The conflict situation in Gymnasium No. 168 in St. Petersburg between the director and the teacher was caused by their personal hostile relations, and not by a lesson dedicated to the work of the repressed poets Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky. So say the staff of the gymnasium, students and experts interviewed by Izvestia.
Earlier, on February 6, teacher Serafima Saprykina wrote on her social network page that in December 2021, the director of the gymnasium, Svetlana Lebedeva, demanded that she resign after she gave a lesson dedicated to Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky. According to Saprykina, Lebedeva called the poets “enemies of the people.”
The teacher-organizer of gymnasium No. 168, who was present at this conversation, told Izvestia a different version of events.
“Conversation with her [Сапрыкиной] was that in the week when the counteroffensive near Moscow was celebrated, when the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland was celebrated, she held a so-called flash mob. She was told: this is not the time, it is not necessary to do it now. That’s all. She was told: either you will understand what they are talking about, or before the end of the school year you have a choice whether to stay or leave, ”the teacher-organizer of the gymnasium told Izvestia.
Izvestia also managed to talk to a schoolgirl who attended that lesson.
“Seraphim read poetry, asked our opinion. We discussed poets, everything was very nice. I don’t understand why our administration reacted like that,” the tenth grader said.
According to Izvestia’s interlocutors, the public’s fears that, at the initiative of school principals, a “purge” of authors who are undesirable from the point of view of the Soviet authorities of the 1937 model may begin is not justified.
“To perceive this situation in such a way that in St. Petersburg they are fired for quoting Kharms is simply ridiculous,” said Alexei Tsivilev, deputy of the legislative assembly of St. Petersburg.
The chairman of the coordinating council of the All-Russian public organization “Association of Teachers of Literature and the Russian Language” Lyudmila Dudova recalled that the works of Daniil Kharms are included in the school curriculum for elementary grades, and the work of Oberiut poets (members of the Association of Real Art – OBERIU, which included Kharms and Vvedensky) studied in 11th grade.
The expert emphasizes that the director’s personal opinion about certain writers does not matter.
Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov said that the department is checking the situation and believes that “the teacher should be fully restored in his rights, continue to work with children.”
Read more in the Izvestia article:
TragiHarms: did poetry cause the dismissal of a teacher from St. Petersburg
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
