Posts tagged w/ russian poetry

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!

 
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«С днём рождения, Александр Сергеевич!» [Happy Birthday, Alexander Sergeyevich!]

Posted by Josefina
Jun
6
2009

Today is the 6th of June 2009 and 210 years ago today Russia’s greatest poet (some say he was the greatest writer PERIOD, too, but I’ll settle with calling him the greatest poet at this given moment in time) was born - Александр Сергеевич Пушкин [Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin]. Being a fan of Russia (or, perhaps, more of an infatuated admirer) you must learn to keep up a conversation about Pushkin. Saying that Pushkin is - sadly enough - not very well-known in other countries because he wrote poetry, something that’s very difficult and almost impossible to translate, and because his prose is complicated to understand outside of their cultural 19th century context, doesn’t cut it if you’re serious about learning Russian language and paying your respects to Russia’s literature and culture. Russian language without Pushkin is impossible, so if you’re learning Russian language you must memorize at least one Pushkin poem - be it something as standard as «Я помню чудное мгновенье» ["I Remember a Wonderful Moment"] or «Я Вас любил» ["I Loved You"]! The important thing is not which poem by Pushkin you memorize but that you make a point of memorizing at least one, and if not the entire poem, then at least the beginning, since you’re bound to be interrupted by Russians once you start reciting it…

Knowing EVERYTHING about Pushkin is not imperative for a foreigner who does not intend to become a «пушкиновед» [a scholar of Pushkin's art]. And learning everything about Pushkin is impossible since there has most likely been a Russian doctor’s dissertation on each and every word ever used by Pushkin. Probably there have been doctor’s dissertations on the words NOT used by Pushkin, too. But you should know your basics, especially on a day like today, when all literature lovers in Russia gather in towns and villages alike to recite his poems, poems dedicated to him, poems dedicated to poems about him and rejoice in his genius. Pushkin was a genius. That’s the first basic information a foreigner must know about him. In Russian you state it like this: «Пушкин - гений». That’s a present tense sentence hinting at Pushkin’s immorality (compare the old Lenin slogan often used in reference to Pushkin these days: «Пушкин жил, жив и будет жить!» [Pushkin lived, is alive and will live!]. You could use past tense, too, of course: «Пушкин был гением» [Pushkin was a genius].

The second basic is the fact that Pushkin’s poetry created the Russian literary language. Or in the words of Turgenev: «Пушкин создал наш поэтический язык, наш литературный язык, и нам и нашим потомкам отсаётся только идти по пути, проложенному его гением» ["Pushkin created our poetic language, our literary language, and all both we and our descendants have to do is walk along the road which he laid down (for us) with his genius."]. Do you find this hard to believe? Try reading a work of Russian fiction written before 1820 and you’ll come to find that it is not only hard work, but contains very little esthetic pleasure for the eye and the mind. Pushkin combined simple folk sayings with Old Church Slavonic expressions, threw in a couple of things he found in European literature of the time and - voila! - modern Russian literary language was born.

Thirdly you should be acquainted with the fact that Pushkin «не только писал стихи, но и прозу» [not only wrote poetry, but also prose]. His prose is as amazing as his poems and Pushkin is generally acknowledged to have created the realistic Russian novel. Some say Lermontov and his «Герой нашего времени» [«A Hero of our Time"] marked the entrance of the realistic novel in Russian literature, but those better informed will sneeze at such words and say: “But what would Lermontov be without Pushkin?!” and remind you of how Lermontov got his literary break-through in 1837 - with a poem about Pushkin’s death in a duel! So which of Pushkin’s prose works should the formerly ignorant foreigner be familiar with? Most important (this is my personal opinion, it is in no way the only ‘correct’ opinion) is «Капитанская дочка» ["The Captain's Daughter"]. This title has little to do with the work’s central plot - it is about the Pugachov uprising - and is interesting for two reasons: 1) its structure (it is built in a very modern way, and one will soon forget that it was written almost 200 years ago when reading it); and 2) its cultural information (which proves that Pushkin not only knew how to rhyme, but was highly skilled in historical investigations). As a matter of fact Pushkin was preparing to write more about the Pugachov uprising in the future, and had even been granted special permission to go through old state archives but - «увы!» - was killed in a duel at the age of 37.

The fourth basic fact - though in importance it should be regarded as Number One - is that Pushkin is the author of the best book ever written in Russian language (once again this is my personal opinion, but I think everyone will agree with me after reading it in the original): «Евгений Онегин» ["Eugene Onegin"]. This «роман в стихах» [novel written in poetry] the famous semiotic scholar Lotman (go Tartu University!) called «энциклопедия русской жизни» [an encyclopedia of Russian life]. The plot is fairly simple: the upper-class snob «Евгений Онегин», also known as «лишный человек» [a superfluous man] as he lacks a proper function in life, leaves his society life in Saint Petersburg behind to take care of his uncle’s old house in the country side. Eugene Onegin is bored to death with his stylish life in Saint Petersburg, but he realizes that the simple life in the country side is even more boring. But then there happens to be a neighboring family nearby with a young pretty daughter - and enter «Татьяна» [Tatiana]. Tanya (which is short for Tatiana) takes a liking to Eugene Onegin and he starts spending more and more time in her family’s house as a guest of honor. But Tanya isn’t your average country girl. She’s much stronger in character than Eugene Onegin and has a much more exciting personality than the man she falls in love with - but then again, at the time of their meeting she was but thirteen and should be forgiven for this ‘fling’. Her age isn’t stated in the novel, but curious and scrupulous scholars have determined this as a fact. Tanya writes a letter to Eugene Onegin in which she explains her feelings. Eugene Onegin is not capable of dealing with real emotions and tells her that even though he’s into her too, he cannot - «увы!» - be with her. After this Eugene Onegin’s friend is killed in a duel and he flees to the big city. A couple of years later - enough for Tanya to turn eighteen - he goes to a high society ball and meets Tanya again. Now she’s everything she wasn’t when they knew each other in the country side: she’s dressed in an expensive dress, known and loved by everyone in Moscow’s finer circles, and married to a rich older man. And Eugene Onegin finally comprehends that he loves her and thus he falls to her knees and confesses his love for her. Tanya calls him a fool (not literally, but it’s all there - in rhyme!) and turns him down.

Reading «Евгений Онегин» in Russian is difficult, but definitely worth the hard work. There are also many good translations of it into other languages. The best translations were made in the 20th century. After this novel the main theme of Russian language was decided on once and for all: strong women having feelings (of pity?) for weak men. All of Russian literature could be viewed as variations on this theme, especially every single novel written by Turgenev…

Then you should of course be aware of how Pushkin died. A Russian poet’s death is crucial to his or her art and therefore it is no surprise that Pushkin died in a duel with a foreigner (gasp!) at the absolute height of his life: at the age of 37. The age of 37 is also known as «пушкинский возраст» in Russia. And even when we’re celebrating not his death day, but his birthday today, we must remember this. Because who knows what he could’ve done had he been allowed to live on for another ten or twenty years?

The last information is only for those intended to brag to their Russian friends about their knowledge of Russian literature. Try to slip into conversation today that a) Pushkin gave Gogol’ the plot for «Ревизор» ["The Inspector General"] (in an alternative version Gogol’ stole the plot for his great comedic play from Pushkin); and b) Dostoevsky’s favorite poem by Pushkin was «Пророк» ["The Prophet"], which he very much liked to recite at public gatherings.

 
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