Other Voices : Three Centuries of Cultural Dialogue between Russia and Western Europe [1 ed.] 9781443827904, 9781443826440

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Other Voices

Other Voices: Three Centuries of Cultural Dialogue between Russia and Western Europe

Edited by

Graham H. Roberts

Other Voices: Three Centuries of Cultural Dialogue between Russia and Western Europe, Edited by Graham H. Roberts This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Graham H. Roberts and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2644-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2644-0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Images ............................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Conventions................................................................................................ ix Introduction: Beyond the Hermitage Graham H. Roberts ...................................................................................... 1 Part I: Perspectives Dumas in Russia and the Caucasus: The Myth and its Contemporary Echoes J. Douglas Clayton..................................................................................... 10 “A Successful Failure”: The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia (1880-1890) Irina Kantarbaeva-Bill ............................................................................... 26 Leont’ev’s Views on France and Great Britain Danièle Beaune-Gray ................................................................................ 44 Russia, East Asia, and the Search for the “Real Europe”: Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrey Bely Susanna Soojung Lim................................................................................ 55 Part II: Comparisons The Reference to the Year 1793 in A Tale of Two Cities, Ninety-Three and The Devils Sarah Boudant ........................................................................................... 76 The Other as Object of Desire: The Representation of Female Beauty in Works by Ivan Bunin and Marcel Proust Galina Subbotina ....................................................................................... 94

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Table of Contents

Part III: Influences French References in Soviet Painting of the 1920s and 1930s: The Example of the Creation of Members of “The Society of Easel Painters” Cécile Pichon-Bonin................................................................................ 110 The Power of Darkness: Tolstoy Rewritten by John McGahern Bertrand Cardin ....................................................................................... 138 Renata Litvinova: Femme Fatale or Tragic Heroine? David Gillespie........................................................................................ 152 Part IV: Encounters An Alsacian Pugachev: Karamzin’s Parallel Conception of History in Letters of a Russian Traveller Rodolphe Baudin ..................................................................................... 166 The Year 1812: The Discovery of What Kind of Other? Maya Gubina ........................................................................................... 178 Merezhkovsky, Blum and Petit: An Impossible Relationship Anna Pondopulo ...................................................................................... 189 The Russian Diaspora in the Context of French Culture: The Correspondence between Lev Shestov and Boris de Schloezer Olga Tabachnikova.................................................................................. 203 Contributors............................................................................................. 236 Index........................................................................................................ 240

LIST OF IMAGES

8-1 Sterenberg, Red Still Life, 1916, oil on canvas, 90x70 cm, priv. coll. 8-2 Sterenberg, Herrings, 1917-1918, oil on plywood, 58.5x66.3cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 8-3 Sterenberg, Still Life in Orange, 1916, oil on canvas, 135x65 cm, priv. coll 8-4 Sterenberg, Still Life with Biscuits, Soap and Sponge, 1919, oil on canvas, 46x61 cm, Russian Museum, St Petersburg 8-5 Sterenberg, Still Life with Sweets, 1919, oil on canvas, 106.5x84 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 8-6 Sterenberg, Aniska, 1926, oil on canvas, 197x125 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 8-7 Sterenberg, The Kolkoz Brigade during a Break from Work, 1931, oil on canvas, 123x99 cm, Russian Museum, St Petersburg 8-8 Goncharov, Interior. At the Piano. 1934, oil on canvas, 106.7x125 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The present volume brings together essays written by members past and present of the British-French Association for the Study of Russian Culture (known across the Channel as L’Association franco-britannique pour l’Étude de la Culture Russe). I would like to thank previous and current co-presidents of the Association for their support for, and encouragement of, this project. I am especially grateful to Peter Barta for his very helpful comments and suggestions on the penultimate version of the manuscript.

CONVENTIONS

The Oxford Slavonic Papers system of transliteration has been followed throughout. Russian names are transliterated throughout, except in the case of tsars, which are translated. Thus “Alexander I” is preferred to “Aleksandr I”.

INTRODUCTION: BEYOND THE HERMITAGE GRAHAM H. ROBERTS

“I’m French,” he says. “My name is Diderot.” “And I am Catherine, Russia,” she says, “the Hermit of the Hermitage. May I welcome my dear librarian to the place where one day his books will come to rest for all eternity.” “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty, that was truly my most wonderful piece of fortune. My pension and my Posterity. How happy I felt when you promised me that. I knew I should be happy even when I was dead. I took my lute down from the wall and sang a lovesong to you.” “My good fortune too,” says the Empress Autocratrix of All the Russias, Tzarina of Kazan and Lady of Pskov. “Never did I think by buying a man’s dusty library and letting him continue to use it I’d win so many compliments. Tell me, how do you like it, my Palais d’Hiver?” “It’s exactly as I expected,” our man says. “I do believe I dreamt it once.” “But you only dreamt, I built,” she says. (Malcolm Bradbury, To The Hermitage)

One of the paradoxes of globalization is that one can forget just how thriving local cultures are today. The corollary is also true, however; it is easy to overlook how much dialogue there has been down the ages between geographically relatively distant societies. Highlighting the quantity—and quality—of this exchange between Russia and Western Europe (primarily, but not exclusively, Britain and France) is the chief objective of the British-French Association for the Study of Russian Culture. The Association, now in its eleventh year, brings together scholars from the English and French-speaking worlds and Russia. It holds two conferences per year, one in the UK and the other usually in France, at which papers of a comparativist nature are presented. The present volume

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includes a selection of papers from a number of recent conferences, alongside specially commissioned pieces. Section one, entitled “Perspectives”, contains contributions which focus on how representatives of one culture, either British, French or Russian, have viewed the other. J. Douglas Clayton, for example, looks at the way in which the myth of the great French writer Alexandre Dumas père spread in Russia. As he points out, Dumas is without doubt one of the most popular foreign authors in Russia—no mean feat, when one considers how widely read in foreign cultures most Russians tend to be. Yet, while he is revered at least as much today in Russia as in France, it is essentially as a novelist. It is richly ironic that one of his works that is not so well-known in Russia is in fact his Journey to Russia, and its companion volume, Journey to the Caucasus. Another paradox is that whereas what Clayton refers to as the “cult” of Dumas the novelist has a decidedly Soviet ring to it—owing to his critical attitude towards the Russia of the Romanovs—it can actually be traced back to his plays which dominated the Russian stage in the 1830s. If, as Clayton maintains, Russians are both enthusiastic towards and sceptical of Dumas père, this is hardly surprising, given the Frenchman’s ambivalent attitude towards Russia itself. Another nineteenth-century traveller of note—and note-taking traveller —was the Reverend Henry Lansdell, who explored Asiatic Russia between 1880 and 1890. In her chapter, Irina Kantarbaeva-Bill examines how this self-styled “gentleman traveller” became deeply attached to the colossal Russian Empire and its people. Describing the adventures of this remarkable explorer, missionary, philanthropist, zoologist, botanist and geographer, she demonstrates the importance of Lansdell’s personal contribution to the opening-up of many hitherto unknown areas of Russia and China, specifically as the land of the Other. Scathingly dismissed as insignificant by many of his contemporaries, Lansdell’s spiritual sojourns through Asiatic Russia may, as Kantabaeva-Bill adroitly demonstrates, be reconsidered as a highly successful endeavour into the Empire’s Oriental borderland. While his romantic philanthropy may have been motivated by the naïve belief that control of Eurasia would ensure mastery of the globe, his intellectual curiosity and humility can only serve to inspire those of us committed to enhancing dialogue and understanding between different cultures. Like Lansdell, Konstantin Leont’ev (the subject of Danièle BeauneGray’s chapter) was an intrepid traveller, spending time as Russian Consul General in the Middle East. Two countries in which he never set foot, however, were France and Great Britain. Nevertheless, he knew a great

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deal about both states, not just from his readings in French and English literature, but also from his education as a Russian aristocrat. A dyed-inthe-wool monarchist, Leont’ev believed that France had lost its very soul in 1789, since this was the moment it had embraced the democratic ideals of moderate liberals and socialists. As a result, he maintained, the country had declined inevitably into a hopeless mediocrity, in which the hegemony of the middle class now threatened the very existence of the French state itself as an independent entity. Leont’ev’s deep disdain for much of contemporary France was in sharp contrast with his unbounded admiration for Great Britain. While the Russian nobility had, in his view, been ruined by the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Britain still had its House of Lords. Victorian Britain was for Leont’ev a land of intelligent conservatism and an exceptional brand of modern liberalism which guaranteed the country both power and dignity. Such might ultimately rested, however, on the very bourgeois activity of commerce and trade, a fact which left the country vulnerable to German military might. Despite his aristocratic leanings, Leont’ev ultimately emerges from Beaune-Gray’s depiction as a man for our own time, warning as he did against the loss of national identity in a federated Europe, or predicting the heavy environmental cost of the industrial revolution. He can also be considered, as Beaune-Gray points out, as the father of the Eurasian movement, which has recently re-emerged in postSoviet Russia. Leont’ev shared with Vladimir Solov’ev and other Russian Symbolists an admiration for Catholic discipline. In her article, Susanna Soojung Lim demonstrates how Solov’ev’s “Pan-Mongolism” dominated the Russian modernist, fin-de-siècle perception of East Asia. Solov’ev’s notion of China, as expounded in texts such as “China and Europe” can be seen as the culmination of a Russian line of thinking going back to the 1840s, according to which the mysterious and alien “other” of China and Japan was indistinguishable from a more familiar and contemptible “other”, namely the West. Russian fear of the Far East at the dawn of the twentieth century constituted a part of the “yellow peril” discourse widespread in Europe during that period. At the same time, however, it reflected conservative Russian hostility and criticism towards European modernity. At the heart of Solov’ev’s “Pan-Mongolism”, as Lim astutely observes, lay an idealized vision of a European past, for which the younger Symbolists in particular pined, and against which they set both modern, “decadent” Europe and the Far East. This is most clearly seen in one of the most important Russian novels of the twentieth century, namely Andrey Bely’s Petersburg, as well as in Bely’s Berlin memoirs.

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After a first section containing chapters which focus on how these different cultures have viewed each other, the contributions to part two are more explicitly comparativist in nature. In her chapter, Sarah Boudant focuses on the year 1793, one of the bloodiest of the French Revolution. While never reductivist, Boudant’s close reading of three canonical nineteenth-century novels clearly shows that there are interesting similarities in the ways in which Dickens, Hugo and Dostoevsky each allude to events of 1793. More important still, however, is the fact that they do so in order to address problems affecting their own particular time and place. In the case of Dickens’s “roman noir”, it is the injustice of Victorian society, with Hugo it is the dual threat to the Third Republic posed by Prussian military might and the Paris Commune, while for Dostoevsky, it is the wave of political and social unrest that swept through Alexander I’s Russia in the 1860s. The French Revolution, and specifically the mythical year of 1793, is thus placed in a broader, European context, without which it cannot be understood. While Boudant’s focus is on three exponents of nineteenth-century realism, Galina Subbotina, on the other hand, looks at two important representatives of early twentieth-century modernism. Her comparative study of Proust and Bunin is illuminating in many respects. As she points out, both authors have suffered at the hands of critics too eager to view their fiction as thinly veiled autobiography. The question of precisely where and when the young Marcel tasted his first madeleine, for example, has been the subject of many heated critical debates. More importantly, as Subbotina demonstrates, both writers attempted to understand the mystery of female beauty, and to recreate such beauty in their fiction. If for both Proust and Bunin, love is the basis of the most important type of relationship with the other, both men consider the description of beauty to be the ultimate challenge for a writer. Like Hugo, Dickens and Dostoevsky before them, Proust and Bunin also look to the past. Their romantic aestheticism stems from a quite different desire, however, one which is reactionary, rather than revolutionary. It is none other than the attempt to resist the decadence and degradation of modern life, to refuse the reality of modernity. In their attempt to achieve such an (impossible) goal, both writers deliberately and systematically blur the distinction between the real and the mythical. The chapters which make up part three all look at ways in which Russia and Western Europe have influenced each other. As Cécile PichonBonin suggests, cultural dialogue in the sphere of the visual arts in the inter-war period appears to have been especially rich. Pichon-Bonin writes from the perspective of an art historian, and demonstrates the complex

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relationship between French artistic movements such as Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism, and the artists of the early Soviet period who often reinterpreted them in interesting and original ways. In particular, she explores the unique position occupied by Sterenberg, using various techniques of composition, colour and texturing in an attempt to produce painted objects, rather than paintings of objects in the real world. PichonBonin show how the work of this key member of the Society of Easel Painters lay somewhere between the multi-faceted, fragmented objects of French Cubism and the stark white void represented by Malevich’s Suprematism. Sterenberg encountered many difficulties at the hands—and the collective pen—of Marxist critics in the late 1920s and 1930s. He nevertheless remained true to his principles, and especially his French references, throughout his career. This is demonstrated both by the presence of Fauvist features alongside neo-primitivist traits in his commissioned work of the 1930s, and in his sustained polemic with former members of The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia over the necessity of copying the best features of Western art. Comparison with other Soviet artists who changed direction in the 1930s such as Pimenov also helps us to grasp more clearly the nature of artistic debates in this most troubled decade. In the end, Western art was rejected as “bourgeois”, but not until ideological and conceptual ambiguity had enabled much of it to survive as a viable aesthetic reference for artists of Soviet Socialist Realism for practically the entire 1930s. Pimenov’s canonical “The New Moscow” serves as a case in point here. Only in late 1939, after the signing of the Molotov-Rippentrop Pact and the consequent rapprochement between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, was French Impressionism finally consigned by the Party to the dustbin of history. Pichon-Bonin convincingly cites this as yet further proof of how inefficiently the Soviet censorship machine functioned. Her other major contribution is to show that in the field of visual arts at least, the 1930s represented both a continuation of, and a departure from, the previous decade. Such tension between continuity and rupture is also very much present in John McGahern’s play The Power of Darkness, the Irish novelist’s first dramatic work, based on Tolstoy’s play of the same name. McGahern’s rewriting of Tolstoy’s drama is the subject of the chapter by Bertrand Cardin. As Cardin demonstrates, the rewriting involves both translation and adaptation. The question arises, however, as to whether McGahern simply transposes a Russian play to Irish soil, or rather recreates the original text, as he himself claimed. As Cardin points out, McGahern’s dialogue with Tolstoy’s play involves all manner of transformation. The

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result is at once a socio-political melodrama and what Cardin cogently describes as an incestuous palimpsest. “Palimpsest” is a term which could easily be used to describe the output of Renata Litvinova, “one of the most creative and provocative talents in Russian cinema since the collapse of the Soviet Union”, as David Gillespie observes. Present throughout her writings, both her screenplays and her prose fiction, is the figure of Marguerite Gauthier, the heroine of Alexandre Dumas’s 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias. In his chapter, Gillespie analyses how Litvinova reworks the story of “Rita”, time and again updating her to the harsh realities of modern Russia. At once “femme fatale” and tragic heroine, this most multi-talented of artists becomes nothing less than a Marguerite Gauthier for post-Soviet Russia. Above all, perhaps, the three centuries of cultural dialogue between Russia and Western Europe have been driven by actual physical encounters. It is such meetings which are the focus of the fourth and final section of the volume. Rodolphe Baudin, for example, looks at Nikolay Karamzin’s experience of revolutionary violence in Strasbourg in 1789. As he demonstrates, the Russian writer’s interest in the rebellion of an adventurer claiming to be the Count of Artois can be explained by the fact that it reminded him of the Pugachev rebellion fifteen years earlier, something which he had witnessed at first hand. What is especially noteworthy is the fact that, as Baudin observes, the narrative and semiotic resemblance between the two uprisings—two impostures—confirmed Karamzin’s belief in the universality of mankind and the equality of all civilizations. Crucially, the fact that the ersatz Count of Artois could be seen as an “Alsacian Pugachev” was enough to convince Karamzin of Russia’s status as a fully European culture. The categories of “us” and “the other” are thus very slippery, at least for Karamzin. In her chapter on Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812, Maya Gubina points out just how porous these concepts were for entire sections of Russian society in the early nineteenth century. This was hardly surprising, given the fact that the Russian nobility in particular were so steeped in French culture that they learnt Russian as a foreign language. Gubina demonstrates how the attitude of the French, who positioned themselves as adversaries of the Russian state, threatening its integrity and its very existence, undoubtedly had the effect of forcing the Russians to ask themselves questions about their own identity. In particular, Gubina examines the rhetorical devices used by Russian observers of the Emperor’s occupying force to affirm the alterity of the French. At the same time, she shows through a careful reading of fascinating historical documents that the enemy within, the internal “other” embodied in the

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muzhik or an ethnic minority was feared by many far more than the “foreign” invader. The Russia of 1812 emerges as a deeply divided society, in which class and ethnicity was as much a determinant of identity as nation was. A case of “plus ça change”? Be that as it may, few can doubt that Napoleon’s invasion stimulated debate in Russia on the issue of national identity, on the vexed dual question of “us” and “them”. Exactly a century after 1812, Dmitry Merezhkovsky contacted the French politician and theatre critic Léon Blum, with a view to having his play Paul I produced on the French stage. The exchange was made possible by Sof’ya Balakhovskaya and Eugène Petit, both of whom were politically active in France and Russia, and were close to Russia’s Socialist Revolutionary Party. In her chapter, Anna Pondopulo looks at the very different ways in which these political and cultural ties between the two countries were regarded by the socialist Blum on the one hand, and the anti-Bolshevik Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius on the other. In doing so, she poses a number of important questions. How did political ties contribute towards the creation of cultural links between Russia and France at the beginning of the twentieth century? What part did politics play in the interest which Russian men and women of letters demonstrated towards France? And to what extent did those networks already in existence when they emigrated to France meet their needs and expectations? Pondopulo’s answers to these and other questions demonstrate the limits of cultural dialogue between Russian and French intellectuals in the 1910s. Her chapter also helps us understand why certain groups of Russian intellectuals paradoxically sought to distance themselves from Western Europe on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Revolution of 1917 is the historical starting point for Olga Tabachnikova, in her chapter on the correspondence between two Russian émigrés in Paris, Lev Shestov and Boris de Schloezer. In 1920, just three years after Lenin’s coup d’état, Shestov, one of the most fascinating thinkers of Russia’s Silver Age, left Russia for France. While there, he developed a particular brand of philosophy that had much in common with Sartrean existentialism. As Tabachnikova observes, he also influenced the French perception of phenomenology, and as such can be said to have had a significant impact on twentieth-century French thought. Boris Schloezer, literary critic and Shestov’s translator, also emigrated to France in 1920, settling in Paris where he took an active part in French intellectual life (unlike most Russian émigrés), contributing to French journals such as La Nouvelle Revue Française. The private correspondence of these two men, between 1923 and 1928, offers invaluable insight into Russian émigré life

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and the French cultural scene during one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century. At the very end of that same century, the British novelist Malcolm Bradbury wrote To The Hermitage, which contains a fictionalized account of the meeting between the writer Diderot and the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, following her acquisition of the Frenchman’s library. Bradbury’s novel is not just a story about the meeting of great minds, however; it is also testimony to the fact that cultural dialogue between Russia and Western Europe goes on (indeed, as a work of fiction produced by a Briton, about a Frenchman’s visit to Russia, it embodies that very dialogue). As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the need for such exchange is as great as ever. It can only flourish, however, if we destroy the cliché, go, in other words, beyond the Hermitage. If this book contributes to that process, it will have achieved its main purpose.

PART I: PERSPECTIVES

DUMAS IN RUSSIA AND THE CAUCASUS: THE MYTH AND ITS CONTEMPORARY ECHOES* J. DOUGLAS CLAYTON

Alexandre Dumas père can without exaggeration be called one of the most popular foreign authors in Russia. Throughout the Soviet period his historical novels have appeared in large editions and were indispensable reading for Russian children, who are very likely to have read The Three Musketeers, Queen Margot and other historical romances as part of their upbringing. (Dumas the dramatist appears to be unknown to present-day Russians despite the early popularity of his plays: romantic melodrama is obsolete.) André Maurois’s book Les Trois Dumas (1957) about General Dumas, his son Alexandre père and grandson Alexandre fils, was translated into Russian quite soon after it appeared (1962) and has run through many reprintings in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.1 The Russian popular writer on Dumas, Mikhail Buyanov, claims that it could be found on the bookshelf of any Soviet family.2 In addition, at least eight films or television series have appeared in Russia during the late Soviet and post-Soviet period based on themes from Dumas.3 Thus, it is fair to say that through his historical novels Dumas has played a large role in what one might call the myth of France in the Russian imagination, a myth made all the more powerful because for a long time few Russians could travel there. Indeed, in an odd way, Dumas is at least as much alive in *

The research for this article was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, whose generosity is here gratefully acknowledged. 1 André Maurois, Les Trois Dumas; Andre Morua, Dyuma. 2 M.I. Buyanov, Dyuma v Dagestane, 64. 3 D’Artagnan i tri mushketera (1979, dir. Georgy Yungval’d-Khil’kevich); Uznik zamka If (1988, dir. Georgy Yungval’d-Khil’kevich); Mushketery dvadtsat’ let spustya (1992, dir. Georgy Yungval’d-Khil’kevich); Taina Korolevy Anny (1993, dir. Georgy Yungval’d-Khil’kevich); Grafinya de Monsoro (Vladimir Popkov, 1998); Favorskii (2005, Dmitry Svetozarov); Vozvrashchenie mushketerov ili sokrovishcha kardinala Mazarini (2008, dir. Georgy Yungval’d-Khil’kevich); Dumas’s travels in the Caucasus are also the object of a film: Dyuma na Kavkaze (Khasan Khazhkasimov, 1979).

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Russia today as he is in France, even though his remains were recently transferred to the Pantheon. Nevertheless, a strange double image of Dumas subsists in Russian culture. On the one hand, Dumas is revered as a novelist. The large print runs of his novels began in the Soviet era, and indeed the cult of Dumas has a certain Soviet ring to it. This is mostly due to his Republican sentiments, his descriptions of the dark side of the tsarist regime, especially the Decembrist uprising, and perhaps also his partly African heritage, an interesting echo of the national poet, Aleksandr Pushkin. Dumas the novelist is thus a cult figure. It is his novels that constitute the basis of his popularity in Russia and explain the special attitude towards France prevalent among Russians and the central role France, French history and especially Paris occupy in Russian culture. Yet paradoxically, one of Dumas’s most important works has had an indifferent fate in Russia; this book his son, after the elder writer’s death, was to recommend to George Sand as quintessential reading: “When you have a sleepless night, have someone read you something you have probably never read: the journey to Russia and the Caucasus. It’s marvellous. You will travel breathlessly three thousand leagues across the country and through history and not be tired at all…”4 I am referring to his Journey to Russia (Voyage en Russie) and its companion volume, Journey to the Caucasus (Voyage au Caucase).5 In 1858 Dumas visited St Petersburg at the start of his journey through Russia and the Caucasus. The timing was important: it was only after the death of Nicholas that Dumas could contemplate visiting the Russian Empire. Dumas, an avid collector of honours from heads of state, had approached Nicholas in the 1830s in the hope of feeding his vanity with a Russian honour. His plays had become a staple of the Russian theatre repertoire, beginning with Henry III and his Court (Henri III et sa cour), which was translated and staged in St Petersburg as early as 1829, about eight months after it took Paris by storm.6 Throughout the 1830s his romantic melodramas had dominated the Russian stage, and his stories and novels had been translated into Russian and published by journals of every political stripe, and even the socially progressive critic Belinsky translated some of his prose.7 Gogol’, writing in 1837, commented: “It is already five 4

Maurois 370; all translations from Russian and French in this article are by the author. 5 Quotations and references in this article are to the most recent republications: Alexandre Dumas, Voyage en Russie and Voyage au Caucase. 6 Maurois, 297. 7 See Yu.D. Levin, “Belinsky teoretik perevoda.”

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years since melodramas and vaudevilles took possession of the world’s theatres. What a ridiculous fashion! One would not mind if this trend were the product of the mighty efforts of a genius. When the whole world tuned its lyre to Byron’s poetry there was nothing absurd about it; the craze was even somewhat reassuring. But now the Dumases, Ducamps and others have become the arbiters of world taste!... I swear the nineteenth century will feel ashamed of these five years.”8 Gogol’s disaffection notwithstanding, Dumas continued to be in vogue in Russia, and translations of his work appeared throughout the 1840s. In 1839 Dumas, desirous of adding to his collection of honours, sought to receive a distinction from Nicholas. Charles Durand, a French journalist in the pay of the Russian secret service and an acquaintance of Dumas, wrote to Count Uvarov, Nicholas’s Minister of Education, at the French playwright’s instigation to suggest that he be awarded an honour—Durand suggested the Order of St Stanislas, second class—in exchange for the dedication of his play The Alchemist (L’Alchimiste) to the Russian emperor. The honour, a Polish one, was intended by Durand as a studied affront to the Polish nationalists, whose influence had been dominant in France since the uprising of 1830 and the flight of political refugees to that country. Granting an honour to the most popular French writer of the time would, Durand reasoned, contribute to restoring Russia’s image in France, and besides, Dumas would not be averse to using the political situation to add to his own vainglory. There was, moreover, a precedent, since the French painter of battle scenes Horace Vernet (1789-1863) had been so honoured by the emperor in 1836. Since Uvarov’s response had been guardedly optimistic, Dumas decided to forge ahead. Through diplomatic channels he sent Uvarov a copy of the play in his own hand with illustrations by the painter Eugène Isabey and others, together with a fawning and transparent letter to the emperor: Sire! It is not simply to the autocratic ruler of a great empire that I dare to offer this expression of my admiration, but to a most enlightened monarch and spreader of civilization, who has through his personal qualities amidst a turbulent era obliged the whole of Europe to respect his knowledge, his restraint and his love of all the works of education. Sire, in our so materialistic age poet and artist ask themselves whether there remains on earth a single protector of the arts who might give magnificent and disinterested service its due – and it is with astonishment 8 Quoted in S. Durylin, “Aleksandr-Dyuma-otets i Rossiya,” (1937: 31-32) / (1963: 493).

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and delight that they learn that divine providence has deigned to place on the throne of the great empire of the North a genius capable of understanding them and worthy of being understood by them. Sire, I allow myself, with respect and in the hope that my name is not unknown to him, to present his majesty the Emperor of all Russia this manuscript written in my very own hand. When I was writing it, I was inspired by the hope that the Emperor Nicholas, protector of the sciences and of literature, will not look with indifference on a writer from the West who counts himself among the number of his first and most sincere admirers. I remain with respect, sire, your majesty’s most humble servant. Alex. Dumas.9

To reinforce the request, Dumas added a letter addressed to Uvarov at the end of which, to make things crystal clear, he signed himself “Alexandre Dumas, knight of the Lion of Belgium, of the Legion of Honour, and of Isabella the Catholic [of Spain]”, all honours he had recently garnered. Uvarov passed on Durand’s proposal and the material from Dumas to the Emperor, reducing the suggested rank from second to third class (the same as Vernet had received). Nicholas, however, was not an admirer of Dumas. As Maurois writes: “All these heroic malcontents (Antony, Kean) who declare war on society and are hostile to marriage made official circles uneasy.”10 No doubt sensing in the French writer a loose canon and suspicious of Durand, he decreed that the gift of a ring with the Emperor’s insignia would be sufficient. Dumas, in dudgeon, pointedly dedicated the published version of the play to his mistress and future wife the actress Ida Ferrier, who played a leading role in the Paris production of the play, rather than to the Russian monarch. The Emperor’s suspicions about Dumas were confirmed when less than a year after the affair of the ring Dumas published a novel about Russia titled The Fencing Master (Le Maître d’armes), purportedly related to him by his acquaintance the fencing master Augustin-Edmé François Grisier, but with considerable detail derived from other sources, notably François Ancelot’s Six Months in Russia (Six mois en Russie, 1838). The novel was an embroidered account of the adventures of a well-born young French woman Pauline Gueble, who had gone to Russia as a milliner. There she fell in love with a Russian nobleman and guards’ officer Ivan Annenkov (in Dumas’s account “Waninkoff”). When Annenkov was arrested and sent to Siberia for playing a minor part in the Decembrist uprising of 1825, Gueble, who had borne a child to her lover, petitioned 9

Translated from Durylin, 504-05. Maurois, 297-98.

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Nicholas for permission to follow him to Siberia, where they were married and lived until Alexander II’s amnesty of 1856. Polina Annenkova, as she is known in Russia, is a genuine folk-heroine, and became the object of a popular Soviet film The Star of Enchanting Happiness (Zvezda plenitel’nogo schast’ya, 1975). Dumas’s shameless appropriation of the story was the source of a great deal of consternation when news of it reached the exiled Decembrists in Siberia. Polina, who was offended by the cavalier treatment of the details of her life and her relationship with Annenkov, was led to write her own account of her life in refutation.11 Beyond the romanticized version of Pauline’s adventurous life, the novel offers a surprisingly detailed portrait of the Russian capital largely lifted from Ancelot’s Six Months in Russia. The novel was inevitably banned in Russia because of its description of the Decembrist revolt, a taboo subject in Russia (and the reason why Dumas could not visit the country until Alexander II came to the throne). The prohibition only served to make it obligatory reading (in French) in the drawing rooms of upper-class Russians. Famously, according to Dumas himself, Nicholas found the Empress reading a book and guessed it was his. In Journey to Russia Dumas describes a conversation he had with Princess Trubetskaya, who had been a friend of the Empress: One day the tsarina went off into one of her most remote boudoirs for a reading of my novel. While the reading was going on the door opened and the emperor Nicholas I came in. Princess Trubetskaya, who was the reader, quickly hid the book under a cushion. The emperor approached and, stopping in front of his most gracious other half, who was trembling more than usual, asked: “Were you reading?” “Yes, sire.” “Do you want me to tell you what you were reading?” The empress was silent. “You were reading Dumas’s novel The Fencing Master.” “How do you know that, sire?” “Well now! It is not difficult to guess. It’s the novel that I have most recently banned.”12

As Maurois observes, the publication of the novel had the effect of 11 See Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, “Dumas’s Decembrists: Le Maître d’armes and the Memoirs of Pauline Annenkova”. Pauline’s memoirs were recently republished in Russian, together with a translation of Dumas’s novel: P. Annenkova, Vospominaniya. 12 Voyage en Russie, 480.

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making Dumas persona non grata in Russia as long as Nicholas was on the throne, and contributed to the negative image of Russia in France during the Second Empire. The ban on its publication in Russia lasted until after the Russian revolution; a Russian translation of the novel appeared only in 1925 to mark the hundredth anniversary of the events of the Decembrist uprising. It has since been republished together with Polina Annenkova’s account of her life, so that readers can appreciate the difference between the two. The affair of the novel came up again during Dumas’s journey through Russia, when he visited Nizhny Novgorod. Unknown to him, the Annenkovs had moved there from Siberia when Alexander II, upon his accession to the throne, issued a general pardon to the former Decembrists and appointed Annenkov governor of the city. As Elizabeth Beaujour points out, the encounter between Dumas and his Russian victims could hardly have been as cordial as he makes it out to be in his account of his journey. If Dumas had rendered a service in publicizing the facts of the Decembrist uprising, the bungled hanging of the five ringleaders and the fate of those sent to Siberia, his cavalier disregard for details made his literary embrace a somewhat dubious pleasure. Thus, in Dumas’s account Annenkov’s hard-hearted mother, who refused to have anything to do with her son after his arrest, is turned into a generous and caring figure. In particular, his portrayal of “Louise” (i.e., Polina) as a déclassée adventuress offended her family pride, and in her account of her life she is at pains to portray herself as of noble birth, albeit obliged to live in straitened circumstances owing to the Revolution. If the novel was Dumas’s revenge for the slight he had received from Nicholas, it was perfectly on target. Apart from the description of the sufferings of the Decembrists, Dumas dwells on the cruelty of the ruling class in Russia, including a harrowing description of the beating to death of a serf for daring to flirt with the peasant lover of a minister (a reference to Arakcheev and his peasant mistress Nastasya Minkina) and scenes of nobles gambling away thousands of serfs at the gaming tables. He also airs a great deal of the dirty linen of the Romanovs, such as the murder of Peter III, Catherine’s affairs with Potemkin and others, the fate of the prisoners in the Fortress of Peter and Paul who drowned during the flood of 1824, and so on. In short, the novel was a foretaste of what was to come when Russia in 1839 (La Russie en 1839), Astolphe de Custine’s account of his journey to Russia, appeared in 1842, creating a major scandal. Not surprisingly, Dumas remained on Nicholas’s suspicious mind, and when in 1852 a rumour circulated that Dumas had written a pamphlet or satirical novel denouncing Nicholas as “the Nabob of the North”, the Russian secret agent in Paris, Yakov Tolstoy, was ordered to investigate and

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discover whether all the copies had been confiscated and destroyed. The Parisian police were alerted, but no such publication was found.13 Eighteen years after the publication of The Fencing Master, with the Crimean war over and Nicholas safely in his grave, Dumas was able to contemplate a trip to Russia. It was something he had planned to do for more than ten years. Dumas had been ever mindful of Russia, and when the Russian actor Vasily Karatygin, who had translated both Henri III and His Court and Antony, visited Paris with his wife Aleksandra Kolosova in 1845, he made sure to invite them to a rehearsal of his stage version of the Three Musketeers. He told the visitors of his ambition of visiting Russia. They persuaded him that this would be impossible for the time being. However, in the early 1850s his son Alexandre Dumas fils became enamoured of two Russian ladies in succession—first Lydia Nesselrode, daughter-in-law of Nicholas’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Nesselrode, and then Nadezhda Naryshkin, whom he eventually married. Russia became, so to speak, a part of Dumas’s life. The decisive moment came in June 1858, when Dumas was spending the evening with the fabulously wealthy Count Grigory Aleksandrovich Kushelev-Bezborodko and his wife at their hotel suite in Paris. He had come to make the acquaintance of Daniel Douglas Home, an English spiritualist who interested Dumas. The Russian couple collected odd individuals, and Home enjoyed the company of the rich and famous. It was there that the Kushelev-Bezborodkos invited Dumas to come with them to Russia and be a witness at the marriage of Douglas Home to the sister of Count Bezborodko. Dumas, who had planned a trip to the near East, was given two minutes to decide. With characteristic impulsiveness he opted for the trip to Russia. And so it was that Alexandre Dumas père left Paris on June 15th, 1858 in the company of the Russian couple and their entourage— dogs, cats and spiritualist, among others—first by train to Stettin, and then by boat (appropriately enough, the Nicholas) to St Petersburg. Dumas’s lengthy voyage was to take him, among other places, to St Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Astrakhan, Derbent and Tbilisi. He left Russian territory from the port of Poti in the Caucasus on a Russian steamer on February 13th, 1859, returning to France via Trebizond and Marseilles. Dumas’s objective was to gather material to keep his readers happy. This was not the first time he had published travel impressions. As early as 1837 he had published a book of impressions of Switzerland, followed by one on the South of France (1840) and From Paris to Cadiz (1847). The first few weeks in St Petersburg were in many 13

Durylin, 517.

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ways crucial. First, Dumas was a guest of one of the richest couples in Russia. Count Grigory Aleksandrovich Kushelev-Bezborodko (18321870) had inherited fabulous wealth, and used it to support a variety of causes, as well as pursuing a desultory literary career. Dumas milked his aristocratic hosts to the limit, as he did those who furnished him with grist for his literary mill. Again and again we find in the pages he wrote ecstatic remarks concerning Russian hospitality. Russia was a great place for a Frenchman with an international reputation and extravagant tastes but little or no ready cash. Thus, throughout his trip it is the wealthiest aristocratic circles that he frequents. One wonders if his hosts were always as delighted to cater to his whims as he makes out in his text. More important, Russia had changed significantly since Nicholas’s death. A new, engaged form of writing with a heavy element of social commentary had appeared in Russia; the question of the day was Russia’s future, social reform, revolution. Dumas was perhaps a literary star for the average reader who turned to his novels as a form of literary escape. True, he had written The Fencing Master with its exposure of the events of 1825. But the sensational nature of his writing was far from being in tune with the new literature in Russia. At Home’s wedding Dumas had met the writer Grigorovich, who became his principal source for information about Russian literature and helped Dumas translate the poetry of Pushkin and Lermontov into French. In the information he provided Dumas, Grigorovich seems to have focussed mainly on the Romantics, so that we find the Frenchman taken with such minor Romantic writers as BestuzhevMarlinsky and Lazhechnikov, whose story The Ice House (Ledyanoi dom) Dumas had had translated and then published under his own name (a notoriously frequent practice). Grigorovich was the closest Dumas came to contemporary Russian writers; true, through this acquaintance he met the poet and publicist Nekrasov and visited him at a dacha outside St Petersburg, but Nekrasov claimed not to speak French and thought this Frenchman with his gargantuan appetite a nuisance.14 Nekrasov was close to the progressive circles of writers who found nothing of interest in Dumas’s writing and disapproved of a literature that sought simply to entertain. The exiled writer Aleksandr Herzen wrote in the journal The Bell (Kolokol), which he published in London: “We read with shame and regret about the way our aristocracy is prostrating itself at Dumas’s feet 14

“The French writer was a frequent guest of N.A. Nekrasov, as A. Ya. Panaeva recalls. However, their relations were chilly. Dumas did not develop any other literary ties in Russia. The only writer he became friendly with was D.V. Grigorovich, who turned into his best guide around St Petersburg” (N.A. Kostyashkin, Valaam v zhizni i tvorchestve zamechatel’nykh lyudei, 110).

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and running to behold the ‘great curly-headed man’ through the grillwork around Kushelev-Bezborodko’s garden and pleading to stroll in the latter’s park. No, it is clear that joining together several aristocratic families and ruining several thousand serfs will not make you an educated man. ‘A nation of flunkies,’ declares the Daily Telegraph describing all this. Our aristocrats really do resemble a household of lackeys, and for this reason they have no more tact than you will find in the servants’ quarters.”15 The hero of the day seems to have been totally blind and insensitive to such subtleties, and indeed the lionizing that he received from his admirers went easily to the head of someone with such a large ego. On the other hand, he was also oblivious to the sensitivities of official Russian circles, and his reports from Russia in the Monte-Cristo, beginning with the history of the career of his host’s grandfather, the servant of Paul I, and the details of the latter’s murder as related by Kushelev-Bezborodko, began to create consternation as they reached St Petersburg. Clearly, Dumas was to follow his own practice (and that of Custine and others before him) in revealing the dark secrets of the tsarist regime. As the material, including (to add insult to injury) some taken from The Fencing Master, was printed in Paris in Dumas’s own journal, he was beyond control of the Russian authorities. The best one could do was to try and limit the damage by hemming Dumas in through surreptitious police surveillance.16 Sergey Durylin is adamant: for him the trip—banquets, visits to potentates, spectacles—was “organized” by the heads of police in the various destinations along the way. A case in point is the incident where Dumas claimed to have been in a skirmish with Chechen rebels, which was later revealed to have been staged by his host Prince Dundukov-Korsakov: “After a series of feasts and drinking sessions, he [the Prince] rode out with a small troop to accompany his guests, i.e., the group of travellers that included Dumas. At the first edge of the forest the prince had had the idea of amusing himself with a simulated rebel attack; for this purpose several dragoons had been sent into the forest to act out a skirmish with an imaginary Shamyl. After the shooting was over the novelist was fed various tall tales about a battle in the forest and as evidence was shown some rags drenched in the blood of a sheep that had been slaughtered for dinner.”17 In fact, Dumas was unable to keep a promise to the readers of the Monte-Cristo to meet the rebel leader Shamyl.18 For Durylin, Dumas was from start to finish in a 15

Quoted in Durylin, 523. The secret reports were first published in Durylin, 532-45. 17 Ibid., 556. 18 Nevertheless, Dumas does provide considerable interesting material on Shamyl derived from eye-witnesses (a Russian officer who had been in captivity and the 16

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“golden cage”. This is perhaps an exaggeration. In fact, Dumas had considerable freedom, especially in St Petersburg and Moscow, where he was the guest of noble families and beyond the day-to-day surveillance of the police. The ultimate result is inscrutable: was Dumas aware of the surveillance? Was he unaware of the “Potemkin village” aspect to his trip? Or was he a silent accomplice in his own deception, glibly handing on to his readers his experiences at face value? Dumas’s Russian impressions first appeared as a series of articles in his magazine Le Monte-Cristo, and then were published in book form. His descriptions of his trip are among the most enjoyable books about Russia. The two works are somewhat different. Journey to the Caucasus in fact appeared first, and is the more coherent to read, since it was written mostly during and at the immediate end of the trip, so that it has greater immediacy. The volume From Paris to Astrakhan contains less descriptions of places and scenery, and almost half comprises historical accounts of different events in Russian history, generally evoked by visits to the places where they took place: the fortress of SS Peter and Paul, Uglich, Borodino (site of the battle of 1812) and so on. Nevertheless, both texts share a basic organizing principle, comprising a string of descriptions of Russian life and landscape, anecdotes, documents, short translations of Russian poetry, historical sketches and commentaries. None is too lengthy—usually a page or two—and each ends with a pointe of some kind. The success of the enterprise rests entirely on Dumas’s talent as a narrator and a sort of picaresque hero whose presence, perspective and voice are the unifying factor. The journey is the fundamental organizing principle of Dumas’s text, as the hero moves from place to place. In the Russian section, originally known as From Paris to Astrakhan, the dynamism of the journey is slowed by the weight of historical material, which is greatly reduced in the Caucasus. In the latter much of the narrative is a breathless progression across a horizon that is constantly receding; the obstacles and accidents that intervene to hinder the hero from reaching his next destination serve only to underline the urgency of the trajectory. Alexander II is reported to have reacted with rage to the publication of Dumas’s book. No doubt this official hostility lay partly at the bottom of the negative view of the book that Russians have long held. Dumas, who never let the facts stand in the way of a good story, was himself no doubt partly to blame, since official critics could condemn him for inaccuracy. In fact, Dumas does indeed garble many names and facts; for example, he account by a French woman hired to teach the children of a family who were captured by Shamyl). In particular, the question arises of the possible influence of Dumas’s descriptions of Shamyl’s family life on Tolstoy’s tale Hadji Murad.

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repeats in Journey to Russia an error already present in The Fencing Master, asserting that the Tauride Palace in St Petersburg was a surprise gift from Potemkin to Catherine II, when in fact it was a present from the grateful Empress to the general who captured the Crimean peninsula (Tauris). Does it matter? Not terribly, for although Dumas includes a lot of history in the two books, it is histoire romancée – somewhere between history proper and fiction. It is in this middle ground that Dumas stakes out his territory. His descriptions of historical events in the books include, for example, the murder of the Emperor Paul with dialogue. Was Dumas there? How does he know? The answer is that he doesn’t, but the dialogue makes the history exciting, which is what matters for the reader. In this sense Dumas is a true disciple of Walter Scott, with the difference that his work has aged better than Scott’s, no doubt because Dumas had begun by writing romantic melodramas and had mastered the technique of dialogue and situation. It was, nevertheless, Scott’s invention of the romantic historical novel that set the scene for all who were to follow. Pushkin, commenting on reading Nikolay Karamzin’s History of the Russian State, wrote, “C’est palpitant comme la gazette d’hier”, for Karamzin had grasped Scott’s technique and applied it to the writing of history proper. Pushkin’s formula could be applied equally to Dumas’s historical romances and travel notes. Despite the popularity of Dumas’s novels in Russia, no translation into Russian of his travels was forthcoming in Tsarist times, except for an abbreviated one of the Caucasian segment that appeared in Tiflis in 1861. This was evidently because it revealed unmentionable details of Russian history. Indeed, it was only in 1993, in the post-Soviet period, that the full text of Dumas’s journey through Russia was translated. Nevertheless, every Russian, whether he has read it or not, has an opinion about it, for the books are generally regarded as a wildly inaccurate description of the country, typical of the slapdash attitude of French visitors; suspicions about them were reinforced by the revelation by Soviet scholarship of the level of control exercised by the secret police over his visit. Until recently, most Russians knew about the works in question only from the supposed gaffe by Dumas of the razvesistaya klyukva (“spreading cranberry tree”) that was erroneously attributed to the volume.19 Every Russian knows this proverbial expression, used to describe any fantastic nonsense told by foreigners about Russia and supposedly used by Dumas to describe a picnic where he sat under such an apocryphal feature of the Russian 19

On the real origin of the expression, see Vadim Serov, Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ krylatykh slov i vyrazhenii.

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landscape.20 In fact, nowhere is such a reference to be found in Dumas, although his knowledge of Russian was sketchy and he frequently garbled Russian names. The expression has been traced to a play by a certain Boris Geyer titled Love of a Russian Cossack (1910), a parody of French misunderstandings about Russia that was staged in the Crooked Mirror cabaret. Thus have Russians repaid Dumas for his inaccuracies with a fantasy of their own. The bifurcated nature of Russian attitudes to Dumas—one of popular enthusiasm tempered with a certain scepticism—emerges already in the first major study of Dumas’s Russian voyage, that by Durylin in the prestigious series Literary Heritage (Literaturnoe nasledstvo) published in 1937 along with other articles on Franco-Russian literary issues. Durylin’s article is still a key source of information, presenting for the first time a great deal of useful information, including the secret police files relating to his visit. While acknowledging Dumas’s popularity as a novelist among the broad reading public, Durylin is careful to portray Dumas as a naïve dupe who was taken in by all he saw, and contrasts Dumas’s works, which are seen as escapist and devoid of content, with the works of “critical realism” that began to appear in Russia in the 1850s and 1860s. At the same time, Durylin is forced to acknowledge that Dumas was totally uninhibited in writing about the darker sides of tsarist history. Given the fact that Durylin’s study was published in 1937, at the height of the Stalinist terror, he presumably realized that he had to avoid carefully the parallels between the regimes of Nicholas and Stalin. In other words, Dumas’s unconstrained attitude towards Russian state secrets was a dangerous topic. For a long time after Durylin little work was done on Dumas in the Soviet Union, perhaps because literary links between Russia and the West had become a tricky topic since Stalin’s “anti-cosmopolitan” campaign of the 1940s against foreign influences, and perhaps also because relatively few scholars of the younger generation had good French. Thus, if the novels were continuously printed and reprinted, there was no attempt to translate and print Dumas’s account of his journey to Russia. As Kostyashkin writes, “the fact that this massive work of Alexandre Dumas was not published before the revolution is more or less understandable: too many secrets of the House of Romanovs would have been revealed to the Russian public. It is also understandable why this was 20

The myth might have been inspired by the famous mistake of Jacques Margeret, the first Frenchman to leave an account of his travels in Muscovy, who described seeing a fantastical creature that was half-beast and half-plant. See: Le Capitaine Margeret, Estat de l’empire de Russie et grand duché de Moscovie, 18-19.

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not done in the Soviet period. Dumas’s servility towards the Russian aristocracy, contempt for the common people of Russia, and in general the predominantly frivolous tone and style of writing did not arouse any enthusiasm among editors.”21 It was only in the 1980s that a new interest was to appear in Dumas’s journey through Russia. Finally, in the postSoviet period, the full text of the book has been translated and published.22 The key figure in this revival of interest is Mikhail Buyanov, the exemplar of the Dumas cult in the 1980s and 1990s. A psychologist by profession, Buyanov has made it his life’s aim to research the French writer’s voyage, publishing several books on the subject, as well as on other topics associated with Dumas (e.g., Dumas and spiritualism).23 He has visited most of the sites on Dumas’s journey; these include the former Naryshkin estate at Elpatievo, where Dumas saw Jenny Falcon, one of his many love affairs, and the Kushelev-Bezborodko house in St Petersburg on the embankment of the Neva, now a clinic, where Dumas stayed when he first arrived in St Petersburg. Buyanov has also attempted to set the record straight regarding Dumas’s interest in Russian literature, pointing to the translations of Pushkin, Lazhechnikov, Lermontov and BestuzhevMarlinsky in the text, presumably the combined effort of Dumas and Grigorovich.24 The most piquant aspect of Dumas’s sojourn in the Russian Empire explored by Buyanov was the French writer’s abduction of an attractive young Dagestani girl Ul’yana, who bore him a girl.25 Unfortunately, Buyanov is an amateur with no philological training, so that his books are amateurish and not on a par with his enthusiasm. Moreover, his publications (especially the earlier ones) have a distinctly Soviet slant, emphasizing Dumas the revolutionary and sympathizer with “democratic” tendencies in Russia and affirming, for example, that “the novelist will always be interested in and attracted by freedom fighters and those who struggle against despotism, so that true art is always moral”.26 Nevertheless, Buyanov’s tireless pursuit of the minutiae of Dumas’s visit to Russia offers many nuggets of information, and his work has no doubt contributed 21

Kostiashkin, 113. Aleksandr Dyuma, Putevye vpechatleniya v Rossii: sochinenie v trekh tomakh. 23 M.I. Buyanov, Dyuma, gipnoz i spiritizm; Dyuma v Dagestane; Dyuma v Zakavkaz’e; Po sledam Dyuma; Markiz protiv imperii, ili puteshestviya Kyustina, Bal’zaka i Dyuma v Rossiyu. 24 Dyuma v Dagestane, 9. 25 Ibid., 97; see also Sul’yanbek Sheripov, Aleksandr Dyuma-otets v ChechenoIngushetii ili sto dvadtsat’ let spustya, 55-56. 26 Dyuma v Dagestane, 19. 22

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to the interest in this connection of Dumas with Russia. Already in 1988 Buyanov republished Dumas’s Caucasus in the abbreviated 1861 Tbilisi translation with his own translation of the missing material. He writes: I worked towards the 1988 Tbilisi edition for many years. The idea was not only to publish finally the text of an undeservedly forgotten book. The main thing was to demonstrate, using the example of this work, the need for a more respectful attitude towards Dumas and to absolve him of the slander concerning his irresponsible and frivolous treatment of the facts.27

In particular, Buyanov is a ferocious defender of Dumas against accusations of inaccuracy. He also defends the French writer’s use of ghost writers, especially Auguste Maquet, commenting that it was a common practice among nineteenth-century French writers. Buyanov comments: The good-hearted Dumas […] who possessed a unique property that neither Maquet nor millions of other writers had, the literary talent of a genius, attentively looked through Maquet’s manuscripts and rewrote them. Instead of boring, pedantic compilations or chance allusions to some actions or phenomena or other, created by Maquet, Dumas’s genius constructed an elegant, gripping plot, and moulded wonderful images such as those playfully and brilliantly demonstrated in the form of D’Artagnan and his friends.28

It is on this point that Buyanov received a vehement rebuttal from the pen of Boris Nosik, the Paris-based writer of popular books on France, especially Russian France. Nosik, evidently irritated by the Dumas cult, writes: Curiously, the typical characteristic of well-known representatives of the ‘Romantic school’ in France was their entirely unromantic desire to set someone to work and then dignify the resulting manuscript (which they might or might not have paid for) with their already famous name (and all for the sake of their greater fame and despised royalties). In this respect Dumas outdid in his enthusiasm and indiscriminateness all the other far from scrupulous ‘Romantics’ – including George Sand, Victor Hugo and Sainte-Beuve.29 27

Ibid., 4. According to Buyanov, the original translation Vpechatleniya o puteshestvii na Kavkaz (Tiflis, 1861) was twice republished (in 1964 and 1970); Buyanov’s full version was titled Kavkaz. 28 Dyuma v Zavkavkaz’e, 158. 29 Boris Nosik, Strannye i strastnye: istorii russkogo Parizha, 41.

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Since at least the time of Peter I Russians have been sensitive to the representations of their country in the descriptions of Western travellers. The fate of Dumas’s descriptions of his sojourn in Russia is no exception, as Nosik’s response to Buyanov’s dithyrambs demonstrates. No doubt Dumas, having invested so much time in the journey, had to play along with the “Potemkin village” effects orchestrated by his Russian hosts: he was not, after all, above being disingenuous. Yet despite what Nabokov might have called the “shimmer of errors” and a certain appropriation of the materials of others in these neglected works, they still deserve to be read for their entertainment value, as a monument on the path of FrancoRussian cultural relations, and as fine examples of a genre half-way between literature and documentary that Dumas made uniquely his own.

Works Cited Primary Sources Dumas, Alexandre. Voyage au Caucase. Paris: Hermann, 2002. —. Voyage en Russie. Paris: Hermann, 2002. [Aleksandr Dyuma]. Putevye vpechatleniya v Rossii: sochinenie v trekh tomakh. Moscow: Ladomir’, 1993.

Secondary Sources Annenkova, P. Vospominaniya (Moscow: Zakharov, 2003). Maurois, André. Les Trois Dumas. Paris: Hachette, 1957. [Andre Morua]. Dyuma. Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1962. M.I. Buyanov, Kavkaz. Tbilisi: Merani, 1988. —. Dyuma, gipnoz i spiritizm. Moscow: Rus’-fil’m, 1991. —. Dyuma v Dagestane. Moscow: Prometei, 1992. —. Dyuma v Zakavkaz’e. Moscow: Prometei, 1993. —. Markiz protiv imperii, ili puteshestviya Kyustina, Bal’zaka i Dyuma v Rossiyu. Moscow: Rossiiskoe obshchestvo medikov-literatorov, 1993. —. Po sledam Dyuma. Moscow: Rossiiskoe obshchestvo medikovliteratorov, 1993. Durylin, S. “Aleksandr-Dyuma-otets i Rossiya,” Literaturnoe nasledstvo. Moscow: Zhurnal’no-gazetnoe ob”edinenie, 1937 (reprint: Vaduz: Kraus, 1963). Klosty Beaujour, Elizabeth. “Dumas’s Decembrists: Le Maître d’armes and the Memoirs of Pauline Annenkova.” Russian Review 59 (January 2000): 38-51.

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Kostyashkin, N. A. Valaam v zhizni i tvorchestve zamechatel’nykh lyudei. Moscow: Institut ekonomiki RAN, 1999. Levin, Yu. D. “Belinsky teoretik perevoda.” http://az.lib.ru/b/belinskij_w_g/text_3960.shtml. Margeret, Jacques [Le Capitaine]. Estat de l’empire de Russie et grand duché de Moscovie. Paris: Éditions au Ginêt, 1946. Nosik, Boris. Strannye i strastnye: Istorii russkogo Parizha. Moscow: Raduga, 2005. Serov, Vadim. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ krylatykh slov i vyrazhenii (http://www.bibliotekar.ru/encSlov/16/13.htm). Sheripov, Sul’yanbek. Aleksandr Dyuma-otets v Checheno-Ingushetii ili sto dvadtsat’ let spustya. Groznyi: Checheno-Ingushskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1980.

“A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE”: THE REVEREND HENRY LANSDELL’S JOURNEYS THROUGH ASIATIC RUSSIA (1880-1890) IRINA KANTARBAEVA-BILL

Victorian travel literature has recently attracted much interest from researchers in the humanities, in part because these travelogues provide welcome relief from the cultural anxiety characteristic of most studies on the Victorian era. However, the Reverend Henry Lansdell’s extended accounts of previously unknown areas of Russia and China,1 though extremely popular in his day, have been somewhat neglected by scholars. Consequently, the aim of the present paper is twofold. First, I wish to examine the issues underpinning Lansdell’s travel experience through the angle of the Victorian perceptions of risk and insecurity. Second, I hope to highlight the tensions between on the one hand the popular ethnographic discourse of the late British Empire, and on the other the early efforts to rehabilitate the geographical and human landscape of Central Asia. Henry Lansdell was a clergyman, a missionary, honorary Doctor of Divinity, Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London, a passionate Great Game player and an inveterate philanthropist. Born on January 10th, 1841 in Tenterden, Kent, educated by his father Henry Lansdell senior and later, between 1865 and 1867 at St. John’s College of Divinity, Highgate, Henry Lansdell junior was ordained deacon in 1867 and priest in 1868. He was curate of Greenwich from 1867 to 1869, and between 1869 and 1879 was secretary to the Irish Church Missions on whose behalf he travelled energetically, lecturing and attending meetings, combining travel and missionary work in 1

These include Through Siberia (2 volumes, 1882), Russian Central Asia (2 volumes, 1885), Through Central Asia (1887), Chinese Central Asia: a Ride to Little Tibet (2 volumes, 1893), as well as his numerous contributions to Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.

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a pattern which was to characterize the rest of his life. He founded, and from 1874 to 1876 was secretary of, the Church Homiletical Society which aimed to improve the preaching and pastoral work of the younger clergy. In this connection he published two works on preaching and founded the Clegyman’s Magazine which he also edited between 1875 and 1887. From 1885 to 1886 he was curate in charge of St Peter’s, Eltham, Kent. From the 1870s Lansdell began to travel, at first spending short holidays in the more accessible areas of Europe, but gradually making long and arduous journeys into little known parts of Imperial Russia such as Siberia and Central Asia. In consequence, specific major landmarks can be said to punctuate his travelling experience. These are: 1) His travels in Siberia at the moment of the growing Nihilist movement: his encounter with Russian Orthodoxy, and the political situation in Russia with special attention towards political convicts; the Siberian and Sakhalin penal systems including ethnographic digressions on the indigenous populations of these regions. 2) His journeys to Western Turkestan tracing the Russian conquest: Mohammedism in Central Asia and a continuing quest for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. 3) His travels in Eastern Turkestan in the aftermath of the Second AngloAfghan War: Buddhism vs the Chinese Conquest and his ultimate dream of reaching Lhasa. In all his travels his main goal was to distribute religious tracts and bibles in various languages provided by London missionary societies wherever he went, notably in prisons, mines and hospitals. However, while he was part of a long line of Christian holy men who had made adventurous journeys to the East (these include his contemporaries Joseph Wolff and David Livingstone), he had never been interested in proselytizing or in political analysis. As he put it: Of politics I know next to nothing, and so was not prejudiced in this direction. Nor had I anything to gain by withholding, or to fear from telling, the whole of the truth. I did not travel as the agent or representative of any religious body.2

Nevertheless, this discretion fades away in the course of his journeys and his last travelogue starts with a more confident note:

2

Through Siberia, I, vii.

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia The main object of my journey was to spy out the land for missionary purposes. If, however, the lover of missionary information should think that I did little or no work of a missionary kind myself, I would remind him that as a preacher I was dumb; as a distributer of literature I had not the proper translation; whilst as a pioneer I conceived it my chief task to observe what openings existed, or could be made, for qualified evangelists to follow.3

His inner life, though somewhat histrionic, did not have room for anything more than formal devoutness; he was not a mystic, and showed no desire to dig out mysticism from the seething world of dervishes and lamas which surrounded him on his travels. Often at a loss to defend his own religious practices, Lansdell had more uncomfortable adventures than St Paul himself: he was harassed by ministers and tyrannical Khans, fought his way through the neglect of traditional Christians, and though he often persuaded the secular representatives of governments to support him, he was lucid enough to feel that many of them regarded him as an embarrassment. The reader must continually ask why Lansdell had the constant itch to travel. He who might have passed his life amid the secure peace of nineteenth-century rural England, found himself wandering among the murderous populations and crumbling masonry of Central Asia. Why the attraction to deserts and the mountains? Did he notice the memorable sights on his way? What is especially noteworthy is the complex interplay in his writing between Christianity and Islam: unlike the majority of contemporary Christian clergymen, he found it impossible to attach himself whole-heartedly to the triumph of the Christian cause. His narratives are utterly devoid of anything that could be described as racism. The world he describes is full of frightful intrigues, but they are not made more monstrous by the race or colour of the protagonists. Perhaps the best summing up of Lansdell’s adventures is in an account which appeared at the time in the Revue des deux Mondes and which said: “Qu’on n’aille pas imaginer après cela que M. Lansdell soit un fanatique […] Il estime qu’une sage philosophie et une piété sincère ne sont irréconciliables ni avec la belle humeur ni avec ces honnêtes petits plaisirs qui assaisonnent la vie” (“One should not imagine that Mr Lansdell is a fanatic […] He believes that a wise philosophy and sincere piety are incompatible neither with good humour nor with life’s honest little pleasures.”). In 1878, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish war, a 37-year old Lansdell, then secretary of the Church Homiletical Society, resolved to 3

Chinese Central Asia, I, vii-viii.

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“go on a tour” of Russia in order to distribute the literature of the Religious Tract Society. No doubt his real reason for the journey was to challenge the notion of Oriental Russia in the Victorian imagination, according to which it was an extremely dangerous place. Russian influence had spread out from Europe and moved across the Asian continent. First the Caucasus had been overrun, then the land beyond the Caspian Sea. At the same time, Russian power had also rolled across Siberia all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The grand question which troubled all the existing powers was whether there were any limits to Russia’s awe-inspiring expansion. Persia, the Empire of China, the wellestablished British Raj in India, and the Khanates of Central Asia, including Bokhara—all seemed threatened by Russia. Totally ignorant of Russian culture and its language, but armed with an unshakable determination and three railway wagons filled with the Scriptures, the Book of Psalms and the New Testament in Russian, Polish, French, German, Tatar, with certain portions of the Old Testament for the Bouriats in Mongolian and in Hebrew for the Jews, the Reverend set out from St Petersburg on a breath-taking 6-month journey through the plains of Siberia. While there he discovered Siberian churches and monasteries, and attended religious services. Of course, before the 1880s travellers venturing into Asiatic Russia had to do so either on horseback or with the help of the notorious “instrument of torture” which was the tarantass. The Trans-Caspian4 railway which linked Russian Turkestan with St Petersburg and Moscow made a significant contribution to Russia’s economic and political expansion. On the other side of the continent the country’s imperial aspirations were helped by the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway,5 inaugurated in 1891 with great pomp and circumstance by Crown Prince Nikolay himself. It was only in Kyakhta,6 thousands of miles from the Russian capital, that Lansdell begin to realise the intensity of the growing narodnichestvo, Nihilism and the British conspiracy plot:

4

Opened in 1879 in connection with the Russian conquest of Transcaspia, the Trans-Caspian railway stretched from Kyzyl-Arvat to Ashkabad and Merv. In 1888 it reached Samarkand via Bukhara, where it halted for ten years until finally being extended to Tashkent and Andijan in 1898. 5 The Trans-Siberian railway, whose main route runs from Moscow to Vladivostok via Siberia, Russia’s Far Eastern provinces, Mongolia and China, was built between 1891 and 1916. 6 Kyakhta (Troitskosavsk) is a town in the Buryat Republic, Russia, located near the Russian-Mongolian border.

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia Of all this and its like I heard next to nothing after leaving Petersburg; there, however, great excitement prevailed. I arrived only a few days after one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life, and a friend called to tell me they were at their wits’ end to know what to do. Turning back his coat collar, he showed me sewn thereon the certified badge of his calling, so placed that it might be ready to show the police, if required, at a moment’s notice. The English, he said, were strongly suspected, and he doubted whether he should be safe in affording me his usual protection and kindly services. He had told one of his Russian friends that I had arrived in the country for the purpose of distributing books and tracts, but the Russian did not believe that I could be come for such a charitable object, but thought I must be sent by the English Government. The rumours afloat respecting the English were both numerous and ridiculous. The authorities had not then succeeded in finding the press from which were issued the Nihilist placards and papers, and, as the ambassadors’ residences are privileged places, supposed to be closed against the police, it was affirmed that the secret press must be there. My friend told me he heard it said that “proclamations” against the Russian Government could be bought at the English Embassy for a rouble each.7

During the 1880s, while Lansdell was in Siberia, the Russian Empire expanded considerably. Lansdell himself was impressed by the number of Polish political exiles he encountered, as the result of deportations of thousands of rebels in 1864. As far as could tell, however, the conditions in which convicts were held were tolerable, while torture and various forms of corporal punishment were virtually inexistent: I have met with a deep and almost universal conviction that the prisons in Siberia, compared with those of other countries, are intolerably bad. This I cannot endorse. A proper comparison would be between the Russian sent to Siberia and the English convict as formerly transported to Botany Bay; but, comparing the convicts of the two nations as they now are, and taking the three primary needs of life—clothing, food, and shelter—the Russian convict proves to be fed more abundantly, if not better than the English convict; and the clothing of the two, having regard to the dress of their respective countries, is very similar. The floors of Siberian cells are not of polished oak, as in Paris, nor are the walls of stone slabs, as in York. Siberian prisons have not fittings of burnished brass, with everything neat and trim as at Petersbourg’s; but then neither have the houses of the Siberian people. […] A convict’s labour in Siberia is certainly lighter than in England; he has more privileges; friends may see him oftener, and bring him food; and he passes his time not in the seclusion of a cell, nor under

7

Through Siberia, I, 328-29.

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imposed silence, but among his fellows, with whom he may lounge, talk and smoke.8

Far from displaying the European ethnocentricity or colonial arrogance so frequently observed in the travel books of the period, Lansdell acted and wrote as a man determined to defend Russia against the attacks made on it in the British press: Few Englishmen, one trusts, will be proud to read misstatements like these, and the exposure of them, it is to be hoped, may lead the unimpassioned to reflect on such injustice, and to call it by its proper name. For my own part (humiliating as it is to acknowledge), I have learned to expect from certain quarters exaggerations and misstatements respecting Russian affairs. If any complain to me of the character of Russian diplomacy I reply that I do not defend it. I say nothing of Russians as politicians, and so long as human nature remains as it is there will probably not be wanting writers to fan national jealousies and misgivings to a flame; but no right-minded persons will ever look upon misstatements like those I have quoted, other than with shame and disgust. Such mispresentations carry also their own Nemesis, for the uninformed, led astray thereby, when they see themselves duped often espouse the opposite cause. Such unfairness has taught me at least to sympathize with Russians who are thus mispresented; and perhaps I ought to confess that this feeling had something to do with my resolving to write this book.9

Lansdell’s favourable remarks on Siberian prisons are reminiscent of those made by Anton Chekhov10 who followed the same itinerary some ten years later. Nevertheless, many of his Russian readers reacted angrily to his comments. The following quotation, by Prince Kropotkin concerning Lansdell’s Through Siberia, is typical: The truth is that Mr. Lansdell has cast a hasty glance on what the authorities were willing to show him; that he had not seen a single central prison: and that had he visited every prison in Russia in the way he visited some of them, he still would remain as ignorant as he is now about the real conditions of prison-life of Russia. Still if Mr. Lansdell were able to appreciate the relative value of the information he obtained in the course of his official scamper through

8

Ibid., II, 286. Ibid., II, 373. 10 A. Chekhov, “Ostrov Sakhalin: Fel’etony, stat’i, zapisnye knizhki, dnevniki, 1882-1904”. 9

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia Siberian prisons, and especially if he had taken notice of existing Russian literature on the subject, his book might have been a valuable one.11

Lansdell refused to see Siberia simply as a land of thrills and horrors. For him, Siberia and Central Asia had to be retrieved from sensationalism and represented as a more rational place. He carefully and repeatedly depicted the local populations as people receptive to and capable of participation in trade with the European powers, and especially Russia and Britain. As he put it: “Western Siberia is capable of being made to play an important part in the supply of European markets.”12 Both a missionary who advocated the expansion of commerce, and an explorer, Lansdell was also the ideal muscular Christian who combined physical strength and courage with moral purpose. Throughout his trip across Siberia Lansdell demonstrates both constant intellectual awareness and a great ethnological curiosity. These qualities are especially in evidence in his encounters with the different peoples and tribes of Siberia, including Tatars, Kirghyz, Bouriats, Toungouses, Giliaks, Ostjaks, Oronchons, Koriaks, Chukchees and Kamchatdales. In respect of the latter he wrote: The Kamchatdales are a people of much amiability and honesty. Their houses are always open to the stranger, whom they are never weary of waiting upon, and from whom they soon forget injury. They have given up, to a large extend, their Shamanism, though they still take care, when hunting an animal, not to pronounce its name, lest they should be visited by ill luck.13 The hospitality of all Mongolian tribes [speaking about the Bouriats] is unvarying. Every stranger is welcome, and has the best his host can give; and the more he consumes, the better will all be pleased.14

To be faithful to reality for Lansdell means to give a sea of ethnographical details, not fastidiously selected or ranked but rather included as expansively, and exhaustively as possible. This jumble of details can be interpreted as an effort to avoid ethnocentrism. This view is also supported by Lansdell’s references to the works of the Russian ethnographer Lev Sternberg15 and the earlier works of the Japanese official Mamiya Rinzo.16

11

P. Kropotkin, In Russian and French Prisons, 85-86. Through Siberia, I, 390. 13 Ibid., II, 263. 14 Ibid., I, 367. 15 S. Ol’denburg, ed., Pamiati L’va Yakovlevicha Sternberg. 12

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The ability to cross a swamp, desert or plain and to observe them minutely, to gather botanical specimens, and to record animal behaviour requires particular courage, patience and endurance. Lansdell developed these qualities because he found in Russian Siberia and later in Central Asia the space in which once-constrained subjectivities can roam and come into a productive and rich connection with the outside world. The capturing of that space in language then gives the writer the chance to infuse the landscape with his own vision. One example of this can be found in his description of ice floes on the Lower Yenisei river, which heighten his respect not only for that environment but for all other facets of these bioregions: Huge blocks of ice, six feet thick and twenty feet long, were seen standing perpendicularly, whilst others were crushed up in fragments like broken property. Some were white, and some clear as glass, and blue as an Italian sky. Then the river began to rise, and in the course of the night the whole crust of the Yenisei, as far as could be seen, broke up with a tremendous crash, and a dense mass of ice-floes and pack-ice rushed irresistibly up the Kureika, driving the poor ship like a toy before it, and leaving it in the evening, amid huge hummocks of ice, almost high and dry. The velocity of these masses of pack-ice on the Yenisei was reckoned on some days to be not less than twenty miles an hour. [...] Sometimes the pack-ice and floes were jammed so tightly together that it looked as if one might scramble across the river without much difficulty. At other times there was a good deal of open water, and the icebergs “calved” as they went along, with much commotion and splashing, that could be heard a mile off. Underlayers of icebergs grounded, and after the velocity of the enormous mass had caused it to pass on, the “calves”, or pieces left behind, rose to the surface like whales coming up to breathe. Some of them must have done so from a good depth, for they rose out of the water with a considerable splash, and rocked about for some time before settling down to their floating level. At last took place the final march past of the beaten winter forces in this great “battle”, and for seven days more came slowly down the stragglers of the great Arctic army—worn and weather beaten little icebergs, dirty floes looking like mudbanks, and broken pack-ice in the last stage of destruction—after which the river was found to have risen to a height of seventy feet.17 16

On the order of Tokugawa Shogunate, Mamiya Rinzo (1775-1844) explored the west coast of Karafuto (Sakhalin) in the 5th and 6th year of Bunka (1808 and 1809). During his journey he discovered that Karafuto was an island (thanks to the discovery of the Mamiya Strait) and surveyed as far as the Todatsu area downstream of the Amor River (Heilongjiang). 17 Through Siberia, II, 188-89.

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia

As the above passage demonstrates, Asiatic Russia exerted a profound, and permanent charm on Lansdell, since it seemed to be both more real, and “nearer” than the reality of the cosy life of urban England. This confirms Tim Young’s argument that “travel writing, especially in an imperial or colonial context, is an expression of identity based on sameness to and yet remoteness from the members of the home society”.18 If his journey through Siberia was inspired by philanthropy and curiosity, his advance to Central Asia and as far as the Afghan border constituted part and parcel of Lansdell’s quest for the wild, barbarous new world which had so vividly repelled the Victorian spectators at Vasily Vereshchagin’s personal exhibition in the Crystal Palace in April 1873.19 This quest, together with the desire to set himself a new spiritual challenge, pushed Lansdell to start the preparations for his second trip to Asiatic Russia. In this respect, it is worth remembering that as a student he was already interested in the Jewish and Christian influences on Islam: As a biblical student, it had occurred to me how intensely interesting it would be to witness people, living in a stage of civilization nearly resembling that of the Hebrew patriarchs, and I supposed that this might best be accomplished by a journey up the Euphrates valley to Palestine. But I came to the conclusion, after seeing the Kirghese, that in them I had met with more truthful representatives of the manner of life of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, than if I had gone to the soil those patriarchs trod, because the elements of change have been less busily at work in the Kirghese steppe than in the Holy land. […] I have been the more engrossed with these thoughts because I discovered still existing in the steppe certain laws and customs that obtained not only in the times of Moses, but in those of the great-grandchildren of Abraham. The question arises, then, Whence came these laws into the steppe? If from the Koran, matters will be simplified; but even then there will remain a further question, whether they may not antedate the Koran (which has many resemblances, we know, to the Pentateuch), and come from the Abrahamic times of which Moses wrote—in which case we are sent back to a very remote past that is full of both Scriptural and ethnographical interest.20

18

Tim Youngs, Travellers in Africa: British Travelogues, 1800-1900, 3. The Russian painter V. Vereshchagin (1842-1904), twice visited Western Turkestan (in 1867-68, and then 1869-1871) as well as British India (1874-76 and 1882-83). While there is no documentary evidence that Lansdell actually visited this exhibition, it is nevertheless true that the British press devoted extensive coverage to it. 20 Russian Central Asia, I, ix. 19

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With the publication in 1833 of Abraham Geiger’s famous book What did Mohammed take from Judaism? (Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?), the contribution of Judaism to Islam, and the Jewish elements in Islamic culture, had become one of the preferred subjects of the ecclesiastics. This pioneering study had been followed by many others, with some scholars even arguing that Mohammed had had Jewish teachers or instructors who had provided him with the rudiments of his religion. Lansdell supported such views, which were widespread among scholars whose background was in Protestant theology such as, for example, the Scottish Arabist Richard Bell. Unfortunately for the Reverend, the regicide of Alexander II in March 1881 triggered a string of repressions and pogroms against the Jews. The new ruler, Alexander III, under the tutorship of Konstantin Pobedonostchev21, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and recently created Okhrana, made no distinction between terrorists, activists of the non-violent variety and Jews. Inspired by British liberal and humanitarian principles, Lansdell did not hesitate to show his support for the oppressed Jewish populations of the Russian Empire, notably in Central Asia: I had looked forward with great interest to what I might see and learn in Bokhara of the condition of the Jews, and, in crossing Europe, had called on some of the rabbis, telling them of my intended journey, and of my willingness to be of use, if possible, to their countrymen, though I was not sanguine that I could do much. […] I took occasion also, on some of these visits, to ask concerning the then recent persecutions of the Jews in Russia. I had been present at the Mansion House meeting in the early part of 1882, convoked on behalf of the persecuted, and have been favoured, as I have said, with a letter from the Lord Mayor as Chairman of the Jewish Relief Fund.22

Deeply touched by this injustice he decided to address a letter to the Amir of Bokhara, risking his life. The futility, the madness of his enterprise must have been ever present to him, and only an obstinate pride drove him on: Your Majesty will doubtless remember that the Jews are God’s ancient people, to whom He gave His first written revelation, and Jesus Christ, our 21

K. Pobedonostchev (1827-1907), a Russian lawyer, statesman and thinker, was considered the éminence grise of imperial politics during the reign of his disciple Alexander III of Russia, holding the position of Senior Procurator of the Holy Synod. 22 Russian Central Asia, II, 103.

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia great Christian Prophet, was also a Jew. It would therefore be a thing, I am sure, pleasing to the God your Majesty worships, that His people in your midst should have similar privileges to your other subjects. We, in England, and other nations in Europe, used once to place many and severe restrictions upon the Jews, but we are now ashamed of this, and in England we give them full rights with ourselves. I sincerely hope your Majesty will be pleased, on consideration, to do the same, for I ask this out of love for the people, amongst whom I have friends in England. 23

Among other things, he appears to have been indifferent to food, which was fortunate, given the monotony of diet available to those travelling in Central Asia. He was 42 years old at the time and in the region which he was entering, he was to have no personal relations or any kind of human intimacy for nearly half a year. Undoubtedly he captured the atmosphere of Central Asia of the day—the inhospitable, dusty wilderness, full of lone horsemen and ancient cities, clamorous with busy artisans. Everywhere, in ancient palaces, in mosques, and in gardens, there was dust, decay, the ever-present sense of a magnificent past, all crumbling into ruin. Surprisingly, this time Lansdell does not dwell on the effects of misgovernment in the country. He is a tolerably vivid reporter, yet he has nothing striking to say about wasted fields, decayed irrigation systems and ruined farm houses. Neither is there any mention of the poor quality of the administration. Yet all these things must have been in evidence, for Oriental misrule had always produced its visible effects on the people. Lansdell was not really a scientific enquirer into the societies into which he wandered. He never asks the searching questions which would occur to any student of sociology today; he is quite uninquisitive about such matters as social inequality, for example. Another remarkable feature of his Central Asian travelogue is the absence of women. Whereas in European Russia, they constantly drop in and out of his narrative, they make absolutely no appearance here. While bemoaning the feminine condition in Asia, Lansdell proposed enthusiastically: But what I could not do, or any other Christian man, a Christian woman can do. And here is a field of usefulness for English ladies, which, thank God, some have nobly commenced, but of which others do not yet realize the importance. England would appear to have a contingent of about 700 women missionaries, representing British societies in the mission field abroad. Has Russia, then, no daughters to send to so noble a work in Central Asia? Can girls be found, recklessly to throw away their lives in shooting police officers and promoting the horrible “cause” of Nihilism, 23

Ibid., 119.

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whilst none offer themselves to minister in womanly sympathy to their Mohammedan sisters—dark, ignorant, and uneducated? Let us hope that as the Russian Church has formed a Missionary Society for the employment of men, so another may be formed for lady missionaries to the native women!24

On the eve of the Panjdeh Incident,25 when instead of 2,000 miles separating the two Empires there were barely 200 miles left, Lansdell still confirmed the positive role of the Russian Conquest on the barbarian tribes in Western Turkestan: After seeing Bokhara and Khiva under Asiatic rulers, and Tashkend and Samarkand under Europeans, I should be false to my convictions if I withheld my opinion that the natives have been gainers by Russian Conquest. Hence, now that Merv is annexed, if there are any who would rather see it revert to its old condition of Lawlessness, slavery, and blood, I confess I am not one of the number; but what may be the bearing of this upon political questions, I leave to others more competent to decide.26

Just like the paintings of Vereshchagin, in whose footsteps he followed, so Lansdell’s literary style and his ethnographic sketches provide invaluable insight into the religious and cultural features of Oriental society with its cruelty, debauchery, slavery and the subjugation of women. The barbarism which the Reverend describes is not endemic to Central Asia, however. It is presented not as a geographical problem but rather as a trans-national, psychological one: Lansdell makes it abundantly clear that it can afflict anybody, from any region of the world, who is not mentally tough enough to withstand the particular dangers of Central Asia. With its exotic illustrations and glowing references from regional experts, the book Russian Central Asia and its abridged popular version Through Central Asia found an admiring audience.

24

Ibid., II, 356. The Panjdeh Incident (Battle of Kushka) was a military skirmish which occurred in 1885 when Russian forces seized Afghan territory south of the Oxus River around an oasis at Panjdeh. An Afghan force was encamped on the west bank of the Kushk River, with a Russian force on the east bank. On March 29th, 1885 General Komarov sent an ultimatum demanding their withdrawal. On their refusal the Russians attacked them at 3 p.m. and drove them across the Pul-i-Kishti Bridge with the loss of some 600 men. Following the incident, the Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission was established to delineate the northern frontier of Afghanistan. 26 Russian Central Asia, II, 490. 25

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The Chinese were an increasing source of anxiety for Russia as it sought to consolidate its grip in the Pamirs and along Asia’s Pacific coast. An agent there of Francis Younghusband’s27 potential would have been useful. After exploring Siberia and Russian Central Asia, Lansdell had no doubts that he was the man for the job. Like many other civilians or officers he knew that London would give him a free hand. In February 1888, convinced that there was a role for him in Sinkyang, while Younghusband was exploring the Karakoram and Mustagh Passes, Lansdell was already in St Petersburg negotiating formalities with the Russian Ministry of War. It was here that he met Nikolay Przevalsky, who was preparing for what was to be his last expedition to Tibet: That Prjevalsky intended, if possible, on his next journey to reach the Tibetan capital I make no doubt; for, although he did not tell me so, yet at our first parting in St. Petersburg, in 1888, when shaking hands, he said light-heartedly, “Good-bye, till we meet at Lassa—you from the south, and I from the north”. “Right”, said I, “to drink afternoon tea with the Dalai Lama.”28

High peaks and mountain passes eventually became Lansdell’s obsession. The Mustagh Passes, at 19,000 feet, constituted both a personal challenge and a strategic objective: it was vital to reconfirm Younghusband’s conclusion that the mountains were “impracticable as a military route”. The numinous nature of the landscapes he observes often humanizes his otherwise scientific narrative: Here the monarch of the mountains, known as Khan Tengri, raises his head in lofty grandeur, far above the surrounding peaks to an altitude, according to my Russian map, of 24,000 feet, though Walker’s map (probably in error, since his information on this part of the country is presumably taken from Russian sources) gives only 21,000 feet. Our distance at Jam from the peak being, according to my Russian map, about 80 miles, we could, of course, distinguish very little. I say “of course” in reference to an individual peak; for not only could we see the outline of the range from Jam, but a few days afterwards we did so from Sar-Aryk, where on a clear morning my attention was called to the appearance of the Tian Shan, and a suggestion made as to why they were called “The Heavenly Mountains”. Above the range was the deep blue sky, and an azure mist hid its base, so that its snowy peaks floated like clouds in mid-air. I could scarcely 27

Francis Younghusband (1863-1942), a British Army officer, explorer and an active Great Game Player, headed a military mission to Tibet in 1904 which constituted to all intents and purposes a British invasion of Lhasa. 28 Ibid., II, 310.

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believe that the unaided eye could have seen so far, and I tried to obtain a photograph but in vain, for though the picture gives well enough the details of the foreground, nothing can be seen of the celestial mountains, which the map shows to have been 110 miles off.29

In Kashgar he formed a deep friendship with the Russian Consul, Nikolay Petrovsky,30 considered by many as “a militant Anglophobe”, who “had vowed to keep the British out of Sinkyang, both politically and commercially”.31 The behind-the-scenes master of Chinese Turkestan, Petrovsky was feared by the Chinese and admired by the Turkish-speaking natives who called him the “New Genghis Khan”. Lansdell, however, was completely charmed by his vigour and drive: I had accordingly asked M. Petrovsky to inquire into the possibilities of my reaching Kafiristan; but he completely overturned my air-castles by explaining, more fully than I previously knew, the relative positions and relations of Chitral and Kafiristan; and he said that to enter the latter district would probably mean death.

The Russian Consul was also useful in providing Lansdell with a letter of recommendation: Besides this letter from the Tautai [a Chinese military administrator], M. Petrovsky gave me a less pretentious document to a trader at Yarkand, of whom I might ask for a djiguitt, if needed, to Khotan. This note simply commended me as an Englishman travelling to Khotan and thence to Ladak, its pith being in the last sentence, “Do for him all you can, because he is my friend”.32

Everything was now ready for an appropriate “finale” to Lansdell’s journey in Chinese Turkestan, namely his reaching Lhasa, the geographical, historical, economic and religious centre of the Himalayan region. He was perfectly aware that throughout the nineteenth century attempts by a number of individual travellers to penetrate deep into Tibet and reach Lhasa had failed. Lansdell’s dream was that: on finishing the journey round Chinese Turkistan, I should be near the Tibetan frontier, supplied perhaps with Tibetan Scriptures, accompanied […] by interpreters, armed probably with a Chinese passport and though I 29

Chinese Central Asia, I, 308-09. Nikolay Petrovsky, Russian Consul-General in Kashgar from 1822 until 1902. 31 See, for example, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, 434. 32 Chinese Central Asia, I, 42-43. 30

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The Reverend Henry Lansdell’s Journeys through Asiatic Russia was led to expect no official help, I was not forbidden to do what I could on my own account. In addition to this there was the glamour of trying to enter a city where no European now living has set foot, besides the higher consideration that throughout Tibet proper there is not a single missionary of any denomination whatever.”33

Since the earliest preparations for his trip, Lansdell had been enthusiastic about the idea of meeting the Dalai Lama, presenting himself as “an English lama bearing a communication from the West [the Archbishop of Canterbury] to the Grand Lama of the East”.34 After much hesitation, he was supplied with a general letter of recommendation, signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which, at Lansdell’s request, was engrossed on a large sheet of paper, printed with a lithographed border of flowers, accompanied by the archiepiscopal seal of Canterbury. On his behalf, Lansdell composed a letter, indulging freely in oriental rhetoric and explaining the purpose of his visit: […] I do not intend to be accompanied by armed soldiers, but by a physician bringing many medicines wherewith, if it be the will of Heaven, to cure your sick, as well as an interpreter into Chinese, perhaps by other interpreters, if needed, and a few servants. I desire to collect specimens of plants useful for medicines, also animals, birds, fishes, and insects, all of which, in England, we gather from various parts of the world, admiring the Divine Wisdom with which they are made, and striving to learn in what way they may be of service to man. Further, I shall be thankful for any information that may be given me, or objects shown to me, connected with your religion, manners, and customs, especially ancient writings or monuments that have come down from the great and wise men of the past; whilst I shall be happy, if any desire it, to give such information as I possess concerning the manners, customs, and religion of the kingdoms of the West; also to show portraits of our Chief Lama and other great men, as well as pictures of places and buildings in England. I pray you then, Grand Lama, receive me whilst passing through your country, as I have been received elsewhere, with kindness; and give me the opportunity to learn more of you and your people. Then shall my heart, like the blossoms of spring, abound with satisfaction, gladness, and joy; and let me assure you that any learned lama, whom you may please to send will be heartedly welcomed in England, where tens of thousands of my countrymen are anxious to know more of you and your country’s welfare. Thus will peace and goodwill be established between us, and I, with many 33 34

Ibid., 354. Ibid., 355.

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others, shall not cease to pray for the prosperity and happiness of the people of Tibet! […] [Signed] Henry Lansdell, D.D. London, February, 1888.35

Arriving in Leh and trying desperately to get the letter translated, Lansdell learned of the Indian Government’s prohibition for British subjects to attempt to reach Tibet. However, he stubbornly tried to pass the Karakoram Mountains on the Sikkim side. Reaching Calcutta through Agra, in spite of the growing tensions arising from the Anglo-Indian campaign against Sikkim and Tibet, he adventured to Darjeeling, still hoping to reach Lhasa via Kathmandu. However, the growing hostility of the local Maharajah and the palpable tensions among the population forced him to abandon his attempt to reach Lhasa. “It merely remained for me now to continue homewards”, he was later to write. “But my health was impaired, and I was at last brought to see that I had been going too fast, and taxing my strength more than I suspected.”36 However, like most Central Asian travellers, Lansdell was not easily discouraged. Back in London and successfully married, he drew a detailed conclusion of his venture, which he tellingly entitled “A Successful Failure”: I now cherish the hope that the result of my prolonged journey will eventually, by the Divine blessing, yield more for the Kingdom of God than if I had entered Great Tibet. When looking at my former successes in crossing Siberia and entering Bokhara, I learn not to give too much heed to prophecies of failure, but to go and try. Looking at my not having been permitted to enter Lassa, I learn that in seeking success we sometimes gain more than by acquiring it.37

A “so-called missionary”,38 rather scathingly dismissed by many of his compatriots, a man who blazed a trail for countless subsequent great travellers and explorers, as well as many other anonymous pilgrims, lamas and guides, Henry Lansdell’s spiritual journeys through Asiatic Russia may be reconsidered today as a successful personal endeavour into the imperial oriental borderland. Lansdell found everywhere the sense that the Asiatic world was to be shared between Russia and the British powers. His 35

Ibid., 360-03. Ibid., 404. 37 Ibid., 405-08. 38 G. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889, 4. 36

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direct contacts across the social and cultural boundaries of the Russian and Chinese Empires, separating colonisers and colonised, Westerners and non-Westerners, were far more than exercises in imperial administration or ethnography. His writings represent the colonial “Other” from a specific vantage point, where elements of tolerance and mutual understanding emerged alongside intolerance and domination. Inspired by the grandiose theory that control of the Eurasian “heartland” would assure mastery of the world, Henry Lansdell’s romantic philanthropy, religious zeal and intellectual curiosity in Asiatic Russia merits to be rediscovered to appreciate at its full dimension his long-life wish. As he so poignantly wrote: “If Russia were but better known, a similar feeling would grow, I feel sure, between Englishmen and Russians generally, and both would be gainers thereby.”39

Works Cited Primary Sources Lansdell, H. Through Siberia. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1882. —. Russian Central Asia. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1885. —. Through Central Asia. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1887. —. Chinese Central Asia: A Ride to Little Tibet. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, and Company, 1893.

Secondary Sources Chekhov, A. “Ostrov Sakhalin; Fel’etony, stat’i, zapisnye knizhki, dnevniki, 1882-1904.” In Sobranie sochinenii v dvenadtsati tomakh, X, 30-48. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1956. Curzon, G. Russia in Central Asia in 1889. London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd, 1889. Hopkirk, Peter. The Great Game. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Kropotkin, P. In Russian and French Prisons. London: Ward & Domney, 1887. Ol’denburg, S. ed. Pamyati L’va Yakovlevicha Shternberga, 1861-1927. Leningrad: Izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1930. 39

Through Siberia, II, 373.

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Youngs, Tim. Travellers in Africa: British Travelogues, 1800-1900. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.

LEONT’EV’S VIEWS ON FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN DANIÈLE BEAUNE-GRAY

Although Konstantin Nikolaevich Leont’ev (1831-1891) never actually visited France or Great Britain, he knew a great deal about both countries from his extensive readings in French and English literatures and his education as a Russian aristocrat. In addition, as Consul General in the Middle East under the aegis of Ignat’ev,1 a brilliant diplomat, he gained a professional insight into the ways of thinking and acting of the representatives of these two nations which were often at odds with Russian interests and politics. The insights he gained both from reading, and from observing French and British policies at first hand, are expressed clearly in his own writings, be they literary, political or critical. Significantly, they are negative in the main, shaped as they are by his own religious and nationalistic prejudices. In the first place, Leont’ev was a deeply religious person, eventually becoming an Orthodox monk. In 1871, he even underwent a dramatic crisis which induced him to spend an entire year in a Mount Athos monastery. Later on, he met Vladimir Solov’ev in Moscow whose views on Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Slavophile doctrine influenced his own thinking. His strong rightist political views and pronouncements contrast sharply with the more temperate commonplaces of the leftist intelligentsia.2 They derive in part from ideas bandied about both in his royalist minded family—especially by his beloved but quick-tempered mother—and in Slavophile circles of the second generation, including Danilevsky. In addition, the conservative governmental and diplomatic circles he frequented were generally hostile to the reforms of the 1860s—the emancipation of the serfs, local self-government, more liberal policies in

1 2

For further information, see N. Ignat’ev, Zapiski grafa N. P. Ignat’eva Cf. N. Berdyaev, “Konstantin Leont’ev”.

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education and justice—all of which were inspired by contemporary western pratices. His ideas on progress and evolution were shaped by his studies in the natural sciences at the Faculty of Medicine in Moscow as well as by Danilevsky who, as we know, rejected and ridiculed Darwin’s thesis on evolution. Thus Leont’ev, following Danilevsky, was opposed to the theory of evolution and espoused the idea of progress through complexity. According to Leont’ev, nations, like all living organisms, are born in a state of primitive simplicity, demonstrate their potential by developing a visible complexity, and decline when they fall back into a second, destructive simplicity. For this reason, Leont’ev arrived at the conviction that religion was indispensable to the building of a solid society. In conjunction with this fundamental thesis, he argued for a strong monarchy, and a central and efficient administration with military power centered in well defined social classes. Decline, as he understands it, occurs in those European nations which reject monarchy in favour of democracy and encourage so-called “progress”, thereby demeaning both man and nature. This being the case, it is not surprising to see that he approves of Turkey (even despite Russia’s hostility to Turkey at the time), as a nation that clings firmly to its own traditions of government and picturesque customs, both Muslim and pagan. Similarly, it is not surprising that he fears the advent of a federative Europe including Russia—already at the time a fashionable idea—inasmuch as it would mean the end of Russia as an independent state. On the other hand, his political convictions, however strong they may seem to be, are frequently overruled for aesthetic reasons, especially where the fate of Russian culture comes into play. Now that we have reviewed Leont’ev’s intellectual background, let us move on to a consideration of his opinions on France. Influenced by his reading of Guizot, he was of the opinion that since French history was more sharply delineated than that of other European countries, its course might very well serve as an example and a reference, albeit in a negative sense: as France was declining, he felt, so too was the rest of Europe. Moreover, not only was France declining, but, since the 1870 defeat at the hands of Prussia, it was already de facto in a state of demise. The primary source of its decline could, for Leont’ev, be found in its revolutionary past. Since the French revolution established irreligion as a national dogma, eliminating thereby its belief in a divinely inspired monarchy and a government with an absolute, centralised administration, it had replaced complexity with simplicity, an evident sign of decay from a sophisticated to a simplistic, even primitive, social structure. In eliminating the nobility and therefore the heart of its military organization—and Leont’ev, a noble

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himself, was always strongly biased in favour of the aristocracy—France had destroyed an essential part of its social and cultural identity. Although the French Revolution may have had a negative impact on the destiny of the country, it had a limited positive side as well, in that it fostered the emergence of a new breed of strong leaders both military and social, such as Napoleon and his marshals. And looking back on his first impressions of the revolution when he was still a young man and an admirer of the Republic to which it gave birth, he writes: I am sure that what I liked in a republic was not what distinguishes it from a monarchy (equal rights, political freedom), but, on the contrary, qualities which they have in common, namely power that arises from diversified social classes, differentiated characters, struggle, war, glory, picturesque surroundings, heroic literature, etc.3

To be sure, the constant threat of a revolution under the guise of communism, anarchy or socialism and, therefore, of a new kind of slavery, is frightening to men who cherish subversive ideas but dread bloodshed. Thus, Leont’ev believed, the fear of a revolution could promote a healthy political reaction, and even go so far as to halt civilization’s foolish drive towards progress and eventual destruction. Moreover, for Leont’ev, the real reasons for the decline of France lay more in the democratic ideals of moderate liberals and socialists—whom he despised for their lack of elegance and for their vulgarity equal to that of the Russian intelligentsia—than in the bloody events of the revolution itself. In fact, as Proudhon rightly saw, the profound changes desired by moderates would result in an even greater revolutionary movement, bringing about, for Leont’ev, a decline into hopeless mediocrity. The danger he foresaw in democracy was the leveling of everything and everybody into a tiresome similarity, ending in the complete disappearance of any strong patriotic feeling. This was precisely what had happened in France after Sedan when, under the threat of defeat and German occupation, the Commune had reacted against the greater interests of the nation. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was the price paid for such inconsequence. In the end, French military might was powerless in the face of a victorious Germany which was now free to begin its inexorable expansion Westward. Beautiful uniforms and magnificent victory parades could no longer suffice to placate the country, even if these trappings of a glorious past still delighted the imagination of the nobility.

3

K. N. Leont’ev, “Moya mat’ ob imperatriche Marii Fedorovne”, 15.

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For Leont’ev, the next danger threatening France derives from the religion of indefinite progress promulgated by engineers such as Ferdinand de Lesseps, whom Leont’ev met in Constantinople in 1873, and whom he condemns for his total lack of originality. This narrowness became apparent to him during a dinner at the French Embassy when Lesseps focused on abstract mathematical problems and seemed totally oblivious to the natural beauties of the Orient. The religion of technical progress advocated by Lesseps, hostile as it was to nature and natural beauty, and alien to true science which is more humble and critical in its tenets, seeks to displace Christianity and belief in divine Creation. By its lack of concern for the natural order, it can bring only destruction to mankind in general and France in particular. Deforestation, for example, leads to a drying up of wells, brooks and rivers, which, in turn, is followed by recurring spells of dry weather. And at the same time deforestation destroys the natural habitat of useful wild animals, birds and insects. Deforestation again, brings on the ruin of cattle and their death from epidemic diseases. All these calamities derive from the same causes: the lack of humidity, the spread of insects, the scarcity of oxygen and ozone produced by plants and the evaporation of water.4

Modern techniques, which are a threat to nature and the particularism of the state, of religion and of the aristocracy, serve only the middle class. And the domination of the middle class jeopardizes the very existence of France as an original and independent nation. It means the levelling of social castes, the disappearance of the remaining aristocracy, and the fading away of the picturesque customs of the lower orders as they are absorbed into the European bourgeoisie. This, for Leont’ev, produces uniformity in dress, behaviour and customs in a common European middle-class bourgeoisie, together with the eradication of national preferences and differences in living and in thinking. Progress in France is sanctified at the expense of the individual person or nation. It does not mean real development or improvement in a superior kind of unity: rather it brings on a kind of drab uniformity which is the beginning of a deadly process of decline. Finally, the identity of France and the French is threatened by the democratic mind of a bourgeois society which aims at the establishment of a European federation and, consequently, the abrogation of all national identities. Leont’ev is directly concerned in the matter since Russia as a nation would disappear in such a federation. He argues that for this reason 4

K.N. Leont’ev, Vostok, Rossiya i slavyanstvo, 23.

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Russia should be opposed to any such move and that, on the contrary, it should not strive to promote an alliance with other Slavonic countries which are already beginning to adopt European bourgeois ways. Thus, although Leont’ev condemns contemporary France for its loss of national identity, he cannot help but admire the beauties of France which, in the past, enjoyed a specific, centralised form of government, structured on a well defined class system and an absolute monarchy. He has great respect for Catholic France under Louis XIV, with its centralised authority and efficient administration under Colbert. This appreciation of the role and function of Catholicism from a practising Orthodox believer needs further explanation. It dates from his meeting with Vladimir Solov’ev in 1874 and their common admiration for Catholic discipline, combined with objections to the Synodal régime imposed by St Petersburg during the reign of Peter the Great. For both men, faith is founded on mystical grounds, although it is ascetic in the case of Leont’ev, and visionary for Solov’ev. While Leont’ev refused to condemn Catholicism and the Papacy, and was even willing to follow Solov’ev5 on the long road towards the collaboration of Roman and Greek Catholicism, he was nevertheless not prepared to accept full unity between the two, since he believed this would lead to the disappearance of Orthodoxy and a weakening of Russia. Leont’ev’s admiration of France is not limited to its past, however. He praises contemporary French politicians for their awareness of the country’s problems and difficulties, and for their search for a new political model on the lines of the British system. He read Tocqueville with profit and pleasure, and approved of Thiers when he adopted a more conservative line in repressing the Commune and negotiating with Prussia. He appreciated Guizot, an aristocrat in politics and a Christian at heart, who admired British Lords and institutions. He agreed with the opinions Guizot expressed in his lectures on civilization in Europe and France, particularly his assertions that while society remained strong, individuals had become trivial, colourless, superficial, and prone to destroy the social fabric (Leont’ev would not have hesitated to apply this condemnation to Alexander II’s Russia and the democratic reforms he so loathed). Notwithstanding his admiration for Guizot, Leont’ev was even more attracted to the ideas that Prévost-Paradol (1829-1870), a young and gifted diplomat, developed in his book on La France contemporaine et démocratique (recently reprinted under the title La France nouvelle). Prévost-Paradol was right, he felt, when, in 1866, he foresaw the defeat of 5

Konstantin Leont’ev, Écrits essentiels, 191-97.

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France at the hands of Prussia. It was this realization which was instrumental in his suicide in 1870—even before Sedan—while he was serving in the French Embassy in Washington. Touched by PrévostParadol’s tragic end, Leont’ev was induced to subscribe to his conclusion that there was no future for France other than in colonial Africa for those who refused to become slaves of Germany. A final reason for Leont’ev’s interest in France and its fate lies in his admiration, as an aesthete, of its exceptional place in the history of arts and letters. Since it is the only measure applicable to all societies at all times, so we should learn to respect what is universally beautiful, elegant, elevated. A superior aesthetic sense is at the same time the highest of political and social criteria.6

Leont’ev believed that there was much to be learned from French culture. As far as French literature is concerned, his taste was eclectic. He liked Voltaire for the elegance of his language (the vulgarity of the Frenchman’s beliefs notwithstanding). This was also why he liked Rabelais, as well as the Classical writers Molière, Corneille and Racine, in whose works he found an antidote to the realism of his compatriots which, he affirmed, was aesthetically poor and served only to debase Russian reality: I prefer French novels of the past for their style and outlook on life as opposed to the heightened relief, shot through with coarse colours, splashed with mud, used by almost all our writers. […] The ghost of Gogol’ haunts Russian literature. It is an ugly ghost, a hideous, sniggering monster, sterile but frightening with a force that debases anything he touches.7

His negative views on realism explain his failure to mention Flaubert, Zola or Maupassant, as well as his preference for works that display the many oppositions inside social classes and nations, the conflicts, shocks, and strength of the aristocratic spirit. These could be found, he maintained, in Chateaubriand, Ingres, Lamartine, de Musset, George Sand (whose early works he greatly admired for their depiction of popular characters and situations), and especially in Balzac’s monumental study of the human comedy. And finally, Leont’ev predicts that even if France as he knew it

6 7

Ibid., 24. K. N. Leont’ev, “Dva grafa, L. N. Tolstoy i Aleksey Vronsky”, 12.

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were to disappear, the elegance and refinement of its literature and way of life would live on for a very long time to come. Along with France, Great Britain provided Leont’ev with a convenient means of comparison with Russia, and, once again, his comparison is nuanced as well as complex. In the first place, he was pleased to realize that religious convictions which contribute to national identity and unity were still very much alive in Britain despite the variety of denominations. They were as evident in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer as in the programmes of dissidents such as Jacob White, the Scottish puritans and even Cromwell. Furthermore, religious beliefs and disputes were instrumental in shaping common law, the legal backbone of the nation. So religious diversity tended to further the specific political institutions and social classes of a monarchy that was much less absolute than in France but which remained a strong factor in the preservation of national identity. The reigns of Elizabeth I and George III are Leont’ev’s favourite periods in British history. He admired George III, despite this monarch’s repressive policies and lack of respect for traditional freedom and the principle of habeas corpus. Thus he approved of his declaration of war against revolutionary France in 1793 and his harsh policy in Ireland, including the Corn Laws and the Union Act which assured English domination in the various provinces of the kingdom. While monarchic power was limited by parliament, this was, he believed, to the advantage of the nobility which, through the House of Lords, maintained its traditional privileges as well as hierarchical superiority over the House of Commons. In Russia, on the other hand, he bemoaned the parlous state in which the nobility now found itself, owing to the emancipation of the serfs and various other reforms introduced by Alexander II, which had resulted in a catastrophic decentralization of political power, and robbed them of their previously held privileges. While Leont’ev believed that decentralization was a disaster for Russia, he nevetherless argued that it had advantages for Britain. It encouraged, he maintained, cultural and social differences among the population, while its political impact remained relatively limited. When differences threatened disruption in Ireland, the Union Act assured political conformity with the rest of the nation. Despite the fact that the traditional fabric of the nation was under threat, on the one hand from the pace of modern life, and on the other from various foreign revolutionary movements, the government’s policies remained resolutely conservative. For Leont’ev, this form of intelligent conservatism developed into a peculiar and exceptional kind of modern liberalism which managed to reconcile loyalty to the sovereign with freedom of speech. Thus his

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Majesty’s loyal opposition was never actually in opposition to the monarch, something which, since Alexander II’s reforms, was no longer the case in Russia. In addition, conservatism and liberalism in Great Britain never ignored—as they did in other countries—the objectives of power and dignity. This power and this dignity were not predicated on the prowess of the military, but on the success and efficiency of Britain’s mercantile system. As a consequence of this mercantile system, however, Christian religious feelings evaporated and gave way to the utopian philanthropy of a middle class bourgeoisie exemplified by Owen, who believed in the possibility of universal prosperity and happiness. For Leont’ev, the utter failure of utopian communities in Scotland and America proved the folly of their dreams. Without true religious convictions and genuine military ideals, those branches of the gentry not involved in commerce tended to wither away. The foreign policy that the aristocracy had formerly inspired now had nothing to do with military confrontation. Thus we find British diplomatic activity in the troubled waters of the Orient relying more on ambiguous religious motives and the energetic action of its spies. The ridiculous character of Willarton who listens at doors in the Russian Embassy at Constantinople in Leont’ev’s Egyptian Dove (Egipetskii golub’, 1881-82) affords a convincing caricature of this new race of British diplomats. In domestic affairs too, even the most enlightened minds such as Stuart Mill or Buckle were at a loss as to the kind of future awaiting Britain under the rule of the new values promoted by a mercantile bourgeois society. Leont’ev felt that the objective of universal prosperity and happiness would mean the loss of religious convictions, the abolition of social classes and the impoverishment of landowners to the advantage of employers, and therefore a general leveling of society and the eventual dominance of the middle class bourgoisie. While civic liberties, of little value in Leont’ev’s eyes, were, he believed, too well rooted in British traditions to be suppressed, the mass would come to dominate the individual and impose its specific mentality over all. The influence of English literature on Leont’ev’s views of Britain is difficult to circumscribe. For him, it reflected the traditional values of the country, even though he was not as able to judge it as easily as he was French literature. English literature he read in translation or through the eyes of critics or commentators, whereas he read French in the text and quoted directly in that language. He mentions Shakespeare often, but shows no familiarity with the major characters or plots of his plays. He liked Dickens and Thackeray for their portrayal of the dramatic clashes between the lower and upper classes. He writes:

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Leont’ev’s Views on France and Great Britain If the dynamic Steerforth, bright and noble in spite of his vices, did not appear in the novel David Copperfield, if the unhappy and proud mother did not exist, the novel would have lost most of its charm.8

He appreciated Thackeray for his satirical works, especially Vanity Fair which depicts the British mercantile middle class at the time of Waterloo and the decline of its traditional military values. Moreover, the radically different reading by Thackeray and Tolstoy of the Napoleonic years of war and, in fact, the relative absence of war in Thackeray’s novel, greatly interested Leont’ev who, while recognizing his undoubted talents, was not fond of Tolstoy and his godless pacifism. And finally, he admired Lord Byron, not for his works or political activity, but for the beauty of his life. He loved Byron in much the same way that Herzen loved him: What Herzen loved in Lord Byron was his life, his perpetual errands in those southern countries of Europe which were still in a relatively primitive state, such as Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. He loved his courage, his nostalgia, his physical strength, his capricious demagogy. He did not love him for his true political action or his original hatred of his country, a pure product of which he was from head to toe.9

Even more than Byron’s works, Leont’ev admired the romantic aura of the man and the deep tragedy of his death. Given Leont’ev’s aesthetic sense, it is surprising not to find in him a more profound and personal reaction to the majesty and beauty of English literature. Equally surprising is the fact that, although he deeply appreciated Russian and French painting, he never mentions its English counterpart. Since there were very few English painters in the Hermitage collection, nothing by Gainsborough, for instance, and only a handful of works by Reynolds, it is possible that he never had the opportunity to improve his knowledge or appreciation of this area of English cultural achievement. In conclusion, it is difficult to subscribe fully to Leont’ev’s assessments of French and English politics and culture inasmuch as his linguistic proficiency was not always on a par with his prejudices. This may account in part for a profusion of prolix developments with approximate quotations and incomplete references, a number of questionable analyses often giving rise to rapid generalizations and, finally, the fusing of methods proper to the study of natural sciences with those more appropriate to the 8

K. N. Leont’ev, Srednii evropeets kak ideal i orudie vsemirnogo razrushenyja, 121. 9 Ibid., 135.

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humanities. We must admit, on the other hand, that while his skills in diplomacy were developed in the Middle East under difficult circumstances, his intuitive mind nevertheless enabled him to foresee a number of political and social problems in France, Great Britain and Russia, such as the weakening of the democratic process through the erosion of universal values, the loss of national identity in a federated Europe, ecological disaster as one of the consequences of the industrial revolution, the distrust of capitalism and the intermingling of populations from different cultures and countries. In spite of his failure to appreciate many of the reasons for the widely different social and political systems of France and Great Britain, Leont’ev was never of two minds in his own convictions for Russia and its place in Europe and the world, and more especially in the Far East. In fact, he can be considered the father of the Eurasian movement which flourished in the 1920s in emigration and which, after a long hiatus during the Soviet period, is even more important today.

Works Cited Primary Sources Leont’ev, Konstantin. Vostok, Rossiya i slavyanstvo, II. St Petersburg: Sablina, 1885. —. “Moya mat’ ob imperatriche Marii Fedorovne.” In Grazhdanin VI, VII, St Petersburg, 1887. —. “Dva grafa, L. N. Tolstoy i Aleksey Vronsky.” In Grazhdanin VI, St Petersburg, 1888. —. Srednii evropeets kak ideal i orudie vsemirnogo razrushenyja. Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1993. —. L’Européen moyen, translated, introduced and annotated by Danièle Beaune-Gray. Lausanne: l’Âge d’Homme, 1999. —. “Le pigeon égyptien”, in Écrits essentiels, translated, introduced and annotated by Danièle Beaune-Gray. Lausanne: l’Âge d’Homme, 2003.

Secondary sources Beaune-Gray, Danièle. “L’art de Tolstoï selon Constantin Leont’ev.” Cahiers Leon Tolstoï, no. 19 (2008): 41-51. Berdyaev, Nikolay. “Konstantin Leont’ev.” In K. N. Leont’ev: Pro et Contra, 29-180. St Petersburg: RXGI, 1995.

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Danilevsky, Nikolay. Rossiya i Evropa. St Petersburg, 1869. Reprint New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1966 (includes introductory article by Yu. P. Ivsak). Gluskovoi, Tat’yana. “Boyus’, kak by istoriya ne opravdala menya...” In K.N. Leont’ev, izbrannye stat’i, 6-67. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1992. Guizot François. Essais sur l’histoire de France. Paris: Didier et Cie, 1872. —. Histoire de la civilisation en Europe depuis la chute de l’Empire romain jusqu’à la révolution française. Paris: Didier et Cie, 1878. Ignat’ev, Nikolay. “Zapiski Grafa N. P. Ignat’eva.” In Istoricheskii Vestnik (1914), 135, nos. 1-4: 49-75; nos. 5-6: 441-62; nos. 7-8: 805-36; 136, no. 9: 50-85; nos. 10-11: 430-68; nos. 11-12: 825-63; 137, 54-93. Nosik, Valery. Konstantin Leont’ev, razmishleniya na slavyanskuyu temu. Moscow: Zerkalo, 1997. Prévost-Paradol, Lucien. La France nouvelle. Paris: Garnier, 1981. Volodikhin, Dmitry. “Pustynnoe mesto v sud’be Konstantina Leont’eva.” In Personal’naya istoriya, 208-70. Moscow: Manufaktura, 1999. Rozanov, Vasily. “Neuznannyi fenomen.” In K. Leont’ev, Analiz, stil’ i veyanie [Brown Universty Slavic Reprint III], 137-58. Providence: Brown University Press, 1965.

RUSSIA, EAST ASIA AND THE SEARCH FOR THE “REAL EUROPE”: DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY AND ANDREY BELY SUSANNA SOOJUNG LIM

In Easter of 1911, Andrey Bely wrote to his friend Margarita Morozova: “It was the Russians who invented European culture; in the West there are civilizations; culture in our sense of the word does not exist in the West […] Our pride lies in the fact that we are not Europe, or rather—that only we are the real Europe.”1 Bely wrote these words from Jerusalem, during his travels to the Mediterranean and North Africa with Asya Turgeneva. The riddle of East versus West, and the question of Russia’s destiny, seized Bely with particular force as he visited sights from Sicily to Egypt. He was at this time envisioning a grand trilogy entitled “East or West”. The recently published The Silver Dove (Serebryannyi golub’) had been the first part of this project; Bely was now preparing its second volume. Six years before, Russian society had been shocked by a war with Japan (1904-1905), an extraordinary war that not only resulted in a humiliating defeat for the tsarist empire, but also jolted Russians into consciousness of a changed world order. The atmosphere of chaos and doom was further inflamed by the revolutionary turmoil of January 1905 and its suppression. Having come of age under the profound influence of Vladimir Solov’ev’s philosophy of Sophia and his apocalyptic notion of Pan-Mongolism, Bely, as did many of his fellow Symbolists, perceived the radical historical changes in Russia and the world—including the transformation of East Asia and the astonishing rise of Japan—through the phantasmagorical and poetically powerful prism of Solov’ev. Bely’s correspondence with Aleksandr Blok in that same period of 1911 shows that the two shared intuitions about a special fate awaiting Russia, linked to a threat hailing once again from the Far East. Blok was immersed in reading about the Russo-Japanese War and was sensitive to the revolutionary stirrings coming from China; Bely’s responses to Blok 1

Bely, “Vash rytsar’”, 165-66.

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contain mysterious references to a “Japanese spy”, a “fall into mongolism”, and an “‘evil eye, hating Russia’ (sending us Mongols and Jews)”.2 We find these motifs in Bely’s novel Petersburg (Peterburg), the intended second part of the “East or West” trilogy, which he began to write in October of that year.3 Significantly, thoughts about Russia’s ominous connection to the Far East had the effect of rendering Bely ever sensitive to Russia’s relationship with the West. In his letter to Blok we find the same hostile mood towards Europe that was seen in his letter to Morozova: “Christ has risen! Hurrah for Russia! Death to European filth!”4 As Bely’s letters show, the question of what “Asia” meant for the Russian intelligentsia frequently led to the question of what “Europe” meant for them. This essay seeks to highlight the role of Europe in Russian cultural and literary perceptions of China and Japan. In wishing to show how a Russian creation of East Asia was dependent on yet another creation, “the West”, I focus on the Symbolist discourse on China and Japan from the 1890s to the early twentieth century, represented by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrey Bely. My discussion places the two modernists’ perceptions of East Asia not only in the immediate context of Russia and the Far East at the turn of the century, but also in a line of nineteenthcentury Russian thought in which constructions of this Orient are inextricably linked to an idea of the “real Europe,” to use Bely’s words. A brief summary of nineteenth-century views of East Asia, therefore, will precede my analysis of the Symbolists.

“Chinese shoes of German make” The question of Russian representations of the East, in close connection to its status as nation and empire, has attracted much scholarly interest. Less stressed, perhaps, in this scholarship is the significant role played by the West in the history of Russian Orientalism. In the case of China and Japan, in particular, Europe was often a catalyst and mediator in Russia’s encounters with the two nations. In the eighteenth-century, when China emerged as a political and cultural ideal for key Enlightenment figures from Leibniz to Voltaire, Russian views largely followed suit in depicting the Middle Kingdom as a state governed by an enlightened monarch, by

2

Bely-Blok, Perepiska, 391-92, 408, 416. Bely’s italics. Translations from the Russian, unless otherwise indicated, will be my own. 3 The novel was first published in 1913, and revised in 1916 and 1922. 4 Ibid., 396.

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mandarin scholars who upheld the principles of reason, knowledge, and religious tolerance.5 It is in the middle of the nineteenth-century that we find an original Russian concept of China, one shaped by the intelligentsia’s increasing need for national self-definition. In distinguishing “culture” from “civilization”—and reproving the West for want of the former—Bely has a significant precursor in Aleksandr Herzen (1812-1870).6 Herzen was offended by what he viewed as the meshchanstvo (philistinism) pervading bourgeois Europe, and to emphasize the extent of the degeneration to which a once-noble culture had fallen prey, he spoke of the “chinesification” of Europe, the emergence there of “Chinese anthills”.7 The notion of anthills reflected Herzen’s interest in the natural sciences; his organicist belief that cultures and nations were subject to an evolutionary process of birth, growth, and death. Capitalist modernity was turning Europe into a China; the newest advances of its civilization were in actuality akin to a “Chinese” decay. In equating the West with China, Herzen was going beyond Vissarion Belinsky, whose references to China as a symbol of stagnation to criticize tsarist Russia echoed European romanticism’s use of China to attack domestic conditions. Herzen thus transformed what had been the use of China as a political category to bemoan Russian backwardness in relation to the West (kitaishchina) into a cultural one that effectively criticized European progress. “China” could now point to the threat of modernity, and serve as a harbinger of the unsettling consequences of the West’s relentless material progress. And not surprisingly, the gist of Herzen’s argument lay in the fact that Russia need not follow Europe down this path to China: he urged Russia to break free from the “Chinese shoes of German make”.8 Curiously, the association of China and Western Europe can also be found in the writings of Aleksey Khomyakov (1804-1860), who saw the two as belonging to the same “Kushite” principle in the history of civilizations in contrast to the “Iranian” principle represented by Russia and the Slavic nations. According to Khomyakov, Kushitism stood for the 5

On China in eighteenth-century Russia, see Maggs, Russia and “le rêve chinois”. The division between the two concepts was common among Russian philosophers in the nineteenth-century, wherein “culture” was taken to be the inner, organic, national life of a people, as opposed to “civilization”, which connoted a superficial, alien entity imposed from without. See Grevtsova, 18-19. 7 Herzen, Sobranie sochinenii, XI: 74. On Herzen’s reading of China, see Lim, “Chinese Europe,” 51-63. 8 Herzen, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XIII: 37. 6

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ideas of necessity, abstract thought, and pantheism, whereas Iranianism represented the ideas of freedom, creativity, and belief in a personal God. We see the association moreover in Dostoevsky (1821-1881), whose gloomiest prediction of Europe is captured in his observation that a spirit of kitaishchina moved the England of the Industrial Revolution.9

“Aryan” and Russian nationalist discourse It is important to note that parallel to this ideological pairing of East and West ran a preoccupation with the true identity of Europe before its decline, and the belief that Russia’s potential lay in the preservation of this diminishing essence of pre-modern—and for Khomyakov and Dostoevsky, Christian—Europe. This is seen in both writers’ engagement with the European discourse on the Aryan race. In arguing for the unique “Iranian” spirit of Russia, Khomyakov was in fact borrowing from Friedrich von Schlegel’s division of Aryan and non-Aryan races.10 The Slavophile’s “Iranian” was a version of the “Aryan”, his attempt to transpose onto the Slavs the high value bestowed on Aryanness by the German Romantics. As for Dostoevsky, in his Pushkin speech of 1880 the writer called for “an all-embracing universal communion […] of the great Aryan races”, while in the following year he wrote bitterly that the Europeans considered “the Turks, the Semites” to be closer to them than the Russians, their fellow Aryans.11 These adaptations of the Aryan, bespeaking as much longing as hostility vis-à-vis the West, found their way into Russian readings of East Asia towards the end of the nineteenth century.

The Europeanization of East Asia and Pan-Mongolism “Chinese Europe” may have been an imaginary notion buttressed by Herzen’s ideological zeal, but encounters between Far West and Far East were indeed becoming historical reality from the mid-nineteenth century. Both China and Japan began to open their ports and markets to the West: China following the defeat of the Opium Wars (1839-42; 1856-60); Japan too after strong pressure from the Western powers. Having realized the military superiority of the West and wishing to avoid being colonized, both countries adopted reforms in the direction of westernization and 9

Khomyakov, Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh, I: 194-95; 444-46; and Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, V: 70. 10 Riasanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teachings of the Slavophiles, 215-18. 11 Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XXVI: 147; XXVII: 35.

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modernization. And although few among the intelligentsia, limited as its worldview was to Russia and Europe, paid attention to the changes in the Far East, those who did produced uncanny impressions. One example is Konstantin Leont’ev (1831-1891), the archconservative philosopher who, like the liberal Herzen, disliked modern European culture and who, again like Herzen, used concepts from the natural sciences to explain his philosophy of culture. Leont’ev described Europeanization as a disease spreading to the rest of the world and viewed Japan’s Meiji Restoration (1868) as just such a process of decay.12 When in the last decade of the nineteenth century tsarist ventures in the Far East made evident the significance of this region, it was Solov’ev’s “Pan-Mongolism” that dominated the Russian modernist perception of East Asia.13 Solov’ev’s powerful vision appealed to the deep sense of crisis and apocalyptic mood of fin-de-siècle Russia, and his fixation on the “yellow race” eclipsed any distinctions between Central Asian nomadic culture and East Asian sedentary culture; between the thirteenth-century Mongolian invasion of Kievan Rus’ and the complex dilemmas facing the Russian Empire at the dawn of a new century. And yet in texts such as “China and Europe” and Solov’ev’s “A Short Tale of the Antichrist” we find the philosopher tapping into the Russian discourse of linking Far East and Europe. For despite archaisizing and barbarizing East Asia, Solov’ev did not fail to note that his reincarnated “Pan-Mongolians” were threatening precisely because they had reached out to Europe to adopt its technology and ideologies - at the same time as Europe was reaching out to the Far East, having succumbed to the lure of Buddhism.14

Dmitry Merezhkovsky: “Yellow-Faced Positivists” It is through this fascinating myopia offered by Solov’ev and his nineteenth-century predecessors, then, that the Russian Silver Age encountered twentieth-century East Asia. We find the conflation of Far West and Far East most prominently in the writings of Merezhkovsky (1865-1941) and Bely (1880-1934), whose notions of East Asia were moreover shaped in close dialogue with other Symbolists. The differences characterizing the two generations of Russian Symbolism were also in evidence in the response to the Russo-Japanese War. The reactions of the older Symbolists were varied and inconsistent: they ran 12

Leont’ev, Vostok, Rossiya, i slavyanstvo, 142. Solov’ev, Sobranie sochinenii, XII: 95. 14 Ibid., VI: 93-150; X: 193-218 13

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the gamut from patriotism (Bryusov) to protest against the tsarist system (Bal’mont, Gippius) to interest in japonisme (Sologub, Bal’mont). Not surprisingly, the younger Symbolists’ understanding of the conflict was more uniform, of a metaphysical nature reflecting their view of art as theurgy (Ivanov, Bely, Blok). This was also the case of Merezhkovsky who, although technically a Symbolist of the first wave, held similar views on art. Merezhkovsky’s perception of East Asia had been taking shape well before the shock of Tsushima. His 1895 essay “Yellow-Faced Positivists” (“Zheltolitsye pozitivisty”), written shortly after Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894), is one of the most striking modernist discussions of East Asia after Solov’ev.15 In this curious essay, Merezhkovsky’s thoughts on the decline of China and the rise of Japan are closely connected to the condition of contemporary Russia: it in fact echoes his ideas in the 1893 Symbolist manifesto “On the Reasons for the Decline of and on New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature”. In this seminal work, Merezhkovsky had argued that the highest purpose of literary creation was the expression of religious and aesthetic ideals. In Russia, however, literature had fallen into the clutches of a “financial barbarism” that pandered to the low tastes of the masses (tolpa) and turned the literary process into a bazaar at the mercy of capital.16 Merezhkovsky continued his attack in “Yellow-Faced Positivists”. The image of China here places the Symbolist squarely within the tradition of Russian thinking on China, showing him to be in equal parts inspired by Herzen and Solov’ev. Herzen’s conflation of Europe and China is a direct inspiration for Merezhkovsky’s criticism of the positivist tendencies from Europe that influenced Russian literature. He writes: “The spirit of Europe’s narrow and dead materialism is the spirit of China.”17 Inherent to Chinese culture was a kind of positivism that rejected everything that was pure and spiritual; it in fact had been the cause of China’s defeat by Japan. In its basic frame, the essay is strongly reminiscent of Solov’ev’s “China and Europe” (1890), where the philosopher had used Chinese religions as a front for attacking Russia’s spiritual problems. Similar to Solov’ev, Merezhkovsky’s essay constitutes a form of pseudo-scholarship, where under the pretext of introducing the reader to Chinese literature, he in fact speaks of the crisis of Russian literature. He writes: “For the Chinese, as for all true positivists, beauty without aim or interest, art for art’s sake, is the summit of stupidity. What we Russians call “Pisarevshchina” 15

Merezhkovsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XIV: 40-59. Ibid., XV: 224. 17 Ibid., XIV: 40. 16

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is in essence “kitaishchina”.18 What was needed for the creative, national, genius, and what was lacking in Chinese positivism, Merezhkovsky believed, was “the sacred Promethean fire of the younger Aryan and Semitic tribes”.19

The Coming Beast (Gryadushchii Kham) Race, as the prominence of “yellow” shows, was a key element in Merezhkovsky’s treatment of China and Japan. It gained even more significance in The Coming Beast (Gryadushchii Kham, also translated as The Coming Boor) written after Russia’s war with Japan, a work that stands out as much for its impassioned use of racial and biological images as for its ominous title. In the previous essay, Merezhkovsky had set up a contrast between the “yellow-faced positivists”, with their ChineseEuropean positivism, and the “Aryan and Semitic tribes”, to which a spiritually revived Russia belonged. He now expands on this contrast by pitting the “Coming Beast” against the “Coming Christ”. Yellow-faced positivism had triumphed with Japan’s victory: “Japan conquered Russia. [And now] China will conquer Europe”, Merezhkovsky writes. Christianity (“these ancient Semitic tremors in the Aryan blood”) was under threat, overpowered in Europe and Russia by a “spiritual meshchanstvo” which Merezhkovksy termed “khamstvo”.20 And as before, he relied heavily on Herzen’s notion of “chinese-ification” as evolutionary regression. His language also recalls Leont’ev’s belief that modern Europe was rotting. We read: Here is where the real “yellow peril” lies: […] not in the fact that China is going to Europe, but that Europe is going to China. Our faces are still white; but under our white skin flows not the previous thick, red, Aryan blood, but a more watery, “yellow” blood [...] the cut of our eyes is straight, but our gaze is beginning to narrow, to slant.21

As startling as Merezhkovsky’s language is, his use of race focuses on the spiritual and national, rather than the purely racial. Khomyakov and Dostoevsky, we recall, had similarly harnessed Aryanness for Russian nationalist discourse. What is interesting in this passage—and what makes The Coming Beast not only a culmination of the discourse we have 18

Ibid., 57-58. Ibid., 42. 20 Ibid., 7-11. 21 Ibid., 10-11. 19

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examined but also a distinctively Russian modernist text on East Asia—is how the juxtaposition of “Aryan” / “yellow” is interwoven with class differences. Theories that linked race and class were popular in the West throughout the nineteenth century, as seen, for example, in the views of A. Gobineau, or, to a different extent, in Nietzsche.22 It is possible, then, to consider “Aryan” as a significant Russian modernist notion that combined racial / biological imagery with spiritual or cultural aristocracy; a close analogue, in fact, to the idea of Übermensch, which, as is well known, profoundly influenced the Symbolists. For Symbolists like Merezhkovsky, the antithesis of the noble Aryan was the “yellow East”: the “Coming Beast” that spoke not only of the fusion of West and East, but also the author’s ambiguity regarding Russia’s revolutionary masses.

“Chinese Europe” in St Petersburg: Andrey Bely’s Petersburg Even today, Merezhkovsky’s texts strike the reader for their frenzied images and shrill polemical tone. It was left to Bely, however, to merge the extraordinary Russian ideas on East Asia into a bigger artistic vision in one of the most famous works of twentieth-century Russian prose, Petersburg. It is hard to do justice to Bely’s concept of the East, characterized as it is by a complex amalgam of influences and which, moreover, is hardly limited to China and Japan. Nevertheless, the East Asian element is one of the most significant to the novel’s theme of “East or West”, and certainly the most direct source for its stark racial “yellow” imagery.23 Two sources are key to understanding Bely’s use of the Far East. The first is the Russian context. In Petersburg, Bely incorporates his predecessors’ “Chinese Europe”—until now, with the exception of Solov’ev, lingering at the margins of Russian consciousness—into one of the master texts of Russian culture, the myth of St Petersburg. The second is found in

22

For the Aryan myth in nineteenth century Europe, see Leon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, 183-325. For the discussion of the conflation of class and race, see chapters 3 and 4 in Kenan Malik, The Meaning of Race, 71-123. 23 The novel has received extensive critical attention, and its references are too numerous to list here. For readings that specifically analyse or mention the eastern theme in Petersburg, see Toporov, “O ‘evraziiskoi’ perspektive romana Andreya Belogo ‘Peterburg’, i ego fonosfere”; Savelli, “L’Asiatisme dans la littérature et la pensée russes”; Masing-Delic, “Who are the Tatars,” 129; Malmstad and Maguire, “Petersburg”, 116.

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the impact of contemporary occult ideas, particularly in the notions on race held by the Anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner. Bely met Solov’ev in the fateful year of 1900, at the latter’s reading of “A Short Tale of the Antichrist”. Solov’ev’s sudden death soon after, and the seeming truth of his prophecy as the war with Japan began, made Bely an earnest devotee. For Bely, the Russo-Japanese War was essentially a sign pointing back to the crisis of the West. “Japan is a mask, beneath which lies the invisible”, he declared in 1905. What was at issue in this conflict was in reality the “resolution of the deepest mystical questions of European mankind”.24 Bely also viewed Buddhism in the spirit of Solov’ev, who had regarded it as a dangerous threat to the Christian West, a form of “hole-worshipping”. Bely took up this notion of “holeworshipping”, employing Buddhism to criticize the spiritual decadence of contemporary culture, as well as to poke fun at the older Symbolists who lacked his vision of art as theurgy. In an essay on Fedor Sologub, Bely dubbed the author of The Petty Demon (Melkii bes) a “Dalai Lama from Sapozhok” who would pray to a hole in a hut in a vain effort to attain salvation.25

Hybridity and the Crisis of Modern Europe Bely’s view that contemporaries, and modern culture, were essentially looking toward a “hole” for salvation finds expression in the profusion of Far Eastern images permeating Petersburg. Central to the novel is the idea of a synthesis or hybridity between Far East and Far West, which the Symbolist formulates on various levels: national-historical, cultural, spiritual and biological-racial. To the author, these are all false syntheses, which, far from resolving the crisis of modern civilization, on the contrary deceive and mislead men from the search for a true synthesis. The novel takes place in September and October of 1905 and begins with a description of St Petersburg as the centre of a vast multi-national and multi-ethnic empire, enfolding both West and East. But this empire is disintegrating, and the presence of various nationalities, from Jews and Finns to Mongolians and Japanese, only contributes to the unsettling and paranoid atmosphere. The recent war, haunting the consciousness of the narrator and the characters, takes on the form of a dominant refrain: “[T]he yellow heel audaciously climbed the hills of Port Arthur; China was in 24

Bely, “Apokalipsis,” 377-90. Solov’ev, Sobranie sochinenii, X: 83-84; Bely, Vesy, 3, 1908. Sapozhok was the province where the older Symbolist based many of his works.

25

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turmoil, and Port Arthur had fallen.” Russia’s experience in East Asia is moreover fused with the domestic crisis of revolution, expressed in yet another recurrent image, the appearance among the crowds of a “black shaggy fur cap from the blood-soaked fields of Manchuria”.26 Like the city, the novel’s characters are linked to the East in one way or another. Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, a prominent senator representing the tsarist state, is a descendant of Mirza Ab-lai, a nobleman of the Kirghiz-Kaisak Horde who was russified in the eighteenth century. The senator is the target of an assassination to be carried out by means of a time bomb by his own son Nikolay Apollonovich Ableukhov, a young Kantian attracted to Buddhism. Nikolay is in turn acting out the orders of two revolutionary terrorists, Aleksandr Dudkin and Lippanchenko. Dudkin, a follower of Nietzsche, suffers from nightmares of Tatars and Japanese winking at him, and in particular from a vision of a Tatar-Semitic face with “very narrow little Mongol eyes” on the yellow wallpaper of his room. Lippanchenko, a sinister agent provocateur, is a “Ukrainian type” who resembles a cross “between a Semite and a Mongol”.27 This “TatarSemitic” image has a real-life model in the figure of Evno Azef, the infamous terrorist of Jewish descent who was known for his “Mongolian” appearance. We find a most conspicuous link to Japan in the character of Sophia Petrovna Likhutina, the wife of a guard’s officer and Nikolay’s love interest. Likhutina is a parody of the Eternal Feminine, turned into a “Japanese doll”.28 She is infatuated with japonisme: […] Likhutina had hung Japanese landscapes […] depicting a view of Mt. Fujiyama. There was no perspective at all in these landscapes. But then, there was no perspective either in the rooms jam packed with armchairs, sofas, fans, and live Japanese chrysanthemums […] [W]hen in the mornings Sofia Petrovna […], in her rose-colored kimono, burst in from behind the door […], she was the very image of a little Japanese girl.29

There is a scene in Sologub’s Petty Demon that features a Japanese geisha, and Bely’s passage can be read as a parody of this. In contrast to that other work, his use of Japanese motifs is clearly negative. For it is a cultural synthesis of Far East and Europe, one that suggests a spiritual vacuum, 26

Bely, Peterburg, 49, 78. Passages from the novel are cited from this 1916 version. 27 Ibid., 39, 64. 28 Ibid., 67. 29 Ibid., 60.

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that Bely presents in the japonisme of the frivolous Likhutina, who mispronounces Hokusai as “Hadusai” and whose interest in neo-Buddhist Theosophy is equally fuzzy (she mispronounces Annie Besant, too, as “Henri Besant,” confusing it with Henri Bergson). Syncretism in cultural fashion is echoed on the national and historical level. In chapter 2, the terrorist Dudkin stops to contemplate the statue of Peter the Great in Senate Square. The narrator launches into a lyrical passage depicting Tsushima as the return of the Mongols, calling for a new victory of Kulikovo: […] there shall be a great battle....yellow hordes of Asians, rising from their age-old abodes, will bathe the fields of Europe in oceans of blood. There will be, yes, there will—Tsushima! There will be—a new Kalka! Kulikovo Field, I await you! And on that day the final Sun will rise over my native land. If, O Sun, you do not rise.... the shores of Europe will sink beneath the heavy Mongol heel.... Arise, O Sun!

Immediately after this invocation a motorcar emerges, cutting across the square and the Bronze Horseman with a “deafening, inhuman roar”; its passengers are “yellow, Mongolian mugs”. The wondering Dudkin is told: “Automobile. Famous Japanese guests.”30 Here Bely rewrites a scene from “A Short Tale of the Antichrist,” where Solov’ev had closely linked the Pan-Mongolian invasion with the coming of the Antichrist. In Petersburg, the automobile and Japanese guests, as a synthesis of East and West, become an extension of the city and its creator Peter, whom opponents had compared to the Antichrist.

East Asians as neo-Atlanteans: Petersburg and the Root Race Theory When considering the function of East Asia in Petersburg, it is hard to ignore the role of Anthroposophy. 31 In the teachings of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Bely found ideas very similar to his own. He met Anna Mintslova, a disciple of Steiner, in Ivanov’s St Petersburg “tower” in 1909. Bely, Ivanov, and Minstlova formed a “mystical triangle,” that resulted, in Bely’s own words, in an “exchange of strange thoughts”. From 30

Ibid., 107-08. On the occult revival of the Russian Silver Age, see Rosenthal, The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, 1-32. 31

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Ivanov and Mintslova Bely confirmed that there were “‘enemies’ poisoning Russia with evil fluids”; “Eastern occultists acting on the Russian subconscious”. Such ideas encouraged Bely’s personal fear of being persecuted; he was moreover struck by their resemblance to PanMongolism.32 The correspondence between Bely and Blok of 1911-1912 (the time Bely was writing Petersburg) shows that both Symbolists were preoccupied with questions involving “yellow blood” and Aryan culture.33 Recent studies show that behind this Symbolist fear of yellow Asia hid yet another fear: the fear of a Jewish dominance in Russian letters, responsible for bringing in cosmopolitan and philistine elements harmful to national culture.34 (The association of Jews and Far Easterners appears to have been a popular assumption held by Russian as well as European thinkers in that period; I will refer to it again in connection to the occult influence). For Bely, as for Merezhkovsky, the Aryan ideal is strongly connected to the figure of Christ, and serves as the main counterpoint to the yellow, Pan-Mongolian element in Petersburg. This focus on the Aryan Christ was also at the basis of Steiner’s Anthroposophy. It in fact had been the main reason Steiner broke away from Helena Blavatskaya’s Theosophy, which he believed was becoming too partial to eastern mysticism. The charismatic Austrian was also an admirer of Solov’ev. Anthroposophy, however, retained Theosophy’s belief in a theory of “root races”. Central to the cosmology of both occult movements was the belief that humanity was formed from seven root races, consisting in turn of seven sub-races. Spiritual evolution was the process whereby one root race succeeded and replaced another. Although some remnants of the previous race were carried over to the next, the new race represented a superior spiritual stage, a higher level of the development of selfconsciousness. The notion of root races can be considered a spiritual counterpart of social Darwinism, popular in the West since the nineteenth-century, in the sense that racial traits (advanced or regressive) were substituted for spiritual ones.35 These occult adaptations of race, then, provided a neoromantic, spiritual language for dealing with racial difference that proved

32

Bely, Sobranie sochinenii, 351. Bely’s emphasis. On the mystical triangle, see Maria Carlson, “Ivanov-Belyij-Minclova: The Mystical Triangle”. 33 Bely-Blok, Perepiska, 289-91, 408, 431-32. 34 See Bezrodny, “O ‘yudoboyaznii’ Andreia Belogo”. 35 On Anthroposophy and race, see Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmeier, Ecofascism, 42-43.

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highly attractive to Russian Symbolists longing for the great transfiguration of mankind. According to Blavatskaya, the present era was that of the Europeans, the fifth sub-race of the fifth root race, the Aryan. It had replaced the previous fourth root race, the Atlantean, under which she included various “eastern” groups: Turanian, Mongolian, Japanese, Chinese, and Jews. Theosophy believed in Plato’s account of Atlantis as a mythical continent that had sunk in the ocean, and his depiction of the “Atlanteans” as a warlike people with remarkable powers, whose arrogance and hubris had led to their downfall. Steiner followed this root race theory with a minor variation: he replaced the term “Aryan” with “Post-Atlantean”.36 For a Russian follower like Bely, what was perhaps most important in this arcane and elaborate theory was the fact that Steiner had reserved for the Slavs a significant place in the spiritual hierarchy of races. The Slavs, according to Steiner, were the sixth sub-race in the Aryan family, a people especially close to Christ whose sense of community would complement the rationality and individualism of the Europeans (the fifth sub-race).37 Thus in Steiner Russian modernists found a Western European who acknowledged the spiritual gifts of the Slavs and their Aryan identity—one whose view of Russia was close to that of the Russians themselves. In relation to Petersburg, particularly revealing is Steiner’s view of China as a “form unsuited to Western mentality”, a remnant of the Atlantean epoch opposed to the Christian, Post-Atlantean (Aryan) one. Like Solov’ev, Steiner was wary of the spiritual influences coming from the East, including its hold on Blavatskaya. In a lecture he admonished the West “not to be amazed” by “Chinese wisdom”, for it was the latest form of an “imprisoned spirituality that [did] not belong to the mission of PostAtlantean humanity”.38 This odd occult theory on races, then, together with the Symbolist opposition of yellow and Aryan, helps explain the cryptic references to race frequently found in the dialogue of Bely, Blok, and fellow Russian modernists. In particular, the enigma of Bely’s repeated association of the two identities (“Tatar-Semitic face”) in Petersburg can be found not only in the figure of Azef, or in the streak of anti-Semitism latent in Russian modernism, expressed in the identification of Jews with Mongols or Japanese. It also draws on the root race theory, which, we recall,

36

Jean Overton Fuller, Blavatsky and Her Teachers, 96-97. Maydell, “Anthroposophy in Russia,” 153-69. 38 Steiner, “Earthly and Cosmic Man: Evidence of Bygone Ages in Modern Civilization”. 37

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maintained that Jews and Mongols belonged to the same Atlantean root race. In Petersburg, an attendant at a ball argues that there is a “close and clear connection” between the “Japanese war, the Jews, and the Mongol invasion”; between “the antics of our Russian Jews” and the “Boxers in China”.39 This echoes Mintslova’s words to Bely, when in a letter (1909) she praised him for the essay “Stamped Culture”, (“Shtempelevannaya kul’tura”), seeing it as the feat of a “Slavic Knight” that would “liberate us, Aryans”. She warned him against the “dark forces of Russia,” adding that “it was, after all, the Jews who summoned the Mongols, the Japanese”.40

“All Russians have some Mongol blood” But the resulting image of neo-Atlanteans and Russia in Bely’s novel is more troubled than what Steiner envisioned. Like Solov’ev, Bely is uncertain of Russia’s future transfiguration, and at issue in Petersburg is not so much a depiction of each race fulfilling its role in harmonious succession as the idea that Russia, in the image of St Petersburg as a sinking Atlantis, is (to quote Steiner) “imprisoned” in the past. This is the case of many of the characters, imprisoned, as we have seen, in Mongolian states (“all Russians,” Dudkin claims, “have some Mongol blood”).41 Meanwhile, the future Aryan is only faintly hinted at in the figure of the White Domino. Above all, Bely’s “Atlantis” is the imprisoned states of both Far East and Far West. We see this in the relationship of the father and son who despite their estrangement are constantly drawn together by the awareness of their shared “Mongol blood”. “Mongol blood” is a key phrase that indicates the notion of grim determinism and Atlantean imprisonment in Petersburg, and occurs in the crucial moments when Apollon and Nikolay are each in the midst of an astral dream. The senator realizes that the Mongol face he had seen on his trip to Tokyo, as part of the Russian delegation to conclude the war, was none other than his son. And Nikolay has a vision of his Mongolian ancestors and wonders, “Was that not the reason why he had a tender feeling for Buddhism? Heredity told. In the sclerotic veins heredity throbbed in millions of yellow corpuscles”.42 Nikolay then sees his father in various Far Eastern incarnations: as a head 39

Bely, Peterburg, 169. Cited in Bezrodny, “O ‘yudoboyaznii’ Andreya Belogo”. 41 Bely, Peterburg, 39. 42 Ibid., 152, 267. 40

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resembling Confucius or Buddha, an old Turanian, an emperor of China. The son imagines that he himself is an ancient Turanian […] incarnated in the blood and flesh of the hereditary nobility of the Russian Empire, in order to fulfill an ancient, secret mission: to destroy all foundations. The Ancient Dragon was to flare up in the tainted Aryan blood, and to devour everything in flame.

However, when Nikolay asks about the mission, Apollon tells him that the “Mongol cause” is “not the destruction of Europe but its immutability”, the mere continuation of the dead theories and dogmas of the West.43 In subsequent comments on his novel Bely repeated this point, stating that the Tatar-Mongolian theme of Petersburg signified “dark reaction, numeration, mechanization” as opposed to the “spiritual and creative revolution”.44 Bely thus presents Apollon’s reaction and Lippanchenko’s revolution as two sides of the same coin: the former is the mixing of Western philosophy with the Chinese / Turanian element (“Kant too was a Turanian”, Apollon tells Nikolay), just as the latter, the alleged opposite, is the merging of Western socialist nihilism with Mongolian blood.45 At the end of Petersburg, we have Nikolay breaking free from both Far East and Far West; the former Kantian and Buddhist is now reading the works of Grigory Skovoroda, the philosopher who was often called the Russian Socrates.

Scythianism Bely never completed his trilogy. He had, in the final part of “East or West”, planned to offer a vision of a true synthesis depicting “the East in the West, or the West in the East and the birth of the Christian Impulse in the soul”.46 Nevertheless, in the years between the First World War and the Revolution, Bely appeared to have found his longed for synthesis in “Scythianism” (1916-1921), the social revolutionary movement led by Ivanov-Razumnik. The Scythian movement in Russian Modernism has commonly been understood as a celebration of the eastern element in the Russian soul. But for Bely and Blok the Scythian was, in fact, a revitalized form of the “Aryan” so prominent in their dialogue. Scythianism was essentially a 43

Ibid., 267-68. Bely, Sobranie sochinenii, 413. 45 Bely, Peterburg, 268. 46 Bely-Ivanov-Razumnik, Perepiska, 57. 44

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refreshing escape from the combined impact of Far East and Far West— from Herzen’s Chinese Europe to Solov’ev’s Pan-Mongolism to Merezhkovsky’s Yellow-Faced Positivism—a construct that embodied the Russian ideals of East and West. The Russian as “Scythian” was an “eternal nomad”, a genuine freeman who was above all “unlabeled” in relation to both Far East and Far West.47 A new breed had emerged, representing creative individuality and spontaneous, dynamic, healthy barbarism unrelated to the philistine, decaying civilizations of Germany and France, China and Japan. Still, despite the Scythian vision of Russia’s future, Bely remained apprehensive about the chances of a Russian East prevailing over the Far East. There was a possibility that “the mother [would] live but the child die”, Bely wrote to Ivanov-Razumnik in 1917, in which case the revolution would amount to a “neo-China” a “neo-Atlantis”.48 And contemporary Europe, as he saw it, only deepened Bely’s pessimism. Significant in this respect is his memoir of the years in Berlin (1921-1923). Titled One of the Mansions of the Kingdom of Shadows (Odna iz obitelei tsarstva tenei, 1924), the work recaptures Petersburg’s theme of false synthesis. Only here, Bely’s sense of crisis is transferred from a “yellow” to a “black peril”: the Far Eastern presence in St Petersburg is reduplicated in Berlin by a new, this time African, element.49 Observing the cultural life of Weimar Germany, the Symbolist is shocked not only by Hindu and Buddhist influences, but also by the new addition of the African (negr) element that has seeped into the culture of the European metropolises from its colonies. Bely sees this alien element everywhere: in the works of Expressionism and Dadaism, in Berliners dancing the foxtrot, in the jazz music of the cafes and the increasing prominence of what he calls “‘mulatto’ works of neo-French culture”. European civilization is reverting to atavism, Bely claims, and France, in swallowing the huge continent of Africa, is showing signs of elephantiasis.50 In Petersburg, the city had been linked to slanted Tatar eyes; likewise, Bely claims in the memoir that the “horrible bourgeois

47

The phrases are quoted from Zamyatin, A Soviet Heretic, 21-22. Bely-Ivanov-Razumnik, Perepiska, 111. 49 This point is first observed by Savelli, 290. 50 Bely, In the Kingdom of Shadows, 4-5, 48, 51. For instance, Bely refers to the Martinique writer René Maran (1887-1960) and the fact that he was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel Batouala (1921). Maran’s novel is now considered a canonic work of Francophone and anti-colonial literature. 48

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shadows” of the streets of Berlin have “instead of eyes only holes without inspiration”.51 In Bely’s portrayal of Berlin, then, we see yet again the nineteenthcentury Russian criticism of European bourgeois modernity as a hybrid form of West and East. As in Petersburg, Bely depicts here the replacement of European high culture first by Mongolian and then by African forces, the gradual overpowering of the Aryan blood that he and his fellow Symbolists had hoped to revive in a Christ-centered reconciliation of East and West. In the streets of Berlin, he searches for the real Europe: “You can see some Japanese and Negro faces among them, but where are the representatives of recent high culture, the followers of Goethe, Novalis, Nietzsche, and Stirner?”52

“Yes, we are Asians! With slanted and greedy eyes!” In exploring Russian visions of China and Japan from the midnineteenth century to the years leading to the Revolution, one finds an unexpected angle from which to consider the legacy of European influence on Russia. The examples of Merezhkovsky and Bely show that the identification of East Asian cultures with those of the Far West, which was then set in opposition to Russia, reached its apogee in Symbolist discourse, at a time when historical events presented both the West and the East as threatening Russia. It is often said that Russian nationalist discourse is anti-Western. But despite their vociferous critiques of the West, the attitude of the Russian thinkers and writers from Herzen to the Symbolists is not so much antiWestern as a position of chastising the West for not living up to its lofty Christian, Aryan, ideals—for, above all, failing to recognize the Eastern elements Russia had to offer. We see this in Blok’s “Scythians” (“Skify”, 1918), where the poet’s defiant avowal that Russians are “Scythians”, Asians, “with slanted and greedy eyes”, quickly becomes a supplication addressed to Europe.53 As seen in Blok’s Scythian invitation, as well as in Dostoevsky’s call to the Aryan races, Russian writers, as self-proclaimed gatekeepers of European and Christian culture, were ready to embrace Europe once it repented. They posited a sharp difference between their idea of a Europe of a more idealized past and the present Europe: it was

51

Ibid., 5. Ibid., 28-9 53 Blok, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, V: 77. 52

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the latter, in its “overbearing modernity”, which they equated with East Asia.54

Works Cited Primary Sources Bely, Andrey. “Vash rytsar”: Pis’ma k M. K. Morozovoi. 1901-1928. Moscow: Progress-Pleyada, 2006. —. Peterburg. Letchworth: Bradda Books Ltd., 1967. —. “Apokalipsis v russkoi poezii.” In Kritika, estetika, teoriya simvolizma, 2 vols, I: 375-90. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1994. —. Sobranie sochinenii. Moscow: Respublika, 1995. —. In the Kingdom of Shadows, translated by C. Spitzer. NJ: Hermitage Publishers, 2001. Bely – Blok. Perepiska. 1903-1919. Moscow: Progress-Pleyada, 2001. Bely – Ivanov-Razumnik. Perepiska. St Petersburg: Atheneum-Feniks, 1998. Blok, Aleksandr. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati tomakh. Moscow: Nauka, 1997. Dostoevsky, Fedor. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. 30 vols. Leningrad: Nauka, 1972. Herzen, A. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem. St Petersburg: Gos. izd-vo, 1919. —. Sobranie sochinenii. 30 vols. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 195465. Khomyakov, Aleksey. Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh. Moscow: Medium, 1994. Leont’ev, Konstantin. Vostok, Rossiya, i slavyanstvo: filosofkskaya i politicheskaya publitsistika. Dukhovnaya proza. Moscow: Respublika, 1996. Merezhkovsky, D. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Moscow, 1914. Reprint. Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms, 1973. Solov’ev, Vladimir. Sobranie sochinenii Vladimira Solov’eva, 10 vols, edited by S. M. Solov’ev and E. Radlova. St Petersburg, 1911-14. Reprint edition with two additional volumes. Brussels, Izdatel’stvo Zhizn’ s Bogom, 1966-70.

54

The phrase is borrowed from Chris Bongie, Exotic Memories, 13

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Secondary Sources Bezrodny, Mikhail. “O ‘yudoboyaznii’ Andreya Belogo.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 28 (1997): 100-25. Biehl, Janet and Staudenmeier, Peter. Ecofascism: Lessons from a German Experience. Edinburgh, Scotland and San Francisco: AK Press, 1995. Bongie, Chris. Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism, and the Fin de Siècle. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Carlson, Maria. “Ivanov-Belyij-Minclova: The Mystical Triangle.” In Cultura e Memoria. Atti del terzo Simposio Internazionale dedicato a Vjaþeslav Ivanov, 63-79. Florence, Italy: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1988. Fuller, Jean. Blavatsky and Her Teachers. London and The Hague: EastWest Publications, 1988. Grevtsova, E. Filosofiya kul’tury A. I. Gertsena i K. N. Leont’eva: sravnitel’nyi analiz. Moscow: Izd-vo Rossiiskogo universiteta druzhby narodov, 2002. Lim, Susanna. “Chinese Europe: Alexander Herzen and the Russian Image of China.” Intertexts 10, no.1 (2006): 51-63. Maggs, Barbara Widenor. Russia and “le rêve chinois”: China in Eighteenth-century Russian Literature. The Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution: University of Oxford, 1984. Malik, Kenan. The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Malmstad, John and Maguire, Robert. “Petersburg.” In Andrey Belyi: Spirit of Symbolism, 96-144. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987. Masing-Delic, Irene. “Who are the Tatars in Aleksandr Blok’s The Homeland?: The East in the Literary-Ideological Discourse of the Russian Symbolists.” Poetica: Zeitschrift Für Sprach und Literaturwissenschaft 35 (2003): 123-53. Maydell, Renata von. “Anthroposophy in Russia.” In The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, edited by B. G. Rosenthal, 153-169. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Leon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe, translated by Edmund Howard. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Riasanovsky, Nicholas. Russia and the West in the Teachings of the Slavophiles: A Study of Romantic Ideology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952. Rosenthal, Bernice. “Introduction” in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, 1-32. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997.

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Savelli, Dany. “L’Asiatisme dans la littérature et la pensée russes de la fin du XIX-ème siècle au début du XX-ème siècle. (K. Leont’ev. V. Solov’ev. V. Brjusov. A. Blok. A. Belyj. B. Pil’njak).” PhD diss., Université de Lille III, 1992. Steiner, Rudolf. “Earthly and Cosmic Man: Evidence of Bygone Ages in Modern Civilization”, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Places/Berlin/19120319p01.html;mar k=495,34,41#WN_mark. Last consulted on September 22, 2009. Toporov, V. “O ‘evraziiskoi’ perspektive romana Andreya Belogo ‘Peterburg’ i ego fonosfere.” In Evraziiskoe prostranstvo: zvuk i slovo (Mezhnarod. Konf. 3-6 sentyabrya 2000), 83-124. Moscow: Kompozitor, 2000. Zamyatin, Evgeny. A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin, edited and translated by Mira Ginsburg. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1992.

PART II: COMPARISONS

THE REFERENCE TO THE YEAR 1793 IN A TALE OF TWO CITIES, NINETYTHREE 1 AND THE DEVILS SARAH BOUDANT

Dostoevsky was convinced that there were profound links between his own work and that of two contemporary European writers, namely Dickens and Victor Hugo, the so-called “writers of the ideal”.2 Following Dostoevsky, we propose to examine the parallels between three novels written bewteen 1860 and 1872, each of which deals with the myth of 1793. These are: A Tale of Two Cities, Ninetythree (Quatrevingt-treize) and The Devils (Besy). We insist on the term “myth”, for our analysis is limited to the study of works of fiction, each of which reconstructs history in a manner governed by the laws of aesthetics, and is situated in a universe of symbolic meaning. Our approach is that of a literary critic, rather than of a historian, which means that rather than try to reconsitute the events of 1793, we will instead analyse how and why each text recreates the myth of that year. While the persepective on 1793 is different in each novel, all three nevertheless raise the same issue, which is both political and philosophical, questioning as it does the legitimacy of revolution. The allusion to 1793 is obvious in Hugo’s novel, since he chooses it as the title. The archaic spelling, “Quatrevingt-treize”3 emphasizes both the 1

This chapter has been translated from French by Graham H. Roberts. This is the starting point for my doctoral thesis, “L’idéalité et la réalité romanesque dans les œuvres de Dostoïevski, Dickens et Hugo”. More specifically, we refer to three statements made by Dostoevsky in his sketches for an unfinished article of 1876 on the ideal in art: first, “Beauty in our century: Pickwick, NotreDame, Les Misérables.”, second, “Where are the good people? They come into contact with ideals. In France this is in Les Misérables. In solid, dependable England, it is in Dickens.” and third, “Dickens, Les Misérables (unique ideal).” These statements are cited in Fridender, “Les Notes de Dostoïevski sur Victor Hugo”. 3 Instead of the usual “quatre-vingt-treize” (editor’s note). 2

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unusual nature of the number, and its symbolism. The symbolic force of this figure was already evoked in the poem “Les révolutions, ces grandes affranchies”, written in 1857, and published posthumously in the collection Toute la lyre: Two clouds formed at the base of the heavens this number: –Ninety-three – a figure which appeared as if from nowhere. It seemed to carry within itself its own sense of destiny: The eighteenth century reached eighty. Another thirteen, that strange number, and the day arrived!4

The above quotation illustrates clearly the way in which the historical events become less significant than their symbolic charge, in a way typical of Ninetythree. In this novel, it is the first half of the “année terrible”5 that interests Hugo, that is to say the period of civil war before the institution of the Reign of Terror. In Dickens’s novel, the action takes place mainly between 1792 and 1793, even if the story begins in 1775, looking back even further, via a series of analepses, to 1757.6 The British novelist nevertheless focuses on 1793, a fact underlined by the first French title of the novel,7 Paris et Londres en 1793. Comparison with Dostoevsky’s The Devils might at first sight appear less convincing, since this is not a historical novel on the Terror, or even on the French Revolution, but rather a fictionalised series of events supposed to take place in the 1870s. Nevertheless, this imposing novel contains a small number of important references to the Terror and the myth of the French Revolution. For example, while depicting the revolutionary atmosphere prevalent in Russia in the 1870s, the narrator

4 V. Hugo, Poésie IV, 182. The French for “ninety-three” is, of course, “eightythirteen”. Unless otherwise stated, all translations in this chapter are the editor’s. 5 We refer here to The Terrible Year (L’Année terrible), a poem devoted to the year 1793, published in January 1872, less than a year before Hugo began work on Ninetythree, in December of the same year. 6 This is the date at which the story really begins since, as the author reveals at the end of the novel, it is the year of the event which unites all the characters. 7 This translation appeared in 1861, according to K. M. Grossman, in his article “Angleterre et France Mêlées: Fraternal Visions in Quatrevingt-treize and A Tale of Two Cities”, 106.

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quotes the character Kirillov who cries “Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort!”,8 just before killing himself. As Grossman has observed,9 A Tale of Two Cities and Ninetythree have much in common, although it is unlikely that the former influenced the latter. One could certainly make a case for influence, however, since Hugo first thought about writing Ninetythree in 1863, just two years after the publication of the French translation of Dickens’s novel. As Hugo put it in a letter to his editor, dated 10 January 1863: I am about to begin a monumental work. I hesitate before its immensity, although this also pulls me in. It is 93.10

It is true, of course, that Hugo did not begin work on the novel until 1872, and it was not published until 1874. Nevertheless, Hugo’s interest in 1793 was certainly nothing new, since as early as 1843 he had begun to collect archival material to which he gave the collective title, “The relics of 93”. Moreover, the year 1793 inspred a number of his poems, such as “The Vendée” (“La Vendée”, 1819), “The Ode of the Poet in Revolutions” (“L’ode du Poète dans les révolutions”, 1822), “The Revolution” (“La Révolution”, from the collection entitled The Four Winds of the Spirit (Les Quatre vents de l’esprit, 1857)) and “The Terrible Year” (“L’Année Terrible”, 1872). We can say then that Hugo’s interest in 1793 is manifest at all periods of his life and work. Having said that, we should point out that this year is not referred to in his novels until the 1860s, after the publication of the French translation of A Tale of Two Cities. This is, however, likely to be mere coincidence, even if the two did meet, during Dickens’s visit to Paris in 1847. Their paths were not to cross again, however, not least because the events of 1848 prevented Dickens from returning to France until 1853, by which time Hugo was already living in exile in the Channel Islands, following the coup d’état of 1851. However, even if the two authors were prevented from meeting by force of circumstance, their output certainly bears comparison; Dickens had great admiration for the author of Notre Dame de Paris and The Last Day of a

8

Dostoevsky, Besy, 655 (in French in the text). K. M Grossman, “Angleterre et France Mêlées”. 10 See the letter to Albert Lacroix dated 10 January 1863, in: V. Hugo, Correspondance tome II (années 1849-1866), 433. 9

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Condemned Man (Le dernier jour d’un condamné),11 and his early work, written under the pseudonym Boz, was compared to Hugo’s at the time. Whereas Hugo’s work seems to have influenced Dickens’s development as a writer, the reverse cannot be said. Dickens was not, for example, among the authors that Hugo read while in exile on Guernesey. While it is true that his library in Hauteville House contained the French translations of all the Englishman’s works,12 there is no evidence to suggest that he actually read them. Hugo makes absolutely no reference in his private diaries to Dickens, unlike Shakespeare, to whom he repeatedly alludes. For this reason, the hypothesis that Dickens influenced Hugo while he was writing Ninetythree, however tempting, is unlikely to be true (although this does not mean that there are no points of similarity between Hugo’s novel and A Tale of Two Cities). It is just as unlikely that Dickens’s novel influenced The Devils. Dostoevsky wrote his novel between December 1869 and the autumn of 1872, with the first two parts appearing in serialised form in 1871, more than ten years after Dickens’s work, which came out in English in 1859.13 It is possible to argue nevertheless that Dickens’s work is one of Dostoevsky’s major sources of influence, as J. Catteau maintains in La Création littéraire chez Dostoïevski.14 Moreover, although the two men never met, there are undeniable similarities between their respective works. Dostoevsky admired Dickens from a very early age. As Hollington notes,15 his first encounter with Dickens was via the Russian translation of Dombey and Son by Irinarkh Vvedensky, in 1840. Later, during his time at the penal colony, he read and reread David Copperfield and The Pickwick

11

The English translation of the former appeared in 1833 under the title The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, while the second was published as The Last Day of a Condemned Man in 1840. 12 As K. M. Grossman points out, it is possible that Victor Hugo had access to the original English-language version when it was published in 1859, since his son, François Victor, introduced him to much English literature: “Angleterre et France Mêlées”. 13 Unfortunately we have been unable to locate details of the first translation of the work to appear in Russian. Our main point, however, is that Dostoevsky makes no mention of A Tale of Two Cities, and this work does not appear to have influenced him, unlike other novels by Dickens. Dostoevsky makes no attempt to play down his habit of reapproporiating characters such as Little Dorrit for example, as J. Catteau has shown: La Création littéraire chez Dostoïevki. 14 Dickens’s influence on Dostoevsky is also mentioned in “Dostoevsky” by M. Hollington, 190-01. 15 Ibid.

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Papers, reading nothing else, except for the Bible.16 These allusions are sometimes implicit, although nevertheless perfectly recognisable, as for example in Humiliated and Insulted (Unizhennye i oskorblennye), where the couple formed by the heroine Nellie Valkovsky and her grandfather Jeremy Smith is based on the model found in The Old Curiosity Shop. Similarly, the Touchard pension in The Adolescent (Podrostok) is based on the famous Salem institution in David Copperfield.17 At other times, they are explicit, as is the case with The Devils; the novel opens with the satirical portrait of a Russian intellectual of the 1840s, Stepan Trofimovich, whose cultural references are exclusively European. After losing his university chair, Trofimovich publishes an article in a monthly that also, so we are told, carried works by Dickens in Russian translation. The English writer is thus directly referred to in the very first pages of the novel.18 This allusion to Dickens, placed at the very beginning of The Devils, should not surprise us, if we consider that Dostoevsky first began to plan work on the novel in 1868,19 exactly a year after reading Little Doritt with his wife Anna Grigorevna.20 It should be noted, however, that in his other novels, Dostoevsky does not hesitate to pay hommage to those works by Dickens which have marked him.21 The fact that A Tale of Two Cities is not mentioned in The Devils, despite the similarity of subject matter (revolutionary violence) makes it unlikely that we are dealing with a case of direct influence here. Finally, despite several remarkable similarities between Ninetythree and The Devils, there can be no question of influence. Published after The Devils (1871-2), Hugo’s novel (1874) could not have served as a source for Dostoevsky, while Hugo cannot have had access to Dostoevsky’s text, given the 19th century French public’s ignorance of him, a fact documented

16

Ibid. Another example would be Netochka Nezvanova, which is reminiscent of Dombey and Son. 18 Dostoevsky, Besy, 9. th 19 See the following letters: to Maikov, December 11 , 1868, to Strakhov, March th 24 , 1870, rough draft of letter to Kachpirev, August 15th, 1870, and letter to th Katkov, October 8 , 1870. French translations of these letters can be found in Dostoevsky [Dostoïevski], Correspondance, II, 408-09, 561, 593-94, and 605. 20 See J. Catteau, La Création littéraire chez Dostoïevski, 57. 21 The same is true of his private correspondence, and his public writing, as can be seen from his Diary of a Writer (Dnevnik pisatelya). 17

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by J.-L. Backès, citing studies by Eugène Melchior de Voguë and André Gide.22 Despite the fact that there can be no question of mutual influence, it is nevertheless interesting to compare these three works, if only in order to understand better the respective positions of Dostoevsky, Hugo and Dickens on nineteenth-century European history and the aesthetic choices that it imposes. We shall analyse the significance of 1793 for our three novelists, before examining more precisely the various manifestations of the mantra “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... ou la mort!” in their respective works. For each of our three authors, 1793 constitutes a phenomenon which cannot be understood in isolation, but which must be grasped in relation to another phenomenon, be it another era, or a different geographical or cultural context. In Hugo’s novel, the year 1793 is set against the present, since the desperate situation in which the Third Republic finds itself in 1791, at the mercy of Prussia and the Commune, calls to mind the threat England and the Vendée posed to Revolutionary France in 1793. The fires of 1871 during the Paris Commune are transposed in the novel, with the fire of the Tourgue or the description of burning villages. The Vendean insurgents stand for the Communards, in what amounts to a curious ideological displacement, since the former are monarchist, and the latter socialist. This displacement demontrates that what is at stake is less historical truth than a philosopical framework, since Hugo isolates from the events a single principle, violence, on which he then reflects. This reflection is conducted aesthetically, as is suggested by the choice of “violent” colours, the red and the black, in the scenes depicting the fire itself. The leitmotif of the fire, and the accompanying images of destruction can also be found in Dostoevsky’s novel. The Russian writer is also influenced by the episode of the Paris Commune when he writes the third part of The Devils. He is especially impressed by the fire at the Tuileries gardens, which he had read about in the newspapers. For him, this event echoed the riots which had occurred in Russia in the 1860s. We can thus say that the context in which The Devils and Ninetythree are written is very similar, a fact which explains the appearance in both of similar aesthetic motifs, such as the fire. It should be noted, however, that Dostoevsky proposes a pessimistic vision of history, marked by a profound suspicion of revolution. For example, in the third part of the 22

See the following: J.-L. Backès, Dostoïevski en France (1884-1930); M. Cadot, ed., Eugène Melchior de Voguë, le héraut du roman russe, Paris; and A. Gide, Dostoïevski. Articles et causeries.

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novel, the fire is supposed to have been started by disgruntled workers (Russian “Communards”?). The reader knows, however, that this version of the facts is a lie, invented in order to hide the real criminals, a clandestine group of Nihilists motivated by personal, rather than political considerations. This group, led by Petr Verkhovensky, appear to be serving a “cause”, but simply use it as a pretext to cover up the traces of a crime in which their idol, Stavrogin, is implicated. Dostoevsky uses irony here to denounce the real motives of an action which is ostensibly political, but which is in reality anything but. Another technique which he uses is digression. The description of the fire is interrupted by a reflexion on man’s destructive urge, which is another way of showing, much as the bitter narrator does in Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpol'ya), that the question of different political systems serves not to solve, but rather to obscure the real, metaphysical nature of the problem. The origin of evil, according to Dostoevsky, is human nature itself, which means that all political utopias must remain impossible dreams, inasmuch as they have nothing to say about the contradictions at the heart of human nature. Such a view leads Dostoevsky into conflict with Rousseau, and specifically the latter’s concepts of the social contract and the noble savage. Often cited in Dostoevsky’s private correspondence, Rousseau is an essential, if largely implicit reference in The Devils. He is cited explicitly only once, in “Stavrogin’s confession”, and even then it is as author of the Confessions and not as a political philosopher. The novel posits a neat line of cause and effect from Rousseau to the Commune, as if Russia of the 1870s had not been touched by the European, and more specifically French, heritage of the Lumières and the Revolution. Once again, the revolutionary myth is a reference, which serves to explain the causes of evil in society, as Rousseau does. Dostoevsky, however, displaces the problem, by shifting it from the political to the metaphysical plane, since he locates the origin of evil not in any social system per se, but rather in the human soul itself. Consequently, the very idea of progress—of what Rousseau calls “perfectibility”—is questioned, and political action appears doomed to failure. If we compare the motif of the fire and destruction in The Devils and Ninetythree, one of the major differences is that Hugo places it within a cycle of death and rebirth. Such symbolism illustrates his dialectical view of history, as tension leading to progress. In the novel this is translated by the association in the last chapters between the light from the fire and the daylight of a new dawn, an image of progress achieved at the cost of sacrifice (including that of the novel’s heroes, since Gauvain the Republican and Cimourdain his spiritual father sacrifice themselves in the name of the

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Republic in the very last chapter). What makes these deaths harbingers of rebirth is the fact that they are caused by the attempted rescue, conducted both by Vendeans and by Republicans, of three children locked in the Tourgue during the fire. These children embody the future, the young Republic—in a word, progress. Furthermore, the cyclical symbolism of death and rebirth enables Hugo to reflect on the heritage of the Revolution. He thus enters the debate which raged in France in the nineteenth century, between on the one hand counter-revolutionaries such as Louis de Bonald, and on the other those such as Michelet (whom Hugo had read) who sought to justify everything about the Revolution, including the Terror. In Ninetythree Hugo comes down squarely on the side of the Republicans, but he does so in an impartial manner, since he recognises the violence committed by both sides, and depicts the French Revolution as a paradoxical march towards progress, with as many dark pages as light ones. In A Tale of Two Cities the images of fire and destruction appear not in the leitmotif of a house fire itself but in that of the smithy. This is a recurrent leitmotif in Dickens’s work. One has only to think of Great Expectations to recall the descriptions of Joe’s forge. In A Tale of Two Cities, however, this trope is depicted differently, in a way which is closer to the images in The Devils and Ninetythree already analysed. The light of the fire, so often suggestive of hearth and home, is here associated with the colour of blood. The smithy in A Tale of Two Cities functions as a metonym for the massacres of September 1792, described as a single night when thousands temper their weapons dripping with the blood of men killed in the name of the Revolution. The image Dickens gives of revolutionary violence is deliberately excessive. The smithy, for example, is a hell on earth, while the revolutionary night ends with a blood-soaked sunrise. Unlike in the case of Hugo and Dostoevsky, revolution was not a burning issue for Dickens’s contemporaries. Victorian England can hardly be said to have been shaken by episodes comparable to the unrest that swept Russian in the 1860s, or the Paris Commune. Nevetherless, there is just as much of a historical parallel here as in The Devils or Ninetythree, albeit in another sense. It is not so much revolutionary action which resonates with Dickens’s contemporaries, as the description of the Ancien Régime.23 The denunciation of the ways in which courtiers abuse their 23

As Grossman observes, “Throughout his novel, Dickens suggests that the world it portrays is but an analogue for mid nineteenth-century England [… ] When the author disclaims the French nobles […] he is simultaneously judging Victorian England.”: “Angleterre et France Mêlées”, 112.

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position in pre-1789 France is a transposition, following the logic of the “Persian perspective” (one thinks of Gulliver, or of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters) of a satire of Victorian society. A good example of this occurs at the start of the novel, when a marquis’s coach crushes a child in much ths same way that this society crushes its weakest members. This description of the Ancien Régime recalls Dickens’s criticism of the social status of children in Victorian England, criticism evident in novels such as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Hard Times and Little Doritt. The genre of the historical novel allows Dickens to denounce certain charcteristics of his own society without offending his contemporaries’ sensibilities. While the novelist was a brilliant satirist, he was also very concerned about his popularity. Like Dickens, Hugo also places a contemporary phenomenon in a historical framework. In his particular case, however, he is motivated less by the desire to placate the censor and his wider readership, than by the need for a fresh perspective on conflicts too complex, and too sensitive, to be tackled head on. This choice of literary genre reflects Hugo’s attitude during the Commune itself; refusing to side with the Communards on account of the violent nature of the uprising, but equally disapproving of the brutal repression to which they were subjected, Hugo decided to return to Guernesey, in order to obtain a distanced, more nuanced view of events. This principle of drawing a parallel with contemporary politics is even more clearly applied by Dostoevsky, in The Devils. In the novel Dostoevsky depicts, in the form of a fictional chronicle, unrest affecting Russia at the very moment of writing. Reality eventually catches up with fiction; in October 1869, his wife’s brother tells him about the mysterious ciricle of revolutionaries based at Dresden’s Agricultural Institute and calling themselves “The People’s Will”, led by a certain Nechaev (who serves as the model for Petr Verkhovensky in the novel). One of the most extreme members of the group, the student Ivanov (who will become in our novel the character Shatov), broke away from the others. A month later, on November 21st, 1869, Dostoevsky read in the newspapers that Ivanov had been executed by the others, and that Nechaev had been arrested. These events very closely resemble the plot of The Devils. Dostoevsky even goes as far as to anticipate in his novel real events (for example he has Petr Verkhovensky flee, just as Nechaev will eventually). It is true that although contemporary events are well and truly present, the parallel with 1793 is less obvious than in Ninetythree or A Tale of Two Cities. Nevertheless, references to the French Revolution and the myth of the year 1793 (and to the massacres of September 1792) do come at key moments in the novel. Before Kirillov kills himself, for example, he cites,

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in French, a slogan from 1793 in his suicide note. Another example comes in the meeting between Tikhon and Stavrogin, in an episode banned by the censor when the novel was initially published, but which now appears at the end of the novel’s second part. It comes in the expression “très peu” (quoted once again in French), contained in the answer an archbishop makes during the massacre of September 1792 to those who ask him whether he believes in God. The final and most significant example occurs in the mouth of Shatov, who lists all those in the ranks of the Russian Nihilists whom he has left behind: Whom have I rejected? Enemies of life in all its vitality, old-fashioned liberals, frightened of their own independence, slaves to thought, the enemies of individuality and freedom, shabby, decrepit preachers of dead and rotten ideas. What do they have to offer? Senile old age, the golden mean, the dullest kind of petty bourgeois mediocrity, envious equality, an equality devoid of any sense of individual dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or by a Frenchman of 1793… But mainly bastards, bastards, and more bastards.24

In this tirade, the “Frenchman of 1793” is equated to a “lackey” and a “bastard”, such is Shatov’s disdain for the defenders of the principle of equality, the torchbearers of the French revolutionary spirit. What is striking when one reads the references to 1793 in The Devils, is that this date, and the myth which it symbolizes, is not reserved for the French alone. The Russian characters allude to it, relate to it as if it were, if not part of their own history, then at least part of a common European history in relation to which they define themselves. In Dostoevsky’s work, but also in the novels of Hugo and Dickens, the French historical event cannot be understood outside its broader, European context. In A Tale of Two Cities, the French Revolution is viewed by an Englishman, who experiences the events themselves as they unfold. Conversely, in Ninetythree the Revolution is seen first and foremost from England, since Hugo writes his novel in Guernesey, even though it would have been perfectly possible for him to return to France, now that the Republic had been proclaimed. As Pierre Laforgue notes: “While the history of France remains Hugo’s main proccupation, from 1863 he views it sub specie Britanniae.”25 Nevertheless, as we shall see, such a decentered persepctive is a double-edged sword.

24 25

Dostoevsky, Besy, 610-11 (our emphasis). P. Laforgue, “La révolution française vue d’Angleterre”, 123.

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In A Tale Of Two Cities, France is held up in contrast to England, with Dickens warning his countrymen against the excesses of a revolution whose bloody and terrifying aspects he deliberately exaggerates. He does so in the second part of the novel, in chapter twenty-one with his depiction of heads planted on pikes, then in the following chapter with the aristocrats, in part three with the reference to the smithy and the September massacres (chapter three), and the orgiastic dance of the Carmagnole (chapter six). However, these episodes are all characterized by an ambivalent attitude towards violence, somewhere between repulsion and fascination.26 Although Dickens is dealing with actual events, documented by, for example, Thomas Carlyle, he nevertheless fictionalizes the French Revolution, in an attempt to shock his readers (it should not be forgotten that the novel was first published in serialised form, with his readers eager for the next sensational instalment). In this respect, Dickens belongs to a well-established literary tradition of representing the revolution, that of the roman noir. A Tale of Two Cities is thus different from The Devils and Ninetythree, which deal much more closely with the reality of social unrest (the Commune, Russian revolutionary movements), rather than with its imagined horrors.27 In Ninetythree, Hugo has the counter-revolutionary threat come from England, since the marquis de Lantenac, leader of the Vendeans, crosses the Channel on the ship The Claymore. Even more importantly, he has Robespierre directly assimilate the enemy within (the Vendeans) and the foreign foe (the English). As he puts it: “The Vendeans and the English, it’s like Britanny with Britanny.”28 Dostoevsky goes further, albeit not without a certain ambivalence, since in The Devils he questions whether ideas born in Europe can be a factor for progress in Russia, while at the same time in his public pronouncements and his novels he claims to belong to a long line of great European writers. Whatever the case, he makes it clear in The Devils that the practical application in Russia of European ideas leads inevitably to disaster. It is significant that the group of Nihilists comes together in Europe, and is explicitly guided by the leading lights of the Enlightenment, from Rousseau to Fourrier and Proudhon. Despite this, their actions bring not progress but merely death and destruction. The suggestion is that progress in Russia cannot be achieved by copying an alien philosophy, but rather by a return to the land and to Russian (but not necessarily anti-European) cultural values. 26

On Dickens’s fascination with the gory and the morbid, see J. Gattégno, Charles Dickens. 27 See Heistein, ed., La Révolution française et ses fantasmes dans la littérature. 28 Hugo, Quatrevingt-treize, 165.

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In The Devils, each one of the members of the group of five can be said to imitate. They all ape someone else, in a way which serves metonymically to underline the way in which in Dostoevsky’s eyes the entire Russian Nihilist movement mimicks the French Revolutions of 1789, 1793, 1830, 1848 and 1870.29 One can cite for example the seventh chapter of part two, in which men from the provinces attempt to hold a clandestine political meeting. These apprentice revolutionaries, not knowing how to orgainse a meeting, end up being obliged to vote in order to determine whether or not a meeting is actually taking place, although they have little idea what a meeting should involve, and neither can they decide on the best way to have a vote. As they gesticulate wildly, get to their feet or lower their hands, the result is complete chaos. This incident provides one of the great comic moments of the novel, in which the chacracters try to act in a play where they understand neither the text nor its meaning, as one of those present at the meeting eventually admits, when he exclaims, “Hey, we’re not used to this Constitution lark!”30 This process is taken to extremes at the very end of the novel, when Lyamshin, a witness at the trial of a group of Nihilists, simply repeats what Petr Verkhovensky has already said, word for word. Similarly, when Varvara recites to Stepan Trofimovich a lesson she has painstakingly learnt on the woman question, her words are taken directly from the speeches of the governor’s wife, who herself has been indoctrinated by Petr Verkhovensky, who in turn has merely repeated Stavrogin’s ideas. Discourse goes round in endless circles, and ends up sounding particularly hollow. Indeed, one could argue that the entire plot stems from the fact that Stavrogin’s words are misquoted, taken out of context, interpreted in every way possible, and put into practice by his fanatic followers. Kirillov uses Stavrogin’s words to develop his own atheistic theory of the manGod who finds freedom through suicide, while Shatov interprets them in an entirely different, slavophile and religious sense, and Petr hears them as an invitation to engage in revolutionary, terrorist activity with the aim of reorganising society. In an ironic twist, the destiny of Stavrogin’s words resembles that of Dostoevsky’s “polyphonic” novel as defined by 29

See L. Allain, “Le double regard de Dostoïevski sur la Révolution”, 122. Although we concur with the conclusions of this article, we cannot agree with its method, since it relies on the precept that certain characters (particularly Shatov) are mouth-pieces for Dostoevsky himself. Not only is this a moot point, it is also the case that other characters are at times just as convincing, as has been pointed out by Bakhtin in his work on polyphony in Dostoevsky: La Poétique de Dostoïevski. 30 Dostoevsky, Besy, 425.

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Bakhtin—a rich discourse, containing internal contradictions but at the same time going beyond them, thereby running the risk of being twisted in every possible sense. Moroever, Dostoevsky deliberately deprives us of access to Stavrogin’s original words, pronounced in a past the reader never sees, in much the same way that the reader does not have access to the author’s own view through the words of any one single character. Consequently the dogmatism of repeated mantras such as “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... ou la mort !” is contested in The Devils, much as it is in A Tale of Two Cities. This particular slogan becomes the mark of an intransigeant spirit, of a mind that sees no alternative to death. Its first appearance in A Tale of Two Cities is a case in point: .

[They] inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.”

In this sentence, the plethora of pseudo-logical links (through the repetition of the word “or”) serves merely to highlight the complete absence of reason. Dickens’s dismissal of French revolutionary “logic” can be placed alongside Dostoevsky’s denunciation of Shigalev’s “systematic” thought in The Devils. While Shigalev himself claims to be completely rational, his philosophy is riddled with internal contradiction: “I’ve got mixed up with my facts, and my conclusion is in direct contradiction with my original premise. Beginning with unlimited freedom, I end up with absolute despotism. I should add however that my solution to the social formula is the only one possible.” The laughter grew louder and louder.32

The transition from the principle of “freedom” to that of “despotism” is a transparent reference to the path taken by the French Revolution between 1789 and 1793. It is with vicious irony, mentioning as he does the laughter of those assembled, that Dostoevsky presents Shigalev’s system. Shigalev is caught in flagrante delicto of what the narrator of Notes from Underground calls “false logic”. In other words, he spouts a philosophy which becomes so abstract as to be absurd. In Ninetythree, Hugo also evokes the problem of extremism and intransigeance, although he does not attribute its cause to the principles of 31 32

Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 255 (our emphasis). Dostoevsky, Besy, 427.

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1793. When he juxtaposes in the title of one of his chapters Vendean and Republican slogans—“‘no mercy’ (watchword of the Commune), ‘no quarter’ (watchword of the Vendeans)”—he points to the fact that the cause of extremism is not so much one or other of the warring parties, as the civil war itself. Moreover, if Hugo, unlike Dickens and Dostoevsky, does not cite the slogan “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... ou la mort !”, it is primarily because he has chosen to represent the period immediately preceding the Reign of Terror, that moment when, as Wulf points out, nothing is yet inevitable, everything is still possible.33 Dostoevsky and Dickens, on the other hand, quote the formula at the moment when it has become a slogan, set, as it were, in stone. In the third part of A Tale of Two Cities, this slogan is omnipresent. The repetition makes it appear invasive, despotic. It is even daubed on the walls of Paris: […] the standard inscription (tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!34

Quoted by the narrator, woven into the very fabric of the novel, the formula becomes dogmatic. It is even found above one of the city’s houses: Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.35

It must be pointed out, however, that as it is quoted, so the meaning of this slogan changes. To begin with, the formula is supposed to symbolize the citizens’ heroic self-sacrifice, freely chosen, to the Republic. In Dickens’s and Dostoevsky’s novels, however, it is nothing more than a despotic injunction. It resounds like a death sentence in A Tale of Two Cities, where it hangs menacingly over the head of Charles Darnay, whom the protagonists try to save in the third part of the novel. Dickens does not hesitate to reproduce the second, macabre part of the slogan: Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!36 33

Wulf makes this comment in her preface to Hugo’s novel. See Hugo, Quatrevingt-treize, 8. 34 Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 288. 35 Ibid., 290.

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The Republican tirade is replaced by a single image, contained in the word “death”, whereas the only symbol of the Republic that remains is the guillotine. In The Devils, the slogan of 1793 appears as a call to die, since it is quoted precisely in the farewell letter that Kirillov writes before his suicide. Unlike Dickens, however, Dostoevsky does not transform the slogan into an injunction by typically Dickensian exaggeration and pathos. Instead, he uses irony; Kirillov dies while appealing to the principle of infinte liberty, while his suicide is in fact brought about, and virtually forced upon him, by Verkhovensky’s group. The letter which he writres is in fact dictated to him, word for word, by Verkhovensky himself, who gives him the following instruction: “Sign Vive la république! , that will do.” “Bravo!” Kirillov practically shouted with joy. “Vive la république démocratique, sociale et universelle ou la mort! No, that’s not it. Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort! There, that’s better, that’s better”, he said, exultantly writing the words under his signature.

Dostoevsky denounces the paradoxical nature of this slogan, which offers the dream of absolutre freedom to individuals who are ultimately manipulated, as Kirillov is. The idea of suicide in the name of the Republic and the slogans of the French Revolution is parodied, and denounced as a masquerade. There is nothing sublime about Kirillov’s gesture, inasmuch as it is provoked by petty machinations; it enables the group of five to find a scapegoat for their criminal activities. Behind the ideal nature of the gesture there lies a trivial rivalry, described in starkly realistic terms by Dostoevsky. In this way the suicide ironically becomes a metonym for revolutionary action, apparently guided by ideals, but motivated in fact by a sordid, if hidden, reality. Conversely, in Ninetythree, self-sacrifice in the name of the Republic is seen as an act of heroism, which transfigures men such as Gauvain: He resembled a vision. He had never seemed more beautiful. His brown locks floated in the breeze³at that time men did not cut their hair. His white neck had something feminine about it, while with his valiant, regal gaze he resembled an archangel. He was on the scaffold, dreaming. That place too is a summit. Gauvain stood there upright, superb, calm. The sun, wrapping him in its rays, bathed him in glory.38 36

Ibid., 285. Dostoevsky, Besy, 655. 38 Hugo, Quatrevingt-treize, 437. 37

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The description here is clearly idealised, as much by the fact that the physical details are reduced to a small number of attributes (“beautiful”, “white”, “valiant”), following a Christian iconography (is not Gauvain described as an “archangel”?), where beauty and whiteness are symbols of purety. The narrative is interrupted and turns into a tableau, bathed in a light that is both physical and symbolic. This extract is characterized by the cyclical symbolism of death and rebirth, mixing as it does the scaffold, previously associated with black, night and death, and the sun, an image of the future and of life. The Christian symbolism present, in the description of a man of 1793, serves to glorify the ideal of self-sacrifice, recalling as it does the image of Christ, albeit in a secular sense. The Christian vocabulary appears in the word “glory”, which calls to mind both the heroes of Antiquity (Roman heroism was the model for the men of 1793), and the Christian pictorial tradition, in which Christ and the Virgin Mary are depicted “in all their glory” (“dans leur gloire”; the image of the Virgin is not out of place here, especially because Gauvain is described as resembling a woman). The above passage describing Gauvain’s self-sacrifice can be placed alongside that dealing with Sidney Carton, at the end of A Tale of Two Cities.39 Unlike Hugo, however, Dickens chooses to depict the selfsacrifice of a character who is not involved in the Revolution, an Englishman who acts not in the name of an ideal, but out of absolute love, since he goes to the scaffold to save Charles Darnay, the man married to the woman he loves. None of the revolutionaries mentioned in the novel gives up his life in the name of the Republic. Moreover, Dickens does not come out in favour of the Republic at any time in his novel. It is true that just before his death Sidney Carton offers a utopian vision that might appear to argue in favour of the Republic. Yet there is nothing strictly political in his speech. In fact, Carton’s decision to kill himself is accompanied by a slogan, chanted obsessively throughout the final chapter, in much the same way that the mantra “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... ou la Mort!” had been taken up before. The slogan in question is the Biblical “I am the Resurrection and the Life”, an obvious antidote to the revolutionary mantra quoted earlier in the novel. The final words of the novel may thus be read as an Evangelical overture, an attempt to reconcile all parties. The suggestion here is that it is through the word, no longer set in stone but instead alive, that the dogmatism of political slogans may be overcome. 39

See Grossman, “Angleterre et France Mêlées”, 114-16.

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We can thus see how in A Tale of Two Cities or The Devils the slogan “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité... ou la mort !” is quoted as part of an interrogation into the power of language and the slogan as formulaic and dead. Hugo, on the other hand, seeks to present 1793 as a dynamic event, open to an infinite range of possibilities. This is why he focuses not so much on dead language as on the leitmotif of rebirth. Whatever their differences, however, the fact that they all refer to the mythical year 1793, to the attempt to construct society ex nihilo and to the problems of revolutionary action and violence, demonstrates once again the rich, dialogic relationship between Dickens, Dostoevsky and Hugo.

Works Cited Primary sources Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003 (1859). Dostoevsky, Fedor. Besy. Paris: YMCA-PRESS, 1969 (1871). —. Correspondance, edited by J. Catteau. Paris: Bartillat, 2000. Hugo, Victor. Correspondance, tome II (années 1849-1866), in Œuvres Complètes, LXXIV. Paris: Albin Michel, 1950. —. Poésie IV. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1986. —. Quatrevingt-treize, prefaced by J. Wulf. Paris: Flammarion, 2002 (1874).

Secondary sources Allain, L. “Le double regard de Dostoïevski sur la Révolution.” In La Révolution française et ses fantasmes dans la littérature . Actes du colloque franco-polonais de l’Université de Wrocław, edited by Jozef Heistein, 118-30. Paris: Nizet, 1992. Backès, J-L. Dostoïevski en France (1884-1930), PhD diss., Université de Paris IV, 1972. Bakhtine, M. La Poétique de Dostoïevski, translated by Isabelle Kolitcheff, preface by Julia Kristeva. Paris: Seuil, 1998. Cadot, M., ed. Eugène Melchior de Voguë, le héraut du roman russe. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Slaves, 1989. Catteau, J. La Création littéraire chez Dostoïevki. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Slaves, 1978.

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Fridender, G. “Les Notes de Dostoïevski sur Victor Hugo.” In Dostoïevski, edited by Jacques Catteau, 288-95. L’Herne: “Cahiers de l’Herne”, 1973. Gattégno, J. Charles Dickens. Paris: Seuil, 1975. Gide, A. Dostoïevski. Articles et causeries. Paris: Gallimard, 1981 (reprint; first published in 1923 by Plon). Grossman, K. M. “Angleterre et France Mêlées: Fraternal Visions in Quatrevingt-treize and A Tale of Two Cities.” In Victor Hugo et la Grande-Bretagne, edited by A. R. W. James, 104-20. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1986. Heistein, Jozef., ed. La Révolution française et ses fantasmes dans la littérature. Actes du colloque franco-polonais de l’Université de Wroclaw. Paris: Nizet, 1992. Hollington, M. “Dostoevsky.” In The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, edited by Paul Schlicke, 190-1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Laforgue, P. “La révolution française vue d’Angleterre.” In Victor Hugo et la Grande-Bretagne, edited by A. R. W. James, 121-36. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1986.

THE OTHER AS OBJECT OF DESIRE: THE REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE BEAUTY IN WORKS BY IVAN BUNIN 1 AND MARCEL PROUST GALINA SUBBOTINA

It is no exaggeration to say that Marcel Proust (1871-1922) and Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) have much in common. For example, both writers occupy an intermediate position between realism and modernism in literature, both demonstrate in their work a keen interest in psychology and philosophy, and both wrote fictionalized autobiographies (Proust’s In Search of Time Lost (A la recherche du temps perdu, 1913-1927) and Bunin’s The Life of Arsenev (Zhizn’ Arsen’eva, 1930)). Owing to these similarities, researchers have tended to approach the works of Proust and Bunin in the same way. That is to say that literary critics and biographers have been inclined to see in their works a direct reflection of their authors’ lived experience, thereby overlooking the impact that the contemporary literary and social context inevitably has on the form an author chooses to give to his or her work. Despite this, and the caveats of the writers themselves,2 scholars of Proust and Bunin have generally assumed that various details in their works, especially in the “autobiographical” novels, have their origin in real, lived experience. This is especially so in the case of the famous scene with the madeleine in Proust’s novel. George Painter, author of the first substantive biography of Proust, assumed that in January 1909, while taking tea and biscuits, Proust was visited by an involuntary recollection, 1 The author wishes to thank Anastasia Nicholson and Graham H. Roberts for their help in translating this article. 2 Aleksandr Bakhrakh in his memoirs quotes the following from one of Bunin’s letters: “Recently the critic from Days [...] called The Life of Arsenev an autobiographical work. Let me strongly protest against this [...] I do not want my work to be considered as the life of Bunin, but as The Life of Arsenev” (Bakhrakh, Bunin v khalate, 23; all translations from the Russian are the author’s).

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which was the inspiration for the scene in his novel.3 However, analysis of Proust’s manuscript shows that the episode with the cakes was largely invented, and that it is much closer to fiction than to fact.4 The writer also misled biographers in regard to his sexual preference: until the 1950s, it was believed that the basis of the love story in the novel In Search of Time Lost was a secret passion of Proust’s for some unknown girl. Bunin scholars have adopted a similar approach. In some biographies of the Russian writer we read, for example, that from early childhood he had displayed a heightened, mystical sensitivity to beauty (referred to as “metempsychosis”). Confirmation of this “fact” is found in the pages of the novel The Life of Arsenev. This kind of transfer of events from fictionalized autobiography into reality is questionable, to say the least. It is far more likely that the origin of the theory of metempsychosis and many other ideas in the works of Bunin are to be found in the literary and ideological climate of the day. Similarly, because of Bunin’s criticism of decadents, Symbolists, narodniks and Maksim Gor’ky, many scholars have assumed that the writer did not belong to any particular literary movement. However, we know that he was a friend of Gor’ky’s5 for many years and, moreover, that he published a number of poems in various Symbolist journals.6 If, as Yury Mal’tsev observes, Bunin removed criticism of the Orthodox Church from his works once in emigration,7 we can assume that Bunin made other adjustments to his artistic biography over time. The issue as to whether Proust had a direct influence on Bunin must remain open. On the one hand there is Bunin’s letter to Petr Bitsilli, in which he claims to have read the novel In Search of Time Lost only after having already written The Life of Arsenev: When something is considered as “fashion”, I scornfully avoid it. So it was with Proust. Only recently I read his novel and noticed with horror that in The Life of Arsenev (both in “Youth”, and in the beginning of the second 3

Painter, Marcel Proust, I, 164-65. H. Bonnet was the first to question whether “the scene of drinking lime tea” really took place, in his monograph Marcel Proust de 1907 à 1914. Bonnet points out that in Proust’s notebooks the details of the event change: the toast becomes a madeleine, while the mother is replaced by the housemaid. 5 S. Rolet in his work Le Phénomène Gorki: le jeune Gorki et ses premiers lecteurs, makes a detailed analysis of the ideological approach of reactionary critics, Symbolists, Russian emigrants and Ivan Bunin to Maxim Gor’ky. Cf. chapter four "La Naissance d`une exégèse du soupçon",113-45. 6 See Ninov, “Vvodnaya stat’ya”. 7 Mal'tsev, Bunin, 35. 4

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The Other as Object of Desire volume, that I wrote three years ago), there are many places quite like those in Proust! Just try proving now that I had never seen Proust when I wrote them.8

It is quite possible, however, that Bunin is simply being economical with the truth. First, his refusal to read some work only on the grounds that it is considered “fashionable” is not plausible. On the contrary, Bunin, a brilliant translator of many English and French authors, could not have failed to be interested in contemporary European literature. Second, we have the testimony of Aleksandr Bakhrakh, who wrote the following in his memoirs in relation to one of his conversations with Bunin: On another occasion he shocked me by saying that in some chapters of The Life of Arsenev there are many places resembling Proust, although this effect of Proust on him is barely noticeable to the inexperienced reader.9

In any case, Bunin was not familiar with the works of Proust before the Russian Revolution due to the fact that Proust was little known even to French readers, until he was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt for the novel In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur) in 1919. However, comparative analysis reveals many similarities in the creative approaches of the two authors. Renato Poggioli, for example, makes the following comment concerning the short story “Antonovskie yabloki” (1901; usually entitled in English “The Scent of Apples”): “Bunin ten years earlier before Proust used the method of intermittence de coeur, according to him the flavour of some definite type of apples awakens in the mind of the narrator lost memories of his past life and the life of his family.”10 The similarity of literary devices suggests that Bunin’s style, like Proust’s, was determined by the broader literary environment. The difficulty of analyzing the works of both writers, the complexity of the division between “reality” and “ideology” in their novels and short stories, is related to the fact that they both used the techniques of “realistic” literature despite the fact that the ideological base of their 8

Letter to P. M. Bitsilli, April 5th, 1936, published in Bunin, “Pis'ma”, 154. Bakhrakh, Bunin v khalate, 113. We can add that Galina Kuznetsova (the writer’s last female companion) was reading Proust around the time that Bunin was composing The Life of Arsenev, a fact she records in a note in her diary dated June 7th, 1929: “Yesterday I. A. [Bunin] spent the whole day writing, and I read Proust in the garden. I was totally immersed in my reading": Kuznetsova, “Iz Grasskogo dnevnika”, 264. 10 Poggioli, “The Art of Ivan Bunin”, 277. 9

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creative approach was often quite different. On the one hand, both authors avoid the fantastic and the implausible. Their work is based on a thorough analysis of social reality. They actively use the “effect of reality”: plausible dates and geographical locations, historical circumstances, realistic portraits, descriptions of items, etc. On the other hand, both Bunin and Proust are greatly influenced by the ideas of decadence. Both authors are inclined to have a pessimistic vision of history as eternal recurrence and both subscribe to the idea of modern civilization as somehow degenerate. Both reveal an interest in the past, whether recent (memories of a particular individual) or remote (the history of their nation, world history, etc.). The present is seen by them as something constantly changing, unstable, requiring fixation in a work of art. Both writers are interested in the unconscious side of life, the question of sexuality, and altered states of consciousness (dream, fancies, involuntary memory). 11 At the same time both tend toward aestheticism: they attempt to catch the fleeting beauty of reality. Alongside this decadent element we should point out the influence of Romantic literature and philosophy.12 During his time at university, in 1894-95, Proust was heavily influenced by the lectures of Gabriel Séailles (1852-1923), a young professor and ardent admirer of the transcendental idealism of Schelling (1775-1854), whose ideas to a great extent shaped the ideology of Romanticism.13 The influence of Romantic literature upon Bunin is also obvious. Among Russian writers of the Romantic school who were important for Bunin, we can mention A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, V. Zhukovsky, and E. Baratynsky. Romantic poetry was especially fascinating for the writer, without doubt, because of the fact that one of the brightest Russian Romantic poets—Vasily Zhukovsky—was a relative of his.14 The “realism” of Bunin’s and Proust’s works has prompted researchers to seek the origins of their characters in specific events in their lives, rather 11

See for example Jean Pierrot, L’Imaginaire decadent (1880-1900). Aleksandr Mikhailov (1938-1995) introduced the idea that Romanticism represents the beginning of a new era in the history of culture, marking as it does a transition from a period with a rigid system of expressive form to a time where form is much freer. In this sense, the heritage of Romanticism is an inseparable part of modern culture. Cf. Mikhailov, Metody i stili literatury. 13 Henri, Proust romancier, le tombeau égyptien, 23-57. 14 The father of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky was Afanasy Ivanovich Bunin, a landlord, and owner of the village of Mishenskoe. His mother was a Turkish woman named Salha. The future poet received his patronymic and surname from the aristocrat Andrey Zhukovsky who adopted him at the request of Bunin. 12

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than in ideology. That is, they assume that the creation of such and such a character is based on a synthesis of real-life experience, thereby missing the point that these characters are entirely fictional. In what follows we propose to analyse the importance of these “theoretical” and “ideological” —rather than “realistic”—components in the creation of female images in the works of Proust and Bunin.

Making the myth real: “The Grammar of Love” and “Swann in Love” In this section we shall look at how the unity of reality and “myth” is created in Proust’s “Swann in Love” (“Un amour de Swann”, 1913) and Bunin’s short story “The Grammar of Love” (“Grammatika lyubvi”, 1915). Both authors, as we shall seek to demonstrate, use very similar narrative techniques. One of the main methods designed to give the narration credibility is the creation of a “non romantic” atmosphere around the “romantic” description of passion. The main content of Bunin’s “The Grammar of Love” is presented by the narrator Ivlev, who summarizes the biography of the landowner Khvoshchinsky in the following way: According to the stories told by the old landlords, peers of Khvoshchinsky, he once had a reputation in the county of a man of sharp mind. Suddenly, however, he fell in love with a certain Lushka who died very unexpectedly and everything was ruined: he shut himself up in the house, in the room where Lushka had lived and died, and stayed by her bed for more than twenty years, and not only did he avoid visiting others, but even on his estate he was careful not to see anyone.15

This description of great passion is in contrast with the overall tone of Bunin’s story, in which the author highlights the boredom and dullness of provincial life. For example, Ivlev visits the property of the dead Khvoshchinsky during a rainy day, and he sees the ruined estate, the cold house, and Khvoshchinsky’s son who seeks a higher price to sell his father’s favourite books. In such an environment events that have universal significance occur. In a dusty library of Khvoshchinsky’s the narrator finds works that claim to explore the secrets of life, with titles such as: Reflections on the Mysteries of the Universe, The Cursed Tract, Morning Star and the Demons of the Night, The Wonderful Journey to the Magic Land, and The Newest Dream Interpretation Book. 15

Bunin, “The Grammar of Love”, 510.

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A similar contrast operates in the story of Swann. The backdrop of his passion is the humdrum life of the Verdurin clan: their thwarted social ambitions, their limited interests, and their idle conversations. The mondain life of Swann, his moral dryness, and his love, which briefly, but radically changes his character, contradict each other as well. The physical appearance of Odette de Crécy is also built around this type of contrast. Proust constantly emphasizes that she is not Swann’s kind of woman, with her excessively sharp profile, large features, withered face, tired yellow cheeks covered with red speckles, and sullen eyes. Here as elsewhere Proust plays on the contrast between appearance and reality; Swann contemplates this poorly educated, vulgar demimondaine, as if she had stepped straight out of a painting by Botticelli. The image of Lushka, Khvoshchinsky’s beloved, is constructed in a similar way. Bunin, for example, underlines her plain appearance. In order to restore the image of the girl, he introduces a single realistic detail, namely the string of cheap blue beads which is the only thing that remains after her death. This item is selected by Bunin with the acute instinct of an artist; the beads reflect the girl’s poverty, her modesty, her desire to please, and her simple taste. Thus, when describing female characters, both Proust and Bunin include elements from the real world. They do so, however, not in order to add romantic colouring but rather to emphasize a contrast with the romantic feeling which these women arouse. It is these details that make the narration realistic. Without these “true”, “realistic” elements, the love story would ring false. While both Proust and Bunin describe strong passions, neither is afraid to describe the most ordinary objects of everyday life. This contrast, we would suggest, is intended to assure the reader of the reality of the fabula. This realistic component should not mislead us, however. The juxtaposition of everyday existence and the life of the spirit is one of the major tenets of Romanticism. The resultant contrast may be ironic, as in the case of Proust, tragic, as in Bunin’s works, or elevated, as in the case of R. W. Emerson, who stated: “To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”16 Thus our two writers use outwardly realistic techniques, only to fall fairly and squarely within the paradigm of Romanticism.

16

Emerson, Essays and Poems, 8.

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Portraying a woman through an external object: The Albertine cycle, and “Mitya’s Love” Both Proust and Bunin employ comparisons and metaphors associated with the natural world in their depiction of female characters. This is another characteristic feature of Romantic literature. As noted by Alain Léwi, the Romantic vision of the world replaces “communion with God” with “communion with Nature”, which is regarded as the embodiment of the Absolute Spirit, an analogue of the Bible. Direct contemplation of nature is one way for the soul of the poet to communicate directly with the Spirit.17 Proust and Bunin frequently describe the special feelings aroused by the contemplation of nature. For example in the novel The Life of Arsenev we read: The depth of the sky, and the distant fields spoke to me of something else existing outside of them, evoked in me dreams and a longing for something I lacked, aroused in me incomprehensible love and affection for someone and something I did not know.18

In Proust’s novel the main character, who is going to Balbec, sees the dawn out of the train window: [...] I glimpsed in the window pane, above a little black copse, serrated clouds of downy softness in a shade of immutable pink, dead and as seemingly indelible now as the pink inseparable from feathers in a wing, or a pastel dyed by the fancy of the painter. But in this shade I sensed neither inertia nor fancy, only necessity and life. Soon great reserves of light built up behind it. [...] I stared at it through the glass, straining to see it better, as the colour of it seemed to be privy to the profoundest secrets of nature […].19

In the Albertine cycle the appearance of the female character and her friends is often described via extended metaphors and similes, which are of a “natural” character. Thus, when the narrator first meets a group of girls on the beach in Balbec, he feels as though he were observing the movement of a “glittering comet”. This comparison turns the momentary sight of the girls into a sign, which radically affects the subsequent fate of 17

Léwi, Le sentiment de la nature chez les écrivains romantiques, 10-11. The Life of Arsenev, 267. 19 Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 233. 18

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the character, since it will cause “astronomical” changes in his life. At the same time, this comparison conveys the narrator’s feeling: the girls seem to him as unapproachable and remote from everyday life as the stars. Elsewhere, comparisons from the world of animals are used. For example, the girls seem to the main character as natural as animals in the wild: “I saw five or six young girls, as different in their appearance and ways from all the other people one was used to seeing in Balbec as […] the odd flock of seagulls that turns up out of the blue to strut along the beach.”20 This comparison again emphasizes the remoteness of the girls, although they are no longer in the sky like a comet. They walk on solid ground, but still remain winged creatures. This idea of inaccessibility is also conveyed by the comparison with fish, the charm of which is connected to the fact that they are hard to catch. Hence Proust attributes to his female characters the features of two of the lightest and most tender elements, air and water, because creatures that inhabit heavens and water always seem to be especially graceful to the awkward people of the earth. At other times, Proust uses specifically botanical metaphors. For example, his narrator sees in the image of the girls a rosebush. This comparison helps the reader to understand that all the girls from a small band have a common root, a common origin, and returns us to the fact that this part of the novel is called In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. While Bunin’s approach resembles that of Proust, the Russian writer finds other forms to express similar ideas. He sees the beauty of the world and female beauty as an indivisible unity. Consequently he does not resort to metaphors in order to merge them together. In the story “Mitya’s Love” (“Mitina lyubov’”, 1924), for example, we see a history of passion, which is inseparably connected with the spring bloom of nature. The main character Mitya, who is in love with Katya, goes to his estate in April. Awaiting a letter from Katya, he watches the transformation of nature: In this wonderful time of joy Mitya watched closely for all the spring changes taking place around him. But Katya did not fade, she was not lost among them, but instead, participated in all of them and gave them herself, her beauty, blossoming with the flowering of spring […].21

Most descriptions of Katya in the novel are replaced by pictures of spring landscapes. If Proust’s metaphors are spatial (focusing on the proximity/remoteness of the girls), Bunin’s descriptions on the other hand are arranged in a temporal sequence. Thoughts about Katya are connected 20 21

Ibid., 370. Bunin, “Mitya’s Love”, 121.

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with the changes in nature that occur at springtime. Bunin first describes transparent woods, spring snowdrops, the thawing of rivers, fogs, warm rains, flowering gardens and young leaves. Nature gradually coming into full bloom intensifies Mitya’s emotions. His love reaches its peak in summer. The events of the final chapters of the story take place against the background of nature’s triumph in summertime: bright green plants, thunderstorms, hot wind, and blooming jasmine. This unity of Katya with nature leads to tragedy, however. Katya becomes inseparable from the world, and her disappearance leads to Mitya’s loss of contact with reality in general. At the end of the novel Mitya receives a letter from Katya, in which she writes that she no longer loves him. Katya’s betrayal is unbearable for Mitya, who feels as if the whole world has turned away from him. For this reason Mitya’s suicide is inevitable.

Comparing one woman to another: The Albertine cycle and the short story “Light Breathing” In order to reinforce the impression produced on the reader by their descriptions of female beauty, both Proust and Bunin use models borrowed from other epochs, created by other artists. This approach is particularly characteristic of Proust. First of all, he uses mythological comparisons. Proust’s characters resemble the participants of Dionysian mysteries, personifying vitality, energy and happiness. Fittingly, he compares girls in flower to statues and corteges depicted on the friezes of Ancient Greek temples. His narrator, for example, reflects: [...] In the assumption that I might one day befriend one or other of those girls [...] was a contradiction as insoluble as though I had thought it possible not just to stand and admire the parading figures in an ancient frieze or fresco, but […] to join in their divine progress.22

The mysteriousness of female beauty is expressed by Proust through a special phenomenon: the constant change of the girls’ appearance. Such mutability calls to mind Leonardo de Vinci’s ideas on nature.23 The great Italian painter wrote: 22

Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 377. Gabrielle Séailles, who had a determining influence on the philosophical concepts of Proust, wrote a series of biographies about different cultural figures, the best among them being his book Léonard de Vinci, l'artiste et le savant: essai de biographie psychologique (1892).

23

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Nature is so attractive and so rich in its variations, that among the trees of one species we cannot find a single one, which will fully coincide with another, and not only among plants in general, but among the branches, among leaves and fruits no one repeats the other.24

Proust reinforces this richness, introducing each of his female characters as constantly changing, thereby achieving an effect that is akin to Impressionism. Indeed, another important source of the girls’ beauty is painting. It is well known that the Renaissance was Proust's favorite period in art history, as it was for his spiritual teacher John Ruskin (1819-1900). The female images of the French writer are reminiscent of the allegorical paintings of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510). The similarity is particularly evident in relation to the most famous paintings: The Birth of Venus (about 1483-84), and Spring (about 1477-78). In the paintings of Botticelli we find the same connection of feminine beauty with the springtime blossoming of nature, as well as with the “light” natural elements of air and water. Thus, on the painting The Birth of Venus the appearance of the beauty on the seashore is welcomed by the goddesses of spring, Zephyr and Breeze. While Bunin’s female characters also call to mind the beauty of past epochs, he nevertheless expresses this connection in a different form. In his work, characters use ancient documents to interpret their present situation. This is most clearly seen in the short story “Light Breathing” (“Legkoe dykhanie”, 1916). Everything in this text is organized around the story of Olya Mescherskaya, a girl of exceptional beauty. The source of her pulchritude is unexplainable. As a child, so we are told, she always looked like other girls in brown dresses, but then she suddenly blossomed, astonishing everyone with this unexpected transformation. While the girl is extraordinarily beautiful, the author avoids using a standard “Romantic” description of her beauty. Bunin instead leaves the description to the author of the ancient treatise, which Olya finds in her father’s library. The treatise is devoted to female beauty, and Olya, comparing herself with the description from the book, decides that she has all the qualities cited by the author: eyes as black as boiling tar, eyelashes as black as the night, a soft pink blush, a slender waist, arms which are longer than usual, short legs, moderately large breasts, elbows the colour of sea shells, and sloping shoulders. None of these features is as important as the main one, however. Olya explains to her friend Subbotina that the most important thing in female beauty is light breathing, a gift which Olya claims to 24

de Vinci, La Peinture, 33.

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possess. This description serves several aims: to give an idea of the appearance of the main character; to free the author’s narration from banality; and also to connect Olya’s fate with the fate of many other beautiful girls throughout history. Hence we can conclude that the approaches of the two authors are quite close: a woman’s beauty for each of them affords unity not only with the beauty of the natural world, but also with the history of humankind. Proust’s narrator establishes a connection between the beauty of Albertine and that of the women depicted in Renaissance painting. Bunin compares Olya Meshcherskaya with other beauties, each with her magical light breathing, which, after the death of Olya, is once again dissolved in the world. In this manner Bunin connects the story of the provincial girl with global history.

Replacing the depiction of a woman by an analysis: The Albertine cycle and “Light Breathing” Continuing our study of the depiction of beauty we would like to recall one of the laws of passion, as mentioned by Bunin in the story “The Grammar of Love”: “We worship the woman because she dominates our ideal dream.”25 The meaning of this law can be understood in the following way: for Bunin female beauty has less to do with the real qualities of the beloved, than with the ideals that exist in the soul of a lover. Thus passion, according to Bunin, merely activates what already existed in the loving soul. Proust reaches a similar conclusion. In the story of Swann’s love for Odette, for example, Swann’s aesthetic preferences play a crucial role. When he sees in Odette’s image features of women from the pictures of Botticelli, it is because for him there is nothing more beautiful than these Renaissance paintings. In this way Swann’s feelings concerning the beauty of his beloved help us to understand the personality of Swann himself. The shift of emphasis from the physical appearance of the female character to a fixation on what occurs in the consciousness of the lover himself is characteristic of Proust’s novel as a whole. His descriptions of the appearance of female characters are as a rule very short: he often limits them to one minor detail only (shining eyes, a rosy face, a blush). Nevertheless, the reader retains a sense of richness and authenticity thanks to Proust’s analysis of the nature of perception. Proust most thoroughly investigates the conditions which influence how the female character is 25

Bunin, “The Grammar of Love”, 516.

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perceived. On the one hand, he is interested in optical effects: lighting, the influence of the background, point of view, distances, and perspective. On the other hand, Proust analyses the psychological factors that influence perception: the ideals, emotions, beliefs, opinions, memories, hopes, dreams, habits and moods of the spectator. For example, we know only two details about the actual physical appearance of the girl whom the narrator sees out of the train window on his way to Balbec: she is tall, and she has a rosy complexion. However, the description of this girl takes up almost three pages. Proust analyses optical effects: the rosy complexion as a reflection of the dawn, the increasing size of the girl’s face with its approximation, the beauty of the surrounding area complementing the beauty of the girl. These effects are enriched by analysis of the narrator’s emotions: when he sees the woman he suddenly feels the desire to live. This feeling is born because the beauty of the girl exceeds his expectations. The exaltation of the main character clearly intensifies the charms of the girl as he perceives them. He desires to prolong this state of mind as much as possible. Yet while it seems to him that the source of his delight is a real woman, she is only a sign, hinting at something different. This analysis is completed by the metaphor: the girl is compared to a plant grown in a particular area. Bunin moves in the same direction. Often, instead of describing the girl, he depicts the reaction which her beauty and her behaviour evoke in others. However, since Bunin strives to maintain a semblance of objectivity in his narrative, he conveys the emotions of his characters not through their thoughts, but via a description of their actions. Thus, the short story “Light Breathing” is structured like a detective story. The description of Olya Mescherskaya’s grave serves as the exposition of the story. The author provides information to explain how the girl came to die. To enhance the effect of credibility he introduces documents into the text: a quotation from the treatise, an entry from Olya’s diary, an extract from the interrogation of the officer who killed Olya. Of course, according to the laws of the genre, a detective story must end with the name of the guilty party. In the last lines of the story the author mentions a mysterious light breathing. In Bunin’s mind “light breathing” is the cause of the tragedy. Light breathing—the quintessence of beauty—fell into the possession of a girl who was simply unable to understand the strength of the feelings which she evoked. All the reactions of the characters that we see in the novella are merely a reflection of an impersonal, irrational and indifferent force. The narrator tells us also about the admiration for Olya of the younger students, about the rumours that had spread concerning her beauty, about the warnings

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given her by her headmistress. Beside these reactions others, truly tragic, are described. The schoolboy Shenshin who is in love with Olya attempts to commit suicide, because she is not faithful to him. Alex Malyutin, the brother of the school headmistress, and an elderly wealthy gentleman, seduces Olya. When Olya tells one of her lovers that she no longer cares for him, the man, a Cossack officer of “plebeian appearance”, kills her. “Light breathing” arouses also the adoration of the class tutoress, who continues to visit her erstwhile pupil’s grave. This final image is reminiscent of the Symbolists, who worshipped “Eternal Femininity”. This story of “light breathing” controlling the fate of people who cannot understand what is happening to them, also calls to mind the ideas of Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and in particular his work “The World as Will and Representation” (1819). In conclusion, Proust and Bunin describe female characters in remarkably similar ways. For both authors, women and the love they arouse have a destructive effect on the world around them. At the same time, women serve as intermediaries, enabling the person who loves them to come into intimate contact with the world of nature, as well as with the history and culture of mankind. The descriptions of the physical appearance of characters are often reduced through the use of “natural” metaphors, descriptions of the world of animals and plants, or references to works of art. Both Proust and Bunin prefer to fix the reaction caused by beauty, rather than describe the physical appearance of their characters. Proust studies the optical and psychological conditions that affect perception. Bunin, on the other hand, describes various forms of behaviour caused by the encounter with beauty.

Works Cited Primary Sources Bunin, Ivan. “Pis’ma.” Russkaya literatura, 4 (1961): 140-75. —. “Grammatika lyubvi” and “Legkoe dykhanie.” In Sobranie sochinenii v 4 tomakh, II, 508-16 and 544-49. Moscow: Pravda, 1988. —. Mitina lyubov’ and Zhizn’ Arsen’eva. In Sobranie sochinenii v 4 tomakh, III, 101-56 and 265-536. Moscow: Pravda, 1988. Proust, Marcel. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. New York: Penguin Classic deluxe Edition, 2004.

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Secondary Sources Bakhrakh, Aleksandr. Bunin v khalate i drugie portrety. Po pamyati, po zapisyam. Moscow: Vagrius, 2005. Bonnet, Henry. Marcel Proust de 1907 à 1914. Paris: Nizet, 1959. de Vinci, Leonardo. La Peinture. Paris: Hermann, 1964. Emerson, Ralf Waldo. Essays et Poems. London: J. M. Dent; Vermont: Charles. E. Tuttle, 1995. Henri, Anne. Proust romancier, le tombeau égyptien. Paris: Flammarion, 1983. Kuznetsova, Galina. “Iz Grasskogo dnevnika.” In Literaturnoe nasledstvo, LXXXIV (2) [Ivan Bunin], 251-99. Moscow: Nauka, 1972. Léwi, Alain. Le Sentiment de la nature chez les écrivains romantiques. Paris: Pierre Bordas et fils, 1992. Mikhailov, Aleksandr. Metody i stili literatury. Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2008. Ninov, Aleksandr. “Vvodnaya stat'ya k perepiske I. Bunina i V. Bryusova.” In Literaturnoe nasledstvo, LXXXIV (1) [Ivan Bunin], 421-40. Moscow: Nauka, 1972. Painter, Georges. Marcel Proust. 2 vols. Paris: Mercure de France, 1966. Pierrot, Jean. L’Imaginaire décadent (1880-1900). Paris: PUF, 1977. Poggioli, Renato. “The Art of Ivan Bunin.” Harvard Slavic Studies, 1 (1953): 275-83. Rolet, Serge. Le Phenomene Gorki: le jeune Gorki et ses premiers lecteurs. Villeneuve D`Ascq: Septentrion, 2007.

PART III: INFLUENCES

FRENCH REFERENCES IN SOVIET PAINTING OF THE 1920S AND 1930S: THE EXAMPLE OF THE CREATION OF MEMBERS OF “THE SOCIETY OF EASEL PAINTERS”1 CÉCILE PICHON-BONIN

“The Society of Easel Painters”2 was one of the many groups of artists that emerged in Moscow during the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. It was officially founded in 1925, before splitting in two in 1931 and finally being dissolved, like many other such groups, by the decree of 23 April 1932.3 Major artists who belonged to the Society include A. Deineka, Yu. Pimenov, A. Goncharov, A. Labas, A. Tyshler, S. Luchishkin, P. Williams and D. Sterenberg, its president. The aesthetic positions of this group need to be placed in the context of bitter rivalries between different artistic associations. While they had nothing against graphic arts, these artists nevertheless opposed the idea of the death of the easel, as advocated by the constructivists, and it is this opposition that gave their society its name. Partisans of figurative art, they had nevertheless learnt the lessons of abstract art, and firmly rejected the principles of “heroic realism” championed by the “The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia”,4 an association which aimed to carry on the work of the “Itinerants”.5 The last point of OST’s manifesto, drafted in 1

This chapter has been translated from French by Graham H. Roberts. “Obshchestvo Khudozhnikov-Stankovistov”; hereafter OST. 3 This decree dissolved all existing arists’ groups in the USSR, replacing them with a single, national, Artists’ Union (editor’s note). 4 “Assotsiatsiya Khudozhnikov Revolyutsionnoi Rossii” (“The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia”); hereafter AKhRR. 5 Known in Russian as the “Peredvizhniki”, this group of realist painters was founded in 1863, and survived until the 1890s. Its members, who generally preferred 2

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1925, stated that the society intended “to invite foreign masters, artists, designers and sculptors, to participate in the group’s exhibitions”. This text demonstrates just how open the society’s members were to the idea of international exchange and collaboration. Contemporary critics were quick to distinguish two tendencies within OST. The first, graphic, took its inspiration from German Expressionism, and was represented by Deineka and Pimenov. The second branch was figurative, and its points of reference were French Postimpressionism, Fauvism and Cubism. Sterenberg and Labas were among the main representatives of this trend. They were joined at the beginning of the 1930s by Goncharov, Pimenov and Williams, who brought about a radical change as far as their sources of inspiration were concerned. Aside from Sterenberg who actually studied in France, these artists all had access to French art, through various channels. First of all, there were the Shchukin and Morozov collections, which brought together major works of Impressionist and Postimpressionist art of the early twentieth century, works which these artists had grown very familiar with during their formative years. Nationalised in 1918 and brought under common administrative control in 1923, under the title “New Western Art”, these collections remained on display until 1948.6 There was also a whole series of exhibitions of French art organised in Moscow in 1909,7 1913,8 1928,9 193410 and 1939,11 which included works of realism, Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and works by members of the Nabis,12 as well as the more contemporary paintings of the “Return to Order” movement.13

to paint on social and historical themes, included Leonid Pasternak, Il’ya Repin and Valentin Serov (editor’s note). 6 See J-C. Marcadé, L’avant-garde russe, 16. 7 The second Salon of the review The Golden Fleece presented works by Braque, Derain, Van Dongen, Le Fauconnier, Matisse, Rouault and Vlaminck alongside those by Goncharova, Larionov and Sarzhan. 8 At the beginning of the year, the exhibition celebrating one hundred years of French painting (1812-1912) moved from St Petersburg to Moscow. It included Impressionist, Postimpressionist, Nabi, Fauvist and Cubist works. 9 Exhibition of contemporary French art in Moscow. 10 Exhibition of works by André Lurçat at the Museum of Western Art in Moscow. 11 The exhibition of French landscape painting at the Museum of Western Art in Moscow contained works from the Pushkin Museum and the Hermitage, as well as from the museums of Penza and Saratov. 12 The Nabi movement, which took its name from the Hebrew word for “prophet”, and was a reaction against the naturalism of the Impressionists, brought together a number of avant-garde, Postimpressionist artists. In existence from 1888 until

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In order to analyse the relationship of Soviet artists to French art, we need to ask a number of questions. Which elements were taken up? Why? How were they reinterpreted? In what context? What new meanings did they acqiure? How were these borrowings received by contemporary art critics? What caused the shift in certain artists’ references at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s? What new choices did they make? I propose to answer these questions by studying artistic practice of the interwar period from the point of view of the artists themselves. As we will see, not all change was dictated from on high, many artists themselves taking an active role in the evolution of art. Throughout this chapter I shall analyse artistic practice (by looking at monographs, articles and exhibition catalogues14), artists’ discourse (through their personal archives, their memoirs or the conferences of the Moscow Union of Soviet Artists),15 and critical reception (as expressed in the main periodicals of the day16). My overall aim is to place these artists in the context of the debates of their time, a context which today’s viewer may not be familiar with. A central case study, focusing on the work of Sterenberg, will be followed by an analysis of the positions of Goncharov and Pimenov. The case study is intended to highlight both Sterenberg’s relationship to Cubism and the general perception that Russian critics and artistic groups had of this movement in the 1920s. As we shall see, the development of Sterenberg’s career between 1928 and 1932, a crucial period for institutional reforms in the USSR, the pressure put on artists and the redistribution of roles, is interesting for what it says about the ways in which artists changed their reference points at the dawn of the first Five Year Plan. We shall then conclude our study by looking at how the reception of French pictorial references evolved in the 1930s, through the rejection of about 1900, is members included Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis (editor’s note). 13 A prominent movement in the years following the end of the First World War, “Return to Order” advocated a rejection of avant-garde artistic forms and a return to more traditional approaches. Its members included Picasso, Braque and Derain (editor’s note). 14 See Kostin, OST (the only monograph on this group) and Lazarev, David Sterenberg. 15 “Moskovskii Soyuz Sovetskikh Khudozhnikov” (“The Moscow Union of Soviet Artists”); hereafter MOSSKh. In particular, the archives of the Sterenberg family and the MOSSKh archive at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). 16 We refer here to general periodicals of a cultural nature published in the 1920s, such as Iskusstvo v massy, Za proletarskoe iskusstvo and Brigada khudozhnikov during the first Five Year Plan, and Iskusstvo and Tvorchestvo in the 1930s.

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Expressionism and a return to Matisse in Goncharov’s work, and to Renoir in Pimenov’s.

I - 1924-1928: Sterenberg and Cubism As we stated briefly in our introduction, it was in Paris that Sterenberg developed as an artist and first became a full-time painter.

1) Encounter with French art David Petrovich Sterenberg belonged to the generation born in the 1880s, which makes him a member of the first wave of the avant-garde, alongside Tatlin, Malevich, Kandinsky and many others. His career is different from that of the other members of OST, not just because of this age gap, but also because he first learnt to paint abroad. Fleeing the Jewish pogroms that swept Odessa in 1905,17 and keen to continue his training as an artist,18 Sterenberg spent two years in Vienna before arriving in Paris, where he was to stay until the summer of 1917. An active participant in the artistic life of the French capital, Sterenberg had a studio at la Ruche19 and was a regular visitor at the famous “la Rotonde” brasserie. He studied at the Académie Vitti under Van Dongen. Renouncing perspective, Sterenberg began to paint compositions featuring the use of stark, vivid colours. At the same time, he studied Cézanne’s work, and produced a number of paintings directly inspired by Cubism, a movement then in vogue. He knew personally Picasso, Léger and Bonnard, as well as many members of the Russian émigré community, whom he met on a regular basis. Public recognition finally arrived for Sterenberg in 1912, when two of his paintings were chosen to feature in that year’s “Salon d’Automne”. It was about this time that he first began to sell his work. In 1917, some of 17

According to his autobiography, published in 1937, Sterenberg enterd the Bund in 1903. In Odessa, he was president of the local photographers’ association, as well as a member of the bureau of various professional organizations. He emigrated in 1906, the year in which a number of leading members of professional organizations were arrested. He left the Bund before the Revolution. See Sovetskie khudozhniki, zhivopistsy-grafiki. 18 In 1895-96, he was prevented from entering the Academy of St Petersburg Artists on account of his Jewish origins. It was around this time that he took up photography. 19 An area comprising around sixty artists’ workshops, in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris (editor’s note).

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his work was exhibited at Bernheim’s, alongside paintings by Ozenfant, Utrillo and Matisse. In the same year, Sterenberg decided to return to Russia. It was Lunacharsky who enabled him to find a place for himself in his homeland’s artistic circles, first as an administrator, and then as an artist. Sterenberg lost no time in working with leftwing artists, and rapidly became an important figure in Russian artistic life. He served as head of the Visual Arts section of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment until 1922, before going on to occupy key posts in the teaching of the arts (especially within Vkhutemas20) and in the organization of exhibitions abroad. It was in France, then, that Sterenberg not only established himself as an artist, but also developed his orignal and very personal visual language, at a time (1915-16) when the other members of OST were still only begining their studies. He experienced Cubism directly, and interpreted it in a very personal way which differed from the manner in which this movement was interpreted either by the members of the “Jack of Diamonds” group21 or by the Cubo-Futurist Malevich.

2) An Interpretation of Cubism By 1915-16, Sterenberg began to interpret Cubism in a very original light. First of all, as far as subject matter is concerned, he favoured still life (the experimental genre par excellence for the avant-garde) and everyday objects. He retained this approach on his return to Russia, even if the wine and fruits of his French period were now replaced by typically Russian black bread, herring and sweets (figures 8-1 et 8-2). Of modest means, Sterenberg was a typical bohemian young man who rejected the bourgeois way of life. The genuine empathy he felt for the working class helped him to identify with them, and also guided his choice of subject matter.22 Nevertheless, Sterenberg did not adopt the Cubist principle of collage 20

Vkhutemas (an acronym for “Vysshiye Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskie Masterskie” (“Higher Art and Technical Workshops”)) was the Russian state art and technical school, founded in Moscow in 1920. Central to the development of Constructivism and Suprematism, it was dissolved in 1930 (editor’s note). 21 “Bubnovyi Valet”, sometimes referred to in English as the “Knave of Diamonds”. This group, founded in Moscow in 1909, sought to blend European painting styles with Russian folk art. Their members included Robert Falk, Aleksandr Kuprin and Vladimir Burlyuk. The group’s scandalous first exhibition, held in 1910, included works by Goncharova, Larionov and Malevich (editor’s note). 22 See Le Thomas, “Une ethnographie des avant-gardes montmartroises”.

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consisting in placing on the canvas everyday objects themselves (newspapers, cigarette packets, etc.), and turning the artist into a craftsman. What Sterenberg took from Cubism was a way of working, more than the finished result.

Figure 8-1, Sterenberg, Red Still Life, 1916, oil on canvas, 90x70 cm, priv. coll.

For Sterenberg, as for the Cubists, limiting himself to a small number of objects enabled him to focus on questions of form. Sterenberg retained one of the movement’s fundamental tenets, according to which the artist is not bound by the obligation of mimetic illusion (notably the illusion of spatial perspective). He also took the idea that the table was in fact a flat, two-dimensional object. Sterenberg attempted to “create pictorial objects by exclusively pictorial means, rather than by reflecting reality”, in much

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the same way that the engineer might make a machine, or the carpenter a table.23

Figure 8-2, Sterenberg, Herrings, 1917-1918, oil on plywood, 58.5x66.3cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

At the same time, however, the artist was violently opposed to abstraction, although he did use some of its elements. Moreover, although the Cubists had always insisted on a link with mimetic representation, Sterenberg criticized Cubism for what he called its purely decorative “objectlessness” (“bespredmetnichestvo”). Thus, if he effectvely conceived of the picture as an independent, painted object, he nevertheless sought to show that the introduction of subject matter into the work raises specifically pictorial problems. Moreover, his reference to objects helps him in his exploration

23

Sterenberg, Traditsiya i sovremennost’, 1932 (Sterenberg family archive).

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both of textures, and of the limit between mimetic and non-mimetic signs, as well as in his experiments around the sign-object and sign-space. In Still Life in Orange (figure 8-3), he establishes a network of parallel planes on the surface of the canvas: the rug (seen from above), is set next to the table legs (seen from the front), and recalls the raised tray. However, the juxtaposition of different perspectives is not accomplished in a cubist manner, in which a single object is viewed from different points. What we have here is neither a fragmented picture nor a painting with objects split into their component parts. This principle of decomposotion was something Sterenberg opposed. OST’s manifesto was, moreover, very clear on this point. It called for a rejection of “pseudo-cézannism, which does away with the discipline of form, line and colour”. The “pseudocézannists” targeted were essentially the erstwhile members of the “Jack of Diamonds” group, and first and foremost Lentulov, Mashkov, Falk and Konchalovsky. For Sterenberg, it was vitally important to maintain the integrity of the object and to avoid any deformation which might prevent it from being recognised, since its matter (texture) and its function were above all the subject of pictorial experimentation.

Figure 8-3, Sterenberg, Still Life in Orange, 1916, oil on canvas, 135x65 cm, priv. coll.

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In this picture Sterenberg achieves an original synthesis between a still life and an interior, in a manner which enables him to explore the relationship between objects and space. This explains the importance of the vivid colours, inherited from Fauvism and Primitivism (from which Sterenberg also takes formal simplicity). The different elements of the picture are transformed into both simple geometric shapes and coloured surfaces. The rug of Still Life in Orange, for example, is just as much a bright rectangle as it is an everyday object. Working in this way with different coloured surfaces, Sterenberg’s technique calls to mind Malevich’s Suprematism. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the two artists. Malevich’s geometric shapes are objects moving in an infinte void, represented by his white backgrounds. With Sterenberg, on the other hand, thanks to the bright colours and to the play of different textures, space becomes palpable. Moreover, it is this space which connects the objects to each other.24 The result is no longer an optical illusion, since the space we see is that of the painting itself (rather than that of an exterior spatial reality transposed onto the canvas). As Fedorov-Davydov observed in his introduction to the catalogue of Sterenberg’s personal exhibition in 1927, the coloured impression is transformed into coloured matter: “tsvet stal kraskoi”, colour becomes paint, space itself becomes matter. Moreoever, colour is used as a way of creating the impression of depth and movement. Thus, Sterenberg’s canvases contest the void that Malevich holds so dear, and challenge the very notion of circularity underpinning certain Cubist works, constituting instead a space where different textures are brought together. Between 1917 and 1920, Sterenberg went further down this path. The term used for his painting of this period is “material” or “materialist”. He recreated the thickness of cakes or the texture of a sponge by applying several layers of paint on the canvas and by reproducing these objects in their real size (see for example Still Life with Biscuits, Soap and Sponge (figure 8-4)). At the same time, Sterenberg attempted to render the coldness of veined marble, or the minute details of lace embroidery (in Still Life with Sweets (figure 8-5)). By juxtaposing detailed, mimetic elements with coloured planes, Sterenberg accentuates the sense of contrast. He uses the canvas as a surface of presentation rather than representation, playing on the fact that the surface of the painting functions itself as a table on which three-dimensional objects have been placed. The fact that the painting is in three dimensions does not mean that it is an

24

On this point, see Fedorov-Davydov, “D. P. Sterenberg”.

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illusion, but rather that it has become “objectified”.25 Sterenberg explores the texture, the shape and the function of objects and paints their pictorial equivalents. He reaches an equilibrium between the representation of an everyday object and its abstract meaning, by combining static objects and dynamic colours.

Figure 8-4, Sterenberg, Still Life with Biscuits, Soap and Sponge, 1919, oil on canvas, 46x61 cm, Russian Museum, St Petersburg

25

Sarabyanov, “D. P. Sterenberg”.

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Figure 8-5, Sterenberg, Still Life with Sweets, 1919, oil on canvas, 106.5x84 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

3) Western Art as the Basis for Soviet art: Sterenberg’s Internationalist Calling and Conflict with AKhRR In his artistic practice, Sterenberg shared the view of the avant-garde concerning the nature of art, and argued that painting should help to construct a new reality. In this respect he opposed the traditionalist notion of art, espoused by groups such as AKhRR. AKhRR believed that art was essentially a way of knowing reality, and that the Russian artist must borrow from the national heritage, and in particular from the tradition of Russian realist painting from the end of the nineteenth century. At the same time, Sterenberg maintained that a genuinely revolutionary, proletarian and Soviet art could only be created by transforming artistic

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form, rather than by simply modifying content. According to Sterenberg, the Cubist model of artistic creation had several advantages. First, Sterenberg underlined the considrable impact that the movement had had on Western architecture and on the production of everyday household objects. Despite lasting only a few years (1907-1914), Cubism represented a vitally important stage in the history of art. As far as the history of painting was concerned, it was quite simply the most important thing that had ever happened, and the most resounding rebuttal of academic art, by virtue of the fact that it did away with the notion of art as mimesis. As a revolutionary art form, it was well placed to contribute to the development of Soviet art since the latter was also revolutionary. As an artist, teacher and administrator of artistic life, Sterenberg argued that artists should focus on questions of form, and that Soviet art should be of high quality, innovative and diverse. He nailed his colours to the mast of Cubism and the French avant-garde, in a way which brought him into violent opposition with AKhRR. In early 1922, a discussion was held at the House of Education Workers concerning the opening of the 47th exhibition of work by the “Itinerants”. Sterenberg was present, as were Osip Brik and Mayakovsky among others. During the meeting, the Russian realists expressed their desire to support the Bolshevik Revolution. Reluctant to do so hitherto, they finally decided to found AKhRR. In his memoirs, E. Katsman, a former member of this Association, recalls that the left-wing artists generally tried to stop the creation of AKhRR.26 Sterenberg was one of the most vociferous opponents, something for which the members of the Association never forgave him. Thus, even before AKhRR officially existed, Sterenberg was openly at war with them. This bitter conflict lasted throughout the 1920s, surviving even after AKhRR’s two branches had been dissolved in 1932. Katsman remembers the atmosphere in which the debates were conducted, and recounts in his memoirs the position taken by Sterenberg: Sterenberg mocked realism, which he referred to as an “ichtyosaurus”. He said it amused him to be talking about this dead thing at a time when, not only in Russia but throughout the entire world, left-wing artists had been victorious. I intervened in order to defend our position. I pointed out that not everything was peaceful in Sterenberg’s own house, and that within Vkhutemas there had been a revolt against objectless art, in the name of realism. Nearly 300 students had refused categorically to study under 26 E. A. Katsman, Kak sozdalsya AKhRR (Vospominaniya), 6 (text dated March 17th, 1925).

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If the members of AKhRR looked to the French artists of the “Return to Order” group, Sterenberg naturally came out in favour of the Cubist movement, which had continued to inspire him since his time in Paris. Behind this disagreement over the choice of Western artistic references there lies a more general divergence concerning the nature of art itself. Sterenberg criticized AKhRR for its rampant nationalism and its sterile approach to art, founded as it was on the notion of simply copying Russian paintings of the end of the nineteenth century. He wrote, referring to the members of AKhRR: Indifference concerning the ideological meaning of form is typical of epigones. Having inserted Red Army helmets in the Execution of the Streltsy, they paint a Parade on Red Square, without understanding that what they are objectively creating is counter-revolutionary art. The epigones call on playwrights to represent daily life in the USSR in forms more suitable to the everyday existence of Ostrovsky’s merchants. This leads to […] ideological and formal regression.28

Sterenberg argued that artists should be open to foreign influence, and that they should reject mimesis in art. The debate in which he engaged was first and foremost ideological, however. Already in the 1920s, works of art were being evaluated in ideological terms. The only frames of reference for artistic debates and art criticism at this time were crudely Marxist, follow the work of Plekhanov29 at the end of the nineteenth century. According to Plekhanov, art was part of ideology and as such it articulated class relations. The art of a given period was the expression of the dominant class. If that class happened to be the proletariat, it followed that art should be proletarian, this last concept being defined ideologically, rather than strictly sociologically.30 However, this tendency to evaluate works of art ideologically was exacerbated between 1928 and 1932, led as it was by young and zealous Party cadres, who founded the “Russian 27

Ibid. Sterenberg, Traditsiya i sovremennost’. 29 A revolutionary, and Marxist critic, G. V. Plekhanov (1856-1918) wrote a number of works on aesthetic issues. 30 According to Lenin, the working class only becomes the proletariat when it is conscious of itself as a class. The proletariat thus merges with the Party. 28

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Association of Proletarian Artists”31 in 1931, and who gradually took over artistic criticism.

II - 1928-1932- Sources of Inspiration and Ideology: a Vast Change of Reference At the beginning of the 1920s, critics had already taken upon themselves the role of interpreting, justifying or dismissing Sterenberg’s artistic practices and his references to French art. The tone of their articles became much harsher, however, with the launch of the first Five Year Plan. The proletarization of Party cadres at this time, together with Stalin’s first purges, led many artists to rethink the question of their artistic influences. Other considerations were also relevant to this decision.

1) Critics’ Responses to Sterenberg’s French References Sterenberg’s still life studies from the middle of the 1910s until the end of the 1920s may be said to form a series, in which the artist explores a great variety of different objects, textures and colours. Indeed, in 1927, at the time of his personal exhibition, critics remarked that his œuvre resembled an inventory, and concluded that his more recent works added little that was new. At the same time, his attempts to paint on contemporary Soviet themes are welcomed (such as Aniska (figure 8-6), or The Agitator, for example). Aside from these observations, however, how might one characterize the critical reception of Sterenberg’s references to Cubism and to French art in general? Throughout the 1920s, the artist is both praised for his technique and his artistic qualities, and regularly vilified for producing art considered as elitist. The intellectual dimension of his work makes Sterenberg a leftwing artist. For Lunacharsky, Tugendkhold or Fedorov-Davydov, his formal experimentation was useful in as much as it functioned rather like a pedagogical laboratory. For Roginskaya (a member of AKhRR and ardent defender of the group’s positions), on the other hand, Sterenberg’s intellectualism and his interest in specifically pictorial problems were the result of his being influenced by bourgeois French art.

31

“Rossiisskaya Assotsiyatsiya Proletarskikh Khudozhnikov”; henceforth RAPKh.

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Figure 8-6, Sterenberg, Aniska, 1926, oil on canvas, 197x125 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

From 1928-1929, art in Russia underwent important changes. This period was marked by significant institutional reforms and by a redistribution of the role of the different players (such as critics, administrators, etc.). Young Party cadres, generally of proletarian origin, were charged with sorting out the wheat from the artistic chaff. A number of members of AKhRR broke away from the group in 1931, to form RAPKh. These artists operated mostly by publishing critical articles in their organ Iskusstvo v massy (Art for the Masses) which subsequently became Za proletarskoe iskusstvo (For Proletarian Art). These titles speak volumes for the ideological orientation of this journal, echoing as they do the

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Party’s slogan of 1928, “art for the masses!” In the journal’s pages it was argued that art should primarily be a weapon in the propaganda war, that it should be traditionalist and rationalist. Art, it was maintained, was a way of knowing reality, it was the result of a conscious representation of that reality and took its cue from the dominant ideology in society. These writers claimed to evaluate the artistic and especially the ideological quality of works of art, and put artists themselves into three categories, namely proletarians, fellow travellers (this term was now pejorative) and bourgeois, aesthetic formalists. To know into which category a given artist fell, it was enough to identify the world vision represented in his or her art. Sterenberg was condemned immediately both for the lack of Soviet themes in his work and also for seeking to hide his formalist32 tendencies behind whatever Soviet subject-matter he did choose to paint.33 Moreover, writing in 1933, a certain Beskin ranked Sterenberg among the members of the old French formalist intelligentsia, and claimed his art demonstrated a “decorative aesthetisizing tendency”, although Sterenberg himself had always denied this. Ultimately, however, since any given work is the expression of the artist’s world view, the simple fact of referring to Western artistic models, produced in a bourgeois regime, meant ipso facto that the artist’s world view would be alien to the Soviet proletariat’s own vision. For wrtiters such as Beskin, form and ideology overlapped, becoming the same thing. Not that Sterenberg necessarily agreed with his detractors, as is obvious from a statement made in 1932, a statement all the more remarkable for having been made at a time when intense pressure was being put on artists to conform: It is claimed that Cubism is a bourgeois aesthetic trend. And yet the official representatives of bourgeois art in the west (Italy, France, Germany) argue for a return to classicism. It is no coincidence, moreoever, that the fascists in Germany view Cubism and Futurism as the “artistic expression of Bolshevism.”34

Throughout his career, Sterenberg demonstrated great integrity, and never betrayed his principles. During the 1930s he repeatedly engaged in public debates with ex-members of AKhRR and RAPKh. Between 1928 32

In the domain of the plastic arts, the term “formalism” in the 1920s designates a tendency to produce art without object, and abstract art. From the first Five Year Plan onwards, this term was used as a perjorative term with which to castigate certain artists. 33 Antonov, “O socialisticheskoi mobilizatsii iskusstva”. 34 Sterenberg, Traditsiya i sovremennost’.

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and 1932 (the latter a year of respite brought about by the official dissolution of a number of groups, including RAPKh), many artists modified their way of painting (notably by depicting scenes form nature) and changed their artistic references. If Sterenberg distanced himself from Cubism, owing not just to external pressure but also to the natural way in which his art evolved, he certainly did not repudiate his French references. Indeed, it was at this point that he turned to his second major source of inspiration, Fauvism.

2) The Return to Van Dongen and Fauvism During the 1930s, Sterenberg mainly painted still life studies and portraits. From time to time he also painted landscapes and scenes of everyday Soviet life. In this respect he was both developing an approach to subject matter that went back to the second half of the 1920s, and responding to various official commissions. The Kolkhoz brigade during a break from work (figure 8-7) and his Turkmen series were both created as a result of such commissions, known as “artistic missions”.35 From a formal point of view, Sterenberg developed two particular aspects of his art. On the one hand, he explored further the expressive potential of colour and its role in the construction of space. On the other hand, he painted simple forms, in a way reminiscent both of naive art and Fauvism, and of some of his earlier work (such as Breakfast or Woman on Sofa). These two tendencies are united in The Kolkoz brigade during a break from work. The peasant theme itself may have reminded Sterenberg of Goncharova’s neo-primitivism, which was a synthesis between peasant art and French Cubism. This way of painting was typical of Sterenberg’s new wife, Granavtseva, also a member of the OST. However, Sterenberg alludes here very explicitly both to the abstract tachisme of Van Dongen, his teacher in Paris in 1907 (at the end of the Fauvist period), and to Matisse.

35

The artistic mission was a special kind of commission. The artist spent a certain amount of time living on a site in the USSR or somewhere abroad. At the time of the first Five Year Plan Communist artists tried to make sure that these missions were organised by Narkompros, and artists sent to huge construction sites or collective farms. They thus hoped to reeducate the “fellow travellers” by showing them what subjects to paint and obliging them to paint scenes from nature. They did not always succeed in this respect, however.

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Figure 8-7, Sterenberg, The Kolkhoz Brigade during a Break from Work, 1931, oil on canvas, 123x99 cm, Russian Museum, St Petersburg

The Kolkhoz brigade during a break from work contains a number of coloured patches without outline, in varying degrees of density, the effect of which is to create a sense of movement and vibration in space. Situated in this relatively abstract space is a group of women, whose simplified forms and fine outlines call to mind neo-primitivism. The contrast between the complementary colours green/red and orange/blue reinforces the visual impact. Moroever, the colour white, which evokes the blank canvas, can

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be seen in both foreground and background. It is present on the headscarf of the woman viewed from behind, another character’s dress, the sheet of paper and finally the cloud (this last element reinforces the impression of a scene viewed “head on”). Sterenberg draws on Fauvism, by filling the canvas with colours that are more expressive than descriptive, conceived of as a specific source of energy, independent of the object depicted. In this respect he looks back to Matisse, who, as Sterenberg himself put it, “finds a new solution to the problem of space in the picture, not by diluting the colours on the canvas with blacks and whites, but by establishing a tension between the vibratory potential of the colours themselves”.36 The end result is what Matisse himself might have called a condensation of emotion, with the relationship between the different colours accentuating the expressive qualiy of the painting. Sterenberg follows Matisse in letting his choice of colour be guided not by any scientific principle, but instead by observation and emotion.37 At the same time, however, he also uses basic theories such as the law of complementary colours. Thus we can say that Sterenberg’s method of depicting Soviet subject matter was to express emotion and feeling through colour. He appears to have tried to curb the cold intellectualism of his earlier work, without renouncing formal exploration and experimentation. In the 1930s, Sterenberg moved away from Cubism. Nevertheless, critics continued to focus on his work of the 1910s and 20s, vilifying him for “formalism” in paintings such as his famous Herrings (figure 8-2, above).38 One likely explanation for this is the persistent and bitter opposition between Sterenberg and former members of AKhRR. This is no doubt exacerbated by the fact that Sterenberg never engaged in selfcriticism, instead speaking out repeatedly and consitently against the idea that a painting should reproduce reality as faithfully as a photograph, against naturalism in art, and against the imitation of old masters. Instead, he argued in favour of new forms to better represent the new reality, the need for experimentation in art, and the advantages of borrowing from Western Postimpressionism (in a formal, rather than ideological sense).39 It is also possible that while the shift in his artistic references was plain for 36

Sterenberg, Traditsiya i sovremennost’. See Matisse, Notes d’un peintre. 38 As Udaltsova has remarked, most artists who were attacked for formalism at this time complained that the label was applied to them in respect of previous work, and did not take account of the extent to which their work had evolved. 39 Sterenberg produced these arguments during his intervention to MOSSKh at the 1935 conference on the portrait. See RGALI 2943/1/. 37

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all to see, it may not have been perceived by critics as representing a fundamental change in direction. In order to get a better understanding of Sterenberg’s situation around this time, however, it is necessary to compare his own case with that of other artists who changed direction during the period of transition that was the 1930s.

3) From German Expressionism to Impressionism The case of Goncharov is especially intreresting in this respect. From the early 1930s, Goncharov also began to refer in his work to Postimpressionism, and especially to Matisse. This can be seen, for example, in his interiors (e.g., figure 8-8). In his case, however, this was taken by the critics as evidence of a genuine conversion.

Figure 8-8, Goncharov, Interior. At the Piano. 1934, oil on canvas, 106.7x125 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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It is true that Goncharov did repent publicly at this time. In particular, he renounced all reference to German Expressionism. This movement was held to be much worse than Cubism, since it was associated with mysticism. Along with metaphysics, mysticism was the direct antithesis of realism as it was defined at the time. As Michel Aucouturier has observed, realism rests on the assumption that reality must be accessible to reason (as opposed to mysticism) and to the five senses (hence its opposition to metaphysics).40 For most Soviet critics of the 1920s, mysticism (and by extension German Expressionism) was associated with pessimism and a gloomy outlook on life.41 It was thus held to be the opposite of a rational approach to reality, and was often confused with the fantastic. Pimenov was among those most severely criticized for imitating German Expressionism. Even if some particularly liberal critics such as Tugendkhold and Lunacharsky tolerated the inclusion of certain expressionist elements, they reacted very negatively to a work such as War Invalids. Only Fedorov-Davydov wrote a positive review of this particular painting. Roginskaya, on the other hand, maintained in 1931 that Expressionism was a typical feature of the petty bourgeois urban intelligentsia, and that certain members of OST were psychologically and sociologiocally predisposed to it. Following a period of depression between 1932 and 1933, Pimenov underwent a radical change of direction, moving noticeably towards Impressionism and Renoir, then very much in vogue in the USSR. In the 1930s certain aesthetic debates continued to rage on, while others evolved or disappeared altogether. It should not be assumed, however, that the dissolution of other artistic groups meant absolute victory for RAPKh. It is true that artists were forbidden from referring in their work to Expressionism, objectless art or abstractionism. It is also undeniable that artists began to paint far more scenes from nature. Nevertheless, RAPKh did not succeed in imposing on artists all of its principles. Among those which failed to establish themselves one can cite the obligation to paint Soviet themes, the principle of painting from photographs, or the dialectical-materialist method of creation (this last concept was eventually replaced by the neutral and vague term “Socialist Realist”). The rationalist and traditionalist approach appears to have won the day, since artistic creation came to be defined as the conscious attempt to determine the style best suited to understanding the real world beyond the 40

Michel Aucouturier, Les problèmes théoriques de la critique littéraire marxiste en Russie, 334. 41 Roginskaya, “Gruppirovki v sovremennoi zhivopisi”. The author speaks of moroseness and neurasthenia.

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canvas. Yet if Voronsky’s intuitivist model of creation was roundly condemned as voronshchina, the very fact that reference to it regularly appeared in the press implies that it had not completely disappeared. And while it is undeniable that there was less and less room for debate, some scope for discussion nevertheless remained, as is particularly evident from the debates in MOSSKh over the question of sources of inspiration.

III - The Place and Interpretation of French References in the 1930s Debates between artists in the 1930s focused on two aspects of creation in particular: first, the question of the choice of Russian and Western references, and second, the issue of the method of artistic creation itself. This latter point concerned the way in which the artist worked, his relationship to his chosen theme, photography and the sketch. Painters raised questions about the nature of the relationship between their art and reality, which artists it was appropriate to be inspired by, and the best way to interpret artistic tradition. Issues they addressed included: Should they lean towards Russian art, French art, or both? Which artists should be held in esteem? Which elements of their work should be retained? How should artists justify their choices? By reference to purely artistic, formal criteria, or in line with ideological, nationalist considerations? This is the context of the conflict between artists at the heart of MOSSKh.42

1) Between Russian Realism and French References Throughout this decade, the former members of AKhRR attempted to impose their views on the “Itinerants” and on Russian realism in general. However, those artists who had previously belonged to other groups clearly favoured Western art, and in particular Impressionism and Postimpressionism. Each side was careful to justify its own particular stance. For example, Yuon, a former member of AKhRR, claimed that Impressionism was ill suited to portrait painting, by pointing out that it excluded something fundamental to the portrait, namely the psychological element. For Sterenberg, on the other hand, form was more important than anything else. This meant that it was perfectly legitimate to ignore the historical and ideological context and pick and choose elements from the best artists, such as colour from the Impressionists, light from Rembrandt, 42

On the discussions of formalism and the portrait, see RGALI 2943/1/68, 69, 70, 78, 79, 80, 81; and RGALI 2943/1/39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 49.

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etc. Hence his belief, which he stressed as late as 1935, in the significance of Picasso. For Sterenberg it was important to study what was happening in the West, not in order to borrow Western ideas, but rather to reproduce the formal elements of Western art, which could then be used to develop Socialist Realism. One reason for this divergence was that the artists involved were indifferent to the question of theme or to problems of form. Another was the opposition between the intuitivist and rationalist conceptions of art, the latter implying a rationally (pre-)determined set of obligatory, ideologically justified artistic references. Certain members of AKhRR believed that the very fact of borrowing from Western art amounted to creating works that were alien to the Soviet proletariat. Milashevsky, for example, argued that while Grosz was not formalist for Germany, using his formal techniques in a Soviet context inevitably meant reproducing a foreign way of looking at the world. Consequently, any reference to Grosz in the USSR was bound to be formalist. Sterenberg dismissed this nationalist way of classifying art, arguing that alluding to the Russian lubok43 tradition would be just as “formalist”. Other former members of AKhRR, such as Shegal, argued that a distinction should be made between on the one hand artists such as Picasso, and on the other Renoir, Courbet or Delacroix. The work of the latter, Shegal argued, contained a number of interesting elements. All in all, there was a good deal of confusion at this time between the artistic value of works and their ideological worth. This arose from the difficulty of adapting primarily political concepts to the aesthetic sphere. A number of artists pointed to David, as an exemplary painter of the French Revolution (a period often associated with the USSR of the 1920s and 30s). Just as it was in the 1920s, so now too the historical context is important; Impressionism was frequently dismissed on account of the fact that it had been created in a bourgeois society, and was thus the expression of a radically different worldview. However, this argument was ultimately rejected. As S. Gerassimov pointed out: “According to Marxism, if I remember correctly, works of quality can be produced in bourgeois societies in decline.”44 If French artistic references continued to be tolerated, it was on account of the terminological uncertainty characteristic of debates at this time. With neither side willing to give ground on the crucial issue of how the basic concepts should be understood, artists were unable to agree. The situation could only be resolved from outside artistic circles themselves. 43

The lubki were popular prints which first appeared in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth century, in the form of woodcuts (editor’s note). 44 RGALI 2943/1/69.

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Thus it was that the final decision was reached in 1939, when, as the historical context became especially difficult, Beskin, art critic and editor in chief of some of the major Russian art journals, tried to obtain official recognition of French art as an important source of influence for Soviet art. In issue no. 7 of the journal Tvorchestvo, of which he was editor in chief, Beskin described Impressionism as a child of the French Revolution, and as such a precursor of Soviet Socialist Realism. Beskin published reviews of the Moscow exhibition of French landscape painting at the Moscow Museum of Modern Western Art, in which French Impressionism and even Cézanne himself were explicitly praised. However, Beskin’s position on this issue caused a scandal which led him to be replaced on every editorial board which he had previously headed. 45 M. Cullerne-Bown argues that the rejection of Impressionism in 1939 can be explained by the fact that artists had gone too far in their experimentation with colour, and were thus held by the Party to have undermined both realism and (crucially) the notion of art as weapon in the propaganda war.46 But if that is the case, why had Impressionism been so tolerated until that point? It should be remembered that propaganda was not the only consideration driving Soviet artistic production in the 1930s. Of course, it is possible that the increasingly tense atmosphere in the prewar period led the Party to demand a greater propaganda effort from artists. Whatever the truth, however, artistic criteria seem to us secondary to geopolitical considerations. The international situation played an important role in the reception of Beskin’s pronouncements which were made not just at a moment of tension between the USSR and France, but also at the very moment that the Molotov-Rippentrop Pact was being signed, in August 1939. The Party could not remain indifferent in the face of an opinion so at odds with the country’s recently revised foreign policy. M. Cullerne-Bown advances another possible reason for the rejection of Impressionism, pointing out that it could be interpreted as an invitation to dream-like contemplation, a call to an apolitical idyll rather than to action and social commitment. Yet it is precisely this aspect that seduced private buyers of this art, as we can see from the critical reception of Pimenov’s work, for example. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that the debates that we have been describing took place essentially between artists themselves. Before 1939 and Beskin’s problematic pronouncements, critics were virtually silent on even the most obvious borrowings from French Impressionism and Postimpressionism. 45

See M. Cullerne-Bown, “Le style stalinien: la peinture soviétique de 1930 à 1956”. 46 See M. Cullerne-Bown, ibid.

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2) Pimenov’s French References Met with Silence Pimenov’s brand of Impressionism depicts the embourgeoisement of Stalinist society from the mid 1930s, and the new intelligentsia’s access to art. Given this, the critics’ failure to mention his Impressionist allusions is perfectly understandable. Indeed, in works such as the series devoted to women workers at the Uralmash plant, Pimenov becomes a sort of proletarian Renoir. In these paintings he shows how shock workers now have access to “superior” living conditions. He depicts a meritocracy where hard work is rewarded (through the attribution of living quarters), and where the dominant values are those of the family and of bourgeois society in general. Unlike the French Impressionists, Pimenov does not experiment with different techniques for representing natural light in the open air. Gone is the shimmering daylight effect of Impressionism, gone too its subtle changes in luminosity and its coloured shadows. On the other hand, Pimenov’s work has a number of elements in common with French painting of the late nineteenth century. These include the representation of women at the theatre or in bourgeois interiors, as well as the application of certain painting techniques to express feeling and emotion. This last point attracted particular critical attention: Pimenov has made great progress and shows himself at this exhibition in a new light, as a talented and subtle painter, and a skilled draughtsman who has near-perfect mastery of character and form. He has a keen eye and a skilled hand, but above all his paintings show the great pains that the artist has gone to, in order to rid himself of the vulgar elements of Expressionism and the dogmatism of OST. Pimenov has found a real, living world full of emotion, and his paintings express the impetuous joy of the artist, coming into contact with living matter. His subjects are rich and varied in colour, form and composition, and Pimenov demonstrates the kind of refined craftsmanship that allows the viewer to perceive the specific characteristics of each of his subjects.47

Officially, sentiment and emotion must always express the objective socialist worldview, rather than subjective sensibilities. This was, however, very difficult to apply in practice, and it remained one of the major contradictons of Socialist Realism. The problem, for Hertzenberg, was that Pimenov lost himself in the contemplation of objects with which he ultimately overloaded his canvas. Nevertherless, he believed that Pimenov had found an effective counter to Expressionism, and had produced work which was bound to please the new, more contemplative buyer. Until the 47

V. Hertzenberg, “Vesennyaya vystavka…”, 67-68.

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end of the 1930s Socialist Realist painting took directly from Impressionism freedom and expressivity in both colour and technique. The ultimately apolitical invitation to dream-like contemplation was in tune with the spirit of the age. Pimenov found in Impressionism a style, a technique, a sense of composition, themes and subjects capable of extolling a certain joie de vivre and a bourgeois sensibility. Pimenov was thus in tune with the prevailing ethos, never more so than in his canonical work of 1937, The New Moscow. In this painting the Impressionist style is perfectly adapted to the subject matter. The subject is the first street relaid as part of the reconstruction of Moscow in 1935. Architecturally, this boulevard is reminiscent of Haussmann’s Paris, depicted time and again by Monet, Renoir, Caillebotte and Pissarro. Pimenov’s picture borrows expressly from works by these painters.

Conclusion We have seen, then, that right up until 1939 there was still a place for French pictorial references, both in Soviet artistic debates and in the artists’ work itself. This is not to say that the climate of censorship did not play an important role in the evolution of aesthetic forms. Nevetherless, it is also undeniable that certain forms could simply develop no further, while others evolved along with individual artists’ technique, or with the public’s taste. This is particularly evident in the case of Pimenov, for example. This question of borrowings from French art sheds new light on the arguments of cultural historians such as Boris Groys or Igor’ Golomstock, who have suggested that the 1930s represented, respectively, smooth continuity with and a radical departure from the 1920s. Analysis of such elements as form and Western references shows that there were both similarities and differences, as earlier works were reinterpreted and reevaluated. Thus, while references to Postimpressionism can be found throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, there is a change in the artists alluded to. Moreover, if in the 1930s Pimenov was still interested in the expression and transmission of emotions, he developed a lyrical style and stopped trying to shock the viewer emotionally. Our examples also suggest that the critic’s role in Soviet painting of the 1920s and 30s was less important than has often been assumed. The criticism perceived as the most vitriolic was that which came from Communist artists around the time of the first Five Year Plan. It is this criticism that seems to have had the biggest impact on the creative output of certain artists. As a general rule, critics themselves were much more

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circumspect, often intervening on relatively minor issues. Consequently, artists generally had to read between the lines. This is what happened, for example, in the debate around Impressionism between 1932 and 1939. In this area, as in so many others, Soviet cultural policy seems to have been rather vague. This was the result of a number of factors, namely the problems surrounding the adaptation of ideological concepts to questions of form and aesthetics, the imprecise nature of the Party’s instructions to artists, and an important institutional disorganization. Ultimately these factors were not without consequence for artistic practice, generating as they did both freedom of movement and constraint.

Works Cited Primary Sources Matisse, H. Notes d’un peintre [1908]. Paris: Henmann, 1992. Sterenberg, D. Traditsiya i sovremennost’. [Sterenberg family archive], 1932.

Secondary Sources Antonov, A. “O socialisticheskoi mobilizatsii iskusstva” [On the socialist mobilization of art]. Iskusstvo v massy, no. 4 (1930): 6-9. Aucouturier, Michel. Les problèmes théoriques de la critique littéraire marxiste en Russie, PhD diss., Université de Paris IV. Cullerne-Bown, M. “Le style stalinien: la peinture soviétique de 1930 à 1956”. In Russie-URSS, 1914-1991, Changements de regard, edited by Wladimir Bérélowitch, 108-17. Paris: BDIC, 1991. Fedorov-Davydov, A. “D. P. Sterenberg”. In Katalog vystavki proizvedenii khudozhnika D. P. Sterenberg [Catalogue of the exhibition of the works of D. P. Sterenberg], Moscow, 1927. Hertzenberg, V. “Vesennyaya vystavka moskovskikh zhivopistsev”, Iskusstvo, no. 4 (1935): 56-73. Katsman, E. A. Kak sozdalsya AKhRR (Vospominaniya), Moscow: AKhRR Press, 1925. Kostin, V. OST, Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1976. Lazarev, M. David Sterenberg, Moscow: Galart, 1992. Le Thomas, Claire. “Une ethnographie des avant-gardes montmartroises: réflexions sur les innovations techniques et matérielles cubistes”. In Histoire de l’art et anthropologie. [Conference proceedings, accessible at: http://actesbranly.revues.org/300]

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Marcadé, J-C. L’avant-garde russe 1907 - 1927. Paris: Flammarion, 1995. Roginskaya, F. “Gruppirovki v sovremennoi zhivopisi.” Krasnaya niva, no. 30 (1929): 18-24. Sovetskie khudozhniki, zhivopistsy-grafiki. Moscow [n. pub.], 1937. Sarabyanov, D. “D. P. Sterenberg”, Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1978): 37-42.

THE POWER OF DARKNESS: LEO TOLSTOY REWRITTEN BY JOHN MCGAHERN BERTRAND CARDIN

Just as some Irish playwrights, like Tom Kilroy or Tom Murphy, published a novel, so some Irish novelists and short story writers have also written for the stage. Along with James Joyce, Sean O’Faolain, Frank O’Connor or Edna O’Brien, this is the case of John McGahern. After publishing five novels and three collections of short stories, he became a dramatist with the staging of The Power of Darkness in 1991. McGahern had always had a great interest in drama, as attested by his regular attendance of theatres in Dublin, London or elsewhere, his passion for the plays of Yeats and Beckett and his close friendship with Irish dramatists. In addition, his first marriage, to a Finnish stage director and theatre manager, allowed him to share the material concerns of drama professionals. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that McGahern delayed writing for the stage: indeed he was almost sixty years of age when his play was published. This late theatrical experience raises quite a few questions: does it arise from a need to explore new genres? From his own stylistic evolution as a writer? Did he want to prove that he was a versatile writer? To meet a challenge he had personally treasured for a long time? How is one to account for a sixty-year-old man’s desire to test his abilities, whereas he had already largely proved that he was a fully-fledged writer in other genres? To these merely speculative questions, another one can be added which consists in knowing why McGahern resorted to adaptation for the only play in his repertoire. It is particularly interesting to know that McGahern’s The Power of Darkness (1991) is the transposition of a play by Tolstoy, Vlast’ t’my, the English translation of which is also entitled The Power of Darkness (1886). As a result, McGahern’s rewriting of Tolstoy draws on two different kinds of intertextual relationships which are very close to each other: on the one hand, it evidently involves translation due to the similarity

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between the titles of McGahern’s text and the English version of Tolstoy’s play, with a great number of elements which are directly taken from the Russian source text and, on the other hand, it also involves adaptation, a subtle mixture of converging and diverging phenomena, of parallels and distinctions. Although adaptation, generally speaking, consists in reshaping a piece of work into another form, McGahern in this case adapts a play into another play. Nevertheless, a transposition occurs here from Russian to English and a polyphonic dialogue is unavoidably established between a writer’s experience and some literary texts of the past. A certain number of voices haunt The Power of Darkness which proves to be a crucible of associations and metamorphoses. In his dialogue with the original text, McGahern copies, transposes, operates all kinds of transformations. This is why the motifs of change, transposition and transformation, all of which are closely linked to translation and adaptation, will be our basic discussion throughout. Like translation, adaptation entails recontextualization, which implies trifling but also significant changes. It sheds new light on the original material, and situates the play within a different epoch, a different culture, a different sensitivity, and so shapes it into the cultural and linguistic context of the target language. Adaptation does not so much raise the question of respect of the letter and the spirit of the source text-—which finally may be nothing but deception since it is always possible to claim that one has not betrayed the source text and nevertheless alter it completely-—as it also raises the question of the mode of transfer and the aesthetic choices it implies. The only transformations that matter are the ones which have been considered as necessary by the technical characteristics of the new form. Has the original text been taken as ordinary construction material? Is it transformed to such an extent that the reworking amounts to re-creation, as McGahern himself maintains? Or, on the contrary, would the intervention not be limited in this case to the mere Iricization of a Russian play, in other words a Russian play simply transplanted in Ireland? The first observation that can be made concerning the premiere of the Irish adaptation of The Power of Darkness in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on October 16th, 1991 is that McGahern rapidly lost control of the situation. The different contexts, backdrops and nationalities of the audiences required other changes which, to some extent, slipped out of the author’s control and the first reviewers of the play did not spare it. In his inventory of the critical judgements about the play when it was premiered, Nicholas Greene established different categories: some critics blamed the Abbey Theatre for “exposing a fine novelist to the humiliation of having

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such a totally inadequate play staged”.1 Others considered that “Garry Hynes’s production went some way to salvaging what was obviously a disastrous text”.2 Others sharply attacked The Power of Darkness for its lack of plausibility, of verisimilitude. Greene also mentions the more positive opinions from British reviewers who were impressed by the vision of Irish experience in McGahern. As a matter of fact, this view of Ireland is embarrassingly stereotyped, as is exemplified by the major motifs of the play, those clichés of Catholic parochial narrow-mindedness and rural barbaric fools fired by drink. This portrayal obviously clashed with the expectations of the Irish audience, who maintained that Ireland was ill-depicted in the play, and that the characters acted as none of their fellow countrymen ever would. This controversy is highly reminiscent of the sharp reaction sparked by the premiere of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World (1907) in front of the same theatre almost one hundred years before. It is obvious that McGahern’s The Power of Darkness did not go unnoticed when it was published and immediately staged. Yet, it can rightfully be assumed that the general interest taken in the play then was essentially due to the name of the writer (a famous novelist) and not to his talent as a playwright. Indeed McGahern did not become recognized as a dramatist: the anthologies concerning Irish theatre do not mention his name. And so the publication and staging of The Power of Darkness did nothing to gain him a reputation in the field of drama. While there is undoubtedly a McGahernian novel, a McGahernian short story, there is no typical McGahernian drama. Used to working with the privileged mode of expression that is the novel, what does the theatrical mode mean for McGahern? What difference does he make between novel and drama writing? Oddly enough, McGahern’s list of dramatis personae which specifies their names, family ties, functions and ages, is followed by a summary of the plot. McGahern considered he had to sum up the plot, which is unusual for a playwright who seems unable to do without narrative prose. Mentioning the past, present and future of the characters at the beginning of the play amounts to distrusting the validity and persuasive strength of the dialogues the text is made of. McGahern seems to have been groping for his way, and is no longer the successful writer of Amongst Women (1990), the novel he published the year before. He gives the impression of being ill at ease with writing for the stage, as evidenced by the fact that he 1 2

Greene, La Licorne, 159. Ibid.

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discarded the first draft of his play. Indeed, McGahern had already tried to publish The Power of Darkness before and submitted the play to the Abbey Theatre in 1972, but the manuscript had been refused then. As he puts it in the introduction to the play, he regularly resumed the project and wrote several versions of it until its eventual publication. The two decades that elapsed between the first and last versions shed light on McGahern’s undeniable difficulty in writing and his strange resolute determination to take up the very same text again and again. A comparative study of the different successive versions would be of interest and would certainly require commentaries but only the last version was published and it is unfortunately impossible to have access to the previous ones. This enables us to see anyway that the published version is the result of a long-term experience of rewriting not only another writer’s work, but also one’s own. This is something which McGahern is accustomed to: he wrote several versions of The Leavetaking (1974) and Amongst Women, and repeatedly resumed, altered, and revised his manuscripts as he did with The Power of Darkness for twenty years. Most of the time, this process of rewriting is overlooked in the critical comments on the play. Similarly, beyond the fact that McGahern wrote several versions of the same text, few reviewers lay emphasis on the adaptative dimension of the play. Thus, if not all readers are aware of this process of rewriting, can we really speak of “intertext” insofar as, according to Riffaterre, intertextuality requires the reader’s perception of interdependence of any one literary text with all those that have gone before or after it?3 The previous Irish adaptations of Chekhov’s drama, for example Kilroy’s, Friel’s, McGuinness’s or Murphy’s, are clearly identified as intertexts or more precisely what Genette calls hypertexts because they are transpositions of widely-known plays such as The Seagull or The Cherry Orchard. But here, insofar as the hypotext is not part of the Canon, insofar as Tolstoy’s name is barely mentioned when McGahern’s play is staged, and as, furthermore, this play is not clearly introduced as an adaptation, it is, as a result, hardly surprising that this albeit constitutive notion of rewriting goes unacknowledged. Yet it was through the medium of rewriting that McGahern became initiated into drama, unlike his fellow dramatists who, when they adapted Chekhov, had written their own original stage-plays and were already fully-fledged playwrights. One may wonder how far McGahern was influenced by them and incited to adapt a Russian dramatist in his turn. Was McGahern then diffident with regard to the particular form? Was he in need of precedence, of protection, of the 3

Riffaterre, Text Production, 9.

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soothing shadow of a literary father? What is one to make of this process of looking back? Adaptation has undoubtedly something to do with memory, implying the idea of different strata, the superimposition of different texts which are evocative of a palimpsest. Even though The Power of Darkness has not always been clearly presented as an adaptation, the striking sameness of the titles of the hypertext and the translated hypotext does not conceal the original version. In his interviews and conferences, McGahern frequently mentions the name of Tolstoy and, with The Power of Darkness, obviously chose to compose a drama in the wake of the great Russian author. With his adaptation of The Power of Darkness, McGahern paid tribute to a text and a writer whose work impressed him to the point of wishing to include it within the body of his own writings. Maybe McGahern also feels close to Tolstoy for having experienced the same vexations and humiliations imposed on men-of-letters in times of tyrannical cultural policies, when publications are closely watched. McGahern and Tolstoy indeed both suffered from institutional censorship. Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness was written in 1886. Considered as a masterpiece by Alexander III, the play provoked the furious intervention of the Procurator of the Holy Synod. Judging Tolstoy as a nihilist, the Procurator successfully convinced the tsar to ban all performances on the day before the dress rehearsal. As a result, The Power of Darkness could not be produced in Russia before 1895, whereas Paris had staged it as early as 1888. After being ostracized and banned for his novel The Dark (1965), McGahern felt undoubtedly close to all those writers who had suffered the same ordeal before he had. It is significant that he chose to adapt a play which was banned, whose author was considered as an atheist, and that the plot of his own adaptation is a copy—one could daresay—of the original text. In both cases, the plot focuses on the murder of a rich landowner committed by his wife who is in love with a young farm labourer. The latter’s mother hatches the plot after making sure that her son would be able to take advantage of the heiress and her wealth. The marriage soon proves to be a disaster. The new owner spends his time getting drunk, is unfaithful to his wife, sleeps with his predecessor’s daughter, makes the girl pregnant and kills the child on his mother’s advice. This evil mother arranges a marriage for the tearful young girl and the play ends in both cases with the wedding reception disrupted by the public confession of the murderer, racked by his guilty conscience. Tolstoy’s play conveys a gloomy atmosphere within a farming community devoid of religious faith. Indeed God is absent throughout the

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play. This is why some hubristic characters, like Matriona, the pernicious conspirator, tend to think they replace an almighty being. This divine absence makes a drama of the play and not a tragedy, all the more so as death plays a significant part in the plot. According to Henri Gouhier, a theoretician of dramatic art, the presence of transcendence makes a tragedy; the presence of death makes a drama.4 The plot of the work, set in motion by the first husband’s death, then that of the baby, moves towards destruction, in action, mind and speech, because the spectator is indeed confronted by a destroyed world at the end of the play. According to the critics who are familiar with Russian, the language used by Tolstoy is strewn with picturesque, hardly translatable, if not completely untranslatable expressions. Not being a Russian speaker, I have unfortunately only been able to work from a translation, as was also the case with McGahern since he could not read Tolstoy in the original. He certainly read the English version by Nathan Haskell Dole, an American writer, publisher and translator who was the first one to translate Tolstoy into English. Dole not only translated Vlast’ t’my (The Power of Darkness), but also published the twenty volumes of Tolstoy’s Collected Works in 1899 and wrote a biography of the Russian writer in 1911.5 As for the translation, many critics complain that the savour of the original play has been toned down by translation, however faithful this translation may be. The muzhiks’ picturesque speech, with its affectionate terms, its flamboyant metaphors, is quite difficult to render into any other language. The genuine popular language, full of spicy expressions, skilfully used by Tolstoy, is part of stage realism insofar as it aims at mirroring the real world, which is characteristic of naturalistic drama. These references to the real world do not only concern the language used on stage, but also the geneses of both texts. A tragic event inspired Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness: in 1880, a farmer named Koloskov, after murdering the child he had with his stepdaughter had qualms of conscience and, torn with remorse and grief, confessed his crime publicly.6 In the same way, McGahern vouches for the authenticity of the plot of his play when he refers to a case of infanticide which had never been cleared up. As he puts it in the introduction to his play: “For anybody who might imagine this to be a description of a remote and dark age, I refer them to the findings of the Kerry Babies Tribunal in 1985.”7 Thus, the two plays 4 “Il y a tragédie par la présence d’une transcendance; il y a drame par la présence de la mort”: Gouhier, Le Théâtre et l’existence, 69. 5 Haskell Dole, Life of Count Tolstoy, 1911. 6 Roberti, Histoire du théâtre russe jusqu’en 1917, 95. 7 McGahern, The Power of Darkness, vii.

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are inspired by real events and based on facts, which makes them all the more concrete as they display a great deal of specific details—which are current in naturalistic contexts in any case—such as, concerning Tolstoy’s play, the freezing cold, the use of a sledge, the interior decor of the isba, the currency, but also the food, costumes or jobs of the villagers. These archetypes of setting can also be noticed in McGahern’s adaptation which includes a variety of clichés about Irish country people, a profusion of details which may be considered as characteristics of Irishness. Examples include names, both Irish places and characters’ first names—Paddy, Maggie, Eileen…—as well as Gaelic terms, Hiberno-English words and phrases, proverbs, ballads and other traditional songs. Customs and religious rituals also belong to these naturalistic paraphernalia. Are these points, which deal with a specific time and a particular place, the only differences between the two plays? Given that the characters are deeply anchored in a precise time and place, they can easily be re-interpreted. Yet, can adaptation be limited to a change of time and space? Admittedly, McGahern does not disrupt the order of Tolstoy’s play at all. He keeps the same title, the same plot and may be somewhat fettered by the hypotext. Does he content himself with setting the original play in another context? In his dramatic works, which are composed of ten plays, Tolstoy questioned all the areas of interest that were dear to him—art, music and religion. In his private life, he was a distressed pessimist, full of contradictions. Chastity represented an ideal to be attained, and yet he had a home and a family with thirteen children. He had high ideals, but often failed to live up to them. He passed severe judgment particularly on all that concerned the body and sexuality, saw marriage as a kind of institutionalized debauchery and condemned adultery entirely, hence the epigraph of his play, which is a quotation from the Gospel according to Matthew: “But what I tell you is this: If a man looks on a woman with a lustful eye, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”8 This very same biblical verse was resumed as the epigraph of The Kreutzer Sonata (Kreitserova sonata, 1888), a novella praising abstinence and denouncing sexuality as a cause of sin, which was written by Tolstoy just a year after The Power of Darkness was published. This moralistic, puritanical background is erased from McGahern’s version, the religious aspect of which is totally dismissed. Of course, there is a relationship between the titles of the two plays, but their meanings are different. “The power of darkness”, for Tolstoy, refers to this excerpt from the Gospel (according to Luke) when Jesus who is about to be arrested says to Judas 8

New English Bible, Matthew 5:28.

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and the crowd around him: “Do you take me for a bandit, that you have come out with swords and cudgels to arrest me? Day after day, when I was in the temple with you, you kept your hands off me. But this is your moment—the power of darkness.”9 At the end of his Passion, when Jesus dies, the light of the sun fails and darkness falls over the whole land for three hours, which visually symbolizes “the power of darkness”. As we know, in the Christian symbolic system, the duality “light/darkness” characterizes the opposition between good and evil. Men are divided into two categories: they are children of light if they live under the rule of Christ who introduces himself as “the light of the world”, or children of the dark, if they are under the rule of Satan. This separation between men follows the coming of light into the world which gives everyone the freedom of choice. Concerning Tolstoy, the choice of light is a deep concern, if not an obsession. Fifteen years after The Power of Darkness, he wrote a play entitled The Light that Shines in the Darkness (I svet vo t’me svetit, 1901), thus extending the metaphor of the same dialectics. This motif mirrors the torments and qualms that racked the Russian writer in his lifetime. For Tolstoy, the power of darkness is the hour when darkness reigns, the realm of evil from which man can be saved thanks to God only, as Saint Paul puts it in his letter to the Colossians: “God rescued us from the domain of darkness.”10 In his play, Tolstoy stages characters who do not show any concern about God in order to warn his contemporaries against the disasters they may experience if they do not come back to Him. For McGahern, the power of darkness has a different meaning: it refers to the obscurantist policies led by mid-twentieth century Irish governments that the author witnessed and suffered. McGahern justifies this title in the introduction to his play: “The Power of Darkness is uncannily close to the moral climate in which I grew up […] The confusion and guilt and plain ignorance that surrounded sex turned men and women into exploiters and adversaries.”11 This way, he rubs out the purely religious aspect of the original title to provide his own adaptation with a resolutely socio-political title. As a matter of fact, “the power of darkness” in McGahern’s view rather amounts to “darkness in power”. This is in keeping with the titles of his novels, particularly The Dark, but also That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), to be published later, in which this motif of light and darkness is recurrent. Light and darkness, in McGahern’s universe, are not to be 9

Ibid., Luke 22:52-53. Ibid., Col. 1:13. 11 McGahern, The Power of Darkness, vii. 10

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given a spiritual meaning, but are approached from an essentially sociocultural angle. Therefore, considering what it refers to, the title The Power of Darkness becomes grandiloquent. The adaptation places the play into another genre, since Tolstoy’s drama is turned into a melodrama in McGahern’s version. It is this transformation precisely which is open to criticism. With Tolstoy, the gloomy atmosphere and the characters’ violent passions are always expressed with a sober vigour and provide the play with remarkable dramatic consistency, whereas McGahern’s version displays all the characteristics of the hybrid, heterogeneous genre of melodrama. The framework of McGahern’s supposedly moving play with motifs such as love, persecutions, misfortunes caused by an ambitious villain leading to violent action and the final triumph of virtue mirrors the distinctive features of melodrama. The Manichean distribution of characters is also typically melodramatic. Everything in the play rests on the opposition between excessively virtuous and exceptionally evil characters. Each of them acts as a foil to another in this adaptation which, unlike the original text, is characterized by superficial psychology and simplifying typology of characters. One of the protagonists is a significant example: while Tolstoy’s Nikita is a man who suffers from being torn between his sensual needs and his thirst for truth, Paul, in McGahern’s version, is nothing but a whining coward who keeps on repeating that he wishes he had never been born.12 As a result, actors have to perform a kind of pantomime as their parts are coded and stereotyped with gesticulations and expressive sign language. Therefore, characters are personae or masks with unsubtle, highly codified and immediately recognizable words and gestures. Their most prominent features are exaggerated and distorted to such an extent that they end up as mere caricatures. This proves that Gordon Craig was right when he considered that naturalism and, to a larger extent, realism, always end in caricature.13 The cast matches luminously good heroes with the villains of deepest and darkest dye. This confrontation of stereotyped characters is perfectly set in a conventional, melodramatic ritual the rules of which make it easier to understand. A third category of characters nevertheless may be added to this duality: the so-called comic character, in this case, the casual labourer, an old soldier, a stupid braggart who is significantly called Paddy… Even if stage directions do not mention it, this confirmed drunkard can be imagined as equipped with a big red nose. The gross, extravagant caricature is part of 12 13

Ibid, 43-45. Craig, On the Art of Theatre, 111.

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melodrama, a highly, naively emotional genre. These codified types are reminiscent of Lavater’s theories on physiognomy, which were very popular in the 19th century, the flourishing period of melodrama. This “Paddy”, a dramatically “neutral” character, a naive servant, lamenting over the crazy world in a whimpering tone, is supposed to act as the chorus does in ancient Greek plays and to be the moral voice of the play, the image of universal conscience. As one character who defends him in act V puts it: “He’s drunk but he makes more sense than most of the sobers.”14 This allegedly moving dramatic monologue is in fact nothing but a grotesque, extravagant scene. McGahern’s adaptation is characterized by sensationalism. Actions and characters constantly go to extremes. The norms of moderation are deliberately dismissed to give way to excessive power, brute force, wild freedom. This is conspicuous in the language used in the play: it is essentially based on extravagant emotional appeal and keeps oscillating between grandiloquence and mawkishness. Likewise, the expression of love is limited to a few clichés and ready-made phrases. The dialogues of the play, as in any melodrama, are full of sentimental mannerisms. Otherwise, Paddy’s loose talk which aims at imitating soldiers’ or farmworkers’ language is more annoying than appealing. Swear-words and obscenities run throughout the Irish version and their relevance may be questioned. The general tone of dialogues and monologues in McGahern’s play is very different from that in Tolstoy’s. Another significant difference in the relationship between the plays concerns the construction. Tolstoy’s drama is admirably wellproportioned, whereas McGahern’s version suffers from weak construction. The five acts vary considerably in length. For example, act I stretches over one third of the play. In this lack of formal balance, some scenes are surprisingly added. Paddy’s final monologue, for example, does not exist in Tolstoy’s play and the rewritten version could perfectly have done without it. Stage directions are also absent from McGahern’s play. As a result, some precisions are inserted in the character’s words. Peter, for instance, exclaims on stage: “I better go and see what’s happening for myself, though I’m not able to walk (Exits).”15 There is no subtlety at all about such an odd procedure. The Irish version also suffers from a lack of scope. Aristotle, in his Poetics, considered that a dramatic work had to form a whole (with a 14 15

McGahern, The Power of Darkness, 51. Ibid, 3.

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beginning, a middle and an end), but also required a certain scope or length and this is what is lacking in this adaptation. McGahern’s play, twice as short as Tolstoy’s, sticks to the original plot. It is composed of its essential parts and, as a result, gets rid of any subplot. McGahern here performs a kind of “excision”, according to Genette who means by this word significant reductions, pure and simple deletions.16 And indeed McGahern makes drastic cuts in Tolstoy’s text, and reduces it to its skeleton. Out of the twenty-five characters in the Russian play, only seven are still present in the Irish version. As a result, the action is considerably close-knit, if not hurried since it disrupts all the rules of art and good sense. The action is made up of a hardly plausible succession of painful, destructive scenes which finally provoke dullness and monotony as there is no hierarchy between the scenes, no breaks in the progression of the plot which would make it possible to highlight climaxes and turning-points. This lack of rhythmic contrasts, of intensity and coups de théâtre chokes the plot and makes it too succinct. There is no air in such excessively compressed action. The cast and the audience are provided little opportunity to enjoy a pause. McGahern’s concern to make the story more accessible and to erase all that seems of secondary importance to him is once again excessive and extravagant. In any case, his play is none the better for it. Tolstoy used pictures which have the advantage of arranging moments of silence. Right from the first page, the play is described as being composed of five acts and six pictures. These pictures or “tableaux” are pauses which create visual unity between the setting and the characters’ attitudes. The people on stage are set, motionless as in a painting. In the second half of the 19th century, the fragmentation of plays into separate pictures allowed the aesthetics of the genre to develop towards a more descriptive kind of realism. The play was dotted with varied degrees of intensity and different rhythms which enhanced the pathetic climax of the play. On the contrary, with McGahern, the major dramatic device remains the dialogue, the one and only function of which seems to be to speed up the action and keep the ball rolling. This restrictive function of dialogues, together with the drastic cuts from the original text do not pay tribute to the psychology of original characters whose despair and guilt are not staged in a convincing way. Yet many playwrights insist on the power of silences, on the uselessness of appealing to verbose cues and on the fact that the action is developing and continuing in the intervals between the scenes. McGahern’s stage-play is only based on words whereas bodies, 16

Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, 323.

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objects, images can also talk. The dramatic art of his adaptation is, as a result, severely thwarted. Unlike his Irish peers, McGahern, when he published The Power of Darkness, did not have any experience in drama writing. He had never published any stage plays. He was most probably influenced by Friel’s, McGuinness’s or Kilroy’s adaptations of Russian drama, incited to believe that he too would able be to rewrite a play taken from the Russian repertoire and to achieve fame once more, but this time as a playwright. Yet The Power of Darkness, in its Irish adaptation, does not get across to the audience. McGahern could very well have written a melodrama in the typically Irish tradition of black humour and grating irony, initiated by Swift and resumed by Shaw or Beckett, but in this case, he should have been more detached from the Russian text on which his own is articulated, or made a witty parody of the original play. For, after all, deliberately or not, does melodrama not parody classical tragedy? The problem here is that McGahern’s adaptation depends too much on the original text and does not succeed in creating new elements with old ones, in turning the rewriting process into some kind of re-creation. It remains immune to innovation. As a result, his palimpsest changes into pale incest, which McGahern felt as a failure, as his literary production testifies, since it took him more than ten years to write a new book, That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002). Moreover, it is probably no coincidence that this novel places so much emphasis on dialogues that it is evocative of the dramatic form and reminiscent of what the Russian Formalists call “scenic narrative’–“die szenische Erzählung”.17 Furthermore, in this text which shares characteristics with the novel and the stage-play, the writer obviously prefers showing the facts rather than narrating them. Consequently, the reader perceives the action not as told, but rather as if it were performed on stage. That They May Face the Rising Sun is to be read in the context of a literary career with its ups and downs, as a compromise between novel and drama which allows McGahern to use a new form and distance himself from purely written tradition. There is undeniably something oral about this text, and it is probably more intended for an audience than for a readership. The introduction of orality in the prose enables McGahern to conduct a new experiment which was acclaimed by critics much more favourably than his play. With That They May Face the Rising Sun, McGahern reveals his concern for experiment and his constant need for renewal. In accordance with contemporary ideas, he endeavours to destroy the borders between genres. Anyway, how relevant is the 17

Todorov, The Poetics of Prose, 200.

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distinction between genres nowadays? It is also noteworthy that McGahern’s subsequent text was again a new form in his repertoire since he published his autobiography in 2005. Here again, this new publication introduces a different McGahern who, this time, narrates his own life in a tone which suggests that there is such deep intimacy between himself and his reader that the latter seems to be hearing what he says. Memoir thus becomes a confession and, in this way, both comples the variety of forms and puts the finishing touches to the literary works of this great Irish writer.

Works Cited Primary sources McGahern, John. The Power of Darkness. London: Faber & Faber, 1991. Tolstoy, Leo. The Power of Darkness (Vlast’ t’my, 1886), translated by Nathan Haskell Dole. Whitefish, Mt: Kessinger publ., 2005.

Secondary sources Aristotle. Poetics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1965. Beckett, Samuel. The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber & Faber, 1990. Craig, Edward Gordon. On the Art of Theatre. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1911. Friel, Brian. Plays. London: Faber & Faber, 2001. Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln, Na: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Gouhier, Henri. Le Théâtre et l’existence. Paris: J. Vrin, 1980. Greene, Nicholas. “John McGahern’s The Power of Darkness.” In La Licorne [special issue on John McGahern], edited by Liliane Louvel & Jean Brihault, 159-66. Poitiers, 1995. Kilroy, Tom. The Seagull, After Chekhov. London: Gallery Books, 1981. McGahern, John. The Dark. London: Faber & Faber, 1965. —. The Leavetaking. London: Faber & Faber, 1974. —. Amongst Women. London: Faber & Faber, 1990. —. That They May Face the Rising Sun. London: Faber & Faber, 2002. —. Memoir. London: Faber & Faber, 2005. McGuinness, Frank. Three Sisters. London: Faber & Faber, 1990. Murphy, Tom and Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard. London: Methuen, 2004.

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New English Bible (The). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Riffaterre, Michael. Text Production. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1983. Roberti, Jean-Claude. Histoire du théâtre russe jusqu’en 1917. Paris: PUF, 1981. Synge, John Millington. The Playboy of the Western World. In Plays, Poems and Prose. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1949. Todorov, Tsvetan. The Poetics of Prose. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1978. Tolstoy, Leo. The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories. Dover: Dover Publications, 1993. —. The Light that Shines in the Darkness. Whitefish, Mt: Kessinger Publishing, 2005.

RENATA LITVINOVA: FEMME FATALE OR TRAGIC HEROINE? DAVID GILLESPIE

The actress, writer and director Renata Litvinova has emerged as one of the most creative and provocative talents in Russian cinema since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and currently is one of the leading lights in Russian celebrity culture. She has appeared often on TV, fronting her own show, and interviewing other celebrities (James Bond actor Daniel Craig, for instance), and has directed and produced her own rock video “The Green Theatre in Zemfira” (“Zelenyi teatr v Zemfire”, 2008). Litvinova’s fame is due in no small measure to her striking physical appearance that is designed to attract, maintain and excite the male gaze, modelled on the “legendary fatal blondes of cinema history—Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe”,1 and more recently Madonna. All of these women embody independence and selfassuredness. They are not necessarily “vamps”, but they are not averse to using their physical charms to get from men what they want. As will be seen in this essay, Monroe and Garbo are those most explicitly referenced in the development of Litvinova’s screen persona. Tat’yana Moskvina noted in 1998 that as a blonde actress selfconsciously following a well-trodden path, Litvinova is part of a text written by these illustrious and world-famous predecessors. We should also note, however, that most of Litvinova’s screen work has been with the two most controversial directors of post-Soviet Russian cinema: Kira Muratova and Aleksey Balabanov. It is interesting that Litvinova is happy to be part of Muratova’s “text” as a cold and cynical female manipulator of men, but in Balabanov’s text as tragic heroine in I Feel No Pain (Mne ne bol’no, 2006), as well as Marina Lyubakova’s more recent Cruelty (Zhestokost’, 2007), she embodies values much closer to her own interests. 1

Jane Taubman, Kira Muratova, 73. Tat’yana Moskvina makes the point that the two great stars of Stalinist cinema, Lyubov’ Orlova and Marina Ladynina, were also blonde (Tat’yana Moskvina, “Femina sapiens”, 56).

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Renata Muratovna Litvinova was born in Moscow on 12 January 1967. Both her parents were doctors. She trained as a scriptwriter, graduating in 1989 from the All-Union State Cinema Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). She wrote scripts for several films in the early 1990s, including Tractor Drivers Part Two (Traktoristy II, 1992), directed by Igor’ and Gleb Aleinikov and acclaimed as the first post-Soviet “remake” based on a Stalinist film classic.2 She wrote the screenplay for Valery Rubinchik’s Dislike (Nelyubov’, 1991), where the heroine gazes at photographs and clips of Marilyn Monroe. It was in Kira Muratova’s Passions (Uvlechen’ya, 1994) that she first appeared on screen. She wrote the screenplay for Aleksandr Sukhochev’s A Principled and Pitiful Glance (Printsipyal’nyi i zhalostlivyi vzglyad, 1995), about the plight of a lonely woman, and adapted her own novella “The Third Way” (“Tretii put’”) for Yury Grymov’s short film Male Revelations (Muzhskie otkroveniya, 1996).3 Her novella “To Possess and to Belong” (“Obladat’ i prinadlezhat’”) was adapted for the screen by Yury Korotkov and Valery Todorovsky as the film The Land of the Deaf (Strana glukhikh), and directed in 1998 by Todorovsky. It looks forward to the theme of Litvinova’s later Goddess (Boginya, 2004), and more explicitly Lyubakova’s Cruelty, in that it is about women trying to get on in a man’s world. The Land of the Deaf is set in a much harsher environment where women have to use their own physical wiles to make ends meet in the Mafia-controlled market realities of post-Communist Russia. In the film both Rita and the deaf mute Yaya survive as the male gangsters kill each other, but in Litvinova’s original story Rita commits suicide, unable to continue living in such dangerous and hopeless conditions.4 Irina Shilova notes of Litvinova’s female characters in these early works: “Her heroines, located in a realistic space, experience every conceivable assault on their personality—the most 2 Miroslava Segida, Sergey Zemlyanukhin (comps.), Domshnyaya sinematika: Otechestvennoe kino, 1918-1996, 454. 3 According to Jane Taubman, it was her screenplay for Sukhochev’s film that first attracted the attention of Kira Muratova. See Taubman, Kira Muratova, 73. Muratova’s own account is in her interview, “To, chto nazyvaetsya ‘kichom’ ili ‘besvkusitsa’ mne ne chuzhdo”, 13. Dmitry Savel’ev noted the “annoying contradiction” between Sukhochev’s direction and Litvinova’s screenplay, commenting on the film’s “lack of levity and hardness that Litvinova’s drama demands”. See Dmitry Savel’ev, “Podrobnosti”. Litvinova’s screenplays and other writings are available in book form: Renata Litvinova, Obladat’ i prinadlezhat’: novelly i kinostsenarii. 4 Litvinova has also appeared as Constance Bulitsky in Peter Greenaway’s The Tulse Luper Suitcase Part 3: From Sark to the Finish (2003), as well as making mainly fleeting appearances in various Russian TV movies.

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important of which is the impossibility of love.”5 This “impossibility” is a recurring motif in Litvinova’s films, though reality and fantasy become increasingly intermingled. Litvinova made her name especially through her collaboration in the 1990s with the great iconoclast of post-Soviet cinema, Kira Muratova. She first played the nurse Liliya in Passions, where her highly individual acting style, posture and diction immediately hold the viewer’s attention (Litvinova wrote her own monologues). Liliya’s introduction in Passions is nothing short of sensational: we first see her as a blonde, mini-skirted nurse with bright red lipstick and swinging hips approaching a group of patients on a beach to arrange a manicure. With the wind blowing her skirt up above her hips we are immediately reminded of the iconic Monroe image from Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955). The connection is further tightened when Liliya mentions the song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”, sung by Monroe (as Lorelei Lee) in Howard Hawks’s 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. As she treats the fingers of one patient she incongruously regales the group with gruesome tales of when she worked in a morgue. The monologue trips from one topic to another, from the death of an old school friend and the autopsy, when a pathologist threw a cigarette into the cadaver’s stomach before sewing it up, then to buying fish for a funeral, from details of a sixteen-year-old boy’s suicide to the grisly aspects of hospital work.6 Liliya’s blonde hair, pale face and white uniform make her matter-of-fact recounting of the grotesque details of physical death disconcerting, and almost surreal. Passions is set in the world of horse-racing, and with its manifest incongruities and absurdist elements has encouraged some critics to see it as Muratova’s allegorical comment on the meaninglessness of human life and the inevitability of death. This is especially true of Litvinova’s monologues.7 In Passions Litvinova’s striking physical appearance is used 5

Irina Shilova, “Renata Litvinova: Actress and Persona”, 2. Liliya’s dead school friend is called Rita Got’e, a slightly russified form of the heroine of Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias (1848). In Verdi’s opera La Traviata, the heroine is called Violetta Valéry. In Passions the other female character, Liliya’s friend, is a circus performer called Violetta. 7 Graham Roberts comments: “What these monologues suggest […] is that death and its inevitability makes life an absurdity, a joke as sick as the pathologist’s gesture, as senseless as the purchase of a red carp for a funeral”. See Graham Roberts, “The Meaning of Death: Kira Muratova’s Cinema of the Absurd”, 153. Quoting Muratova’s own definition of the film as a “deep film about the surface of things”, Roberts goes on to conclude that the film is a “deceptively disturbing and sinister picture about that archetypically Absurdist dilemma – the meaningless of 6

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to incongruous, occasionally grotesque effect, as in the jolting mismatch between how she looks, and what she says. The film got a generally bemused reception on its release, and Muratova herself added to the bewilderment by ingeniously claiming that “it is a very profound film about the surface of things”.8 Litvinova’s Liliya is the perfect pouting and prancing symbol of vacuity, although the director pokes fun at her Barbielike exterior by placing her in incongruous situations, such as a stinking stable or asleep in a field, assumed dead by those who find her. This will not be the last time that Muratova uses Litvinova in her continuing attack on the falseness of exteriors, and the inner corruption that lies beneath. The disparity between the external and the internal is used to more disconcerting effect in Muratova’s Three Stories (Tri istorii, 1997). Litvinova’s screen persona could not be more different, however, and this “chapter” in Muratova’s film was also written by her. Again she plays a nurse, with the unusual Russian name Ophelia (“Ofa” for short), but this time with murder on her mind. Ofa kills women who give their children up for adoption, supposedly as a personal settling of scores: we learn that she herself was rejected at birth by her own mother. Litvinova’s Ofa is associated with the colours red and white: the purity suggested by her immaculate medical gown is offset by the sensual associations of her red lipstick, red gloves, red handbag, red shoes. As she plots the murder of Tanya, who has given up her baby immediately after birth, she walks past a row of red cars in a street. Her own mother wears a red dress, shortly before being drowned by her. Litvinova turns Shakespeare upside down: Ophelia here is not the “innocent” victim of the wiles of men, but a sociopathic avenger of rejected babies. It should be noted that in the published screenplay Ofa does not experience the orgasmic surge of delight when she kills her victims; this is shown only in the film, presumably Muratova’s ironic take on the sex-equals-death motif of many Hollywood thrillers. Indeed, Muratova deliberately subverts the seeming ice-cold Litvinova persona, for Ofa forgets her handbag at the scene of Tanya’s murder, having to return there hours later to reclaim it and run the risk of being discovered. Similarly, she invites a doctor for unprotected sex immediately after the murder, having refused earlier. Throughout the film the director also associates Ofa with motifs of senility, madness and blindness, through incidental characters who attempt to block her way or engage her in conversation. life, the inevitability of death and the impossibility of transcendence (since all we have is the ‘surface’ of things)”: 154. 8 Quoted in Miroslava Segida, Sergey Zemlyanukhin (comps.), Domashnyaya sinematika, 465.

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Litvinova’s character in Muratova’s The Piano Tuner (Nastroishchik, 2004) is somewhat less of a sociopath, but coldly calculating all the same. She plays Lina, the girlfriend of the protagonoist Andrey, a professional piano-tuner. She continually taunts him with the repeated phrase “I’ll live with you, … for the time being”, and takes what little money he has to give her. Muratova’s Litvinova once more provides surface beauty with evil beneath. Lina may not be the “homicido-philiac” Ofa,9 but she can rob others at gunpoint, and she encourages Andrey to rob an old lady with the Chekhovian name Anna Sergeevna, of $7000, in an audacious and wellexecuted scam. Lina is flighty, wilful and parasitic, and her long, seemingly senseless monologues end with “I want money”, or “I am so clever, I am so beautiful, but I don’t have any money at all.”10 Muratova again subverts Litvinova’s physicality by showing Lina from unflattering angles, such as allowing us to view her descending a ladder from below, with the camera looking directly up her dress. As she orchestrates the scam by impersonating a bank official, she answers the phone while sitting in a public toilet. Muratova’s film takes a quirky, almost sympathetic look at one of the most unsavoury features of postSoviet life—the cynical robbing of old women—and becomes a parable about the overwhelming corrupting influence of materialism in post-Soviet Russia. Litvinova is its beautiful, dispassionate symbol. Kira Muratova’s exploration of the absence of morals and “soul” in post-Soviet Russian society continues to use Litvinova as its central symbol. In the 2006 film Two in One (Dva v odnom) she plays Alisa, a tram driver and gaudy, raucous representative of the lumpenproletariat. She is invited by her friend Masha for a New Year’s Eve bacchanalia to the mansion of Andrey Andreevich, Masha’s father. The empty-headed Alisa may be a world away from the schemers Litvinova has played in Muratova’s previous films, and is unlikely to know her Hamlet or even to have heard of Marilyn Monroe. Andrey Andreevich is an unrepentant, drooling monster, obsessed with the female form and copulation, even with his own daughter if there is no available alternative. He is interested only in one thing, finding the “woman for life”, but this is reduced here, and in Litvinova’s screenplay, to the search for simple and very possibly violent sex. Andrey Andreevich is thus another of Muratova’s ciphers for 9

As defined by Nancy Condee in her review of The Piano Tuner. Emma Widdis remarks of Litvinova in The Piano Tuner: “In a sense, Litvinova has become Muratova’s most perplexing comment on human subjectivity. In this film, as in all those where she appears, she provides a bewitchingly empty symbol, a human being in which all meaning appears to be entirely external.” See Emma Widdis, “Muratova’s Clothes, Muratova’s Textures, Muratova’s Skin”, 7. 10

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the obsession with surface reality and easy gratification, here the male sexual beast reduced to its crudest and perhaps ultimate personification. Litvinova’s Alisa is happy to take him on at his own game, shorn of any intellectual or artistic pretensions. She eats his black caviare and drinks his champagne, but gives nothing in return. To her the attempt at seduction is just a game, though one which, it is hinted at the end, she and Masha may have concluded with Andrey Andreevich’s murder.11 To conclude this section, it is clear that Litvinova is happy to be part of Muratova’s “text” that attacks surface materialism and the “new” consumer mentality in post-Soviet Russia. She may be, in Irina Shilova’s words, “the abstract embodiment of the idea of otherness” (p. 3), though Muratova’s delight in filming her in uncomplimentary actions and poses (urinating, for instance, in both Three Stories and Two in One), subverts “abstractness” and suggests an “otherness” of repellent physicality. It is at this point that Litvinova’s link with French classical literature, in particular Alexandre Dumas’s 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias, becomes relevant. Throughout her writings the figure of Marguerite Gautier recurs, as a dead friend of Liliya in Passions (“Rita Got’e”), and as a hospital patient who dies and comes back to haunt the main character Nadya in the short story “The Much Loved Rita and the Last Meeting with Her” (“Ochen’ lyubimaya Rita, poslednyaya s nei vstrecha”)—indeed, the two could be the same character. The sad fate of Marguerite Gautier is one that is reconfigured in Litvinova’s writings and film work. Significantly, in her writing Litvinova gives the name of Rita to all her tragic heroines. In Dumas’s novel Marguerite Gautier is the kept woman of a much older and very rich Count, and the mistress of a rich foreigner known simply as the Duke. She abandons her opulent courtesan lifestyle in order to be with the younger (and poorer) Armand Duval, whom she loves and who loves her. After representations from Duval’s father, who is worried about the implications for his family’s honour, she leaves Duval and returns to the Count. However, she is seriously ill, and shortly afterwards dies of consumption, leaving Duval distraught. Duval tells his story to the authorial narrator retrospectively, with the following description of Marguerite: In other words, one could detect in this girl a virgin who had been turned into a courtesan by the merest accident of chance, and a courtesan whom the merest accident of chance could have turned into the most loving, the most pure of virgins. Marguerite still had something of a proud spirit and 11

For excellent and detailed reviews of this film, see both Julian Graffy and Nancy Condee in Kinokultura (2007).

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Marguerite Gautier has since become one of the great romantic heroines of European literature, establishing the trope of a kept woman who gives up her material security for pure love, even if it means penury. Her story has since been made into Verdi’s opera La Traviata (1853), George Cukor’s film Camille (1937), starring Greta Garbo, and slightly reconfigured in Arthur Hiller’s film Love Story (1970). Garbo had, of course, also played Anna Karenina, another of European literature’s tragic heroines who gives up everything for a great love, in Love, directed in 1928 by Edmund Goulding, and in Anna Karenina in 1935, directed by Clarence Brown. One of the uniting characteristics of Litvinova’s roles outside of Muratova’s realm is the motif of loneliness, linked to vulnerability. In other words, she plays characters who represent the polar opposite of Muratova’s roles. It would seem, indeed, that this is exactly what attracts her to these parts, and it is evident in her first film as director, Death Does Not Exist for Me (Net smerti dlya menya, 2002), a series of interviews with famous film actresses of the past such as Nonna Mordyukova, Vera Vasil’eva, Lidiya Smirnova, Tat’yana Okunevskaya and Tat’yana Samoilova. Litvinova is full of respect and admiration for these former icons of the Soviet screen, who speak with pride on their career highs, but also highlight their vulnerabilities as women in a male-dominated industry. Litvinova, though, is much more interested in their personal stories, especially failed romances, infidelities, abortions, estranged children, and the fear of growing old, loneliness and death (“children who were never born, husbands who left, lovers who disappeared”). Litvinova offers her own commentary on the purpose of this film: “To what extent their screen persona does not resemble their real selves. This world of the cinema, how much envy, unforgiveness, loneliness, despair and personal madness it contains. Nevertheless, also splendour, beauty and greatness.” What emerges from these interviews is the deconstruction of female film stardom, where the glamour of screen fame is only fleeting, transitory, but not real, and that actresses must sacrifice much of their womanhood in order to achieve their celluloid dream. Screen stardom may lead to immortality for the actress, but the person remains lonely and vulnerable. The film is remarkable for Litvinova’s ability to persuade these famous actresses to speak of their personal loss and disappointment, 12

Alexandre Dumas fils, La Dame aux Camélias, 60-61.

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and to delve beneath the veneer and get to the person inside, behind the appearance of the faded star. In Vera Storozheva’s The Sky. The Aeroplane. The Girl (Nebo. Samolet. Devushka, 2003), based on a play by Edvard Radzinsky which she adapted for the screen herself, Litvinova plays Lara, an air stewardess who seems to find love with Georgy, but who feels undervalued and inwardly ignored by his macho conservatism. Her friend and work colleague Myshka, also the wrong side of thirty, similarly finds it difficult to find a man. Lara leaves Georgy, because although they may love each other, as she says, they “do not suit each other”. In this film all relationships, like the aeroplanes constantly taking off and flying to farflung cities, are fleeting, with no-one able to establish deep or lasting bonds. Litvinova’s Lara is prepared to express the feelings that lie beneath the surface, but Georgy’s eventual reciprocation comes too late. She proves the stronger, able to walk away from a relationship that has no future, while the man is left alone on a street corner, clutching flowers nobody wants. A similar pattern emerges in Goddess. Advertised as a “mystical thriller”, it begins as a detective thriller, with Litvinova (as Faina, a police detective) searching for a missing girl.13 The girl’s father (played by the Balabanov regular Viktor Sukhorukov) believes her to be dead, but Faina eventually finds the girl alive, incarcerated in the home of two doctors. The couple commit simultaneous suicide when their crime is discovered. Faina is also unable to prevent another man from killing himself after he has stabbed his girlfriend. In other words, Faina may be a good cop, but she is unable to prevent death around her. She is also emotionally frigid: unable to reciprocate the feelings of Nikolay, a fellow policeman, Faina begins a relationship with the academic Mikhail Konstantinovich, a drug addict. Mikhail Konstantinovich dies of an overdose, and Faina joins him in death. The apparent moral of the film is articulated by a gallery of smiling extras at the end: “There is a meaning to life: love.” Just like Marguerite Gautier, Faina sacrifices herself for a love which in the end is unattainable (significantly, in Litvinova’s original script she is called “Rita”). The film is also an exercise in cinematic intertextuality, and includes many references to the previous work of both Muratova and Litvinova. Litvinova deconstructs Muratova’s projection of her by revealing and exploring the inner emptiness of her character, and by de-emphasising the 13

According to Jane Taubman, Muratova planned a sequel to Three Stories with Litvinova again playing a killer, this time called Faina: Taubman, Kira Muratova, 88.

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surface appeal. The red dresses and lipstick are here worn by other characters. In the first scene (“Faina’s first dream”), for instance, Faina speaks with her dead mother, who also has blonde hair and is dressed and made up exactly as was Ofa in Three Stories. In a café where she orders soup, a blonde girl in a red dress walks past. Muratova’s influence can be seen in grotesque faces that appear, together with harbingers of death: the raven that sits on her desk serves the same function as the cat at the beginning of the “Death and the Maiden” (“Smert’ i devochka”) episode in Three Stories. When she takes drugs with Mikhail Konstantinovich, Faina does wear red shoes and red lipstick, but with a yellow dress. His apartment is full of mirrors, suggesting duality and the search for identity (a theme also explored in Muratova’s 2001 film Minor People (Vtorostepennye lyudi), as well as The Piano Tuner). Faina, like Marguerite, can only dream of warmth and love, and the drab, peeling interiors of the apartment blocks she visits in her work can be seen as an external correlation of the barrenness of her soul. Only with Mikhail Konstantinovich can she achieve any meaningful contact, but that is only in death. The film is on one level also a modern reworking of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Faina as a female Orpheus chooses to join her erstwhile lover in death rather than return him to the land of the living.14 Litvinova’s “goddess” is looking for love and for her nothing more is important, even life itself. Faina’s mirror-image is last seen dying a lonely death as a shabby vagrant, her voiceover offering a closing commentary seemingly from beyond the grave. Goddess also references the feel-good genre of the classic Soviet film comedy. The image of the blonde femme fatale features in Faina’s memories of her mother, played by Svetlana Svetlichnaya, whose most memorable film role was as a sexy temptress with the Chekhovian name Anna Sergeevna, in Leonid Gaidai’s 1968 film Diamond Arm (Brillyantovaya ruka). In Gaidai’s film Svetlichnaya has long, flowing blond hair, with heavily made-up lips and eyes, and performs a risqué striptease in order to get at the contraband diamonds hidden in Yury Nikulin’s bandaged arm. The colour symbolism recurs across the decades: both Svetlichnaya and Nikulin drink red wine in a hotel room with red walls and a red carpet; in Goddess Svetlichnaya wears a red dress and red lipstick, just like Ofa in Three Stories. From a Western feminist perspective, Aleksey Balabanov’s treatment of Litvinova as an actress is starkly conservative, depicting her as a 14

Anzhelika Artyukh sees the film as owing a debt to Cocteau’s 1949 Orpheus (Orphée), where death is represented by a princess and the entrance to the hereafter is through a mirror. See Artyukh, “Konets Fainy”, 65.

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woman to be gazed at, sexually desired and wooed by other men. In Blind Man’s Buff (Zhmurki, 2004) she is simply seen as a sex object by the men she serves, firstly as a waitress then a secretary. This may be an ironic statement by the director on the innate sexism and unreconstructed chauvinism of the average Russian male, but he does make Litvinova very alluring to the male gaze. As always with Balabanov, he wants both to have his cake and eat it. Litvinova was awarded the 2006 Russian Kinotavr Best Actress award for her role in Balabanov’s I Feel No Pain, which reunited her with other Balabanov actors from Blind Man’s Buff, such as Dmitry Dyuzhev, Nikita Mikhalkov and Sergey Makovetsky. This is an explicit reworking of the story of Marguerite Gautier, updated to the realities of modern Russia. Litvinova plays Natella Antonovna, nicknamed “Tata”, and when we first see her the viewer is encouraged to think that she is a professionally successful woman who lives in a well-maintained and fashionable apartment, sexually emancipated and able to set her own agenda in life. But we learn that Tata is the mistress of Sergey Sergeevich (Mikhalkov), a much older businessman who “keeps” her in a flat that he watches with a surveillance camera, and whose material dependence she increasingly resents. She leaves Sergey Sergeevich’s love nest, rejecting him and his wealth, to live in a grubby attic with the struggling Misha, and they share some brief moments of love. This, of course, is a retelling of the relationship of Marguerite Gauthier and Duval, with an echo of that of Lina and Andrey in The Piano Tuner. Tata’s doctor (Makovetsky) confirms that she is dying of cancer of the blood, and when we last see her the golden mane has gone, her eyes are deep in their sockets, and she is obviously in therapy, the beautiful body we have previously been invited to admire now concealed in a loosefitting jacket and trousers. In the course of the film Litvinova is transformed from vamp to romantic lead, and finally to tragic heroine, finding love at the end and enjoying some transitory happiness. We learn that she dies two months later, and the film ends. The last of Litvinova’s films to be discussed here is Cruelty, directed by Marina Lyubakova. She plays Zoya, a well-to-do professional single woman carrying on an affair with her married neighbour. This is a relationship she finds unsatisfying. Together with Vika, a photographyobsessed teenager, a Thelma-and-Louise rampage ensues, as the two females take out their vengeance on men, their cars and their property. Indeed, men here are portrayed as thugs, rapists, paedophiles, drug addicts or drunks, with only the bisexual dancer who offers them temporary accommodation remotely sympathetic. While in narrative terms it is

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difficult to imagine that a woman as beautiful as Zoya has no friends or male admirers, and, as she says, has “nothing in my life”, and is prepared to follow on the heels of a truculent and somewhat psychotic teenager, it is a thoroughly convincing performance, with vulnerability and the fear of loneliness etched on her increasingly strained features. Cruelty is not unlike a Muratova film, with its attack on materialism and inner corruption. But Cruelty goes further in its depiction of the younger generation of the new Russia that has absolutely no scruples, that is prepared to blackmail, rob and betray those close to them. To conclude: it is easy to see why Litvinova and Muratova collaborate so often, in that both as directors, and Litvinova as actress and writer, are preoccupied with the reality of people’s lives beneath a surface that is often rotten and deceptive. Litvinova continually references and embodies the romantic and tragic heroine, a Marguerite Gautier for post-Soviet Russia. She longs for a pure love and the simplicity of true emotion, willing to sacrifice all for the sake of love. Litvinova began her career as an actress through deliberately manipulating the blonde bombshell look that has enervated Western and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Soviet cinema. Her work for Muratova sees her as part of Muratova’s “text”, a cipher for the corruption of the material world, but elsewhere she remains something of a little girl lost, vulnerable and looking for a “great love”, and ultimately unable to find it. Litvinova is a superstar in Russian culture since the turn of the millenium, an accomplished actress, provocative and highly original writer, a TV presenter, pop promo director and director of thoughtprovoking films that defy convention and easy labelling. If there is an evolution in her screen persona, we can see its beginning as self-affirming, sexily provocative and Monroesque, moving on to the inner torment and lack of fulfilment of Goddess, and finally to the tragic heroine in her latest films. Just as she is a multi-talented star, so her screen and literary persona cannot be reduced to a single formula. On the one hand Litvinova rejects the self-pitying narrative of post-Soviet women’s literature and film, a narrative that rails against social injustice and the apparent abusiveness of men. She shows women just how beauty and inner toughness can make things happen. On the other hand, on screen Litvinova embodies the suffering female who sacrifices all for the sake of love, thus demonstrating that the myth of Marguerite Gautier endures through centuries, borders and cultures.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Dumas fils, Alexandre. La Dame aux Camélias, translated by David Coward. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Secondary Sources Artyukh, Anzhelika. ‘Konets Fainy.’ Iskusstvo kino, 10 (2004): 65-8. Condee, Nancy. [review of The Piano Tuner] in www.kinokultura.com/reviews/R1-05tuner.html. —. [review of Two in One]. Kinokultura (2007): http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/17r-dvavodnom2.shtml. Graffy, Julian. [review of Two in One]. Kinokultura (2007): http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/17r-dvavodnom1shtml. Litvinova, Renata. Obladat’ i prinadlezhat’: novelly i kinostsenarii. St Petersburg: Seans/Amfora, 2007. Moskvina, Tat’yana. “Femina sapiens.” Iskusstvo kino, 4 (1998): 47-57. Muratova, Kira. “To, chto nazyvaetsya ‘kichom’ ili ‘besvkusitsa’ mne ne chuzhdo.” Iskusstvo kino 1 (2005): 12-22. Roberts, Graham. “The Meaning of Death: Kira Muratova’s Cinema of the Absurd.” In Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema, edited by Birgit Beumers, 144-60. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1999. Segida, Miroslava and Zemlyanukhin Sergey (comps.). Domshnyaya sinematika: Otechestvennoe kino, 1918-1996. Moscow: Dubl’-D, 1996. Shilova, Irina. “Renata Litvinova: Actress and Persona.” Kinokultura (2008): http://www.kinokultura.com/2008/19-shilova.shtml. Taubman, Jane. Kira Muratova. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005. Savel’ev, Dmitry. “Podrobnosti.” Seans, 14 (1997): 21. Widdis, Emma. “Muratova’s Clothes, Muratova’s Textures, Muratova’s Skin.” Kinokultura (2005): http://www.kinokultura.com/articles/apr05widdis.html

PART IV: ENCOUNTERS

AN ALSACIAN PUGACHEV: KARAMZIN’S PARALLEL CONCEPTION OF HISTORY IN LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER RODOLPHE BAUDIN

It may seem surprising to associate Nikolay Karamzin’s name with that of Emelyan Pugachev. Far from sharing Aleksandr Radishchev’s open interest for the problem of rural violence in Russia, Karamzin “rarely mentioned the Pugachev rebellion”1 in his work. This obviously explains the lack of attention this specific issue has suffered from so far. Indeed, the lengthy bibliography on Karamzin, both Russian and Western, doesn’t seem to include any scholarly work on this matter.2 Yet an episode in Letters of a Russian Traveller reveals Karamzin’s concern with this major social event of his time. It is located in letter 46, written from Strasbourg, an episode overlooked by Karamzin scholars since Yury Lotman affirmed that nothing unusual happened in the region during Karamzin’s stay.3 Far from fitting the truth, this assertion betrays it, and hides the true importance of the Alsacian section of the book. Not only does it stage, as the first episode of Letters of a Russian Traveller located in France, the narrator’s physical encounter with French culture, it also describes Karamzin’s first-hand and unique experience of Revolutionary violence. Indeed, from August 5-7th, Strasbourg was hit by a soldiers’ mutiny, fully described by the Russian writer in his travelogue. The countryside also suffered from various troubles, a fact Karamzin reported too. Nowhere else would Karamzin ever get a second close look at revolutionary violence. While in Paris in 1790, the writer saw a pacified Revolution, not the outburst of violence he had witnessed in Alsace a few months earlier. 1

Black J.-L., Nicholas Karamzin and Russian Society in the Nineteenth Century, 5. A. Liberman’s book, Nikolay Mihailovich Karamzin, Ukazatel’ trudov, literatury o zhizni i tvorchestve 1883-1993 contains no mention of any work dedicated to this specific topic. 3 Lotman Yu. M., Sotvorenie Karamzina, 74. 2

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Leaving aside the writer’s account of the Strasbourg mutiny,4 the present chapter will concentrate on Karamzin’s account of the rural troubles. Not only shall I emphasize the writer’s excellent knowledge of the historical situation in Alsace in the summer of 1789, I shall also argue that the special attention he paid to one specific aspect of these troubles is related to his own concern with the pugachevshchina and Russian history as a whole. Karamzin’s account of the troubles in rural Alsace refers first to the existence of bands of brigands in the countryside. As he puts it: “Meanwhile, in the very suburbs of Strasbourg, bands of brigands are robbing monasteries.”5 One must admire Karamzin’s excellent knowledge of the situation. Indeed, bands of angry peasants, called “brigands” by contemporary witnesses, caused various troubles in the Alsacian countryside. As local historian Eric Hartmann has pointed out, these troubles hit primarily the southern part of the region, called Haute Alsace, mainly the Vosges valleys and the Sundgau area. Under threat were a few villages, but mostly abbeys and castles,6 as Karamzin rightly points out. This situation was of course reported by contemporary writers, such as the Maréchal de Rochambeau, a former companion to Lafayette and hero of the American war of Independence, appointed military governor of the province in July 1789. In his memoirs, published in 1809, Rochambeau wrote: Le calme fut rétabli dans Strasbourg7 : il n’en étoit pas de même dans le reste de la province. Cet ouragan d’insurrection commença dans le Sundgau et dans les Vosges, par la vallée de Saint-Amarin, et s’étendit dans toute l’Alsace, depuis Huningue jusqu’à Landau. Je fus obligé de faire marcher presque toutes les troupes, et de mettre huit officiers-généraux dans un mouvement perpétuel pour maintenir l’ordre public, et s’opposer aux dévastations dont étoient menacés les abbayes, les châteaux, les Juifs et toutes les propriétés. J’envoyai trois fois M. de Vaubecourt, lieutenant-général, à Saverne, pour protéger le cardinal de Rohan et toutes ses possessions contre les attroupements les plus tumultueux. M. de Wittinghoff marcha contre trois 4

I concentrate on this specific aspect of the Alsacian episode in another, forthcoming paper. See Baudin R., “Karamzin in Revolutionary Strasbourg”. 5 Karamzin N., Letters of a Russian Traveller, 123. 6 Hartmann E., La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 126. 7 Rochambeau is referring to a first mutiny, which occurred in Strasbourg on July 20th-21st, 1789. For an account of this mutiny, see British agronomist Arthur Young’s travel diary for the year 1789: Young A., Arthur Young’s Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789.

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An Alsacian Pugachev mille hommes sortis du val Saint-Amerin, qui avoient saccagé le château de l’abbé de Murback, et menaçoient tous les propriétaires du pays. La maison du bailli de Ferette fut brûlée ; le château de M. de Montjoie d’Hivringen fut pillé ; il y eut beaucoup de familles juives qui furent rançonnées et dévastées avant l’arrivée des troupes ; mais on leur doit la justice que, partout où elles purent arriver à temps, elles se comportèrent avec fermeté, ainsi que les maréchaussées ; et que, si l’Alsace n’a pas essuyé de plus grands malheurs, c’est à leurs efforts réunis qu’elle a dû son salut. Il y eut quelques exécutions de faites dans le Sundgau, par des tribunaux de maréchaussée, et la tranquillité fut rétablie partout.8

Eric Hartmann provides us with a list of the abbeys attacked by peasants, to which Karamzin refers as “monastyri”: “On July 26th and 28th, the monks of Saint-Jean des Choux near Saverne were assaulted, as well as residents of Bouxviller and the abbeys of Neubourg, Andlau and Marmoutier.”9 To this list, one must add the rampage of the prince abbot’s house and the canon houses in Guebwiller, as well as the assault of the canons of the Lautenbach chapter who, “fearing for their lives, […] made many concessions”10 to the angry peasants. These concessions regarded problems relating to the ownership of the land. Significantly, most of the acts of violence performed against members of the clergy were initiated by the peasants’ desire to destroy the abbey archives, notably the acts of property over the lands.11 For similar reasons, castles were also attacked, as reported in Rochambeau’s account. Such incidents appear in Letters of a Russian Traveller too, though not in the Strasbourg episode itself, but in the following one, located in Basle. The beginning of the first letter written from the Swiss city describes a moving scene of reunion between an old couple of landowners—a Chevalier de Saint-Louis with his wife—and their children. In answer to the narrator’s curious question, the valet of the old gentleman tells the following story: “I can only tell you”, he answered, “that the rebellious peasants wished to kill my lord; that he was forced to seek salvation in flight, having left his castle on fire and in flames, and unaware of the fate of his children who were guests at his brother’s and who have, according to his brother’s letter, 8

Rochambeau Comte de, Mémoires militaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau, Ancien Maréchal de France, et grand officier de la Légion d’honneur, I, 355-56. 9 Hartmann, La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 126-27. 10 Oberlé R. and Perronet M., La Révolution en Alsace, 1789-1799, 108. 11 Hartmann, La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 126.

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arrived here safely.”12

This highly sentimentalist theatrical scene, very much in the taste of Greuze’s paintings and Diderot’s dramatic “tableaux”, is not just literary, as Yury Lotman has argued, pointing out its resemblance to an episode from Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.13 Besides its intertextual component, it also refers to a contemporary social and political reality: the “Grande Peur” of the summer of 1789 and the beginning of the French aristocratic émigration. Indeed, local sources confirm the presence in Basle of many people fleeing from the countryside. Besides nobles, cities such as Basle or Mulhouse also hosted Jews, assaulted by the impoverished peasants of the Sundgau area.14 The second major event reported by Karamzin is the existence of an impostor: It is said that a certain man who calls himself the Count of Artois has been travelling around the villages and rousing the residents to rebellion by saying that the king has granted the nation complete freedom until August 15th and that anyone can do as he pleases until that time.15

The existence of this impostor is confirmed by various specialists of the “Grande Peur” period in Alsace, such as the already quoted Eric Hartmann,16 or Roland Oberlé and Michel Peronnet, who wrote that this adventurer, the leader of a “well structured criminal organization”, claimed to be the Count of Artois so as to “easily move around the rural world”. The main victims of this gang were “the Jews, a fact that gained him the peasants’ sympathy […]”. Nevertheless, “the exploits of the Count of Artois’ gang ended when, having robbed the Jews, the gang started assaulting the peasants. Under direct threat, the peasants neutralised it”.17 It seems interesting to investigate why precisely this episode retained Karamzin’s attention. Indeed, other contemporary witnesses, often much 12

Karamzin, letter 47, 129. Lotman, Sotvorenie Karamzina, 96. Lotman’s assumption that the episode is based on Sterne relies on the sole fact that the Traveller describes the fugitive as a “Chevalier de Saint-Louis”. This is not entirely convincing. Accounts of France by Russian Travellers in the 18th century are full of figures referred to as Chevaliers de Saint-Louis. See for instance Denis Fonvizin’s letters from France, written in 1777-1778. 14 Hartmann, La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 127. 15 Karamzin, letter 46, 123. 16 Hartmann, La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 127. 17 Oberlé and Peronnet, La Révolution en Alsace, 1789-1799, 107. 13

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more implicated in the events described than the Russian writer, did not consider this imposture important enough to write about it. Rochambeau, for instance, does not mention it in his memoirs, though he had to deal with such issues personally, as military governor of the province. A document from the collections of the Strasbourg National University Library (BNUS), testifies to Rochambeau’s implication in dealing with rumours capitalizing on the name and authority of the royal family. An official printed poster signed by the governor, it shows how worried the local authorities were about this kind of deception: Il nous revient que des monstres dignes d’être sortis des enfers, répandent faussement et méchamment le bruit, que le Roi autorise les brigandages affreux qui se font dans les villages. Nous déclarons que c’est une insulte faite à la justice de Sa Majesté, qui protège la propriété et la sûreté de tous ses sujets. En conséquence il est ordonné aux Officiers de Maréchaussée, ainsi qu’aux Troupes qui leur donnent main-forte, d’arrêter quiconque troublera l’ordre public, et de le livrer sur le champ à la Justice prévôtale, pour être puni suivant la rigueur des Ordonnances. Il est également ordonné de dissiper tous les attroupements séditieux et tous ceux qui veulent se faire justice eux-mêmes. Fait à Strasbourg ce cinq août mil sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf Signé Le Cte de Rochambeau18

Certainly Rochambeau’s lack of attention to this particular event owes much to the specific literary etiquette of the historical memoir genre. As they deal with large segments of time, and are written retrospectively, historical memoirs tend to focus on main events, not on details. On the contrary, the simultaneous narration of a (pseudo) correspondence, as in Karamzin’s case, favours small details, used as “effects of reality”, to put it in Roland Barthes’s terms. Still, Karamzin’s interest in the specific episode of the pseudo-Count of Artois’ imposture is perhaps best explained by its similitude with the imposture of Emelyan Pugachev (1740-1775). A Don Cossack, Pugachev led a rebellion of the people from the steppe region and the serf population

18

Déclaration du Comte de Rochambeau, BNUS, reference number M 6591 4°.

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of the Volga and Ural areas in 1773-1774,19 using methods very similar to those employed by the Alsacian pseudo-Count of Artois. In both cases, a bandit, in order to establish his own legitimacy, presents himself as a deposed sovereign or member of the ruling family. Pugachev, indeed, pretended to be the late emperor Peter III, deposed by his wife Catherine in 1762. The Alsacian impostor pretended to be king Louis XVI’s brother and the future king Charles X. In both cases, the impostors promised rioting peasants what they desired more than anything else: ownership of the land and the end of feudal rights. As R. Oberlé and M. Perronet have put it: “[…] with the impostor’s defeat disappeared the dream that he generated by saying that everything the peasants could lay their hands on during a period of forty days would remain in their possession afterwards.”20 In manifestos he issued in order to rally the people, Pugachev made similar promises. The most famous of these, dated July 31st, 1774, contains the following undertaking: By this personal decree, with our monarchial and fatherly love, we grant [freedom] to everyone who formerly was in serfdom or in any other obligation to the nobility; and we transfer these to be faithful personal subjects of our crown; [to the Old Believers] we grant the right to use the ancient sign of the Cross, and to pray, and to wear beards; while to the Cossacks [we restore] for eternity their freedoms and liberties; we [hereby] terminate the recruiting system, cancel personal and other monetary taxes, abolish without compensation the ownership of land, forest, pastures, fisheries and salt deposits; and [finally] we free everyone from all taxes and obligations which the thievish nobles and extortionist city judges have imposed on the peasantry and the rest of the population.21

Karamzin had first-hand experience of the pugachevshchina. Though he was only seven years old at the time the rebellion occurred, his family had to deal with it directly. Indeed, Karamzin’s father, Mikhail Egorovich, a retired captain and a petty landowner, belonged to the class targeted by the angry rioters. Moreover, by then, the family lived on the estate of Mikhailovskoe, in the Orenburg province, right in the midst of the rebellion.22 As Karamzin’s biographers point out, when Mikhail Egorovich 19

For a recent synthesis (in French) on Pugachev, see Berelowitch A., “Une jacquerie moderne: la révolte de Pougatchev (17 septembre 1773-15 septembre 1774)”. 20 Oberlé and Peronnet, La Révolution en Alsace, 1789-1799, 107. 21 Dmytryshyn, B., ed., Imperial Russia: A Source Book, 1700-1917, 97. 22 Orenburg was kept under siege by Pugachev’s troops from October 1773 to March 1774. See Pascal, P., ed., La Révolte de Pougatchëv, 75, 150.

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heard about the approach of Pugachev’s troops in late September 1773, he immediately left his estate with his family, to find refugee in Karamzinka, their estate in the Simbirsk province.23 This kind of reaction was common among landowners within the rebellion area. Karamzin’s friend, the poet Ivan Dmitriev, remembers in his memoirs his flight with his parents from their countryside estate to Moscow during the pugachevshchina.24 Three weeks after the Karamzins’ departure from Mikhailovskoe, rebellious Cossacks reached the village and rampaged the family estate.25 Having moved to the Simbirsk area, the Karamzin family nevertheless remained close to the field of operations of the rebels. On December 2529th, 1773, the rebels besieged Samara, to the south-east of Simbirsk. On July 23rd, 1774, during the second stage of the rebellion, they overran Alatyr, a town located to the north-west of Simbirsk, and on July 27th Saransk, to the west of the city.26 Because of its central position, Simbirsk was chosen as his headquarters by General Petr Ivanovich Panin, commander in chief of the troops sent to crush the rebellion. After Pugachev’s defeat, when the impostor was taken in chains to Moscow under the guard of Suvorov, the convoy passed through Simbirsk, where the rebellious Cossack was interrogated by Pavel Sergeevich Potemkin and Panin,27 and shown to the crowd.28 Therefore, as his parents’ social origins exposed them to the anger of the riotous Cossacks and peasants, and as he grew up in places located near the core of the rebellion, Karamzin must have had personal memories of the pugachevshchina, probably fueled by family stories, common among landowners.29 Strangely enough though, he makes no mention of it in his Sternian autobiography, A Knight of our Time. Karamzin’s silence over the pugachevshchina in his autobiography should not, however, be understood as a sign of indifference towards this major social event of his day. It is more likely linked with the general fanciful tone chosen by the writer for his autobiography and with its dominantly literary content. 23

Bestuzhev-Riumin K., “Karamzin”. See also Murav’ev V., Nikolay Karamzin, 12. 24 Dmitriev I. I., Vzglyad na moyu zhizn’, 10. 25 Murav’ev, V., Nikolay Karamzin, 12. 26 Pascal, ed., La Révolte de Pougatchëv, 158-59. 27 Ibid., 211. 28 Buganov V., Pugachev, 368. The spectacle of Pugachev in chains raised massive curiosity among the urban populations, as reported by Princess Dashkova in a letter to her brother Count Aleksandr Vorontsov, dated January 8th, 1775. See Arkhiv Vorontsova, V, 183. 29 Murav’ev, Nikolay Karamzin, 150.

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Karamzin’s personal experience of the Pugachev rebellion thus explains his interest in the Alsacian imposture of the pseudo-Count of Artois.30 Besides sharing similar narratives, the two events also had common semiotic features, which helped fuel Karamzin’s connection between them. Any impostor needs accessories, since they reinforce the legitimacy of his claims. Strikingly, the accessories used by the Russian and Alsacian impostors are similar. Eric Hartmann explains that the pseudo-Count of Artois “covered his chest with medals”.31 Besides medals, he also wore a blue sash, reminiscent of the Order of the Holy Spirit, which gained him the nickname of “The man with the blue sash”, sometimes used to refer to him.32 In quite the same way, Pugachev wore a “large silver medal and the sash of the Order of St Ann, [which] transformed [him] in the eyes of his followers”.33 If Karamzin does not mention these details in Letters of a Russian Traveller, he may have heard about them from the same source as that from which he heard about the imposture. Besides sharing similar narratives and semiotic features, the Russian and French impostures also have common religious connotations. Pugachev’s and the Count of Artois’ accessories belong to the category of disguise. As such, they are linked with carnival,34 itself associated in Russian traditional culture with witchcraft.35 Therefore, as carnival figures, Russian impostors are linked with evil. Consequently, the power they claim, as opposed to the power given to the real tsar by God himself, is linked with the Devil, and comes from hell.36 Unsurprisingly then, what 30

Vladimir Murav’ev, whose book I discovered after writing the first draft of this chapter, rightly links Karamzin’s interest for the rural troubles he witnessed in Alsace with his personal experience of the pugachevshchina. Strangely enough though, the biographer does not relate Karamzin’s interest in these troubles to the specific problem of the presence of an impostor. See Murav’ev, Nikolay Karamzin, 150. 31 Hartmann, La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine, 127. 32 Oberlé and Peronnet, La Révolution en Alsace, 1789-1799, 107. 33 Longworth P., “The Pretender Phenomenon in Eighteenth-century Russia”, 78. 34 An obvious carnival element in the pseudo-Count of Artois’ imposture is the fact that the impostor sets a specific duration for the freedom he grants to the people, as he allows them to do whatever they want until August 15th, a deadline itself relevant as it is a religious feast, therefore linked with the carnival. On this, see my forthcoming “Karamzin in revolutionary Strasbourg”. 35 Ouspenski B., “Tsar et imposteur: l’imposture en Russie comme phénomène historique et culturel”, 352. On imposture as historical phenomenon, see also Panchenko, A. M., “Samozvanchestvo na Rusi”. 36 Ibid., 336.

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Karamzin retained from the poster issued by Rochambeau quoted above, is the reference to hell as the source of the power claimed by the pseudoCount of Artois. As he put it: “This rumour forced the resident commander to announce that ‘only an infernal malevolence deserving unheard-ofpunishment could disseminate such a rumour.’”37 Such a similitude between French and Russian contemporary history could not but strike Karamzin, for it confirmed his own opinions on the universality of mankind, and the equality of all civilizations. This universal conception of history fed his comparative approach to historical facts, something he may have inherited from Plutarch, whose Parallel Lives compared famous Greek and Roman statesmen in a complex dialogue of moral instruction and cultural evaluation. Significantly, one of the Parisian episodes of Letters of a Russian Traveller is dedicated to advocating such a parallel conception of history. In letter 103, dated May 1790, the narrator, while visiting the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, sees Pierre-Charles Lévesque (1736-1812),38 the author of a highly successful History of Russia, published in 1782.39 Commenting on this work’s weaknesses, the Traveller points out the dignity of Russian history, using a comparative method: “We had our Charlemagne, Vladimir; our Louis XI, Tsar Ivan; our Cromwell, Godunov—and also a ruler who has no equal anywhere, Peter the Great”40. Hence, Karamzin’s comparative conception of history suggests that the writer may have seen in the pseudo-Count of Artois a French Pugachev. Certainly impostors cannot compete with Plutarch’s heroes, whose virtues they completely lack. However, Karamzin appears to have been familiar also with the modern conception of grandeur, developed first as a satirical answer to the morals of Neoclassicism and humorously advocated by Henry Fielding in his Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. According to Fielding, heroes are not necessarily admirable men, they are just any men capable of extraordinary deeds, which may be good or bad.41 The

37

Karamzin, letter 46, 123. On Lévesque, see Cardinal G. Grente, Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises. Le XVIIIe siècle, 762. 39 Lévesque, C., Histoire de Russie, tirée des chroniques originales, de pièces authentiques et des meilleurs historiens de la nation, par M. L. P. 40 Karamzin, letter 103, 293. 41 Fielding H., The Life of Jonathan Wild, 11: “For those from their Fear of attacking or contradicting the obsolete Doctrines of a Set of simple fellows called, in Derision, Sages or Philosophers, have endeavoured as much as possible, to confound the ideas of Greatness and Goodness, whereas no two Things can 38

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inclusion, in Karamzin’s list of historical leaders quoted above, of Godunov, whom Karamzin considered as a murderer, and Cromwell, confirms this interpretation. Therefore, the moral indignity of the Alsacian impostor paradoxically helped to claim the historical dignity of the Russian one. In other words, seeing in France an Alsacian Pugachev was instrumental in affirming Russia’s cultural equality with France, just as associating pairs of Greek heroes with their Roman counterparts was used by Plutarch to remind the Romans in the imperial era of the historical achievements of Greece, which was now a conquered province of their empire. By demonstrating Russia’s cultural dignity, Karamzin also stressed his country’s ambition to be considered fully European, a central task the writer assigned Letters of a Russian Traveller.42

Works Cited Primary Sources Bartenev, P., ed. Arkhiv Vorontsova. V. Moscow: Tipografiya V. Got’e, 1872. Dmitriev I. I. Vzglyad na moyu zhizn’. Cambridge: Oriental Research Partners, 1974 (“Memoir Series”, 5). Fielding H. The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great. London, New-York, Toronto: Oxford University Press. Fonvizin, D. I. Sobranie sochinenii, dited by G. P. Makogonenko. 2 vols. Moscow-Leningrad: GIKhL, 1959. Karamzin N. Letters of a Russian Traveller, translated by Andrew Kahn. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2003. Young A. Arthur Young’s Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789. Gloucester: Dodo Press, 2009. Rochambeau Comte de, Mémoires militaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau, Ancien Maréchal de France, et grand officier de la Légion d’honneur, 2 vols. Paris: Fain, 1809. —. Déclaration du Comte de Rochambeau, BNUS, reference number M 6591 4°.

possibly be more distinct from each other? For Greatness consists in bringing all Manner of Mischief on Mankind, and Goodness in removing it from them.” 42 Offord D., Journeys to a Graveyard. Perceptions of Europe in Classical Russian Travel Writing, 99.

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Secondary Sources Baudin R. “Karamzin in Revolutionary Strasbourg.” In Proceedings of the VIIIth International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenthcentury Russia, Durham, July 4th -9th 2009. (forthcoming) Black J.-L. Nicholas Karamzin and Russian Society in the Nineteenth Century. A Study in Russian Political and Historical Thought. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1975. Berelowitch A. “Une jacquerie moderne: la révolte de Pougatchev (17 septembre 1773-15 septembre 1774).” La Revue russe, 27 (2005): 3759. Bestuzhev-Riumin K. “Karamzin.” In Russkii biograficheskii slovar’, 500. St Petersburg: Tipografiya Glavnogo Upravleniya Udelov, 1897. Buganov V. Pugachev. Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1984. Dmytryshyn, Basil, ed. Imperial Russia: A Source Book, 1700-1917. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1967. [Cardinal] Grente, G. Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises. Le XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Fayard, 1995. Hartmann E. La Révolution Française en Alsace et en Lorraine. Paris: Perrin, 1990. Lévesque, Charles. Histoire de Russie, tirée des chroniques originales, de pièces authentiques et des meilleurs historiens de la nation, par M. L. P., 5 vols. Paris: De Bure l’aîné, 1782. Liberman, A. Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin, Ukazatel’ trudov, literatury o zhizni i tvorchestve 1883-1993. Moscow: RAN, 1999. Longworth P. “The Pretender Phenomenon in Eighteenth-century Russia.” Past & Present, 66 (Febr. 1975): 61-83. Lotman Yu. M. Sotvorenie Karamzina. In Karamzin, 10-310. St Petersburg: Iskusstvo-SPb, 1997. Murav’ev V. Nikolay Karamzin. Moscow: Eksmo, 2005. Oberlé R. and Perronet M. La Révolution en Alsace, 1789-1799. Horvath: Le Coteau, 1989. Offord D. Journeys to a Graveyard: Perceptions of Europe in Classical Russian Travel Writing. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005 (“International Archives of the History of Ideas” series). Ouspenski B. “Tsar et imposteur: l’imposture en Russie comme phénomène historique et culturel.” In Lotman Iou. and Ouspenski B. Sémiotique de la culture russe, translated and annotated by Françoise Lhoest. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1990. Panchenko A. M., “Samozvanchestvo na Rusi.” In Iz istorii russkoi kul’tury, tom III (XVII – nachalo XVIII veka), 25-33. Moscow: Shkola “Yazyki russkoi kul’tury” 1996.

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Pascal, Pierre, ed. La Révolte de Pougatchëv. Paris, Julliard, 1971 (“Archives” series).

THE YEAR 1812: THE DISCOVERY OF WHAT KIND OF OTHER?1 MAYA GUBINA

The Russian perception of France and the French in the first decade of the nineteenth century was especially complex.2 At the same time that there was an explosion of excessive patriotism following the defeat at Austerlitz, it was common for young rebels in St Petersburg to “drink a toast to Bonaparte’s health”.3 The peace treaty of Tilsitt, generally acknowledged as a source of humiliation for Russia, is followed by a resurgence of interest in the Revolution of 1789.4 Moreover, the ideas expressed by Gallophobes and Gallophiles alike were not always coherent. And finally the linguistic context—one of the most important ways in which categories such as “us” and “the other”5 come to be formed— illustrates perfectly just how intricate the question of Russian identity was at the time. French fashion and culture had been the order of the day in eighteenth-century Russia, to such an extent that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Russian nobility learnt Russian as a “foreign” language. This process involved nothing less than what Todorov describes in another context as “assimilating […] the other”.6 It should be noted that

1

This chapter has been translated from French by Graham H. Roberts. This chapter is taken from my unpublished PhD. dissertation, downloadable at the following address : http://www.theses.paris4.sorbonne.fr/these_goubina/paris4/2007/these_goubina/ht ml/index-frames.html. 3 F. V. Rostopchin’s private correspondence, cited in: N. I. Kazakov, “Napoleon glazami ego russkikh sovremennikov”, 37. 4 See: V. M. Bokova, “Bespokoinyi dukh vremeni. Obshchestvennaya mysl’ pervoi treti XIX v.” in Ocherki russkoi kul’tury XIX veka, IV, “Obshchestvennaya mysl’”,. 28. 5 See: P. Chézaud, Louis Rousselet et l’image de la culture de l’Autre, 166, and P. Guillaume, ed., Identités méridionales. Entre conscience de soi et visions de l’autre, 10. 6 T. Todorov, La Conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre, 233. 2

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this situation had by no means changed at the dawn of 1812, despite the strong wave of Russophilia that was sweeping across the country. As a result, categories such as “us” and “the other” were reversible and corresponded to different social groups depending on the context in which they were uttered. This specificity of Russian culture was inevitably thrown into sharp relief by the war of 1812. As Mitrofanov and Tyupa point out: if the French and the Poles are the “other” on the battlefield, then the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants, the nobles and the Sovereign are on “our” [Russian] side. Outside the battlefield, however, the distinction is quite different. Here, “we” means the French, the [Russian] soldiers, the [Russian] Sovereign, and the [Russian] nobility, while the Cossacks, the peasants and the Poles are the “other”.7

The situation as far as the rest of the population is concerned was just as complex. The nobility were “us” for the peasantry, on account of their common religion and because they belonged to the same ethnic group. On the other hand, divergence in areas such as mentality, taste, habits, interests and language meant that each group was “alien” to the other. All in all, then, identifying the “other” in Russian society on the eve of the French invasion is an extremely difficult exercise.

1. The external “other” From the very first months of 1812, the possibility of war with France, and the likely consequences, was on everyone’s lips. However, since the identity of the “foreign” enemy was well known, contemporary Russian sources reveal relatively little about how the French were perceived at this time (apart from various pronouncements against the “Corsican ogre”). Russian sources of 1812 are generally silent when it comes to describing individual personalities, almost always preferring the general, depersonalised term, “the enemy”. Even the collective term “the Grand Army” rarely features in Russian texts. Such a depersonalization of the

7

A. Mitrofanov and Ya. Tyupa, “Voina 1812 goda: ‘svoi’ i ‘chuzhie’ v zapiskakh A. Kh. Benkendorfa”‚ 134. What is most important to note here is the fact that the meaning of labels such as “us” and “the others” shifts according to the social context in which these terms are used.

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“other” comes undoubtedly from a desire to devalue the “other” in question.8 Some information can nevetherless be found in the notes made by those Muscovites who stayed in the city and thus had the opportunity to observe the occupying forces at close quarters. Most of the time these observations reproduce stereotypical views of France and the French. While reference is made, for example, to the supposed haughty disdain and disorderliness of the French character, the high degree of emancipation of French society is also mentioned. The simple way in which Napoleon dressed during his stay in Moscow is noted, as are the signs of comradeship among his soldiers. Among the essential criteria according to which the “other” is judged, one often finds standards of hygiene. As one Muscovite observed, “You ask me to describe how clean they are, and how elegant. Well, I can tell you that some of them don’t appear to have had a wash since the day they left Paris.”9 It should be stressed that the observer makes no attempt to give an accurate picture, seeking instead to find in the “other” a fault which might enable him to affirm his own superiority over that other. As a result, no mention is made of the fact that the faults in question might be a temporary aberration produced by the extraordinary circumstances of war (it should be added that the image of the “unclean” other is a typical feature of the kind of discourse that seeks to reject that other completely).10 The events of September 1812 provoke a strong wave of resentment and indignation against the French. The rumours of horrors committed by French troops in occupied Moscow cause the Russian elite to ask themselves fundamental questions concerning the “other” and his identity. If France is not after all a nation touched by the Enlightenment then who is this French “other”?11 At times the Enlightenment is held by Russian writers to be synonymous with atheism, while at other moments they 8 See B. Panayotova, L’image de soi et de l’autre. Les Bulgares et leurs voisins dans les manuels d’histoire nationale (1878-1944), 47. 9 “Pis’mo moskvicha, ochevidtsa sobytii 1812 goda” in P. I. Shchukin, Bumagi, otnosyashchiesya do Otechestvennoi voiny 1812 g., I, 2. 10 See for example V. A. Likhachev, Istoriya antisemitizma: nenavist’ skvoz’ veka, 7. 11 See for example: “A. E. Izmailov – N. F. Grammatinu. 7 oktyabrya. S.Peterburg” in M. Boitsov, ed., K chesti Rossii: iz chastnoi perepiski 1812 goda, 150; “Voeikov – G. R. Derzhavinu. 30go oktyabrya 1812 g., El’nya” in N. F. Dubrovin, ed., Otechestvennaya voina v pis’makh sovremennikov (1812-1815 gg.), 302; and “K. N. Batyushkov - N. I Gnedichu. Nizh. Novgorod. Oktyabr’ 1812 g.” in V. V. Kallash, Dvenadtsatyi god v vospominaniyakh i perepiske sovremennikov, 206.

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admit that France is a Christian nation, a fact which in their eyes serves merely to exacrerbate the heinous nature of the French soldiers’ crimes. This is a typical example of a perjorative comparison of an adversary with another, secular enemy whose alterity is in no doubt.12 To quote one commentator, “Hordes of savages would have behaved better than these cultured, well-educated Frenchmen. At least when the Tatars invaded, this vulgar and pagan tribe respected our God’s cathedrals.13 [...] Yet today we can see Christians destroying, pillaging and desecrating Christian churches.”14 It is also in an attempt to tarnish as much as possible the image of the French Emperor that one anonymous writer resorts to another common procedure. This consists in comparing the “other” with a much better-known internal, domestic “other”. As he put it: “Napoleon did not arrive in Moscow as a hero or conqueror, but as a bandit and assassin. After having looted and destroyed everything in his path [...], he and his army left, like a gang of brigands might attack, loot and then set fire to a rich landowner’s mansion.”15 Moreover, one finds the term “Gaul”, employed as a reference to the barbarous state in which the French lived until they were “civilised” by the Romans: “And today the enlightened Gauls ride roughshod over all that is sacred. By their violence and their cruelty they outdo the Tatars, the Sarmates16 and even Pugachev’s followers!”17 In 1812 the Russians feel fully justified in throwing back at the French the accusations of barbary of which they themselves had previously been the object: “What can I say, replied a merrchant, for […] it is we who are the Christians ; it is they [the French] […] who have arrived here like barbarians.”18

12

At the time of the Hundred Years’ War, for example, the French referred to the fact that the Saracens honoured peace treaties in order to underline the “perfidy” of the English in this respect. 13 The Mongols did indeed respect the Orthodox faith and did not persecute the local populations of those Russian lands which came under their yoke on account of their religious beliefs. 14 R-n, “Beseda russkogo s soochishami svoimi na razvalinakh Moskvy (v oktyabre 1812)”, 192. 15 Ibid., 193 (our italics). 16 The Sarmates were a nomadic people originally from Iran. They occupied the land of the Scythians and went as far as the Danube (in the first century AD). They fell under the yoke of the Goths, and then that of the Huns. 17 I. Lamansky, “Oda na osvobozhdenie Moskvy”. See also M. Boitsov, ed., K chesti Rossii, 123. 18 [Bulgakov], “A. Ya. Bulgakov k bratu iz Moskvy”.

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2. The “internal” other Written documents of the time demonstrate that the Russians, rather than examining the nature of the external “other”, actually spend most of their time analysing the behaviour of Russians themselves (friends and relatives, neighbours and acquaintances, soldiers, military commanders, even the Emperor himself). This should not surprise us, since the search for the “other” within the “us” is typical of societies at war. The question of the treachery of those French and other foreign citizens living in Russia is on the whole not raised by writers until the outbreak of hostilities. On the other hand, the image of Russian “traitors” is present well before June 1812. The Speransky affair was present in many people’s minds.19 The incident with the unfortunate Vereshchagin also allowed people to vent their anger, albeit at the local level of Moscow itself. The declaration of war exacerbated the Russian public’s hostility towards a number of key politicians who had been unwise enough to make proFrench statements.20 All in all, however, Frenchmen holding public office in Russia tend to be far less criticized21 than their counterparts from Germany and other foreign countries.22 The war also increased traditional suspicion of a more secular “other”. In this respect the observation of a famous hero of 1812, N. N. Raevsky, 19

M. M. Speransky (1772-1839) became Alexander I’s main adviser in 1806, and then subsequently Secretary of the State Council. He worked on a series of reforms designed to make Russia a constitutional monarchy. When these reforms provoked the nobility’s anger, the tsar exiled Speransky in order to save his own reputation. 20 Count N. P. Rumyantsev (1754-1826), who negociated the peace treaty of Tilsitt, was one of the Russian public’s preferred targets. 21 Even the letters of the secret police agents contain only a limited number of allusions to openly Gallophobe sentiment. Indeed, in more than twenty documents we found only one explicit reference: “It is reported that the French […] are trying to spread malicious rumours among the peasants. This is why the hatred of the people and especially merchants towards the French has grown and why calls have been made to kick all these foreigners out of the city”: S. N. Iskyul’, “Voina 1812 goda i russkoe obshchestvo (‘Osvedomitel’nye pis’ma tainoi politsii)” in S. Ya. Karp, ed., Russko-frantsuzskie kul’turnye svyazi v epokhu Prosveshcheniya: materialy i issledovaniya, 306 (note of 2nd [14th] July). 22 The example of General M. B. Barclay-de-Tolli (1757-1818) is typical in this respect. As the Russian War Minister and then the commander in chief of the Russian army between 6th (18th) June and 17th (29th) August 1812, he was held personally responsable for the retreat of the Russian troops. Moroever, his nonRussian (Scottish) surname earned him the animosity of the Russian public, who nicknamed him “the German” [sic].

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speaks volumes. The future general states explicitly what kind of “other” seems to him to be the most dangerous: “I do not fear the enemy so much as the freedom Napoleon will promise the peasants.”23 Raevsky is almost certainly speaking here as a wealthy landowner, for whom the peasants embody the “other” far more than any enemy to be faced on the battlefield. We have found several cases of this more or less explicit distinction made between two social classes in Russia. Our sources also contain numerous examples of the nobles’ irritation towards the peasants either because they were excessively Gallophobe (and consequently attacked anybody speaking French in the street, be he a foreigner from another country, or even a nobleman24), or because they might be sensitive to Napoleon’s blandishments, or quite simply because they dared come into contact with the invader. As one nobleman put it, “The scoundrels [the French] explain themselves to the peasants with the aid of pantomime. The peasants are not bright enough for anything else, but they understand perfectly well what they see.25 It is also interesting to look at what is said at the time about people from ethnic minorities. S. N. Iskyul’ for example wrote the following: “Everyone is inspired by the patriotic sacrifices made by the sons of Russia [...] Even the Chukhontsy wish to sign up to local militias and participate in the extermination of the enemy.”26 Chukhontsy was the name generally given at the time to the people of Finno-Ugric origin who lived in Ingria, near St Petersburg, and who were Lutheran.27 The author’s implicit surprise at this ethnic minority’s readiness to contribute to the fight against the enemy says much for the way in which they were perceived in Russia; they clearly did not belong to the Russian “us”. This quotation is further grist to the mill of all those who claim that war against Napoleonic France was especially instrumental in helping Russians gain consciousness of themselves as a nation. The ethnic dimension, while well 23

“Lichnye pis’ma generala N. N. Raevskogo” in 1812-1814. Sekretnaya perepiska generala P. I. Bagratena. Lichnye pis’ma generala N. N. Raevskogo. Zapiski generala M. S. Vorontsova. Dnevniki ofitserov russkoi armii, 244. The original is in French (letter of 28th June [10th July] 1812.) 24 See “Chastnye pis’ma 1812 goda ot M. A. Volkovoi k V. I. Lanskoi” in Kallash, Dvenatsatyi god, 249 (letter of 22nd July [3rd August]), 254 (letter of 15th [27th] August), and 274 (letter of 27th November [9th December]). 25 “I. P. Odental’– A. Ya. Bulgakovu, 30 iyulya. S.-P[eter]burg”, in Boitsov, ed., K chesti Rossii, 59. 26 S. N. Iskyul’, “Voina 1812 goda i russkoe obshchestvo”, in Karp, ed., Russkofrantsuzskie kul’turnye svyazi, 311-13. 27 See: [F. A. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron], Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, LXXVII, 67.

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and truly present in the defintion of the Russian “we”, was not cast in stone; Russians were, in effect, only willing to inlcude in their “us” those ethnic minorities who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in defence of the nation state. On the other hand, those who did not demonstrate sufficient zeal were naturally the object of indignation. N. G. Skopin, for example, declared: “Following the revocation of the order to organise militias, nobody from the nobility or the merchant class has made a contribution. So much for the so-called friends of the nation! These people are pathetic... This is how they prefer to defend the country they inhabit [...]! There is a lack of maturity among people in Russia, and there will continue to be so for a long time to come.”28 These reflexions from a priest from Saratov say more about his acrimonious attitude towards his compatriots, whom he regarded as insufficiently mature to sacrifice their fortune for the general good, than about his hostility towards the invader. Moreover, the war against France, and especially the way in which it unfolds (with, specifically, the burning of Moscow) raises other issues germane to Russian self-perception. On the one hand, the old rivalry between Moscow and St Petersburg is revived. On the other, questions are asked concerning the respective roles of the provinces and the two capitals in Russian society, or rather on their interdependence in the Russian Empire. It is striking to see to what extent people living in the towns around Moscow were perceived by Muscovites themselves as “other”. That is not, of course, to say that they were seen as a threat, rather that they were viewed as an “other” distinct from “us” on account of their traditions, their customs and also because of the ignorance Muscovites had of life in the provinces at this time. A certain M. A. Volkova observed, for example, that “here in Vologda we live like internal exiles, with absolutely no news from anyone”.29 Volkova is lucid enough to realise the extraordinary nature of her “discovery” of her hitherto unknown compatriots. She continues : My stay in Tambov30 […] in the current circumstance opened my eyes to a lot of things. If I had been here in another context, if I were mindful only 28

N. G. Skopin, “Zapiski dnevnie o delakh i veshchakh dostopamyatnykh”, 452. [Knyaz’ Vyazemsky], “Knyaz’ Vyazemsky Turgenevu. 16 oktyabrya” in Ostaf’evskii arkhiv knyazei Vyazemskikh, I, “Perepiska knyazya P. A. Vyazemskogo s A. I. Turgenevym. 1812-1819”, 1899, 4. 30 It should be remembered that Tambov is a mere 480 km (300 miles) to the south-east of Moscow. See G. M. Lappo, ed., Goroda Rossii. Entsiklopediya, 87, 457. 29

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of the pleasures of life, the worthy people of this place would have seemed to me extremely stupid and ridiculous. But having arrived here heavyhearted and despondent, I cannot tell you how grateful we are to them for their kindness towards us. They are all falling over themselves to help us, and it only remains for me to thank these kind compatriots of whom we know so little.31

To finish, let us say a word about observations made by soldiers themselves in their journals.32 Their description of the countryside and towns they cross is motivated first and foremost by their strategic importance. Moreover, the interest they express in the natural resources of the places they pass through reflects the fact that they are not just soldiers but landowners too. But these diaries also offer a number of interesting examples of ethnographic “rediscoveries” that Russian soldiers had the occasion to make during war. While confirming certain stereotypes, these writers also express the desire to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the local populations, a fact all the more remarkable, given that the populations involved were in fact their compatriots. Jews, Old Believers and other groups aroused the soldiers’ curiosity. A certain A. Mirkovich notes, during the Easter celebrations, “we were keen to familiarise ourselves with the customs of the Old Believers who lived here, which is why many of us visited their house of prayer”.33 Mirkovich is perfectly conscious of the fact that the war has raised questions of national identity: “In this tiny village [in eastern Poland], we did not come across a single soul. It was painful to see how low our compatriots had fallen […] I believe I am right to call them compatriots, since they are subjects [of our Empire] and they are called Russians […] and several of our nobles own land in these parts.”34 Here we can begin to see the criteria Russians of the early nineteenth century apply in order to define “us”. What is important is, first, whether or not one is a subject of the Russian Emperor, second, the ethnographic terminology by which one is labelled, and third, the nationality of those who own the land which one inhabits. 31 “Chastnye pis’ma [...] M. A. Volkovoi [...]”, in Kallash, Dvenadtsatyi god, 261. Letter of 7th (19th) October 1812 (our italics). 32 These journals are clearly the work of reluctant travellers. They nevetherless contain much interesting information concerning the distances covered, comments concerning their supplies, information relating to the quality of their living quarters and details about the weather and the landscape. 33 A. Ya. Mirkovich, “1812 g.”, in 1789-1866. Ego zhizneopisanie, sostavlennoe po sobstvennym ego zapiskam, vospominaniyam blizkikh lyudei i podlinnim dokumentam, 35. 34 Ibid., 44.

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Moreover, a number of picturesque descriptions of the towns visited and their history come immediately before or after accounts of battles fought. The absence of strong condemnation of the French invader in these passages serves further to underline the fact that these documents are an exercise in critical reflection on “us”, rather than on the enemy “other”.

Conclusion Identity and alterity, “self” and “other” go together, and are defined in relation to each other. As A. Montandon has observed: “The question of the Other […] is at the very heart of the construction of the identity of the self and of the group, inasmuch as the construction of the self depends on an appreciation of difference.”35 Thus the attitude of the French, who positioned themselves as adversaries of the Russian state, threatening its integrity and its very existence, undoubtedly had the effect of forcing the Russians to ask themselves searching questions about their own identity. The year 1812 was trying for all concerned, the Gallophiles as much as the Gallophobes. The various pronouncements made on the French enemy threatened to drive a wedge through the identity of the Russian aristocracy, before enabling the nobility to construct a new identity for itself, one based on the concept of nationhood, rather than class. Clearly in 1812 the image that the Russians have of the French—as the external “other”—is deeply imbricated with the image the Russians have of themselves. Napoleon’s invasion stimulates reflexion in Russian society on the identity of the internal “other” which might be tempted to aid the foreign “other” in its conquest of Russia. As a result, certain fears are revived, such as the nobles’ suspicion of the peasantry, as are old rivalries, such as that opposing Moscow and St Petersburg.36 Furthermore, civilians and soldiers alike have the opportunity to “rediscover” their compatriots. At this time identity was conceived of “horizontally”, with members of the same social class in different countries feeling more or less consciously part of the same “us”, while considering members of different classes within their own country as the “other”, with radically different sets of

35 A. Montandon, ed., Le Même et l’Autre: regards européens [actes du colloque international, Paris, octobre 1995], vii. 36 New distinctions also began to be made in the popular consciousness between different social groups, in terms of their respective relationships to the French invader. It is unclear how long this process lasted, however.

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values37. In the context of a bloody war, the term “us” in Russia designates all those prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice in the quest for victory over the enemy, the foreign “other”. Next to this, all other criteria, be they social, ethnic, or even religious, pale into insignificance.

Works Cited Primary sources Afanas’ev, A. K., ed. 1812-1814. Sekretnaya perepiska generala P. I. Bagratena. Lichnye pis’ma generala N. N. Raevskogo. Zapiski generala M. S. Vorontsova. Dnevniki ofitserov russkoi armii. Moscow: Terra, 1992. Boitsov, M. ed. K chesti Rossii: iz chastnoi perepiski 1812 goda. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1988. [Bulgakov, A. Ya.]. “Iz pisem Ya. Bulgakov k ego bratu. 1812 god.” In Russkii Arkhiv, 2 (1900), no. 5, 5-36; no. 6, 208-35. Dubrovin, N. F. ed. Otechestvennaya voina v pis’makh sovremennikov (1812-1815 gg.). St Petersburg: Tipografiya Imp. Ak. Nauk, 1882. Kallash, V. V. Dvenadtsatyi god v vospominaniyakh i perepiske sovremennikov. Moscow: Tip. Sytina, 1912. Karp, S. Ya. ed. Russko-frantsuzskie kul’turnye svyazi v epokhu Prosveshcheniya: materialy i issledovaniya. Moscow: RGGU, 2001. [Knyaz’ Vyazemsky]. Ostaf’evskii arkhiv knyazei Vyazemskikh. St Petersburg: Tipografiya M. M. Stasyulevicha, 5 vols, 1899-1913, I, “Perepiska knyazya P. A. Vyazemskogo s A. I. Turgenevym. 18121819”, 1899. Lamansky, I. “Oda na osvobozhdenie Moskvy.” Syn Otechestva, 1, no. 5 (1812): 182-86. Mirkovich, A. Ya. “1812 g.” In A. Ya. Mirkovich, 1789-1866. Ego zhizneopisanie, sostavlennoe po sobstvennym ego zapiskam, vospominaniyam blizkikh lyudei i podlinnim dokumentam, 28-57. St Petersburg: Voennaya tipografiya, 1889. R-n, “Beseda russkogo s soochishami svoimi na razvalinakh Moskvy (v oktyabre 1812).” Syn Otechestva, 1, no. 6 (1812): 189-98. Skopin, N. G. “Zapiski dnevniya o delakh i veshchakh dostopamyatnykh.” Saratovskii istoricheskii sbornik, 1 (1891): 75-580. 37

As M. Malia has argued, “In the world of the Ancien Régime, the distinction between people was first and foremost social, rather than national”: M. Malia, L’Occident et l’énigme russe, 56.

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Secondary sources Bokova, V. M. “Bespokoinyi dukh vremeni. Obshchestvennaya mysl’ pervoi treti XIX v.” In Ocherki russkoi kul’tury XIX veka, IV [“Obshchestvennaya mysl’”], 17-152. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 2003. [Brokgauz, F. A. and Efron, I. A.], Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’. Jaroslavl’: Terra [reprint of the edition of 1890-1907], LXXVII (1993). Chézaud, P. Louis Rousselet et l’image de la culture de l’Autre. Paris, Saint-Pierre-de-Salerne: G. Monfort, 2005. Guillaume, P., ed. Identités méridionales. Entre conscience de soi et visions de l’autre. Toulouse: CTHS, 2003. Kazakov, N. I. “Napoleon glazami ego russkikh sovremennikov.” Novaya i noveishaya istoriya [n. vol.] (1970), no. 3, 31-27; no. 4, 42-55. Lappo, G. M., ed., Goroda Rossii. Entsiklopediya. Moscow: Bol’shaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopediya, 1994. Likhachev, V. A. Istoriya antisemitizma: nenavist’ skvoz’ veka. Moscow: Evreiskii mir, 2000. Malia, M. L’Occident et l’énigme russe. Paris: Seuil, 2003. Mitrofanov, A. and Tyupa, Ya. “Voina 1812 goda: ‘svoi’ i ‘chuzhie’ v zapiskakh A. Kh. Benkendorfa.” In Opyty istoriko-antropologicheskikh issledovanii, 127-36. Moscow: Ekon-inform, 2002. Montandon, A., ed., Le Même et l’Autre: regards européens. Actes du colloque international, Paris, octobre 1995. Clermont-Ferrand: Association des publications de la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines, 1997. Panayotova, B. L’image de soi et de l’autre. Les Bulgares et leurs voisins dans les manuels d’histoire nationale (1878-1944). Quebec City: PUL, 2005. Shchukin, P. I. Bumagi, otnosyashchiesya do Otechestvennoi voiny 1812 g., 10 vols. Moscow: Tovarishchestvo tipografii A. I. Mamontova, 1897-1908. Todorov, T. La Conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre. Paris: Seuil, 1982.

MEREZHKOVSKY, BLUM AND PETIT: AN IMPOSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP ANNA PONDOPULO

Léon Blum's archives repatriated from Moscow contain a number of letters written by Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865-1941) and Eugène Petit (1871-1938), statesman, socialist and close acquaintance of Blum (18721950).1 Their correspondence concerned the possibility of staging in France Merezhkovsky’s play Paul I (Pavel I), written in Paris in 1907. These letters help us reach a clearer understanding of the relationship between the Russian and French cultural worlds. They also shed some light on the reasons why this relationship functioned so badly between 1905 and 1917. The letters in question date from 1912. In order to understand them properly, however, it is necessary to return to the two years (February 1906 - July 1908) which the Merezhkovskys and their friend Dmitry Filosofov spent living in Paris. This was the period during which the play Paul I was written and the Merezhkovskys established their main contacts in the French capital. They subsequently returned every year to Paris, where they kept their apartment. Refugees in the city after the Bolshevik Revolution, they always lived in the same apartment, as Nina Berberova observes in her The Italics are Mine (Kursiv moi): “They lived in their prewar apartment, which means that after leaving Soviet Russia in 1919 and arriving in Paris, they simply opened the door to their apartment with their key and found everything in its place: books, crockery, linen, etc. They did not know the feeling of homelessness that Bunin and others felt so intensely.”2 The decision to stay in Paris for such a long time should come as no surprise, given their way of thinking at the time. After their various projects

1

The author wishes to thank Alexandre Goryunov, curator of the Russian Archives Collections of the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (BDIC) in Paris, for his help with the research for this chapter. 2 Berberova, Kursiv moi. Avtobiografiia, 283.

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in Russia had suffered a series of setbacks,3 they needed a fresh start, to recharge their batteries as it were. They believed that the best way to do this would be to retreat into the “desert” of western society which, as they saw it, dehumanized its members and forced them to live in intellectual and moral isolation. Once they had undertaken this “retreat”, they hoped to get closer to Russia once again.4 The Parisian period of 1906-1908 was especially fruitful, both in terms of the number of contacts they established, and as far as their literary creativity is concerned. As Zinaida Gippius puts it in her book Dmitry Merezhkovsky, however, the couple were very careful to avoid mixing people from “different circles”.5 She specifies the interests and the choices which presided over these meetings: We had three centres of interest: in the first place, Catholicism and modernism (which we had vaguely heard about in Russia); secondly, political life in Europe, and French people at home. And finally, important Russian political émigrés, people connected to the Revolution and to the activity of political parties. We had these interests in common, but, naturally, Dmitry Sergeevich was more interested in the first topic, whereas I was interested in Russian revolutionaries. Dmitry Filosofov liked political trade unionism; he even went to Amiens to discover it, and also frequented the sessions of the National Assembly.6

The Merezhkovskys were especially keen to see their Russian and French acquaintances separately, and were very careful to distinguish between these two groups. Every Saturday they received those who constituted their “poludomashnyaya sreda”, their close circle, or halffamily, whose members were all Russian. French friends were invited at other times, primarily in the evening. Gippius also differentiated between various types of Russian. There was for example what she called “the new emigration”, made up of those who had arrived after the Revolution of 1905,7 essentially “a crowd of soldiers, workers, sailors, people absolutely incapable of living outside Russia [...] They either starved or went mad”. Then there were those Russians who were successfully “acclimatized”; they were “Europeanists by accident, sceptics, people who had been unlucky in their homeland, and individuals who gave money to the arts”. 3

Sobolev, A.L., “Merezhkovskie v Parizhe (1906-1908)”, 320. Ibid., 333. 5 Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 155. 6 Ibid. All translations are the author’s. 7 There were about 80,000 Russian immigrants in Paris after the 1905 Revolution: Sobolev, A. L., “Merezhkovskie v Parizhe (1906-1908)”, 344. 4

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One example was the son of the Moscow millionaire Shchukin,8 to whom Dmitry Merezhkovsky read fragments of his play Paul I. From a political point of view, the couple were closest to Socialist Revolutionaries (SR’s) such as Bunakov and Boris Savinkov. On the other hand, they distanced themselves from anybody displaying Marxist tendencies. One reason for this rejection was their belief that Marxist ideology was ill suited to Russian reality. This was not the only consideration, however. There was the fact, for example, that, as Merezhkovsky put it, “the Jews were in the minority in [the SR’s], they were the ‘exception’”, whereas in the case of the Social Democrats, on the contrary, “Lenin and Plekhanov were exceptions among the Jews”.9 While they expressed a certain interest in the French socialist movement, Gippius was careful to distance herself and her husband from it. Thus, while her discription of Jaurès10 is not without sympathy, it is also redolent with irony. In Living Characters (Zhivye litsa), for example, she claims to be unable to understand what Andrey Bely could possibly have had to say to Jaurès (the two men lived in the same guest house and met every morning over breakfast). She repeatedly mentions Victor Basch11 (whom she names ‘Bach’), whom they invited to their “French meetings” and who chaired a conference given in French by Dmitry Merezhkovsky at l’École des Hautes Études (“Dm. S. spoke very well, and it was Victor Bach who chaired”12), but underlines the fact that she does not like him, and neither does Dmitry Sergeevich. In “Parisian Photographs” (“Parizhskie fotografii”), in her accounts of the Parisian meetings of French anarchists and socialists, she displays the same mixture of condescension and bemusement. Frenchmen of other ideological persuasions, such as the Catholic revivalists Abbé Portal or Paul Desjardin, or writers, such as 8

On Shchukin, see Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 182. Ibid., 161. 10 For a description of the meetings with Jaurès, see Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 170-72, and Gilles Candar, “Un Jaurès ‘Fleur de petite bourgeoisie’”, 14-16. As Candar puts it, for Merezhkovsky there was an “abyss separat[ing] the Russians from the Westerners” (“Un Jaurès ‘Fleur de petite bourgeoisie’”, 14). 11 Victor Basch (Budapest, Hungary, 1863 - near Lyons, January 10th, 1944) was a philosopher, a French academic of Hungarian origin and a co-founder and president of the Human Rights League. He was assassinated by the French militia. 12 Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 179. Ivan Ivanovich Shchukin (1869-1908) was an art critic, professor of philology and collector. He moved to Paris in 1903, and taught at the Brussels Free University, the Institute of Oriental Langauges in Paris (to which he bequeathed his library), and the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences, also in Paris. On Shchukin’s family, see Demskaya, A. and Semenova, N., U Shchukina, na Znamenke... 9

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Anatole France, aroused her curiosity, but can hardly be said to have left an indelible mark on her. During their stay in Paris, the Merezhkovskys were keen to make an impact on French intellectual life. Gippius acquainted readers of the Mercure de France (where she penned a monthly column on Russian letters) with the struggles between various literary movements in Russia.13 In 1907 the Merezhkovskys published, in French, a collection of articles under the title The Tsar and the Revolution (Le Tsar et la révolution), which included texts by Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Filosofov. Lev Shestov’s participation was also envisaged, although this did not materialize. The Merezhkovskys were also sensitive to social problems. Dmitry Merezhkovsky organised a major conference on the theme of social violence which was attended by more than a thousand people, for instance. Once Merezhkovsky had finished Paul I, he was keen to have it published in Paris. As Gippius puts it: [...] we were retained [in Paris] because of Paul I, its translation and its publication in French which we envisaged […]. Certain siren voices tried to persuade us to put the play on in Paris. They organized meetings between ourselves and certain "useful persons". [....This was how] somebody presented us to Léon Blum. I do not believe he was a deputy at this time, and I do not know what connections he had to the theatre. We knew on the other hand that he was very rich and that he possessed somewhere a silk factory producing ribbons.14

In Russia the play was banned and all editions were seized in 1908,15 because the authorities viewed it as disrespectful towards the monarchy. Its author had to appear in court, but was acquitted and the ban imposed on the play was revoked on September 18th, 1912.16 It was at this time that Merezhkovsky revived the idea of staging the play in France and in French. And it was Léon Blum that he contacted to help him promote the French version of the play. But the question arises as to who it was who presented Merezhkovsky to Léon Blum? The letters in the Blum archive in Paris make it clear that it was Eugène Petit (1871-1938), a statesman and lawyer in the Conseil d’État, together with his wife Sof’ya Grigor’evna Balakhovskaya (1870-1966), a naturalized Frenchwoman who had been born into a Russian Jewish family in Kiev, and was the daughter of the 13

Gippius, “Notes sur la littérature russe de notre temps.” Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 179. 15 Ibid., 186. 16 Ibid., 201 14

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owner of a sugar refinery, and sister-in-law and friend of the philosopher Lev Shestov.17 Husband and wife were personalities of extraordinary intellect. Together they left an indelible mark on Franco-Russian political and cultural relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. Balakhovskaya and Petit met when they were studying law together. They shared a love of Russian literature, as well as a sympathy towards Russian émigrés in Paris, in particular towards Socialist Revolutionaries. During his career, Eugène Petit served as a lawyer at the Cour d’Appel in Paris, and also as Private Secretary to various Ministers. Between 1899 and 1902, he was Deputy Head of the Ministry of Colonies. From 1909 to 1910 he was at the Ministry of Public Works, and then from 1914 to 1915 at the War Ministry. He had close links with personalities on the right wing of the Socialist Party, such as Alexandre Millerand and Albert Thomas. In 1916, he accompanied Thomas (the then Under-Secretary of State for Ammunitions) on his mission to Moscow. The following year, Thomas sent him to Petrograd, asking him to assess the prospects for French investments in post-war Russia.18 Petit’s relationship with Russia developed slowly at first. In 1898, he wrote to Sof’ya BalakhovskayaPetit: I am not at all as horrified by Russia as you seem to think […] I admit that certain features of the Russian character—the nonchalance, the fatalism, the absence of a spirit of order and of foresight, the sloppiness, the absence of aesthetic culture and taste—annoy me in the end. But are you not yourself sometimes shocked by these things? [… Yet] when returning here [to France], I notice how much we lack those qualities that the Russians have in abundance, namely the spirit of sacrifice, selflessness, and faith in noble causes. It seems to me that at the moment France has very few generous people willing to devote themselves altruistically to what they believe to be true and beautiful.19

17

The philosopher and writer Lev Shestov (1866-1938) was very close to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya. His sister Sof'ya Shvartsman was married to Balakhovskaya’s brother, Daniil. 18 For an analysis of this mission, see Sinanoglou, “La Mission d’Eugène Petit en Russie”. 19 The archives of the BDIC, Eugène Petit archive, F delta reserve 571, box 1, file 1, letter from Eugène Petit to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya, July 5th, 1898. At this time Petit was working in the Office of the Minister at the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Post and Telecommunications.

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As for Sof’ya Balakhovskaya, she appears to have met Zinaida Gippius some time in the 1890s. This can be seen in the correspondence of the time between Balakhovskaya and her friend Zinaida Vengerova (1867-1941), literary critic, writer and translator,20 where Gippius is often referred to. Balakhovskaya and Vengerova had common acquaintances, both among the Symbolists, and in the ranks of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Vengerova’s letters reveal a lot about the activities and intellectual leanings of Sof’ya Balakhovskaya. They evoke the activities of Balakhovskaya as a PhD student, and then as a lawyer. In the late 1890s, Vengerova suggests she give a series of talks to the Women's Society in St Petersburg. At the end of 1900, Vengerova congratulates Balakhovskaya on qualifying for the bar, and explains how moved she is to be able to count a female lawyer among her acquaintances. There is also a reference to Balakhovskaya’s (unsuccessful) attempts to write a play. Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit had a privileged relationship with Léon Blum. The strength of her commitment to the democratization of Russia can be seen in her letter to Blum of December 6th, 1916.21 Her attitude is similar to that of her husband and numerous members of the right wing of the 6HFWLRQ )UDQ©DLVH GH Oಬ,QWHUQDWLRQDOH 2XYULªUH at this time. In essence, she believed that Russia had to maintain its war effort, and that France could help Russia by sending propaganda missions. Whereas her point of view was in no sense unique, what marks her out is her passion and her desire to act. Balakhovskaya’s letter makes it clear that Léon Blum was informed about events in Petrograd by Albert Thomas, to whom “Camaradik” (Eugène Petit) sent regular reports. But she wants to make sure that this information is read and that in France “people know what is happening”. Her conclusion is alarming: “Russia is currently in such a mess that can hardly be imagined in Europe […] At the front […] they die like heroes [… but] those of us in the rear think only of growing rich in as fast and furious a manner as possible.” The letter evokes the economic situation, and everyday life in Petrograd, as well as the fact that a large part of the 20

Vengerova studied in Vienna and then in Paris where she lived from 1888 until 1893 and where she met Balakhovskaya, with whom she became very close and with whom she corresponded systematically for thirty years. Her letters to Balakhovskaya are published in Rosina Neginsky, “Pis’ma Zinaidy Afanas’evny Vengerovoi k Sof’e Grigor’evne Balakhvskoi-Peti, Publication, commentaires et notes de Rosina Neginsky.” 21 See Blum, “Moscow” archive, documents 124-25, and in particular Sof’ya’s letter to Léon Blum, Petrograd, November 23rd / December 6th, 1916.

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population has been worn down by the war effort. The situation of the Jews is described as especially difficult: Their situation is really deplorable. At the start of the war they left [for the front] with admirable enthusiasm, but we so humiliated them, we showed ourselves to be so hard and so suspicious towards them, and their conditions of service are so deplorable compared to everyone else’s that their attitude has completely changed […] Even though I tell myself that this insult does not come from the real Russian people, I still find it extremely painful.

Finally, Balakhovskaya comments that the Russians have no idea about the French war effort and asks France to send a propaganda mission to rectify this situation: “It is necessary to send men who are talented and who are well-known in Russia (this is very important) to tour the four main cities, Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev and Odessa. To begin this series of conferences I could provide you with 4,000 Francs [...]. Léon Blum would be ideal.”22 The letter highlights the role Sof’ya Balakhovskaya played in the dialogue between France and Russia at the time: her correspondence was an informal complement to her husband’s official role. Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Balakhovskaya maintained friendly relations for several years. Their friendship became especially strong in the 1920s, when the Merezhkovskys definitively settled in France.23 Evidence of this can be found in the Eugène Petit archive in the BDIC in Paris. The archive contains thirty letters written by Zinaida Gippius to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya24 between 1908 and 1938, and twenty-three letters from Merezhkovsky to Sof’ya and to Eugène Petit written between 1908 and 1924. Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s letters of 1908 are mainly sent to Eugène Petit and primarily concern the play Paul I. What this correspondence revels is 22

Ibid. After the revolution, Vengerova, who was by now living in emigration in Berlin, continued to cooperate with Soviet publishers. Balakhovskaya found such behaviour incomprehensible, while it prompted Gippius to break off all ties with Vengerova. The exchanges between Balakhovskaya and Gippius concerning Vengerova reveal that the two women shared similar views at the time. Gippius’s comment is typical: “All we can do is feel sorry for her [Vengerova]. I find it impossible to carry on meeting with her, because she understands nothing, and can still damage our cause” (Eugène Petit archive, box 2, file 5, letter of Zinaïda Gippius to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, April 15th, 1920, Warsaw). 24 The letters of Gippius to Balakhovskaya are published collectively in Nezhinskaya, “Pis’ma k S. G. Balakhovskoi-Peti, Zinaïda Gippius”. 23

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that it was Petit who was mainly responsible for establishing Merezhkovsky’s French contacts. The latter described Petit as the “godmother” (sic)25 and even as the “best father possible” of the play.26 The question of the play’s staging in Paris reappears in 1912. A letter from Merezhkovsky to Blum, contained in the Blum archive, highlights the difficult relationship between the Russian writer and a certain “Guitry”27 who was supposed to play in the French version of the drama.28 In another letter, this time addressed to Petit in late 1912, Merezhkovsky asked for advice as to how to deal with Guitry: The actor Orlenev29 has been in touch asking me to consent to his staging Paul I in Russian in Paris. He is an actor of great talent, he has already played in Paul I in America where he was a great success, and he is offering to pay a good deal of money. Before accepting, however, I would like to know how Guitry is getting on with Paul I. I know that Guitry has quarrelled with Bernstein, and, since I have no news about Paul, I can only assume that things are going badly […] My question is: is it worth sacrificing the faithful Orlenev for the unfaithful Guitry? Could you ask Blum about this? And could you cable me [his answer]? […] I repeat, I have serious doubts concerning Guitry.30

In December 1912, after receiving this letter from Merezhkovsky, Petit wrote to Blum from Kiev (where he was taking care of his father-in-law): 25

Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Dmitry Merezhkovsky to Eugène Petit, Hamburg, June 8th, 1908. 26 Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Dmitry Merezhkovsky to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, Hamburg, June 15th, 1908. 27 It is unclear whether he is referring to Sacha Guitry, actor, playwright and director (1885-1957) or to his father, Lucien Germain Guitry (1860-1925), a famous French actor. It is probably the latter, since the letters also evoke Henry Bernstein (1876-1953), a French playwright and author of numerous plays in which Lucien Guitry played in the years 1906-1907. Bernstein is also mentioned in one of the letters from Vengerova to Balakhovskaya, as someone who could give Balakhovskaya advice on her play. See Rosina, “Pis’ma Zinaïdy Afanas’evny Vengerovoi k Sof’e Grigor’evne Balakhovskoi-Peti”, 707. 28 Blum, “Moscow” archive, file 94 A, document 255, letter from D. Merezhkovsky [Mérejkowsky] to Léon Blum, February 21st, 1912. 29 Orlenev, Pavel Nikolaevich (1869-1932), Russian actor. He created his own theatre company with which he travelled throughout Russia, Europe and the United States. In 1906 he founded a public theatre company and organized shows for groups of peasants. 30 Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Dmitry Merezhkovsky to Eugène Petit, St Petersburg, November 29th / December 12th, 1912.

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Yesterday I received from M. Mérejkowsky a letter which he had sent me, on the 12th of this month to my home in Paris, not knowing that I was in fact here. A talented Russian artist, who played Paul I successfully in America, has asked him for authorization to stage the same play in Paris, in Russian, and is offering a financial package that M. [Merezhkovsky] finds interesting. However, M. is still hesitating to give his approval, as he does not know what G.’s [Guitry’s] intentions are. […] M. has asked me to ask you for advice […] Would you please be so kind, on receipt of my letter, to cable him […] to let him know what you think he should do? He will be eternally grateful to you for this service […].31

We find at the end of the letter the words, scribbled by Blum: “G. completely favorable. Recommend acceptance.” Around the same time Merezhkovsky also wrote to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit to indicate to her that he had received Blum’s answer: Dear Sof’ya Grigor'evna, Thank you for all the trouble you have gone to, and for the telegram. Today I received Blum’s answer: he cabled me that Orlenev does not understand Guitry. So then, Paul will be staged in Paris in the spring in Russian. Blum writes nothing about Guitry’s intention to play Paul. Here, for your information, is the text of the telegram: “Guitry entirely favorable concerning proposed production recommend you accept Best regards Blum”. We go to Paris at the beginning of the Russian January, and then in the middle of the month we head for the Riviera, to either Cannes or Menton.32

This exchange of letters demonstrates both Petit's crucial role in establishing contact between Blum and Merezhkovsky, and also how instrumental Blum was in helping Merezhkovsky get in touch with Guitry. The correspondence continues after the Merezhkovskys have settled in Paris definitively. Reference is often made in these letters to favours that the Petits have done, or might do, for the Merezhkovskys, such as setting up a meeting with Paul Boyer for instance.33 There are also frequent allusions to the French couple’s role in organizing assistance for Russian émigrés. 31

Léon Blum “Moscow” archive, file 94 A, document 122, letter from Eugène Petit to Léon Blum, Kiev, December 19th, 1912. 32 Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Dmitry Merezhkovsky to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, December 12th, 1912. 33 Paul Boyer (1864-1949), French Slavist and administrator of the National School of Oriental Languages (INALCO) in Paris. After 1917 he mobilized public opinion to help Russian intellectuals in distress.

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Gippius’s letters to Balakhovskaya begin in 1908. At first the tone is rather distant, although it becomes increasingly cordial with the passing of time. In them mention is made, among other things, of Gippius’s relationship with Blum. Gippius is courteous, polite even, although she appears to seek to avoid meeting Blum whenever possible. On April 30th, 1912, for example, she sends a short note (in Russian) to the Petits in answer to their invitation to meet Blum. She tells them that the proposed day is not convenient and that if it is impossible to change it, Dmitry Merezhkovsky will simply attend the meeting without her. The possibility of meeting Blum is raised in a letter of March, 1914, written in Paris, but only after the couple have returned from a trip to Menton, whereas they wish to see the Petits at once.34 We learn more of the importance of the role that Sof’ya Balakhovskaya and Eugène Petit played in the life of the Merezhkovskys from letters written at the beginning of their emigration. One such letter, for example, reads: Thanks to you and to Evgeny Yul'evich we had no trouble in obtaining our entry permit for France. [...] This permit has, however, been refused our companion, the young poet and writer Zlobin,35 whom we cannot and do not want to abandon. Would it be at all possible for you to do something so that he might be allowed to enter France with us?36

The Petits subsequently came to the assistance of other friends of the Merezhkovskys. It is Sof’ya Balakhovskaya, for instance, who helped Gippius obtain a French residence permit for Ivan Manukhin,37 someone who is often mentioned in Gippius’s Diary .38 We can see, then, that Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit and Eugène Petit played an extremely important role in the life of Gippius and Merezhkovsky. Essentially they served as intermediaries, facilitating the Russian couple’s 34

Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Zinaida Gippius to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, March 4th, 1914. 35 Vladimir Anan'evich Zlobin (1894-1967), poet and Russian critic, was a close friend of the Merezhkovskys. 36 Eugène Petit archive, box 4, file 5, letter from Zinaida Gippius to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, April 15th, 1920, Warsaw. 37 Ivan Ivanovich Manukhin (1882-1958), biologist and doctor, politically close to the Mensheviks. A colleague of Mechnikov in the Institut Pasteur, he was the writer Maksim Gor'ky’s doctor, and also the Merezhkovskys’. He emigrated to France in 1921. 38 Eugène Petit archive, box 2, file 5, letter from Zinaida Gippius to Sof’ya Balakhovskaya-Petit, February 12th, 1921.

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introduction into French political, literary and theatrical circles. The relationship between both couples lasted a considerable length of time, stretching over many different periods. Given this fact, it is surprising that the name of Sof’ya Balakhovskaya never appears in Gippius’s memoirs (she is mentioned there just once, as the wife of Petit, and is referred to simply as “she”). Eugène Petit's name does appear in Gippius’s Dmitry Merezhkovsky and several times in her Petersburg Diaries (Peterburgskie dnevniki, 1914-1919). Allusions to Petit come without any comment, however, without any presentation of the man, without any explanation of the relationship which the author or her husband maintained with him. Petit has no independent existence in Gippius’s texts; he is always associated with the function which he exercises, sometimes transmitting a letter, at other times relating conversations which he has heard in the Duma. For example, the only mention of Petit (dated November 25th, 1920) in Dmitry Merezhkovsky relates to a letter which Filosofov sent her from Warsaw to Paris through Petit.. It reads simply: “A letter from [Dmitry Filosofov] (via Petit).”39 There are a few more references to Petit contained in Gippius’s Blue Book (Sinyaya kniga, published in her Petersburg Diaries). They are all dated February or March, 1917.40 On February 24th, for example, she writes: “Mr Petit came, and spoke about the conference. He received Albert Thomas's telegram—Soyez interprète auprès de M. Doumergue41— its sense is clear to him. Since his arrival Doumergue has not given him any peace, and started by telling him he wanted to meet the most important politicians […].” She then narrates the lunch organized by the French ambassador Paléologue with Doumergue and Russian politicians such as Guchkov and Milyukov, and reproduces Petit’s account of his journey to Moscow with Doumergue. All in all, however, Gippius does no more than merely transmit Petit’s statements, without making the slightest comment 39

Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 299. At this time (1917) Eugène Petit was in Russia on an official mission on which he had been sent by Albert Thomas. The French socialists supported the Russian Provisional Government and linked their political fortunes to the military success of the new Russia. As Sinangolou puts it, “after Thomas’s second mission to Russia, from April to June 1917, Eugène Petit was to become the liaison officer between Thomas, on the one hand, and the leaders of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet on the other hand”: Sinanoglou, Ioannis, “La Mission d’Eugène Petit en Russie”, 136 (our translation). The role of Petit was two-fold. On the one hand, he acted as official "reporter" on the situation in Russia for Thomas, while on the other, he was supposed to persuade the Provisional Government to pursue the war against Germany more vigorously. 41 Be an interpreter for Mr Doumergue (in French in the text). 40

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on them. The same can be said, for example, of her note of March 1st concerning her telephone conversation with Petit during which he tells her what he has heard in the Duma.42 If Petit is virtually invisible here, this may be because he was no stranger to Gippius. They saw each other reasonably often, and their relationship “went without saying”. It is also possible, however, that this “omission” betrays a desire to forget, to deny or not to notice the role which Eugène (and Sof’ya) played in the life of the Merezhkovskys. Perhaps the Russian couple did not appreciate the part played by the Petits in helping them integrate into European society. It is also possible that this Franco-Russian couple, by its very nature, went against the world-view of the Merezhkovskys, who believed so firmly in the incompatibility of the “spirit” of the French and that of the Russians. In emigration, Gippius continued to underline just how alien Russians were for Europeans and how impossible it was to achieve genuine understanding between them (partly because of the incapacity of Europeans, and in particular of French socialists, to grasp the depth of Russia’s suffering).43 Another possible explanation lies in the Merezhkovskys’ rejection of socialism in general and of the French socialist Léon Blum and of everything and everyone connected with him, in particular. Such an attitude is especially evident in Gippius’s account of a visit she and her husband made to Blum (to discuss the possibility of staging Paul I): All I remember from his home is the breakfast. A luxurious villa, not very far from the Parc Monceau (I am not sure where exactly). A large table sumptuously laden with flowers, crystal glasses, and a crowd of French people whom we did not know. […] I would certainly have remembered conversations, if they had been interesting, or if Blum himself had interested me. But even his physical appearance, so characteristic of the man himself, seemed to me very mediocre. His cat was more interesting. It was a big angora cat, which made its appearance at the end of breakfast, jumped magisterially onto the table, as if it owned the place, and began striding, with grace, between the small crystal glasses without touching anything, without producing the slightest sound. I thought that if Léon Blum had been born as a cat, he would have been able to walk with the same ease on other people’s tables.44

42

Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 168. Gippius had a similar view of the incompatibility between Russian and European literature. See Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 302. 44 Ibid., 179. 43

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Gippius’s antipathy towards Blum asserts itself during her years in emigration. It is also at this time that her tendency to assimilate socialist ideas with the world of Jewish intellectuals—a world she loathes— becomes more marked, and manifests itself in her antipathy towards Léon Blum. The contemporary reader of Gippius’s memoirs will notice a certain utilitarian spirit which tinges her memories of this Parisian period. It is as if her encounters with others were organized according to a script, and all served a specific purpose. Ultimately, the letters in the Léon Blum archive make it clear that the relationship between the Merezhkovskys and Blum was doomed to fail. As a consequence, an important part of the Russian intelligentsia was condemned to remain isolated in the critical years preceding 1917.

Works Cited Primary sources [Blum, L.]. National Foundation for the Political Sciences, Paris, Centre for Historical Studies, Contemporary History Archives, Léon Blum “Moscow” archive, file 94 A. Gippius, Z. “Notes sur la littérature russe de notre temps.” Mercure de France, 71 (1908): 71-79. —. Dmitry Merezhkovsky. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1951. —. “Parizhskie fotografii.” Vesy, 2 (1907): 61-68. —. Peterburgskie dnevniki (1914-1919). New York: Orpheus, 1982. —. Sinyaya kniga: peterburgskii dnevnik (1914-1918). Belgrade: Russkaya Biblioteka, 1929. —. Zhivye litsa. Moscow: Russkaya Kniga, 2006 (reprint of: Prague: Plamya, 1925, 2 vols). Merezhkovsky, D., Gippius, Z. and Philosophoff, D. Le Tsar et la révolution. Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1907. [Petit, E.], The archives of the BDIC, Eugène Petit archive, F delta reserve 571.

Secondary sources Berberova, N. Kursiv moi. Avtobiografiia. Moscow: Soglasie, 1996. Candar, Gilles. “Un Jaurès ‘Fleur de petite bourgeoisie’.” Jean Jaurès, bulletin de la Société d’études jaurésiennes, 119 (1994): 14-16. —. “Les socialistes français et la revolution de 1905.” Cahiers du monde russe, 48, nos. 2-3 (2007): 365-78.

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Demskaya, A. and Semenova, N. U Shchukina, na Znamenke… Moscow: Arena, 1993. Neginsky, Rosina. “Pis’ma Zinaidy Afanas’evny Vengerovoi k Sof’e Grigor’evne Balakhovskoi-Peti. Publication, commentaires et notes de Rosina Neginsky.” Revue des études slaves, 67 (1995), no. 1: 187-236; nos. 2-3: 457-516; no. 4: 693-748. —. [Nezhinskaya]. “Pis’ma k S.G. Balakhovskoi-Peti, Zinaida Gippius.” Russian Literature, 37 (1995): 59-92. Sinanoglou, Ioannis. “La Mission d’Eugène Petit en Russie.” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 17, nos. 2-3 (1976): 133-70. Sobolev, A. L. “Merezhkovskie v Parizhe (1906-1908).” In Litsa, 319-70. Moscow; St Petersburg: Feniks-Ateneum, 1992.

THE RUSSIAN DIASPORA IN THE CONTEXT OF FRENCH CULTURE: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LEV SHESTOV AND BORIS SCHLOEZER OLGA TABACHNIKOVA

Introduction: The Cultural Value of Epistolary Findings When time “went out of joint” in Russia in October of 1917, the exodus to the West began. Paris was among the cities which received a huge wave of Russian emigrants, in particular those from the educated classes. Nina Berberova’s famous words, “We are not in exile, we are on a mission”1 became their slogan. And indeed, their cultural legacy turned into a treasure box of the Old Russia’s cultural values whose distant light continued to penetrate the underground Soviet consciousness and ultimately helped to bridge the gap between pre-revolutionary Russian culture and its post-Soviet heir. Research into the Russian Diaspora, which has now been going on for some decades, is thus vital to our understanding of 20th century Russian culture. The overall picture of the life of Russian émigrés has emerged slowly, as a mosaic put together through extensive archival work, reminiscences and memoirs of the surviving witnesses or their descendants, as well as through studying the actual cultural production of the émigrés of that first wave. Yet, there still remain neglected pieces of evidence whose discovery adds missing details, invaluable for our insights into the life of the Russian émigré community in Paris. Amongst such largely overlooked material is the correspondence between the philosophical writer Lev Shestov, one of the most fascinating thinkers of the Silver Age, 1

These words are also ascribed to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius and various other Russian cultural figures in exile. In the original Russian the phrase reads “my ne v izgnanii, my v poslanii”. Unless otherwise stated, all translations in this chapter are the author’s.

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and his translator and friend, art and literary critic Boris Fedorovich Schloezer (also known as Boris de Schloezer). Lev Shestov (the pen-name of Lev Isaakovich Shvartsman) was born in Kiev in 1866 and became well known in the 1900s for his original interpretation of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, viewed through the prism of a Nietzschean critique of systematic philosophy and autonomous ethics. In 1920 Shestov left Russia for good and settled in France, where he soon occupied a significant place in the development of existential thought (being a precursor of the more famous Sartrean existentialism). Shestov was one of the first to introduce Husserl’s ideas to the French and to a large extent influenced the perception of phenomenology in France (the trend which in turn largely shaped the main philosophical movements in that country in the 20th century). The name of Boris Schloezer is less well known, although he played at the time a considerable role both in French intellectual life and in the life of the Russian émigré community. Schloezer was born in Vitebsk in 1881, into a highly cultured family. On his father’s side he belonged to the ancient family of von Schloezers, Russified Germans, while on his mother’s side he was Belgian. Having started his education in Russia, Schloezer completed it in Brussels and Paris, studying sociology, philosophy and musicology, and went on to publish in Russian Symbolist journals. In 1920 Schloezer emigrated from Bolshevik Russia and settled in Paris. With a Belgian mother and Russian father, he was fully bilingual and became a brilliant translator. Schloezer was equally known for his critical writings on musicology and literature, and worked for leading French journals, such as La Nouvelle Revue Française and La Revue Musicale. Such an engagement with the “host” cultural life was rather unusual, for more often than not Russian culture remained an isolated island in the ocean of the surrounding local (in this case French) intellectual and spiritual activity. Too painful was the experience of displacement, too brooding the memories of the recent farewell with the Motherland, for émigrés to be able to look forward rather than backward. Adapting to the local culture was perceived either as a betrayal of one’s homeland or simply as a waste of time. Russian cultural figures (those who emigrated in adulthood) rarely engaged with French life. In this sense Shestov and Schloezer constitute more an exception than the rule. Their correspondence still allows us privileged access into the life of Russian émigré intellectuals in Paris, where the markedly French context intensified the feeling of reality. Indeed, the epistolary genre affords a glimpse behind the façade, allowing us to see the somewhat crude reverse side of life. The reality which private correspondence normally exposes is

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in fact much more ambivalent, if not completely contrary to our preconceived ideas: people emerge, as it were, in their dressing gowns and slippers, rather than in their formal evening suits. It is generally possible to ignore facts. It is, however, much more difficult to turn away from the artistic word, for it engages you in an intimate conversation. Private correspondence occupies an intermediate position here, as it revives biographical data and, as it were, gives voice to the plot of someone else’s life. This is especially valuable if we take into account that “normally in biographies we are told everything except precisely those things which are most important”,2 as Lev Shestov himself put it. Shestov’s correspondence with Boris Schloezer has survived only partially—it is located in the archives of the central library in Monaco, the library of the Sorbonne in Paris and private collections. Almost all of this unique material is due to be published for the first time (under the auspices of Nikita Struve’s publishing house “YMCA-Press” in Paris) in book form.3 It comprises letters which Shestov and Schloezer wrote to each other while already in emigration, from 1923 to 1938 (the year of Shestov’s death). The vast pool of names alone (Russian and foreign alike) that feature in the correspondence signifies the tremendous circle of cultural involvement associated with these two addressees. Despite their significant age difference (Shestov was fifteen years older than Schloezer) they were friends and spiritual brothers in arms. Moreover, with their warm friendliness and active care for each other, the relationship between them is reminiscent of that between father and son.

Individual Histories in a Nutshell Shestov and Schloezer met in the terrible years of post-revolutionary hardship, when they moved to Kiev from hunger-stricken Moscow. In Kiev both families found refuge in the house of Daniil Grigor’evich Balakhovsky, Shestov’s brother-in-law. Balakhovsky, who was married to Shestov’s sister Sof’ya and owned a sugar factory, had by that time emigrated with his family to the West, so the house was empty. However, it was thanks to a subsequent encounter—in Yalta, in the winter of 19191920, when both were anxiously waiting for permission to leave Russia— 2

Lev Shestov, “Tvorchestvo iz nichego” (“Creation from the Void”) in Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh, II, 186. 3 The current chapter contains translations of various excerpts from my introduction to the forthcoming Russian edition.

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that the two became real friends. Eventually both were allowed to emigrate and ended up in Paris. There their friendship not only continued to strengthen, but also developed into a productive working partnership, when Schloezer started translating Shestov’s writings into French. Shestov knew that he was lucky to have Schloezer almost invariably as his translator, for there does not exist a better translation, at least in prose, than on those occasions when the translator has a strong spiritual kinship with the author. For the same reason Shestov preferred the prefaces to his books to be written by Schloezer, despite the relative obscurity of the latter, because hardly anyone understood Shestov’s thought better than Schloezer did. Philosophizing was Shestov’s main preoccupation in life, and it is therefore important to provide an outline of his ideas and sensibilities, without which neither his correspondence with Schloezer, nor his professional activities in France can be adequately understood. Unlike his father—a self-made man who developed a small shop into a huge textile manufacturing business—Shestov preferred the world of ideas and contemplation. Born in 1866 in Kiev to a large Jewish family, Yehuda Leib—or simply Liolya—Shvartsman (the future Lev Shestov) grew up at a rich crossroads of cultures: Russian, Jewish and Western-European. After studying mathematics and then law at Moscow University, Shestov, like all young men of lofty disposition, dreamed of playing his part in the forthcoming victory of good over evil in the world. While he soon began to have doubts as to the inevitability of this victory, however, he continued to hold on to literature as to a life jacket of sorts. For him, the Russian cultural tradition was above all a source of inspiration, rather than (as one might expect) consolation. Quite decisively identifying himself with Russian culture, Shestov wrote that “our bravery is rooted in the very uncultured belief in our own strength”.4 Behind Ivan Karamazov’s threat to “return the ticket” (to the Creator) he saw, instead of an acknowledgement of a defeat, “a still not quite exhausted faith in the possibility of the ultimate victory over ‘evil’”.5 This explains in particular why the French poet Yves Bonnefoy later characterized Shestov as a witness to the hope in the meaning of existence.6 However, following Nietzsche, whose writings Shestov read with great enthusiasm, he began striving to go “beyond good and evil” to the sources of faith. 4

Lev Shestov, “Apofeoz bespochvennosti” (“Apopheosis of Groundlessness”) in Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh, II, 138. 5 Ibid. 6 See Yves Bonnefoy, “À l'impossible tenu: la liberté de Dieu et celle de l'écrivain dans la pensée de Chestov”.

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Yet, unlike Nietzsche, Shestov was preoccupied by the search not for a “superman”, but for the Supreme Being or Truth. This difference in the ethical choice of the two men was very possibly the result of a divergence in their cultural sensibilities, not to say in their literary tastes. Shestov’s taste was more sophisticated than Nietzsche’s, and he was generally more compassionate, which is why Shestov was able to see the immense despair behind Nietzsche’s horrible fantasies. It is also literature which is responsible for Shestov’s forays into philosophy, and it is to literature that Shestov’s philosophy owes its tragic essence. Indeed, his obsession with the tragedy of individual existence is above all the trait of art. And the intensity of self-expression, which is also an intrinsic feature of art, may well be responsible for the extremism of Shestov’s philosophy with its fundamental opposition of Athens and Jerusalem, of reason and faith. Behind this opposition one can discern another clear conflict, as perceived by Shestov, namely that between art and science, or even, crudely speaking (and the language of oppositions cannot be anything but crude), between mind and soul. Shestov had his own particular, almost personal, scores to settle with Mind (or Reason). For him, Ecclesiastes’s view that “an increase in knowledge means an increase in sorrow” was only made possible by Original Sin. This is because sorrow, Shestov believed, was not conceived by God as a specifically human predicament, and if Adam and Eve had not been disobedient and had left the tree of knowledge intact, then neither they, nor we would have ever found out about good and evil, and would never have known suffering. Science, however, according to Shestov, crowned the ultimate killing of God, since it replaced Him with the “miracles” of scientific and technological progress, and provided no consolation for the human soul. The task of science is, as it were, to see the wood behind the trees. The task of art might be said to be the opposite, namely to discern the trees behind the forest. What Shestov disliked about science was its tendency towards generalization, for he was interested above all in the accidental, the private and the individual, in short, everything that he associated with human life. He stood up for individual existence so passionately, as if somehow sensing—metaphysically rather than historically—the tragedy of the forthcoming twentieth century, which would devalue completely Dostoevsky’s “tear of a child” and in which, as Joseph Brodsky put it, “it is not the hero who perishes; it is the chorus”.7

7

Joseph Brodsky, “Uncommon Visage. The Nobel Lecture”, 54.

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Shestov’s tragic consciousness was shared by Boris Fedorovich Schloezer. Due to his origins, Schloezer also grew up at a cultural crossroads. His Russian-French bilingualism to a large extent determined the path he was to take through life. Like Shestov (who rejected a singing carrier for the sake of philosophy) Schloezer spurned the life of a professional musician (in his case that of a piano-player) in order to devote himself to the humanities. His world was also that of ideas—philosophical, literary and musical. In his youth Schloezer was close friends with Aleksandr Scriabin, and later on became his brother-in-law, when Scriabin left his wife and two daughters for Boris Schloezer’s younger sister Tat’yana, then eighteen. However, the destiny of this family turned out to be tragic. Scriabin died quite young from blood poisoning after being stung by a venomous insect. Out of his three children with Tat’yana only two survived—their daughters Ariadna and Marina. Their only son Yulian, who it was generally agreed had inherited his father’s musical genius, drowned in the river Dnepr when he was only eleven. Soon after that Tat’yana died from typhus in hunger-stricken Moscow, leaving behind the two teenage daughters. The tragedy of Schloezer’s life did not end there, however. In 1923, already in Paris, he attempted suicide over an extra-marital affair. However, after attempting to shoot himself in the heart Schloezer not only survived, but went on to live for almost another half-century. His oldest niece Ariadna, who was at the time the wife of the Russian-Jewish poet David Knut, was killed in 1943 by the Nazis when fighting for the Resistance. Only his youngest daughter, Marina, outlived him and his wife. Schloezer’s activities were diverse. His absolute bilingualism and profoundly cultural preoccupations ensured his role as a translator not only of texts, but also of ideas (although apparently he entrusted them more to his interlocutors than to paper, which explains, in particular, his tangible impact in the absence of tangible fame). This was commented on by the outstanding French critic Gaëtan Picon in his commemorative article on Schloezer.8 Still, Boris Schloezer was sufficiently well-known for ten writers to collectively publish a book about him twelve years after his death.9 Russian and French acquaintances alike regarded him as “one of us”. Apart from being a musical as well as literary critic and translator, he also wrote some works of fiction. Schloezer published not only numerous articles on the theory of music and literature, but also left critical studies in 8 9

Published in Le Monde, December 1969. Boris de Schloezer, Cahiers Pour un Temps.

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book form on Scriabin, Stravinsky, Gogol’ and Bach;10 he also brilliantly translated Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol’ and Shestov. In his books and papers Schloezer made a significant personal contribution to musicology and cultural studies. Having outlived Shestov by more than thirty years, Schloezer witnessed a different epoch, finally dying in Paris in 1969.

Relationships with the French: Balancing Convictions and Necessity It was Schloezer who provided Shestov access to French intellectual life. In 1921, when Shestov had just moved to Paris, and while Schloezer was already working there (as Secretary of the major journal La Revue Musicale), the influential La Nouvelle Revue Française—situated in the same building as La Revue Musicale—was preparing a special issue dedicated to the centenary of Dostoevsky’s birth. Its editor in chief Jacques Rivière asked Schloezer for advice as to a possible Russian contributor. Schloezer recommended Shestov, who accepted the offer and within four months had produced the article, entitled “Overcoming the Self-evident. On the one hundredth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky’s birth”. It was published in Russian in the leading émigré journal Sovremennye Zapiski (nos 8-10, 1921-1922), and appeared (although in significantly abridged form), with Schloezer’s preface and in his as ever immaculate translation, on February 1st, 1922 in La Nouvelle Revue Française. In the same issue there were articles on Dostoevsky by such famous French intellectuals as Jacques Rivière and André Gide. This was still an early stage in Dostoevsky criticism. Some regarded the novelist as a perverse psychological genius with a sadomasochistic interest in suffering. Others perceived him as a mystical prophet of a new religion, while still others saw in him a reactionary pillar of the Russian monarchy warning against the danger of revolutionary socialism. Gide’s interpretation of the Russian writer embraced those chaotic and irrationalist elements in Dostoevsky which many other Western critics viewed with distaste. By contrast, Shestov interpreted Dostoevsky according to his own paradigm, as a writer concealed in his negative characters, as a solitary and tormented individual, endowed with a unique, supernatural vision, but unable to communicate his divine revelations to 10

Schloezer’s books include the following: A. N. Scriabin (1923), Igor Stravinsky (1929), Nikolai Gogol’ (1932), Introduction à J.-S. Bach: essai d'esthétique musicale (1947), Problèmes de la musique moderne (with Marina Scriabina, 1959).

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the omnitude of the every-day crowd with their conventional truths. This original interpretation of the Russian novelist was immediately noted and praised by French critics. A number of favourable reviews followed, some extremely flattering. For example, Louis Raymond Lefèvre in an article which appeared in Le Radical on February 27th, 1922, called Shestov’s essay a “chef d’oeuvre”. André Gide himself sent Shestov an invitation to his own course of lectures on Dostoevsky to be given to a restricted circle. He also showed Shestov an article in Henri Barbusse’s journal Clarté where Shestov was compared to Gide.11 On the one hand, such praise was extremely valuable in practical terms, as it opened up for Shestov, then still an unknown émigré, the doors of French publishing houses, and generally gave him access to the French intellectual scene. On the other hand, however, many of these friendships and engagements turned out to be ephemeral and unreliable. Thus, when asked to write a preface to the collection of Shestov’s selected works, Gide refused on the grounds that he was too busy. The book was eventually published with no introduction.12 Benjamin Fondane, a French poet of Romanian-Jewish origin, who was Shestov’s admirer and disciple, speculates that Gide’s attitude was caused by his sympathy at the time towards the Soviet Union, which Shestov certainly did not share.13 Shestov never leant towards Bolshevik Russia and harboured no illusions in this respect. As early as 1920 he wrote a pamphlet, “What is Russian Bolshevism?”, of a very uncompromising anti-Soviet nature. However, there might be a more personal underlying reason for Gide’s refusal to assist Shestov with his publication. Benjamin Fondane recalls Shestov’s story of how he was asked by Gide to comment on the latter’s book on Dostoevsky which had just came out.14 Shestov chose to compliment its style, which the perceptive Gide understood as implicit criticism of the content, and promptly changed the subject. As a result of this episode, Shestov subsequently confided to Fondane, not without irony, that Gide was one of the most intelligent people he had ever met.15 However, several years after this exchange Gide sent Shestov his essay on Montaigne,16 which had just come out, with a charming personal inscription, and yet he refused to write the aforementioned preface when approached by Schloezer shortly afterwards. 11

Parijanine, “Les Abîmes de la Pensée Russe”. Published as Léon Chestov, Pages Choisies. 13 Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 77. 14 Gide, Dostoievsky [sic]. 15 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 77. 16 André Gide, Essai sur Montaigne. 12

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This tense, but still sufficiently polite exterior turns, rather unsurprisingly, in Shestov’s correspondence with Schloezer, into a much more direct statement on Shestov’s part with respect to Gide and other writers sympathetic to Bolshevik Russia: I knew from the newspapers that Malraux had returned a while ago, and that he, together with Gide, Erenburg17 and Vova Pozner18 is singing the Bolsheviks’ praises. From this it was easy to conclude that he wouldn’t be in favour of publishing my work on Kierkegaard in La Nouvelle Revue Française, which he is probably trying hard now to turn Bolshevik in accordance with his ideological sympathies. I guess that my note on Kierkegaard is being postponed for the same reason – as not corresponding to “the spirit of the times”, as they are probably putting it (or “to the current vogue”, as I would put it). But I was ready for this—and therefore your letter did not upset me too much; the more so that I am used to the fact that in this life one should give way to Vova Pozner, Erenburg, Gide and Malraux.19

This political underpinning of personal relationships rather expectedly coloured the life of Russian émigrés both within their own community and in their interactions with the French. As usual, the personal question facing people in such existential conditions was one of compromise, of spiritual and moral flexibility, in other words, the extent of one’s ability to tailor one’s convictions and principles to the demands of the new medium of émigré existence. The correspondence between Shestov and Schloezer in particular can be read as an illustration of the fact that while seeking to fulfil personal and professional aspirations one nevertheless had to exercise particular survival strategies. Shestov first attempted to write on Kierkegaard for La Nouvelle Revue Française in September 1933 (i.e. a year earlier than the incident with Gide described above). It is then that Shestov wrote to Schloezer asking him to contact Jean Paulhan, who had replaced Jacques Rivière as an editor of La Nouvelle Revue Française, in 17

Il’ya Erenburg (1891-1967) was a Soviet writer, journalist, poet and translator, twice awarded the Stalin prize. He was allowed to travel abroad and spent many years in Western Europe. He managed to ingratiate himself well with the Soviet regime, while at the same time preserving liberal convictions. He is therefore generally perceived as an ambiguous figure. 18 Vova (Vladimir) Pozner (1905-1992) was a poet, translator, journalist, playwright and literary critic. In the 1920s, when living in Paris and Berlin, he actively published in Russian and French periodicals. 19 Shestov’s letter to Schloezer of 03.11.1934. The story is explained in full in what follows. It also becomes clear in the sequel exactly which writings by Shestov on Kierkegaard are alluded to here.

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relation to Kierkegaard’s book Repetition which had just been translated into French by Pierre-Henri Tisseau20: I have been constantly bothered by the thought that there will be no article on Kierkegaard in [La] N.[ouvelle] R.[evue] F.[rançaise]; or if there is, it will be an unsuitable one—if you are not going to do it. So, what I’ve come up with is the idea that perhaps you could talk to Paulhan and suggest to him that because you are too busy he should ask me to write on Répétition. He will probably give me more space [than he would have given you] and I’ll try to write in the most multifaceted, tangible way. If I get 8-9 pages, that’s already something. Only this has to be done promptly. So, please act without delay.21

The result of the negotiations was that La Nouvelle Revue Française commissioned Shestov to write a book on Kierkegaard, and Paulhan was to assist with this publication. Unfortunately, however, these plans were ultimately shelved and the book which was virtually ready did not appear. Apparently Malraux played a crucial role in this refusal. At first he was enthusiastic about Shestov, and even wrote a dedication22 to the philosopher in a copy of his book La Voie royale.23 Subsequently, however (after his return from attending the Congress of Writers in the USSR, from August 11th to September 1st, 1934) he vetoed Shestov’s publication on Kierkegaard. The publishing house Grasset also refused to publish it, claiming that this was not a book for a general audience, arguing, furthermore, that it constituted a work more on Shestov than on Kierkegaard. In the end the book did appear, but with a two year delay—in July 1936—in French, under the title Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle24 (Paulhan, who had failed to publish it with La Nouvelle Revue Française—quite probably as a result of “pro-Bolshevik” pressure put upon him, chiefly by Malraux25—facilitated the publication this time). Paulhan himself was apparently quite sympathetic to Shestov, and tried to back his projects. He was a member of the “Committee of Shestov’s Friends”, organized in January 1936 on Schloezer’s initiative with the 20

This was published by Alcan in 1933. Letter of 30.09.1933. 22 The dedication reads: “I think, Monsieur, that you hardly ever have time to read novels, yet this one is one of the rare novels that is dominated by tragedy, from which you draw your philosophy, and that is why I allow myself this dedication” (our translation from the French), 132. 23 Published by Grasset in 1930. 24 Published by Vrin in 1936. 25 For further details on this see Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 24. 21

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purpose of sponsoring the translation and publication of Shestov’s book on Kierkegaard. The “Committee” was chaired by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, who was the editor in chief of La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’étranger. It is clear from the correspondence that Lévy-Bruhl had a genuinely warm and tolerant attitude towards Shestov, and was always ready to consider his works for publication, even when other doors seemed closed—and even when Lévy-Bruhl himself personally did not share Shestov’s stance. According to Fondane, Lévy-Bruhl once said: “I totally disagree with Shestov, but he is a talented person, and has the right to express his thoughts.”26 Shestov for his part admired this tolerance and generosity of spirit, which, as he noted to Fondane, “is beginning to disappear from this world”.27 In his letter to Shestov of July 17th, 1926 Lévy-Bruhl wrote: “La Revue Philosophique is happy to collaborate with you, and is honoured by your contributions. Whatever you have to offer it for publication will always be welcome.”28 Still, Shestov could never be quite sure that Lévy-Bruhl would publish his work. The complex politics of the world of French belles lettres in relation to Shestov’s unconventional (irrationalist and existentialist) philosophical views, can be illustrated by the following excerpt from his letter to Schloezer of November 3rd, 1934. Here the issue with the publication of Shestov’s book on Kierkegaard is discussed again: Now to your practical question: whether I should turn to Lévy-Bruhl asking him to assist with publishing my work on Kierkegaard. My opinion is—No. One should not abuse his good attitude towards me. When he publishes me in his Revue Philosophique, he is not accountable to anyone for this. However, when recommending me to [the publishing house] Alcan, he takes on himself responsibility for a book the contents of which he is not even familiar with. But I must say, knowing what kind of literature Alcan publishes, that this book in its very task must seem absolutely ridiculous from the point of view of Alcan’s ideology. It is difficult for me to judge how good my work is, but I am sure that even if it turns out worse in style than my other books, in its harshness it leaves them all far behind, as it hinges entirely on the struggle against the law of contradiction and attempts to subvert the most unshakable of all principles —that quod factum est, infectum esse nequit.29 Lévy-Bruhl cannot recommend this work to Alcan, and I am sure that when you have read it, 26

See ibid., 33. Ibid. 28 See Natal’ya Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 336. 29 This is a quotation from Descartes: “what has been made cannot become unmade” (Lat). 27

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Interestingly, the outcome was eventually very positive: the article appeared in 1935 under the title “Athènes et Jerusalem” in two issues of La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’étranger.32 Subsequently the title “Athens and Jerusalem” was given to Shestov’s book,33 which included the work on Gilson under the title “On medieval philosophy”. This success (together with the publication of his writings on Kierkegaard) notwithstanding, one cannot help feeling a perpetual fear of rejection on the part of Russian émigrés who attempted to penetrate French intellectual life. Nevertheless, Shestov is an example of successful cultural adaptation. In his case his continued efforts to establish himself on the foreign cultural scene eventually produced the desired result. Indeed, there were a number of other well-known French cultural figures who played a supportive role in his professional ascent. These included Paul Desjardin, Jules de Gaultier and Charles du Boss, all of whom were also members of the “Committee of Shestov’s Friends”. Du Boss was very fond of Shestov and intended to write an article on him for La Nouvelle Revue Française reviewing a number of his works. In Du Boss’s “Journal” there are numerous entries which reflect these intentions—in the volumes of 1921-1923, 1924-1925 and 1926-1927—although the article was never actually written. Another Frenchman interested in Shestov’s work was Frédéric Lefèvre, a journalist of the weekly newspaper Nouvelles Littéraires. On October 24th, 1931 he published an interview with Shestov entitled “Une heure avec Léon Chestov”, in which the latter’s main philosophical preoccupations were supposed to be explained in language accessible to a mass audience. “Two hundred and fifty thousand people will be reading this”, Lefèvre explained to Shestov, trying to adjust the level of complexity.34 “It is incredibly difficult”, Shesov later wrote to Schloezer about this interview, “to speak comprehensibly about the incomprehensible”. 30

See below for the publication details of this work. Letter to Schloezer of 03.11.1934. 32 Published in November/December 1935, and January/February 1936. 33 The full title is Athènes et Jerusalem: un essai de philosophie religieuse (editor’s note). 34 Quoted by Shestov in his letter to Schloezer of 20.10.1931. 31

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He continued: “In Lefèvre’s opinion, it came out too difficult for the readers of Nouvelles Littéraires; in my opinion, on the contrary, we were too soft —taking pity on the readers’ minds.”35 Shestov asked for Schloezer’s opinion of the publication, explaining that without him—since he was away at the time—it was immensly hard to communicate, and even with the help of his oldest daughter Tanya acting as interpreter, Schloezer’s absence was still very tangible. Schloezer’s response, which is missing from the archives, can nevertheless be deduced from Shestov’s subsequent letter to him: Of course you are right to say that in “Une heure avec” a lot is left unsaid. However, I do not think that even if you had been here, one could have said more. Lefèvre was as it is horrified by the “difficulties”, and it took me a lot of effort to force him to include in our conversation those themes which I regard as important. As it is, almost everything is incomprehensible for the “250 thousand readers” whom Lefèvre mentioned […] So, I agree that “Une heure avec” does not exhaust the content of my writings, but I think that to do it in 400 or 500 lines is absolutely impossible.36

Curiously, Lefèvre was in fact interested initially in Shestov’s literarycritical writings only, regarding him as “the best literary critc in the world”.37 However, Shestov always regarded such praise as offensive, as it missed the point of his main concerns, which were profoundly philosophical. He managed to give his conversation with Lefèvre a distinctly philosophical twist, thereby succeeding once again in rendering external circumstances conducive to his own (professional) ends. Jules de Gaultier for his part was clearly interested in Shestov’s philosophical works and assisted with various practical matters, including linguistic advice, when various classic quotations had to be reproduced in French. He also facilitated the publication of the French translation (accomplished by Shestov’s daughter Tat’yana in collaboration with Georges Bataille) of Shestov’s book of 1900 The Idea of the Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche. Philosophy and Preaching (L’idée de bien chez Tolstoï et Nietzsche. Philosophie et prédication) with the publishing house Siècle in 1925, and wrote a preface to that edition. Shestov and Gaultier maintained friendship until the end, and often visited one another. As for Paul Desjardin, he was a genuinely 35

Letter to Schloezer of 23.10.1931. Letter to Schloezer of 27.10.1931. 37 These words of Lefèvre are quoted by Shestov to Schloezer in the same letter, of 27.10.1931. 36

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enthusiastic and active promoter of cultural dialogue, and organised annual international gatherings of European intellectuals at his estate in Pontigny. These took place every August and were divided into three “decades” (tenday periods). Shestov and Schloezer were invited to these meetings alongside some other “selected” Russians, such as Nikolay Berdyaev and Ivan Bunin. Berdyaev called Desjardin one of the most wonderful Frenchmen of the age.38 Thus the arguably negative impact of Gide, Malraux et al. was counterbalanced by the efforts of various other French intellectuals. For Shestov, who—unlike Schloezer—was not a member of the editorial board of a French periodical and only had a very limited teaching load in the Russian extension of the Sorbonne, it was most important to make a name for himself in the world of French belles lettres. Indeed, his publications were for Shestov his main source of income. His slogan in emigration was “agir”—to act, to be practical, almost pragmatic, even though this was clearly against his ethos. Yet taking responsibility in his father’s business back in Kiev had prepared him for the practical challenges of a life in emigration. Also, no less importantly, people like Shestov and Schloezer, as well as a number of other Russian intellectuals, including, for instance, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, Ivan Il’in and Boris Zaitsev, had been previously exposed to life in the West, so this foreign environment was largely familiar to them. They were also relatively well off, or at least had some capital on which to build and to survive, unlike those who, like Aleksey Remizov or Gaito Gazdanov, found themselves in Europe with no means of support whatsoever. However, even with a certain head start the need to actively “sell himself”, and to make ceaseless adjustments was for Shestov tangible and depressing. He wrote to Schloezer: in the old days, when there was no external hardship and one did not need to rush “to sell the manuscript”, I was so indifferent to the fate of my books. Now, of course, circumstances have changed—now one has to be interested in “success”. However, even now, thank God, there is no need to sell “inspiration”, hence one does not have to estimate it…39

This need to promote oneself, to compromise, and to be practical constantly nagged Shestov. First in his youth, when he worked in his father’s business and hated it, then in emigration in Paris where he had to survive and support his family, thus balancing his own creative work with 38 39

See Nikolay Berdyaev, Samopoznanie, 292. Letter to Schloezer of 01.12.1927.

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the need for practical action. He always cherished the final words of Pushkin’s poem “The Poet and the Mob” (“Poet i tolpa”) about the poet’s vocation being in sweet sounds and prayers rather than earthly matters, projecting these sentiments onto his own life, full of mundane worries that hindered true creativity. In his aphorism on Pushkin of 1915, “Motionless Stars”, Shestov emphasized that real artists work at night precisely because during the day they have to be involved in everyday hassles. The need to strike a balance between these two extremes was acutely felt by Shestov throughout his life. Clearly, he was tormented by the need for compromise, even though he fully appreciated its positive practical effect. In 1927 Jacques Shiffrin who was in charge of the publishing house Pléiade decided to publish the full collection of Shestov’s works. Various people invested in this enterprise (principally Max Eitingon—a psychiatrist, close friend of Freud and founder of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Berlin, who was an admirer of Shestov’s writings). However, it was ultimately very unsuccessful—the books sold slowly and the profit did not justify the investment. It had a very depressing impact on Shestov, as he felt guilty and personally responsible for this failure. In a letter to Schloezer at the time he explained the reason for his failure to become an intrinsic part of French intellectual life as follows: I am more and more convinced that the French have completely changed towards me. I don’t know what the reason is: one most dislikes people who cannot be inscribed into a particular movement. If I were either a Catholic or Russian Orthodox, or socialist or Zionist, my life would have been undoubtedly easier; if I were a ‘phenomenologist’ or ‘Kant-follower’— even easier. But as I do not belong to any movement, everybody is trying to drown me. Before, when I could exist without the help of others it did not matter to me. But now, with all the responsibilities, hassles and disappointments, I can’t carry on working. And this, you understand, poisons my existence…40

Shestov’s Relationships with his Fellow Russians: Russia’s Place in the Exilic Imagination Thus, clearly, Shestov was balancing between his creative ambitions and the practical demands of exilic reality, trying to reconcile the former to the latter. Judith Kornblatt claims that Shestov had a positive lesson to offer his fellow Russian philosophers. She believes that his influence came 40

Letter to Schloezer of 09.05.1929.

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both from his Jewish roots and from his metaphysical state of wandering. This metaphor of exile, in Kornblatt’s view, set an instructive example to Russians at the time of exodus during the years after the Bolshevik Revolution.41 However, metaphysically neither Shestov, nor the ethnically Russian philosophers around him were uprooted, since they all shared a firm cultural background which became their metaphysical motherland, while in physical exile. However, the difference between Shestov on the one hand, and his compatriots and colleagues such as Nikolay Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Aleksey Remizov, the Merezhkovskys and many others is that there was no place in his philosophy for the idea of a “lost” Russia. This is not to say that he was indifferent to his country’s destiny—as we have already mentioned, he even wrote an essay on the nature of Russian Bolshevism—but his concerns were not centred around the tortured motherland (although he kept his finger on the pulse and corresponded with close friends back there, such as Mikhail Gershenzon). However, even this is not entirely precise: it would be more accurate to say that for many Russian thinkers Russia and its brutal destiny remained a perpetual source of pain, an open wound as it were, while for Shestov and apparently Schloezer (certainly judging by their correspondence) this was not something that preoccupied them on an everyday basis. In their consciousness, it seems, a more rational approach prevailed (and this despite Shestov’s passionately irrational stance in philosophy)—one of not crying over spilled milk, of living in the present and trying to find a suitable niche in their new country of (permanent) residence without compromising their inner vocation. Shestov never forgot about Russia, nor dismissed it, but he rather placed it in the global context. Thus just months before his death in the threatening political situation of 1938 Shestov wrote to Schloezer: What was and is happening in Russia, where people are given into the hands of Stalins and Yezhovs! Millions, even tens of millions of people— and amongst them countless numbers of children—were and still are perishing from hunger, cold and executions. The same thing goes on in China; and closer at hand—in Spain, and then in Germany and Austria.42

From early on Shestov mentally cut himself off from the new— Soviet—state: “I can’t imagine how people live in Soviet Russia. […] It seems to me that if I had stayed I would have been dead long ago”, he 41

See Kornblatt, “The Apotheosis of Exile: Jews and the Russian Religious Renaissance (The Case of Lev Shestov)”. 42 Letter to Schloezer of 11.09.1938.

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wrote in a private letter of 1925.43 Similarly, Schloezer (like many other Russian émigrés) did not consider Soviet Russians abroad as his compatriots. Writing from a sanatorium, he complained about the other guests with whom he had nothing to talk about, and added with clear disgust: “There was a Russian couple here, but they turned out to be Soviet.”44 Furthermore, Shestov, who deep inside never abandoned his Jewish roots, was contemplating a visit to Palestine, the Holy Land: “I can’t express how excited I am by this opportunity to visit Palestine. […] I am so thrilled about it that I can’t do anything at all.”45 This visit had to be postponed until 1936, when Shestov finally managed to travel there, just two years before his death. Speaking more generally, Shestov always stood out from his fellow Russian philosophers by his distinct lack of concern for social issues in his philosophical writings. In contrast to, say, his friend Berdyaev, who was part of political movements and so forth, Shestov’s interests were of a markedly supra-temporal and supra-national nature. As Czesław Miłosz put it: “Shestov wrangled not only with Spinoza as if he were his contemporary, but also with Plato, and saw the last three thousand years practically as one short moment.”46 “His antagonists”, Miłosz continues, were “numerous, for these included practically all the philosophers of the past three thousand years”.47 Schloezer to a large extent shared this stance; at least in his interactions with Shestov this was their common ground. After his essay on Bolshevism, the second (and apparently last) time when Shestov dedicated a publication to a socially burning question was his article on Nazism— “Today’s Menacing Barbarians”.48 However, even in this connection he took a broader, panoramic, view, of someone whose time frame is eternity (human history as such) and whose place is not confined to a particular country, or habitat of an ethnic group. The following excerpt from his letter to Schloezer exemplifies this point: Perhaps it is strange, but when I read in the newspapers about contemporary issues, my thoughts involuntarily drift from the horrors of 43

Letter of 27.08.1925 to his sister Liza and her husband Lev Mandel’berg, who had just moved to Palestine. Cited in Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 323. 44 Schloezer’s letter to Shestov of 23.10.1927. 45 Letter to Liza and Lev Mandel’berg of 08.10.1925. Cited in Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 324. 46 Czesław Miłosz, “Shestov, or the Purity of Despair”, 101. 47 Ibid. 48 Lev Shestov, “Menacing Barbarians of Today”.

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By the same token, Shestov (and apparently to a large extent Schloezer too) took part in the life of the Russian émigré community in a very selective way. Thus, he spoke at various cultural gatherings, such as the thematic debates at the meetings of the Religious-philosophical Academy or Berdyaev’s weekly Sunday “tea parties” followed by discussions at Berdyaev’s place in Clamart. He did not, however, participate in famous “societies”, such as, for instance, the Merezhkovskys’ “The Green Lamp” (“Zelenaya Lampa”) or “The Circle” (“Krug”) hosted by Il’ya Fondaminsky. The names of Russian cultural figures in exile occur in the letters largely in two instances: either as peers in whose opinions (or writings) Shestov or Schloezer or both were interested professionally, or as editors and publishers who could facilitate a publication. For that matter, Western intellectuals feature in the correspondence in the same, rather functional way. Political views, which marked a sharp divide between individuals in exile, clearly carried a significant weight in the distribution of personal sympathies—perhaps even more so amongst Russians themselves than with respect to their attitudes to the French. This is rather understandable, because people like Shestov and Schloezer, who had lost their country for political reasons, would naturally be less indulgent towards those of their 49 50

Quotation from the prophet Hosea, 13:14. Letter to Schloezer of 11.09.1938.

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compatriots who flirted with the new regime—the very regime which had forced them into eternal exile. It was easier to “forgive” foreigners for their utopian illusions than it was one’s own fellow-Russians whose naïveté (or perversity) in the face of what they all witnessed in revolutionary Russia had virtually no excuse. Thus, Shestov, upon reading D. S. Mirsky’s pro-Bolshevik publication in La Nouvelle Revue Française,51 which essentially attempted to explain the author’s intellectual evolution from the White camp to the Red, commented with disdain in his letter to Schloezer of September 14th, 1931 on the falsity of this article: You know, in my view he is simply fooling the public. He is not so stupid as to be seeking revelations from the idiot Pokrovsky!52 And he is not so ignorant as to be oblivious to the fact that ever since Chernyshevsky the Russian intelligentsia has been quite materialistic. But this will do abroad, and will be useful to the Bolsheviks, even if marginally. But they, of course, have not accepted him: in Russia he, as a Bolshevik, would be worth nothing at all—there they can manage with their own resources: Lunacharsky, Petr Kokich, Pokrovsky.

Of course, D. S. Mirsky, who was a prince by birth, had fought in the White army and taught at the University of London as a Russian émigré, eventually did make his way to the land of Bolshevism. He returned to Soviet Russia in 1932, only to be arrested in 1937 and to die in a concentration camp near Magadan two years later. Interestingly, he and Shestov were friends during their work in the newly established journal Versty in Paris. Peculiarly, while clearly of anti-Bolshevik stance himself, Shestov at the same time took part in this politically ambiguous cultural product—a journal of Eurasian orientation, which was perceived by many as ultimately pro-Soviet. However, there were only three issues in total produced annually between 1926 and 1928—and Shestov only contributed to the first one, with his article on Plotin.53 It appears that amongst the participants and editors, who included P. Suvchinsky, S. Efron, A. Remizov, M. Tsvetaeva and D. S. Mirsky, it is the latter who was the closest to Shestov, according to Shestov’s daughter Natal’ya Baranova-

51

D. S. Mirsky, “Histoire d’une Émancipation”. Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky (1868-1932) was a Soviet politician, Marxist historian, and member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1929). He was the Deputy People’s Commissar for Education under Commissar Lunacharsky. 53 “Neistovye rechi. Po povodu ekstazov Plotina”. 52

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Shestova.54 Mirsky valued Shestov extremely highly and in his History of Russian Literature (1926-1927) he dedicated three pages to Shestov, and truly admired his literary style, calling it “the tidiest, the most elegant, the most concentrated—in short, the most classical prose—in the whole of modern Russian literature”.55 The relationship between them was therefore much more complex than that determined by a simple political divide. Another interesting case of concealed ambivalence is that of Shestov’s relationship with Edmund Husserl. They were philosophical opponents and at the same time close friends, respecting each other’s convictions and dedication to the cause of “truth-seeking”. While Shestov was one of the first to introduce Husserl to the French, Husserl introduced Shestov to the writings of Kierkegaard, in whom Shestov found his spiritual twin. When Husserl died in 1938, Shestov (who was already very weak and himself had just months to live) wrote an obituary to Husserl, entitled “In memory of a great philosopher”.56 Yet, during their encounter in 1930 (when Nazism was already a flourishing force in Germany) Husserl quite consciously distanced himself from the Jews, saying that he was German and had left the Jewish community long ago, while Shestov in his eyes was Russian rather than Jewish. This prompted Shestov’s indignant remark in conversation with Aaron Shteinberg, who documented it in his memoirs: “I suddenly felt that I was losing my respect for him.”57 Perhaps a more subtle case, where political convictions are mixed with philosophical tastes and personal sympathies, is Shestov’s attitude towards Merezhkovsky. It also deserves attention because it demonstrates the multi-dimensional character of émigrés’ relationships, where personal opinions often had to be separated from public behaviour on the grounds of common goals and difficulties, but did not necessarily come in the way of professional judgements. Of course, Merezhkovsky’s general stance was radically anti-Bolshevik, even stretching eventually as far as Nazism in the search for a force strong enough to eliminate Bolshevism. He refused to support the European campaign to help the famine sufferers in the Volga region of Soviet Russia because he saw in it tacit support for the new regime. With all their being Merezhkovsky and Gippius opposed the Soviet regime which had deprived them of their Motherland. As Nina Berberova wrote in her book The Italics are Mine (Kursiv moi), Merezhkovsky’s world “was based on political intolerance towards the 54

See Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 332. D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature, 426. 56 The article was published posthumously in Russkie Zapiski, nos. 12-13 (December 1938-March 1939). 57 Aaron Shteinberg, Druz’ya moikh rannikh let (1911-1928), 259. 55

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October Revolution, and all the rest was unessential… Everything was subjugated to one feeling—that of the loss of Russia, of the threat it now represented to the world, of the bitterness of exile…”58 Merezhkovsky, undoubtedly, is a controversial figure, and was largely disliked by the émigré community primarily for his difficult character, perceived by many as unkind, arrogant, rational, almost inhuman. Yet, his cultural importance and influence were undeniable. Shestov had a complicated relationship with the man: at first Shestov wrote a review for Diaghilev’s Mir Iskusstva of Merezhkovsky’s first volume of Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on Diaghilev’s request. This review was published in the journal under the title “Merezhkovsky’s book Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky” (1901, nos. 8-9). However, later on Diaghilev asked for another review— of the second volume—which appeared in Mir Iskusstva of 1903 (nos. 12), and subsequently formed part of Shestov’s book The Apotheosis of Groundlessness (Apofeoz bespochvennosti) under the title “The Power of Ideas”. While the first review was positive, focusing on the good points of the work, the second was much more critical. What irritated Shestov was the way Merezhkovsky “put God in every phrase”, and spoke of him “in a loud voice, with screams and anger”.59 Shestov’s criticism produced a hysterical reaction from Merezhkovsky, who burst into the journal’s Review office and provoked a scandal. However, when mentioning this to Fondane, Shestov essentially insinuated that when in exile one should put one’s prejudices aside because everybody is trying to survive and succeed, and criticism, even if constructive and well-meant, can still damage someone’s career. Hence he did not include his second (negative) review of Merezhkovsky’s work in the French translation of his Apotheosis of Groundlessness. “What for?”, Shestov said to Fondane, “After all we are just two Russian writers in exile. It might have caused him some problems, who knows?”60 Shestov was quite consistent in this attitude: thus, in his letter of April 5th, 1923 to his brother-in-law German Lovtsky, who often featured as a literary and musical critic and frequently wrote reviews on the latest publications of Russian literature in exile, Shestov explicitly asks, “please, for God’s sake, do not be harsh on Merezhkovsky”.61 It is worth mentioning 58

Nina Berberova, Kursiv moi, 280. See Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 89. 60 Ibid., 90. 61 In this letter Shestov advises Lovtsky to review the first issue of the new journal Okno (which is mentioned in the next paragraph of the current chapter, in connection with Schloezer’s reaction to Merezhkovsky’s entry). For Shestov’s letter see Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 249-50. 59

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that despite their previous quarrel back in Russia, in Shestov’s early days in Paris in 1921 he had warm and friendly relations with Merezhkovsky. Furthermore, at the time, both Merezhkovsky and Gippius reacted with high praise to Shestov’s public talks and publications in exile.62 Shestov, for his part, was also often impressed by Merezhkovsky’s ideas.63 Yet, their views parted drastically and warmth turned into freezing coldness, when Merezhkovsky directed his sympathies towards Fascism. This, however, was the case practically with every Russian emigré—no-one could forgive Merezhkovsky’s siding with Hitler and Mussolini. When the philosopher died in Paris in 1941, nobody attended his funeral. Nevertheless, it is clear from their letters that prior to Merezhkovsky’s political shift both Shestov and Schloezer were capable of an objective assessment of his talents as well as his shortcomings. Thus Schloezer wrote to Shestov on Merezhkovsky’s entry in the first issue of the journal Okno which came out in May of 1923:64 “I’ve just started reading Merezhkovsky: some remarks are delightful and his language is very expressive. But as soon as he starts theorizing, one can hear the creaking of mechanical scissors—one, two three. One out of three… Unbearable.”65 This note squares up neatly with a plenitude of similar remarks about Merezhkovsky: “squeamish, rational, unkind”, wrote Aleksandr Blok about Merezhkovsky’s historical novel Alexander I (Aleksandr I, 19111913), but at the same time “its beauty, in places astonishing, excites”.66 In exile, as Aleksey Zverev notes, Merezhkovsky’s “propensity for dry 62

See, for instance, an excerpt from Gippius’s letter to Shestov of 05.05.1921, cited in Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 211-12. 63 Thus, for example, in his letter of 31.05.1921 to Fanya and German Lovtsky, Shestov wrote about the debates following his philosophical talk “A thousand and one nights”—given at the gathering organised by the popular émigré newspaper Poslednie Novosti—that the best speaker in the debates was Merezhkovsky, and that the beginning of his speech directly related to Shestov’s talk was “superb” (see Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 217). 64 The three-monthly literary journal was organised by the Tsetlins (Maria Samoilovna and Mikhail Osipovich (pen-name Amari)), prominent cultural figures in exile. The authors of the first issue of Okno (there were only three issues in total, all of which came out in 1923, after which the journal ceased to exist) included Bunin, Bal’mont, Remizov, Kuprin, Zaitsev, Shestov and Merezhkovsky. The latter published there the beginning of his work “The Mystery of the Three” (“Taina trekh”) on the religion of ancient Egypt under the title “Egypt-Oziris” (“Egipet-Oziris”). 65 Letter of 27.04.1923. 66 Aleksandr Blok, Diary Entry of October 23rd, 1911 in Sobranie sochinenii, V, 148.

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theoretical constructions significantly increased”.67 He was perceived as too rational, cold and basically devoid of life, of any human feeling. Curiously, the negative aspects of this reception—specifically of Merezhkovsky’s dry philosophizing, as opposed to the positive elements of the beauty in his style—recall the views on Shestov expressed by D.H. Lawrence (although this might be more a characterization of Lawrence than of Shestov). The English writer felt constantly irritated by Shestov’s persistent references to philosophy and philosophers, metaphysics, positivism, etc., as he confessed to Samuel Kotelyansky, with whom he was then translating Shestov’s Apotheosis of Groundlessness into English.68 At the same time he found Shestov’s attitude and irony amusing, and liked his habit of “‘flying in the face of Reason’ like a cross hen”.69

Existential Philosophy, Spiritual Kinship and the Semiotics of Emigré Behaviour Clearly, for Merezhkovsky, just as for Shestov, philosophy was higher than literature or in other words, ethics dominated aesthetics.70 “Above all there is music, and the rest is literature”, young Shestov liked to repeat in French before he discovered the “greatest music”—using Plato’s terminology—philosophy.71 Many years later, already an established writer, Shestov told Fondane to steer away from any kind of literariness, with its ornate style and aesthetic concerns, when writing a philosophical paper. As he put it: “It is necessary to take eloquence and break its neck.”72 Similarly for Merezhkovsky, his philosophical constructions, his theories of new religion and visions of the future were more important than literature per se. That is why the poet Vladislav Khodasevich and his 67

Aleksey Zverev, Povsednevnaya zhizn’ russkogo literaturnogo Parizha, 19201940, 119. 68 The book appeared in 1920, published by Martin Secker, under the title All Things are Possible, with Lawrence’s preface and the name of S. Kotelyansky as the sole translator. 69 George J. Zytaruk, The Quest for Rananim: D H Lawrence’s Letters to S. S. Koteliansky, 1914- 1930, 164, 168 (Lawrence’s of August 2nd and 29th, 1919 respectively). 70 However, in the case of Shestov at least, the reality is more complex, as I have written elsewhere: “The Treatment of Aesthetics in Lev Shestov’s Search for God”. 71 See Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 15. 72 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 146.

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“school” soon stopped attending the gatherings of the Merezhkovskys’ “Green Lamp”. “One good poem”, Khodasevich wrote to Mark (Mordukh) Vishnyak, editor of the leading Russian émigré journal Sovremennye Zapiski in the spring of 1928, “is more necessary and more pleasing to God than 365 (or 366) meetings of ‘The Green Lamp’”.73 Still, literature, which served as a gateway to philosophy for Shestov and organically permeated that very philosophy, was an intrinsic component of Shestov’s sensibility. And yet, Berdyaev was absolutely right to say that Shestov philosophized with all his being, and philosophy for him was a matter of life and death.74 This was sensed unmistakably by Benjamin Fondane when he wrote to Shestov on “how difficult it is to follow in your footsteps because, using your own words, in order to do that one has to live through one’s own inner trauma, one’s spiritual disaster”. Fondane added: “Who would want to wish upon himself such a disaster only for the sake of one’s love for the truth? Who would agree to become his disciple?”75 Shestov was astonished by such perceptiveness and replied: “I am used to people writing to me about my talent, about my penetrating understanding of Dostoevsky, about my style... And now, probably for the first time, someone has become interested in the question per se.”76 This type of philosophizing, where one’s personal experience, one’s individual attempts to overcome the tragedy of existence serve as the principal ground for contemplation, is what David Gascoyne called a truly existential philosophy as opposed to “the post-experimental intellectual exploitation of the experience of existing”, known as Sartrean existentialism. In Gascoyne’s words, Shestov believed philosophical activity to consist in absolutely undivided truth-seeking, and this he could not reconcile with telling people they need seek no more, [...] but simply attend his classes and pay the proper fee at the end of the term. [...] To adopt the role of a teacher of this kind, would have been altogether in contradiction with the inner position, the adoption of which is a necessary prerequisite of Existential Philosophy, properly socalled.77

This is also the nature of artistic literature, which is often written, as it were, in its creator’s own blood. Both Fondane and Gascoyne spotted (not 73

The quotation from Khodasevich’s letter to Vishnyak is cited in Zverev, Povsednevnaya zhizn’ russkogo literaturnogo Parizha, 1920-1940, 98. 74 Nikolay Berdyaev, “Osnovnaya ideya filosofii L’va Shestova”, 5. 75 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, 42-43. 76 Ibid., 43. 77 David Gascoyne, “Leon Chestov”, 127, 128, 131.

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without horror) that to follow Shestov meant to enter tragic territory. Moreover, Shestov ceaselessly crusaded against his own rationalism, which, as Zenkovsky put it, “would be resurrected” in Shestov’s next book after its “solemn funeral” in his previous one.78 As Berdyaev put it, Shestov attempted to “defeat reason by the weapon and on the territory of that very reason”,79 while for Miłosz, Shestov “paradoxically […] waged his war as an anti-rationalist using rational argument as his weapon”.80 The same vision, although independently, is expressed by Schloezer in his letter to Shestov, exemplifying his deep insights into Shestov’s philosophy: anybody who reads you or listens to you, even if in a hostile fashion, must feel that “there is something there”, that something has been revealed to you. But at the same time it is impossible to do anything with this “something”—either to accept it, or to reject it. The only thing that remains is “to adjust it”. However, you yourself, Lev Isaakovich, aren’t you preoccupied by this very thing—by trying to find a compromise with your own “vision”; look at all your works—they contain struggle and ultimately a “bad peace”. This is the tragedy of your writings, the tragedy of all your philosophical activity. When reading you, I often think about the grain which will not give fruit unless it dies. Your “vision” is fruitful only if rejected, that is to say if it is lowered, adjusted. I could not do without you, but this is precisely why I have to reject you, to adjust you to my needs. Whether you like it or not, peace will be forced upon you, and most probably by those who love you.81

Schloezer was thus very personally attuned to Shestov’s philosophical concerns. This is reinforced by his lines written in the turbulent time of his recovery after his failed suicide: I received the book Potestas Clavium with the wonderful inscription. I read and re-read it, and felt a proud joy and realization of responsibility. This morning I was re-reading the “Labyrinth”:82 I do not know whether it is because I understand it better and deeper now, or because I have become very nervous, but I could not finish it, but became full of trepidation, and nearly burst into tears.83

78

V. V. Zen’kovskii, Istoriia russkoi filosofii, II, 367. Berdyaev, “Osnovnaya ideya filosofii L’va Shestova”, 8. 80 Miłosz, 118. 81 Schloezer’s letter to Shestov of 29.11.1927. 82 The title of the aphorism (of the first chapter of the second part) from Shestov’s book Vlast’ klyuchei (Potestas Clavium). 83 Schloezer’s letter to Shestov of 12.04.1923. 79

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However, Schloezer was not Shestov’s pupil or disciple, rather he was Shestov’s ideal reader and interlocutor. It is noteworthy that like Schloezer’s, Shestov’s life too was marked by a profound personal crisis, which, apparently made him susceptible to various salvation theories of an idealist orientation. Berdyaev wrote to Shestov, not without bitterness, in 1924: “You and Schloezer, and all the people of the same spirit, rebel against anybody who acknowledges a positive meaning in life.”84 Shestov knew only too well of this spiritual kinship with Schloezer. He also genuinely believed in Schloezer’s creative potential and supported him in his creative search, realizing how the latter was always tormented by his relative lack of productivity. Schloezer nevertheless accomplished a lot, although, because of the main language of his publications, his name belongs to French culture much more than to Russian. He made a breakthrough in aesthetics by synthesizing philosophy, literature and music, and suggested a modernized and generalized approach to art, which in a sense incorporated elements of reception theory and some aspects of formalism and Symbolism. His creator-centred perception of music and ballet bears analogies with the anthropocentric tendency in classical Russian literature. Schloezer was also one of the first who recognised the historical and aesthetic meaning of the New (Second) Viennese school. His interests in music, literature and philosophy were very broad, stretching from the classical to the contemporary period. Shestov’s attempts to support Schloezer, to induce in him the feeling of self-belief are especially visible at the time of Schloezer’s unsuccessful suicide and difficult years of mental and physical recovery which followed. It is then that Shestov wrote to him: I cannot agree with you that you have already wasted your life. Of course, you could have done much more than you have done. But still you have a lot of time ahead and if you could pull yourself together, distance yourself from the life of society and focus on your true vocation, you could still catch up. The previous years did not pass without work, and inside you, you have accumulated a lot of valuable material. You only have to find a way of expressing it, and of course your age is not such that you should be afraid of work. I am even inclined to think that for those who are disturbed by the ultimate questions of existence, it is even better if life gives them some time-out. But everything has its limit. Now has come the time to use everything that life has ever put your way. And I am sure that if you start working intensely now, you will yet accomplish everything that your relatives and friends could possibly expect from you.85 84 85

See Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 286. Shestov’s letter to Schloezer of 24.12.1927.

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Shestov also tried to involve others in the efforts to lift Schloezer’s spirit immediately after his attempted suicide—thus Shestov asked German Lovtsky to write a positive review of Schloezer’s book on Scriabin.86 Schloezer was clearly very frank with Shestov; in 1923, at the time of his crisis, he called him a father figure, and tried to explain the deeply personal motives behind his suicide bid: An infinite thank you for everything you have given me, for your love and friendship. You have been like a father to me for the last two years; more than a father.87 […] I am writing this and feeling very nervous. It is better to remain silent. […] I won’t forget how I was cornered and forced into suicide, when Vera88 was pressured in such a way that she began to have doubts, to suffer, to hesitate. When I saw this, I decided to end my life. I could, of course, have tried to persuade her, to conquer her will, but I wanted an absolutely free decision on her part, instead of enforcement after which there always comes disappointment and mutual suffering. It is hard to explain it all now. I am making a big effort.89

Schloezer’s bitter and sincere lines reveal a man of dignity and honour who placed exceedingly high demands on himself. His irreproachable personal and moral values seem to belong not so much to the twentieth century as to classical nineteenth-century Russian literature, of which indisputably both Shestov and Schloezer were products. More broadly, Russian émigrés of the older generation were by and large characterized by their allegiance, at least in words, if not in actions, to the high moral values of what was perceived as “old Russia”, whose culture they were to preserve in a missionary and self-sacrificial way. Part of this code of honour was mutual help and support, especially given the often tragic circumstances of exile. In the competitive and jealous world of émigrés it was not so trivial to sustain such behaviour in practice. Yet, there were numerous examples of it, over and above various societies that existed with the purpose of providing help for different groups of Russian émigrés. Shestov clearly tried to assist his friends in various ways—recommending Bunin for a Nobel Prize (the latter asked him to write a supporting letter to Tomas Mann, which Shestov did); raising money for Remizov and Gershenzon; helping a group of Russian philosophers (such as Berdyaev, Il’in, Karsavin and Frank) to move to 86

Boris Schloezer, A. N. Scriabin. Schloezer’s letter to Shestov of 21.03.1923. 88 Vera Vladimirovna was Schloezer’s mistress. As the letters make clear, it was this affair which led to his attempted suicide. 89 Schloezer’s letter to Shestov of 9.04.1923. 87

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Paris from Berlin; trying to arrange Schloezer’s publications in English (with the English publisher who was interested in Shestov’s writings). Schloezer for his part tried to promote Shestov in the French-speaking world as much as he could, using his influence and connections, translating his works and publishing his own articles on Shestov in various influential French journals, such as Mercure de France and La Nouvelle Revue Française. Long after Shestov’s death Schloezer continued to pay tribute to his friend and colleague by writing and speaking about him on all commemorative occasions. Shestov also was amongst the very few people who assisted Marina Tsvetaeva during her years in Paris in conditions of extreme hardship. In his letter of June 4th, 1927 to Max Eitingon, Shestov expressed his sympathy for Tsvetaeva “towards whom everyone behaves in a hostile way”,90 as he put it. Eitingon’s cousin Sof’ya Ilinichna Liber, a member of the Parisian society “Prompt Aid”, approached Shestov, after visiting Tsvetaeva, and witnessing her dreadful living conditions, and asked him to hand over to the Russian poetess a financial donation of 1000 francs. She felt too shy to offer the money herself, but Shestov was only too happy to oblige. Tsvetaeva admired Shestov’s writings, and called him “my greatest human treasure here in Paris”. The proximity between them, in fact, runs much deeper than the surface, for Tsvetaeva, as I argue elsewhere, can be regarded as Shestov’s philosophical alter-ego.91 A great number of Russian émigré writers, including Tsvetaeva and Shestov, tried to live off their publications, but the situation with publishing—both in Russian émigré outlets and leading French journals— was part of the difficult exilic survival. The competition of old and new émigré authors, with different degrees of talent, different political views, financial means and personal circumstances was expectedly tough—not only within the world of literature, but in various other fields of professional activity. The following lines from Shestov’s letters to German Lovtsky and his wife Fan’ya (Shestov’s sister) of Shestov’s early days in Paris illustrate this far from idyllic reality of a new émigré: Life here is immensely difficult, and one might achieve something only with luck. […] Here everything is against us—but we have to fight, it’s the only way… […] Everywhere I am met with a warm welcome and promises, but then nothing ever happens. The only hope is that if I live here and try really hard, then maybe after a while I’ll get somewhere.

90 91

See Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 346. “Poperek miroporiadka: Lev Shestov, Marina Tsvetaeva i Venedikt Erofeev”.

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Shestov comments further on the situation with book publishing: “Everyone is preoccupied with practical day-to-day matters, and demand for literature and philosophy is very low.”92 Subsequently—concerning the so-called “Russian extension” of the Sorbonne, when teaching hours were allocated to various Russian émigré professors—Shestov writes: “now the question is whether I’ll be selected for a lectureship and how many hours I will get.”93 Eight days later he writes: “Things are looking bad: hard luck with the Institute. I’ve been surpassed, not invited to the organizing Committee (where everyone else has been invited), and then they decided to give me just one hour a week, while others got 2, 3 and 4!”94 Eventually, however, he was indeed given a lectureship, with a salary of four thousand francs a year, “because eleven people were selected”.95 Shestov’s attitude to these problems is summarized in another letter: “For me it is essential not to be morally burdened. If only you knew what has been happening here because of the historical Institute! […] whereas tidying up the flat or cleaning my clothes is nothing in comparison.”96 Despite the success of his article on Dostoevsky in La Nouvelle Revue Française “still no-one wants to help with publishing my books either in Russian or in French. And what spoils my days is not the absence of a house-maid and femme de ménage, but the fact that I have to waste all my energy and time on petty struggles”.97 Similar descriptions were given by Shestov with respect to Schloezer in those early days in Paris: “Schloezer is running around days and nights—how he copes I have no idea.”98

Cultural Continuity Nevertheless, Shestov made it in the end. An integral part of the Russian Silver Age, and of Russian culture abroad, he also left his mark on the world of French literature and philosophy. Unlike the bilingual Schloezer, however, Shestov never became “one of their own” for the French, despite all the respect he enjoyed on the part of French intellectuals. One possible reason for this lies in Shestov’s philosophy being too different, too original to enable him to merge painlessly with any surrounding cultural milieu and to secure for himself the tranquillity 92

Letter of 12.05.1921, cited in Baranova-Shestova, Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, I, 212-14. Letter of 14.01.1922, cited in Ibid., 229 94 Letter of 22.01.1921, cited in Ibid., 229-30 95 Letter of 23.02.1921, cited in Ibid., 231. 96 Letter of 15.03.1921, cited in Ibid., 232. 97 Letter of 22.03.1922, cited in Ibid., 233. 98 Letter of 12.05.1921, cited in Ibid., 214. 93

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necessary for focused mental activity. Equally, in the history of Russian philosophical thought Shestov remained a solitary figure; hence the issue was not language, but rather his mentality. For that matter Shestov did not become part of any cultural medium, in the sense of an elitist club. This is perhaps due to the extremism of his philosophy. It could be argued, for example, that making comments such as “Socrates is dear to me, but dearer still is truth” is not the best way to keep one’s friends. This is applicable to Shestov, although more figuratively than literally. He was widely loved by his friends and even by his philosophical opponents, but he had very few followers and spiritual twins. His human tolerance surprisingly co-existed with a passionate stubbornness characteristic of the seeker of Truth. And in this capacity both he and Schloezer undoubtedly belong to world culture, understood as a club not of people, but of spiritual achievement. Yet Shestov remained a romantic, for only romantics can unite sincerity with an extreme outlook on life. He believed that in order to break away from the power of omnipotent necessity “one has to dare, no matter what, to accept the great and ultimate struggle, to go forward without planning and without asking what awaits us”. 99 However, believing himself to be fighting against Reason, Shestov was in fact eagerly tracing its boundaries, as if defending art from the encroachment of science. To paraphrase Fazil’ Iskander, writing almost half a century after Shestov’s death: “Mind without soul is not intelligent; the soul, however, is intelligent even without mind.”100 Iskander’s words suggest that the efforts of Shestov and Schloezer to be the guardians of the sacred flame were not in vain—as Shestov himself wrote to Schloezer in 1927: “An inextinguishable candle is burning, lit by someone in some distant past; it is burning and can never be put out— voluntary wanderers are adding oil to it in a way invisible to others.”101 As a result, Joseph Brodsky’s contention that “the status of the modern world vis-à-vis civilization […] can be defined as widowhood”102 has not been borne out—precisely because, whether in the motherland or outside it, one will always find guardians of the cultural hearth, those who refuse to give up, who never consider surrendering as an option. And in their private letters, just as in their published works, they have passed the baton on to us. 99

Lev Shestov, “Ob istochnikakh metafizicheskikh istin (Skovannyi Parmenid)”, 101. 100 The original quotation reads: “Mind without morality is not intelligent, but morality is intelligent even without mind” (Iskander, “Ponemnogu o mnogom”). 101 Letter of 01.12.1927. 102 See Joseph Brodsky, “Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980)”, 154.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Berberova, Nina. Kursiv moi. Munich: Fink, 1972. Blok, Aleksandr. Sobranie sochinenii. Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1980-1983, V (1982). Brodsky, Joseph. “Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980).” In Less Than One. Selected Essays, 145-56. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987. [de] Schloezer, Boris. A. N. Scriabin. Berlin: Grani, 1923. —. Igor Stravinsky. Paris: Aveline, 1929. —. Nikolai Gogol’. Paris: Libr. Plon, 1932. —. Introduction à J.-S. Bach: essai d'esthétique musicale. Paris: Gallimard, 1947. —. Problèmes de la musique moderne (with Marina Scriabina). Paris: Editions de minuit, 1959. —. Cahiers Pour un Temps. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou / Pandora Editions, 1981. Iskander, Fazil’. “Ponemnogu o mnogom.” Novyi Mir, no. 10 (2000): 11648. Malraux, André. La Voie Royale. Paris: Grasset, 1930. Shestov, Lev. “O knige Merezhkovskogo Lev Tolstoy i Dostoevsky” [review of the first volume of Merezhkovsky’s Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky]. Mir Iskusstva, nos. 8-9 (1901): 132-36. —. “Vlast’ idei (Po povodu knigi D. M. Merezhkovskogo Lev Tolstoy i Dostoevsky)” [review of the second volume of Merezhkovsky’s Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky]. Mir Iskusstva, nos. 1-2 (1903): 77-96. —. [Leo Shestov], All Things Are Possible, preface by D. H. Lawrence. London: Martin Secker, 1920. —. “Preodolenie samoochevidnostei (K 100-letiyu so dny rozhdeniya F. M. Dostoevskogo).” Sovremennye Zapiski, (1921-1922), no. 8, 132-78; no. 9, 190-215; no. 10, 128-46. —. Vlast’ klyuchei (Potestas Clavium). Berlin: Skify, 1923. —. [Léon Chestov] L’idée de bien chez Tolstoï et Nietzsche. Philosophie et predication. Paris: Siècle, 1925. —. “Neistovye rechi. Ob ekstazakh Plotina.” Versty, no. 1 (July 1926): 87118. —. [Léon Chestov] Pages Choisies. Paris: Gallimard, 1931. —. [Leo Shestov] “Menacing Barbarians of Today”, The Aryan Path, no. 8 (August 1934): 488-95.

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—. “Athènes et Jerusalem.” La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, nos. 11-12 (November/December 1935): 305-49; and nos. 1-2 (January/February 1936): 32-79. —. [Léon Chestov] Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. Paris: Vrin, 1936. —. “Pamyati velikogo filosofa. Edmund Gusserl’”, Russkie Zapiski, nos. 12-13 (December 1938-March 1939): 126-45, 107-16. —. [Léon Chestov] Athènes et Jerusalem: un essai de philosophie religieuse. Paris: Vrin, 1938 [reprint: Paris, Flammarion, 1967]. —. “Apofeoz bespochvennosti” and “Tvorchestvo iz nichego.” In Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh, II, 4-178 and II, 184-2124. Tomsk: Vodolei, 1996. —. “Ob istochnikakh metafizicheskikh istin (Skovannyi Parmenid).” In Afiny i Ierusalim, 26-102. Moscow: Folio, 2001. —. Unpublished Correspondence of Lev Shestov and Boris Schloezer, edited by Olga Tabachnikova, fully annotated edition, forthcoming.

Secondary Sources Baranova-Shestova, Natal’ya. Zhizn’ L’va Shestova, 2 vols. Paris: La Presse Libre, 1983. Berdyaev, Nikolay, “Osnovnaya ideya filosofii L’va Shestova.” In Lev Shestov, Umozrenie i Otkrovenie, 5-9. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1964. —. Samopoznanie. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1949. Bonnefoy, Yves. “À l'impossible tenu: la liberté de Dieu et celle de l'écrivain dans la pensée de Chestov.” In Léon Chestov, un philosophe pas comme les autres? [“Cahiers de l'émigration russe”, 3], 13-17. Paris: Institut d'études slaves, 1996. Brodsky, Joseph. “Uncommon Visage. The Nobel Lecture”, translated by Barry Rubin. In On Grief and Reason. Selected Essays, 44-58. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997. Fondane, Benjamin. Rencontres avec Léon Chestov. Paris: Plasma, 1982. Gascoyne, David. “Leon Chestov” in Death of an Explorer, 125-46. London: The Enitharmon Press, 1980. Gide, Andrei. Dostoievsky. Paris: Plon, 1923. —. Essai sur Montaigne. Paris: Schiffrin/Pléiade, 1929. Kierkegaard, S. La Répétition, translated by P.-H. Tisseau. Paris: Alcan, 1933. Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch. “The Apotheosis of Exile: Jews and the Russian Religious Renaissance (The Case of Lev Shestov).”

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Symposium. A Quarterly Journal In Modern Literatures, 57, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 127-36. Miłosz, Czesław. “Shestov, or the Purity of Despair.” In Emperor of the Earth. Modes of Eccentric Vision, 99-119. Berkeley-Los AngelesLondon: University of California Press, 1977. Mirsky, D. S. “Histoire d’une Émancipation.” Nouvelle Revue Française, no. 216 (September 1931): 384-97. —. A History of Russian Literature. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1964. Parijanine [no initial]. “Les Abîmes de la Pensée Russe”, Clarté, no. 9, 15.03.1922. Picon, Gaëtan. [commemorative article on Schloezer]. Le Monde, December 1969. Shteinberg, Aaron. Druz’ya moikh rannikh let (1911-1928). Paris: Sintaksis, 1991. Tabachnikova, Olga, “The Treatment of Aesthetics in Lev Shestov’s Search for God.” In Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity, edited by Wil van der Bercken and Jonathan Sutton [“Eastern Christian Studies”, 6], 179-95. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2005. —. “Poperek miroporiadka: Lev Shestov, Marina Tsvetaeva i Venedikt Erofeev”, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 26 (Fall 2008). [accessible at: http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/26/tabachnikova26.shtml] Zen’kovsky, V. V. Istoriya russkoi filosofii, 2 vols. Rostov-on-Don: Feniks, 1999 [reprint of the first edition: Paris: YMCA Press, 1948.] Zverev, Aleksei. Povsednevnaya zhizn’ russkogo literaturnogo Parizha, 1920-1940. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2003. Zytaruk, George J. The Quest for Rananim: D H Lawrence’s Letters to S. S. Koteliansky, 1914-1930. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1970.

CONTRIBUTORS

Rodolphe Baudin holds a PhD in Slavic Studies from the Sorbonne, and currently teaches Russian literature at the University of Strasbourg. His research focuses on eighteenth-century Russian fiction, and he is currently completing a book on Nikolay Karamzin's stay in Strasbourg. He has published extensively on Aleksandr Radishchev's work, and is shortly to begin writing a book on Radishchev’s letters in exile. His research interests also include Russian epistolary culture, a topic on which he has published two books (Exil et épistolaire, Clermont-Ferrand, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2007 and L'épistolaire en Russie, Paris, Institut d’Etudes slaves, 2009). In 2006, he was Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma. Until recently, Danièle Beaune-Gray was Senior Lecturer at the University of Provence I, where she taught Russian history and culture. She is a specialist on Russian emigration in Paris and its origins in prerevolutionary Russian thought. Her publications include: G.P. Fedotov, Ce qui demeure..., L'enlèvement du Général Koutiepoff, and K.N. Leontiev, Ecrits essentiels suvis du Pigeon égyptien (as editor). She has published articles on K.N. Leontiev, Klyuchevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov and Russian emigration. She is currently preparing a study of Grevs (1860-1941). Bertrand Cardin is Professor and Head of the Irish Studies research group at the University of Caen, France. He has written numerous articles on contemporary Irish novelists and short-story writers and published two books on Irish literature: Miroirs de la filiation. Parcours dans huit romans irlandais contemporains (Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2005), and Lectures d'un texte étoilé: “Corée” de John McGahern (L'Harmattan, Paris, 2009). He has also co-edited a book on the Famine in Irish literature: Irlande, Ecritures et réécritures de la Famine (Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2007). J. Douglas Clayton is Professor of Russian at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Professor Clayton’s research interests include the poetry of Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian modernist theatre, the plays and prose of Anton Chekhov and Franco-Russian cultural relations. His publications

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include: Ice and Flame: Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1985); Pierrot in Petrograd: Commedia dell'arte/Balagan in Twentieth-Century Russian Theatre and Drama (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994); and Dimitry's Shade: a Reading of Alexander Pushkin's Boris Godunov (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004). David Gillespie is Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Bath. His books include: Russian Cinema, Longman, London, 2003; The Life and Work of Fedor Abramov (ed. and trans.), Northwestern UP, Evanston, Ill., 1997; and Iurii Trifonov: Unity through Time, CUP, 1992 (reprinted 2006). Maya Gubina is a librarian based at the Bibliothèque Universitaire des Langues et Civilisation (BULAC) in Paris. She belongs to two research groups, the “Centre des Recherches sur la Littérature de Voyages” at the Sorbonne in Paris, and “Circulation et transposition des concepts entre Occident et Russie”, a laboratory run under the aegis of the Institut Européen Est-Ouest at the École Normale in Lyon. She has published extensively on eighteenth and nineteenth-century Russian history, and in particular on the representation of otherness in historical documents (both public and private). Irina Kantarbaeva-Bill teaches Russian Imperial History at the University of Toulouse. The subject of her PhD thesis was British travelogues about Muslim Central Asia during the Russian Conquest. Her current research focuses on colonialism and orientalism in Russian culture. Recent publications include “A Quest for Heroic Romance in the Hindu Kush Mountains: Border Rivers and Afghan Highlanders after the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842)”, published in Mountains Figured and Disfigured in the English-Speaking World, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. Susanna Soojung Lim is Assistant Professor of literature at the Robert Donald Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon (Oregon, USA). Her research focuses on Russian images of East Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in relation to Russia’s own ambiguous identity between Europe and Asia. Her publications include: “Chinese Europe: Alexander Herzen and the Russian Image of China” (Intertexts, 2006); “Between Spiritual Self and Other: Vladimir Solov’ev and the Question of East Asia” (Slavic Review, 2008); and “Whose Orient Is It?: Frigate Pallada

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Contributors

and Ivan Goncharov’s Voyage to the Far East” (Slavic and East European Journal, 2009). She is currently at work writing a book-length study of China and Japan in the Russian cultural imagination. Cécile Pichon-Bonin is a post-doctoral student at the Centre d’Études des Mondes Russe, Caucasien et Centre-européen (CERCEC) in Paris. The author of a number of articles on Soviet visual culture of the 1920s and ‘30s, she is currently working on a project looking at the aesthetics of Soviet illustrated children’s books between the two World Wars. Anna Pondopulo holds a PhD in history from Moscow University and Paris VII University. A specialist in African studies, she has recently published a book on French representations of, and colonial policies towards, West Africa. She is currently working on a history of Russia’s relations with Africa. She is also in the process of completing a biography of Paul Boyer, a linguist and a specialist of the Russian language, and former director of the School of Oriental Languages in Paris. Anna currently holds a temporary position as Russian language lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris. Graham H. Roberts teaches Russian Studies at the University of Nanterre in Paris. Author of the only existing monograph on the Soviet avant-garde literary group OBERIU, he has published on a wide range of Russian cultural phenomena, from male stereotypes in Soviet cinema to French hypermarkets in twenty-first century Moscow. His current research interests include the construction and representation of consumer culture in contemporary Russia. Galina Subbotina teaches Russian at the University of Lille III. She has a doctorate in French literature (a comparative study of Proust and Sartre) from the University of St Petersburg. Her research interests are primarily French and Russian modernist literature, and her publications in this area include a number of journal articles on writers such as Bunin, Bernanos and Bulgakov. In 2009 she published a short monograph, entitled La Conception du temps dans l’œuvre de Marcel Proust et de Jean-Paul Sartre (2009). Olga Tabachnikova is currently the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the Department of Russian Studies of the University of Bristol, England. Her research interests include twentieth-century Russian prose, poetry and philosophy. Current projects include a fully annotated edition

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of the correspondence between Lev Shestov and Boris Schloezer, a volume on Russian thinkers’ views on Chekhov (as editor), and a book on new women’s writing in Russia and East Central Europe (as co-editor with Rosalind Marsh).

INDEX

1905 Revolution, 55, 190 1917 Revolution, 7, 121, 189, 218, 224 Abbé Portal, 191 Africa, 34, 49, 55, 70 Aleinikov, Igor' and Gleb Tractor Drivers Part Two, 153 Alexander I, 4, 182 Alexander II, 14, 15, 19, 35, 50 Alexander III, 35, 142 Ancelot, François, 13 Annenkov, Ivan, 13, 15 Anthroposophy, 66 Archbishop of Canterbury, 40 Aristotle, 147 Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR), 5, 110, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 131, 132, 136 Azef, Evno, 64 Bakhrakh, Aleksandr, 96 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 87, 88 Bal’mont, Konstantin, 60, 225 Balabanov, Aleksey, 152, 159 Blind Man’s Buff, 161 I Feel No Pain, 152, 161 Balakhovskaya, Sof’ya, 7, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 205 Balakhovsky, Daniil, 193, 205 Balzac, Honoré de, 49 Baratynsky, Evgeny, 97 Barbusse, Henri, 210 Barclay-de-Tolli, General M. B., 182 Barthes, Roland, 170 Basch, Victor, 191 Bataille, Georges, 215 Beckett, Samuel, 138, 149

Belinsky, Vissarion, 11, 57 Bell, Richard, 35 Bely, Andrey, 3, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 191 One of the Mansions of the Kingdom of Shadows, 70 Petersburg, 56, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 “Stamped Culture”, 68 The Silver Dove, 55 Berberova, Nina, 203 The Italics are Mine, 189, 222 Berdyaev, Nikolay, 44, 53, 216, 218, 219, 220, 226, 227, 228, 229 Berlin, 3, 70, 71, 74, 195, 211, 217, 230 Bernstein, Henry, 196 Beskin, Osip, 125, 133 Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Aleksandr, 17, 22 Bible, the, 100 Blavatskaya, Helena, 66, 67 Blok, Aleksandr, 55, 56, 60, 66, 67, 69, 71, 224 “Scythians”, 71 Blum, Léon, 7, 189, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201 Bolshevism, 125, 210, 218, 219, 221, 222 Bonnard, Pierre, 112, 113 Bonnefoy, Yves, 206 Botticelli, Sandro, 99, 103, 104 Boyer, Paul, 197 Bradbury, Malcolm To The Hermitage, 8 Braque, Georges, 111, 112 Brik, Osip, 121

Other Voices Brodsky, Joseph, 207, 232 Brown, Clarence Anna Karenina, 158 Bubnovyi Valet (see Jack of Diamonds) Buddhism, 27, 59, 63 Bulgakov, Sergey, 218 Bunin, Ivan, 4, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 189, 216, 224, 229 “Light Breathing”, 102, 103, 104, 105 “Mitya’s Love”, 101 “The Grammar of Love”, 98, 104 The Life of Arsenev, 94, 95, 96, 100 “The Scent of Apples”, 96 Burlyuk, Vladimir, 114 Buyanov, Mikhail, 10, 22, 23, 24 Byron, George, 52 Byron, George Gordon, 12 Caillebotte, Gustave, 135 Carlyle, Thomas, 86 Catherine the Great, 8, 15, 20, 171 Central Asia, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 59 Cézanne, Paul, 113, 133 Charles X, 171 Chateaubriand, François, 49 Chekhov, Anton, 31, 141 The Cherry Orchard, 141 The Seagull, 141 China, 2, 3, 26, 29, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 218 Christ, 145 Christianity, 27, 28, 32, 34, 36, 47, 48, 51, 58, 61, 63, 67, 69, 71, 91, 145, 181 Chukhontsy, 183 Circle, the, 220 Cocteau, Jean Orpheus, 160 communism, 46 Constructivism, 114

241

Corneille, Pierre, 49 Cossacks, 21, 106, 170, 171, 172, 179 Courbet, Gustave, 132 Craig, Daniel, 152 Cromwell, Oliver, 50, 175 Cubism, 5, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 130 Cubists, 115, 116 Cubo-Futurism, 114 Cukor, George Camille, 158 Dadaism, 70 Dalai Lama, the, 40 Danilevsky, Nikolay, 44 Darwin, Charles, 45 Darwinism, 66 Dashkova, Princess, 172 de Bonald, Louis, 83 de Custine, Adolphe, 15 de Gaultier, Jules, 214, 215 de Lesseps, Ferdinand, 47 de Musset, Alfred, 49 de Vinci, Leonardo, 102 de Voguë, Eugène Melchior, 81 Decembrist uprising, 11, 13, 15 Deineka, Aleksandr, 110 Delacroix, Eugène, 132 Denis, Maurice, 112 Derain, André, 111, 112 de Schloezer, Boris (see Schloezer, Boris) Desjardin, Paul, 191, 215, 216, 217 Diaghilev, Sergey, 223 Dickens, Charles, 4, 51, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 A Tale of Two Cities, 76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92 David Copperfield, 52, 79, 80 Dombey and Son, 79 Great Expectations, 83, 84 Hard Times, 84 Little Doritt, 80, 84

242 Oliver Twist, 84 The Old Curiosity Shop, 80 The Pickwick Papers, 80 Diderot, Denis, 8, 169 Dietrich, Marlene, 152 Dmitriev, Ivan, 172 Dole, Nathan Haskell, 143 Dostoevsky, Fedor, 4, 58, 61, 71, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 204, 207, 209, 210, 226, 231 Humiliated and Insulted, 80 Netochka Nezvanova, 80 Notes from Underground, 82, 88 The Adolescent, 80 The Devils, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92 Doumergue, Gaston, 199 du Boss, Charles, 214 Dublin, 138 Dumas fils, Alexandre, 10, 16 La Dame aux Camélias, 6, 154, 157 Dumas père, Alexandre, 2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Antony, 16 From Paris to Cadiz, 16 Henry III and his Court, 11, 16 Journey to Russia, 2, 11, 14, 20 Journey to the Caucasus, 2, 11, 19, 23 Queen Margot, 10 The Alchemist, 12 The Fencing Master, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20 The Three Musketeers, 10, 16 Durand, Charles, 12, 13 Durylin, Sergey, 18, 21 Dyuzhev, Dmitry, 161 East Asia, 3, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 71, 72 Ecclesiastes, 207 Efron, Sergey, 221 Eitingon, Max, 217, 230

Index Elizabeth I, 50 England, 58 Enlightenment, the, 56, 86, 114, 180 Erenburg, Il’ya, 211 Eurasia, 2 Eurasian movement, the, 3, 53 Europe, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 27, 29, 35, 36, 45, 48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 86, 122, 190, 195, 196, 211, 216 existentialism, 7, 204, 213, 226 Expressionism, 70, 111, 113, 129, 130, 134 Falcon, Jenny, 22 Falk, Robert, 114, 117 Far East, the, 3, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 70 Fascism, 224 Fauvism, 5, 111, 118, 126, 128 Fedorov-Davydov, Aleksey, 118, 123, 130, 136 Ferrier, Ida, 13 Fielding, Henry The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great, 174 Filosofov, Dmitry, 189, 190, 192, 199 Five Year Plan (first), 112, 123, 125, 126, 135 Flaubert, Gustave, 49 Fondaminsky, Il'ya, 220 Fondane, Benjamin, 210, 213, 223, 225, 226 formalism, 228 France, 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 23, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 70, 76, 78, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 111, 114, 125, 133, 166, 175, 178, 179, 180, 183, 184, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 199, 204, 206, 230, 231 France, Anatole, 192 Frank, Semen, 229

Other Voices French Revolution, 4, 46, 77, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 132, 133, 166, 178 Friel, Brian, 141, 149 Gaidai, Leonid Diamond Arm, 160 Garbo, Greta, 152, 158 Gascoyne, David, 226 Gazdanov, Gaito, 216 Geiger, Abraham, 35 Genette, Gérard, 141, 148 George III, 50 George Sand, 49 Germany, 5, 49, 70, 218, 222 Gershenzon, Mikhail, 218, 229 Geyer, Boris, 21 Gide, André, 81, 93, 209, 210, 211, 216 Gippius, Zinaida, 7, 60, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 216, 222, 224 Dmitry Merezhkovsky, 190, 199 Living Characters, 191 “Parisian Photographs”, 191 Petersburg Diaries, 199 Godunov, Boris, 175 Gogol’, Nikolay, 11, 12, 49, 209 Golomstock, Igor’, 135 Goncharov, Andrey, 110, 111 Goncharova, Natal’ya, 111, 114, 126 Gor’ky, Maksim, 95, 198 Goths, 181 Goulding, Edmund Love, 158 Great Britain, 1, 2, 3, 32, 44, 50, 51, 53 Green Lamp, the, 220, 226 Greenaway, Peter The Tulse Luper Suitcase Part 3: From Sark to the Finish, 153 Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 169 Grigorovich, Dmitry, 17 Grosz, George, 132 Groys, Boris, 135 Grymov, Yury

243

Male Revelations, 153 Guchkov, Aleksandr, 199 Gueble, Pauline, 13, 15 Guitry, Lucien, 196 Guitry, Sasha, 196 Guizot, François, 45, 48 Harlow, Jean, 152 Hawks, Howard Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 154 Herzen, Aleksandr, 17, 52, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 70, 71 Hiller, Arthur Love Story, 158 Hitler, Adolf, 224 Home, Daniel Douglas, 16 Hugo, Victor, 4, 23, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92 Ninetythree, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90 Notre Dame de Paris, 78 “The Last Day of a Condemned Man”, 79 “The Ode of the Poet in Revolutions”, 78 “The Revolution”, 78 “The Terrible Year”, 78 “The Vendée”, 78 Huns, 181 Husserl, Edmund, 204, 222 Ignat’ev, Nikolay, 44 Il’in, Ivan, 216, 229 Impressionism, 5, 103, 111, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136 India, 29 Ingres, Jean, 49 Isabey, Eugène, 12 Iskander, Fazil, 232 Islam, 28, 35 Itinerants, 110, 121, 131 Ivanov, Vyacheslav, 60, 65 Ivanov-Razumnik, Razumnik, 69 Jack of Diamonds, 114, 117 Japan, 3, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 71

244 Jaurès, Jean, 191 Joyce, James, 138 Judaism, 35 Kandinsky, Vasily, 113 Karamzin, Nikolay, 6, 20, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175 A Knight of our Time, 172 Letters of a Russian Traveller, 166, 168, 173, 174, 175 Karatygin, Vasily, 16 Karsavin, Lev, 229 Katsman, Evgeny, 121 Khodasevich, Vladislav, 225 Khomyakov, Aleksey, 57, 58, 61 Kierkegaard, Søren, 211, 212, 213, 214, 222 Repetition, 212 Kievan Rus’, 59 Kilroy, Tom, 138, 141, 149 Knave of Diamonds (see Jack of Diamonds) Knut, David, 208 Kokich, Petr, 221 Kolosova, Aleksandra, 16 Konchalovsky, Petr, 117 Krug (see Circle, the) Kuprin, Aleksandr, 114, 224 Kushelev-Bezborodko, Count Grigory Aleksandrovich, 16, 17 Kushitism, 57 La Nouvelle Revue Française, 7, 204, 209, 211, 212, 214, 221, 230, 231 La Revue Musicale, 204, 209 La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 213, 214 Labas, Aleksandr, 110 Lamartine, Alphonse, 49 Lansdell, Henry, 2, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 Larionov, Mikhail, 111, 114 Lawrence, D. H., 225 Lazhechnikov, Ivan, 17, 22 Le Fauconnier, Henri, 111

Index Lefèvre, Frédéric, 210, 214, 215 Léger, Fernand, 113 Leibniz, Gottfried, 56 Lenin, Vladimir, 191 Lentulov, Aristark, 117 Leont’ev, Konstantin, 2, 3, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59, 61 Egyptian Dove, 51 Lermontov, Mikhail, 22, 97 Lévesque, Pierre-Charles, 174 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, 213, 214 Liber, Sof'ya, 230 Litvinova, Renata, 6, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162 Death Does Not Exist for Me, 158 Goddess, 153, 159, 160, 162 “The Green Theatre in Zemfira”, 152 “The Much Loved Rita and the Last Meeting with Her”, 157 “The Third Way”, 153 “To Possess and to Belong”, 153 Livingstone, David, 27 London, 138 Lotman, Yury, 166, 169 Louis XVI, 171 Lovtsky, German, 223, 224, 229, 230 Luchishkin, Sergey, 110 Lunacharsky, Anatoly, 114, 123, 130, 221 Lurçat, André, 111 Lyubakova, Marina Cruelty, 152, 153, 161, 162 McGahern, John, 5, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149 Amongst Women, 140 Memoir, 150 That They May Face the Rising Sun, 145, 149 The Dark, 142

Other Voices The Power of Darkness, 5, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 149 McGuinness, Frank, 141, 149, 150 Madonna, 152 Makovetsky, Sergey, 161 Malevich, Kazimir, 5, 113, 114, 118, 122 Malraux, André, 211, 212, 216 Maran, René, 70 Marxism, 191 Mashkov, Il’ya, 117 Matisse, Henri, 111, 113, 114, 126, 128, 129, 136 Maupassant, Guy de, 49 Maurois, André, 10 Merezhkovsky, Dmitry, 7, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 70, 71, 189, 190, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 203, 216, 218, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 Alexander I, 224 Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, 223 Paul I, 7, 18, 189, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197, 200 The Coming Beast, 61 “Yellow-Faced Positivists”, 60 metempsychosis, 95 Michelet, Jules, 83 Mikhalkov, Nikita, 161 Mill, Stuart, 51 Millerand, Alexandre, 193 Miłosz, Czesław, 219, 227 Milyukov, Pavel, 199 mimesis, 121, 122 Mintslova, Anna, 65, 66 Mirsky, D. S., 221, 222 History of Russian Literature, 222 Molière, 49 Molotov-Rippentrop Pact, 133 Monet, Claude, 135 Monroe, Marilyn, 152, 154, 156 Montesquieu, Baron de la Brède et de Persian Letters, 84

245

Mordyukova, Nonna, 158 Morozova, Margarita, 55, 56 Moscow, 5, 16, 19, 29, 44, 45, 110, 111, 114, 133, 135, 153, 172, 180, 181, 182, 184, 186, 189, 193, 195, 199, 205, 206, 208 Moscow Union of Soviet Artists (MOSSKh), 112, 128, 131 Muratova, Kira, 152, 155, 158, 162 Minor People, 160 Passions, 153, 154, 157 The Piano Tuner, 156, 160, 161 Three Stories, 155, 157, 159, 160 Two in One, 156, 157 Murphy, Tom, 138, 141 Mussolini, Benito, 224 mysticism, 130 Nabis, the, 111 Napoleon I, 6, 7, 46, 178, 180, 181, 183, 186 narodniks, 95 Naryshkin, Nadezhda, 16 naturalism, 146 Nazism, 219, 222 Nekrasov, Nikolay, 17 Nesselrode, Lydia, 16 New Economic Policy, 110 Nicholas I, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 62, 64, 204, 206, 207 Nihilism, 27, 29, 36 Nihilists, 30, 82, 85, 86, 87 Nosik, Boris, 23 O’Brien, Edna, 138 O’Connor, Frank, 138 O’Faolain, Sean, 138 Okunevskaya, Tat’yana, 158 Old Believers, 185 Orientalism, 56 Orlenev, Pavel, 196 Ozenfant, Amédée, 114 Palestine, 219 Panin, General Petr Ivanovich, 172 Paris, 4, 7, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 23, 24, 30, 77, 78, 81, 83, 89, 92,

246 113, 122, 126, 135, 142, 166, 180, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 216, 221, 224, 230, 231 Paris Commune, 4, 46, 48, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89 Pasternak, Leonid, 111 Paulhan, Jean, 211, 212 People’s Will, the, 84 Peredvizhniki (see Itinerants) Persia, 29 Peter III, 15, 171 Peter the Great, 24, 65 Petit, Eugène, 7, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200 Petrograd (see St Petersburg) Petrovsky, Nikolay, 39 phenomenology, 7, 204 photography, 131 Picasso, Pablo, 112, 113, 122, 132 Picon, Gaëtan, 208 Pimenov, Yury, 5, 110, 111, 112, 113, 130, 133, 134, 135 Pissarro, Camille, 135 Plato, 67, 219, 225 Plekhanov, Georgy, 122, 191 Plutarch, 174, 175 Pokrovsky, Mikhail, 221 Postimpressionism, 111, 128, 129, 131, 133, 135 Potemkin, Grigory, 15, 20 Potemkin, Pavel, 172 Pozner, Vova (Vladimir), 211 Prévost-Paradol, 48, 49 Primitivism, 118 Princess Trubetskaya, 14 Proust, Marcel, 4, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106 Albertine cycle, the, 100 In Search of Time Lost, 94, 95 In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 96, 101 “Swann in Love”, 99 Provisional Government, 199

Index Przevalsky, Nikolay, 38 Pugachev, Emelyan, 6, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 181 pugachevshchina, 167, 171, 172, 173 Pushkin, Aleksandr, 11, 22, 97 “The Poet and the Mob”, 217 Rabelais, François, 49 Racine, Jean, 49 Radishchev, Aleksandr, 166 Radzinsky, Edvard, 159 Raevsky, Nikolay, 182 realism, 130, 131, 133, 143, 146, 148 Rembrandt, 131 Remizov, Aleksey, 216, 218, 221, 224, 229 Renoir, Auguste, 113, 130, 132, 134, 135 Repin, Il’ya, 111 Return to Order, 111, 112, 122 Riffaterre, Michael, 141 Rivière, Jacques, 209, 211 Robespierre, Maximilien, 86 Rochambeau, Maréchal de, 167, 170, 174 Roginskaya, Frida, 123, 130, 137 Romantic poetry, 97 Romanticism, 97, 99, 100 Rouault, Georges, 111 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 82, 86 Rubinchik, Valery Dislike, 153 Rumyantsev, Nikolay, 182 Russian Association of Proletarian Artists (RAPKh), 123, 124, 125, 126, 130 Russian Orthodox Church, 35, 95 Saint Paul, 145 Samoilova, Tat’yana, 158 Sand, George, 11 Sarmates, 181 Savinkov, Boris, 191 Schelling, Friedrich, 97 Schloezer, Boris, 7, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213,

Other Voices 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 106 Scott, Walter, 20 Scriabin, Aleksandr, 208 Scythians, 181 Séailles, Gabriel, 97 Serov, Valentin, 111 Shakespeare, William, 51 Hamlet, 155, 156 Shaw, George Bernard, 149 Shchukin, Ivan, 191 Shegal, Grigory, 132 Shestov, Lev, 7, 192, 193, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232 Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy, 212 Potestas Clavium, 227 The Apotheosis of Groundlessness, 223, 225 The Idea of the Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche. Philosophy and Preaching, 215 Shiffrin, Jacques, 217 Shteinberg, Aaron, 222 Shvartsman, Sof’ya, 193 Siberia, 13, 15, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 38, 41 Silver Age, 7, 59, 65, 203, 231 Skovoroda, Grigory, 69 Smirnova, Lidiya, 158 Social Democrats, 191 socialism, 46, 200, 209 Socialist Realism, 5, 130, 132, 133, 134 Socialist Revolutionaries, 7, 191, 194

247

Society of Easel Painters (OST), 5, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 126, 130, 134 Sologub, Fedor The Petty Demon, 63, 64 Solov’ev, Vladimir, 3, 44, 48, 55, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70 “A Short Tale of the Antichrist”, 59, 63, 65 “China and Europe”, 59, 60 “Pan-Mongolism”, 3, 59 Speransky, Mikhail, 182 Spinoza, Baruch, 219 St Petersburg, 11, 16, 17, 20, 22, 29, 38, 48, 62, 63, 65, 68, 70, 111, 113, 119, 127, 178, 183, 184, 186, 193, 194, 195, 199 Stalin, Joseph, 21 Steiner, Rudolf, 63, 66, 67, 68 Sterenberg, David, 5, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 136 Sternberg, Lev, 32 Sterne, Laurence A Sentimental Journey, 169 Storozheva, Vera The Sky. The Aeroplane. The Girl, 159 Sukhochev, Aleksandr A Principled and Pitiful Glance, 153 Sukhorukov, Viktor, 159 Suprematism, 5, 114, 118 Suvchinsky, Petr, 221 Svetlichnaya, Svetlana, 160 Swift, Jonathan, 149 Symbolism, 228 Symbolists, 3, 55, 56, 59, 62, 63, 66, 67, 71, 95, 106, 194 Synge, John Millington Playboy of the Western World, 140 Tatlin, Vladimir, 113 Thackeray, William, 51, 52

248 Vanity Fair, 52 Theosophy, 65, 66, 67 Third Republic, the, 4, 81 Thomas, Albert, 86, 114, 136, 193, 194, 199 Tilsitt, peace treaty of, 178, 182 Todorov, Tzvetan, 178 Todorovsky, Valery The Land of the Deaf, 153 Tolstoy, Lev, 5, 19, 52, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 205 Hadji Murad, 19 The Kreutzer Sonata, 144 The Light that Shines in the Darkness, 145 The Power of Darkness, 138, 142, 143, 144, 145 Tolstoy, Yakov, 15 Tsvetaeva, Marina, 221, 230 Tugendkhold, Yakov, 123 Turgeneva, Asya, 55 Turkestan, 27, 29, 37, 39 Turkey, 45, 52 Tyshler, Aleksandr, 110 Utrillo, Maurice, 114 Uvarov, Count Sergey, 12, 13 Van Dongen, Kees, 111, 113, 126 Vasil’eva, Vera, 158 Vengerova, Zinaida, 194, 196

Index Verdi, Giuseppe La Traviata, 154, 158 Vereshchagin, Vasily, 34, 37, 182 Vernet, Horace, 12 VGIK, 153 Viennese school, the New (Second), 228 Vkhutemas, 114, 121 Vlaminck, Maurice de, 111 Voltaire, 49, 56 von Schlegel, Friedrich, 58 Voronsky, Aleksandr, 131 Vorontsov, Count Aleksandr, 172 Vuillard, Edouard, 112 West, the, 3 White, Jacob, 50 Wilder, Billy The Seven Year Itch, 154 Williams, Petr, 110, 111 Wolff, Joseph, 27 Yeats, William Butler, 138 Younghusband, Francis, 38 Zaitsev, Boris, 217, 225 Zelenaya Lampa (see Green Lamp, the) Zhukovsky, Andrey, 97 Zhukovsky, Vasily, 97 Zlobin, Vladimir, 199 Zola, Émile, 49