Posts tagged w/ russian literature

Reading for/about the Sick: «Униженные и оскорблённые» [The Humiliated and Insulted]

Posted by Josefina
Nov
17
2009

Though I am still not entirely «здорова» [healthy] yet, today I «чувствую себя гораздо лучше» [feel much better] than the days before and that’s why I finally have enough strength to write a post. I was «очень тронута» [very touched] by all of your kind wishes of health and for me to get better soon, which is why I think I’m improving as fast as I am! «Болеть» [being sick] is, as we all know, one of the most boring situations a human being can be in. When you’re sick you can’t really do anything at all, except stay in bed and try to sleep as not to let the fever get the best of you. But when you’re sick you can also «читать книгу» [read a book], because reading books are very easily done when in bed. The problem is what book to choose. My choice was the only novel written by «Фёдор Михаилович Достоевский» [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky] that I haven’t actually read before: «Униженные и оскорблённые» ["The Humiliated and Insulted"]. Before this I had already managed to read everything by Dostoevsky, some novels even twice (either both in Swedish and Russian or both in English and Russian) wrapping it up about a year ago with «Подросток» ["A Raw Youth"]. Do not let this surprise you, though - after I first read ‘Dusty’ (as I like to call him after the Allen Ginsberg poem) at the age of 18 I managed to swallow almost everything from «Бедные люди» ["Poor Folk"] to «Братья Карамазовы» ["The Brothers Karamazov"] within a year in different translations. Somehow I never got a around to «Униженные и оскорблённые» ["The Humiliated and Insulted"], even though I tried once to read it in an English translation when I was also sick - I was 19 at the time and living in Saint Petersburg. But I couldn’t do it. The book was too full of «болезнь» [sickness] for my taste back then and I put away the book for good after about a 100 pages.

Five years later I picked it up again and this time I found it relieving to read about all these «нездоровые» [unhealthy] people in Saint Petersburg back in the 1800’s. Everyone in this book «болеет» [is sick/ill]. On every page you find things like: «Я сделался больной» [I became sick], or «Она похудела» [She had lost weight], or «Он побледнел» [He had turned pale], or «Она была в бреду» [She was delirious], or «Он хворал» [He was ill/sick]. The imperfect verb «хворать» [be ill, be sick] is old and thus used in modern Russian language mostly when talking ironically of disease, but back in Dostoevsky’s days this verb wasn’t old at all (or not AS old anyway) and that’s why when he uses it then it is without any irony. Reading about other sick people when you are sick yourself is refreshing and you feel like you’re not alone at all but part of a world filled with other sick people also going through fevers and pains. But then again, I’m still in a town «в карантине» [in quarantine] and around me are thousands of other sick people so why I am feeling alone? Because you don’t really get to meet any other sick people when you are yourself sick…

 Meet my «полка с книгами Достоевского или о Достоевском» [bookshelf with books by Dostoevsky or about Dostoevsky]. It used to be ONE bookshelf, anyway. As you can see clearly on the picture above, «великий русский писатель» [the great Russian writer] has started to spread to other book shelves…

Let me tell you something about Dostoevsky. Judging from what I’ve got by him and from what I’ve read of him and about him and the fact that I’ve translated him and written a BA thesis on him and even worked «в музее Достоевского в Омске» [in the Dostoevsky Museum in Omsk], I think I know a thing or two about him. When dealing with Dostoevsky you should know this first of all: «Фёдор Михаилович жизни-то не изобразил» [Fyodor Mikhailovich didn't portray life]. If you think you’ll find «реализм» [realism] when opening up a copy of «Записки из подполья» ["Notes from Underground"] then you are sorely mistaken. Dostoevsky called what he wrote «фантастический реализм» [fantastic realism] but that was not really what he was about anyway; what he wanted to do was «найти в человеке человека» [to find in the human being a human being]. That’s why we shouldn’t get hung up on small details in his novels that are unrealistic or seem illogical. Let’s take “The Humiliated and Insulted”, for example, since I’ve just finished reading it. This book could also be called “Much Ado about Nothing” (perhaps Dostoevsky knew this title had already been used before him in world literature). In this book not a single character work as much as a day - if you don’t count the main hero when he’s writing his books - but keep going around to each other to solve problems that seem unsolvable to them, but not to the reader.

«Униженные и оскорблённые» is a novel about highly complicated «личные отношения» [personal relations] between a small group of people related to each other in one way or another. The main hero is «Ваня» [Vanya], a young writer that has just had a big success with his first novel, despite being chronically ill and already early on in the novel he declares that he is dying (but then does not mention it anymore). Vanya is in love with «Наташа» [Natasha], a girl together with whom he grew up in the country side before going to Saint Petersburg to study. Natasha is in love with «Алёша» [Aljosja], the stupid and rather thoughtless son of «князь Валковский» [prince Valkovsky]. Prince Valkovsky used to be good friends with Natasha’s parents, «Ихменевы» [the Ikhmenevs], and they also worked for him but now they are in a fight over some money and that’s why they have all left the province for Saint Petersburg in order to settle their differences.

The novel begins with how «Ваня» [Vanya] becomes witness to how the old man «Смит» [Smith] with his equally old dog «Азорка» [Azorka] die in public and decides to move into the old man’s apartment. At this apartment his grandchild «Нелли» [Nelly] shows up one day. Nelly is also chronically sick with epilepsy and living under awful conditions with drunkards and so Vanya saves her and as he tries to do so he runs into his former classmate «Маслобоев» [Masloboev] in the street - who is very drunk also, but decides to help Vanya save Nelly. Nelly turns out to be the daughter of «князь Валковский» [prince Valkovsky], who before both «унизил» [humiliated] and «оскорбил» [insulted] her mother even though he was officially married to her and stolen a large amount of money from her, causing her to die «в чахотке» [in tuberculosis] «в подвале» [in the basement] without any money and leaving her daughter to beg on the streets for food. Prince Valkovsky is not bothered by this at all, and in his evil, selfish and disgusting character we can see how Dostoevsky is beginning to work his way artistically toward such unforgettable bad guys of his like «Свидригайлов» [Svidrigajlov] in “Crime and Punishment” and «Ставрогин» [Stavrogin] in “The Devils”. Prince Valkovsky is never accused of sexually abusing under-age girls in the book - which is the ultimate crime in the world of Dostoevsky, the only crime you are never forgiven - but toward the end we are informed that he recently got engaged to a fourteen year old… Before this he tries desperately to get his foolish son Aljosja away from the poor Natasha, and thus hooks him up with the wealthy young girl «Катя» [Katya]. Aljosja proves his lack of stamina by dating both girls and also visiting some prostitutes in-between hiss two women and after always coming home to Natasha to fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness… In the end of the novel everyone is recovering from the humiliation and insults, and gaining back all the weight that they lost during the 1,5 year that the novel took place and during which they were all suffering from various diseases. Except for epilepsy Dostoevsky is not the kind of writer to specify just exactly what his characters have come down with.

An illustration of «Нелли» [Nelly] from the book in a collection of Dostoevsky’s works in 12 volumes published in 1982. Why is it that I can’t read a single book without it ending up looking like this - filled with post-its?!

When we’re talking Dostoevsky we must never forget that no matter how unrealistic his artistic world is, he is first and foremost «христианский писатель» [a Christian writer]. That’s why the key to understanding his sometimes feverishly strange yet wonderfully captivating dialogues between people over vodka in different questionable establishments is to always keep an eye on where he puts «Новый Завет» [The New Testament]. In this novel it turns up early on in the apartment of the old man Smith, and was the book that he used to teach Nelly. In the culmination of the novel Nelly brings up the Good Book again, and the part quoted is how Jesus said «прощайте обиды» [forgive insults] and that’s when we realize what this book is about: «прощение» [forgiveness]. In the same way we can easily come to terms with “Crime and Punishment” by looking at what chapter Sonya reads to Raskolnikov. Remember Lazarus? Yes, of course you do, and then it is no surprise to you that this is a novel about «воскресение» [resurrection]. Putting things simply - Dostoevsky didn’t think outside the box, i.e. the Bible; he only thought inside the box. Think this somewhat limited his chances of reaching a broad audience world-wide? Well, not really. Despite claiming to rather want to ‘stay with Jesus, if Jesus is outside the truth, than with the truth’ Dostoevsky did well as a writer and succeeded in becoming the most influential 19th century writer in the 20th century.

Did you know that The Old Testament is called «Ветхий Завет» in Russian? I got this question on an exam once, and after answering it correctly the professor was so impressed that he decided not to ask me anything else. Just thought I could give someone else this tip!

Now I’m off to bed once again…

 
Posted under Literature
Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 		5 Comments | Post a Comment

Instead of a Russian Time Machine: «Алмазный мой венец» [My Diamond Crown]!

Posted by Josefina
Oct
13
2009

How many times have we not wished that our neighbor was «сумасшедший учёный» [a crazy scientist] who would one day come knocking on our door, asking if we’d like to try out his newly invented «машина времени» [time machine]? The scene, as I always had pictured me it (and I’m sure you see it in pretty much the same way), would remind a lot of the classic Soviet movie «Иван Васильевич меняет профессию» ["Ivan Vasil'evich: Back to the Future"] except given the chance I wouldn’t want to switch ‘profession’ with any Russian tsar and end up in the 16th century. If I had the chance to travel anywhere I wanted to in Russia’s exhilarating past I’d choose to go visit the 1920’s. If I had a lunatic of a Russian neighbor «с такими очками, как у студента физического факультета в советские времена» [with the kind of glasses of a student of the Physics Department in Soviet Times] and he would offer me a ride «в его машине времени» [in his time machine], then I would ask him kindly to set the date to somewhere between 1920 and 1926. Why? Isn’t the answer obvious? Because of all the wonderful Russian writers and poets who were alive back then! Who were so young and ambitious and starting out by writing their best work in those first delicate years of the Soviet Union! Because of everything that was happening in Russian culture during the first half of that decade! It was the first fragile years after «Октябрьская революция» [the October Revolution] and a brand new state was building «новый мир» [a new world] that needed not only «новое искусство» [new art] in general but also «новая литература» [a new literature] especially, and this of course included «новая поэзия» [a new poetry].

None of my neighbors here «в студенческом общежитии» [in the student dormitory] are a crazy scientist and none of them (as far as I am aware at this moment in time) are working on a time machine. But the thing is that we don’t really need a time machine in order to travel back to the 1920’s in Russia - all we need in order to feel just as if we were really there is to pick up a copy of «Алмазный мой венец» ["My Diamond Crown"] by Валентин Катаев [Valentin Kataev]. It isn’t a novel. It isn’t a novella. Not a poem. It’s not recollections. And certainly no memoir, not even a lyrical journal… Then what it is? Let’s call it simply «произведение искусства» [a work of art]. A work of art in which Valentin Kataev writes down stories as they appear in his memory: stories mainly about his youth in the 1920’s and his closest friends with whom he used to spend time, read poetry and drink vodka «в Одессе» [in Odessa], «в Харькове» [in Kharkov] or «в Москве» [in Moscow]. Now Kataev’s ‘drunken chronicles’ would mean little to nothing to us - in the year 2009 - had his closest friends not been the most famous Russian writers and poets of the time…

 This is how a copy of the very first edition of «Алмазный мой венец» Валентина Катаева» [Valentin Kataev's "My Diamond Crown"] from 1979 looks like. It was only printed in some 30 000 copies, but had to be reprinted over and over again when it became «культовая книга» [cultic book] in the early 1980s.

While reading Kataev’s work of art - which consists of no more than 221 little pages without any chapters, it’s just one big «сплошной текст» [continuous text] - I kept shivering. Why did this book make me shiver? Reason one: «у меня очень трепетное отношение к русской литературе» [I have a very quivering relation to Russian literature]. Reason two: «у меня склонность к трепету перед русским поэтам и писателям» [I have a tendency to quiver in front of Russian poets and writers]. And Kataev’s work of art is just as much about literature in general as it is about poets and writers. Kataev knew everybody! People who have become in my eyes almost like literary gods after all of the great novels, splendid short stories and poetry I’ve read by them - «Юрий Олеша» [Yuri Olesha], «Сергей Есенин» [Sergey Yesenin], «Владимир Маяковский» [Vladimir Mayakovsky], «Михаил Булгаков» [Mikhail Bulgakov], «Борис Пастернак» [Boris Pasternak], «Осип Мандельштам» [Osip Mandel'shtam], «Велимир Хлебников» [Velimir Khlebnikov], «Михаил Зощенко» [Mikhail Zoshchenko] - are people that Kataev lived with. To him all of these great poets and writers of the 1920s were not simply «товарищи» [comrades] but «друзья» [friends]. Together they did all sorts of things; they lived their lives side by side back then. When Kataev writes about everything these writers and poets did together - about what was strange about life back then, about all of the evenings that happened to get a tad too ‘wet’, about how they were broke as well as when they were rich just after getting something published - it feels as if they’re alive again. While reading Kataev you feel as if these classic Russian writers are coming to life right in front of your eyes. And you don’t need any time machine at all. After a couple of pages you’re already there. Right inside the stormy literary world of a very young, very hopeful USSR - just as young and hopeful as the writers and their creations were back then. And that’s why I shivered all the way through this work of art - I felt like I was actually there!

But Kataev doesn’t write his friends’ real names in his text. No, he calls his famous friends something else and thus allows for the reader to figure it out on their own. This is called in Russian for «роман с ключом» [‘roman à clef' or ‘novel with a key'] and is done so well by Kataev in «Алмазный мой венец» that the copy I borrowed in the library last week - from 1979 - was full of different people’s notes and guesses and question marks and exclamation marks… It was interesting in itself to read what the people reading it before me had come up with…! Some guesses were right, others were wrong - but all of them equally qualified, of course. At times Kataev will give you pretty big hints, though, that you won’t be able to misunderstand. For example when he talks of how he came up for the basic plot behind «Двенадцать стульев» ["The Twelve Chairs"] and gave it as an assignment to be written by «брат» [brother] and «друг» [friend]. It is more than obvious here that the ‘brother’ must be his own younger brother «Евгений Петров» [Yevgeny Petrov] and the ‘friend’ then none other than «Илья Ильф» [Il'ya Il'f].

 How should one read «роман с ключом» [‘a novel with a key'] properly, you might wonder? You could try following my example as portrayed above - with a pencil in hand! I made a list of the nicknames in my notebook and while going through the text I filled in the real names next to them as I kept guessing. It was a lot of fun! But then again I am «филолог» [a philologist] and we tend to think things like this are amusing.

Out of the very many interesting things and people you can read about in this truly wonderful work of art, let me mention just a few. I hope that I in this way will give all of you a clearer picture of what this little book it is really about. I hope to show you exactly how close Kataev was with the most brilliant people of his time, of his youth. Not that he himself wasn’t brilliant; after all, he wrote this, didn’t he? And maybe I hope that you’ll read it, too, and come to shiver and smile and be unable to stop reading for curiosity just like I did…

Kataev writes about how he was in love with «синеглазка» [blue-eyed (girl)] when he was very young. She was the younger sister of a writer he calls «синеглазый» [blue-eyed (masculine adjective)]. With this blue-eyed writer he would play in casinos in order to win money and buy vodka and sausage. And he, ladies and gentlemen, is Mikhail Bulgakov!

Kataev would often drink with «королевич» [from the word for ‘king'] and he was among the first to hear this poet’s brilliant «Чёрный человек» ["The Black Person"] - one of the last poems he wrote before taking his life. This is, dear comrades, none other than Sergey Yesenin!

Once «королевич» [Sergey Yesenin] got very drunk and ordered Kataev to take him to the apartment of «Командор» [Commander], since he was convinced that they deep down weren’t poetical enemies at all, but brothers who loved each other deeply. Who is then «Командор»? You guessed it: the only one to be written with a big letter in Kataev’s work of art is of course Vladimir Mayakovsky!

But more than anyone else Kataev writes about «ключик» [‘the little key']. This writer and poet also grew up in Odessa, just like Kataev did, and they became best friends already when they were still both teenagers. «Ключик» then went and became a literary legend after publishing the novel «Зависть» ["Envy"] - about which I have written a post here on the blog last spring - and Kataev ended up traveling Europe after his best friend’s death reading lectures about him. Yes. Yes. I knew you would understand it straight away - this is clearly «Юрий Олеша» [Yuri Olesha]!

And then there’s «мулат» [‘mulatto' - Boris Pasternak] and «щелкунчик» [‘nutcracker' - Osip Mandel'shtam] and many, many more people and stories left to explore in his book… Too many for a simple blog post about Russian culture. What I hope to have given you today is an idea of what Kataev’s ‘work of art’ is like. I highly recommend that you read it. In the original Russian or in a translation. In the mean time I’ll continue exploring late 20th century Russian literature… and be back with even more revelations like this one! Happy reading everyone!

 
Posted under Culture, History, Literature
Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 		1 Comment | Post a Comment

«Вести дневник» [To Write a Diary], or «Крутой маршрут» Евгении Гинзбург [Yevgenia Ginzburg's “Journey into the Whirlwind”]

Posted by Josefina
Aug
18
2009

Don’t let the fact that it takes a while to pronounce the long title above today scare you from reading today’s post! This long title is an attempt of mine to combine two equally interesting subjects worthy of one post each but really also equally interconnected with each other and thus worthy of being mentioned in one sentence (like the sentence I used in today’s complicated title above). Do I have your attention? Then «давай!» [come on!] and hear me out on this one. Have you ever tried keeping a diary in Russian? «Это хорошая идея, и, на самом деле, очень даже хорошая идея» [It is a good idea and in fact a very good idea indeed]. It could be a simple way of practicing the language at least a couple of times a week, if you, for example, keep finding yourself unable to write something every single day. I have never actually tried it myself (yet!), but during my years as a student of Russian language in Russia I’ve met many other students from around the world that have been accurate keepers of such ‘practice diaries’ in Russian. Perhaps this phenomenon could be called something like «дневники для практики языка» [diaries for language practice] in Russian? Some of my fellow students have been so persistent in their diary writing that they have given their notebooks to their professors for proof reading and thus also grammar correction every week.

What’s important to know before you start writing your Russian diary is that in Russian you do not «писать» [write] but actually «вести» [lead, conduct, guide; drive, navigate, pilot; carry on; hold, keep; prosecute, carry out an activity; give, transact] your «дневник» [diary; journal; day book]. If that was too many English verbs to one Russian verb for you to handle, then focus on the translation of «вести» here as ‘to keep’ and you’ll understand the phrase «я веду дневник» as ‘I keep a diary’ and can be fully content with this as it is a completely satisfactory comprehension of it. You’ll also be able to answer the question «ты ведёшь дневник?» [do you keep a diary?] (that’s the informal way to inquire, the formal way would of course be: «Вы ведёте дневник?» [do You keep a diary?]).

Have there ever been moments in your life when you’ve wished that you could back and check details from your past in diaries? Only to realize that you either а) didn’t keep a diary at the time; or б) didn’t write down what was truly significant? Have there ever been times when you have wanted to retell stories from long ago? Important accounts you wished you had written down? Things you have now forgotten? Names of people lost forever into the deepest corners of your memory? Not all of us can rely on our «память» [memory; recall; recollection] but have to write things down as they occur in order to later make them «воспоминание» [sg. recollection, memory, remembrance; flashback; memorial; reminiscence] first and later part of our «воспоминания» [pl. memoirs; reminiscence; memorials]. Some of us, however, are blessed with another gift - a gift to «запоминать» [memorize; mark] in order to much later «вспоминать» [recall, recollect, remember; reminisce]. The past month I’ve spent together with the memoir of a person blessed with such an amazing ability to remember every thing - from names of important people to the tiniest of details. During the past month I’ve been traveling through a memoir written with the accuracy of a diary - «Крутой маршрут» ["Journey into the Whirlwind"] by the brilliant, intelligent and lovely «Евгения Гинзбург» [Yevgenia Ginzburg].

While «в Кургане» [in Kurgan] on the 20th of July I came across this «хроника времён культа личности» [chronicle of the times of the personality cult] on sale in a bookstore and just had to buy it. Only when the Russian writer «Василий Павлович Аксёнов» [Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov] died on the 6th of July did I realize that he was the son of «Евгения Гинзбург», whom I had known as the author of this spectacular work about 18 years spent on Kolyma ever since reading the notebooks of «Варлам Шаламов»… which I did in April this year. Time and time again it keeps being proved to me that to love Russia is to constantly discover something new about this country!

I started reading «Крутой маршрут» [the title could more literally be translated as ‘a steep route'] as soon as I had brought it home from the bookstore and since then I haven’t been able to let it go nor finished reading it. Finish reading it is not something done over a weekend - this memoir is over 800 pages long. And that’s one of the best things about it! I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit old-fashioned in the way that I prefer long works of fiction (or long memoirs, for that matter…) and now that I have only about 150 pages to go as I’m posting this I have to confess that I don’t really want it to ever end. I am absolutely and completely in love with Yevgenia Ginzburg. After spending almost the entire spring of 2009 with Shalamov and his tales from «Колыма» [Kolyma] it was not just interesting but also refreshing and surprising to read a woman’s account of the same place at the same time. Both Ginzburg and Shalamov were arrested during the terrible year of 1937 during ‘the infamous great purge’ and spent a total of 18 years in prison, camps and exile. Shalamov arrived in Kolyma already in 1937, Ginzburg only two years later - after spending two years in a prison cell in Yaroslavl. Of course one shouldn’t compare these two people because they are very different, but I can’t help myself. Both of them left important accounts of their life during this particular time in this region’s history behind that are well worth reading, even though they should be separate already by their different genres - Shalamov wrote many short stories, Ginzburg wrote one long memoir. Ginzburg is personal where Shalamov is not. They had different intentions with what they wrote and thus what they left for us to read are very different accounts. Yet many things remain alike and true even though - just like they both keep repeating in their works - there are many, many truths out there.

But while reading Ginzburg what kept coming back to me again and again was one single thought - that there seems to have been a lot more humor on the women’s side of the barbed wire. Not only Ginzburg, but all the other women surrounding Ginzburg in prison and in camps and in hospitals, keep joking and laughing long after Shalamov’s men have grown silent and stern and harsh. And the first thing the women in Ginzburg’s memoir say when they see the male prisoners upon arrival in Vladivostok after a month on a train is: “Oh no! And they who have such poor ability to endure pain!” (in Russian: «Они же так плохо переносят боль!») Women are really better prepared to endure that kind of cruel pain, and better prepared physically for hunger, which is why they did not die as fast and mercilessly as the men did on Kolyma.

Ginzburg was not able to keep a diary during her years in prison, camps and exile. And yet she remembered everything. In this work you’ll find hundreds of dialogues and an equal amount of names of real people from this time. «Крутой маршрут» is a terrible, beautiful, true chronicle of this time in the history of this country. Not only do I highly recommend it because of its value as a source for historical facts, but as a document of what it means to be a woman. Ginzburg is first and foremost a woman. I don’t really know how to explain it, but that’s what I found most in this memoir - her pride of herself and her sex combined with a marvelous dedication to motherhood which I have never read anywhere else before (but then again, I haven’t read that many books written by women - yet!). What I would recommend above everything else is of course to read it in the original Russian - not only because Ginzburg has a rich language, but also because she often quotes poetry. Both her own poems and the poems of many famous Russian poets. Poetry helped her survive these hardships. Poetry saved her life.

To me reading this memoir is one of the greatest reading experiences of my life. And the best part about admitting to this is that I haven’t finished it yet - thus the greatest reading experience of my life will continue!

 
Posted under Culture, History, Literature, Soviet Union
Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , 		4 Comments | Post a Comment

«По уральским местам Варлама Шаламова» [Visiting Varlam Shalamov's Ural ‘Sites’]

Posted by Josefina
Jul
18
2009

The map on the left shows a ‘cluster’ of towns in the Ural Mountains connected with the fate of the great Russian writer and poet «Варлам Тихонович Шаламов» [Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov], all four of them are located in the northern part of «Пермский край» [Perm Administrative Division (of Russian Federation)]. (The red dot marked with an ‘A’ shows the destination for my next trip tomorrow: «Курган» [Kurgan]). The map on the right shows Shalamov’s four Ural cities almost up-close: «Березники» [Berezniki; red dot], «Соликамск» [Solikamsk; blue dot], «Чердынь» [Cherdyn'; pink dot] and «Красновишерск» [Krasnovishersk; yellow dot]. It takes about six hours by bus to travel from Perm’ to Krasnovishersk.

In December last year (see: “A Great Russian writer: Варлам Шаламов [Varlam Shalamov]“, Dec 7th 2008) I blogged for the first time about the splendid 20th century Russian writer Shalamov here on the Russian Blog. On February 28th 2008 I blogged about my visit to the GULAG museum «Пермь-36» (see: “A Recent Past Remaining in the Present: A Journey to the Former GULAG camp ‘Perm-36′”). Today the time has come to combine three of the most important things mentioned in these two past posts: 1) Varlam Shalamov’s prose; 2) traveling through the big city of Perm’; and 3) Soviet concentration camps. This morning I returned from a little trip up north in the Urals that I decided to give myself as a birthday gift upon turning 24 on the 16th of July - to visit two cities connected with the very difficult and outright tragic fate of Varlam Shalamov. Since he became world famous thank to his terrifying collection of truthful short stories about the horrors of Kolyma - «Колымские рассказы» ["The Kolyma Tales"] - he has become mostly connected with the concentration camps in that part of the USSR. Few people are aware of the fact that Shalamov’s ‘prison experience’ began long before the black year of the purge in 1937, and that he was sentenced for the first time in 1929 for spreading copies of «завещание Ленина» [Lenin's (Last) Will]. Shalamov was not even 22 years old when he was sent to serve his first term of three years in Soviet concentration camps during the spring of 1929. He arrived first in the city of «Соликамск» [Solikamsk], where he was placed in a transit prison located in the ‘basement of a (former) church’, as he stated in the short story «Первый зуб» ["The First Tooth"] from his short story collection «Артист лопаты» ["The Shovel Artist"]. For a long time it has been generally accepted among scholars and researches of Shalamov’s life and work that this particular ‘church basement’ is to be found in the «Свято-троицкий мужской монастырь» [Holy Trinity Male Monastery], however, lately this fact is becoming more and more uncertain.

«Свято-троицкий мужской монастырь» [Holy Trinity Male Monastery] in Solikamsk. During the 1920-30’s it served as a prison, and is - possibly - the place where Shalamov spent a night in a cell in the basement of its main building. See the small black square on the white wall? Well, that’s…

…the «памятная доска» [memorial plate] made by the artist «Рудольф Веденеев» and placed on the northern wall of the monastery on the 1st of July 2005. It says: «В марте 1929 года этапом уходил отсюда Варлам Шаламов. Писатель разделил судьбу народа и обители, обращенной в застенок, прошёл тюрьмы и лагеря от Бутырки, Соликамска, Вишеры до Колымы, открыл миру правду ГУЛАГа» ["In March 1929 Varlam Shalamov walked from here under guard. The writer shared the fate of the people and of the monastery that was turned into a prison, (he) went through prisons and camps from Butyrka, Solikamsk, Vishera to Kolyma, revealed the truth about GULAG to the world"].

The first thing I did when I got off the bus from Perm’ in Solikamsk was to go and search for the location of this monastery, as I foolishly thought myself to be one of the first - if not the very first - to have the idea of searching for it according to how it is described in Shalamov’s short story “The First Tooth”. It turned out that not only am I not the first - far from it! - to have come to Solikamsk searching for that very place, I had actually been gravely misinformed about the location of the site of the cell where Shalamov spent that fateful April night in 1929. The second person I met in Solikamsk turned out to be the former director of the museum of Solikamsk, Olga Lebedeva. She showed me first the monastery, then the other possible churches where Shalamov might have spent the night. As she stated: “There are 12 churches in Solikamsk. Pick anyone, state your case and you might be right on the spot!” One scholar in the city says it must have been in the female monastery a bit outside of the city, whereas some think that Shalamov meant the church in the city center. After all, it was dark when he arrived and he wrote the short story around thirty years after the occurance itself. The scholars say that it couldn’t possibly have been in the Holy Trinity Male Monastery because the short story contains a scene where one prisoner breaks a window to let in fresh air, and this saves Shalamov’s life that long night when almost 100 prisoners were stuffed into one little cell. However, the cell in the monastery’s basement has so thick walls that the window glass is too far away and can’t be reached by a human arm from the inside. Also some researches argue that the monastery had not yet been turned into a prison in the spring of 1929. What we do know for sure is that Shalamov spent a couple of days in Solikamsk before heading north - by foot under guard - during five days through the taiga. The same road can now be traveled by bus and takes around two hours. What we also know is that fans of Shalamov like to - just like I did on the 16th of July - visit the monastery anyway, and that they have even written the classic words from the short story on the walls of the cell… twice! Just in case!

Here is the inside of the monastery’s basement. When it served as a prison this space was turned into two rooms with a wall separating them in the middle. In each of these small spaces almost 100 prisoners were forced to spend the night, unable to lie down or even breathe properly.

On the room’s ceiling some very dedicated fans of Shalamov have written the famous quote from his short story «Первый зуб» ["The First Tooth"] - not once, but twice, next to each other! - «В этой могиле мы умирали 3 суток, а всё же не умерли. Крепитесь, товарищи!» ["In this grave we were dying for three days, and yet we did not die. Stand firm (alt. hold out; stay strong), comrades!"].

Upon entering the town of «Красновишерск» [Krasnovishersk] you are greeted by this big, new sign - recently erected close to an alley of trees also recently planted in the writer’s honor on the other side of the main road - «Здесь с 1928 по 1934 гг. находился концлагерь «Вишерлаг». Тысячи невинно осуждённых - жертвы сталинских репрессий - строили ЦБК и заготовляли лес.» ["Here from 1928 till 1934 was located the concentration camp 'Visherlag'. Thousands of innocent sentenced - the victims of Stalin's repressions - built the Cellulose Paper Plant and prepared timber"]. «Узником этого лагеря был и великий русский писатель Варлам Шаламова - автора антиромана «Вишера» и «Колымских рассказов».» ["A prisoner of this camp was the great Russian writer Varlam Shalamov - author of the antinovel "Vishera" and "Tales from Kolyma"].

The writing on the poster above continued, followed by my own translation: «Документы нашего прошлого уничтожены, караульные вышки спилены, бараки сровнены с землёй… Были ли мы? Отвечаю: были. Со всей выразительностью протокола, ответственностью, отчётливостью документа» ["The documents of our past have been destroyed, the guard towers sawn down, the barracks evened out with the ground... Were we even here? I answer: we were. With all the expressiveness of a protocol, with the responsibility, the clarity of a document"].

The entrance to the factory built by the concentration camp’s workers: «Вишерский целлюлозно-бумажный завод» [Vishersky Cellulose Paper Factory]. Today the factory that once employed several thousand people lay in ruins on the shores of the river «Вишера» [Vishera].

It has been proved that Shalamov spent no less than ten months working in the concentration camp located on the river «Вишера» [Vishera] between his arrival in April 1929 and his release in October 1931. The memory of Shalamov is treated with much respect in the town of Krasnovishersk; the town itself asked to have the year 2007 be made the year of Varlam Shalamov in it. During that year they erected three monuments in his honor; already in 2002 a monument to the prisoners building the paper plant between 1929 and 1934 had been erected outside of the factory. I arrived in Krasnovishersk with a few addresses scribbled on a piece of paper - the location of the various monuments as stated on the splendid official Russian site dedicated to Shalamov, together with the name of what should be a hotel. The hotel turned out to be a hotel and as soon as I had got myself a room, I asked the people there if anyone knew anything about Shalamov. A woman sitting at a table held up her hand and said: “If you’re looking for someone who knows everything about Shalamov and Krasnovishersk, then you’re looking for me!” Her name turned out to be Ludmila Sokolova; she is the director of the main library in Krasnovishersk and one of the main people behind the celebration of Shalamov in 2007. On Thursday evening she showed me everything in the town having to do with Shalamov, and as she dropped me off at midnight she promised to come pick me up next morning. Said and done, next morning she was waiting for me after breakfast and we went to visit the local museum. After that we went to the library where she presented me with all of the documents and books and articles available in their archive. She helped me make copies of everything I wanted and needed, then she gave me the book «Красное колесо Вишеры» ["The Red Wheel of Vishera"]. She was most kind, helpful and attentive to me and my needs, it was actually very surprising and touching. When we left the library to have lunch together my backpack was filled with all sorts of interesting materials about Shalamov and Vishera that I wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere else. I also met with many other people in the town of Krasnovishersk, and each and everyone made deep, pleasant impressions on me. I have never visited a town with a population so careful not to forget its own past, something that is so common in Russia especially nowadays.

In the center of Krasnovishersk stands a monument made by the same artist who did the monument on the monastery in Solikamsk. It was put up on the 18th of June 2007, on the 100 year anniversary of the birth of the writer. On it we find the following written: «Здесь жили и умирали жертвы репрессий 1920-50 г. В 1929 г. начался лагерный путь Варлама Шаламова. 100-летию писателя. Июнь 2007 г.» ["Here lived and died victims of the repressions (in the) 1920-1950's. In 1929 began the camp road of Varlam Shalamov. To the writer's 100th year anniversary. June 2007."]

Even though there are monuments to Shalamov in both Krasnovishersk and Solikamsk, these were not the only towns in the northern Urals visited by the writer. He also worked in the factory in the town of Berezniki, aswell as in the town of Cherdyn’, and yet there is not so much as a corner named after the writer in those towns. Cherdyn’ is also worth noting as the place of the first exile for the poet «Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам» [Osip Emil'evich Mandelstam'], where he tried to escape but failed. Mandelstam was later transferred to Vladivostok where he died of hunger in 1938. Shalamov wrote a short story about the poet’s death - «Шерри-бренди» - which was published in his “Kolyma Tales”. There is not memorial plate in honor this amazing poet in the town Cherdyn’ - yet. Just like there is nothing reminding of Pasternak in the town of Solikamsk, even though it is known that he visited this town and based one of the towns portrayed in «Доктор Живаго» ["Doctor Zhivago"] on it. Not all Russian towns where famous writers spent years in hard forced labor camps have done what Krasnovishersk has, but there’s still hope that they might. In the future. Let’s not forget - «надежда умирает последней» ["hope is the last to die"]!

In June 2007 a big wooden cross was also placed on the site where the concentration camp once stood. Nothing else remains to remind future generations of what happened here so that it may never ever be repeated again. 

When I left on Wednesday on the night train to Perm’ I didn’t know what awaited me on this journey up north in the Urals. All I knew was that I really wanted to see the place where Shalamov had been - really, I would’ve wanted to go to Kolyma, but that was a little too far away and a little too expensive for me this year. I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t expect anything at all. I think that’s the correct way of not only living in Russia, but living in general. After five years in this country I must confess that I am still in love. All of the many hours traveling by bus and train were filled with pure beauty of Russian nature outside my window. You can say whatever you want to say about pollution and global warming - as long as I can see all this beauty for hours and hours I won’t believe any of it. I may be wrong. I think I’m wrong. But in this case I don’t want to be right. I just want to stay in love. With Russia. With Shalamov. With Russian literature. With life. In general. I wish you all the same kind of experiences with nature this summer - not only Russian, of course!

 
Posted under History, Literature, Soviet Union
Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 		4 Comments | Post a Comment

Russian Summer Reading part I: «Портрет» Н. В. Гоголя

Posted by Josefina
Jun
30
2009

When opening this brand new 21st century edition of this 19th century «повесть» [story; tale; ‘novella'] «Портрет» ["The Portrait"] you find the following information on the first page: «издаётся к 200-летию со дня рождения Николая Васильевича Гоголя» [is published for the 200th year anniversary of Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol's birth]. What else is special about this edition? Well, it is part of the series «русская классика в иллюстрациях» [Russian classics in illustrations] and that’s why…

…it is filled with beautiful illustrations like the one above just as if it had been «детская книга» [a children's book]! The illustrations were made by a certain artist by the name of «С. Г. Гонков» and made me feel like I was 10 years old again as I read through this book, coming across inspired pictures here and there. Now, this story by Gogol’ is not a children’s story - that’s why I was so surprised when I was given this book as a gift a month ago. Illustrated novels for adults - now that’s a great idea! This edition has not only paintings to look at, but a serious introduction written by a candidate of philology and almost 20 pages of commentaries. I don’t know about you, but I love to read commentaries to books, because you can learn a lot from them. In this book I learned that the word «беленкая» [‘white' (adj. fem. sing.)] during the 19th century meant «бумажная ассигнация достоинством 25 рублей (белого света)» [paper bill worth 25 rubles (of white color)].

While I wrote my last post - «Ода гречке» [An Ode to Buckwheat] - I thought I was ‘coming out of the buckwheat-closet’ and felt more than a little nervous to read your reactions afterwards. And then it turned out that I wasn’t the only one with a thing for «царица круп» [the Queen of Grains] out there! So many comments from all of the world! That’s great! Thank you all! It was wonderful to hear about your love for Russian cuisine. I will be sure to write more on the subject - «имейте терпение» [have patience]! However, now I find myself facing another obstacle - how to follow such a grand post on «гречка»? With a profound study of different «маринованные огурцы» [pickled cucumbers], perhaps? Or by sharing some in-depth reports from exciting mushroom hunting trips (the season is just about to start here in Russia, you know)? No. I’ve decided to let the food related topics rest until I’ve acquired a good Russian cookbook and in the meantime I allow for «Николай Васильевич Гоголь» [Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol'] to take over the blog today. After all, the year 2009 is his year - 200 years since the birth of everybody’s favorite Ukrainian-Russian 19th author - and I’m ashamed to admit that I have not been attentive at all to this fact during the entire first half of it. Today I went to Yekaterinburg’s literary museum, which is located in a very picturesque part of the city called «литературный квартал» [The Literary Block] (the whole block almost entirely remains the same as it was in the 19th century - definitely worth a visit if you’re passing by the Urals), to have tea with my friends who work there. And it turns out that they had an extensive exhibition dedicated to Gogol’, which I had completely missed, but as I looked at it I came to realize that people should read more Gogol’. I’ve been contemplating putting together a ‘Summer Russian Reading Guide’ for about a week now, and after reading Lizok’s entry on her blog “Reading Russian Books at the Beach” I conclude that I’m not the only with this idea. However, let’s get started with a few examples on how you could honor the genius Gogol’ by reading one of his works the summer of ‘09!

«Портрет» (1835) ["The Portrait"] is the book pictured above in the illustrated edition that I just finished reading an hour ago and very much enjoyed. The way the book was written was quite surprising to me, since I’m mostly familiar with Nikolai’s more humoristic works - though by way of his long sentences and frequent use of «причастие активного залога прошедшего времени» [the active participle in past tense] in sentences like: «На другой же день, взявши десяток червонцев, отправился он к одному издателью…» [On the next day, after taking about ten three-ruble gold coins, he went to one publisher...]. The novella’s plot circles around a painting with demonic powers, able to make any honest artist into a jealous and evil individual incapable of enjoying life. The main subject of it is the question ‘what is talent?’ and ‘what is an artist?’, two questions which we know to have been very dear and important to Nikolai Vasil’evich. The novella is divided into two parts; in the first we find out how the painting led one aspiring poor artist to ruin, while in the second we meet the painting’s author and learn about his choice to join a convent after finding out what his own creation is capable of. As always, Nikolai Vasil’evich is most convincing when touching upon religious ideas in his works - for those of the readers able of keeping an open mind, that is.

Other works of Nikolai Vasil’evich worth checking out:

«Мёртвые души» (1842) ["Dead Souls"] was meant to be the first part of a trilogy based on the concept of Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” and supposed to chronicle the fall and rise of «Чичиков» [Chichikov]. Nikolai Vasil’evich only managed to publish the first volume, in which Chichikov travel the Russian countryside buying ‘dead souls’ - «крепостные» [serfs] that have died since the last counting of them but have not yet been marked as dead in official documents - as a way to make his fortune. While he visits several rich and not-so-rich «помещики» [landowners] out in the Russian countryside the reader starts to become aware of the fact that the title of this book has nothing to do with dead serfs, but everything to do with people who are dead even though they continue to seemingly be alive… Nikolai Vasil’evich finished the second volume but burned it and so we’ll never know how things would’ve turned out for Chichikov. What we do know, however, is that the first volume is a masterpiece!

«Шинель» (1842) ["The Overcoat"] is a short story about the poor clerk «Акакий Акакиевич Башмачкни» [Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin] who does nothing but dream of a new overcoat. I’m not going to spoil the ending for those of you who have yet to read this splendid little story, but I will tell you that I’ve read it many, many times and always find something new to wonder at in Niklai Vasil’evich complex language! (No, I would not recommend reading Gogol’ to beginners of Russian… but reading him in your own native language first, and then in Russian - aided by a good ol’ dictionary at your side - now that I would highly recommend!)

«Нос» (1832-1833) ["The Nose"] is my favorite work of fiction by Gogol’! The first time I read it I could not believe that someone so long ago had managed to write something so brilliant, so funny and so absurd! The first time I read it was when I was 17, and then in Swedish, and I remember that was amazed by the fanastic story - since then I’ve read it many times in Russian and I’m still amazed every time. The plot is extremely straightforward: a man wakes up in Saint Petersburg one morning to find that his nose is missing. He later spots his nose on Nevsky Prospect and by then his nose has become a high official and does not recognize him. Now if you’re not afraid of laughing out loud in public while reading, then I would suggest you bring «Нос» to the beach with you!

Oh, and there’s always the hilarious «Ревизор» ["The Inspector General"] which is a play, but could be read like a novel, too… The works mentioned and recommended by me above are but a fraction of everything great and splendid and funny written by Nikolai Vasil’evich. Maybe your personal favorite did not make my list, but what I really wanted to say was this: you can’t go wrong with Gogol’ the summer of 2009!

 
Posted under History, Literature, language
Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , 		5 Comments | Post a Comment