of French society." Because " the power of the father and brothers-the guardians of eternal religious prohibitions and foundations - remains unshakable and surrounded by a completely different system, "and this" constantly pushes women themselves to transgress the sphere of the forbidden, "which is fraught with a" crisis of generational relations " and sometimes ends in tragedy. According to the author, the works of women differ markedly from the" male " literature by showing "internal diseases" of the immigrant community itself, which often lead to actual integration conflicts in the bowels of the Western world " (p. 213). This seems to be a very important point.

No less important is the author's conclusion that it is in the" women's " literature of migrants that the problem of self-identification (cultural, social, national) of immigrants first appears and continues to be studied. At the same time, the feeling of oneself between two worlds ranges from crisis - eternal doom to "immigration", "nobody's land" and even "outcastness" to "equal belonging" to both of these worlds. The author finds a life-affirming "vector" in the work of those writers who are aware of their already accomplished assimilation (in the society where a person lives) and hope that the generation of their children "will build a new, necessarily bright and joyful world" (p.214).

The main body of S. V. Prozhogina's work is devoted to a thorough and very informative analysis of specific works of Maghreb literature, which provides a detailed confirmation of the conclusions made in chapter I. The material of this part of the work is grouped under the headings of the main topics that concern writers, and therefore society: "Wounds of the past "(with subsections "The Law of the Fathers", "Mourning for a Muslim woman", "Modern barriers of tradition"), "Battle for the Future" ("The War for Independence", "The Need for a Reminder"), "Battle with the Tread of Time "("Resisting the Onslaught of" alien "Changes") and"Drama of the Present" ("Arrows of Islamism"and" Does Light Shine in the Dark?"). The epigraph prefixed to the entire work is particularly relevant to this part of it:

 
 
 In flashes of celebration - 
 A cruel epiphany, 
 The end of illusions, the return of melancholy. 
 But the sailors are stubbornly waiting for rescue 
 On a journey where there is no end, 
 Beacons don't shine... 
 
 

In the chapter "Instead of a conclusion" with the subtitle "The fate of a Muslim woman: on the Lord's Plan and human intent", S. V. Prozhogina writes that during the period "scorched by the fire of one of the most protracted anti-colonial wars", the appeal of Algerian writers to the poetry of Paul Eluard, one of the brightest French poets, whose name is inextricably linked with the era of Resistance. But even half a century later, Eluard's poetry again often precedes the iconic works of Algerian modern prose, being the "main intonation" of a number of works, "especially characteristic of women writers" (p. 357). Once again, the theme of the sea sounds in literature- " a symbol of free space, the breath of hope... the thirst for happiness, the thirst for freedom for a man, but especially for a woman" (p. 358).

The author explains his choice for the Appendix (pp. 378-407) of some samples of modern Algerian prose by the fact that they capture a special consonance with the era about which our political scientists, our sociologists, and literary criticism, which almost completely forgot Algeria at the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI century, were mostly silent or wrote little.

I did not find the author's reference to the canonical Islamic texts convincing enough (pp. 363-366). People of my generation are well aware that even the more familiar but canonical texts of Marxism-Leninism allowed irreconcilably opposite interpretations, which was manifested in the ideological struggle both within our country and on a global scale (recall the so-called revisionism of some Western communist parties). In addition, it seems that religious dogmas do not play a significant role in interreligious confrontations: the sticking point in so-called interfaith conflicts is not the question of faith as such, but the question of values.

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