For the past week or so, a strange Hebrew word -- Azazel -- has emerged on bus stops and billboards around town, all part of an advertising campaign to raise anticipation for Sunday's television premiere of a grand project.
Its grandeur is not simply in its budget -- at least $800,000, about four times what a major Russian television channel would usually spend on 208 minutes of film -- but in its pretensions, voiced only half in jest, of giving Russia a new "national hero."
"Azazel" is a film based on the first in a series of elegantly written mysteries published under the pen name Boris Akunin. Set in the 19th century, the novels are styled after 19th-century literature and play with the historical and cultural myths deeply set in the Russian consciousness, yet they also ring with allusions to modernity: the tension between the individual and the state, Russia and the West, social progress and its victims.
"In memory of the 19th century, when literature was great, belief in progress was unlimited and crimes were committed and solved with elegance and taste," the first book's dedication said.
The main character of the series is Erast Fandorin -- a detective of incredible luck (he has many lives, as in a computer game), bright mind, supernatural intuition, a nobleman's honor, physical strength and patriotic devotion, yet not without human emotion and moments of weakness.
When "Azazel" first appeared in Moscow bookstores in 1998, its publisher, Igor Zakharov, said he could not reveal Akunin's real name because the author had a "serious reputation" in literary circles that he was unwilling to risk in an experimental literary game.
He could have risked it. The mysteries were a success, precisely because of what critics said was Akunin's ability to marry the new demand for entertainment fiction and the high literary standards of Russia's intellectuals.
When success was certain, Akunin revealed his true name: Grigory Chkhartishvili -- a translator of Japanese literature and deputy editor of Inostrannaya Literatura magazine.
The series has grown to about a dozen books, which have sold millions of copies and been translated into several languages, though not English.
Akunin also is working on two more detective series: one featuring a nun, Pelagiya, who investigates crimes in a provincial Russian town, and another about Fandorin's great-great-grandson who comes from England to today's Russia.
The television version of "Azazel" was conceived as a four-part series for ORT, but the station decided to show it in its entirety beginning at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. "We decided to give a present to our viewers," producer Djanik Faiziyev said at a presentation last week.
To preserve the film's atmosphere as much as possible, clips styled after 19th-century advertising will be aired before and after each commercial break.
As a part of the special project, even the channel's "Who Wants to Be a Milionaire?" quiz show on Sunday will be dedicated to Fandorin's era.
Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov has announced plans to dramatize another of Akunin's novels, "Statsky Sovietnik."
Akunin said he is the final stages of negotiations with Paul Verhoeven, the director of "Basic Instinct" and "Total Recall," for a Hollywood version of "Azazel."
"It was not easy, because for an unknown author I nitpick too much -- which is not customary there [in Hollywood]," Akunin was quoted as saying in the Gazeta newspaper on Thursday. "There are things that are very important for me, for example to keep control over Russian realities. I am terribly irritated by the way Hollywood treats other cultures. It is also important for me that my Fandorin is not turned into a completely different being -- for example, by changing his nationality, sexual orientation, etc."
In "Azazel," Fandorin, who begins his career as a young clerk in the police department, investigates a series of suicides and murders in which each killer says a myserious word -- Azazel -- before pressing the trigger or plunging in the knife.
All the usual ominous figures of 19th-century Russia are suspected: revolutionary terrorists, foreign spies and freemasons. But as usual in detective novels, things are not always as they seem.
Even the word "Azazel," it turns out at the end, is not "devil" as Fandorin had originally thought, but the Biblical Hebrew for "scapegoat."
According to the aprocryphal book of Enoch, Azazel was a fallen angel who taught mankind to make weapons, jewelry and mirrors, thereby introducing man to violence and vanity.
The television series was shot in 52 days in Moscow's old mansions and streets, in Prague (the English bit of the story) and at the Mosfilm studios.
Akunin, who worked on the screenplay in consultations with director Alexander Adabashyan, said he was ready to accept the TV interpretation of his book.
"Senior colleagues had warned me that the first dramatization is always painful," he said at last week's presentation.
"But when I saw the footage, I realized that I can live with it. It is no longer my story. It is something new -- a story told by Adabashyan."
At the presentation, Fandorin -- whose German ancestor, von Dorn, supposedly came to Moscow as a mercenary at the time of Ivan the Terrible, but who serves Russia selflessly -- was pitched as nothing short of a prospective "national hero."
"If he is a national hero, he would satisfy me much more than Danila Bagrov," said Sergei Chonishivili, who plays the role of reckless carouser Count Zurov.
He was refering to the thuggish character of popular movies "Brat" and "Brat-2" -- a modern-day murderer with some good ideals who nonetheless stops at nothing to save his criminal brother from other criminals or seek revenge against the American mafia for the mistreatment of a Russian hockey player.
"When a person speaks good Russian language and the concept of honor is present in his behaviour, it is already a good start to becoming a national hero," Chonishivili said.
Leonid Vereshchagin, the executive producer of Mikhalkov's TRITE studio, which made Azazel for ORT, said the idea of "human dignity" was prominent in the novel.
"He is a Russian intellectual, but not a contemplative one," Vereshchagin said. "If necessary, he can rip off your arm."
When Adabashyan compared Fandorin to Ivan the Fool -- the lucky but lazy character of Russian fairy tales, Ilya Noskov -- a young actor from St. Petersburg who plays the role of Fandorin -- came to his character's defense.
"Fandorin is a Russian character, but he is not Ivan the Fool," Noskov said. "He is very smart and possesses a fantastic intuition."
Akunin, however, shied away from grand pronouncements, saying only the audience can recognize a national hero.
"A strange picture is emerging," he said jokingly. "As if here sits some Caucasus mafia -- Faiziyev, Adabashyan, Chkhartishvili, Chonishvili [Azeri, Armenian and Georgian last names] -- trying to impose on the Russian people a man with a suspiciously non-Russian name as a national hero. I want to resolutely deny that!"
Its grandeur is not simply in its budget -- at least $800,000, about four times what a major Russian television channel would usually spend on 208 minutes of film -- but in its pretensions, voiced only half in jest, of giving Russia a new "national hero."
"Azazel" is a film based on the first in a series of elegantly written mysteries published under the pen name Boris Akunin. Set in the 19th century, the novels are styled after 19th-century literature and play with the historical and cultural myths deeply set in the Russian consciousness, yet they also ring with allusions to modernity: the tension between the individual and the state, Russia and the West, social progress and its victims.
"In memory of the 19th century, when literature was great, belief in progress was unlimited and crimes were committed and solved with elegance and taste," the first book's dedication said.
The main character of the series is Erast Fandorin -- a detective of incredible luck (he has many lives, as in a computer game), bright mind, supernatural intuition, a nobleman's honor, physical strength and patriotic devotion, yet not without human emotion and moments of weakness.
When "Azazel" first appeared in Moscow bookstores in 1998, its publisher, Igor Zakharov, said he could not reveal Akunin's real name because the author had a "serious reputation" in literary circles that he was unwilling to risk in an experimental literary game.
He could have risked it. The mysteries were a success, precisely because of what critics said was Akunin's ability to marry the new demand for entertainment fiction and the high literary standards of Russia's intellectuals.
When success was certain, Akunin revealed his true name: Grigory Chkhartishvili -- a translator of Japanese literature and deputy editor of Inostrannaya Literatura magazine.
The series has grown to about a dozen books, which have sold millions of copies and been translated into several languages, though not English.
Akunin also is working on two more detective series: one featuring a nun, Pelagiya, who investigates crimes in a provincial Russian town, and another about Fandorin's great-great-grandson who comes from England to today's Russia.
The television version of "Azazel" was conceived as a four-part series for ORT, but the station decided to show it in its entirety beginning at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. "We decided to give a present to our viewers," producer Djanik Faiziyev said at a presentation last week.
To preserve the film's atmosphere as much as possible, clips styled after 19th-century advertising will be aired before and after each commercial break.
As a part of the special project, even the channel's "Who Wants to Be a Milionaire?" quiz show on Sunday will be dedicated to Fandorin's era.
Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov has announced plans to dramatize another of Akunin's novels, "Statsky Sovietnik."
Akunin said he is the final stages of negotiations with Paul Verhoeven, the director of "Basic Instinct" and "Total Recall," for a Hollywood version of "Azazel."
"It was not easy, because for an unknown author I nitpick too much -- which is not customary there [in Hollywood]," Akunin was quoted as saying in the Gazeta newspaper on Thursday. "There are things that are very important for me, for example to keep control over Russian realities. I am terribly irritated by the way Hollywood treats other cultures. It is also important for me that my Fandorin is not turned into a completely different being -- for example, by changing his nationality, sexual orientation, etc."
In "Azazel," Fandorin, who begins his career as a young clerk in the police department, investigates a series of suicides and murders in which each killer says a myserious word -- Azazel -- before pressing the trigger or plunging in the knife.
All the usual ominous figures of 19th-century Russia are suspected: revolutionary terrorists, foreign spies and freemasons. But as usual in detective novels, things are not always as they seem.
Even the word "Azazel," it turns out at the end, is not "devil" as Fandorin had originally thought, but the Biblical Hebrew for "scapegoat."
According to the aprocryphal book of Enoch, Azazel was a fallen angel who taught mankind to make weapons, jewelry and mirrors, thereby introducing man to violence and vanity.
The television series was shot in 52 days in Moscow's old mansions and streets, in Prague (the English bit of the story) and at the Mosfilm studios.
Akunin, who worked on the screenplay in consultations with director Alexander Adabashyan, said he was ready to accept the TV interpretation of his book.
"Senior colleagues had warned me that the first dramatization is always painful," he said at last week's presentation.
"But when I saw the footage, I realized that I can live with it. It is no longer my story. It is something new -- a story told by Adabashyan."
At the presentation, Fandorin -- whose German ancestor, von Dorn, supposedly came to Moscow as a mercenary at the time of Ivan the Terrible, but who serves Russia selflessly -- was pitched as nothing short of a prospective "national hero."
"If he is a national hero, he would satisfy me much more than Danila Bagrov," said Sergei Chonishivili, who plays the role of reckless carouser Count Zurov.
He was refering to the thuggish character of popular movies "Brat" and "Brat-2" -- a modern-day murderer with some good ideals who nonetheless stops at nothing to save his criminal brother from other criminals or seek revenge against the American mafia for the mistreatment of a Russian hockey player.
"When a person speaks good Russian language and the concept of honor is present in his behaviour, it is already a good start to becoming a national hero," Chonishivili said.
Leonid Vereshchagin, the executive producer of Mikhalkov's TRITE studio, which made Azazel for ORT, said the idea of "human dignity" was prominent in the novel.
"He is a Russian intellectual, but not a contemplative one," Vereshchagin said. "If necessary, he can rip off your arm."
When Adabashyan compared Fandorin to Ivan the Fool -- the lucky but lazy character of Russian fairy tales, Ilya Noskov -- a young actor from St. Petersburg who plays the role of Fandorin -- came to his character's defense.
"Fandorin is a Russian character, but he is not Ivan the Fool," Noskov said. "He is very smart and possesses a fantastic intuition."
Akunin, however, shied away from grand pronouncements, saying only the audience can recognize a national hero.
"A strange picture is emerging," he said jokingly. "As if here sits some Caucasus mafia -- Faiziyev, Adabashyan, Chkhartishvili, Chonishvili [Azeri, Armenian and Georgian last names] -- trying to impose on the Russian people a man with a suspiciously non-Russian name as a national hero. I want to resolutely deny that!"
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Not ready to support today?
Remind me later.
Remind me later.
×
Remind me next month
Thank you! Your reminder is set.
We will send you one reminder email a month from now. For details on the personal data we collect and how it is used, please see our Privacy Policy.