Наумлюк, М. В. Региональная литература Кольского Севера XX-XXI века в аспекте идентичности и мультикультурности. Страницы истории и современность / М. В. Наумлюк ; М-во образования и науки Рос. Федерации, Мурм. гос. гуманитар. ун-т. - Мурманск, 2013.

a cemetery by airplane” [Nex 0 , 1962, c. 292-300]. First impressions, the strong est ones, will be further corrected by complicated events in our history but the theme of “marvelous Murmansk” repeatedly appears in Nexo’s works. Europeans, being rationalist by nature, were surprised with fantasies of Russians that they aspired to bring to life. A Norwegian writer Nordhal Grieg who visited Murmansk in 1930s paid attention that in a wooden uncompleted town two large buildings were in construction - a power station and a theatre (a Palace of Culture, to be more specific). In his essay “Theatre and Life” Grieg writes that “all the country is plunged for very lust of culture. New theatres are appearing all over. In town and villages Art will talk to people, immortal with live”. In early 1920s Russian man sees the genuine sense of revolution in acquir ing of culture. For him culture is like widening his life horizons and contemplat ing of unapproachable beauty, like a source of his own growth. He will make his material living because he is used to labour and culture is a dream that came with revolution. Perhaps here, in the North, processes of growth and building a new life seemed especially impressive in the conditions of severe climate and primordial nature as a Russian man seemed full of physical power and strong spiritual energy, capable not only to survive but also to commit deeds. An outstanding German writer, avant-gardist and revolutionary Franz Jung was in Murmansk on May, 1, 1920. Together with a fellow of his they en tered a fishing vessel “Captain Schroder” and made the captain change the course and head for Murmansk because Germany communist party sent them to Moscow. The evening Jung spent in a Murmansk club, became for him an ex ample of collectivism ideas and human brotherhood. This is how he recollects it in his memoirs in 1961: “We arrived at Mur mansk on May, 1, 1920. There was blizzard in the port. We, Appel, Knufgen and I spent the evening of May, 1 at a Russian club in Murmansk. Just some weeks before Murmansk had been liberated from the English occupants. There was no food neither for the red, nor for the white, nor for the militia, nor for the commissars, nor for the government’s guests. When leaving, the Englishmen had totally destroyed all the supplies warehouses. It was terribly cold; I can see Murmansk, as if now, a pack of miserable huts with some stone houses between them. Seamen, port workers, peasants, loggers and people from the street, in one word a crowd of some hundreds of people was squeezed in a long shed. Russian people... There was no one who could speak with us. None of us knew a single Russian word. It was stuffy in the shed. The lighting was so poor that you could only see your nearest neighbor. And that was when the crowd started to sing. They sang “International”, a song about the red coat of arms and many other songs. In intervals the commissars gave short speeches and moved on to the next song that lasted for several hours. It became the greatest event in my life. That was what I had been search ing for and aspiring to since I was a child: motherland, man’s motherland. Al 87