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Metropolis to necropolis: The St. Petersburg myth and its cultural extension in the late 1910s and 1920s

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Metropolis to necropolis: The St. Petersburg myth and its cultural extension in the late 1910s and 1920s

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. METROPOLIS TO NECROPOLIS: THE ST. PETERSBURG M Y T H AND ITS C U LTU R A L EXTEN SIO N IN THE LATE 1910s A N D 1920s Copyright 1999 By Ekaterina L. Yudina A Dissertation Presented to the FA C U LTY OF THE G RA D U A TE SCHOOL U N IV E R S ITY OF SOUTHERN C A LIFO R N IA In Partial Fulfillment o f the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Slavic Languages and Literatures) December 1999 Ekaterina L. Yudina Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 9987636 UMI' UMI Microform9987636 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 9000? This dissertation written by under the direction of ..... Dissertation Committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re quirements for the degree of Date ..Nax.^feer.30;...i999 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Ekaterina Yudina DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dean of Graduate Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission To ,\/y Parents Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the people who have helped me from the conception to the final stages o f this dissertation. Above all, I am indebted to my advisor. Prof. John E. Bowlt for guidance, support, and encouragement during my years at University o f Southern California. I also wish to thank Profs. Sarah Pratt and Nancy Troy, whose helpful discussions and invaluable advice have greatly enriched the dissertation. I also gratefully acknowledge the entire faculty and staff o f the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at USC for providing the stimulating working environment. I am particularly appreciative o f the generous help given by Prof. Marcus Levitt and Susan Kechekian. I am grateful to have had the suggestions and criticism o f my friends and colleagues, who were willing to read the manuscript or parts o f it. namely. Myriam Beck-Lefloch, Jennifer Cahn. Elizabeth Durst, David Fisher, Chris Gilman. Bart Gorman. Mark Konecny. Galina Pastur. Fred White, and Elina Yuffa. Special thanks to my dear friends O l’ga Diuzheva. Ol'ga Lechitskaia, and Sergei Petrov for their help with library work and continuous encouragement throughout all these years. No acknowledgements would be complete without mentioning the enormous debt I owe to my parents, without whose love, support, and understanding this undertaking would not have been possible. And finally, this dissertation would be unthinkable without Valery Fokin, my impatient and inspirational first reader and very best friend. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Dedication Acknowledgements Abstract Introduction Chapter One. City as Necropolis Chapter Two. City as Noah's Ark Chapter Three. City as Museum Conclusion. City as Collective Memory Bibliography Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract This dissertation examines the literary and visual culture o f St. Petersburg during time of crucial shift in Russian history, i. e. the period marked by the outbreak o f World War I and October Revolution. Dramatic changes that shook the foundations o f society led to a series o f basic transmutations reflected in the works of art o f the time. Although the theme of the transformation o f metropolis to necropolis was a distinguishing feature of Modernist discourse (implied in Andrei Bely's novel Petersburg), it became a central component of St. Petersburg culture in the late 191 Os-1920s. During this decade the city o f St. Petersburg was renamed tw ice— at the beginning o f World War I as Petrograd and then, after Lenin’s death, as Leningrad— and also ceased to be the capital. Loss o f name can be understood as loss of identity, a sign of death, a transition from logos to chaos. O f the various St. Petersburg prophecies— the most important, the prediction o f the death of the city— came true. Its citizens witnessed this process o f decay and artists reflected this in their works. This dissertation demonstrates the existence of a cohesive Petersburg text in the historical and cultural period o f the late 1910s-1920s and reveals its syntagmatic concept and themes, such as visions o f the city as Necropolis, as Noah's Ark, as Museum, and as Collective Memory. Sources o f various genres including literary and documentary texts and works o f art are analyzed within the contemporary context reconstructing to a certain extent the conditions o f life in the dying city. In the framew ork o f the existing scholarship, the dissertation examines the neglected yet crucial phenomenon o f the disintegration o f St. Petersburg culture. Analyzing St. Petersburg literature and art o f the late 1910s and early Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1920s. it explores the signs o f the city’s devastation and decay and not the distopian encroachment of the "brave new world." While construction became the general cliche for the post-revolutionary art in Russia, dissolution o f St. Petersburg and its cultural heritage provides an important balancing metaphor and a rich field of research. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Introduction The purpose o f this dissertation is to examine St. Petersburg culture during the years o f a crucial shift in Russian history, the decade following the revolution o f 1917. The primary goal of this study is to explore of the processes o f cultural disintegration of the city and to demonstrate that the dominating metaphor o f construction of "the brave new world” is a cliche and inadequate to the complexity o f the subject. The subject of my study is the cultural transmutation of the city from the national capital into a provincial town. As humiliating as it could be for any metropolis, this deprivation of political power became a real catastrophe for St. Petersburg and was perceived by its intellectuals as a sign o f death. The reasons for such a perception become clear through understanding the phenomenon o f St. Petersburg as a city. Renamed three times during the twentieth century (in 1914 to Petrograd. in 1924 to Leningrad, and in 1992 again to St. Petersburg), St. Petersburg, also called "Piter” in folklore, is a city of many names. It is also a city o f many poetic nicknames: Petropol’, Northern Palmyra. Northern Venice, Russian Amsterdam. It is often compared with Rome, Paris, and Vienna and is always opposed to Moscow, the rival capital of Russia. However, the peculiarity o f St. Petersburg, which makes it very different from any o f those cities, lies in the fact that St. Petersburg was created as a capital. It did not become a metropolis through centuries o f struggle for power— it w as meant to be the capital. History know s only a few examples o f building o f a new national capital from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. scratch. Constantinople provides a striking parallel to St. Petersburg since both cities were founded as the capitals o f the new empires. As Constantine the Great moved the residence o f his court to the new location, creating a Christian empire, Peter the Great similarly laid out a new city as the capital of his new country, the reformed and westernized Russian Empire. Both emperors needed a city new ly founded, unburdened by traditions, and free of conservative opposition. There is the geographic similarity between Constantinople and St. Petersburg (the location by the sea), as well as the linguistic one (the names of the cities. City of Constantine and City o f St. Peter, the patron saint o f Peter the Great). Even the fall o f Constantinople as a result o f a barbarian invasion could be compared to the fall of Imperial St. Petersburg as a result of the Bolshevik revolution. There must be a certain historic irony that it was Moscow that inherited the political power o f both cities: after the fall o f Constantinople in 1453. it became the center of Orthodox Christianity, and in 1918 it was established as the capital o f the new Soviet State. Constantinople-lnstanbul. despite its fall and loss of name, became the capital o f Turkey (until 1923). Unlike St. Petersburg, it did not loose its main function, though the change was dramatic: from a capital o f the Christian empire to a center o f the Muslim world. Another parallel to St. Petersburg is Washington. D. C.. the capital o f the young American republic, designed a little later than St. Petersburg, in 1791. Again, unlike St. Petersburg, it still remains the national capital. Having been created during the same century, however. Washington and St. Petersburg share that century'"s architectural Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ideals. Washington, by L ’Enfant, and St. Petersburg, by Trezzini. Le Blond, and Rastrelli. reflect the typical baroque orchestration o f space, positional magnificence and movement, and neoclassical facades. Both cities succeeded in envisaging what a great capital, conceived in baroque and neoclassical terms, might be— and both were built on a swamp. Yet most importantly, these new national capitals were built according to the standards and models of the European capitals. Not only w ere they created as capitals but they also adopted the external dress appropriate to their role. In his seminal study The City in History. Lewis Mum ford compared the great metropolises of baroque urban planning: In Paris. Madrid. St. Petersburg. Vienna, and Berlin, the baroque style in both architecture and planning not merely lingered on. but found its greatest opportunities for large scale applications. While royal residence cities ceased to be built after the eighteenth century, the great capitals in their growth and extension followed the same general lines [ ...|! I emphasize lies on the nature o f the phenomenon o f St. Petersburg as the city that was envisioned and built as a capital, follow ing the ideals of the great European capitals. As the English Member of Parliament. Henry Norman, w rote in the beginning o f the twentieth century, "any quarter of it would be at home in Paris or Potsdam or Peseta."2 The rise and fall o f Imperial St. Petersburg took place w ithin a rather short period of time. Founded on May 16. 1703, by the outbreak o f the World War I, two centuries later. St. Petersburg had become a highly developed metropolis. Although industrialization did not exert a great impact overall on Russian urbanization in the nineteenth century and cities did not play a prominent role in the industrializing process. St. Petersburg was a notable exception. The city developed from the late 1860s as a center o f industrial and commercial might.3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 In spite o f the fact that the •’liberal” bourgeoisie had failed to usurp the political power of the aristocracy, the middle class— merchants and traders, bankers and financiers— were economically in the ascendant From 1866 to 1894. the number o f mills and factories in the city increased 1.5 times, while the number of workers grew three times. According to the one-day census o f 1897. more than half of St. Petersburg's population was involved in various trades, business and commerce. It was also a period of rising living standards and rapid social expansion. Initially the city was populated by force. In 1710. when all the members o f the Imperial family together with all government institutions moved to St. Petersburg from Moscow, an ukase was issued demanding that forty thousand workmen a year be sent to the new capital from the provinces. All officials, nobles, and landow ners possessing thirty or more families o f serfs were obliged to relocate to St. Petersburg. Since then, the capital of the vast, multiracial Russian Empire attracted to itself countless thousands of citizens o f far-llung provinces. When St. Petersburg entered the industrial age. its industry and commerce depended largely on seasonal workers who often left their families in the countryside— hence during the nineteenth century almost 75 per cent o f St. Petersburg citizens were male. At the turn o f the century. St. Petersburg with its population of 1.3 million, became the fifth city in Europe, after London (6.3 million). Paris (2.6 million). Berlin (1.6 million), and Vienna (1.5 million). During the first seventeen years o f the tw entieth century, the population o f the city continued to increase rapidly and reached 2.5 million (that is. the number grew by almost 90 percent), aggravating the already acute housing shortage. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 While the building industry was unable to keep pace with the population explosion, technical and scientific advances in other fields succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity. Although St. Petersburg lacked the kind o f subway system found in Paris, Berlin or London, electric trams have serviced its central streets from 1907 onwards, and electric street lighting was introduced, also in the city center. By 1913 there were 2.5S5 trams in St. Petersburg, along with horse-drawn trams ikonkti). cabbies, and omnibuses. It was the age o f the automobile and the airplane, and also o f the typewriter and the telephone. The telegraph and railway connected the remote metropolis to all parts o f Europe and. via the Trans-Siberian, to China and the Far Fast. St. Petersburg had an operetta and three opera houses, a famous ballet company, and an innumerable number o f various theatrical enterprises. O f the fifty buildings in the section of Nevsky Prospect between the Admiralty and the Fontanka. there were banks in twenty-eight. including the Russian-Brinish, the Russian-French, and the Russian-Dulch branches. The celebrated Faberge jewelry store located at Bolshaia Morskaya. one block from Nevsky, was frequented by aristocratic clients from all over the world. There were fashionable restaurants, luxury hotels, and elegant shops on Nevsky Prospect, many private clubs, and a large number o f cinemas (twenty-three on Nevsky alone). Dmitrii Likhachev in his autobiographic article "The Petersburg of my childhood." wrote in glowing terms o f this now-vanished city: You could not see the facades behind the notices and ads. [...] They climbed as high as the third floor. They swamped Liteiny and Vladimirsky Prospects, the center o f the city. [...] Above the pavement on the small streets were pretzels, golden cow heads, gigantic pince-nez. jumbo-sized boots or scissors, all advertising various emporia. [...] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 The ground floors on the main streets were a feast for the eye. The main doors were spick-and span. They had shining copper handles (which were removed in the 1920s to provide copper for the Volkov Power Dam). The pavements were well swept. [...] Some o f the most expensive shops were on the “sunny side” o f Nevsky Prospect (“the sunny side” was almost an official way of referring to the even-numbered houses on that avenue). I remember the windows o f the cultured-diamond shop called Teta. In the middle of the window was a contraption with rotating lamps: the diamonds glittered and shimmered in their light.'1 Peace and security, the prosperity of the ruling classes, and the power and splendor of the Romanovs were reflected in two grandiose Imperial festivities: the pompous and lavish celebration of St. Petersburg's bicentenary in 1903 and. a decade later, the Jubilee celebrations that marked the 300 anniversary of the establishment o f the Romanov dynasty.' The balls, the marches, the parades, the dedications of numerous monuments, and the endless round of official engagements were lavish extravagances, and in the center o f these festivities were the Emperor Nicholas II and his family. The monarch, the political institutions, the religion, and the law were supposed to create an illusion of continuity and permanence. This sense of permanence, however, had its disadvantages: the Romanovs' concept of dynastic power was inextricably linked with the ideals of stability and the preservation o f the existing order, but this cultivation of the status quo brought together feelings o f futility and a kind of intellectual and moral stagnation. St. Petersburg had the most elaborate bureaucracy in Russia, and the “official" life— the military or the civil service, for example— was regulated down to the most minute details. Many facts, however, indicated that stability, which appeared as the most important feature o f the Empire and its institutions, was. in essence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 illusory. The turn o f the century was marked by an increase in the suicide rate, an extraordinary growth in the number o f esoteric cults, and the emergence o f such diametrically opposite political forces as the Marxists and the Union of Russian People (Soiu: Russkogo naroda). The official death rate statistics (26 per 1000) indicated that St. Petersburg exceeded those of all major European cities (in Berlin the death rate was 17.8. in London 18.4. in Paris 18.8. and in Vienna 21.6). The assassinations of Alexander II in 1881. of Alexander 1 1 1 in 1804. and of two unpopular Ministers. Yiaeheslav von Plehve in 1004 and Petr Stohpin in 1006. pointed to the resort to violence as a political weapon. The tragically unsuccessful war w ith Japan in 1003- 1005. Bloody Sunday of January 22 (0 o.s.). 1005. when nearly 5.000 participants of a peaceful march were killed or wounded b\ the Petersburg garrison troops, the revolution of 1005-1007. and the scandalous power of Rasputin'’— these were among the elements that discredited the old regime. The capital o f empire, linked with other powers not only by diplomatic relations, but also by the kinship bonds of the Romanov dynasty with many other royal families of Europe— German. British. Danish. Greek— the capital w here the sounds of bands on parade, solemn speeches and ceremonies, the roar of firew orks to greet an endless stream of visiting dignitaries never stopped— in this capital a different kind o f music was heard more and more loudly with every passing year: the explosions o f handmade bombs, rifle shots, and the sw ishing of the Cossacks' whips.7 These sounds emerged in the outskirts of the capital, in the working-class districts of the Petersburg Side. Okhta. Vasilievsky Island, and Vyborg. This "other" St. Petersburg described by Vsevolod Krestovsky in Peterhurgskie trushchoby [St. Petersburg Slums], lacked public transportation, paved streets, electric street lighting, and most other Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 signs of modernity and presented a shocking contrast to the city center. A paradigm of the urban capitalist development that Mum ford traced on the example of Amsterdam's downtown and suburbs could be applied to St. Petersburg— after all, the Russian capital was created as the new Amsterdam: From the example o f Amsterdam I am tempted to draw two contradictory conclusions. One is the very obvious one. that the benefits o f capitalism were confined to those on the inside, the merchants, traders, financiers, investors: and that it was no part of a capitalist economy to provide urban quarters for the working class except on terms that would furnish a handsome profit: that is to say. by overcrowding, skimping, niggardly provisions even for light and air. a general w orsening of the whole urban environment.8 The dual nature o f St. Petersburg resembled the urban contrasts of Paris. London. Vienna. Munich, or any other industrial metropolis. It is what Katerina Clark defines. follow ing the schemata provided in Peter Stallybrass and Allon White's The Politics * ainl Poetics of'Transgrcssion. as the opposition of "sewers versus grand buildings" within the symbolic space of the city.'* The October revolution reversed the hierarchy of "high" and "low ." o f center and periphery. Moreov er, it established for awhile an absolute dominance o f "low" in the life o f St. Petersburg: a complete lack of public transportation and sewerage, grossly overcrowded apartments, and fuel and food crises. The time of trouble, the period of deprivation o f cultural heritage, had begun for St. Petersburg. Its artists and writers depicted the stages of the city 's death: deterioration of its beautiful palaces, grass growing through the wooden paving blocks o f the streets, and signs of poverty everywhere. Anna Akhmatova later recalled this post- revolutionary St. Petersburg: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 Bee CTapbie neTepGyprcKite BbiBeeKii 6bi.au eme na cbohx .\iecTax. ho aa HHM1I, KpOMe nbl.TH, Mp3K3 H 3 H BIO me H nVCTOTbl, HHHerO He ObUlO. C b inH H K , roJiojt, paccTpe.abi, TeM HOTa b K B a p ru p a x . cbipbie ztpoBa, o n y x u m e a o Hey3HaBae.MOCTH .aioan. B T o c th h o m JfBope mo>kho 6 b ia o co 6p aT b o o a b iu o H S y x e T n on eB b ix u b c to b . ^ o r iu iB a a n 3HaM eHHTbie n e re p o y p rc K H e T o p u b i. H 3 n o a B aa b H b ix o k o h "K p a (|)T a '' e m e n a x a o m o K o a a a o M . Bee K a a a 6 w m a 6 bum p a3rp o M ae H b i. r o p o a n e npo cT o in M e m u ic H . a p e u iH T e a b H o npeBpaTiiaC H b c b o io n po riiB o n o n o /K H O cT b . [All old St. Petersburg signboards were still in their places but there was nothing behind them but dust, darkness, and gaping void. Typhoid fever, starvation, executions, dark apartments, wet logs, people swelled beyond recognition. One could gather a large bouquet of field flowers in the Gostiny Dvor. Famous St. Petersburg wood paving blocks were rotting. The smell of chocolate was still coming up from the basement windows of "Craft." All cemeteries were looted. The city had not simply changed, it had absolutely turned into its exact antithesis. |1 0 Already renamed Petrograd. the city lost its function as a national capital in 1918 as well as an appearance appropriate to the status of Huropean metropolis. Since the moment when the city w as founded on a swamp, prophesies proclaiming that "St. Petersburg will be empty" [Sankt-Pcicrhnr^ii h y t' pustu) became one of the main concerns o f Tainaia Kantscliuriiu (the Secret Chancellery, the Imperial secret police). The unhealthy climate of St. Petersburg, w hich lies only 6° south of the Arctic Circle.11 and the recurrent Hoods of the Neva contributed to this belief— there have been three hundred Hoods in the city's history, the most powerful ones topping the four- meter mark. The idea o f St. Petersburg's doom held the minds of Russian intellectuals throughout the nineteenth century. The theme o f the transmutation o f metropolis to necropolis w as a distinguishing feature o f the Modernist discourse about the city, as, for example, in Bely's Peierburg. Therefore, the process of the decay o f St. Petersburg that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 the citizens witnessed after the revolution was immediately recognized as a realization o f the prophecy. Osip Mandel'shtam announced Petropol's death ("Tvoi brat. Petropol', umiraet...." [Your brother. Petropolis. is dying]) in his 1918 poem "Na strashnoi vysote bluzhdaiushchii ogon'...” [A drifting fire at terrible height]; Elizaveta Polonskaia saw the Apocalyptic green star over the city in 1919 ("Polyn' zvezda vzoshla nad nashim gradom...." [An absinthe star rose above our city... ]); Anna Akhmatova wrote about "the wind of death" ("L’zh veter smerti serdtse studit...." [The wind o f death already freezes the heart]) in her "Petrograd. 1919" (1920); and Yil'gel'm Zorgenfrei wrote about the dead capital in the 1920 poem "Nad Nevoi" [Above the Neva] ("I pogibshaia stolitsa v ochi prizraku gliaditsia...." [And the perished capital looks into the ghost's eyes]). Aleksandr Blok referred to Petersburg as "the dead city" in his notebooks of 1919. Zinaida Gippius in the introduction to her 1919 Petersburg diary. ( 'hcrnaia knizhka [Black Book], written in Warsaw in 1920. also talked about the city's agony: > 1 u iu e .a a . k u k v M iip a .1 vtoft r o p o n ... Becb r o p o a . f l e r e p o y p r . c o 3a a iiiib tii f le r p o M it B o c n e ri.ift r iy u iK tm i.iM . M ti.ib in . c T p o r n fi n C T p a u iH b ifi r o p o a — v M it p a a ... M o n r io c a e a im e la n iic n y>Ke C K o p o iib ie a a n n c it a r o tin n . [I saw how the city was dying... The entire city. Petersburg, created by Peter and extolled by Pushkin, the dear, strict and frightening city— was dying... M y last notes are already the sorrowful notes o f agony.] '* The transformation o f St. Petersburg into necropolis began with the renaming o f the city. Dutch-oriented Peter the Great called his city Sankt-Pieterburg. the City o f Saint Peter. The German name Sanki-Peterburg came to use in the late 1730s and early Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1740s. On September 1 (August 19 o.s.). 1914. a month after Nicholas II declared war on Germ any,lj the capital got its new. russified name. Petrograd. This was a purely political gesture, very much in the chauvinistic. anti-German spirit o f that time. Although the majority o f Petersburg intellectuals during the first months o f the war praised Russia's militaristic ambitions, they reacted with ultimate negativity against the renaming o f the city. An artist Yurii Annenkov called it ridiculous (nelepoe).1 4 and his older colleague Kostantin Somov went even further and labeled it as shameful (jjozonioc).'' Zinaida Gippius wrote a poem. "Petrograd."1 '’ in which she proclaimed that the renaming o f the city w as an act o f insult for Peter's creation: Kro iiocxniya na .termite rieipoito? Kro eouepuiennoe aeaiibe pyx C mc.'i ocKopoirrb. otiihh xoth oi.i c.iubo. CMe.i u iMeiiiiTb xoni d c.timtwii - junk? Me m u . ue Mbi... PacrepMiutaH Me.iH.tb. H ro. BaacTuyH. ca.\ia G oiitch liac! Bee .weMyrcH. aa Hbii-ro piribi aeasrr. 1 1 Bee apovuaa aa cuofi iiocaeauuii Mac. 1 la\ieiiuitKa.M in.Meubi lie iioaopitbi. M piiaer oTMtuemiio cboh nopa... Mo CTbiauo Te.M. kto. ueceao rioKopiibi. C npeaareaa.Mit ripeaa;ni OeTpa. Mextv Geiaapuoe b Bac cepaue paao? CaaBHiimime vGoroff? I lab tom v. Mto k « nerporpaa\ " piuJiM ryaautnx c raao KptiKviiiBO abiieT. KaK oyaTO k cBoexiy? Ho Gaii30KaeHb— it B 0 3rpe.Mar nepynbi... Ha no.Moutb. Meaubifi BO>Kab. cKopeft. CKopeft! BoccTaneT on. Bee tot >K e. oaeanbift. ioitbift. Bee t o t >K e— b pine aeBCTBemtbix h o h c h. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 Bo B Jia>K H O M Bi!3re BeTpenHbix pario/uifi 1 1 b oe^onepucTOCTH bciuhmx rivpr, Co3aamte peBOJiiomioHHofi bojih— ripeKpacHo-cTpaiiiHbiH nerepoypr. [Who plotted against the child o f Peter? Who dared to insult the perfect deed by taking away even a word, dared to change even a single sound? Not us. not us... but the confused menials who even in power are afraid of us! They still rush about and divide their shares, and fear their death-hour. The traitors are not ashamed o f treachery. But the time o f vengeance will come.... Those who happily and obediently betrayed Peter should be ashamed. What it is that your inept heart is happy about'? Is it the empty slavinism'? Or is it because a herd of cheap rhymes clings flashily to the word "Petrograd" as if it were one of their kind? But the day is near and the pcroims will proclaim it.... Help, the bronze leader! Hurry! And it will rise, as always pale and young, as always in the dress o f virgin nights, in the squeal o f wet w indy expanses, and in the w hiteness of spring blizzards— beautiful and scary Petersburg!! Obviously, the mood of this poem is \ery different from Gippius' own earlier damnation to the city of Peter, for instance in the last stanzas of the poem "Peterburg" (1909): Kai< ripoicte. ui.erex men TBoii Me.tm.iit. Ha;t 3\teeM crbiner Me.tnuft koiii.... II lie eovKpei reoM iiooo;uibifi BceoMumaioimin oi oiib.— Her! Tbi yroiteuib b Hepiiofl rune. HpoK.iHTbifi ropoj. Bo/Kitfi Bpar! H nepBb oo.toTiibirt. HepBb vnoptibifi M3T>ecT TBofi KaNtennbtfi k o c th k ! [Your bronze snake is still writhing, and your bronze horse freezes above it.... And you will never be devoured by a conquering, purifying flame. No! You will drown in your black mire, vile city. God's foe! And swamps worms, ever-stubbom worms will eat around your stony bones!] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. If this earlier poem belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of the poetic renunciation of the “vile city, God's foe." Gippius angrily attacked the foes o f St. Petersburg in 1914. This anger was emblematic of the city and at first seemed to be merely a reaction against the propagandists efforts of the government. There was a much deeper level of rejection, however, since the intellectuals of St. Petersburg did not agree to accept the name that already had a century-long literary tradition. Prom the beginning the apostolic name. “City of St. Peter." was equated with the name o f the founder o f the city. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, the name "City o f Peter.” Grad Petrov.1 and even P etro g ra d}s often appeared. For instance. Pushkin in his poem I lednyi vsadnik [The 1 3 ron/e I lorsentan|. subtitled Peterhurgskaiapovest' [Petersburg Stors |. used both these names as well as Pelropol '.| l The word "Petrograd" was a perfectly legitimate word in Russian literature and it well suited St. Petersburg as long as it was a poetic convention. Yet as a fact of political and cultural reality, it became a pretentious imposter and an imprudent invader. Therefore, the word "Petrograd” fell out o f the domain of art into the territory of non-lleiional. documentary prose. St. Petersburg artists chose to call their city by different names: Mandel'shtam created the image o f P etropol' in his poetry of the late 1910s. Dobuzhinsky published his album of lithographs called "Petersburg in 1921." and Vaginov. even in the 1930s. referred to the city as "Petersburg." The name o f the city chosen by Peter the Great cannot be identified through just one language. It belongs to an infra-language o f European culture: "Sankt"— from Latin Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "sanctus," saint; “Peter"— from Greek "petros." stone; "burg"— from German “Burg," fortress, city. So the name of the Russian capital, the City o f Saint Stone, is proclaimed in the three sacred languages o f Europe: Catholic Latin. Orthodox Greek, and Reformed (Protestant) German. Thus the very name of the city bears the archetype o f the Sacred Stone on the borders of land and water in which Christian and Northern mythologemes of the Creation merge. This archetype, embodied in falconet's monument to Peter and in Pushkin's poem M cilnyi v.stulnik [The Bronze Ilorseman|. forms the "metaphysical landmark"2 0 o f St. Petersburg culture. By taking aw ay the original city name. Nicholas II and his advisers unintentionally deprived St. Petersburg, then Petrograd. not only of its apostolic patron but also of its mythological essence. Another stroke of fate befell on St. Petersburg in March 1G1S. when the Bolshevik government decided to move the Soviet capital to Moscow. The reason for the "dismissal" was the same one that two centuries before had made St. Petersburg the Imperial capital: its geographic position close to the Western borders and the sea. The Bolsheviks found this location too dangerous during the years o f the Civil War. Then the great exodus of Petersburg intelligentsia began. Vasilii Rozanov died in the beginning o f 1919. Zinaida Gippius and Dmitrii Merezhkovskv emigrated to France via Poland in December of the same year. The deaths of Aleksandr Blok and Nikolai Gumilev, and the emigration of Alexei Remizov. Georgii Ivanov and Irina Odoevtseva marked the year 1921. The famous Imperial University and its philosophers and students became the object of persecution. Little by little, the city turned into a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. provincial settlement. In order to revive it. "the miracle had to happen and it happened. The city created by the will and vanity o f one man could be saved only by will and vanity of another man. [...] Such a man was Grigorii Zinov'ev."2 1 It was Zinov'ev. the Chairman o f the Petrograd Soviet from 1919 until 1926. who invented for the city its new political and cultural meaning and status. There was no place in Bolshevistic Russia for a "porphyrian widow” (porfironosnaia vilnvu). and the new meaning and function of the city, invented bv Zinov'ev. appeared as its allegedly inherent and immanent revolutionary nature. The City o f Saint Peter became the City of Three Revolutions, the cradle of the Great October. Naturally, it acquired a new name. It was named after Lenin, the symbol and embodiment of revolutionary spirit, and in August of 1924 became Leningrad. Vsev olod Pudov kin’s 1927 film Konet.s Sankt-Peterhurga [The find o f St. Petersburg] summarized this process in the final sequence of titles written in giant letters: "SAINT PETERSBLRG IS NO M ORE." "LONG LIVE THE CITY OE L E N IN .” Despite the terrible Hood in September o f 1924 that was seen by many as a punishment for the new renaming and further de-sacralization of the city.2 2 this second act o f renaming might have actually saved the city from turning into a necropolis and gave birth to a new myth, that of Leningrad. But Leningrad and its myth lie beyond the scope o f this study. The Bolshevik agenda aside, whatever happened to St. Petersburg happened because it was all predicted and prepared for by the myth reflected in Petersburg literature. In 1918 Vasilii Rozanov said with bitterness and indignation: "There is no doubt that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Russia was killed by literature."2 3 Although this accusation seems to be rather provocative, it is hard not to agree with Rozanov. In her recent book Petersburg, Crucible o f C ultural Revolution, Katerina Clark asserts that the Russian intellectuals were responsible for the tragedy of the revolution. Nineteenth-century Russian literature was obsessed with the image of evil St. Petersburg, a city o f social ills and pathological sins, a city of innocent victims and social parasites, a city o f suffering and crimes. It was turned into a manifestation of all that was rotten in society. The St. Petersburg of Dostoevsky and Nekrasov. Krestovsky and Polonsky, became the perfect cliche for a criminal setting. The literary image of St. Petersburg could be schematized through the model suggested in Mumford's The C ity in History. Mumford developed the paradigm o f transformation o f the city from megapolis to necropolis, using ancient Rome as a model: Parasitopolis had become Patholopolis. [... | That Pathopolis was beyond saving, even when it turned to Tyrannopolis. [...) The mere momentum of habit, the inertia of numbers, increased the velocity o f its downward descent. 'Sauve qui peut!' Only one further stage o f city development remained, and that came soon: Necropolis, the city o f the dead.'4 When St. Petersburg died, its "life after death" began. The death itself, perceived by the contemporaries as both terrifying and beautiful ("smert' neobychainoi krasoty." according to Mstislav Dobuzhinsky).2" ' was realized as an expiatory sacrifice. St. Petersburg, in its posthumous existence, became canonized, and its myth was turned into a standard code, a sort o f Aesopian language for those Russian intellectuals who integrated them into the new Leningrad myth— the poets o f the Akhmatova circle Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 (Brodsky, Kushner. Rein) and artists from Bernstein to Chemiakin. For them, St. Petersburg remained as a Museum of cultural treasures, a Library o f humanistic thought, and a Sanctuary o f national spirit. This new role o f St. Petersburg had become clear already in the 1920s. when one of the contemporaries wrote: l le.M H<e MO/KeT obirb renepb flerepdypr x'w Poccmi? He Bee ero ;tBopitbi onycxeait. no B cu e noryx.ia /Ktniib. M ito n ie in othx .m opuoB ao nepaaKOB nadu rbi Kinira.Mii. KapntiiaMH. CTUTyjtMii. Becb Botayx 3aecb ao tukom crenem i iiaabituan uciiapemiXMii MeaoBeliecKofi Mbican h TBopuecTBa. liro ora ar.MoccJjepa ne pacceercH neabie aecHTiiaeniH. ... Ot ii creiibi d yayr eme npim iniuaTb noKoaemiH Mbicanreaefi. cosepuareaeu. Beum.ie Mbicau poa« ich b n im iu ie laKanioi o iiaca. Topoa Ky.ibrypiibix ckiito b ii MonacTbipefi. iioaoono At(mna.M Bpe.Meim flpoK.'ia.— nerepoypi oci anercH naaoaro un raaeabio pyccKofi Mbtcau. Petersburg— what may it be for Russia now? Not all of his palaces have been deserted, not every w here has life faded away . Many of those palaces are stuffed w ith books, paintings, and statues up to the allies. The very air here is so Filled with the evaporations of human thought and creativity that this atmosphere would not scatter for whole decades. [...] Those walls will attract generations o f thinkers, contemplators. Lternal thoughts are being born in the silence of twilight. The city of cultural hermitages and monasteries, similar to Athens of the time of Proclus. Petersburg will remain for a long time the charterhouse of Russian thought. [,..| But Petersburg died and will not be resurrected.:t) The decay and death o f Petersburg were reflected in poetry, prose, and visual arts, as well as in documentary materials: newspaper articles, correspondence, diaries, memoirs, and photographs. This dissertation draws on sources o f various genres, including literary and documentary texts and w orks of art. along with recent publications on St. Petersburg culture, so as to examine the evolving myth of the city. It relies on both historiographical and sociological approaches to urban culture and is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 based on the analysis o f major texts of Russian literature of the 1910s to 1920s along with a number o f lesser known and often unpublished materials. Famous poetic works of Anna Akhmatova. Aleksandr Blok. Zinaida Gippius. and Osip Mandel'shtam are placed in a larger context formed by the poetry of Nikolai Agnivtsev. Irina Odoevtseva, Elizaveta Polonskaia. Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky. Nikolai Tikhonov, and Vil'gel’m ZorgonlYei. The corpus of prose works includes Isaak Babel's Dnevnik [Diary] and Teierbun; l l ) IS. Aleksander Grin's "Fandango" and “Kr\solov" [The Rat-Catcher|. Olga Forsh's Sinnasshedshii k o n ih l' [Crazy Ship], and fix genii Zamiatin's "Mamai" and "Peshchera" [The Cave). The diaries o f Alexandre Benois. Blok. Gippius. Konstantin Somov and memoirs of Yurii Annenkov. Nina Berberova. Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Georgii Ivanov. Vladimir Milashevsky. Odoevtseva. and Viktor Shklovsky form a major area of investigation. Paintings and graphic works of Petersburg artists who paid tribute to the St. Petersburg theme, such as Dobuzhinsky. Nikolai Kupreianov. Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Kuz’ma Petrov-Vodkin. and Pavel Shillingovsky are also analyzed in relation to photographs depicting the city during the late 1910s to 1920s. My dissertation focuses on the various manifestations of St. Petersburg's disintegration during the first years after the revolution. It is significant that during that period the destruction of the city became the dominant metaphor o f its cultural discourse. According to the famous "recipe" o f the Bolshevik revolution. The International, in order to "build the new world” the revolutionaries first had to "raze to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 the ground the world o f violence." Associated with the oppressive Tsarist regime, St. Petersburg had to be destroyed, if not physically then at least symbolicalh. Analyzing St. Petersburg culture in the late 1910s and early 1920s. I concentrate on the signs o f the city's devastation and decay and not on the distopian encroachment of the "brave new world." While construction became the general cliche for the post-revolutionary art in Russia, the dissolution of St. Petersburg and its cultural heritage provides an important balancing metaphor and a rich field of research. The St. Petersburg theme in Russian art and literature has generated much scholarship. Numerous works then and now have been devoted to the phenomenon of Petersburg in Russian culture, among them these b\ Nikolai Antsiferov. Alexandre Benois. Katerina Clark. Mikhail Gasparov. Yurii Lotman. Sidney Monas. Joan Neuberger. Omry Ronen. Roman Timenchik. Yurii Tomashevsky. Vladimir Toporov. and Yurii Tsivian. The image of Petersburg has received special attention in Russian literary criticism, especially the creathe refractions of Pushkin. Gogol'. Dostoevsky. Bely. The St. Petersburg theme in the works o f Blok. Akhmatova, and Mandel'shtam has also been analyzed.' Until recently, however. St. Petersburg during the period of the late 1910s through the 1920s has not been studied in depth. Several important publications on the period appeared in the 1990s. each approaching St. Petersburg culture from a different perspective. Blair A. Ruble's Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. published in 1990. analyzes the ways in which political and administrative processes affected the metropolis and serves as a perfect example o f contemporary urban studies. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 Ruble's documentation is extensive and contains a wealth o f information about the city's administrative and economic infrastructure. The book concentrates on Leningrad's development after World War 1 1 . and the scholar only briefly describes the transition from St. Petersburg to Petrograd and then to Leningrad in the first chapter. "The Petersburg Tradition." Solomon Volkov's Si. Petersburg- .1 C u ltu ral History, which appeared in Lnglish translation in 1995. is an ambitious attempt to present all facets o f the city's rich cultural life from the time o f its founding up to the present day. Although it provides captivating reading for non-specialists, the book may sometimes irritate scholars in the field as they come upon factual errors and overstatements. Mentioning hundreds o f names. Volkov selects a single representative for each period whom he considers the most outstanding personification of the city's culture o f that particular time. The vulnerability of this approach is obvious, and the choice o f Akmatova over Blok. Benois. Dobuzhinsky. or Mandel'shtam as the representative of St. Petersburg culture from the 1900s through the early 1920s is questionable. Another study that covers two and a half centuries of the city's cultural history is Grigory Kaganov's Images o f Space: St. Petersburg in the Usual and Verbal Arts. published in 1997 in Sidney Monas's translation. If Volkov's primary attention is given to poetry and music. Kaganov mainly concentrates on the visual component o f the St. Petersburg myth, which has been neglected for a long time. Unfortunately, the interdisciplinary approach that is announced in the title o f the book is almost completely Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. abandoned in the chapter concerning the pre- and post-revolutionary years, and Blok's poetry is given as the only parallel to the images created by the artists o f the W orld o f A rt Group. Katerina Clark's Petersburg, Crucible o f C ultural Revolution (1995) remains the most serious analysis of St. Petersburg culture in the years from 1913 to 1931. The book that the author calls "a case study of the ecology o f revolution" focuses on the immanent revolutionary quest o f Petersburg intellectuals. Their integration into the Stalinist cultural and ideological system is traced through architecture and linguistics and most o f all in the material o f performance art: film, mass spectacles, opera, and theater. Although Clark does not examine the works o f literature and visual art of the period, her book is certainly an innovative contribution to the studying o f the cultural politics. In the context of the existing scholarship, my dissertation examines the neglected yet crucial phenomenon of the disintegration o f St. Petersburg culture. I attempt to analy/e it within the contemporary context and to reconstruct to a certain extent the conditions o f life in the dying city. My approach is based on common themes reappearing in different works o f St. Petersburg literature and art. The principal goal of this study is to demonstrate the existence of a cohesive Petersburg text in the historical and cultural period o f the late 1910s and 1920s and to analyze its syntagmatic concept and themes, such as visions o f the city as Necropolis, as Noah's Ark. as Museum, and as Collective Memory. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. St. Petersburg texts o f the time provide two versions of the city’s death. The first one interprets the city's death as a result of the Great Glacier. The former European capital is shown covered with snow and ice. w hich erase all the straight lines o f the Petersburg boulevards and turn palaces and houses into frozen caves. This place, that used to be St. Petersburg is now inhabited by mammoths and cavemen driven by hunger. The theme of hunger is a new theme in the St. Petersburg myth and it is to be found in almost every w ork o f art o f the time. Another version of the Petersburg necropolis is evoked by the summer representation of the dead city. The metropolis is now overgrown with grass, the grass of oblivion, and lies as a neglected cemetery. The bustling life of the big city has disappeared, and St. Petersburg has turned into a lost provincial town. A traditional component of the Petersburg myth, the theme o f the death of the city caused by flood, gains an unusual perspectiv e— that of G rad Kitezh. a legendary Russian Atlantis which sank to the lake floor in order to evade the barbarous invasion. All that remained of the "sunken'' city w ere the houses transformed into outlandish ships whose sailor-eitiz.ens had no idea o f their course. The Bolshevik decree on apartments turned each habitat into a communal apartment where people were crammed like the animals in Noah's Ark. The absurdity of this everyday life was reflected in many contemporary works o f art. The final tribute giv en to the city by its artists was that o f transforming Petersburg into a museum. A main goal of the artists in these years of crucial social and political Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 dislocation was to preserve the cultural treasures of their city. They organized societies to protect the monuments of the past and the collections of museums and libraries. In the 1920s the myth of St. Petersburg was preserved, described, and carefully cataloged. The problem of the city as collective memory that embodies "life after death-’ is another focus o f my study. When the look of St. Petersburg and its topography were destroyed — even Nevsks Prospect was renamed— the consciousness of its inhabitants transformed the city into a pre-revolutionary Petersburg to whose chronotope they inevitably returned in their memories. Hence nostalgia and the peculiar development of a retrospective culture, with a marked orientation backwards from this modern Age of Mud to the Gold and Silver Ages. St. Petersburg artists maintained a vigil at the deathbed of the old culture and reflected the process o f the death of the city as well as its posthumous resurrection. 1 Lewis Mumtbrd. The C ity in H isto ry Its Origins, Its Transform ations. onJ Its Prospects (San Diego. New York. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovieh. 1961). 400. ' Henry Norman. A ll the Russ ms (London. 1902). 8. ’ Robert B. M e Kean. St. Petersburg between the Revolutions W orkers and Revolutionaries. June 190~— F ebruary I 9 I~ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1990), 2. 4 Likhachev. Dm itrii. "The Petersburg o f Ms Childhood." in M ikhail P. Iroshnikov, Yury B. Shelayev, and Liudmila A. Protsai, Before the Revolution: St Petersburg in Photographs IS 9 0 - I9 H (New York: Harry N. Abrams. Inc.. 1992). 8-9. ’ The Romanov dynasty to M ikhail Fedorovich Romanov, a representative o f an old Boyar family. He was elected Russian Tsar at the Zemstvo Assembly in 1613 after the death ofTsar Boris Godunov, which was followed by the Tim e o f Trouble. Following are the reigns o f the Romanov tsars: M ikh ail, 1613- 1645: Aleksei. 1645-1676: Fedor III. 1676-1682; Ivan V and Peter I, ruled jointly under regent Sophia. 1682-1696; Peter I. 1696-1725: Catherine I. 1725-1727; Peter 11. 1727-1730; Anna Ioannovna. 1730- 1740; Ivan V I. 1740-1741: Elizabeth. 1741-1761: Peter III. 1761-1762: Catherine II. 1762-1796; Paul I. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 1796-1801; Alexander I, 1801-1825; Nicholas 1 . 1825-1855; Alexander II. 1855-1881; Alexander III, 1881-1894; Nicholas 1 1 . 1894-1917. b Son o f a peasant from Siberia who acquired the reputation o f a holy man and a starets, Grigorii Rasputin was introduced to Nicholas II in 1905 and for the next decade became closely associated with the Imperial fam ily. The incurable disease o f the heir (hemophilia) became a major reason for the rise of Rasputin, whose presence was thought by the Empress to be favorable for her aon's health. Rumors o f Rasputin's debauchery with his "spiritual daughters" spread around St. Petersburg. When all the efforts to discredit the stareis in the eyes o f the Tsar failed, a group o f monarchist conspirators (Vladim ir Purishkevich, Felix Yusupov and others) decided to kill Rasputin. The murder was executed in 1916 and was perceived as an Apocalyptic sign by the Imperial Family . Mikhail P. Iroshntkov. Yury B Shelaycv. and Liudmila A. Protsai. 118. * Muinford. 444. ' Katerina Clark. Petersburg C rucible o f C u ltu ra l Revolution (Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1995), 10. 1 1 1 Anna Akhmatova. "M andel’shtam. (Listki iz dnevnika)." in Suchm eniia (Moscow: Khudozhesivennaia literatura. 1968. vol. 2), 172. 1 1 In the early twentieth century, according to statistics, there were 158 days with rain and or snow and only 35 cloudless days. /. N Gippius. "Chernaia kni/hka. Istonia moego dnevnika." in I'o J sozvezJiem topora P etro graJ I ') I ~ g o Ja —znakom yi i neznakomyi (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia. 1991). 329-30. 1' In connection with the hostilities on the Austro-Serbian border. Nicholas II ordered a general mobilization on July 30 (17 o.s.). The Decree was published on July 3 1 (1 8 o.s.). and at midnight Germany presented Russia with an ultimatum demanding the cancellation o f the mobilization. After receiving a negative answer, the German ambassador Count Pourtales handed in a note declaring war. On August 2 (July 20 o.s ). a manifesto announcing Russia's entry into the war was read out to the people. 1 4 lurii Annenkov. D nevnik m oikli vstree/i Tsikl ira g e J ii Pol 2 ( Moscow: Khudozhesivennaia literatura. 1991). 157. 1 Konstantin Andreevich Somov. P is'm a D nevnikt SuzliJenna sovrcniennikov ( Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979). 133. The date when "Petrograd" was written. December 14. 1914. shows how important the poem was for Gippius: this was the date o f the eighty-ninth anniversary o f the Decembrists’ revolt, the sacred event in Russian history for Merezhkovsky and Gippius. ' Antiokh Kantemir. "Petrida" (1730); Vasilii Trediakovsky. “ Pokhvala Izherskoi zemle i tsarstvuiushchemu gradu Sankt-Peterburgu" (1752); Vasilii Ruban. "Nadpisi k kamniu-gromu" (17707); Petr Viazemsky. "Peterburg" (1818), etc. IH Gavrila Derzhavin. "Shestvie po Volkhovu Rossiiskoi Am lltridy" (1810); Kondratii Ryleev. "Davno nine serdtse g ovorilo..." (1821); Evgenii Boratynsky. "Poslanie k baronu Del'vigu" and "Piry" (both 1820); Stepan Shevvrev. "Petrograd” (1829). etc. l'f In fact, the name P etropoV was widely used as a poetic equivalent for St. Petersburg in the first h alf o f the nineteenth century . It appears in Semen Bobrov’s "Torzhestvennyi den’ stoletiia ot osnovaniia grada sv. Petra" (1803), Anna Bunina’s "M aiskaia progulka boliashchei” (1812), Nikolai Gnedich’s "Rybaki” ( IS21). Aleksandr Bestuzhev-Marlinsky’s "Podrazhanie Pervoi satire Bualo” (1819). Dm itrii Khvostov’s "Poslanie k N N o navodnenii Petropolia, byvshem 1824 goda 7 noiabria” (1824). Petr Ershov’s "Proshchanie s Peterburgoni” (1835). Vladim ir Benediktov’s "Zanevskii krai" (1837) and " N o d i’” (1840), etc. Johan Huizinga. Hom o Ltulens (Moscow: Nauka. 1992). 264. :i N. V . Grigor’ev. "Peterburg v poiskakh ku l’tumogo smysla" in P eterburg kak fenomen k u l'tu ry (St. Petersburg: Obrazovanie. 1994). 8. ” Veniamin Kaverin compared this Hood to the final Judgement Day: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [T]he water imposed chaos and a silence unknown in the city from the days o f its founding. When the lights went out in all the houses. And the signal cannon boomed every three minutes. When the schismatics, trapped at the common graves on the Field o f Mars prayed loudly, rejoicing that at last the time had come for the destruction o f the city, built by the Antichrist on the swamps. Quoted in Solomon Volkov St Petersburg I C u ltu ra l H istory {New York: The Free Press. 1495), 339- 40. V. V. Rozanov. "Apokalipsis nashego vremeni” in P od sozvezdiem tupora P etrograd I01 ~ goda— znakom yi i neznakom yi (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia. 1991) 72. :j Muntford, 234. " M. V Dobuzhinsky. I'osponiinanua (Moscow: N'auka. 1987). 23. "" G. P. Fedorov. "Tri stolitsy" in P od sozvezdiem topora. 49. " See. for instance. Sharon Leiter. Akhm atova's /V /lt.v/w /i,’ ( Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press. 1983); la veniulsta \ nun g o ro d Peterburg M a n d e /s liia u ia (Leningrad: Svecha. 1 9 4 1 ); Gregory Freidin. A Coat o f M any Colors Osip M andelstam and llis M ythologies of Self-Presentation (Berkeley 1.os Angeles London: University of California Press. 1987). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 Chapter One City as Necropolis St. Petersburg in the first years after the revolution represented a great experiment of personal and artistic survival that changed the cultural history of the city. The tremendous impact o f two wars (World War I and the civil war), two revolutions, and the politics o f War Communism created almost unbearable conditions for the artistic community. The individual stories of struggle, starvation, and artistic neglect were intertwined w ith the collective experience of the citizens losing their city. This collective experience of the degradation of St. Petersburg resulted in the creation o f common metaphorical interpretations of the city's death. Visions o f the city covered with snowy mountains and icebergs and doomed to freeze and starv e to death form the first large range o f texts analyzed in this chapter. Mirroring the w inter images, the artistic reflections of the summer St. Petersburg turned into a quiet and deserted graveyard belong to the second group of text examined here. What those images have in common is the deathly metamorphosis o f the former capital into its antithesis, into a wasteland covered with glaciers during the winter and overgrown by grass during the summer. Another important phenomenon of St. Petersburg's post-revolutionary existence reflected in all artistic chronicles o f the time is the striking contrast between the material hardship o f everyday life and the outburst o f spirituality, the "swan song” of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Russian Silver Age. The sorrowful and tragic accounts o f the city turning into necropolis are filled with the eschatological symbolism o f judgement day and destruction. The urban and architectural history of St. Petersburg, as of any major city, consists o f the constant destruction and reconstruction of old buildings and the erection o f new ones. With changing trends in architectural style came the almost immediate reconstruction of the interiors and exteriors of aristocratic mansions, as well as the most important public buildings (the residence of the Tsarist family— the Winter Palace— for example, was rebuilt several times throughout two centuries). As depicted by the photographs published in a unique album. Before the Revolution: St Petersburg in Photographs: 1S 90-/9N . some parts of the city often changed beyond recognition within a decade. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the process o f the city's growth was at its climax. Watereolors and drawings by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. the most urban painter of the World of Art group, depicted tiny w ooden houses, at least a century old. surrounded and impinged upon by hulking brick apartment blocks. As tragic as this process of city growth seemed to some observers, it was still natural. Large brick apartment blocks were much more profitable than the wooden houses and perfectly suited the economic situation o f the imperial capital. By the late 1910s. however, the situation changed: although nothing new w as built, the rate o f destruction had even increased. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 From the first days o f the February 1917 revolution, the mob demolished several sites reminding them o f the old regime— prisons, courts and police stations. An eyewitness wrote in her diary in early March 1917: The famous "Kresty" prison was in ruins; the heavy iron doors had been opened and prisoners were liberated. The Court House, with all its windows broken, looked like a man whose eyes had been put out [...] but the stone walls resisted the flames, and the black marks above the w indows showed how' the tongues of fire had vainly licked the old walls.1 Photographs o f the time show destroyed and burned-out buildings o f various Petrograd police stations.: Double-headed eagles, the emblems of Russian fm pire. were dismantled from the facades o f palaces and grills. This practice o f destroying symbols of the past carried on into the 1920s and 1930s. w hen numerous churches were desecrated and/or ruined, and many monuments, especially those o f members of the Romanov dynast) , w ere replaced by figures of the "revolutionary heroes." Still, a great number of Petrograd buildings were destroyed w ithout any apparent ideological or political reason. During the civil wur and the blockade o f the city in 1918-1920. many houses were left unattended after the abolition o f private property in real estate. Because o f the fuel crisis, wooden houses and wooden pavements and curbs were stolen for firewood, leaving behind only stoves instead o f houses and holes instead of paving blocks/ Zinaida Gippius depicted this destruction in her diary, Chernaia knizhka [The Black Book]: XlepeBHHHbie aosta npttKaaaHO cHecru Ha apoBa. O. pajpymaTb h;hbo. pa3pyuiaTb viacTepa. Pa3.30.\iaioT it pacTacKatoT. TacKaioT h Topubi. C e r o a m t ca.\ia B H aeaa, KaK .w aabunuiK a c iieBiimibiM BtiaoM p a 3 o n p a i m octobvjo. [ ...] K o e - ra e Ha y a m ta x ecTb h 6 e 3 a o m ib ie fl.Mbl. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 [There is an order to pull down wooden houses for firewood. Oh, hurry to destroy, masters o f destruction. They w ill dismantle and carry away [anything]. They also carry away paving blocks. Today I myself saw how a boy. with an innocent look, dismantled the pavement. [...) Here and there in the streets there are bottomless holes.]4 For the St. Petersburg artists who contributed to the myth o f the city and were especially sensitive to the signs o f decay and death, these "marks” o f the new era were extremely portentous. A poem by Blok's student Nadezhda Pavlovich, adds these symbols to the traditional prediction that “St. Petersburg w ill be empty": Jlo.\iaior ;io m : aneitb couceM iiycroii. /Ke.i reer hcoo iiua ckc. ic to m xpbimit. I I BCTep ceBepubifi cBooontto aw tum 1 laji roponoM. moctom ii nano Miioii. He vxaab puipyuieiiiioro rieiieaiima. I I Bece.i cjyk ynopitbift rortopoB. Kax 6\;tTo ;tan hum crporiifi crpofi .io. mob: Kax oyjxro biiobb Boaxa.Mii m u lapbiuteM B poaiibix noaax. it enoBa Berp it ctier 3aMeaaaT naui roaoaiibin xnuuibiu oer. Mbt rpaAuaite iioKimyroro rpaaa. II aiiKitfi. ;tpeBiiitft hum tipucimaca con: Hanpacno Haa bhcokoio orpaaon BaecrauiHft uinnab u aHren Boinecen. 3aecb ropoay ne obitb— it Ntopaoio iBepitttoft Bo. ioto (jnmcKoe ocxaaitaocb. raaaiiT. ripofuyrt Bexa it npncTanefi rpamtT B r a y o o x it e o c iu e T x o T a o B itH b i. H Bo.iHnft boh. apeMymiH. ztoantft boh Hart pa3BopoHeHHofi pa3rtacTca moctoboh. [They tear down a house: and the day is all empty. The sky is yellow above the ro o f s skeleton, and the Northern wind breaths freely over the city, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 bridge, and me. No sorrow for the ruined hearth, and the persistent knocking o f the axes is joyous as if we got this strict row o f the houses. [It is] as if we w ill scour the native fields like wolves and the wind and snow again will slow down our hungry predatory run. We are the citizens of the abandoned city and we dreamt a wild, ancient dream. The shining spire and the angel have risen in vain above the high walls: the city won’t be here! The Finnish swamp, like a beast’s snout, bared its teeth and stares. The ages will pass and the granite of piers will sink into the deep hollows and a w olfs howl, a dense and long howl, will sound over a dismantled pavement.] The central motif o f this poem is a cliche: the city o f St. Petersburg symbolized by the Admiralty spire, the angel o f the Alexandrine column, and the granite o f the Neva’s embankments, is finally conquered by the Finnish swamp. The primary subtext to the motif of the city's doomed vanity ("Naprasno nad vysokoiu ogradoi blestiashchii shpil’ i angel voznesen." [The shining spire and the angel have risen in vain above the high walls]) is Blok’s long poem Voznwzilie [Nemesis] ("Naprasno angel okrylennyi nad krepost’iu voznosit krest." [The winged angel rises the cross in vain above the fortress]). Instead o f the city with its strict architecture marked b\ the vertical dominants, there are deep hollows and the citizens are turned into wolves. The mention o f the ancient dream also links the poem to the old St. Petersburg tradition o f prophetic prediction of the city's doomed destiny. Though Pavlovich's poem obviously contains several emblematic elements o f St. Petersburg's myth, the framing is crucial: the poem begins with a ruined house and ends with dismantled pavement. The house is a single cell in the organism of the city and the pavement serves as a sign o f civilization and as the city's foundation, that separates it from the swamps and hollows. The St. Petersburg prophecy predicting that the city will become Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. abandoned, or "empty" (pustu), comes true in Pavlovich's poem describing one "empty” day (pustoi). Beginning with the destruction of one building, the process will lead to the desertion o f St. Petersburg and its surrender to the swamps. Architecture and lifestyle serve as valuable historical sources. Huizinga saw in modern architectural history growing concern for the individual and his family, even at the expense of the community: [A] shift from the social to the individual took place when the Renaissance saw the main task of the architect no longer in the building o f churches and palaces but o f dwelling-houses: not in splendid galleries but in drawing rooms and bed-rooms.' Eighteenth-century St. Petersburg was the first Russian city that "caught up" with European capitals. Yet palaces and churches remained the number one task of St. Petersburg architects until the mid-nineteenth century , when the large blocks of Hats {ilokluniinv Jonut) became the dominant urban architectural ty pe: a palace cnjiladc was even replaced by an apartment. Some of those apartment blocks were splendid and luxurious, but others were built cheaply and looked like anthills. It was the latter. however, that became the symbol of St. Petersburg dwelling in Russian literature— in the novels of Dostoevsky, the poetry of Nekrasov, and the documentary prose of Krestovsky . But even Raskol'nikov's coffin-like room in Dostoevsky's Prestuplenie i nakazanic [Crime and Punishment] still remained a room and a part o f a larger living space. The image o f a St. Petersburg dw elling that appears in many post-revolutionary works of art and literature is different: it is a cave, a single organic cell of the city Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 covered with ice and snow (the revolution is often compared with a natural disaster, like the Great Glacier). By the winter o f 1919-1920 the fuel crisis in Petrograd became much worse. It was so cold that the water pipes in the buildings broke. The inhabitants of the apartments had to reduce their living space by moving into the kitchen, where a stove was located. \lo p o 3 BmiBa.'icH b creiibi jo m o b . npo.\iopa>KHBa;i n.x ao oooeB. JIio;ui cruui! b ria.ibro u m> rb an ue b Kaaomax. Bee co6npa.uicb b k v x h ii: b ocTiLibiibix KOMiiarax paiBeaiicb cra.iaKTiiTbi. Jlioan >K a.rmcb a p y r k apyry a b onycTCBUie.M i opoae dbiao reeuo. [Frost stuck to the walls o f the houses and froze to the wallpaper. People slept in their coats and sometime in their galoshes. F.veryone gathered in their kitchens: stalactites grew in the other rooms. People snuggled up to each other and it was crowded in the deserted city.]*’ This expressive image taken from Viktor Shklovsky's article "Peterburg v blokade" [St. Petersburg in the Blockade) is similar to the descriptions o f the w inter life by many Petersburg intellectuals including Gippius and Milashevskv. In the hcllcs-lctircs of the time, the most pow erful reflection of the city freezing to death was given by Evgenii Zamiatin in his short story "Peshchera" [The Cave). The story was written in 1920 and first published in 1922 in Zapiski nwchtatelei [Notes of the Dreamers). No. 5. It depicts the rocky wasteland in the same place “w-here St. Petersburg was centuries ago." covered by glaciers. Mammoths rule here and people live in caves. In one o f the caves (a former St. Petersburg bedroom) Martin and the deathly ill Masha try to survive the wdnter. Their life centers around the stove. On her saint's day. Masha asks Martin to heat the stove hoping that she will feel better. She Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 does not know that they are out of firewood. Martin begs the Obertyshevs. his neighbors who have completely turned into cave people (the very name "Obertyshev” means "someone who turned into”), to lend him firewood. After they refuse his request. Martin steals a few logs. Masha feels better and is almost revived. In the evening, however. Martin finds out from the Housing Committee Chairman that Obertyshev wants his logs back. Martin decides to commit suicide but Masha sees him with the vial of poison (enough to kill only one of them) and begs Martin to relieve her sufferings. The story ends with the image o f the Woolly Mammoth (M am om cishii Mamont) walking around its domain. In the ten pages of "Peshehera." Zamiatin portra\s the winter deathbed o f St. Petersburg. This text consists o f elements quintessential to the St. Petersburg mythology o f that time. On the micro level. Zamiatin's short story shows the death of an individual, and on the macro level, it reflects the death of the city. The space o f a former St. Petersburg apartment, now turned into a cave, serves as a setting for the first type of death. The focal point of the cave universe, as described in the diaries and memoirs of Petrograd's citizens, is the stove— “god. short-legged, rustv-red. stocky, and greedy cave god.''8 This greedy god demands sacrifices of anything and everything, including books and furniture. Shklovsky wrote: cacer Meoenb. CKy.ibnTypubiH c raaoK. KHii/KHbie no.iKii n Kmini. kh hh i oe3 micna h \iepbi" [I burned my furniture, pedestal for sculptures, book shelves, and books, books, without number and measure].9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 On the macro-level. Zamiatin's text deals w ith the death o f the city as a result o f the Great Glacier and the Ice Age: JleaHiiKH. MaMOHTbi. nycTbimt. Homibie. Meptibie. iil\ m-to noxovKtte Ha .tONta cxajtbi: b CKanax neiuepbi. 1 1 neii3BecTHO. kto rpyoit r nonbio na Ka.weiiHOH TpomtHKe Meacty ei<a.i h. BbimoxiiBaM rpornuiKy. pa3ayBaeT oe.iyio cHOKHyto nbi.ib: MOA'er Curb. eepoxooorbifi m u m o h t: m o k t ObiTb— BeTep ti ecTb neajmofi peB KaKoro-ro Ma.woiiTefmiero MaMoma. Oano hcho: nisia. [Glaciers, mammoths, deserts. Nocturnal, black cliffs slightly resembling the buildings; in the cliffs there are the caverns. It is unclear who blares at night on the stony path between the cliffs and who blows white snowy dust while sniffing the path: maybe it is a gray-trunked mammoth: maybe the w ind itself is a glacial roar of some w oolly mammoth. One thing is clear: it is w inter. |1 0 Although Zamiatin's story portrays a couple o f days in late October, around Masha's saint's day. it is an eternal w inter in St. Petersburg. Masha and Martin continue to use the church calendar ("On the Feast o f the Intercession of the Holy Virgin Mary. Martin Martinych and Masha boarded up the study: on the Our Lady of Kazan they got out of the dinning room and hid in the bedroom"11) but the real time stopped forever in this new Iceland. The climate in St. Petersburg has always been cold and unpleasant, turning the Russian capital into an icebound Venice and Palmyra. Images of the icebound city are often to be found in St. Petersburg literature and visual arts.1 2 Although St. Petersburg culture could hardly be considered “warm." coldness, nonetheless, remained outside in the streets, and the city quite successfully struggled w ith it. Houses were w'arm and fires were burned in the streets during the long w inter nights for a passers-by to warm Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 themselves for a while.1 3 The fuel crisis in Petrograd during the years o f the civil war was totally unprecedented. In the winter, the city was frozen solid. Isaak Babel’, in his documentary-like short story "KJiodia" written in 1919. described Petrograd's freezing inwardness: HeyMo.niMaa iionb. Paumutfi BeTep. ria:ibubi MepTBeua nepeonpaioT od.ienene.ibie khlukii fleiepoypra. EarpoBbie arrreKii cTbmyr tia yr.iax. [... | Mopo i B iH.i uiitckn ui (J)noneroBoe cep.mte. 11 cep;me anreKit u uox.io. [An implacable night. A piercing wind. The cadaver's fingers run over the ice-covered intestines of Petersburg. Crimson pharmacies are freezing at the corners. [...| Prost grasped a pharmacy's violet heart. And the pharmacy's heart died. ]1 4 An archetypal connotation of Winter representing death was realized at that time as a fact o f existence1 ' and then transformed into a fact of art. The former European capital, built according to the rules of classical regularity, was covered with snow and ice. During the first winter after the revolution, the snow was cleared out of the streets using forced labor.1 " In the following winters, however, it became obv ious that the gravely ill Petrograd could no longer afford to care about its appearance. Dobuzhinsky. in his lithographic album Peierburs ' r Jvacltsul' pervom goclu [Petersburg in 1921 ]. created several winter city landscapes. He depicted the most famous Petersburg places, such as the monument to Peter the Great or St. Isaac's Cathedral. These two compositions. "St. Isaac's Cathedral during the Snowstorm" and “The Monument to Peter I." could be juxtaposed with the well-known "View o f the Monument to Peter I on the Senate Square" (1870) by Vasilii Surikov. a member of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 the Wanderers group o f realist artists. Surikov's viewpoint from the Neva allowed him to unite in one. very intense, composition both Falconet's monument and St. Isaac's Cathedral, thus creating a symbol o f the city's grandiosity and oppression. The silhouettes of the equestrian monument to the founder of the city and the gigantic cathedral appear as the gloomy shadows in the night. From that time on. the view of the Senate Square from the Neva became ver\ popular and was reproduced in many St. Petersburg postcards. Dobuzhinsky shows those two sights. St. Isaac's and the Monument to Peter I separately in two different lithographs. By so doing, the artist "divides and rules" these two symbols of the City and its Demiurge, taking away their power and grandiosity. "St. Isaac's Cathedral during the Snowstorm" shows just the w estern portico and part of the cupola of the cathedral, which is pushed to the right side of the lithograph. In the foreground and almost in the middle of the composition, the artist places a metallic carcass of a booth, with a snowdrift inside. Before February of Id 17. this booth served as a sentry box for one of the veterans o f the Nicholas I army w ho stood on guard near the monument to Nicholas. This insignificant element o f the city environment suddenly becomes a genus loci for St. Isaac's Square and a symbol o f both the fallen regime and the deserted city. Tw o-thirds of the composition is devoted to the snow storm that turns the former classical square into a field of snowdrifts. In "The Monument to Peter I." Dobuzhinsky depicts the Bronze Horseman conquered by a snow storm. The major monument of the city and the main component of its myth, the equestrian covered with snow becomes in this lithograph a tombstone Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 for St. Petersburg. Dobuzhinsky's work reverses the role of the monument as the ruler o f the city, and the idea o f nature's vendetta to Peter the Great contains the opposition to Pushkin's Mednyi vsadnik [The Bronze Horseman]. The city dies and its grave is doomed to disappear soon under the snowdrifts, which will not be cleared by anyone. When, half a century later. Vladimir Milashevsky wrote his memoirs, he derived his vision of Petrograd from Dobuzhinsky's landscapes, as well as from Zamiatin's image of the city ruled by the Mammoth: Cnei BiLiua. iUL'iua 1 1 iiauaaimaa cboh iioayiiikai u nepmibi. E m iiiikto lie paa.ueTaa it ne yonpaa. [...] Eupona iiooevK.ULiacb CKiujmefi. floTopjinacb b uaiuiH x croaim bi apxiiTeKTyptio-Heprc/KHaji MerKoc rb npHMbix yraoB ii napaaaeaefi! [... ] Bee cpoannaocb c <])op.\ia.Mn aeabimcK. cocyaex. xax b cpvoe;tepeBencKoro xoaoaua b miBupe! J\osta. kuk aficoepni! [...] C ro aaii oeabi.Mii. xax iipiiBeaemiM. Koaomibi llcaxiiH. [...] Cne>KHbie aioiibi iaainbiBa.au. BnuxiiBiLiiicb b "napaaiibie no;n.ea;tbi.*' coaaaBa.'iu m oKiie am iiiii ripuoocB. ]...] 7KecTOKa«. i.iaa ayua rop>i\eciBOB:Lia! JlM ia irroporo ii.nt iperbero je.Miioro ooaeaeiteiniH! [...] Bot oh! XotHim! Ot Komouieii. rae aa.Mepaii or xoaoauoro yacaca xapeTbi Amibi HoaiiHOBiibi. orouiea Ma.Monr. [...] [The snow fell and fell and piled up its pillows and feather beds. Nobody swept it away or cleared it. [... | hurope was being conquering by Scythia. The architectural clarity of right angles and parallels in the buildings of the capital, was lost. [...] Everything became similar to the forms o f ice crystals and icicles, like in the frame o f a village well in January! Buildings were like icebergs! [...] St. Isaac's columns stood in white, like phantasms. [...] The snow dunes crammed in the “front doors” and created elastic lines o f breakers. [...] A cruel and angry moon celebrated its triumph! A moon o f the second or third Earth glacier! [...] Here he comes! The master! From the stables where carriages of Anna Ioannovna froze from the cold horror, the Mammoth walked away. [ ...] 1 7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 Milashevsky compares Petrograd under snow with a “small station (polustanok) No. 34 somewhere on the border o f Kazakhstan, near Orenburg.” which is buried by snowstorms.1 8 When St. Petersburg lost its name and its meaning as a capital, Petrograd inherited its architectural aura. By losing this architectural aura to the ice and snow-covered wasteland. Petrograd ceased to exist and turned into the city o f death. Another o f Dobuzhinsky's lithographs. "Hxcavator." once again returns the viewer to the Senate Square. I low ever, the space has already been completely, unrecognizably transformed. As a result of this transmutation, some gigantic monster has replaced the body o f St. Isaac's Cathedral. Its central cupola symbolically crowns the excavator, thus proclaiming it the new ruler o f the square. The monument to Peter the Great is barely distinguishable in the left corner of the print and can no longer compete for the ruler's title. With its silhouette resembling a canon, the monster-excavator becomes the militaristic monument to the battle lost by the city. Some of the elements o f the old St. Petersburg's cityscape still remain in their places, like the sculptures o f “The Lions' Bridge." but they look strangely out of place. The former highlights o f the classical order, now they stare in perplexity at the ruined buildings with broken windows and at the snowy wasteland around them. A statue in "The Summer Garden in Winter” stays half-covered in its enclosing cottage, neglected. The coffin-like cottage surrounded by the snowdrifts becomes yet another symbol o f the city's death. The famous Akhmatova image o f winter and death ("Belaia doma krestami m etit...." [The White marks the houses with crosses]) became more than just a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 metaphor. As the documentary essays, newspaper chronicles, and diaries o f the time demonstrate, the death rate, especially in the wintertime, was extremely high in Petrograd. Disease, starvation, and terrible cold, not to mention executions, reduced the population of the city by a third.1 4 Cholera epidemics, untreatable at the time, broke out in Petrograd several times between 1918 and 1920. Medical facilities did not exist for such a large number o f patients, and ambulances were able to help only very few. Babel' wrote in his essay "Pervaia pomoshch"' [First Aid), published in the newspaper Xovaia zhizn' [New Life) on March 9. 1918: [H ]eT nouiaaefi. n e ro e in im a . |...| ner aoKiopoB. ner noKymnxcH [...| E cib To.ibKo— rpex.MHnnnoiibifi ropoa. iieaoeaaioiuitii [ . . . | Lcrb m iioio KpoBii. abiotneficH na yam tax n h ao.Max. [T|here are no horses, no gas. [...] no doctors, not anyone who cares. [...J There is only a city of three million which is starving [,..|. There is a lot of blood shetf in the streets and in the houses.]-0 Gippius echoed Babel's comments in her diary: Ila a o rioMiniTb. h t o ceftnac b CnB-re. iipn aocoaiorno.M o t c v t c t b h h oam ix Bomefi n CKyaocru a p y n ix . ecrb iicmto b it3ooiiamt: rpynw . OcraBiiM paccTpeaHHtibix. Ho it CMepTiioerb b ropoae. no cKpoMttoft ooabiueBiicTCKofi CTanicTiiKe. [...[ — 6.5% rtpit 1.2% poaueinifi. He taoyaeM. h t o rro ua.ibuieaucm cKcui. oiJmmtaribHaM CTaTitcTitKa. [One has to remember that now in St. Petersburg, in the absolute absence of some things and with paucity o f the others, there is something in abundance— dead bodies. Let us leave out those w ho have been shot. According to the modest Bolshevik statistics [...]. the rate o f the natural death in the city is 6.5 %. with the rate o f birth o f 1.2 %. Let us not forget that these are the official Bolshevik statistics.]-1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 The world o f those who remained alive in Petrograd was full o f sufferings and misery. Death did not bring either peace or relief to families. Funeral ceremonies became a major problem, since the families of the dead (if they were lucky enough to have families) often could not afford even a simple coffin." Shklovsky wrote in 1920. recalling the memorable winter of 1918-1919: VMiipamt npocfo u M acro... y.wpeT mc.mobck. e r o ii\>kiio xopomiTb. Cry>Ka crym iT vanity. bepyr cuhkii. ro n yr tiiaKOMoro ii.rn poacTnenmiKa. aocraioT rpoo. movkiio ua npoKar. ram ar ua K.iaaoiune [...) U s ooabinuibi uornaii rpym.i u rpooax uiradeae.\i: rpit um nv noriepcK. aBa BBepxy Baoab. nan b .\iarpaciibix .\ieuiKax. PaciipaB.iHTb rpy ribi duao neKOMV.— xopoim aii CKopMemibi.Mn... [People] died simply and often... If a man dies, he should be buried. Frost chills the street. [They| take a sled, call an acquaintance or relative, get or maybe rent a coffin, and drag it to the cemetery [...] From the hospitals, the dead bodies were carried in coffins, in a pile— three below and athwart, two above and along, or in the mattress bags. No one straightened the bodies and they were buried cramped.]'' Furthermore, the souls that had left those "cramped bodies" did not find their eternal repose, since the atheistic policy of the authorities abolished religious funeral ceremonies. At first, relatives could bury their dead in accordance with the traditional church ritual. The burials at the so-called “Communist grounds." however, were done w ithout any funeral service or praying, and eventually all city cemeteries, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox. became non-religious. The idea of inviolability o f the graves underwent the most dramatic change when, in the summer of 1918. for the purpose o f the anti-religious propaganda, the city authorities ordered the earthly remains of the saints to be uncovered. In less than six months this was practiced throughout Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. all of Russia.2 4 But then again, life before and life after death were just two sides o f the same coin, and desecration of the cemeteries reflected the process of desecration o f human life. Life had almost no real worth, so a corpse could not expect better conditions than those accorded to the living. Besides the traditional, although newly expressed, theme o f coldness, another theme emerged and became a leitmotif: the theme of starvation, previously unknown to the St. Petersburg myth. It w as because of the famous "bread lines” (khlcbnye ochcrcdi) that the February 1917 revolution began. The situation had not improved alter the Bolshevik takeover. Petrograd entered the new year of 1918 with enough bread for onl> a couple of weeks."' Nikolai Agni\lse\ "s poem "kogda golodaet granit" [ W hen the Granite Is Starving] describes St. Petersburg in the new role of a beggar: Koraa roao.aaer rpami r Bbia aeiu. n uac. Kor.aa yuwao BMemaBiuitci. a my.Mnyio roany. KpaiouiKa x.aeoa norpoaiiaa ” AaeKcaiiapitficKOMy c roany”... K uk xoxoTa.au nepeyaKii. PIpocneKTbi. yanu b i... H B jp yr FI pea TpexKoneeHitoio oy.aKofi CK.aonn.acfl h h h CanKT-fleTepoypr. M b 3Bone vTpeHttero uaca CKpew<euteT ajrcr roaoattbix n a irr... I I bot. ot roaoaa— aarpHccjt EaitiaBeTtmcKtifi rp am tT ... BaaoxHy.au cTapbie naaam to... I I. noToniaBunicb y Ko.aoitH, riouie.a tia HeBCKitfi npoaaBaTbCH Becb o.aecK npaaeaoBCKiix Bpe.\teH. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 H c p a iy crop6nnncb ([lacaabi H . CTHCHVB 3y6bl. t i a j PleBOH— Bocb\iH3Ta>KHbie rpo.Maabi C t OHT C npOTHHVTOH pyKOH... A \. IleTepoypr— KaK CTpauuio ripocro H o ax o a H T a m i tbom k k o h u v !.. — Ilo a a fiT e — "T poim K o.\iy moctv !” — rioaafiTe— "3u.wueMy jjBopuy!’' [There was a day and hour when, intruding into a loud crowd, a slice of bread despondently shook its fist at the Alexandrine Column. The streets, prospects and alleys roared with laughter but suddenly St. Petersburg prostrated itself in front o f a three-kopeck roll. In the ringing of the morning hour the hungry flagstones grit and clang and then Elizabeth's granite began to tremble from starvation.... The old palazzos sighed, and having stamped at the columns, the luster of the ancestors' ages went to Nevsky to sell itself. Immediately, the facades stooped and the eight-storied bulks stay begging at the Neva clenching their teeth.... Oh. Petersburg, how scary and simply your days come to an end! Give alms to Troitskv Bridge! Give alms to the Winter Palace! | Again, as in Pavlovich's poem "Lomaiut dom. a den' sovsem pustoi..." the luxurious and proud city of the Tsars is opposed to some unconquerable force, represented by starvation. It is the new true ruler o f St. Petersburg Petrograd. more powerful than any government. In January and February of 1918. the newspapers had a special daily column on famine. Every week, articles appeared alerting the people that the city had only enough bread for a couple of days. Food cards were established, providing an individual with 1.8 pound o f bread per day. 5 pounds o f potatoes per week, and one egg per month. This system was expanded on November 10 when the Petro-Commune produced a decree on three food categories. "Academicians, professors and teachers, forty-five and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 older” were added to the first, most privileged, category to which factory workers belonged.2 6 In 1918 and 1919, during the first years o f the C ivil War, famine ruled Petrograd with an iron fist. Shklovsky wrote: ro jio a ... Mbi emi crpaHitbte Beum: Mopo/Keunyio KapToiiiKy u rHuaofi rypnenc. h ce.ibnefi. y KOTopbix h v;k iio obiao OTpeiarb xbo ct h roaoBy. HTofibi He naxaw... Eau oBec c uieayxofi h k o h h h v, ynce m a i'kyio ot pa3aoM<eHHH... Mbi ouaH norpy'/KeHbi b roaoa, kuk pbioa b Boay. kuk rinmbi b B03ayx... [Hunger.... We ate strange things: frozen potatoes and rotten swede, and herrings which tails and heads should be cut off to avoid bad smell.... [We] ate oats with husks and horse-flesh already soft from decomposition.... We were submerged into hunger like fish into water and like birds into air....]2 7 They ate bread made only from mud (khlchglina oilna), potato skins, and cabbage. and drank carrot tea. The "main courses" of ev eryone's menu were herring and vohla. Toraa napii:ia boo.ui— ii KavhercM. h ;io c M e p m o ro uaca lie iaoy;iy ee n p o in iire.ib iibifi. to tun bin lanax. no;tbi.Maimiiin io .io bv in i<a>K;iofi Tape.iKii cyna. in Ka>i<;tofi ko to m kii iipoxo/icei o. [Then, the vohla reigned— and it seems to me that till my deathly hour I won't forget its penetrating, nauseous smell that was rising from every soup dish and from every passer-by's knapsack].'8 wrote Gippus. If Gippius's reminiscences of the vohla were extremely negative. Viktor Shklovsky on the contrary considered it the most remarkable component o f the meager ration in those hungry years: "A o coBeTCKofi Boo.ie K oraa-m ioyab HanHinyr nooMbi. kuk o NiaHHe. 3 to 6bi.ia cBimieHHajt nmna ro.iojHbix” [And some day they will write poems about the Soviet vohla as about manna. It w as the sacred food o f the hungry.)2 9 Various texts o f the time shared this tendency to provide biblical analogies to the life in post-revolutionary St. Petersburg. The young veteran Nikolai Tikhonov, also Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 representing the opposite of Gippius's camp within the St. Petersburg cultural milieu, created a very life-affirming image of herring in his short poem, written during the blockade of the city: JleTHT B TVMana HH3KOe KO.'IbltO rpvioBHKOB ocurmmx nepeoon, riporiaeiiteT b CTCKaax uaocKoe aimo. O r xoaoaa iiaaMemio roayooe... CrapyuiKa TaimiT. naaaH. dpoBiio: f l o a TpiiyM(j)tuibiiori apKoio. ao cM aro n . ToaoaH biM raaio.M cbctiitcji okho OoBerpenHoro KOMiiccapuara. Jlimib pBer ryNiaiibi ivioikoio uyryiiuofi lasiopcKtix crpaii ipexMaMTOBbift x o a o x . Mro na cTOMiiaanoimyto kommviiv C ceaeaKaMii cro oouck npiiBoaoK. [The mistirings of the husky trucks fly in the low circle o f the fog. In the windows a face appears for a moment arrogantly blue from cold. Falling, an old w oman carries a log. Under a w ooden triumphal arch a w indow of a chapped Commissariat lightens like a hungry eye. And only a three-mast walker to the foreign lands, that brought a hundred barrels w ith herring for a Commune of a hundred million, tears the fog apart w ith its iron throat.] The last lines of Tikhonov's poem about a hundred barrels with herring for the hundred- million city contain a clear reference to the miracle of Christ feeding five thousand with live loaves of bread (the ratio is obviously in favor o f the Bolsheviks' miracle). Similar to Shklovsky's comparison of the vohla to manna, this biblical reference is very important in the context of the search for the spiritual elevation shared by St. Petersburg artists at that time. The opposition of the extreme high and the extreme low (stinking Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 vobla or herring) is also typical. It unites Tikhonov and Gippius, Mandel'shtam and Shklovsky. otherwise the emissaries of very different artistic camps. Visual interpretations o f the "revolutionary" menu in the still lifes o f Kuzma Petrov- Vodkin and David Shterenberg also show no disgust in their representation. Petrov- Vodkin's “Herring" and Shterenberg's "Still Life with Herring” (both 1918) could be considered as an apologia and praise o f this smells ingredient of a meager meal. Petrov-Vodkin's still life is tilled with light, and this light seems to come out o f the fish. The artist uses his famous, icon-like red and blue for the colors of the wrapping paper. The shiny wrinkles o f the paper remind the viewer of the radiant prohelu (highlightings) o f medieval Russian icons. I lerring. a piece of bread, and two potatoes are shown here as a feast, not material but spiritual. At first. Shterenberg's "Still Life with Herring" seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. L'nlike Petrov-Yodkin. Shterenberg uses heavy and earths colors: gray- green and brown. But the snow-white plate with two radiant fish gives a very similar interpretation o f herring— as the vital and spiritual source of life. Thus, both artists transform a fact of everyday existence (byt) into a category of spiritual life (bylie). Mandel'shtam wrote in his article "Slovo i kul'tura” [Word and Culture]: Kv.'ibTvpa craaa ttepKOBbio. ripoinomao oraeaeime uepKBti-icyabTypbi ot rocyaapcTBa. CBeTctcajt aanHb nac ooaee tie KacaeTCJt, y Hac ne eaa, a Tpane3a, He KOMHaTa, a KeabH. tie oae'A'aa, a oaeHHtie. HaKOHetx, Mbi oopeait BHYTpeHHioto cBoSoay. nacroHUtee BHyTpeHttee Beceabe. Boay b raiiHHHbtx KVBtiiHHax nbext xax bhho, h coamty ooabtue upaBitTCH b MOHacTbtpcKoii CToaoBofi. new b pecTopaHe. floaoKH, xae6 it KapTocfieab— oTiibiHe yroajnoT ne ToabKo (JnnHHecKHH, ho h ayxoBHbifl roaoa. XpHCTiiaiuiH. a Tenepb bchkhh Kyabryptibift neaoBeK— xpHCTiiaHHH. tie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 3HaeT TOJibKo (})H3HHecKoro ro.io.aa, To.ibKO ayxoBiion nrnuH. J\iw nero h c.iobo— nnoTb, h npocTofi xaeo— Bece.ibe u TaftHa. [Culture has become the church. The church/culture was separated from the state. The secular life does not concern us any longer, we have not a meal but a refectory meal, not a room but a cell, not clothes but sacredotal robes, finally, we found the inner freedom, real inner joy. We drink water from the earthenware pitchers like wine, and the sun likes it better in a monastery refectory than in a restaurant. Apples, bread, and potatoes from now on satisfy spiritual hunger as well as the physical one. A Christian— and now every person o f culture is Christian— does not know only physical hunger or only spiritual nourishment. For him a word is also a flesh and simple bread is also joy and mystery. jjU Similar perception o f life in St. Petersburg Petrograd as spiritual experience are found in Gippius's diary o f 1919: JIiuui. Mbi. nuiii. i.iecb. MO/KeM Biuetb. iioiiii.Marb. uaaeKH b eepane coxpamiTb yry neuaTb ca>imocmu na neKo ropbix nimax. Onjrrb to . aero lie 6bina.30. aero iu ik to ne v b iu iit it lie y3iiaer u aro u Bbicoaafimefi creiieuii— ecntb. I lcTiiinioe dbiinue noepean riaHCKii npinpaKOB. u remi iiauieii ([laiiTacMaropim. [Only we. only here, are able to see. understand, and save forever in our hearts this sorrow o f sanctity in some faces. Again, something that has never been, something that no one will see and experience— and something that, to a highest degree, exists. The real spiritual life surrounded by dancing phantoms in the shadow of our phantasmagoria. ]jl If the miraculous outburst o f spiritual life is one side o fa coin, starvation ofcourse is another. The theme o f hunger and starvation is recurrent in Blok's diary, Petrov- Vodkin's letters, the memoirs o f Georgii Ivanov and Odoevtseva. and. of course, in poetry. Vallat's poem "Golodnye sny" [Hungry Dreams] consists o f two separate parts or dreams, united by the symbolism o f famine and death. The first part refers to the theme o f hunger dreaming as a voluntary rejection o f the sense of seeing: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 O t HeBbi hjih cjte3— TyMaH Cerojuut ao caMoro neoa. Mbi c yrpa no^enu.iiicb bjboc.m BocbNiyiiiKoio xjieoa. Ka/KAbifl yroa cbipocTbio rtbjui. H raa3a\t ne OTKpbiTbCB k hosii. Tbi cnnuib tia xo.ay o cBoe.M , H xoiieTCH ecTb tie oneiib. He ivihjui. 3a okhomh omrrb y.Miipaer romaH aoma;ib. H b pa3oiiT> io BOTpoM r.iaab Hobm kto-to m i.ioio KpouniT. [Prom the Neva and the tears the fog raises today up to the sky. In the morning, the two o f us shared 1 8 o f a breadloaf. Every corner is drunk with dampness, and the eyes would not open by the nighttime. You dream in motion your own dreams, and I don't really want to eat. Do not look: at the window again a scraggy horse is dying. And someone crumbles the haze into the glassy surface of the Neva broken by the wind.] A St. Petersburg day is shown as a circular motion of the forces of nature: the fog raising from the Neva in the morning falls down at night as rain. There is no other way out o f this vicious circle but death. The emblem of the time, the image of a dying horse. links this poem to Odoevtseva's famous "Ballada ob i/vozchike" [Ballad About a Coachman], in w hich both a coachman and his horse die from starvation. Another parallel could be found in Chernaia knizhka. discussed above: Ha HitKOJiaeBCKofi y.ume 0Ka3aaacb pejKOCTb: naBtuaa :iomaab. JIb m h , KoneuHo. opocn.iHCb k neft. 0 ; iiih in nvoaiiKH. nauoonee onepntHHbift. ycTpon.i ouepeab. H noc.ieami.M aocramicb y-/K e khiiiku To.ibKo. [There was a rarity on Nikolaevskaia Street: a dying horse. People, of course, rushed to it. Someone from the public, the most energetic one. created a line, and the last ones got only the intestines.]3 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 Unlike Vallat’s poem and Odoevtseva's ballad where the crowd is indifferent to the horse’s death. Gippius’ diary depicts people as predators who are waiting for a horse to die in order to tear it to pieces. This passage certainly evokes Raskol’nikov’s dream in Prestuplenie i nakazanie [Crime and Punishment] where a hostile inhuman crowd kills a mare. The second part of Vallat’s poem describes the state o f hallucination caused by starvation. It envisions St. Petersburg as a city o f death where sculptures o f the Anichkov Bridge, brought to life by the order of "someone’s bronze voice.” collect the dead bodies: Ha;iBope nunernuincb iniaw... (3bo1 1 l> i rayxn Tenepb Bceraa) Mite na cay/Koe Bee hto-to ctmaocb... K a>t<eTC H BbiNiepan ropoaa. H ceroamt. Koraa crestHeao. Orpanno apornya A hjimkiui moct. Kro-ro rae-io pacnpuuiia re.io Bo Becb cbou rpaiiiiTitbifi poea. II iioeabiLiiaaefl liioiiot KOHHbix. Bapvr uiapaxiiyaot Mefi-To ko hb. H CKa3aa Heft-to Meanbiil roaoc: "BtflTb Teaa. 3acBeruTb oroitb". Coman c n b e a e c r a a o B pbmapn. H oami noaoinea ko MHe. H ot cjiaKeaa. crpanno ciniTCJt Mite. Ha anuc ero BcnbixHyaa sieab. C naHeaefi vhocht Tpynbi. 5 1 >KiiBa na ero pyxe. Ho TaK caaaKo. ran caaaxo aystaTb. 4 ro Mens oh neceT k pexe. [The saws started to whisper outside (all the sounds are always toneless now)... At work 1 was dreaming about various things... It seems that the cities became desolate. And tonight when it darkened, the Annichkov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 Bridge strangely moved. Somewhere someone straightened his body to all his granite height. And the equestrians' whisper was heard, someone's horse suddenly shied, and someone's bronze voice said: “Take the bodies. Lighten the fire.” The knights came off the pedestals and one came up to me. And it strangely seems to me that the bronze on his face Hashed up from the torch. They carry the corpses away from the pavements. I am alive in his arms but it is so sweet, so sweet to think that he carries me to the river.] Vallat uses an archetype o f a statue, w hich has been so important for the St. Petersburg myth, coming to life. However this archetype provides the poet with a perfect instance for her irony: the role o f the animated monuments is reduced to that o f the city's janitors. Another possible interpretation o f the equestrians that collect the dead is the horsemen of the Apocalypse. It is also interesting to note that the sound of the saw s as well as the dream about desolated cities suggests a parallel to Pavlovich's poem analyzed above. A text that combines various images o f the city seen as a winter necropolis is the poem "Nad Nevoi" [Above the \'eva| b\ Yil'gel'm Zorgenfrei. The imagery of this poem, written in 1920. bears the obvious influence of Blok's "Dvenadtsat"' [The Twelve]: Iloimtefi HOMbio Haa I leBofi B no.ioce cTopo>KeBofi. BiBbt.ia moonas cnpena. Bcnbixny.i cHon aueTitaena. CuoBa Titiiib h cnoBa Mr.ia. Bbiora n.tomaab ia.Nte.ia. Kpecr B3abiNta5t ttaa ko.iohhom, C motpht attrea OKpbi.ietiHbifi 1 la laobtTbie jBoptibi. Ha pa3oiiTbie Topubi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CTy>Ka KpermeT. BeTep 3JHTC5I. rioiio JlbHOM BOja CTpVHTCH. H a JO JbJOM KOCTpbl ropKT. Kapaya HjeT b Hapna. Ilp o B O ja BBepxy ryjHT: CaaBea ropoa neTporpaa! B Hiime TesiHoro jBopua Bbipoc npinpax MepTBeua, 11 noriioiuafl croaima B own npinpaKv r.uiairrcH. A naa Ka.Miio.M. y Kocrpa. Teiib nocaeaiiero riexpa— Baopbi npHMCT. coaporaricb. TopbKo naauer, orpeKaHCb. I Ioiot '/ica-'iooiio ry;u<ii. Berep CBiimer Bjoab peKit. CyvpaK tbct. PaccueracT. Hap Bcraer or >i<earbix abami. /Ke.rrbiii cbct b okiic MeabKaer. Tpa>Kaaiimia oKan react P pa'/icaaiiini: Mto ecroann. rpaactamm. I la ooca? ripiiKpcuaHancb. i pa'/Kaamtii. I laii iict? 5 1 ccroaiiH. rpavuaaiiiin. Haoxo cnaa: /[y in y h na Kepoctin OoMeriHa. Ot taaiiBa naaeTaeT peiBbin tiiKBaa. ToponaiiBO na.MCTaeT cHe/KHbift Baa— Htoow rayiue eme obiao it re.MHefi, HToobi ay lb n ne mc.Miiao y Teiiefi. [Late night over the Neva, at the patrol zone, a wicked siren howled and shaft o f acetylene flashed up. Again silence and darkness. A blizzard covered the square. Raising his cross above the column, an angel looks Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 upon the forgotten palaces and broken pavements. The frost gets harder, the wind is angry. The water streams under the ice. The fires are burning on the ice. Guards are going to the duty. Above it the wires buzz: Glory to the city of Petrograd! At a niche in the dark palace the ghost o f a dead man has risen, and the perished capital looks into the ghost's eyes. And on the rock by the fire, the shadow o f the last Peter hides its eyes, shuddering, and bitterly cries, abdicating. The whistles are hooting mournfully, the wind is singing along the river. Dusk is melting. Dawn is breaking. Steam fumes from the yellow ice. The yellow light Hashes in the window. A citizen hails another citizen: “Citizen, what is for dinner today? Citizen, have you registered or not? " "I had a bad sleep tonight, citizen. I exchanged my soul for kerosene. " A frisky squall comes from the gulf and hastily builds a snow bank so that it would be even deafer and darker, so that the shadows' souls would not ache.] The praise to the city of Petrograd (Slavcn g oruii P cirognul) sounds very sarcastic. since the city is shown as a "perished" and snowbound capital whose palaces are deserted and whose pavements are broken. Its creator has renounced it. and its citizens have turned into shadows. They made their choice between hylic and hyt and exchanged their souls for kerosene. The awaited dawn is not able to conquer the night. and the poem ends w ith the eternal darkness and quietness of the grav e that cov ers the city. The angel of the Alexandrine Column and the stone of falconet's monument are the tombstones of the St. Petersburg that is turned into a deserted graveyard. In the post-rev olutionary St. Petersburg text, the images of the city as winter necropolis coexist with and are symbolically balanced by the images o f the city as summer cemetery. It is significant that there are very few artistic descriptions referring to the life/death o f the city during the first revolutionary springs. One o f the explanations is meteorological: spring in St. Petersburg does not last for three months; w inter steals most of March, and summer has claims on late May. when the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enchanted season o f the White Nights begins. Another explanation is psychological spring, as much as fall, is a transitional, semiseasonal period o f the year when everything is unstable and flowing, leaving no time for artistic contemplations. The most famous reflection o f the post-revolutionary spring in the city is Mandel'shtam' "Na strashnoi vvsote bluzhdaiushchii ogon'..." [A drifting lire at terrible height...]. Written in 1918. it is the most tragic poem in Trislia: I la crpauiHofi Bbicore ony/Kvtaioimm oroiib. Ho pa3Be raK 3Be- u a Mepuaer? flpoipamiaji iBeaaa. o.iy>iuaiomiin oroiib. T boh opar. fleTporio.ib. y.Miipaer. Ha CTpamnofi Bbicore le.Miibie emu ropar. le.ieuaa 3BC3aa MepnaeT. 0 ec.ui rbi 3Be3;ta— Boabi n neoa opar. 1 Bofi opar. Herponoab. y.Miipaer. HyaoBimtHbiii Kopaonb ua CTpaunioii Bbicore I leceTca. Kpbiaba pacnpaB.raeT— 3eaeuaa 3BC3aa. b upeicpacHofi immere I bou opaT. Herponoab. y.Miipaer. npo3paiuiaa Becua naa uepuoio Heuofi CaoMiuiacb. bock oecc.Meptba raer. O ecan tbi. 3Be3aa— nerporioab. ropoa tbou. T bou opaT. Heiponoab. \ MiipaeT. [A drifting fire at terrible height— but is it how a star glitters? Transparent star, drifting fire, your brother. Petropolis. is dying. The earth-dreams burn at terrible height and a green star glitters. O star, if you are a brother of water and sky. your brother. Petropolis. is dying. A monstrous ship spreads the wings and flies at terrible height. Green star, your brother, Petropolis, is dying in beautiful poverty. The transparent spring cracked above the black Neva, and the wax o f immortality is melting. O star, if your are Petropolis, your brother. Petropolis. is dying.] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. » 53 Comparing this poem to the 1916 “V Petropole prozrachnom my umrem...'' [We Shall Die in Transparent Petropolis...], the literary critic Ryszard Przybylski proposes to view the drifting fire as Proserpine's transparent star. In that case, “the ceiling o f Hades would be hanging over the Palmyra o f the north and St. Petersburg would [... ] be located in the underworld kingdom of the collective unconscious.”3 3 Gregory Freidin in his analysis o f “V Petropole prozrachnom my umrem..." points out that “it is significant that the poem's prophesied demise of Petersburg does not have the finality o f Christian eschatology but is based on the agricultural cycle o f the Persephone [...] cult." ’4 I would like, however, to propose that this finality of Christian eschatology becomes crucial in "Na strashnoi vysote bluzhdaiushchii ogon'...." The ambiguity of meaning o f the word "Petropolis" in the poem— it is not totally clear w hether it is referring to the city of Peter or to the star— is intentional: it includes both. This parallelism contains the biblical subtext of two Jerusalems, the earthly city and its heavenly spiritual double. But unlike the eternal Zion, the city above the Neva and its heavenly brother, the "drifting" star, are doomed. For both o f them the “wax of immortality is melting." There is. of course, apocalyptic symbolism in the image o f the green star. The star is also a fire, a brother of water and sky. presenting a direct self quote from the earlier poem "Admiralteistvo" (“vode i nebu brat." [Brother o f water and sky]). Therefore, three out of the four elements are present: fire, water, and air. The forth one is stone, hidden in the name o f the city since "Petropolis" translated from Greek means City of Stone. The dying o f the city in "Na strashnoi vysote Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 bluzhdaiushchii ogon'..." is shown as a global, apocalyptic cataclysm involving all ontological elements. The last stanza reinforces the impression o f the irrevocable catastrophe: spring does not bring rebirth, it is "cracked" and won't be revived, and the cyclical metaphor o f Proserpine/ Persephone does not appear in the poem. Another rare account o f spring in the city could be found in Berberova's memoirs. In Kur.siv moi [The Italics Are Mine), she recalls the collective experiences of spring in post-revolutionary St. Petersburg as frightening and unpredictable: C Ka>Kaofi neaeaefi jKirrb cranoBii.iocb iicmiiovkko crpaiutiefi. J\i\. craao ren.io. u mo>kho pacno.iovKinboi b jbvx KOMiiarax. ciurrb Ba.aeiiKii u ne cmiTaTb Ka>ooe noaetto. n oTKpbiTb oKiia, it itaaeaTbcjt. hto uepe3 .\iecim b paciipeaeameajix rtoflBirrca xorb mo-imoyab. no BMecre c Te.\t. y pa3tibix aioaefi no-pamoMv. Haua.io uoHBa«Tbca mvbctbo Boi.MO/Kiioro Koima— tie aiiMitoro aa>Ke. a KaKoro-ro KoaaeKritBiio-aocrpaKTiioro. [,..| Koima tie (jnnitMecKoro. [...] no Mo>KeT obiib "ayxoBiioro". [...] Mopoaa.Ntii. Bbiora.Mii Bee Kax-To aep>Ka:iocb. a ceftuac— norcKao. uooe>Ka.io pyubHMii. tie ta mo ynemiTbCH. Bee aernr Kyaa-ro [...] rac na.M BcpoHTttee Bcero tie yueaerb. [With every coming week, life became a little scarier. Yes. it grew warmer and it became possible to live in two rooms, to take off valenki, to stop counting every log. to open windows, and to hope that in a month at least something would appear in the distributors. At the same time different people in different ways started to feel an approaching finale— not even personal but some sort of a collective abstract finale. [...] not physical but perhaps "spiritual." [...] Frosts and blizzards somehow held everything together but now it began to How. to stream, there is nothing to grasp at, everything rushes somewhere [...] where most likely we won't survive.]3'' Realization o f this finale is another important ingredient o f the collective St. Petersburg consciousness of that time. Mandel'shtam's famous poem "V Peterburge my soidemsia snova..." [We shall meet again in Petersburg...], written in 1920 and containing much o f the poet's recurrent imagery, describes the descending into the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. inferno o f the "black velvet o f the Soviet night, the black velvet o f the universal emptiness.” One o f the themes o f this poem is an eschatological catastrophe when sun burned out and the deserted city was plunged into the eternal darkness. B rieTep6ypre Mbi corueMCH cuoBa, C.30BH0 CO.lHLte Mbi noxopoHii.'iii B tieM. M ojiajKemtoe. oecc.Mbicaemioe c:iobo B nepBbifi pa3 npoinneceM. B Mepno.M oapxare coBeTCKofi momii. B oapxaTe BceMiipiion riycTorbi. Bee noior o.iavKemibix >xen po;uibie o m ii. Bee itBeryr oeccMepriibie UBeibi. XllIKOH KOUIKOH I'OpoiITCH CTO.IIIIia. I la m o c tv narpy.’ib c t o iit . To.TbKO i.'iofi Morop B O Mr.'IC lipOMMIlTCJI I I KVKyUIKOH npOKpilMIIT. Vine ne Haao nponycxa iiomioro. MacoBbix a lie ooiocb: 3a ona/Kemioe oecc.Mbicaemioe c. toho B IIOMH COBCTCKOfl IIOMOaiOCb. Cabiuiy aerKiifi rearpaabiibifi mopox 1 1 aeBiinecKoe "ax"— 1 1 oecc.McpTiibix poa orpo.Miibiii iiopox V Kimpiiabi na pyxax. V xocrpa m m rpee.Mca or c k v x ii. Mo/KeT obiTb Bexa ripofuyT. 1 1 oaa>xeiiHbix >xen poaiibie pyxii Jlerxufi nenea cooepyT. Tae-To rpnaxai xpacribie riapiepa. riblUIHO BlOIITbl UIII([)OHbepKII .io>x: 3aBoanati xvxaa oijnmepa; He aaH nepribix ayiu n nit3MeiiHbix cbhtoui... lIto > k. racii. rio>xa.r iyfi. Haunt CBetii B Mepno.M oapxaTe BceMnpnofi nycroTbi. Bee noiO T 6aa>xeiiHbix >xeH Kpyrbie naeHH. A HOMiioro coaima lie 3aMexnuib Tbi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 [We shall meet again in Petersburg as if we have buried the sun in it. and for the first time we shall utter the blessed, meaningless word. In the black velvet o f the Soviet night, in the velvet of the universal emptiness, the dear eyes o f the blessed women are still singing, and the immortal flowers are still in bloom. The capital arches like a savage cat, a patrol stands on the bridge. Only an evil car speeds through the darkness and cries as a cuckoo. I do not need a night-time pass. I am not afraid of sentries: I will pray in the Soviet night for the blessed, meaningless word. I hear the light rustling in the theater and a girl's “Ah"— there is an enormous bunch of the immortal roses in Kvpris's arms. Bored, we warm ourselves at a bonfire. Perhaps the centuries will pass, and the dear hands o f the blessed women will gather the light ashes. The red flowerbeds of orchestra seats, the fluffy chiffoniers of the boxes, and a mechanical doll of the officer exist somewhere, not for the black souls and mean hypocrites... Well, blow out our candles if you want: in the black velvet of the universal emptiness, the high shoulders o f the blessed women are still singing: but you won't notice the night sun.] O f all the cryptic images the poem includes, two remain particularly important for this discussion— the night sun and the flowers. The tragic night sun or black sun appears in Trisiia several times (“Kak etikh pokryval i etogo ubora...” [How these cloaks and this head dress...], "Fta noclT nepopravima...” [This night is irreparable...]. "Kogda v temnoi nochi /.amiraet..." [When in the dark nights it dies aw ay... ]. "Sumerki svobody” [The Twilight o f Freedom]). One o f the existing interpretations o f "V Peterburge my soidetnsia snova..." suggests that the second line refers to the "night sun." Orpheus/’'’ Another suggests the "sun o f Russian poetry" Pushkin, the forefather of Russian culture which comes to an end in Mandel'shtam's poem. Freidin notes that [0]nlv after the poet's prayer for the “word." which is "senseless" and strongly erotic in connotation (hlazhennoe—zheny). does the hypnotic recollection begin. One after another there follow the synecdoches of the prerevolutionary, perhaps even prewar, life associated with the theater, with the cult o f Pushkin, and with the belief that the generation o f Mandelstam was recapitulating Pushkin's epoch. In fact, in the penultimate stanza Mandelstam thematizes a common detail o f Petrograd life [...]. a street Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 bonfire, into a funeral pyre and. further, into the ashes from Pushkin's poem “For Krivtsov.”37 Accepting this traditional interpretation, I would also like to propose an additional understanding o f the emblem o f the buried sun. It can be seen in direct relationship to the role o f the sun in the new Soviet cosmogony. According to the Bolshevik credo, the Communists "could not wait for nature's favors, the goal was to take them from nature." Because o f a major electricity shortage, a decree was issued turning the clock three hours ahead in the summer time. During the first revolutionary summers, the city li\ed according to this new "revolutionan" time. ’- S It resulted in an amazing natural phenomenon o f the midnight sun: B no.iHOHb [...] co.ume bwcoko ctoh.io b neoe. a na;to ouiao novKirrbCfl cnarb [...] Koraa a aeraa. coaime eme ryaaao no KOMttara.M. a Koraa a iipocityaacb. ouo onaxb owao huicoko » neoe [...] [.At midnight [... | the sun was high in the sky and we had to go to bed [... | When I turned in the sun was still wandering in the rooms and when I woke up. it was again high in the sky [ ...].|‘'1 ’ The exceptional poetic beauty o f St. Petersburg w hite nights therefore became shaded by an eschatological symbolism. As the days grew longer and the sun was still shinning at midnight. life turned into a fantastic celebration o f daylight. Irina Odoevtseva w rote about the fourth dimension o f those summer days in St. Petersburg: LLLno neTO 19-ro. OneHb acapKoe neio. /fin t Ka3anucb oecKOHenno .rnuuibi.MH. JleTiiee BpeMH 5bi;io jeKpeTOM o to jb h h n to na ueiibix Tpn naca [...]. it yTpo tiopMa.ibiio HaHHuanocb c bocxojom comma, a aeitb KOHuancit b 9 uacoB Beuepa. 3 to Gbuio yaooHo. Mbi Bee neTO ooxo^ti.incb 6e3 ocBemeaiiB. k to npimaBa:io >kh3hii KaKoii-To (jiaHTacTiiuecKiift o ttc h o k . kukoh-to naneT iiepeaabHOCTit. /Ih ii obum yaHBHTejibno ronyobie. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 noMecTHTejibHbie, miHHHbie, r.iySoKne h BbicoKiie. B h u x KaK-6y;rro HC3pHM0 npHcyTCTBOBajio h teTBepToe H3MepeHHe. K a 3 a jio c b , h to r p e x H 3M ep eH n n ohh hhx. Kax n jjjih B cero T o r^ a n p o n c x o a n B U ie ro , .wano. [It was summer o f 1919, a very hot summer. The days seemed to be endlessly long. The summer clock w'as moved ahead for three hours by a decree, and it was normal that a morning started at dawn and a day was over at 9 p.m. It was convenient, all summer we lived without the lights that gave our life some fantastic quality, some unreal touch. The days were amazingly blue, spacious, long. deep, and high, as if the fourth dimension w as invisibly present in them. It seemed that for them, like for everything happening then, three dimensions were not enough. I- 1 0 For the inhabitants o f the winter caverns, the w hole concept o f time underw ent basic transmutation— from polar night to polar day. The natural cycle was violated, however. and the darkness that fell over the city afterwards was eternal, like Mandel'shtam’s "black velvet of the universal emptiness" that came after "w e buried the sun.'"1 1 It is worth mentioning here that summer life without electric light was also accompanied by another important aspect of the new Soviet reality. The lights turned on during the night from now on became a signal of the search: "Ec.ni noubio ropirr neKTpiiHecTBO— mamir. b )to m pafione oobick" [If somewhere at night the lights are on then it means that they are searching the neighborhood.]4 2 Nevertheless, those post revolutionary summers with their midnight sun were the necessary break for the citizens o f St. Petersburg exhausted by frost and starv ation. After all. summers kept them warm, granted a minimum o f food, and also allowed them to take long strolls around the city Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 saying their farewells to its dying beauty. St. Petersburg artists and poets turned into endless wanderers registering their promenades in their sketches and diaries. Sorrowful accounts could be found in Blok's diary. On June 9. 1919 the poet recorded one of such walks: "iJoBonbiio neHa.'ibuaK npory.iKa no EKaTepimro(|)y h npoMit.M 3ara>KeHHbiM nycTbipjtM .\ieprBoro ropona" [A rather sad walk around llkateringof and other dirty wastes of the dead city.]4'’ If Blok's diary is mercilessly tragic, Berberova writing her autobiography half-a-century later adds an aesthetic quality to the "dirty wastes o f the dead city**: |C]o;nute bcc erojcao bwcoko na;t aepcBbHMit n aoMa.Mii. H Be.niMCCTBeunoe voo/Kcctbo l lerepoypi a oi.i.io thno u neno;tBii>Kuo: Becb i opo;t obia toraa Be.umec i Beueu. rn \ u siepi h. kuk IIIaprpcKiiii cooop. kuk AKporto.ib. [T]he sun stood still high above the trees and buildings. And the majestic poverty o f Petersburg was quiet and still: the whole city then was majestic, quiet, and dead like the cathedral in Chartres and Acropolis.]4 4 Dobu/.hinsky's perception o f the city reflected in his lithographic album Peterhurg v ilva iltsa t' pervom goilu [St. Petersburg in 19211 is closer to Blok's. In "Wasteland on Vasilievsky Island." there is no distant perspective: everywhere the gaze comes up against lifeless, locked-in walls that are "looking back" at the spectator with the blind eyes o f broken windows. The effect of a locked-in space is reinforced by the artist's choice of the point of view— high above the ground. Dobuzhinsky. therefore, places his spectators on the lev el of the second or third story in a building that faces this chambered space. As a matter o f fact, the shadow o f this building is shown on the wall of the house to the left. The title manifests the symbolic nature o f this lithograph: it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 is more than a wasteland (p u siyr'). it is the whole urban unit that is turned into a deserted slum. Several houses in the background, similar to the ones forming the main compositional care, provoke the viewer to extrapolate the image to other city units and perhaps to the whole city. The majestic poverty o f St. Petersburg in the post-revolutionary years manifests itself in another list from Dobuzhinsky’s album. "The Sphinxes." Showing the famous elements o f the cityscape. the Egyptian marvels and the Admiralty across the river from them, the artist depicts the signs of decay: grass growing among the pavement blocks of the former extrav agant embankment and even from the granite basement of one of the sphinxes. It is significant that the sphinx facing the viewer is crowded to the very side o f the composition. The wharf crane standing "on guard" nearby locks the sphinx inside a tiny space. With the Admiralty tower barely distinguishable on the opposite bank of the Neva, the second sphinx remains the only absolute dominant o f the composition. It is presented from behind, symbolically turning its back both on the v iewer and the lonely boy who stands fishing with his rod by the pedestal of the ancient sculpture. The emptiness and quietness of St. Petersburg in 1921 presented in Dobuzhinsky’s lithographs make them similar to Milashevsky's recollection of the city: IleTporpaa b Te rojbi own nycTbitteH. [...] Ho ayina ropoja, MO/tcer obiTb, 3B>Majia Toraa apne 1 1 Hitme, w e .vi Korja-.moo c onoxti ero co3jaHiui. [...] Ebina b Hexi TuxocTb KaKoro-mtoyjb BacrtJibcypctca nan Koib.MOje.MbHHCKa, oto c xo jc tb o je.na.in TttuutHa it micTOTa Bonjyxa. [Petrograd in those years was uninhabited. [...] But maybe the city’s soul was brighter and more crystalline than ever since the moment o f its creation. [...] There was the serenity of some Vasil’sursk or Kozmodem’iansk in it. the resemblance w as due to quietness and clarity of the air.]4 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 The constant references to St. Petersburg being uninhabited are not surprising since the city's population decreased by two-thirds during the years o f the civil war, from 2.3 million to 720,0004 t> However. Milashevsky's comparison o f it with some humble provincial town seems very important. After the capital infrastructure was moved to Moscow, the importance of St. Petersburg/Petrograd was radically diminished. Being "degraded to the ranks." it had literally turned into a provincial settlement overgrown with nettles and burdocks. Petr Shillingovsky's album of engravings. Peter burg. Ruiny i vuzruzlu/enie [St. Petersburg: Ruins and Revival], o f 1922-1923 contains remarkable reflections of St. Petersburg's ruination. Two compositions depicting the Rostral Columns provide a completely new interpretation of these symbols o f the cityscape. perhaps the most frequenth reproduced in the visual arts. The first engraving (1922) pictures the Column and the Stock Exchange building. The latter, however, is shown in a way that attracts as little attention to it as possible: the viewer can see only half o f its portico, while the other half is covered by the silhouette o f the Column. The principal space, part of the tip of Vasilievsky Island in front o f the Column, dominates the whole composition. Choosing a very low point of view. Shillingovsky gives a close-up o f the Column, thus reducing its height by two-thirds. Instead o f a majestic dominant vertical, the viewer is able to see the cracks and dents on the sculptures and on the pedestal. The foreground is all covered with grass. The white strip o f the prospect behind the Column Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 symbolically divides the space between civilization and culture, represented by the neoclassical buildings of the Stock Exchange and the Academy o f Science, and wilderness that slowly wins over its territory. Showing the same Rostral Column from the Stock Exchange, the second print (1923) repeats this opposition. The former Palace Embankment with its endless ribbon of the facades is visible on the over side ofthe Neva. The panoramic depiction o f the architecture in the background is traditional and recalls of similar views ofthe Palace Embankment made by Fedor Alekseev and Stepan Galaktionov a century before. The space o f Vasilievsky Island in the foreground is shown as already conquered by wilderness. Instead ofthe lavish square there is a Held covered with mounds. It is not uninhabited though: ten small figures of people linger around the Column. A feeling of calm and eternal unhurriedness has changed the boisterous life ofthe capital. The only element missing in this almost-rural landscape is the goat that grazes on Vasilievsky Island in Berberova's recollection: [B|ecb ropo;i 6 l,i:i Tenepb Moeft /Kimnnomanbio. mto mhc obi.no no neBarii KuanpaTitbix MerpoBl I I JleTiiurt Can, u iiaoepe/Ktiaa. u apxa ua ranepnofi. it tot noBopoT M oHkh y Komouieniiofi. Koropbifi. xax noBopoT .vmnoro :nma, a vTHaBana, Bonayacb. [...] [3]necb a obtna 6oraTa Test, mto ropon 6bin mohm, n Bee Ntoe cnaceaae— Kax a Toma noHii.vtana— 6bL.no npnnemiTbca k ae.Mv, nepacaTbca 3a Hero: ia TaBpHMecKitfl can. KOTopbifi a tte Mor.na MitHOBaTb, xyna 6bi hh xona.na, 3a MepiibimoB moct c ero uena.Mtt it TeaTpanbaofi ynauea. 3a Taxae naHita BaciinbeBCKoro ocTpoBa. me npoTitB 3HaKo.\ioro no.via cjjaH-nep-O.nitTOB poc.na rcnepb TpaBa a Mba-To Kona nac.nacb. Tpaca Bbi.Meae.M. [T]he whole city was now my living space— what do I care about nine square meters! The Summer Garden, the embankment, the arch at Galemaia. and that turn o f the Moika at Koniushennaia. which I recognized anxiously as the angle o f a dear face. [...] Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 [H]ere I was rich because the city was mine, and my only salvation— as I understood it then— was to stick to it and to hold on to it: to hold on to the Tavrichesky Garden which I always passed, to the Chernyshov Bridge with its chains and Teatralnaia Street, to the silent lines of Vasilievsky Island where in front o f familiar house of the van der Flitts the grass was growing now and someone’s goat grazed shaking its udder.]4 7 Another important feeling shared by many citizens o f St. Petersburg at that time was the feeling ofthe city's transfonnation into the opposite of itself. Not only had the splendid capital turned into "some Vasil'sursk or K.osmodem'iansk." but its public and private spaces had merged. Paradoxically the process o f "domestication" (Berberova's "the city was mine") has the same function as the city's surrender to wilderness: as a result, the former St. Petersburg disappeared. The new role ofthe city as the locus of homey, domestic existence is specifically designated as "non-Petersburg:" B dto aero [1 9 19 ]a caena.ia eme oano yaiiBHTe.ibitoe oTKptmie. Bapyr nous BCTBOBa:ia. hto flerepoypr m om ropoa n aeflcTBiiTeibHO npiiHamie/KHT Nine. HcMenao bco c ro.niiMHoe. Monopnoe. HV/Koe. fleTepoypr ctuji mcm-to Bpoae cBoero iimchiih. no .ieca.M 1 1 iio.ihm Koroporo opoamub ue.ibiMit aiiHMii. [During this summer [of 1919] I made another interesting discovery. Suddenly 1 realized that Petersburg was my city and indeed belonged to me. Everything metropolitan, stiff, foreign has disappeared. Petersburg turned into a sort o f a private estate where vou walk all dav long in the forests and fields.]4 8 Grass and wild flowers became the symbols ofthe summer necropolis. Growing everywhere, they marked the final stage of the city's death— the oblivion. Grass on Nevsky Prospect4 4 deprived St. Petersburg of its most European-looking street, which Gogol' called "the fairest o f our city's thoroughfares.” Grass in front o f the Stock Exchange building and the wild flowers in the Gostiny D v o r0 took care ofthe Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 city's business centers. Even the Field of Mars, the major parade ground, was overgrown with cabbage and sunflowers.'1 The further from the center, the more deserted and neglected the city looked, as, for instance, in Dobuzhinsky's lithograph “Vegetable Garden on the Obvodny Canal” (from the album “St. Petersburg in 1921"), which shows another vacant lot fenced in by barbwire. The symbolism o f flowers and their role in the ritual o f death form another important component o f St. Petersburg summer necropolis. In the poem "V Peterburge my soidemsia snova....” Mandel'shtam twice calls the flowers, these traditional emblems of vanita.s and death, immortal ("Vse tsvetut bessmertnye tsvety" [The immortal flowers are still in bloom), and “I hessmertnykh ro/ ogromnyi \orokh” [An enormous bunch ofthe immortal roses)). In the context o f a poem that explores the opposition between the immortal and the mortal, this becomes very significant, placing the flowers in the very center of this opposition. In post-revolutionary St. Petersburg overgrown with wild flowers, all the florists were closed. Naturally, the citizens had no use for the superfluous decoration of their dwellings when the dwellings themselves either perished or underwent major transmutations. A bouquet from a florist became a memory, a reminiscence ofthe city that existed before the revolution. As Agnivtsev bitterly exclaims, “there is no time for flowers now'”: Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Byxer o r 3Rjicpca ByxcT or 3fl;icpca! Bbi cjiuuihtc mothb . flByX 3THX C JIO B, yBbl, TaK OT3BeHeBUJHX cxopo? ByxcT or Sftjiepca,— roro, hto cyuporHB MHoroxojioHHoro Ka3aHcxoro coGopa! M noMHio a, eme coBceM He Tax jtaBHo, Tbi HOMiiHiiib, moh oyxeT, xaic b G cjiom, G cjiom 3ane Ha TyNiGoMKe peiHofi y cTaporo naHHo Ctohji Tbi b xpyciajie na KpioxoBOM xaiiajic? Ciiepxajia na onie yiopou Jib;uicn.ix b»3i> . 3BeHeji rya coHHoro ncxpamerocH Gera. H ua;ia.'i bcccjio ;iexaopbcxHH oner xpvvxacb! EyxeT ot Dfuiepea Be^b ne G objich cHera! Ho b ipn jjhh Has HeBofi cToaeibe npoiieeaocb! Tencpi. lie :to ubctob! H or bcci o Gyxcia.— Kax cpeaamiuH nps^b ot joponix bojioc.— OcraacM jiiuiib iibci'ok aacymeimbiH hot oror! Byxer or 3riaepea aamio yxce aacox! H xnH mchsi Tenepb b pbuaiome.M inniaiibii— B aacyuicmioM unerxc apo/Kirr uoc.ie.uiiiH maox CaHKT-IleTepGypreKiix aneii. pacrasBuiiix b rvMaiie! EyxeT ot 3fiaepca! Bbi eabiuiHTe mothb /X»yx 3 ih x c.'iob. ym.i, rax onueiiCBiiMx cxopo? ByxeT ot 3fuiepca,— Toro, mto cynpoTHB Miioroxoaoiiiioro Kaaaiicxoi o cooopa! fA bouquet from Eilers! Do you hear the melody o f these two words that unfortunately stopped sounding so soon? A bouquet from Eilers, the one that is in front ofthe multi-column Kazan cathedral! I also remember that not long ago in a house on Kriukov canal— do you remember, my bouquet?— you were standing in a crystal vase on a molded night-table by an old panel. A pattern o f icy ornaments glittered in the light, the rumbling o f slow and sparkling driving in a sledge jingled, and the December snow fell merrily, whirling— a bouquet from Eilers was not afraid o f snow! And a century rushed above the Neva in three days! There is no time for flowers now! And only this dried flower remained from the bouquet like a lock cut o ff a dear hair! 'fhc bouquet from Eilers dried up long ago! And for me Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 now in my sobbing exile, the last breath of St. Petersburg days fading in the fog trembles in the dried flower! A bouquet from Eilers! Do you hear the melody o f these two words that unfortunately stopped sounding so soon? A bouquet from Eilers, the one that is in front of the multi-column Kazan cathedral!] Florists opened again in St. Petersburg all of a sudden, in August of 1921. Being, of course, an offspring o f the New Economic Policy (NEP) introduced in March o f 1921, this event received a very specific interpretation in the contemporary city's mythology. The opening of florists coincided with the time of Blok's funeral and therefore was loaded with metaphorical function— to play a role in the mournful ritual. Berebrova recalls the day of August 7. 1921. when she saw Blok's obituary in the Mouse of Writers and then, on the way to the poet's house, found a florist and bought flowers: 5 1 MeaieHno nouna no JInTefinoMy. noBepiiy.ia na Cn.weoiioBCKyio n OoHTaiiKy. 3aecb. na y n y CiiMeouoBCKofi n naoepeaoion. % 3atujia b ubctom huh \tai anm. J\a. xax cefmac iiomhio CBoe ymiBnenue. mto b llerepoypre oixpbiT UBeronnbifi Maranm. OrKpbiBa:MCb KyxMiicrepcKiie n KOMiiccnoiuibie. obi.’io h to -to Bpoae nocy;uion .iubku na B.iaaiiMiipcKOM n riapiiKMaxepcKaa na BTopoM ^Bope na TponuKofi. Flo uBeTomioro Mara3ima. rax Ka3a.iocb mhc, i^ecb eme ne Gbiao bo btophhk. xoraa mu npoxoztnan c TyMnneBbiM, a Tenepb on obia OTKpbiT n b hcm ctojuiu ttBeTbi. [... ] 5 1 Kvnnna nerupe oenue anami na aanunux cTeSaax. OoepTOHHoft 6y.\iani b Mara3tiHe ne ouao. n a nonecaa annmt na ripajKKy o tk p u tu m h . Mue Myanaocb: npoxo/Kiie aoraabiBaioroi. xyaa a n ay n ko m y necv u b c t u . o hh HHTaior ooBaBaemia. pacKaecHHbie na yraax yan u . Bee Bee yace 3naioT. h cefmac Bc rpennbie noBepnyi 3a m h o u h nofiavT. u m u t h x o h Toanon npnaeM BceM nerepoyproM k ao.My Eaoxa. [Slowly, 1 walked down Liteinyi, turned to Simeonovskaia and the Fontanka. There, on the comer o f Simeonovskaia and the embankment, I went into a florist. Yes. I clearly remember my astonishment that there was a florist in Petersburg. The diners and second-hand stores started to open, there was something like a crockery shop on Vladimirsky and a hair dressing salon in a back yard on Troitskaia. But it seemed to me that there was no florist there when on Tuesday I passed by with Gumilev. And today it was open and the flowers were there. [ ...] ! bought four white lilies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 with long stems. There was no wrapping paper in the store, and I carried the unwrapped lilies to the Priazhka. It seemed to me that everybody suspected where I was going and to whom 1 carried the flowers, that they read the notices pasted at the street comers, that everybody already knew everything and now they would follow me and the whole o f Petersburg would come to Blok's house.]5 2 In other descriptions o f Blok's funeral, as well as Gumilev's parti khida two weeks later, (lowers are also present. They appear in St. Petersburg to fulfill their tragic function in the ritual of death and to connect the immortal and the mortal. Therefore, the (lowers truly become the last element of the city’s summer necropolis. They serve as a farewell to Blok and Gumilev, whose deaths in August of 1921 became the symbolic closure of the epoch: [B |ce. mto Gbi.'io tioc.ie (eme hccko:ii.ko aer). obtao to .il.ko upoaoajKeHiie.M n o ro aBrycra: o r b e u Eeaoro n PeMinoBa ia rp am iu y. o rb e ia PopbKoro. MaccoBaji BbicbiaKa UHTeaaiirem uui aeroM 1922 roaa. iiauaao naatioBbix penpeccufi. yiuiMTOVKeinie nByx iioKoaeuufi [ . . . ] — Koimnaacb onoxa. [Pjverything that happened after (for another feu years) was only a continuation of that August: the emigration of Bely and Remizov. the emigration of Gor'ky. the mass exile of the intelligentsia in the summer of 1922. the beginning of mass repression, the destruction o f two generations [... ].— the epoch has ended.]'J 1 Eugenie A. Korvin-Kroukovsky. D iary (Hoover Institution Archives. 7 1 0 1 1 -10), V 9. ‘ See photographs by Karl Bulla in the Loehr Archive (Hoover Institution Archives. 67036-10). A 3-4. ’ Ses era! photographs o f destroyed wooden houses w ere taken by Boris SokololT in the historic center o f St. Petersburg, near by Nevsky Prospect. Hoover Institution Archives, 81025-8V1. 02. A 10-12. 4 Pudsozvezdiam to p o n i. 349. In Spring o f 1920, looking back at the passed year. V iktor Shklovsky wrote in his article "Peterburg v blokade” [Petersburg in the Blockade]: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 3 t o 6 bi.n npa3amiK Bceco>K'/KeHHH. Pa3611pa.n111 jktjiii aepeBXHHbie aoMa. Eojtbtmie aoiua no/Kiipajm MaaeHbKiie. B paaax yaim noHBtinucb rayooKiie opetmi. KaK Bbiombie 3yobi, TopH a.ui OTaeabHbie saarnot. noB B im ncb iicKyccTBeHHbie p a iB a a m ib i. T o p o a M eaaeH n o npeB pam aaca b rp a B io p u nnpane3H. [It was a celebration o f all-burning. Wooden houses were pulled down and burned down. The big houses devoured the small ones. Deep breaches appeared in the street rows. Some buildings jutted out as knock out teeth. Artificial ruins appeared. The city slowly transformed into Piranesi’s engravings.) Quoted in Yurii Annenkov. D nevnik motkh vsirech Tsikl tru i’e d ii (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura. 1991), 36. Huizinga. 228. " Annenkov. 49. In November. 1919 Gippius wrote in her diary : [Y'laapnnii pamuie viopoibi, Bbinaa ciier. /tpo3 h o t iiii y k o to . 1 1 iiiik to iix aocTaTb ite MO/KeT. B KBapTiipax. oe3 pa3nitHii» "KaaccoB"— o t 4° Tenaa ao 2° viopoaa. M u 3aKpbi.n1 mom KaomieT. H /X iim iik. 3aKpbiBaev cmioByio. [...] B Koppuaope npHMo siopoa. [A |n early frost came and the snow fell. Nobody has any firewood and it is impossible to get it. The temperature in apartments, without "class” distinction, is from -4° to -2° [in Celsius]. W e closed my studio. And Dm itrii’s. We are closing our dining room. [,..| It is freezing in the corridor ] I ’nJ w c w r i/ie w to p o n i. 38 0 . H Li. I. Zamiatin. "Peshchera." in P odsozw zdicm toponi. 164. ‘ A n n e n k o v . 36. A n o th e r trag ic testim ony o f this desperate s u rv iv in g is a reco rd ing in B lo k 's diary (N o v e m b e r 17. 1919): " /t o K anoro np eaeaa ao flaeT oTHam ibe'1 — C ao.vian na apoBa ujK am iK — aeTCTBo vioe 1 1 .via.viiiiio." [T o w h at ex ten d the despair w ill go?— T h e sm all c a b in e t is p u lled d o w n fo r fire w o o d — ch ild h o o d , m in e and m y m o th e r's .| A le k s a n d r B lok. Zapis/iye knizhki. IV O I-1 920 (M o s c o w : K h u d o zh e s tv e n n a ia lite ra tu ra . 1 9 6 5 ). 4 8 0 . Heroes o f Olga Forsh's Sumasshcdshu k o ra h l' [Crazy Ship) heat their apartments with furniture and picture frames. Milashevsky. one o f the inhabitants o f the House o f Arts {Dorn Iskiissn). which served as a prototype for Sumasshedshii k u r a b l described in his memoirs how Aleksandr Grin. Shklovsky. and he went to a closed bank to get some accounting books for their stoves. 1 0 P od son'ezdicm topora, 164. 1 1 Ibid. During the years preceding the revolution, several St. Petersburg poets reflected in their poetry' the image o f the city cov ered by ice and snow: see. for example, Akhm atova’s “Ved’ gde-to est’ prostaia zhizn' i svet..." [Surely somewhere there is a simple life and lig h t...], Georgii Chulkov's “Nad Petrogradom dv shit kholod..." [Frost breathes above Petrograd]. and G um ilev’s "Ledokhod" [Floating Ice], ~ For two centuries, the winter image o f the city was not to be found very often in the gallery' o f St. Petersburg “portraits.” Only a few examples can be mentioned, including the sketch, "V iew o f Part o f the City from the Italian Palace." by Christopher Marselius (1720s), the lithograph "The General Staff Building from the direction o f the M oika," made from Vasily Sadovnikov’s drawing (1833), and the painting “V iew o f the Monument to Peter I on the Senate Square,” by Vasily Surikov (1870). It was the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 artists o f the W orld o f Art group, Dobuzhinsky and Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who at the turn o f the twentieth century presented the cold. Northern side o f their city. |J D. A. Zasosov, V. 1 . Pyzin, I : zhizni P eterburga I8 9 0 -l9 I0 -k h godov. Z apiski ochevidtsev (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1991) 28. See also Akhmatova’s line in Poema bez g e ro ia [Poem Without a Hero] “ Byli sviatki kostrami sogrety...” [Christmas was warmed by bonfires], and Mandel'shtam’s " N a ploshchadi Senata— val sugroba. Dym ok kostra i kholodok shtvka. . .’’ [On the Senate Square there is a snowdrift, a puff o f bonfire, and a cold light o f bayonet], 4 1 . Babel’, P eierburg 1918 ( Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1989) 108. The theme o f coldness is the important component o f St. Petersburg’s post-revolutionary existence in M andel’shtam’s story “Shuba" [The Fur Coat]: Bcno.Mimato »[...] ja v e p ia im e b n erep o yp re. BoiBpauteHiie c oo.neaeHe.ibiM nafiKOM b pyxax b KOMHatKy ^foMa H ckvcctb. /Krynne >Ke.ieiHbie nepitaa iicpnofi .lecTHitubi. o ei nepiiaroK, miKax ao m ix ne aooepeuibCH. nyaoM noamiMeuibCH na cboh araw [. . .] [I recall [... ] my freezing in Petersburg, the returns with the ice-co\ered ration to my small room in the House o f Arts, frozen iron banisters o f the back stairs, no gloves because it is impossible to reach them, getting to my floor by some miracle [...] Osip M andel’shtam. “Shuba” in Lcningradskaia P an ora m a—84 (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel’. 1984), 491. 1 Gippius created an explicit formula in which w inter equaled death: "ripiiioroB.iem ie k vioni.ie— rnvoutia xo.ioaa. r.ivoim a TbMbi. r.ivoima Tiiium tbi..." [Preparation for the grave— deepness o f coldness; deepness o f darkness; deepness o f silence....] P od sozvuzdiem topora. 383. One o f the photographs from the Sokoloff collection at the Hoover Archives shows the Petrograd intelligentsia clearing the snow at Liteinyi Prospect. Hoover Institution Archives. 81025-8M . 02. A 21. 1 V. Milashevsky.* I'chcra. po zaw ltera. . W isponunanna khudozhm ka (Moscow: Kniga, 1989) 196-197. IH Milashevsky. 197. 14 Isioriche.skic kladbtshcha Pctcrburga. Spruvoclm ik-ptiiL’vod iie l ' (Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel’stvo Chernvsheva. 1993) 50. Babel. 41-42. '' P od sozw zdicnt topora. 358. ” Gippius mentioned that not everyone was lucky enough to get buried. Podsozvczdiem topora. 350. Annenkov. 36-37. Babel’ dedicated his most grievous lines to that issue in his article "Bitye" [The Shot Ones]: ft y in a io cawoe r.iaBHoe: Tpynbi He xopom rr. noTOMV h to He Ha h to iix xopoHitTb. BoabHima He xoneT TpantTbcs na noxopoHbi. Poanbix HeT [...] Hey6 paHHbie Tpynw— rio o a aHJi b 6 oabHime. K to yoepeT— it o , Ka>Keicji, cae.ia.iocb BonpocoM caMoaio6 n«. — Bbi 6 ii.ni.— c 0 /KecT0 iieHiieM aoKa3biBaex ((jenbamep,— Bbi h y 6 npafiTe. CBannBaTb y-Ma xBaTaeT...Beab nx, 6 itTbix-T0 . h to hh aeiib— aecHTKii... To paccrpea, to rpa6 eac... [I find out the most important— the dead bodies are not buried because there is no money for their funeral. The hospital does not want to spend money for funeral. There are no relatives [...] Non-buried bodies are the topic o f the day in the hospital. Who would bury— it seems to become a question o f pride. — You shot them,— the fe l'd s h e r (medical assistant) argues with the great zeal.— so you should clean [the mess]. You have enough brain to knock down... Every day, there are dozens o f them, the shot ones. It’s either execution, or robbery...] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 Babel'. 48. "4 Istoricheskie kladbishcha Peterburga. Spravochnik-putevoditel '.51. :5 On Thursday, January I I , 1918, the newspaper Ekho [Echo] reported: "There is only a two-day bread supply in Petrograd. The expected 1000 wagons with bread have gotten stuck somewhere and it is uncertain whether they have been plundered or seized by one o f the forces fighting with the Bolsheviks" f.P -) :b “ Kaledndar’ Petrokommuny” in l:\e s tiia Petrokom m uny (Friday, November 7. 1917), 5. Annenkov, 49. In his novel Sentim ental non puteshesnie [Sentimental Journey], written in Berlin in 1923. Shklovsky left several accounts o f starvation. One o f the most striking passages is dedicated to sugar: Ec.w Bbi ne 6 b i.il! b Poccim c 1917 j o 1921 ro aa . Bbi ne Mo>Keie cede n p e a c ra H iirb . kuk re .io it M o ir — ho ne kuk itHTe.n.ieKT. a kuk uacTb re .ia — M o iy r >Ka.io6 tio Tp eo ouarb caxapa. Onn npocHT ero, kuk a<eiimiiiiy, onn .is KaBHT. Kan rps jh o jo iic c t ii j o aosia iiecKo.ibKo k \c k o b oe.ioro caxapa! T pyjtio . c iijh b to c th x . r.ie c.is iiafnio na c m ie c t o iit caxapmma c caxapoM. ne laopaTb Bcero caxapa b poT n lie c r p u m ero. [ If you have not been in Russia from 1917 till 1921. sou won't be able to imagine how your bods and brain— not as intellect but as a bods part— could sorrow fulls demand sugar. They beg for it as for a ssoman. they are being cunning. How hard it is to bring home a few lumps o f s s hite sugar and not eat it right asvas! It is hard to he on a visit somesvhere svhere a sugar basin happens to be on the table and not to put all the sugar in sour mouth and munch it up.) V. Shklovsks. Sentim ental noe puteshesn ie (Moscosv: Novosti. 1990). 234-35. s P u d s o :\e :ilie m topora. 333. V Shklossks, 235. ' Osip Mandel'shtam. "Sloso i kul’tura" in S "hram e s oelunenn r 2 lom akh (Ness N ’ork: Inter-l.anguage Literary Associates. I960, sol. 2). 265. Pod sozvezilietn topora. 384. ;; Ibid.. 386. " Rsszard Przsbvlski. An Essay on Poetry ot Osip M andel'shtam : G od's G rateful Guest (Ann Arbor: Ardis. 1987). 142. 4 Gregory Freidin. A C oat o f M any Colors. Osip Mandelstam and His M ythologies o /S e lf- Representation (Berkley Los Angeles London: Unisersitv o fC alilb m ia Press, 1987), 156. ? Nina Berberova. K u rsiv mot A vio b io g ra fiia (Ness York: Russica Publishers. 1983. vol. 1), 165. The later version o f the poem mentioned Orpheus more explicitly. The first four lines o f the last stanza read: Tje-TO xopbi c.iajkiie Optjien II pojitbie Tesiiibie ipaHKii, II na rpjtjKii Kpece.i c ranepeti riaaaioT ail)iiujii-ro.ny6Kii. [Somesvhere— the ssveet choruses o f Orpheus and the dear dark eyes, and the dove-like playbills are falling from the gallery over the flosverbeds o f the seats.] Freidin. 182. 8 See for example. Gippius’s note: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 n o c n e 11 h. BCMepa (...) aanpetueH o xo atrrb no yntmaM, T.e. nocne 8— Beab y nac "peBO JiiounoHHoe” sp eM s, nacbi Ha Tpii naca Bnepea! [A jfter 11 p.m. [...] it is prohibited to be in the streets, i.e. after 8 p.m. since we have a "revolutionary" time and the clock is turned three hours ahead!) P od sozvezdiem to p o ra , 345. 19 Berberova. 127, 126. 4 U Irina Odoevtseva. S a beregakh Sevy (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1989), 36. 41 The metaphor o f the burnt sun provokes a parallel with the opera V ictory over the Sun. in which the Futurist strongmen conquer the sun o f old aesthetics. 4 " P od sozvezdiem topora. 347 44 Blok, 463. 44 Berberova. 130. “ Milashevskv, 179-80. 4,1 B lair A. Ruble. Le ningra d Shaping a Soviet City (Berkelev Los Angeles Oxford: L'niversitv o f California Press, 1990). 4 1. 4 Berberova, 126. 4 1 1 Odoevtseva. 37. 49 "Ha lleBCKOM vte/K.tv Topuavnt leaeiieaa rpaua" [On Nevskv. the grass was growing between the pavement blocks].— Odoevtseva. 36. V. Sirin's long poem "Peterburg." written in 1921. also contains a significant reference to the dead city overgrown with grass: H obciojv Bbipocaa n cntiuia TpaBa. Cpe.ibvnmibt nycTort blister hmu. Kan vtontaa; B viont.ne am u — Herepoypi. [The grass grew and rotted everv where. In the middle of the deserted street, there is a pit like a grave; Petersburg is in that grave ] <0 "B To cT m io M /iB o p e movkiio dbiao c o o p arb ooabujon ov kct noncBbtx ubctob" [O n e co uld g a th e r a larg e b o uq uet o f fie ld tlo w e rs in G o s tin y D v o r .|— A k h m a to v a . 172. M "1 la .VlapcoBovi noae KanycTa it ubctvt noacoanyxn" [On the Field o f Mars the cabbage is growing and the sunflow ers are flowering). — I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov. "Pis'nto v Berlin" in P od sozvezdiem topora. M 2 . Berberova. 140-41. Berberova. 143-44. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 Chapter Two City as Noah's Ark The phantasmagoria that transformed the space o f the city also changed the space of the city dweller. Two images crucial for such transmutation were analyzed in the previous chapter. The first one represented a former St. Petersburg house turned into an icy mountain with caves that replaced the apartments. The second image showed a secular habitat as a monastery cell. This chapter deals with another fascinating transmutation o f a house into a ship, with cabins in place of the apartments. Indeed, the ship cabin, like the cave and the monastery cell, is a space isolated from the rest of the world and estranged from the traditional concept of domesticity. The image of a ship became especially significant during the first years after the revolution, reflecting a \ague and uncertain destiny and a feeling of suspension over the deep. The res olution of l l) 17 was recognized by the St. Petersburg myth as a symbolic Hood that finally put an end to the city's existence. Georgii Ivanov's memoirs. Peicrhurgskic ziniy [Petersburg Winters], opens with the metaphor o f the drowning city: P o B o p H T . r o n y m iif i b n o c n e a m o io m u h v t v la o b iB a e r e r p a x . n e p e c T a e r 3 a ,ib ix a T b C 5 i. E.\iy B a p y r craH O B H TC H n e rK O . c b o o o z u io . o .x a s K e n u o . H. TepHH c o 3 n a iu ie . o h i u e T n a m io . y .ib io a jtc b . K 1 9 2 0 - m v r o a y r i e r e p o y p r r o riy n y>Ke n o iiT ii o a a /K e im o . [They say that in a last minute, a drowning person forgets his fear and stops suffocating. Suddenly, he feels ease, freedom, and bliss. Loosing consciousness, he goes to the bottom smiling. By 1920. St. Petersburg was sinking almost blissfully.]1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 In the context o f the St. Petersburg post-revolutionary myth, the metaphor of a ship elicits a broad spectrum o f associations, from the surreal Flying Dutchman whose sailor-citizens have no idea of their course and are doomed to wander restlessly through the seas, to Noah's Ark. a final and perhaps insane chance to escape death and reach the Promised Land. It has a three-fold meaning: o f the Revolution, o f the city, and o f a house. The metaphor o f the October Revolution as a ship can be traced in various works of art. One ship, in particular, became the most famous symbol of the "historic events" of October 24. 1917: the cruiser Aurora, for its salvo was used as a signal for the storming o f the Winter Palace. 1'his also marked the birth o f the "New Fra" in the official Bolshevik historiography. By the fenth Amm ersary of the revolution, the cruiser Aurora had already acquired an extensive iconography: Mayakovsky's poem Khorosho! [Excellent!]. Fisenstein's lllm O kiiu b r' [October]. Kupreianov's engraving "The Salvo o f the Aurora." to mention only a few examples. I low ever the Aurora's fearsome and proud silhouette w as not the only naval sy mbol o f the revolution. Another ship, inglorious yet no less significant, that reminded Petrograd citizens of the chaotic beginning o f the "New Fra." w as the Narodovolets. It was a transport ship, for several years lying on its side in the Neva by the Nikolaevsky Bridge, after having beenw recked in 1918.' In a drunken fit. its captain had opened the portholes on one side as a joke, thus scuttling his vessel. In Mandelshtam's poem "Sumerki svobody" [The Tw ilight o f Freedom] written in May 1918. the images o f tw o ships appear: a sinking ship o f Time and a ship of the Earth driven by the Leader of the People (narudnyi vozhd’): Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ripOCJiaBHM, OpaTfeH, C y N lC p K H CBOOOabl,----- BejutKHH cyMepeHHbiH roa. B Kunxunie HOHHbie bouu OnymeH rpy3Hbw Jiec TeHeT. Bocxozumib ibi b rjiyxne ronbi. O cojiHue. cyans. Hapon. IlpO C JiaBH M poKOBoe Spe.M Jt, Koropoe b c/ieiax napoanbifi Boaub oeper. ripoc.naBiiM BnacTU cystpaMHoe 6pe.\ix. He ueBbiiiociiMbiu ruer. B kom cepatte ecTb. tot jo;nKen cHbimuTb. Bpe.MH. Kuk tboh Kopao.ib ko ;ui> n;ie i . Mbi b nenionbi ooeBbie CBXia.Tii .iacroHeK— n bot He b iu h o co.uma: bch ctmxiih LUeoene r. ;iBii>KeTCH. >KHne i : C K B O 'ib eern—cvNtepKii ryc ibie— He b iu h o co.'iima n leM.ix n.ibiBer. Hy mto > k. nonpooye.M: orpoMiibifi. HeyK;iio>Kim. CKpiinyMiifi noBopor pv.iH. 3eM.iH n.TbiBer. My/Kanreeb. mv>kii. Kai< nnyroM. oKeaii ;ieax. Mbi oyaeM noMim rb 1 1 b aerencKon eryvKe. Mro aecxrii neoec n a.M cTonaa 3e.\iax. [Brethren, let us praise the twilight offreedom . the great crepuscular year. A bulky forest-like snare is plunged into turbulent night waters. The Sun. the judge, the people— y ou are rising in the obscure years. Let us praise the fatal burden that the leader o f the people carries in tears. Let us praise the crepuscular burden o f power and its unbearable weight. Those who have a heart should hear. Time, how your ship sinks. W e tied together the spatrows and turned them into the battle legions— and now the sun is invisible: the whole element is twittering, moving, and alive. The sun is invisible and the Earth drifts through the net o f dense twilight. W ell, let us try— a huge, lumbering, squeaking turn o f the rudder. The Earth is drifting. Take courage, men. Dividing the ocean as if with a plough, we shall remember even in the cold Lethe that the Earth was worth ten heavens.] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 The apparent source o f the image of the net can be found both in the Old and the New Testament, as well as in the Apocalypse. The obscured sun is also an eschatological symbol. Sailing away on their apocalyptic quest of the revolution. Mandel'shtam's "brethren" will end up in the coldness o f the Lethe. The twilight imagery symbolizes the uncertainty and the abyss, over which the navigators are suspended. Elizaveta Polonskaia's untitled poem, written in spring of 1920. reveals certain parallels to "Sumerki svobody." The revolution is shown again as a gigantic ship that covers the centuries with its shadow: Hoa JiiaKOM Crpe.ibua. onieimoii vie.tbio PacttBCTa. 1 eamibiii O kthopl. Bbiiue.i orpo.MHbifi Kopao.ib II reiibio noKpbia cToaexbH. Craao urpyiuKofi BiHTbe BacTuaiin. Piim . tbo ii aep'/KUBiibie KaMitn— iibiabio. B /Kiiaax nooeaiiTeaefi uoauba KpoBb. C NioaoKOM BoaMiittbi Bcocaan bo. imw o aioooBb. 1 1 b Poccmi Ntoefi. OKpoBaBaeimofi. uooeaiiofi nan iiaemioii. Bberca rpeneriioe cepaue Bceaemiofi. [Under the sign o f the Archer. October turned fiery bronze. A gigantic ship appeared and cov ered the centuries with its shadow. The seizure of the Bastille seems now toy-like: Rome, sou powerful stones are turned to dust. There is wolf's blood in the veins of the victors: they imbibed w olfs love with w olfs milk. And the trembling heart o f the Universe is beating in my Russia, bleeding, victorious or captured.] Another contextual meaning of the metaphor of the ship in the post-revolutionary St. Petersburg culture is the city seen as a ship that has lost its course. It becomes the central image o f Igor' Sev erianin's poem "Otkhodnaia Petrogradu" [Prayer for the Departed Petrograd] written in 1918: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 [T]bi ripoiciHT. Haa toooh npoKjurrbsi. Tbi tohho mxvna 6e3 pyjifl. PacKpofl >K e TonKHe oobarbH. JHep'/Kamaa rcoa le.v.m [Y]ou are damned. There are curses upon you. You are like a schooner without the wheel. Let the ground that holds you open its swampy embrace! j In Berberova's Kursiv moi [The Italics Are Mine], the city is also turned into a ship constricted by the icebergs ("stisnutyi l'dinami korabl' pod v'iugoi")/ Together with a star, a ship is another hypostasis of Petropolis in Mandel'shtam's "Na strashnoi vysote bluzhdaiushchii ogon'...'' |A drifting tire at terrible height....] These are some examples of the image of a ship as the Revolution and as the city that can be found in the corpus of St. Petersburg texts o f the time. The last component of the metaphor is the notion of Petrograd buildings seen as outlandish ships. The most frequent image found in many texts ofthe time is Noah's Ark. tilled with pairs of all 1 i\ ing creatures, both clean and unclean.4 In September o f 1919. the decree creating the ill-lamed konum iihilki (the communal apartments) was issued.' The living area ofthe former owners and respectful tenants was reduced, and a new family or families moved in. creating social and often ethnic diversity within an apartment. In the Great Flood of the revolution, a single St. Petersburg house turned into a communal apartment block was indeed reminiscent ofthe Biblical ark. The decree on the apartments became a culmination point ofthe process of diminishing the living space. However the process had begun earlier— immediately after the revolution that had renounced old "bourgeois'* values, such as privacy and Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 domesticity o f life. This process was characterized by two contradictory phenomena. On the one hand, the nationalization of buildings in the spring of 1918. together with a food and fuel crisis, led to the mass exodus of many citizens from St. Petersburg. A newspaper foretold that before long, “due to the unfavorable conditions, lack of food, and the fact that there were not enough jobs that pay a living wage, Petrograd would rapidly become deserted, and unpopulated."n On the other hand, living space in apartments that were still inhabited "shrank" to the minimum size of one room that w as kept warm in the winter: [B|ce KBaprupbi oy;tro c/Kii.Ma.uicb. ripenpaiua:mci> b iickhc CKopnyiibi. VKii.ntiua yaii roK. oou rarean Koropbix ribnaaitcb raKu.v oopa-toM eiiacritcb o r oriacuocrit lasiepniy ri> in -u i orey tc th iih apoB. [I ]t was as if all apartments were shrinking and turning into shells, into snails' dwellings, the inhabitants of which were trying to escape the danger o f freezing due to the lack of firewood. | As Shklovsky formulated it. "it was crowded in the deserted city." The furniture and all objects in each room were also overcrow ded, s and also looked like survivors of the Deluge: B n e w e p n o u ncTepoyprcKoii e n a a b iie o i.ia o rate >Ke. kuk ueaaBito b H ocbom K O B n ere: n o r o n H O n e p e n y r a m ib ie m ic r b ie n iie m ic r b ie T B a p u . K p a c u o r o a e p e s a n n c b M e m ib ifi c r o a : K H iir n : K aM etiH O -B eK O B bie r o tiH a p n o r o B t u a a e n e u iK ir , C K p a o itH . o n y c 7 4 : y r i o r : n H Tb a io o o B iio . a o o e a a B b iM b rrb ix K ap T O tiieK : H iiK e a e p o B a m ib ie p e u ie r K ii K p o B a ie n : T o rio p : m m jio tib e p : a p o B a . [In the cavernous St. Petersburg bedroom, all was as it had been in Noah's Ark not long ago— the clean and unclean creatures in diluvial mix: a mahogany desk, books, stone-age cakes o f ceramic appearance. Scriabin opus 74. a flatiron, five potatoes lovingly scrubbed white, nickel-plated bedsprings. an ax. a chiffonier, firewood.]4 Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 This catalogue description ofthe new post-revolutionary material world is taken from Zamiatin's "Peshchera." A variety of objects that used to belong to different parts of the household— the kitchen, the studio, and the living room— are now combined in the bedroom. While the distorted material world in Zamiatin's story is obviously retouched b\ the brush of an excellent stylist, it remains an almost documentary reflection ofthe communal reality ofthe time. One can And striking parallels to Zamiatin's description in the memoirs o f his contemporaries. For instance, w hen Berberova recalled her living conditions in the post-revolutionary Petrograd. she came up w ith a similar account: [>1] nepeexajia a KOMiiary po.tine.ieii: /me nx Kpotnirii. \iofi /um aii. cto.i c uemiofi Kamefi na new. Kapro(|)e.ib. ko lo p u ii mu e;ut.\i co uiKvpKofi. ra'/Keaaa nafiKa uepnoro rpyooi o x.ieoa. T y r > i< e ry;un iipn.wyc. na KOTopo.M KiiriHraTca Kyxomibie noaoTeiina it rpHiiKii. Koropue miKor/ta ne npocbtxaior. Ha BepeBKe cyuntrca de/me. pBanoe n Bcer/ta cepoe: /tevKaT b yray (obiBuien rauiiKOBCKon ro crn no n ) /to noro/iKa c/tO/Kemiue apoBa [...]. Hepea bcio KOMitary n/tei in ueMKn rpyoa n yxo /tn r b Ka.Miinnyio or/tv tunny. I la nee im o iaa Kanaei Mepnaa nomonaji >Kai>K a b pacKpbiTbiii iom lSaparbincKoro. b nepaoBuii cyn nan Mite na hoc. [1] moved into my parents' room. Their two beds, my sofa, a table with inv ariable kasha, potatoes that we eat unpeeled, a portion o f hard, rough rye bread. There is also a primus that we use to boil the kitchen towels and rugs that never get dry. Laundry, torn and always gray, dries on a clothes line: in the corner ofthe former Glinka's guestroom, the firewood is piled up to the ceiling [...]. A stovepipe runs through the whole room and goes into the fireplace vent. Sometimes, black stinky fluid drips dowm from it onto the open volume of Baratynsky, into the pearl-barley soup, or onto my nose.]lu Some similarities are indeed remarkable, such as the constant opposition of the “high" and the "low" objects in both descriptions. "Books, stone-age cakes o f ceramic appearance. Scriabin opus 74. a flatiron, five potatoes lovingly scrubbed white" in Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 "Peshchera” echo the volume o f Baratynsky's poetry, pearl-barley soup, primus, and potatoes in Kursiv moi. The reference to Noah’s Ark in Zamiatin’s story emphasizes that those objects are the chosen ones. However, unlike the clean and unclean creatures in the Biblical story', they were selected to provide a minimum of life support and not to survive themselves. Although cakes and potatoes look more like pottery, they would be the first ones to perish. The books and the music score, as a superfluous "feast for the soul." would most likely perish too. being either exchanged for food at the black market or burned down in a desperate attempt to keep the li\ing space warm. For the same reason, wooden furniture would be also sacrificed as firewood. Therefore, the final sequence of Zamiatin's catalogue of objects— an ax. a chiffonier, and firewood— could be seen as a symbolic "fuel chain." 1-ven though the mention of Noah's Ark creates an important subtext in "Peshchera." it is another Zamiatin short story. "Mamai." that develops the metaphor o f St. Petersburg buildings as ships. It opens with the opposition between a building-as- ship and the primordial force o f nature— the ocean ofthe streets: n o BewepaM h no H04a.\i— jom ob b OeTepoypre oo.ibiue H e r ecTb uiecTH3Ta>KHbie KaMenubie Kopaojin. O jh h o k h m mecnnTaHcubiM MnpoM neceTCH Kopafijtb no Ka.MemtbiM bo-thum cpean ap y rn x ohiihokiix LuecriiOTa/KHbix MiipoB: ornflMii oecm ic.iem tbix kqiot CBeptcaeT Kopaojib b pa36ynT0BaBumftcH KaMennbifi oKeaH vm m . H Konewno. b KaiOTax ne >Kn.Tbubi: Ta.M— naccaxcupbi. (...) nacca>Kiipbi Ka.wenHoro KopaG.m No. 40 no BewepaM necancb b tou nacTH rieTepoyprcKoro oKeana. hto ooo3HaMena na xapTe noa HMeneM J la x T tm c K o fi y n iiu b i. (...) Ha KopaSae o b ia o hbho HeSnarono.iyHno: obtTb \io*/Ker. noTepH ii Kypc: obiTb MOHceT, me-HHoyztb b an nine— neBimii.Maa npooonna. 1 1 jkjtkhh OKean yjnm ynce rpo3HT xabtHyTb BHjTpb. Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 [At night, the buildings in St. Petersburg no longer exist; instead there are six-story stone ships. Like a lonely six-story world, a ship rushes through the stone waves among other lonely six-story worlds. With the lights ofthe innumerable cabins, the ship sparkles in the ruffled stone ocean ofthe streets. And o f course, there are not tenants in the cabins but passengers. [...] In the evenings, passengers ofthe stone ship No. 40 rushed through the part of the St. Petersburg ocean that is marked on the map under the name of Lakhtinskaia Street. [...] Apparently, all was not well on the board: maybe the course had been lost, or maybe there was an invisible hole in the bottom and the horrifying ocean o f streets already threatening to gush inside.]1 1 On the evening when the story begins, one ofthe passengers/tenants. Petr Petrovich Mamai. "a forty-year old bold boy" and a bibliophile, attends the meeting called by the captaiiv 1 lousing Committee Chairman. Because there is a danger of police search, the tenants stand watch outside the building each night. At the meeting. Mamai linds out that it is his turn to stay on guard. Since the threat o f police search and confiscation is real, the tenants hide their valuables. Returning home. Mamai confesses to his "majestic, gracious, big-bosomed. Buddha-like spouse" that, secretly from her. he has sa\ ed 4200 rubles in order to buy books; now this money has to be hidden in a safe place. Ironically, while sharing his name with the famous Mongolian khan, "the Mamai o f 1917" is scared to death throughout his confession and dreams o f hiding in a mouse hole. However, he escapes his wife's anger by telling her about the night watch. To calm the terrified Mrs. Mamai down, he promises her that he will not use a revolver. In fact, he will not even hurt a fly. After successfully hiding 4000 rubles in wax paper beneath a parquet square. Mamai leaves for the night watch on his stone ship. KaMeiuibifi Kopao.ib No.40 HeceTca no JTaxTimcKofi vm m e CKB03b tirropM. K aua-io. cBiicreno. ceicno cneroM b cBepKaiom ne OKita k b io t, it rae-TO Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 iieBHUHMaa npoootina, h ttetnBecTHo: npoSbeTca an Kopa6;ib CKB03b HOHb k yTpenneH npncTamt— hjih nofueT ko any. [The stone ship No. 40 rushes along Lakhtinskaia Street through the storm. It was rocking, making a buzzing sound, snowing into the shining cabin windows. And somewhere, there is an invisible hole and it is unclear whether the ship w ill make it through the night to the morning dock or sink.]1 2 Although the search does not happen that night and the ship/house finds its way to the morning dock, the protagonist has his dose of shocking experience. In his conversation with another guard, a veteran ofthe Russian-Japunese war. Mamai finds out that killing someone with a sword bayonet is just like cutting a w atermelon. The follow ing day. Mamai visits a bookstore on Zagorodnyi Prospect and sees an eighteenth-centur\ book that he dreamed about for twent\-five long years. He decides to buy it in spite o f his w ife's jealousx (she is convinced that he spends his money on "books in skirts"). Indeed. Mamai \s passion lor the book is show n as a parody o f erotic lo\ e stories, with a similar emphasis on sensuality and seductiveness: l h oKiia y.ibioaaacb. pacKim yB iuiicb e o a u n m n e n b iio . cnaaocrpacT iio — eKarepiiimncKiix Bpe.Men Kimra “Oiincare.ibiioe inoopa>Kemie npeKpacnocTcfi CaitKT-rieTepoypi a". I I neope>KiibiM aBiivKenue.M. c /KciicKiiM avKaBCTBOM. aaBaau iaiviHiiyrb Buyrpb ryaa— b re iiavio ao>KOHHKy Me>t<ay jb v x yripvro i!3orii\Tbix. roay6oBaTO-.\tpa.MopHbix crpamm. [From the window, it smiled at him. sprawling seductively and voluptuously— a book published in Catherine's age. "The Description of St. Petersburg marvels." And carelessly but with feminine slyness, it allowed him to glance in there, into a warm small hollow between two deftly curved, light blue marbled pages.]1 3 Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 Like Gogol's Akaky Akakievich, who cherishes the very idea of a new overcoat, Zamiatin’s Petr Petrovich nourishes his dream of possessing this book. Like Akaky Akakievich, Petr Petrovich is forever separated from the object o f his obsession. Late at night, after agonizing hours of fear. Mamai opens the hidden place in order to get the money. However, all he finds is paper dust— mice have eaten the money. The story ends with the metamorphosis. A coward. "Mamai of 1917" turns into the Mongolian khan and kills a mouse, feeling that he cuts a watermelon. It is significant that the passion for books turns the protagonist into a murderer. It is perhaps even more significant that the book he kills for is an old folio on St. Petersburg architecture. Unable to protect the actual city, the intelligentsia, ironically represented by Zamiatin in Mamai's character, vainly try to save St. Petersburg's beauty reflected in the books. The narration consists of several antinomies: day and night, the city and some nameless chaotic force that threatens its very existence, the ship/house and the storming ocean of streets, the book and the mouse. The first components in those antinomies belong to the domain of order, humanity, and culture and are opposed to chaos, violence, and destruction. Once again in the St. Petersburg myth, chaos triumphs over order: a chance to buy the book is ruined, the peaceful bibliophile is turned into a murderer, and the city itself is transformed beyond recognition. [Kjopao.ib y nptiCTaim— to. il k o no Bewepa. a ra.\t— onaTb b oKeaa. [.. .] Ho no hohii— eute >KtiTb ue.ibiH nenb. H b crpaHHOM. neanaKOMOM ropone— n e i p o r p a j t e — pacTepHiniooponiinn naccaaoipbi. T a n neM-to noxoiKe— n TaK nenoxo/Ke— Ha F le Tep oyp r, oTKyna OTJibum v>Ke noHTH ron n Kvna enBa nn Korna-Hn6ynb BepHVTca. CrpaHHbie. 3a.\iep3Lime 3a HOMb KaMeimo-cue'/KHbie Bomibi: ropbi h h m u . Bomibi tn tcaKoro-TO neii3BecTHoro nne.MeHit— b crpaHHbix nox.\tOTbax. opv>KHe na BepeBOHKax Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 3a naenaMH. HyjKe3eMHbm oSbiHaii— xoaiiTb b t o c t h e hom cbkoh: na V.lHUaX HOHbK) B&abTep-CKOTTOBCKJie poo-poii. H BOT TVT na 3aropoaH O M — BbraoKennbie b CHery KanentKH k p o b h ... H ct. ne rieTep6ypr! [T]he ship will remain at the pier till evening only and then will leave again for the ocean. [...] But there is a whole day to live through before the night, and the confused passengers stroll about the streets of a strange, unfamiliar city, Petrograd. Everything is somehow so similar and yet so different from the St. Petersburg they sailed away from almost a year ago and to which they will scarcely ever return. Strange, stone waves of snow frozen during the night — mountains and hollows. Warriors o f some unknown tribe dressed in strange rags, with the guns on the strings on their backs. A foreign custom— to stay overnight because there are the Walter-Scottian Rob Roys in the streets at night. And here, on Zagorodny there are small drops o f blood burnt into the snow... No. it is not St. Petersburg! ]M The citizens have lost their city, and Mamai loses his chance to preserve its artistic reflection. This tragic subtext reveals itself through the parodic narration making "Mamai" one ofthe best Zamiatin's short stories. There is no exess material in the story; each detail counts. One of those significant details is the name o f the I lousing Committee Chairman. Elisei Eliseieh: [E]anceii Eancemi— K arm rau Kopaoan: ynoauoM O M eim bifi aoM a. H Eancefi EanceiiM— o a im na Tex cvM pannbix .-VraacoB. mto. coruvBiuncb. erpaaaabHecK ii cM opuuiB um cu. ceMt.aecHT aer iteey r no Mnaanoimofi K apm n 3p.\iiiTa>Ka. [E]lisei Eliseieh is the captain o f the ship— he is the Chairman o f the Housing Committee. Elisei Eliseieh is also one o f those gloomy Atlases who for seventy years, bending down and wrinkling with pain, carry the Hermitage cornice along Millionnaia Street.]1 ' The comparison with one o f the famous sculptural giants ofthe Hermitage portico is crucial. It accentuates Elisei Eliseich's role as the major supporting element o f the house structure, its symbolic keystone. He is the captain, and the stone ship is his Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 responsibility and also his domain. In fact, the house practically belongs to him and may be as well called his— Elisei's House. The actual prototype o f this house is the "Eliseev House." also known as the House o f Arts, where Zamiatin lived while writing his story. Olga Forsh, who also lived there from 1919 to 1923. wrote about this house and how it seemed to be the center o f St. Petersburg: Ha Bcex coBpeMeinibix (j)OTorpa(|)intx KavKexcH. h t o iiMenno o r nero. kuk o r nemcit. iijy r Bee upoueccnit. [In all photographs ofthe time, it seems that it is exactly from this house, as if from the very beginning, that all processions start to move.]"’ It is located at the corner ofthe Moika. Nevsky Prospect, and Bolshaia Morskaia Street. For almost sixty years prior to the revolution, it belonged to the Eliseev merchant family. From the fall of 1919 until the beginning of 1923. it sheltered the House of Arts (Dom Iskusstv. or DISK), created by Maxim Gor'ky and Kornei Chukovsky as a dormitory and cheap cafeteria for writers and artists and as a cultural center for literary evenings, concerts, and exhibitions. Forsh. Aleksandr Grin. Nikolai Gumilev. Vladislav Khodasevich. Osip Mandelshtam. Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky. Nikolai Tikhonov, and Mikhail Zoshchenko lived there among many others. Through Forsh’s novel Sumasshedshii ko ra bl' [Crazy Ship], it became known as a Crazy Ship drifting on the water that covered St. Petersburg. The actual house consists o f three buildings. The main one facing Nevsky Prospect was built in 1768-1771. replacing the temporary wooden Winter Palace ofthe Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. In 1792-1794. a three-storied wing was built along the Moika (the Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 fourth story was the latest addition). Finally, in the 1820s, another wing was completed facing Bol'shaia Morskaia Street. The House's history is intertwined with naval symbolism and with the theme o f death. Its first owner w as the senator and St. Petersburg general-polilsmeister (Chief of Police), Nikolai Ivanovich Chicherin. When on September 10. 1777. the most destructive and lethal Hood in the history of St. Petersburg took away thousands o f lives. Chicherin was blamed by the Empress for a lack of administrative ability and he died from a stroke soon after.1 Another notable owner ofthe House was Abram Izrailevich Perets. one ofthe richest merchants and a salt supplier for the State, as well as a shipbuilder (kom bL’s tro iic l'). I le began renting out thepannbnv pokoi (roughly "presidential suite" or "royal suite"), and the first tenant, from 1799 to 1801. was Count Petr .Alekseevich von der Palen. one ofthe assassins ofthe Emperor Pavel. The shadow of regicide hovered long over the House and soon Perets sold it to the merchant Andrei Ivanovich Kosikovsky. who greatly enlarged the building.Is The last owners, the Eliseev merchants, purchased it in 1858. They made many changes in both the exterior and interior design ofthe House and modernized the apartments. The House owes them its most common name, "the Eliseev House." Still, there is much more to the cultural heritage o f this building. At the end o f the eighteenth century, it housed the Musical Club, the first in St. Petersburg, of w hich Bortniansky. Fonvizin and Kantemir were members. In 1780-1783 one o f Catherine the Great's favorite architects. Jiacomo Quarenhi. lived in the building. In the early nineteenth century, the House was the address o f Pluchar's typography and bookstore. Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 of Talon's restaurant frequented by Pushkin, and ofthe Otechestvennye zapiski magazine. The poet and diplomat Aleksandr Griboedov lived there in 1828. the last year of his life. Another notable Russian literary figure, the journalist Nikolai Grech also lived in the House in the 1820s. In the second half ofthe century, the Chess Club and the Noble Assembly were also located there, while Chernyshevsky. Dostoevsky. Apollon Grigoriev. Nekrasov, among others, participated in the literary evenings held th e re .A n o th e r leaseholder was the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank, which played an especially important role in the life of post-revolutionary inhabitants ofthe House, for in 1019-1920. during the fuel crisis in Petrograd. the thick account books found in the Bank turned into a welcome fuel supply. After the House of Arts was opened, the writers, poets, and artists inherited not only the building and the furniture, but also, most importantly, the aura o f the I louse. The shadows of the Lmpress Hlizaveta. Count Palen and his royal \ ictim. the T.mperor Pavel, as well as ofthe patriarchs o f Russian culture, often reappeared in those walls, adding to the phantasmagoria ofthe DISK's life. Almost all the members of this remarkable commune left recollections of their life in the House o f Arts: Berberova. Chukovsky. Vsevolod Ivanov. Veniamin Kaverin. Khodasevich. Milashevsky. Shklovsky. Zoshchenko.—everyone except those who did not outlive the House o f Arts (like Gumilev, who was arrested and shot on August 25. 1921. or the critic Akim Volynsky and the youngest member ofthe Serapion Brothers. Lev hunts, who died in the early 1920s). The memoirs and two issues ofthe magazine Doin Iskusstv with a chronicle of events present the almost surreal picture o f everyday Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 life in the House of Arts. The exhibitions o f Albert Benois. Dobuzhinsky. Boris Kustodiev, and Zamirailo were held in the lavishly decorated Eliseev assembly room. In the ballroom. Blok. Georgii Ivanov. Mukhail Kuzmin, and Mandelshtam read their poetry, while in the former Eliseev Blue Guestroom. Chukovsky. Gor'ky, Shklovsky. and Yurii Tynianov discussed problems of literary theory. The old Eliseev baths turned into Gumilev's habitat and served as a classroom for the poetic studio Zvuchashchaia rakovina. while Mikhail Slonimsky’s room became a meeting place for the Serapion Brothers. W riters and artists were not the only tenants in the House of Arts. Forsh described the variety of the inhabitants ofthe former Eliseev House (in her novel, it is the Erofeev House): [KJpoMe uncaTeaeft. rtecb •/Kii.iit nopnibie. uacom.ix .tea .stacrepa. coBcav/Kainue n orpo.MHbifi lin a r obiBuieii epo(|)eencKon npncayri!. Koropaa no xoaHMen a e re n a e . taaeaaaa K vaa-io a creiib i tipecao n yto e "epocjteeucKoe cepeopo". B naaevKae n a firit r r o noBoe " a o a o io Pefm a". riocae ocooo )K30TnitecKon noavMKit naftKa. cocToam ero in .iiicto b aaBpa it a y u m c T o ro nepua. o o itT a re a ii ao.Ma c roaoaiibi.M oaecxoM b raa3ax 6 poca.ancb BbicTVKiiBUTb Kopnaopbi. [AJlong with the writers, the tailors, watchmakers, and the Soviet clerks lived there, as well as a huge staff ofthe former Erofeev's household servants who had. according to a current legend, hidden somewhere in the walls the celebrated "Erofeev's silver." After receiving an especially exotic ration that consisted o f bay leaves and black pepper, the inhabitants ofthe house, with hungry sparkle in their eyes, rushed to tap the corridors, hoping to find this new "gold of Rhine."]2 0 The Eliseev House turned into a huge kommimulka. However, unlike other communal appartmental blocks, the House o f Arts was a most unusual kommunalka. It was created Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 to provide a shelter and food for fragile St. Petersburg intellectuals, i.e. to literally rescue them. The House o f Arts in Petrograd opened on December 19. 1919. Gor'ky was its chair, and the board of administration included the artistic elite o f St. Petersburg. The Artistic Section was led by Natan Al'tman. Annenkov. Alexandre and Albert Benois. Dobuzhinsky. Petrov-Vodkin. and Vladimir Shchuko; the Literary Section was controlled by Blok, kornei Chukovsky. Gumilev. Vasilii Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Zamiatin: the business manager was P. V. Sazonov."1 It was created as a branch ofthe Palace of Arts in Moscow, although it soon became an independent institution subordinated directly to the Narkompros (the People’s Commissariat for Lnlightenment). The Moscow Palace of Arts w as organized in the Spring of that year by the group o f w riters led by the poet and writer Ivan Rukavishnikov. The People's Commissariat for Lnlightenment placed the Sologub mansion on Povarskaia Street, the famous prototype ofthe Rostovs House in Leo Tolstoi's lu in a i m ir [War and Peace], at the disposal o f Moscow literati. Osip Volzhanin. the correspondent of I'estnik lilcratitry [The Literary Herald] in Moscow, left a detailed description ofthe Palace of Arts in his article "Dvorets Iskusstv v Moskve'' [The House o f Arts in Moscow]: What do the w riters sheltered by the Palace o f Arts do and how do they express themselves? They organize literary and artistic debates, publish papers and books (so far only very few). They also eat well, and not only metaphorically but literally. The Palace of Arts offers cheap lunches for its members. The debates in the Palace of Arts attract attention from the higher spheres: a frequent guest is Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky himself who sometimes reads his dramatic works there.'' Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 For the summer o f 1919, the Palace o f Arts rented one of the near-Moscow estates for its summer resort. Unfortunately, as Volzhanin noted, the food at the resort was not as good as it was in the capital. This emphasis on food was the sign ofthe time, and the citizens of Petrograd shared a similar attitude. The same issue o d ’esinik liieratury informed the readers about the impending opening ofthe House of Arts in Petrograd. Listing the proposed activities ofthe organization, the anonymous author eloquently began with a cafeteria and a provision distributor.-" 5 Indeed, good and cheap food seemed for the starving Petrograd intellectuals an almost unbelievable treat. For the first couple of weeks following the opening, lunches and dinners at the House of Arts became the talk ofthe town. After one dinner organized for the artists. Somov wrote in his diary (December 27. 1919): [OJoeaann xyjO/KiuiKOB: Bcero dbi.io 19 mc.io bck. LLJypa [Benya], ApiyniHCKiifi. JIpeMim. JJoov/KiiiicKiiii. Bpai. Ahiiciikob. Hori atjrr. 3a.Miipafi.io. IH y k o . A.i.ierpn. Mapcepy. BoaKim. /foobimiHa. Be.iorpya. nonoB. DpucT n HepaaoBCKiifi. ToBopii.m oo.ibuie o eae. pajtoBanncb xopouie.MV ooe^v. Memo: mu. nmeimaH Kama c .\iac.ioM. KaKofi-TO Kpe.M c.ia.iKiifi ii Mart. [T]he dinner for the artists— nineteen people were present. Shura [Benois], Argutinskv. Yaremich. Dobuzhinsky. Braz. Annenkov. Notgaft. Zamirailo. Schuko, Allegri. Marseru, Vodkin. Dobychina, Belogrud, Popov, Ernst, and Neradovsky. Talked most o f all about food, enjoyed good dinner. The menu: shchi, millet porridge with butter, some sweet creme, and tea.]2 4 It is hard not to notice the tragic irony ofthe situation: the refined aesthetes o f the World o f Art group. Benois. Dobuzhinsky. Somov, and Victor Zamirailo. the collector Prince Vladimii Argutinsky-Dolgorukov. and the wealthy patron Nadezhda Dobychina praised dinner that consisted o f cabbage soup and porridge. Even Gippius. always so Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 caustic and negative in her reaction towards any alliance between the intelligentsia and the Soviet state.2 5 recognized the delicatessens ofthe House o f Arts cuisine: "A b "iloMe HcKyccTB"— OTKpbrrne. Bbui uafl. rnipo>KUbie (Bcero no ero pyo.iefi!). Koimn.iocb TamtaMn [...]” [The opening in the House o f Arts. Tea and pastries (for one hundred rubles only!): in the end. there was dancing 2 ( 1 The "feasts" in the House o f Arts should be recognized as a heroic humanitarian gesture, since in these hungry years, the House of Arts had saved many Petrograd writers and artists from starvation. Gor'ky wrote numerous letters to the Head o f Petro- Commune. Buchkov. regarding the distribution of rations o f Hour, grouts. meet. llsh. butter, sugar, etc. One sueh letter, for instance, written on the form ofthe House of Arts, stated the following: B HeTpoKOMNtyiiy. Ton. ByMKiiny. Jdo\i Hckvcctb iipocnr Bac oo eamtoBpeMemiofi Bbaaue npo.toBoabcruiiH n o.tevictbi tiiicareaio A iu p e io BeaoMy. aattHTOMv aitreparypitbiM ti rpyaaMtt oomecTBettttoro iium em iH. a raKvice Mremie.M aei<mtfi b Kyabryptio-iipocBeritTeabnofi ceKmin. I Ipeace;taTeab Bbicuiero CoBera /[oxia Hckvcctb. M . ropbKiifi. [Petro-Commune. To Comrade Buchkin. The House o f Arts asks you to provide a one-term ration o f food and clothes to the writer Andrei Bely, who is occupied by literary work o f social significance, as well as by lecturing in the Cultural and Educational Section. Chairman ofthe Higher Committee ofthe House o f Arts. M. G or'ky.]2 7 Some scholars are prone to think that Gor'ky's role in organization ofthe House of Arts, ofthe Committee for the Improvement ofthe Scholars' Life (Komitet po uluchsheniiu h vta uchcnykh. or the KU B U ). and o f the publishing house. World Literature ( I'sem irnaia Literatura) was not that noble at all. They see in Gor'ky's efforts an attempt to tame the Russian intelligentsia. Although it may be true to a Reproduced with permission ofthe copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 certain extent, Gor'kv has many advocates among different representatives of the post revolutionary intelligentsia, from the Communist poet Rozhdestvensky2* to the emigre artist Annenkov.2 9 Letters to Gor'kv from the inhabitants o f the House o f Arts filled with pleas, begging, or requests could form an extensive volume. One o f the most moving chapters in this hypothetical publication belongs to Aleksandr Grin. For instance, in one of his letters written April 26. 1920, Grin informs Gor'kv that he is hospitalized with typhus and begs to send him honey— the only effective medicine at the early stage o f the disease. '" In the postscript to another letter from May 7. 1921. Grin informs Gor'kv about his upcoming wedding with Nina Nikolaevna and asks for a favor: "lie ocltacr:iiunne :m Bbi .w eii>i coaeucTBHe.M a no.ivMeintii rae niioo 1 -ft oyTbi.'iKM crmpra?" [Would you make me happy by helping me to get somewhere one bottle of spirit?!. ' 1 These letters are fascinating documents of the post-revolutionary Petrograd reality in which G or'k\ stands for a deus capable for "giving the daily bread" as well as “forgiving the trespasses." In a short note from March 9. 1921. Grin intercedes for his neighbor and fellow poet Rozhdestvensky : /foporoii AaeKcefi MaKcuMoinm! CeroaitH no Tene<|)ouy coooutann b "JJom H ckvcctb" (in Boeaaoa Hacra). hto apecroBan BceBonoa Po/tctecTBencKim. n o rr. O h /Kan b /I. H .. no. iiocaeaniie a n a . Kate a npyrite orjraaepbi. ynep/KiiBancH nauanbCTBOM b K a3ap.Me. B next oa MO/KeT obrrb BimoBar? Hen baa an noxnonoTaTb 3a aero, htoow Bbinycrana. Hpenaaabifi Ba.\i A. C. rpiiH. [Dear Aleksei Maksimovich! Today we got a phone call (from a military unit) at the “House o f Arts" that the poet Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky is arrested. He lived in the H. of A. but during the last days together w'ith other officers was kept in the barracks Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 by his chief commander. What could he be auiltv of? Could you intercede for him to be let out? Faithfully yours, A. S. Grin.]- 1 2 Cautious about his position in the Soviet literary establishment. Rozhdestvensky did not mention this episode in his memoirs. Stranitsy zhizni [Pages o f Life], and neither did his b io g ra p h e r.It is unclear whether the reasons for his arrest were related to one o f the numerous army purges or to the fact that in 1920-1921 Rozhdestvensky was an "apprentice" in Gumilev's Guild o f Poets. Apparently. Gor'kv considered Grin's plea, and. as a result. Rozhdestvensky got out of the potentially dangerous situation w ith no record. Fifty years later, recalling his life in the House of Arts. Rozhdestvensky dedicated a very admirable chapter to Grin calling him a philanthropist and a remarkable hermit.- " 4 The description of Grin's "monastic cell" in the House of Arts is essential for understanding of the living conditions in this extraordinary communal apartment: B o;uioii in Teciibix KOMiiaryineK "J\o:\ia hckvcctb". npii.MbiKaiouuix k K vxne. /Kim a b tv nopy c tiootom T iix o h o b m m . a u iietioepeacTB einioM eoceacTBe c hu. m ii rioeeaiiaca A. C. Fpim. Kax cefinac Bii>Ky ero iieB3paim yio. yaxyio 1 1 TeMHOBaTVio kom hutk} . c eaimcTBeHHbiM okhom bo ztBop. CaeBa o t Bxoaa croaaa oGbmnaa •/Ke.Te3Haa KpoBaTb c noacniaKoit H3 KaKoro-To nojioBHHKa hjih BbiTepToro jo Hey3HaBaeMocrn KOBpiiKa, noKpbiTaa bmccto oneaaa cmibHO ii3HomenHOH lunnejibio. y oKHa— B3a.wen nitcbMeHnoro oobiHHbifi KN'xoHHbifl cto.3. aoBo.ibHO oouiapnaHHoe K'pecno. y npoTHBonoao/Ktiofi CTCHbi npiiBbiMiiaa t;ih Tex Bpe.wen caMoaeabiiaa "GvpHcyfiKa"— bot. Ka>KeTca. h Bca oocTanoBKa otoh KOMtiaTbi c roabi.Mii. xoaoanbi.Mir cTena.Mii. [I lived then together with the poet Tikhonov in one o f the cramped tiny rooms o f the House o f Arts adjoined to the kitchen, and A. S. Grin moved into a room right next to us. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 I can even now see his uncomely, narrow and dark little room with the only window to the yard. From the door to the left there stood a simple iron bed with a bedding made out of some door-mat or a little rug threadbare beyond recognition; instead of a blanket, the bed was covered with a very shabby overcoat. A simple kitchen table instead o f a desk, and a rather ragged easy chair stood by the window; a then-usual home-made burzhuika- stove stood by the opposite wall— it seems that these were all the furniture of this room with bare, cold walls. ]j5 Similar furnishings could be seen now in the museum of Mikhail Zoshchenko in St. Petersburg housed in the writer's last apartment at the so-called Mouse of Writers on the Moika embankment. Zoshchenko moved in there from the House o f Arts in the 1920s. with the same iron bed covered with a soldier's overcoat, a tiny desk, and a tin teapot. After both he and his widow passed away, the Union of Writers decided to create a museum in the apartment. However, it took decades before anything was done, and all those years the apartment stood locked and uninhabitant. I3y the time the paperwork was finally completed, all the valuables had mysteriously disappeared from the apartment. All that left was the furniture that served Zoshchenko in his room at the House of Arts. It remains an eloquent exhibit of the material side o f life in the House of Arts. The building still w idely known as Eliseev House, without a doubt, serves as the most important primary source for historians o f material culture. Its phantasmagoric lile continues, now even more than ever since the 1920s. There are no memorial plaques paying tribute either to the House of Arts or to any o f its famous inhabitants. For the same absurd reason, one cannot find a memorial plaque commemorating Bortniansky. Dostoevsky. Fonvizin. Griboedov or any other giants o f the eighteenth- or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 nineteenth-century Russian culture whose names belong to the history o f the building. It still houses the most diverse organizations. A nouveau riche club with a properly instructed porter occupies the halls of Talon's restaurant and even uses its name, the Club Talon. One of its close neighbors in the same wing above the Moika is the Bonch- Bruevich University o f Communication, the former Bonch-Bruevich Institute of Communication: though changed in an attempt to sound modernized, its title still contains a strong Soviet flavor (Bonch-Bruevich was one o f the ministers in Lenin's government). Endless, narrow corridors, and claustrophobic rooms with low ceilings give the feeling o f the cheapest m eblirovaninv komnuty ( furnished rooms for rent) where some o f the inhabitants of the House o f Arts found their shelter. Another neighbor is a Mafia office without a name but with two rows of bulletproof doors and a computerized security system/1 ’ A public health clinic, neglected beyond indecency, is located in the lower story o f the wing facing Nevsky. Above it. a movie theater "Barrikada" [Barricade) occupies the main floor of the former three-story Eliseev apartment. "Barrikada" is the “elder" among the contemporary leaseholders: it has remained in the building since the 1920s. when the movie theater became the DISK's immediate successor. In order to survive in the 1990s. its last director opened a profitable billiard club in the enfilade. To the credit of the administration, its advertising booklets contain a brief history o f the House o f Arts.3 7 The administration also restored the beautiful crystal lamps, the stucco moldings, and the painted walls and ceilings. Therefore, it is u ithout much difficulty that one can "restore" the rest of this apartment described, for example, by Khodasevich: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 KBapnipa obuia orpoMHan, oecro.iKOBo pacKiiHYBLuaHCH Ha ue.ibix rpH 3Ta>Ka, c nepexoja.MH. 3aK0 y.iKa.Mi1. TymiKaMH. OTje.iaHnaa c yoiiHCTBenHofl pbiHOHHoft pocKouibio. Kpaeiioro aepeBa. ayoa. rne.iKa, 30Ji0Ta, po30BOH H rojiyoofi KpacKH Ha Hee lie rio>Ka.Te.an. [The apartment was huge; it spread without order over the whole three stories with passages, nooks, and dead-ends. It was decorated with a murderous lavishness. The mahogany, oak. silk. gold, and pink and blue paint were in abundance. |j!l Perhaps the most amazing characteristic o f this house is the fact that it still remains one of the largest communal apartment blocks in St. Petersburg. The whole wing along Bol'shaia Morskaia consists o f those kommunalki w ith four or five or sometimes even six doorbells on each door. If the floor plans of the apartments facing the street are regular, the layouts o f those apartments that face the courtyards are the most eccentric. Forsh calls these rooms insane; K oM iiar obi.io \m o ro . 1 1 KOMiiari.1 to vkc Kaaa.tncb 6eiy Miibi.Mii. Oim 6bi.ii 1 itapeiaiibi n o rofi ueooocH OBanH ou upaB biM cmmc.iom c u c tc m c . n o K oropofi ; i e m i n ToiiKo pacK araiiiioi o r e c r a . rioM epiieinnero b p y x a x . nape3aioT neneiibM—K inuparoM . npn.Moyi o.h>hiikom . nepeKoiueiiHbiM poMoo.M... a ue t o exBarnr KpwuiKy or ryT a.anna 1 1 Bbi.iaBHT eio coBepiHeiiHefiuHm K pyr... [There were a lot o f rooms and the rooms also seemed insane. They were cut according to the same, not-based-on-common-sense system that children use to cut cookies from a thin-rolled dough— a square, a rectangular, a distorted rhombus... or they even grab a shoe polish lid and squeeze out a perfect circle....]j4 Milashevsky in his memoirs obviously plagiarized some o f Forsh’s metaphors: Bee KOMiiarbi b iiamiix Meo.mpaiUKax 6 bi.ui ypooniiBbi h noxozui.w to . h i 1 1 a oope3KH cyKHa y nopTHoro. ocTaBimiecH noc.ie KpofiKH niijtHcaKa. to .1 1 1 iiaaoM auim ie kop>kiikh. Koropbie Bbipe3aiOTCH na>KHMOM cxaKana H3 pacKaTaimoro b neneuiKy TeeTa. npimeM Bbixojurr nepoBtibie 1 1 c.xieiuiibie .ayiiKii. BnponeM. no.ayMaeTCH Be.ib 1 1 poBHbifi Kpvr. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 [All rooms in our furnished apartments were ugly and looked either like the fabric scraps left after a tailor cut a coat or like the home-made cookies that are cut from a rolled dough by pressing a glass— as the result, uneven and funny holes appear. However, sometimes an exact circle mav .4 0 appear.] Khodasevich also remembered the peculiar strangeness of the floor plans in the House o f Arts, although this very strangeness seemed to suit perfectly the artists and writers who lived in those rooms: [K ]o M tia rb i. ta iie.MHoni.Mn HctcuoM em iHMii. o r;n m a;iitcb crpannocTbio (jjopMbi. M o n . iianpiiM ep. npe.ieTaB .ia.ia cooofi iipauti.ibHbiu uo.ivKpyr. CoceaiiHH Ko.MiiaTa. b K oropofi >Kit:ia xy;to>i<iiima Li. B. IH e K o riix iu ia [...). Gbi.ia eoBepuieiiHO Kpyr.'iaa. o ei eam ioro yivia.— o kiiu ee Bbixo.tu.iii kuk p ai na yro.i H cbckojo ii M o h k ii. KoM iiara M . JI. Jkm incKoro. h c t h h h o io BomueomiKa rio mbcth CTtixorBopiibix nepeBoaoB. iisieaa (jjopsiy raaro.iH. a coeeanee c nefi ooiiTa-iuiue O cuna M anae.ibiiiTaM a ripeacTaB.'iH.io coooio hcmto cTo.ib >K e (])aHTacTiiiiecKoe it npim yaaitBoe. kok ii oh ca.M. [R]ooms. with a few exceptions, had a strange form. Mine, for example, represented an exact semicircle. The room next to it where the artist L -. V. Shchekotikhina lived [...]. was perfectly round without a single corner— its w indow s faced the corner of Nevsky and the Moika. The room of M. L. Lozinsky, that magician o f the poetic translations, had a form of a letter L. and right next to it. the dweller of Osip Mandel'shtam w as as fantastic and quaint as he himself.]4 1 One of the w onders of this kommunalka. "the perfectly round room" belonged to Shchekotikhina until the fall of 1921. when she married the artist Ivan Bilibin and they emigrated. Forsh moved in and left the descriptions o f this room in two of her novels. Sumas.slwdshii ko m b l' [Crazy Ship] and Ode tv kamnem [Covered with Stone].4 2 The comparison of current views o f the building and Dobuzhinsky's drawings o f 1921 sadly exposes that nothing has changed: keeping comme il fau t its street facades. when observed from the courtyards, the house loses all its grandeur. Various annexes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 cramp the space, the yards are dirty, and plaster has come o ff the walls here and there.4 3 Since Dostoevsky, a cramped courtyard became a recognizable feature o f St. Petersburg but the courtyards o f Eliseev House are exemplary. In two drawings, Dobuzhinsky depicted one o f the most odd annexes in the form of a giant semicircle. The first drawing represents the view of its outer, convex facade, and the second composition show s the inner, concave facade. The joints between different annexes create the sharpest and aggressive angles. Dobuzhinsky reproduces the struggle between the stone masses o f various shape and size, the struggle for the remaining open space. The fighting sides are armored with chimneys, drains, and balconies that look like jaws. These cityseapes are at the same time realistic and metaphysical, laying bare the very idea o f urbanism. The trashcans in the courtyards provided shelter and dinner for other tenants of the house, the rats. The rats are the necessary crew on board any ship, and the stone ship of the House of Arts was not an exception. Milashevsky devoted several passionate paragraphs in IW /em poiavclwru... to them: V xpbic obia ro/Ke CBoii 21-fi roa. ohh ccopnancb m -ia Kopxn pvKanoro xaeoa. neaoeaeiuiofi inaareae.M "CTapbix roaoB" n cneuHariHCTOM no •joaoTbiM Ta6aKepKa.M XVIII Bexa n. n. BeftnepoM. TaM, b CTonoBofi. c noToaKa.Mii. yKpauiemibiMii ayooBbiMii 6aiKa.Mii. c rnoopa/KeHneM napHanbix aanacKiiexTOB. Haicieemibi.M Ha ere km a okoh. HTo6bi He Btiano obiao HNieHHo tto i o OTBpaTiiTe.ibHoro aBopa.— 6bia Bbicuntfi caofi c teao o iio fi >kii3hii. iaecb. b NiycopnoM smiiKe— n in m n fi. Toabxo h Bcero! Tax an \>k om i 6bi.ni a a ie x n a p y r o t apyra. 3th caon! C T e a o o H b ifi N ia T e p n a i 5b ia o a im 1 1 t o t ace. Mbi, T ax cxa3aT b , o b ia ii C O p a T H lIK ll... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 [The rats also had their 1921, they were fighting for a bread crust unfinished by the publisher o f the Starve gotlv [Olden Years] and the expert on the eighteenth-century gold snuff-boxes. P. P. Weiner. There, in his dining room with the oak beam ceilings and the pictures of fancy knights glued to the windows so that very disgusting courtyard would not be visible— there was the upper domain o f alimentary life, and here, in the trash can— the lower domain. That’s all! Were those domains really so far from each other? The eatable material was the same and we. so to speak, were the comrades.]4 4 It w as near one of those trashcans that the artist Milashevsky. the critic Shklovsky and the writer Grin gathered on a particularly cold winter das in 1921 for a "fuel hunting." As Milashevsky recalled later. Shklovsky managed to get the keys to the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank, abandoned since the revolution. Turning several corners, changing the staircases, and passing some rooms, three "hunters" 1 1 nulls' arrived at the enormous hall filled with light falling through the windows. There were hundreds o f v olumes o f account books standing in the bookcases and lying on the floor. Collecting the books. Milashevsky and Shklovsky discussed the quality of printing and the possible coefficient of heat. "Gror nycTofi. xono.tiibm u oeuecbiii uciick Tax BcniiKonenno obt.i iio to m ortiican fpinioM » paccxaae 'Kpucoaou'" [This empty, cold. and whitish day was so brilliantly depicted later in Grin's story "The Rat-Catcher."]4 5 "Krysolov" [The Rat-Catcher] is written as a first-person narration and stylistically belongs to the Hoffmannian trend in the Russian literature. Its first sentence sets the tone for the story. It contains the exact date ("Bectton 1920 ro.ua. H.steimo b .staple. ii.MeiiHo 22 Httcaa" [In the Spring o f 1920. exactly in March, exactly of the 22n d ]) and is meant to persuade the reader that the described events really took place. At first. everything indeed seems to be realistic but the usual circumstances create a perfect Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 background for the extraordinary adventures. The story begins with Grin's narrator/protagonist trying to sell a lew books at one o f the Petrograd black markets.4 < ) There, he meets a young girl who is also selling books, secretly from her father, as she tells him. She refuses to tell her name but gives him her phone number in case he might be interested in helping her to sell books. In the evening, the protagonist realizes that he sold the book with the girl's phone number. That same night, he falls extremely ill with typhus. (This detail is autobiographical since in April o f 1920 Grin was hospitalized with typhus.) When he leaves the hospital three months later, he tlnds out that some handicapped person has moved into his room. Describing the life of a homeless person in Petrograd. who has to spend each night with "the different acquaintances and with the acquaintances of the acquaintances." Grin explicitly uses images and the vocabulary of any typical text about the absurdities and dislocations of the post-revolutionary life in St. Petersburg: 5 1 cnan na no.iy u miBaiiax. ua Kyxomiofi n.ni re n tta nycTbix h mu Kax. na cocTaB.iemibix B.\iecre cry.Tbax it oauanctbi ;ta>Ke ua rnaaiuibiiofi nocKe. [...) 5 1 B tue.i. Kax neub Tonar oytjieTOM. xax KimaTHT HauuiiK Ha JiaMne. Kax >icapHT KOHiuiy ua ko k o c o b o m .\iacne n Kax BopyioT ztepaBHHHbie 6anxn h i pa3pyuieunbix laan n n . [I slept on the floor and on sofas, on a kitchen stove and on empty boxes, on chairs pulled together and once even on an ironing board. [...] I saw how a cupboard was used for firewood, how a kettle was boiled on a lamp, how horsemeat was fried in a coconut milk, and how wooden beams were stolen from the dismantled houses.]4 7 Grin's goal is to reject them and to take the narration away from the naturalistic details: H o Bee— ii M iio ro e. ii ro p a3.io donee OToro— ywce omicaHO [...] J lp v ro e B.ieueT M eiui— ro. m to n p o tn o m n o co mhou. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 [But all that and even much more than that has already been described [...) Something else attracts me— that which has happened to me]. One of the devices Grin uses to provide the transition from reality to fantasy is the character's insomnia. The rest of the story happens in his dream but that is indicated only in the very end of "Krysolov": Cna.n a linn TO .TbKO obi.i pacceaii? [...] M n e Ka>KeTca Tenepb. hto a 6bi;i KUK Obi B r.'lVOOKOM OOMOpOKe [... j [Was I asleep or only absent-minded? [...] It seems to me now that I was in some sort of a dead faint [... |4° There are other indications throughout the story that the events occur in a dream. First, the protagonist meets an old acquaintance and does not recognize him in the beginning. It is clear that as a result of the revolution this former retailer has become a bureaucrat, therefore his appearance has changed. 1 low ever, this transformation is too dramatic to be explained b\ the social and political circumstances. The Yaroslavl* retailer now looks like an Fnglishman: this is the kind o f transformation that happens in dreams. There is also an allusion to him being a devilish creature since he gives the protagonist money (a symbolic gesture associated with the devil buying souls) and provides him a shelter that turns into a trap filled with evil spirits. The protagonist's reaction when he learns that the shelter consists of 260 rooms in the abandoned Central Bank is very significant: "B aT iiK an.— cKa3a.n a. c.ierK a c o jp o ra a c b npii M bic.in ii.Merb raKvto KBapTtipy" [The Vatican. I said, slightly shuddering at the thought o f having such an apartment].'0 The name o f tne papal palace used for a former bank and his shuddering may indicate a residence of the devil.'1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 The description o f this bank bears a resemblance to both the House o f Arts and the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank located in the same Eliseev House. As Shklovsky recalled, one could not enter the Bank's space without his "head spinning”: KoMHaTbl, KOMHUTbl. KOMIiaTbl Ma llCBCKHH II KOMIiaTbl ua M o p cK yio. KOMiiaTbi na M ohkv. O TBopeiuibie tiecropaeM bie uiKatJibi. Been no:i yc e jw o vM aro fi. KBiiTaiimioHHbi.MH KHiDKKaMH. nanKa.MH. [Rooms and rooms, rooms on Nevsky and rooms on Morskaya. and rooms on the Moika. The safes are open, the floor is covered with paper, receipt books, and file folders.]'' Similarly, in "Krysolov" there is a labyrinth-like structure with endless rooms. corridors, passages, and staircases where the protagonist immediately gets lost. All floors are covered with papers from the account books, and he is able to light up the fireplace in one of the rooms. Suffering from hunger. Grin's protagonist looks for food in a cabinet and discovers several baskets w ith cheeses, sausages, eggs, crackers, lea. coffee, and wine. I le also linds a couple of huge rats that run away and do not spoil his feast. After dinner he generously decides to share his treasure (after all. it is the peak of War Communism) with the girl and tries to eall her. Although the phones in the building have been disconnected, the one he chooses to make a call suddenly works. Another miracle happens when the protagonist talks to an operator. It seems to him that the girls number he lost almost four months ago is 107-21 but the operator "attentively and indifferently repeats ' 108-01 '”' J and connects him to the right place. The girl gives him her address at Vasilievsky Island, and the connection is lost. The conversation seems to wake up other inhabitants. The protagonist hears their steps and cannot see them and is frightened. Suddenly, the whole space is filled with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 light and he hears the tender voice of an invisible woman. Following this voice he almost falls into a gap in the floor. Hiding in some niche he overhears a dialogue from which he learns that a Rat-Catcher and his daughter are sentenced to die. Since the unseen speakers mention the address, the protagonist also learns that the mysterious Rat-Catcher is the father of the girl. The woman's voice that almost led him into a deadly trap must have been the attempt o f the evil forces to stop him before he gets to the house on Vasilievsky Island. He rushes there and meets two more obstacles (resulting, as in fairytales, in three obstacles on the way). I irst. a pretty young boy stops him. cry ing, and all of a sudden seizes his hand, and then a girl tries to distract him: she looks exactly like the Rat-Catcher's daughter but the protagonist escapes the trap. Finally, he reaches the apartment and discovers a sign on the door: "'KPblCOJlOB'. Hcrpeo.ieinie xpbic u Ntuuiefi. O. Ilencen [...|" I'T H E R A T-C A TC H ER ”. Extermination o f rats and mice. O. Iensen [...|.'4 The girl silently orders him to keep quiet. Soon they both hear the sounds o f terrible lighting, and the Rat-Catcher appears holding a mousetrap with a giant black rat inside. Iensen explains that it is a black Guinea rat whose bite causes slow rotting alive and reads to the protagonist from an old German book about the rats that possess the strength of human mind and are able to re- embody humans. Grin's prose of those years combines naturalistic details based on the writer's personal everyday-like experience w ith the most fantastic elements. Another story, “Fandango.” is situated in the Petrograd artistic and literary' milieu in January o f 1921. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 Fandango is a Spanish folk dance, and the guitar music penetrates every chapter o f the story, creating its leitmotif. For the protagonist/narrator o f the story. Aleksandr Kaur, fandango is "a rhythmic hypnosis o f passion, o f passionate and strange apotheosis.'05 Kaur is a scholar (or maybe a writer— his exact occupation is never mentioned) and a specialist in the Romantic languages but. most o f all. he is a dreamer. He shares the author's first name but his last name also gives him away as an alter ego o f Aleksandr Grin. According to Vladim ir Dal's dictionary, the etymology o f the word kaur is related to the Tatar w ord ka u n r. Kaypbiu raTp. koiickuh Macrb: CTau pbi>i<eBaTbiii. CBer.iooypoBarbiii. Biipo/Ke.rrb. xboct ii rpiiBa raKiie >kc 11:111 CBeraee [...] Kayptca Kaypbiii KOHb [... I . B CKaiKaX. KOMb-KO.’U yil. [... I KaypumbCH I ... ] MOpiUHTbCH. dbiTb yrpioMbiM. noKaibiBaib iiey;touo.ibcrniie: r.niaerb ueiio;taoob«: yiipHMIITbCH. [K a u ryi. Tatar, a horse coat: the body is reddish, light-brown, and vellow'ish, the tail and mane are the same color or lighter [... ] K a u rka , a roan horse. [...) in fairy -tales, a wizard horse. [... j K a u rii 'sia [... | to make a wry face, to be morose, to show a displeasure: to look sullenly: to be obstinate.]5 6 "Grin" was Aleksandr Stepanovich Grinevsky's pen name. For a writer who populated his imaginary universe with so main characters with Anglo-Saxon names, it was a suitable pseudonym.5 7 Taking into consideration that the Russian vowel / stands for a longer sound. "G rin" was a transliteration o f a w idespread English name. "Green," into Russian. Therefore, giving his protagonist the name "Kaur." Grin "disguises" himself under a camouflage o f a different color: reddish-brown instead o f green. In the course o f the story, many enchanting events take place and the protagonist actively participates in them, w hich points to the fairytale nature o f his name. Finally, the dismal aspect o f Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 the word kaurit 'sia also had a personal implication for Grin. Rozhdestvensky wrote about Grin’s “mask o f a morose and inimical disdain": PptiH nttcaji. B Taicne hhh oh nomuuicH H3 KOMttaTbi oco6etiHo yrpiOMbiM. norpy^KeHHbiM b ceoa, HexoTS OTBenaa Ha Bonpocbi h peiKo oGpbiBaa BCHKyK) HaHaTyio c hum 6eceay. OGnTaTejm aowa BooGuie cmiTajiH ero H3.inmne 3a.MKH\'TbIM, Heo6lHHTe.3bHbIM H rpySoBaTbl.M. [...] Ho T3KHM TpiiH 6bin ana Tex. k to n.noxo ero 3 iia n . [Grin was writing. On these days he would appear from his room especially morose and self-absorbed, reluctantly answered questions and abruptly interrupted any conversation addressed to him. The inhabitants of the house in general considered him too buttoned up. unsociable, and rather rude. [... ] But Grin seemed like that only to those who did not know him well.]'8 Making his protagonist and the narrator of the story autobiographical. Grin sets “Fandango" in the locale of frozen and starving post-revolutionary Petrograd. The story opens on a winter day o f 1921 when Kaur leaves his room in order to go on a two-fold mission. First, on the request of his friend S. T.. a collector, he visits an artist. Brok. to buy a painting. It is a dull and mediocre landscape painted by some Realist artist, but S. T. is willing to spend 200 rubles and to pay Kaur a 15% commission. Both this landscape and Brok’s own paintings are lifeless, and Kaur cannot hide his dislike. They have an argument and in the end the offended Brok shows the protagonist a different painting (“it will suite your taste [...] the most ordinary daub."3 9 as he characterizes it) to prove that Kaur has a bad taste. The painting depicts an empty room full o f light that falls from the glass wall and the open door: [3]Ta npocTOTa KapTHHbi obiaa nojwa He.\ieaneHHO aeficTBytouuiM omymemieM ctohkoh .leniefi >Kapbi. C bct 6bia ropjm. Term npo3paiiHbi it conHbi. TmuHHa— rra ocoSeHiiaa TtimitHa 3nofiHoro amt, noanoro MoaHaime.M 3aMKH\Tofi. HacbiuteHiiofi /lonHH— obiaa riepeaaHa Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HeomyniMOH 3Kcnpeccnen; co.iHLte ropeno ua Moefl pyxe. Korvta. npiuep)KHBaii pawy. CMOTpen h nepejt coooio, ciiajicb Hafrrn m a 3 k h [...] [T]his simplicity o f the painting was full o f the immediate feeling of a steady summer heat. The light was hot. The shadows were transparent and sleepy. Tranquility --this special tranquility of a hot day full of silent, secluded, and complete life— was revealed with the intangible expressiveness; the sun was shining on my hand when, holding the frame. 1 looked in front of myself trying to find the b r u s h s t r o k e s [... f 0 Grin’s description of the painting not created by a human hand reveals its romantic nature as the tool o f the supernatural. However, unlike Nikolai Gogol’s "Portret’’ [The Portrait] or Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dt>rian Gray. Grin's painting depicts an interior and stylistically and metaphysically belongs to a different genre. Not only does it allow the supernatural forces to enter the human world (as a portrait would do in the Romantic discourse) but it also permits the humans to travel beyond their dimensions. The painting in "Fandango” acts as a window and a doorway to the other, fantastic world: [CJa.Moe BbicoKoe MacrepcTBo ne aocnuuio cute miKoraa Toro nciixoaoriiHecKoro otJuJieKTa. KaKoii. b aaiiiio.M e.iywae, iie.Meaneimo 3aflBtta o cede. OtjitjieKT otot 6bia— neo>Kiuaimoe noxmnemie 3pnTe.i5t b rayomty nepcneKTMBbi rax. mto a MyBcruoBaa ceoa cToainii.M b o t o it KOMHare. S i Kax obi 3amea it yBiuea. hto b iieft iteT niiKoro. xpoNte Mena. [T]he most skillful mastery has never reached such psychological effect as the one that in this case immediately announced itself. This effect was a sudden abduction o f the viewer into the depth o f the perspective in such a way that I felt myself staying in t h a t room. It was as if I entered and found out that there was no one there except me.]b l Close reading reveals that the painting represents the mysterious materialization o f the protagonist's dream about a warm. safe, and happy refuge. Kaur does not yet accept the invitation to enter this refuge, planning to return for both paintings in the evening. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 After leaving Brok's apartment, the protagonist heads for the K.UBU (the Committee for the Improvement o f the Scholars' Life) to find out about his ration cards. The ration cards were a real and essential element o f post-revolutionary existence. Yurii Annenkov recalled “the ration hunting” in Dnevnik muikh vstrech [The Diary of My Meetings): Ca.Mbi.Ni x a p a K T e p iib iM b iia u ie fi /K in iin Bpe.M en B o e m io r o KO .M M yiiii3.M a 6 b i:io ro . m t o Bee M b i. K p o M e iia m n .x o o b iM H b ix l a m i r n i i . ra c K a .n i n a fiK ii. I lafiKOB cymecTBOBiuio oo.ibm oe pa3nooopa3iie. naao Gbiao ro.ibxo VMerb IIX BblVyKIIBaTb. 3 t O Ha3blBa.lOCb "nafiKOaOBCTBO.Nl". [...] 5 1 noaynaa outturn rpa>KaaiicKiiu. Tax na3biBae.Mbifi ru.io d iib iii naex. 3aTe\i "yMenbifi" naex. b xaMccTBe npo(|)cccopa AKaae.Mini XyjtO/xecrB. KpoMe Toro, h noayaaa " m h .t h u c h c k h h " naex 3a t o . m to opram noBaa Kyabrypno-npocBeTii reabHyio cTyam o x i h Miiaum ionepoB, rae npecTapeabin cenaTop K o h h oobHCUH.i o cm o b b i vroaoBiioro npaBa. oaaepuna oovMaaa Miianm iotiepoK naacTiiMecKii.M Taima.\i. M axciiM TopbKiin MiiTa.3 aeKmui no ncropnn Kyabrypbi. Kopnen MyKOBCKiin— ncTopmo auTeparypbi n M crncaaB ilooy/K iuicKiin paccKa3biBaa 0 rieTepoypccKiix na.MHrnnKax ucKNCCTBa 1 1 CTapinibi. KOTopbie rnnepcKHM Mnaimnonepa.M naaae>Kaao oxpaiiHTb. (...) 5 1 noa\ Ma.i eute "ycnaennbifi naex Ba.3Ti[)aoTa". npocro T ax. 3 a apy>Koy c MopaKa.Mii. n. Haxoneu. ca.\ibifi meapbin naex "MaTepn. KopMHinen rpyabio" 3 a t o . m t o b PoanabiioM netiTpe "Kanan Moaoxa iiMenn Po3bi jIioxceMoypr" MiiTa.3 axyuiepxa.M aexunn rio ncropini cxyabmypbi. [The most distinctive thing in our life during the War Communism was the fact that all o f us. in addition to our usual businesses, were also pulling the rations. There were a great variety o f rations and one only had to know how to get them out. It was called the "ration hunting.” [...] I received a general civil ration, the so-called starving ration; also, a "scientific" ration as a professor o f the Academy o f Arts. Beside that. I received a "police" ration because I organized a cultural and elucidative studio for the policemen where the aged senator Koni explained the basics o f criminal law, a ballerina taught the policewomen to dance. Maksim Gor'kv gave lectures on cultural history'. Komei Chukovsky on literary' history, and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky talked about the monuments o f St. Petersburg art and olden times that the Piter policeman were supposed to protect. (...) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 I also received a “high-caloric ration of the Baltic Fleet" just for my friendship with the marines, and finally, the most generous ration o f a "breast-feeding mother" because I gave lectures on the history of sculpture to the midwives of the Maternity Center. "The Rosa Luxembourg Milk Drops."]6 2 Unlike Annenkov, who could consider himself a lucky "ration hunter," many St. Petersburu intellectuals were less fortunate. Belv. Blok. Mandel'shtam, and Volvnskv W r I t ! had to survive with only one ration. In January o f 1921. Khodasevich wrote in a letter to his brother-in-law. poet Georgii Chulkov who lived at that time in Moscow: [n|epee3/KaTb c io ja peuniTe.ibiio ne coBeryio. [L|;tiiHCTBennbm criocoo ycTponTbCJi xaecb cbim o: oto— uuraTb aeKuini Marpoca.M. Kp[acnoapMefiua].M n Miinimiioiiepa.M [...] [I] decidedly do not recommend moving here. ]T]he only way to settle here substantially is to give lectures to the sailors, the Red [Army] soldiers, and the policemen [...]6j In general, the artists and writers who lived in the House o f Arts got their rations from the Committee for the Improvement of the Scholars' Life. The KUBU created by Gor'kv received from time to time some charitable aid from abroad. It is at the KUBU that Grin's character meets a foreign delegation and is proposed as their translator. The remarkable delegation is led by Miguel-Anna-Maria-Pedro-Esteban-Alonse-Bam-Gran. Bam-Gran possesses supernatural powers that free him from the limitations o f time and space. His place o f residence is beautiful Zurbagan, a port city located somewhere in the subtropical region of Grin's romantic universe. His arrival in Petrograd with three Spanish-speaking companions is presented in the disguise o f a Cuban professor on a humanitarian rescue mission. At the K U B U . he announces a shipment of food, liquors, and cigars sent to the scholars of Petrograd by the scholars o f Cuba. It causes a real stir Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 since the hungry intellectuals assembled to dole out their meager rations. Annenkov left the "menu" of these scanty rations in Dnevnik moikh vstrech: 3 t o YMpeHueHHe [K Y E Y ], oopoBuieeca c HmueTofl. noMetuaaocb Ha M h jijih o h h o h yjiHtte. HavHHbiM aejrreafl.M. npaxoaaBiua.M Tyaa b JlOXMOTbHX, B pBaHbIX OOTHHKa.X. C pOrO/KHblMU MetUKa.Mll H aCTCKHMM ca.'ia3Ka.MH. BbuaB&iCH HeaeabHbal naex: CToabKO-ro y a ita a Koumibi. CTo.tbKo-TO xpynbi. coaa, TaoaKa. cypporaTOB /Kiipa u aaaTK a w oK oaaaa. [This organization [the KUBU] against poverty was located on Millionnaia Street. The scholars who arrived there wearing rags, torn shoes and carrying matting bags and children's sleighs, received a weekly ration: so much ounces o f horseflesh, so much groats, salt, tobacco, fat surrogates, and a chocolate bar.]b 4 However, prior to the distribution o f food. Bam-Gran displays before his bewildered audience the most beautiful gifts: fragrances, marvelous fabrics, gloves, stockings. precious corals and shells, guitars and mandolins. The culmination of this show is the demonstration o f a huge piece o f silk embroidered with the precious feathers of flamingos and white herons, pearls, silver and golden spangles, and pink and dark-green bugles. The amazed scholars learn that this is a gift from the twelve most beautiful Cuban girls. They sent it to their “distant sisters" in Petrograd wishing them happiness: "ZlaacK 'ie c e c rp b i..." Ebiaa b otii. x caoBax rp a m io in a a H iicTora cM yrubix aeB iiH bitx najibtteB, npoKajtbiBaioutnx iira o fi uie:iK pa^n HeinBecTHbix hm ceBepsHOK. HTOObi b CHOKHofi CTpaue ycTaubie r.ia3a v.ibiSHVUHCb (JtaHTacTHHecKofi h nbuiKofi BbiuuiBKe. [...] lOr. cMencb. KHBiiva CeBepy. O h aoTponyacn cBoefi >KapKon p \ koh ao oTM opo/Kem ibix riaib u eB . 3 t b pyxa. naxH vtuaji po3ou a Bami.ibHbiM crpyHKOM, [...] Btiecna b noB ectb o KapTO([)eae a x o a o a a b ix K B apiapax aaaBHbat pacyHOK [...]: apaoecK H3 nenecTKOB a ayaeii. [“Distant sisters..." In these words there was a graceful innocence of the swarthy girls' fingers piercing the silk with needle for the sake o f unknown northern women, so that in a snowy land some tired eyes would smile at the fantastic and fervid embroidery'. [...] South, with laughter, nodded to North. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 With its hot hand it touched the frostbitten fingers. This hand smelling like roses and vanilla [...] added to the story o f potatoes and cold apartment a naive ornament [...]: an arabesque o f petals and rays.]6 5 One significant episode foreshadows the appearance of this gift. In a very short conversation with Kaur just before the demonstration of the gifts. Barn-Gran whispers a poem to the protagonist. It is one o f Heinrich Heine's poems, well known to a Russian reader in Lermontov's free translation. Grin, however, offers a different interpretation that is even farther from the original: Ha ceBepe j iik o m . na.i Mopesi. C t o iit o m m o K o cocH a. I I apeMneT. H cneroM curiym iM 3acbinana. e ro n e r ona. Efi ciiiitch: b paBimne. B crpane Bemiofi Beciibi. 3e:ienaji na.ib.Ma... Onibiiie Hot chob mibix y cociibi... [At the wild North, above the sea. a lonely pine tree stands. It dozes and moans covered with pouring snow. It dreams: in a valley, in the land o f the eternal spring, there is a green palm tree... From now on. the pine tree does not have any other dreams... ]6 h This is not another translation of Heine's poem No. 33 from the collection L yrical Intermezzo (1822-1823). but rather a variation of Lermontov's famous verse written in 1841. First o f all. Grin keeps Lermontov's crucial shift o f meaning based on the gender o f the word "pine tree*' in German and Russian languages. In German, ein Fichtenbaum is masculine, whereas in Russian, sosnct is feminine. Since the palm tree is feminine in both languages, the romance between two trees contains very7 different meanings in Heine's poem and Lermontov's translation. If Heine explores the infinite terrain o f the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 traditional love elegy about the separated lovers.b 7 Lermontov creates a philosophical miniature on the theme o f loneliness o f two souls (the word dushct is also feminine in Russian). Grin develops the same theme and further emphasizes it in the story: the counterparts o f his love between the North and the South are feminine— the Petrograd women and the Cuban girls. Grin's poetic vocabulary is also borrowed from Lermontov's first stanza: H a ceB epe jm ko m c t o u t o jiiiio k o Ua ro a o fi B e p tu m ie co c n a II a p e s n c T . Kauaacb. u c n e ro M cbinv m u m O a e T a . K3K pinoft. o n a. [At the wild North, a lonely pine-tree stands on a bare summit. It dozes swinging and is covered with pouring snow like with a chasuble.) Although Grin's verse contains five lines, the enjamhemeni is artificial and does not break the rhythm. However, there is an important difference in the meter: Grin uses the three-foot amphibrach when Lermontov mixes the four-foot and the three-loot amphibrachs. The first v ersion o f the 1841 poem, on the other hand, is the three-foot amphibrach and prov ides a striking parallel to Grin's poem: Ha x a a ,iH o n n ropitofi Bepumne C to u t o jh h o k o cocna H itpeMjieT... noa cueroM cbinyuiiM. KauaacH. apexmeT ona. [On a cold and bare summit, a lonely pine tree stands. It dozes... Swinging under the pouring snow, it dozes.] Borrowings from Lermontov are indeed obvious in the first stanza. However, in the second stanza. Grin is original and suggests a completely different interpretation. In both Heine's poems and Lermontov's translation, the palm tree growing in a hot desert Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l is sad and grieving. Grin changes the setting from a hot and rocky desert to "a valley in the land o f the eternal spring." His palm tree does not share the pine tree's moans and sorrow, it is secluded in the reality o f the dream. The meaning of the poem once again drifts away from Heine's original. Writing in cold and starving post-revolutionary Petrograd. Grin creates his magic universe o f the eternal spring, beauty, and happiness that can be reached in dreams. Dreams and fantasy provide an escape from the harsh reality ("from now on. the pine tree does not have any other dreams"); the frozen northern pine tree dreams about the palm of the South; the Cuban girls work on the exotic embroidery for their unknown northern sisters. This mirrored narration has its foreshadowing in the beginning o f the story: 3iimoh. K o ra a o t x o a o ^ a t v c k h c c t a n u o u. la c y iiy B p yK ii b pyK aB a. j h k o oeraeT no KOMiiaTe ue.ioBCK. B3r:i>ubiBa>t na x o a o ju y io neiib.— xopoino ayNiari. o acre, iiotom y mto aero.M ren.to. [iJjonycTii.M . y ro — m o .ib . [... | 'A 'ap a. 1 Ia;to p a c c T o n iy ri> BopoTiuiK. Bbireperi. MOKpyio tueio. aoo. buiiiii 1 b craKan Boai.i. OanaKo aaaeKo ao Beciibi. n TpommecKnu yio p 3a.\iopo>Kemioro oKiia oeccMbicaeinto paccrnaaer npo3paiuibifi naribMOBbifi aucT. [In the winter, when the face grows dim due to the cold and when a man. with his hands in his sleeves, strangely runs around the room looking at the cold stove— it is nice to think about the summer because in the summer it is warm. [IJmagine that now is July. [...] It is hot. You have to unbutton your collar, to wipe the wet neck and forehead, to drink a glass o f water. Still, it is long before the summer and a tropical ornament on the frozen window meaninglessly lays out a transparent palm leaf.]6 8 However, this escape to fantasvland is not meant for everyone. Bam-Gran*s gifts evoke an unexpected reaction at the KUBU. In the present circumstances, his audience would prefer soap to these beautiful but useless things. An indignant statistician, a man Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 with an essentially quantifying frame o f mind, sums up the general feeling by declaring Barn-Gran, his companions, and their exotic gifts mere phantoms. As far as survival is concerned, he says, beauty is irrelevant. In times when the most vital goods are scarce, beauty is a harmful illusion. The insulted Barn-Gran disappears with his companions into the wall, promising the statistician everything "that has filled his heart: firewood and potatoes, butter and meat, underwear and w ife, but nothing more.''*’4 barring him forev er from the realm of a more sublime aesthetic experience. If statistician is proclaimed a persona non grata in the imaginary land. Kaur is chosen as a welcomed guest there. Bam-Gran tells the protagonist that the gypsies w ill be his guides if he ever wants to see Bam-Gran again. The disappearance of the Zurbagan magician is accompanied, in accordance w ith the law s of a magic trick, w ith the fall of complete darkness. Kaur loses consciousness and awakens some fifteen minutes later to lind himself in a medical cabinet with his head bandaged. The K l'B l' is already deserted and Kaur hurries up to find the gypsies. Before leaving the room, he drinks up a large nieasuring-flask o f ethyl alcohol. Vodka is a rarity, and despite a rush for the surreal, he cannot deny himself such a treat. In the street. Kaur finds a small leather bag. In order to attract as little attention as possible, he decides to open it in the privacy o f some ruined house— another reality of contemporary Petrograd. The privacy, however, is in part an illusion since Kaur soon finds out that he is been watched, though the witness is a hanged man. Although reminded of the presence o f death. Kaur does not pay much attention to it. He has already accepted the invitation to enter the fantasy world and to escape the signs o f reality. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The bag turns out to hold 200 piastres, old Spanish gold coins, and Kaur uses a few of them to pay the gypsies. The name o f Bam-Gran obviously scares them but they instruct Kaur to return to Brok’s room and to wait there without talking to anyone. They also give him a white metal cone wrapped in a blue shawl. Kaur is not supposed to open the shawl until he gets to Brok's place but curiosity gets the best o f him. As a result, a catastrophe happens: [ P]c'tK o. npn.MO Nine b r .ia ia cBepKiiya .tnmmbiii aeaeiibifl ayM . [...] Becb kohvc o aap n ac a c iia b iie iiu jiiM oaecK O M . 1 1 ne n p o tu a o c e K y iia b i. kuk V /K acnoe. ic a e n o e lap eB O . x .ib in v B i n moux r m b u e B . p a x iu .to c b u a a KpbiiiuiM H ro p o a a . n p e B p a n iB n o n b b o c a e n iiT e a b itb iii o aecK CTen. c n e ra 1 1 B o u y x a — B oainiK le a e u o B a rb ifi a e n b . b cB ere K o ro p o ro u e G btao tin o a n o fi T e iin . [A] long green beam sharply sparked right into my eyes. [...) The whole cone lit up with the brightest shining, and a second had not passed when a horrible green glow, gushing out o f my fingers, spread over the roofs of the city, turning night into the blinding shining o f the walls, the snow, and the air— a greenish day appeared and there was not a single shadow in its light.]7 0 The eschatological vision continues when the terrible green glow that covers the whole city turns into an absolute darkness. If everything was silent during the shining o f the cone, now the city is filled with sounds of an alarm, sporadic gunshots, cries o f people, and barking o f dogs. Although this catastrophe is described rather briefly, it is nevertheless final: when it happens. Kaur enters Brok's apartment and when he leaves it. the city. Petrograd o f January. 1921. has already ceased to exist. While in Brok’s room and looking at the painting o f the sunny room. Kaur experiences an amazing dislocation of time and space, enabling him to enter this room. Bam-Gran meets him there and tells him that they are in Zurbagan: “3 to— 3ypoaraH. 3yp6araH b Mae, b Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 114 UBeTy anejibCHHOBbix aepeBbeB, xopouinn 3ypoaran uiyTHHKOB, noaoSHbix MHe! ” [This is Zurbagan. It is Zurbagan in May, in the blossom o f the orange trees, good Zurbagan o f the jokers like me!]7 1 They drink wine and listen to fandango played by a famous orchestra: •‘Bee yHocHT,— cKa3aa t o t, kto Be.i Mena b otot Mac, nojtoono TBepaoft pyxe, Bpe3aiouten a.'i.\ia30M b ctck. to npnxor;iHByio h Hyztecnyio . th h hjo.— v h o c h t, pa36pacbiBaer n paapbiBaeT.— roBopHT on .— to hht BeTep h BHvmaeT moooBb. Eber no KperiMafiuiHM cxpenaM. J2ep>KHT na ropBMefi pyxe cep^ne u ne.iyeT ero. He 30Ber. no cjbmacT Boxpyr Teoa BHXpiI 30.T0TbIX JIICXOB. BpaUtafl MX Cpejtlt 6e3VMHbIX UBeTOB. Xla 3^paBCTB\eT oc.ieniiTe.TbHoe ’tp a iu a H ro !’” [”[l]t carries ever>'thing away, said he who led me that hour like a firm hand cutting with a diamond a capricious and marvelous line on a glass,— carries away, scatters, and tears apart he says, drives the wind, and inspires love. It hits the strongest ties. It holds a heart on a hot hand and kisses it. It does not call but gathers around you the whirlw inds of golden disks spinning them among the insane flowers. Glory to the dazzling Fandango!”]7 2 The music is called the most powerful source of life. love, and inspiration. It performs magic and creates a new fantastic universe. Its impact is so forceful that it even changes the real, ordinary world. When the fandango is over. Bam-Gran says his farewell and disappears into the wall, leaving Kaur in front of the door o f his Petrograd apartment. However, nothing is the same since the old city has vanished, and he returns to Petrograd o f 1923. Like in Zurbagan. it is May instead o f January, and the protagonist is no longer a bachelor— his wife Liza greets him. Breathtaking dislocations o f narrative in “Fandango” are puzzling. Like Pushkin, Grin is a master o f the narration that flows between two worlds, fantastic and real. A close reading seems to reveal the hidden realistic explanations o f all pivotal events in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 the plot of the story. The adventures o f the protagonist may simply be a result of his own fantasy provoked by the Spanish melody. In the beginning of the story, Kaur confesses that he hears fandango when he falls into thinking. Therefore, the following events may take place in Kaur's imagination. As if to convince a more mistrustful reader. Grin suggests other explanations— a possible concussion and alcoholic influence. As often happens in dreams and daydreaming, some realistic details give rise to the fantastic images: 200 rubles turn into 200 piastres, the gypsies met by Kaur on his w ay to Brok reappear again as the guides to Bam-Gran. However, if those events happen in the course of daydreaming, as a part of the illusory reality, the explanations they suggest seem to be superfluous. The reality in ’■fandango" floats between icy Petrograd and warm Zurbagan. creating in the end the new. warm Petrograd. The story ends w ith Kaur's citing the third stanza o f the poem. In that "extra” stanza (Heine's verse contains only two stanzas). Grin forever unites pine tree and palm tree. North and South, snow and heat: B paBiinne n a j Mope.v 3biGymt.\i. CncroM n 3iioeM no.ma. Bo cue ii b aBii/Keiibe TeKyue.M C kmohhctcji najibMa-cocna. [In the valley above the stormy sea. the palm-pine tree is covered with snow and heat and bends down in its sleep and fluctuating motion.]7 3 The new Petrograd o f the "Fandango" finale is a ship that continues its dream-like fluctuating movement above the unstable sea w'ith its mast-tree bending down. Similar to the characters o f Zamiatin's "Mamai." who one day left their city for an endless cruise and ever since could not find their way back. Grin's protagonist discovers a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 different Petrograd. It is a hybrid o f reality and fantasy. Petrograd with Zurbagan’s flavor, a land promised to the navigators in the end o f their journey. The future was vague and the course was unclear, therefore St. Petersburg intellectuals/navigators were often reading the imaginary tealeaves and dreaming. Grin's popularity in those years could be explained by the similarities his writing had with the existential feeling shared by many. In 1923. the same year that Grin created "Krysolov" and "Fandango." one o f the Serapion Brothers. Nikolai Nikitin, wrote in his article "Peterburg": lE rrn neKyaa... mo/Kho cecrb na .niiiaii k Kiuira.M 1 1 neiu<e. mtTb Man n roBopiiTb o n y m K iin e ... ll.in movkho u nrii k CeparmonaM [...|. no tum row e— aiiBan. ncHKa. Kim rn n pan oBopbi oo iickvcctb c... 3 to — rie jep o yp r. |There is nowhere to go... you may sit on a sofa by the books and the stove, drink tea and talk about Pushkin.... Or you may go to the Serapions [... ] but it is the same there— a sofa, a stove, the books, and the discussions about art... This is— St. Petersburg.) 4 It is the outlook of a cruiser who does not have another place to go except another cabin where his "fellow travelers'"' get together to escape the reality and enter a domain o f art and fantasies. The Serapion Brothers, who were students in the literary studios o f the House o f Arts.,b made the secluded nature o f their meetings their artistic principle. Their name, proposed by Lunts in February 1921 and immediately accepted, is taken from E. T. A. Hoffmann's cycle of stories. The Stories o f the Serapion Brothers (1819- 1821). Hoffmann described a group o f old friends who. bored and irritated by the ridiculous ceremony o f most clubs, decided simply to read one another their works. At one o f their first meetings, a story is read about a man who called himself "the hermit Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 Serapion” and lived in a world of fantasies. This inspired the group and they decided to name themselves the “Serapion Brothers” and to strive in their writings to attain the clarity of the hermit's visions, which they called the "Serapionic principle.”7 7 O f course, the DISK Serapions were not the only fancy dreamers in Petrograd. Berberova recalled one winter evening that gathered together in front o f the fireplace a group of friends: Berberova herself. Nikolai Chukovsky. Khodasevich. Lunts. Ida Nappel'baum .8 and Rozhdestvensky. Rozhdestvensky suggested a game: everyone was supposed to contribute to a collective story about an imaginary journey to Northern Ireland. Pretending to be a brigand, a poet, a hero, an ordinary philistine, an adventurer. and a beauty, they all start some new life on the shore. Very soon it turned out that no one had any idea about Ireland: Mo. nocTofiTe. m to tu k o c f Ip.ian.inH ? KaK Bbi npe.ic rau.iHere ee ceoe? OKa-}a.ioei.. m to x th bccx nac roi aa m to I Ip.iaiumi. m to Flepy. mto Monaa Ka:ie;toiniH— Bee Gbi.to oamiaKouo uepeaabiio. [But wait— what is Ireland? How do you picture it? It turned out that for all o f us then. Ireland. Peru, or New Caledonia were equally unreal.]™ In the context o f St. Petersburg'Petrograd dislocated in space and time, this geographic ignorance contains an important confession of the navigators who are lost in the sea and cannot imagine the distant shores. The desire to grasp and define this feeling of dislocation was Ol'ga Forsh's inspirational force when she began to write her novel about a stone ship on a rescue mission, the House of Arts: [JI]eT aecjtTb Ha3aa Bce.M rycTo Bce.ienHbiM b komhqtm, TvnnKH. Kopiuopbi. obiBume BattHbie n y6opHbie, Ka3aaocb, mto aom 3 to t BOBce tie aom. a oTKyaa-To bothhkuihh h Kyzta-TO HecymnficH Kopafijtb. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 [A]bout ten years ago, everyone who lived in the crowded rooms, dead ends, corridors, former bathrooms it seemed to think that this house was not a house at all but a ship that appeared from somewhere and was rushing somewhere.]8 0 The surreal nature o f this ship (a combination of Noah's Ark and Flying Dutchman) is reflected in the title o f the novel, Sunmsshedshii k o ra b l' [Crazy Ship]. 1 believe that the title was meant to provoke an allusion to Hieronymus Bosch's famous painting. The Ship of Fools. Forsh studied art history and took classes with Mikhail VrubeFs teacher. Pavel Chistiakov. There is no doubt that she was familiar with Bosch's work, which is considered to be a parody o f the monastic life. The boat in the painting carries a monk and two nuns who have abandoned their spiritual duties to join a group o f drunken peasants. The sins of glutton) and lust are portrayed, and the whole scene is presided over by a jester fool, whose role is to satirize the morals and manners o f the day. ♦ Although Forsh's novel does not contain criticism of the Church (the only exception is a comical description of a visit to some miracle worker), there are certain parallels to Bosch's panel. Gluttony and lust, for example, are represented but in an absurd context. The hungry imagination o f the passengers turns any meal into a feast, even though all the) have for dinner is horsemeat. There are very few mentions of actual food in the novel, however, instead, food turns into something nonmaterial. For instance, the communal life on board the Crazy Ship centers around the kitchen but it is the philosophical and artistic discussions that are cooked and served there. The youngsters sing about a broiled chick ("Tsvplenok zharennyi...”). turning the popular couplets into another surrogate for food. Lust too is shown not as a deadly sin but as a ridiculous and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 absurd deformity o f life in a kommunalka. Even a purely romantic feeling that one of the characters, Sokhatyi. has for a beautiful Polish baker is a wonderful parody. There are two characters in the novel who play the part of a jester, Zhukanets and Genya Chom.8 1 Chom organizes several tableaux vivants and always manages to turn his public into little children. The most significant among those shows is called 'The Boarding o f Noah's Ark and the Collective Forming o f an Elephant” : Menee .aoBepmiBbift k ooHtbe.My npo.vibicay. ne.M npaoTeu Hon, Tewt Hoptt •jaaBHJi, h t o b KOBMer ca>KaTb oyaex ite "napbi HiicTbtx c ueHHCTbiMii", K aK ao peBOJiiomni 6buio npiniHTo, a co3B\HHefi orioxe— juih 3amnTbi KOBHera b Hero nepBbiMH c j u v t BoiicKa. Ca. M KOBMer 6 bin oobHBnen rieBiuiiMKoii [...]. no riapaa norpyvKaesibix b o F ic k Gbia BOCTpyoaen. [Genya Chorn. less trusting o f Providence than the forefather Noah, announced that he wouldn’t fill the ark with "the pairs o f the clean and unclean creatures” as it was done before the revolution. Instead, in accordance with the epoch and in order to protect the ark. the first ones to enter the ark will be the troops. The ark itself was proclaimed invisible [...] but the parade o f the o -> embarking troops was trumpeted.] ' This tableaux vivant is a parody on both the Biblical prototype o f the House o f Arts and o f the new epoch o f War Communism. The elephant announced in the title of the show' serves as a link between the animal world preserved by Noah and the revolutionary troops, since it turns out to be a military formation. However, there is a crucial difference between Forsh's novel and The Ship o f Fools. Calling her creation Crazy Ship. Forsh makes the ship and not its navigators the bearer o f insanity. The ship's insanity is inevitable since it is impossible to keep the right course in this dislocated universe. Its rescue mission is also insane because it is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 hopeless in the reality o f War Communism. The bits and bites o f reality appear several times o f the pages o f the novel in the form o f Blok's death, Gumilev’s arrest and execution, and finally the Kronstadt uprising. To survive, Forsh's navigators and their prototypes from the House o f Arts create a parallel universe ruled by the fantasy of dreams and by the logic o f literary theories. Theoretical discussions between Sokhatyi and Zhukanets are endless and function as an instrument o f the creative Logos. Similar discussions were, in fact, a daily routine at the House o f Arts. In addition to y • > sporadic debates in the kitchen, literary evenings and lectures were held on Mondays, chamber music concerts on Tuesdays, public literary debates on Wednesdays, and closed discussions lor the members only each Friday, followed by the musical evenings. Literary evenings paying tribute to Leonid Andreev. Dostoevsky. Gor'ky, Nikolai Nekrasov. Mikhail Remizov. Mikhail Saltykos -Shchedrin. Lev Tolstoi, and Ivan Turgenev alternated with poetry readings by Blok. Gumilev. Georgii Ivanov. Kuzmin. Mandel'shtam. Nikolai Otsup. Vladimir Piast. and Rozhdestvensky. Andrei Bely, Mayakovsky, and Herbert W ells w ere among the guests of honor. Grin read his new novel A lyepurusa [The Crimson Sails], Zamiatin and Zoshchenko read their unpublished stories, and the Formalists presented theoretical papers. The Artistic Section o f the House o f Arts also organized several lectures and debates as w ell as a series of personal exhibitions presenting the works o f the Benois brothers. Dobuzhinsky. V. M. Konashevich, Kustodiev. A. B. Lakhovsky. Petrov- Vodkin. and Zamirailo. The paintings and drawings of the artists who lived in the House o f Arts w ere on permanent display there. The extensive cultural agenda o f the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. House o f Arts also included lectures about the theater, theatrical performances, and 84 w eekly concerts o f music. Even more fascinating was a masquerade organized in the House of Arts in January of 1921. w hen the inhabitants o f the House were starv ing and freezing to death. It became “the hit o f the St. Petersburg winter season." ' Berberova, Georgii Ivanov. Milashevsky. Odoevtseva. and Rozhdestvensky left their recollections of this ball. although Berberova mistakenly dates it a year later. January of 1922. For the young debutantes Nina Berberova and Irina Odoevtseva. it was the \erv first masquerade but their memories o f the event differ dramatically: if the former gives a picture as if taken from a great distance ("PyccKoe Po>K;tect Bo 7-ro HttBapa Bciio.viiiiiaeTCH M ite cuobb KaKitM-TO Kpy/Keiuie.M b e.niceeBCKo.vi .to w e . M vtb iK o u u m in o ii [...]*’— [Russian Christmas on January 7 again comes to my mind as spinning in the Eliseev House, with music and crowd [... | ).S h the latter remembers every detail. The explanation is rather simple: the majority o f the guests did not have special costumes and Berberova belonged to that group, while Odoev tsev a really wanted to impress everyone at the ball with her dress and was as excited as Kitty Shcherbatskaia or Natasha Rostova: 5 1 naae.na ouho H3 oajibHbtx n.'iaTbeB Moeft MaTepn: aonoTHCTo-napHOBoe, XTMHuoe-npeojiunnoe. c r.nySoKHM Bbipe30M. ca.vta k b k yMejia yuiHB ero. Ha ronoBe bmccto o am a paflcKaH nTHita uinpoKo pacKHHyna xpbuiba. Ha pyxax naftKOBbie nepnaTKii jo nnena. b pyxax Beep H3 cnouoBoft kocth » 6e.no-po30Bbtx CTpaycoBbix nepbeB. c He3anaMHTHbix neT cnaBmufi b uiKaTy.iKe. 5 1 nocTOJtHHO 3aKpbiBato, OTKpbiBaio ero it oo.MaxuBaiocb hm. 5 1 b BocTopre o t Hero h eme jONta. oaeBtwcb, com m nna o HeM cipocjjy: Moft oe.ibifi Beep Tax ;te*A'Ho BeeT, HenciieH HcacMHHOBbix BeTBeft, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 M oh 6eJibiH Beep, BOJiuieSnbifi Beep, KoTopbiH CTan aytuoii Moefi. [I put on one of the ball dresses o f my mother, made out of golden brocade, extremely long, with a deep decollete; 1 altered it as well as 1 could. Instead of the bow, a bird o f paradise spread its wing widely on my head. I wore the long kid gloves and held an ivory fan with white and pink ostrich feathers that slept in a box from time immemorial. I close and open it again all the time and fan myself. I am ecstatic about it and while still at home getting dressed, wrote a stanza about it: My white fan Waves so gently. Gentlier than jasmine twigs. My white fan. the magic fan That became my soul.]8. The real costume queen of this masquerade was Larisa Reisner. the wife of the Red Admiral Fedor Raskol'nikov and the patroness of the arts. According to Odoevtseva. Reisner was dressed as Nina from Lermontov's M askanul [Masquerade], Rozhdestvensky, on the other hand, says that it was a crinoline dress stolen for one night from the Mariinsky Theater. It was one of the costumes designed by Leon Bakst for the ballet Carnival, and Rozhdestvensky confesses that it was his idea that put Reisner up to committing this crime.s s Among the few other costumes at the ball were a pastoral couple (Yurii Yurkun as a shepherd and Ol'ga Arbenina as a shepherdess) and a German Romantic (Mandel'shtam). The rest o f the crowd were just wr earing some old-fashioned gowns and suits that remained in their possession since the Tsarist epoch; now those dresses a la Vera Kholodnaia and coats a la Chekhov also looked like carnival attire. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 The fantastic carnival at the House of Arts was not the only masquerade of this winter of 1921. Describing the Petrograd artistic society in the letter to his brother-in- law (January 20, 1921), Khodasevich commented with bitter irony: [n]OBaJlbHbIH 3CTCTH3M H aeKUAeHCTBO. 3aecb rOBOpHT TOJlbKO 06 opoTHHecKiix KapTHHKax, xoojjt xo.ibKo Ha Macxapaabi. Bee Bmobnenbi. nbHHCTByioT h *'inajurr” . [A]n epidemic estheticism and decadence. They talk only about the erotic pictures, go only to the masquerades, everyone is in love, is drinking and "being naughty."]8 4 According to Milashevsky. there were at least two more masquerades: one was organized at the Institute o f Art History located on St. Isaac's Square in the mansion of the Institute's director, the former Count V. P. Zubov, and another took place at the Mariinsky Theater.4 0 Milashevsky defined those masquerades as surreal, and indeed they also belonged to the domain of fantasy and dreams rather than to reality: JJa. rro 6bi:i 6a.i! [...] HacroHmuii!.. /fa nacToamiifi mi?.. Hct! D to obi.i oa:i y>Ke He in rex... oniicam ibix it oobiKHOBeiuibix. [...] Ban-MHpa/K!.. Ban cyMacmejLUiix c h o b! Y Bcex r;una coMnaMOy.i! O hh bhzwt cboii Miipa>Kn! [H]a onuy iionb— nim ero ooutero c nacTOHmefi. peanbHoft, CKynnou h npecHon >KtriHbio! [Yes. it was a ball! [...] A real one!... But was it really real?... No! It was not one o f those... written about and usual. [...] It was the mirage ball!... The ball of insane dreams! Everybody has somnambulist eyes! They see their own dreams! [J]ust one niuht— but it has nothing in common with the real, meager, and boring life!]1 *1 The flourishing of culture seemed absolute insanity in comparison with the most ridiculous peculiarities o f the everyday life (byt). The pages o f Sumasshedshii k o ra b l' are filled with grotesque incidents. Although they seem to be absolutely absurd, they nevertheless reflect the distorted reality. For instance, an episode when the former Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 Eliseeev furniture gets confiscated for the needs of the proletariat and the tenants are left in the “parquet desert”9 2 is a recognizable reality o f the time. Somov wrote in his diary that one day his furniture and pillows were almost confiscated for the needs of the Red Army; he managed to keep his belongings by showing the identification card signed by Lunacharsky.9 3 Perhaps, the most burlesque episode in the novel deals with the subversion o f the intellectual elite by the lowest body functions: n o npiiMitue Mopoia u cKyaocTii ron.iHBa Tpyobi .lormyjiH. BoaonpoBoa c r a i. it coiaam tcb naTypa.ibitbie. Bce.M niBecTiibie b Te roabi. neiajibHbie tieyaoocTBa. HevaoocTBa »ce iipiiBe.iu k c.icjctbiihm . n o nona.M to t v t . to t u m OTKpbiBamicb (|)opTOMKit. I h ({jopioMeK Bbinaaa.1 1 1 nan KopooKit or OblBlIlHX KOHtjieT C K3KIIM-T0 YBeCIICTblM BK.iaaOM 1 1 .1 1 1 npoc ro OT.IIIUHO nepeBJoaimbie KpecT-naKpecT naKCTbt. naKeTbi nepeaKo nonaaa.ni b npoxo/Kttx. [H]CKaiIt BUHOBHOrO. [...] —n y c ib cede (jjopTOMKa H kcobu. no na cto. i i .ko M kc tie naecr. Lae lapaooTKit y Hxca? [Because o f the frost and lack of fuel the pipes burst. The water supply was shut down creating a natural, well-known in those years, sad discomfort. The discomfort led to the consequences. At night, the small hinged windowpanes were opened here and there. Either former candy boxes with some weighty contents or simply packages perfectly tied up crosswise fell out o f the windowpanes. The packages often hit the pedestrians. [Tjhey searched for a suspect. [...] — Although it is X ’s windowpane. X would not eat that much. Does X have any earnings?J9 4 This opposition o f “high” and "low" could serve as a perfect illustration to the Bakhtinian camivalesque theory elaborated at that time. Analyzing the Socratic dialogues. Mennipean satire, and Rabelais* novel Gargamua and Pciniagruel, Bakhtin traced the penetration o f carnival into everyday life and its shaping effect on literature. The subversive effect of carnival disrupts authority and brings the seeds o f liberation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 which is particularly important during times o f oppression. It was also in the early 1920s when the Formalists developed their concept of byt and its influence on the literary fact and that their meetings were often held in Shklovsky's room in the House of Arts. Forsh's last chapter o f SumassheJshii k o ra b l' ends with the closing of the House of Arts, which happened soon after the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. As the mutinous fort surrendered, the last bastion o f the Russian liberal thought, the House of Arts, was also liquidated. It is significant that Forsh calls the chapters of her novel volny (waves). There are nine of them and the ninth wave (deviatyi veil) finally crushes the Crazy Ship and from then on. a movie theater (first called "Svetlaia lenta". then "Barrikada") occupied the House. The same moment that the Kronshtadt rebellion was crushed, the Crazy Ship was grounded. The "barricade." a stationary structure replaces the ship that tried to earn’ its inhabitants away from the horrors o f post-revolutionary St. Petersburg. 1 Georgy Ivanov. P eierburgskie :im y. Sobram e sochm enii v 3 tumaklt (Moscow: Soglasie, 1994, v. 3), 6 . : See the photograph in the Boris Sokoloff Collection (Hoover Institution Archives, 81025-8M .02), A-24. ’ Berberova, 152. 4 Genesis, 6:19-6:4. The intellectuals were horrified by the decree. Blok wrote in his diary: 10 ceitmHupu. [...] BecKoneMHo Tpyanbm ii no.iHbifi Heny/Knoro Tpyaa aeitb lakomuincH ■lyaoBituiHbiM jeKpeTOM o KBapmpax [...] K qk cTpauHo! 11 cennmopH. TenetjjOH c Hvkobckiim o KBapmpe. Becb aeiib— pa3MbiiujieHiui no noBoay KBapTitpbi. 12 cennmopa. [...] CnacaTb KBapTitpy it.au itMymecTBO? TeaTp? AkaaeMim HayK? MaMimo no.tO/Kemie— itcKatb iim noMeuteHiie [...] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 [Septem ber 10. [...] Extremely hard day full o f useless labor ended with a horrible decree on the apartments. [...] How weird! Septem ber 1I. Phone call to Chukovsky about the apartment. The whole day— thoughts concerning the apartment. Septem ber 12. [...] To save the apartment or belongings? Theater? Academy o f Science? M o m ’s situation— to find a place for them [....] 6 S’ashi dn i (M onday, April 1/19, 1918, No. 9), 4. Milashevsky, 192. “ Somov wrote in a letter to his friend E. Zvantseva (October 7, 1918) describing his moving into his sister's place: [>1] nepefipanca co cBoeft KBapiupw [...] b JBe Ko.MiiaTW k Ahiotc. M ne Tpymio obi.to iipoaojoKaTb Moto KpacitBVio it pocKountyto /Kitaitb. ripitumocb oTnycrirrb npitcavr, it C/KaTbCH C O BCe.MH MOIIMIt BCUiaMU B JBC KOMH3Tbl. Onil BblUI.llt rtO.XOJKIIMIl H3 CICia.1 Meoejut. [I] moved from my apartment [... ] into two rooms at Aniuta's. It was hard for me to continue my beautiful and luxurious life. I had to fire the maid and to squeeze with all my belongings into two rooms. They turned into a furniture strorage.) Somov. 188. ' P oJ sozvezdiem topora. 164. Berberova, 145. " E. I. Zamiatin. “ M am ai" in P o d sozvczdiem topora. 172-73. Ibid.. 177. !; ibid.. 178. 1 4 Ibid.. 177. '* Ibid.. 172. Olga Forsh. Sumasshedshu k o ra b l' (Moscow: Sovrentennik. 1990). 3. 1 S. S. Shul'ts. Dorn Iskusstx’ (St. Petersburg: Almaz. 1997), 41. ;s Ibid., 62. 1 .1 S ankt-Peterburg. Petrograd. Leningrad Entstklopedicheskn spravochnik (Moscow: Bol’shaia Rossiiskaia Entsiklopediia, 1992), 191. 2 .1 Forsh, 4. ' 1 “Dorn Iskusstv” (D am Iskusstv, 1921, 1), 6 8 . In 1921. the board o f administration was reelected: the Literary Section was directed by Blok, Chukovsky, Gor’ky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, A. N. Tikhonov. Volynsky , and Zamiatin; the Artistic Section was led by Alexandre Benois, Dobuzhinsky, A. B. Lakhovsky, Petrov-Vodkin, N ikolai Punin, S. N. Troinitsky, and Shchuko. The first rumors about the opening started in the Fall o f 1919, for instance, on November 19, 1919, Blok wrote in his diary: “OTKpbtBaeTca JjBopeu HCKyccTB Ha yrny HeBcxoro it MoFikh" [The Palace o f Arts opens on the comer o f Nevsky and the M oika]. Blok, 481. ” Osip Volzhanin. “Dvorets Iskusstv v Moskve” ( Vestnik lite ra tu ry . No. 11, 1919), 13. 2j “Dom Iskusstva v Petrograde" ( Vestnik lite ra tu ry , No. 11, 1919), 13. 24 Somov, 195. 25 In her diary S eryi bloknot [Gray BIock-Note], she remarked on the opening o f the House o f Arts: A Ha yrny MopcKofl h HeBcxoro, b petcBinitpoBaHHOM jtoMe, 6 y.neT “/(Bopeu Hckwcctb” . no npitMepy Mockbu. ycrpaitBaioT MaKcitM ropbKHfl h ... n pocm hm Bor, He xo*ty itMen. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 [On the comer o f Morskaia and Nevsky, in the confiscated house, there w ill be the "Palace of Arts.” Like in Moscow. Organized by Maksim G or’ky and... God forgive them, I do not want to name any names.) Gippius. 38T Ibid.. 397. r G or’ky’s fond in the Museum o f Revolution. On many pages o f his memoirs, Rozhdestvensky pays tribute to G or’ky. a man "o f inexhaustible energy."— Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, Stranitsy zhiznl (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1979). Annenkov calls the House o f Arts "the last refuge o f the independent Russian art."— Annenkov. 337. 1 1 Copies o f the letters from Grin to Gor'ky by Nina Nikolaevna Grin (R G A L I. fond 127. 2-9). 2. ^ Ibid., 1. Ibid.. I reverse. Abram Amsterdam. Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky Put paetu ( Moscow Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel’. 1965). 4 Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky. S tnm itsv zhtzm (Moscow: Sovremennik. 1974). 3 2 5 -3 1. Ibid.. 325. " I had a very adventurous experience in the summer o f 1998. try ing to communicate with their security officers. All I w anted was to take a couple of pictures o f the tiny courty ard and the staircase but this was refused. Naturally, my questions about the mysterious organization remained unanswered. Isto nia kinolecttra "B a rrik iid ti" (Leningrad: Lenuprizdat. 1984); B il'u trd n y i kluh B arrikod a ([St. Petersburg), no date). 1 1 Berberova, 154. Forsh. 5. 1 ,1 Milashevsky. 186. 4 1 Berberova. 154-55. i: In (hlety kantneni. the narrator meets with Dostoevsky in this room: Mbi Born.ui b yatiBirre.'ibnyio KOMium. Ona Gbi.ia orpovinaa n coBepiuemio Kpyr.iaH. Ho BiteuiHefi cTopone. jy ro ii oruoaioiuefi npocneKT ii Kana.i c /bearo-ie:ienofi uojoii. wan Tpit oonbttiux OKita. [We entered a remarkable room. It was huge and perfectly round. There were three large windows on its outer side embracing the prospect and the canal with vellovv-green waters.) Ol'ga Forsh. Odetv kunmem (Leningrad : Khudozhestvennaia literatura. 1983). 29. 4 ’ Milashevsky described one o f the courty ards o f the Flouse o f Arts: Zla>Ke M uoro rioianee oh nee c.ieabi KaKou-TO (jiaHTacniHecKofi aany m eHH ocni ii vipaHHofi rp nan. B tv vkc cne>KHyio ii 3 . 1 yio 3iiMy 1921 roaa 3to t jB o p Ka3a.acH 3.ioBetmiM. HenoHHTHbie apxirreicrypHbie BbicTynbi b u rastjHT, xax m iT a je ait, oam m i 1 1 .3 1 1 ooftHiiubi onoxn Tpim uaTiuieTHefi boiI h u b repM aHim it ocajibi KapjiuiTeflHa. r.THiiHT co Bcex CTopoH flbipKii-aBepH, Beaymne k aecTHimaM, noHTit OTBecHbiM. K CTeiiaM npiiaBiiHyancb rtiraHTCKiie hluiikh c OTopocaMii 1 1 viycopoM. KaKiie-TO Tpyobi HeuiBecTHbix TonoK oocry nirnii aaop co Bcex CTopon 1 1 npim icH yancb k CTeHaM. xax npirraiiBmiiecH yoitflubi. [...) Mepnbie noTOKii /KttiiKon rpa3ii. caacn npitsyxiHBbiM yaopoM jeKopnpoBanit CTeiibi UBeTa rptnHon o xp u , Koe-rae in -n o a ooaynaeiiH ofi uiTV KaTy pKit r.ntiaeaii 1 1 a Bac oovtopo/KeiiHbie HepHo-oarpoBbte, xax 6 bimtfi m a 3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 KiinpiiHH, BmiTaBunte b ceoa Boay 6ecKOHe4Hbix aoaaefl neTep6yprcKoii oceHii. Becb nefaajK— 6pea iieMettKoro 3KcnpeccnoHHtrra! [Even many years later it bared the traces o f some fantastic desolation and grim dirtiness. But in that snowy and cruel winter o f 1921. this courtyard seemed sinister. Obscure architectural juts look like the citadels, towers, and embrasures o f the time o f the Thirty- Years' W ar in Germany and the siege o f Karlstein. The door holes leading to the almost vertical staircases stare from everywhere. The giant cans with garbage and trash drew near the walls. Some chimneys o f the unknown fire-chambers surrounded the courtyard and stuck to the walls like hiding murderers. [...] The black torrents o f mud and soot painted fantastic ornaments on the dirty ochre walls; here and there, from under the peeled plaster, the frostbitten black-crimson bricks stared at you like a bull’s-eye; they have absorbed the water o f the endless St. Petersburg rains. The whole landscape is a delirium o f a German Expressionist! | Milashcvskv, 2 1 0 . 44 Ibid.. 2 IE 4 < Ibid., 213. The acknowledgement o f those trips to the Bank could be found in Mandel'shtam's short story "Shuba" [The Fur Coat), written in 1922: KoxtitaTbi nast ne aoTan:iima:iit. aaTo t y t aa* b aovie iiaxoanaitcb aeBCTBemibie lanc/Kii TonaiiBa: opotueHiibifi oamt. oko.io copoKa nycTbix KOxinaT, rae no Koaeno naBajieno ToacTbix oaHKOBCKiix KapTonoB. Xoait. komv ne .leith. ho Mbi hc peutajiucb, a IllK.ioBCKiin 6 biBa.no nonaer b >tot aec it nepiiercn c necMeTnon aoobiMefi. [Our rooms were not heated well, but the virgin deposits o f fuel w ere located right in the building— an abandoned bank, about tony empty rooms where the thick bank folders were piled up to one’s knee. Anyone who felt like it could go there. We were afraid, but Shklovsky often went to that forest and returned with countless booty.] Leningradskata P anoram a—.SV, 492. Berberova also remembered that "Ha oyxiare jtoto oanxa XoaaceBini nncaa c t iix ii, a JIvh u— niicbiua vine. Koraa Mbi Gbinit yace b EepaiiHe” [Khodasev ich wrote his poems on the paper from this bank, and Lunts— his letters to me when we hadalready moved to Berlin.] Berberova. 154. 46 In order to surv ive on their scanty rations, the intelligentsia had to sell their possessions. One o f the photographs in Boris Sokoloff Collection at Hoover Institution Archives (81025-8M .02 A-21) represents a group o f the professors at the black market. 4 A. S. Grin. "Krysolov" in P ad sozxezdiem lo p u ra . 297. 41 Ibid. 4 " Ibid.. 323. <0 Ibid.. 298. 5 1 The analogy w ith a grave is also present in the description o f the place; "[H]a Bcexi nevKajta nenaTb T.iena h TiiujiiHbi" ([E]verything had a stamp o f decay and silence). Ibid., 301. Shklovsky, 238. ” Ibid.. 305. 54 Ibid., 323. 55 A. S. Grin. "Fandango” in Sobranie sochinem i r shesii tomakh (Moscow: Pravda, 1965, Vol. 5). 348. Vladim ir D a l’, 98. In a similar way. Daniil Yuvachev took Kharms as his pseudonym, forming it from the English words "charm" and "harm." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 51 Rozhdestvensky, 326. 59 Grin, 354-55. 00 Ibid.. 355. 61 Ibid. Annenkov, 79-80, 83. 63 Yurii Kolker. “ Aldeiskaia prokhlada. Ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva V . F. Khodasevicha” in Vladislav Khodasevich, S obranie stikhov v 2 lom akh (Paris: La Press Libre, 1983, vol. 2), 314. 64 Annenkov, 33. 1 ,5 Grin, 371. “ Ibid.. 366. In order to preserve this meaning, another Russian translator o f Heine. P. I. Veinberg chose to change one o f the '"characters" in the poem. In his version, it is the oak (the word Jub is masculine in Russian) that is dreaming about the palm tree: Ha ceBcpHoO, ro.tofi Beputmte ,5} 6 OaitHOKIlfl CTOIIT. O h apeMJteT— u .ibaosi it cHcra.Mii. Kate caBaitOM oe.ibiM, rioKpbiT. II ocaHOMY rpeaitrcs na.ib.Ma. Hro b ;ta.ibHeft BO C TO M H ofi lest.ie HcMa. oaiutoKa. ropioeT Ha co;nme.\i co/KVKeimofi cxa-ie. [On a northern bare summit, a lonely oak stands. It dreams, covered with ice and snow like w ith a white shroud. It dreams about a lonelv and silent palm tree that in a distant eastern land grieves on a rock burnt by the sun.) ,,s Grin. 345. 09 Ibid.. 373. ibid.. 386-87. ’ ’ Ibid.. 392. Ibid.. 394. ]’ ■ Ibid.. 398. 4 Nikolai Nikitin. "Peterburg." Rossiia ( 1923. No. 7), 16. ‘ This term, widely used in the 1920s to characterize all writers who did not join the proletarian literary camp, fits perfectly the metaphor o f a ship and its passengers. " Three key figures in the formation o f the group were Viktor Shklovsky, Lev Lunts, and M ikhail Slonimsky. Other members were Konstantin Fedin. Ilya Gruzdev, Vsevolod Ivanov, Veniamin Kaverin, Nikolai N ikitin, N ikolai Tikhonov, and M ikhail Zoshchenko. The only “sister" among the Serapions was Elizaveta Polonskaia. Gary Kern. “ Introduction." The Serapion B rothers: A C ritic a l A nth olo gy o f Stories and Essays (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1975): X III. Kern also provides an interesting cultural parallel: It is not generally known that the present group was the second one in Russia to name itself after Hoffm ann’s heroes. The first appeared in St. Petersburg in the early 1830s and lasted until at least 1840. It consisted o f literary amateurs who read their works on Saturday nights in the home o f Alexander Komarov and Klyuge fon Klugenau. They called themselves “Our Serapions" and their meetings “Serapionic evenings." One member. Pavel Annenkov, eventually became famous as a memoirist and editor o f Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 Pushkin. In 1840 they were visited on occasion by Vissarion Belinsky, who greatly enjoyed their lively company. Cf. Ivan Panaev, L ite ra tn rm e vospom inaniia (M ., 1950), II, 105 and 133. Had the later group known that Belinsky was a “ Serapion" they probably would have named themselves differently. Ibid . X X X V I 78 Nikolai Chukovsky was the son o f the poet and literary critic Komei Chukovsky; Ida Napel’baum was the daughter o f the famous photographer Moisei Napel’baum. " Berberova, 162. 8 U Forsh. 4. 1 ,1 Zhukanets is Shklovsky; Chorn is Evgenii Shvarts. Most o f the masks are easily recognizable. Milashevsky compares them to the Christmas ornaments; P na 3aoaBHbix naiiM eHO BaHiin, Bpoae B bi'iypn iax e.nom tbix itrpym eK , c x p b u u itM ena peanbH bix a im . [ . . . ) J lito n n n K o riix im a — Be.niiK oaenno ii oueiib "e.ioM Ho"! 3 t o xyao>KHiiK B i ij iiiGi ih it xv ao /K iiim a U JeK aTitxnua! Toro.neiiK o— 3ouieHKO, ao B oab tto naoBitTo, it. Tax cKaaaTb, va ap nacKBotb! M itx a u a C ao m tM C K iifi— K om tabC K itft. O a b x e ti— riooT H e a b a n x e tt. riooTecca 3 a a n — tio caean H s "C neiK itafl w acK a"— H a a e a a a riaB aoBiiH . K pacttBbifi c o cea— tte v itta to . A p ito c T a — M a p in r r a U Jaritttatt. A k o b iim — A k iim JIbBOBtiH BoabiitCKiifi. raoTan liaoK. M iiKvaa— KaioeB [...] Epvcaau— ropbKiift. HHonaatieTHbifi F.icrpo.iep Aiiapeii lieabtft. no it c .imuom entiieTCKoi o nttcua— rvMitaeB (...) [A sequence o f funny nicknames resembling the fanciful Christmas tree decorations disguised the names o f real people. (...) Libin and Kotikhina— excellent and very Christmas tree-like! Those are the artists Bilibin and Shchekatikhina! Gogolenko is Zoshchenko. it is rather venomous and. so to say. the blow went home! M ikhail Slonimsky is K opil’skv El'khen is the poet Nel'dikhen. The poetess Elan— the last "Snow M ask"— is Nadezhda Pavlovich. The handsome neighbor— I cannot recognize. Ariosta is Marietta Shaginian. Akovich is Akim L'vovich Volvnsky. Gaetan is Blok. M ikula is Kliuev (...) Eruslan is Gor'kv. the Alien Guest Artist is Andrei Bely. The poet with a face o f an Egyptian scribe is Gumilev (...) Milashevsky. 191. Although Milashevsky fails to recognize "the handsome neighbor,” I believe it is his mask since he and Forsh were neighbors before she moved into the "perfectly round room." Forsh. 15. * ’ See. for example, the debates between Volv nsky and Shklovsky. Marietta Shaginian and the former critic o f the Apollo Magazine. Valerian Chudovsky described by Rozhdestvensky in Rozhestvensky. 266- 68 . S 4 See the chronicles o f the House o f Arts in the magazine D om Iskusstv. Somov was one o f the habitues o f those evenings. One note in his diary indicates his presence at the debate betw een Gum ilev and his opponents. Chukovsky, Zhirmunsky, and "impudent Shklovsky” (p. 195), and another comments on the concert o f Schumann’s music played by Golubovskaia (p. 197). 85 Odoevtseva, 150. **’ Berberova. 161. 87 Odoevtseva. 150-51. 88 Rozhdestvensky. 185-88. Georgii Ivanov also remembers his impression o f Reisner wearing a beautiful and shining dress that made her look younger and more fragile. Ivanov. 137. 8 “ Khodasevich. 314. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 90 Milashevsky describes both masquerades vividly, especially his own little flirting adventures; one o f the masked ladies he woos turns out to be Akhmatova. Milashevsky, 199-205. 9 1 Ibid., 199-200. 92 Forsh, 13. 9 5 Somov, 190. 9 4 Forsh, 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 Chapter Three City as Museum The realization that the city was fragile and mortal resulted in the efforts to preserve it in its posthumous state. The idea that St. Petersburg gained immortality by its sacrificial and purifying death emerged in those years, adding a new aspect to the protean and inexhaustible myth of the city. Akhmatova's first poem in Anno Domini \IC \fX X I. called "Sograzhdanam" [To My Fellow Citizens], formulates the mission for the citizens o f St. Petersburg— to preserve the city as their epitaph: U Mbi aaobiaii iiaBceraa. 3aiciioHeHbi b cToaime aiiKort. Oaepa. CTemi, ropo^a H topii poatiHbi BeaiiKort. B Kpyry kpobubom je iib 1 1 homb /fo a m /KecTOKaa ncroM a... H iikto hum ne xoiea no.Moub 3a to. mto Mbi ocraancb aoMa. 3a to. mto ropoa cbou aiooa. A tie KpbiaaTyto CBoooay. Mbi coxpaHitan aa« ceoa Ero aBopttbi. oroHb h Boay. Hna« oainnTCfl nopa. y>K BeTep cviepTH cepaue cTyaiiT. Ho na.\i CBjmteHHbtft rpaa fleTpa HeBoabHbiM na.MSTHHKOM 6yaeT. [And we have forever forgotten, imprisoned in the wild capital, the lakes, the steppes, the cities, and dawns o f our great motherland. A cruel languor reigns in a bloody circle day and night... No one wanted to help us because we stayed at home. Because, loving our city and not the winged freedom, we preserved for ourselves its palaces, fire, and water. Another time draws Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 near, the wind o f death already freezes the heart, but Peter's sacred city will be an unwilling monument to us.] Akhmatova's scholar. Sharon Leiter. calls the dual metaphor of confinement (as both an imprisonment and a deliberate choice) the central theme o f this poem. "Freedom itself is redefined as a choice inferior to fidelity, imprisonment in the city as the noble act of preserving tradition at the cost o f personal sacrifice.” 1 It seems to me. however, that the poem has a different meaning. "Staying at home" and "preserving for themselves" (dlia sebia) the city, Akhmatova's fellow citizens fulfill an ambitious and selfish mission. They do not sacrifice their lives for the eternal life o f the sacred city but rather chose to die in this "splendid city o f glory and misfortune" (as Akhmatova called it in an earlier poem), knowing that it would "unwillingly" become their tomb-inonument. In that context, the fire and water of the third stanza stand for the privileged spaces o f the crossing to the otherworld.2 While the Bolsheviks announced "peace to the huts and war to the palaces." Akhmatova's eternal St. Petersburg is preserved as the city of palaces. One o f her "fellow citizens," G. P. Fedotov, in his description of St. Petersburg in the post revolutionary' years, also writes about the city's transition from death to eternal life. When everything else is ruined and the ordinary dwellings turned into caves, the palaces are the only immortal monuments left. This praise o f St. Petersburg as an imperial city of classical palaces, shared by Akhmatova and Fedotov, is not only anti-eclectic but also deliberately anti-Bolshevik. Kto rioceTM.i ero b cTpauiHbie. cMepTHbie ronbi 1918-20. to t Btue.T, xax BeHHOCTb npocTvnaeT CKB03b TJieHHe. Pa30M npoBa.an.iocb K\;ta-To npeBo Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 134 CTOJiHUbi. BecHHCJieHHbie aoxo^Hbie Ky6bi, HaBoponeHHbie 6e3.aapHbiMH apxHTeicropaMH n e ib ip e x ynaaoHHbix uapcTBOBaHHH, HCHe3JiH c r;ia3, npeBpaTHJiHCb b pyHHbi, b nemepHoe MCHjibe aoncTopHHecKHx jnoztefi. B ro p oae, OCHJtHHOM He6bIBanbIMH 30pHMH, OCTaJlHCb O^HH JIBOpLlbl H npn3paKH. HcT.aeBaiom aa 30jiotom BeHeuwa h ja>xe BeHHbifi Phm o.aezmeiOT nepea BejiHHueM yM H paiom ero FleTepGypra. [Those who visited it during the scary and fatal years of 1918-1920 witnessed how the eternity showed through the decay. The capital's maw has at once collapsed. Innumerable rental cubes piled up by untalented architects of four decadent reigns disappeared, turned into ruins, into cave habitats o f the prehistoric people. Only palaces and phantoms remained in the city, illuminated by the fantastic dawns. Reduced to golden dust Venice and even eternal Rome pale in front of the grandeur of dying Petersburg.]3 The taste for the neoclassical architectural revival had prevailed in St. Petersburg since the early 1900s. Katerina Clark is wrong in connecting "a return to prominence of the lobby for Old Petersburg"4 with the beginning o f the New Economic Policy in spring of 1921. As a matter of fact, the cult of old Petersburg that emerged in the beginning of the century and was generally associated with the World o f Art group never left the cultural horizon of the city. Even during the first years after the revolution, it was not interrupted despite the change o f the official cultural paradigm. While the Construction o f the New became a sanctioned slogan o f the time, the preservation o f the city and its cultural treasures became the mission for its intellectuals. The magnificent St. Petersburg palaces ("my sokhranili dlia sebia ego dvortsy...") were indeed their biggest concern in the years of the revolutionary perturbations. Alexandre Benois, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Ivan Fomin. Maksim Gor'ky, and Konstantin Somov, among other architects, artists, and writers '‘stood on watch above the Neva’’5 trying to protect from vandalism the royal residences in Petersburg and its vicinity. In many Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 cases, it was an impossible mission in the circumstances of two revolutions and two wars (W orld War I and the civil war). Somov’s diary, for instance, contains several accounts o f the destruction in Peterhof. the Russian Versaille: [y]Tpo\i nouuiH k Po30BOMy naBii.ibOHv— Bee pa3pyineHHoe! EHTbie CTaTyn! [...] OcMaTpHBan HiiKonaeBCKHH (l-o ro ) jtBopeu oneHb H35mtHbiii h yiOTHbie faux gothique. FIo to m yncacHbiH no apxnTeicrype aBopeu HnKonajt II— ro c h v^ o b h u ih o h oe3BKycuoii BiivTpemiocTbio. Bee Ha MecTax, aaxce n rp y u iK H jeTefi. [I]n the morning, we went to the Rose Pavilion— everything is destroyed! The statues are broken! [...]! inspected the palace of Nicholas (the First), it is very' refined with cozy faux gothic/ne. After that— the horrible architecture-wise palace of Nicholas II w ith the dreadfully tasteless interiors. Everything is in place, even the children's toys.f In November o f 1920. the same group o f tireless advocates of cultural heritage personally superv ised the return of the Hermitage collection from the evacuation. When the front of World War I moved close to St. Petersburg, the masterpieces of the Hermitage were transported to Moscow. In 1920 the Soviet government decided to return them back to Petrograd. It is interesting that nothing had yet been stolen during this grandiose operation— apparently, the practice o f stealing paintings from the Hermitage and selling them abroad started later. Somov, a real connoisseur of the collection certified the successful accomplishment o f the mission: "3pMHTa5K Becb! cero^HH itoHbio BO^Bopen Ha CBoe npeacHee MecTo. ripotnouino oto ojiHCTaTenbHO h B o .iu teo H o o b ic T p o " [The entire Hermitage! has been returned tonight to its former place. It was a brilliant and magically quick operation].7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 Perhaps the most remarkable evidence o f the preservationist efforts to save the palaces o f St. Petersburg was the struggle for the ensemble of the Winter Palace that took place in March of 1917. Less than a hundred people were killed in Petrograd during the almost bloodless February revolution. It was decided that those "martyrs of the old regime” deserved an unprecedented state funeral. While the newspapers published the lists of names o f those killed and wounded, another bloodless battle was fought for the place o f the communal grave. Benois' unpublished diary for 1917 contains the dramatic story o f this battle.8 Some radicals in the Soviet o f Workers’ Deputies suggested burying the victims on the square in front of the Winter Palace and erecting a monument there. While Rudnitsky and some other architects supported the idea. Benois and his colleagues realized all the dangerous consequences o f this project. First o f all. any intrusion would ruin the perfectly balanced ensemble o f the Winter Square created by three great architects. Rastrelli, Rossi, and Montferrand. Moreover. Benois expressed his concern that on the day of the funeral, the mourning crowd led by some demagogues could attack and damage the Winter Palace as the major symbol of the oppressive Tsarist regime. Gor’ky. urgently mobilized to negotiate against this outrageous project, proposed a different place for the communal grave: the square in front o f the Kazan Cathedral, another architectural masterpiece o f Russian classicism. This proposition is interesting because it indicates the tendency to preserv e the St. Petersburg palaces above the rest o f the city’s classical heritage. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 By March 8, with the bodies in morgues and the place for the burial ceremony still undecided, the situation became critical. Benois wrote about the culminating antagonism between tw'o camps: BenepoM 3ace^aHne. BTopitHHoe entree apxnreKTypHbix KJioyttoB: “TKeHbKH" LLIpeTepa. PyjtHmiKoro, h hx cnoiiBH>KHUKOB— Bee H3-3a 3nononyHHoft 3aieH c norpeGeHtieM ">KepTB” . Ohh BitenHJWCb b 3th x noKOHHHHKOB, xax ronojtHbie b MeuiKii c NtyKofi h roTOBbi neperpbi3Tb ropno TeM. k to y m ix oTUJt.n 6bi aoobiny. [...] LLlperep riorepH.'i naKonett BCHKoe caMOOonajantie u Bbi.iexe.T in coopamm. rpoiacb. hto on OTKayKCTCH coBce.M o t paooTbi (naa na.\iHTHHKo.\i) ii rest ca.MbiM naTpaBHT ua nac Bcex y>Ke no^pn>KeiiHbix ua pbirbe M onui paoomix. flo y x o je hx— y (DoMima bo3hhk oHcpeztHofi "reHiuuibiibifi" n.ian kuk o tbccth 6 e ^ \. no noxa on oto aep>KiiT b ceKpeTe. [Evening meeting. The second entree o f the architectural clowns. "Zhen'ka" Schroter. Rudnitsky. and their companions— all because of the misfortunate venture with burial o f the “victims." They grasped those poor deceased as the hungry men grasp the bags with Hour and they are ready to tight anyone who would take away their booty. [...] Schroter finally lost all self-control and rushed out o f the meeting threatening to stop working on the monument and so doing to set on us all workers who have already been hired to dig the graves. After they left. Fomin came up with another “great" plan how to escape the misfortune but so far he keeps it a secret.]9 Although Benois skeptically called Fomin’s idea "great." it was indeed brilliant. As the place for the memorial. Fomin suggested the deserted grounds of the Field of Mars (Marsovo Pole). Intended for military parades and war games, it is an enormous square surrounded by famous buildings. To the northeast it is bordered by Peter the Great’s Summer Palace built by Domenico Tressini and the Summer Garden, while the Moika defines its southern limit. Nearby, Mikhailovsky Castle created by Vincenzo Brenna for Paul I and Mikhailovsky Palace built by Carlo Rossi for Paul’s youngest son, Grand Duke Michael front each other on the opposite banks o f the river. The Marble Palace, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 Antonio Rinaldi's masterpiece o f the rococo style stands at the northern border along the Palace Embankment. Finally, the immense barracks built by Vasily Stasov for the Pavlovsky Regiment flank the western side o f the huge square. It is almost as though all the masters o f St. Petersburg architecture contributed something to the Field of Mars. Yet, by 1917 it had lost its function of a parade ground and turned into a vast and dusty empty lot. Fomin's suggestion perfectly suited everybody. On one hand, the proposed location in the city center, amidst o f imperial palaces satisfied the Soviet o f Workers' Deputies: the martyrs of the revolution would be buried in the heart of the city, and the buildings that symbolized the old regime would "keep guard of honor." On the other hand, the idea of converting the military square into the memorial appealed to the Provisional government, full of its pacilist illusions. Finally, this decision saved the ensemble of the Winter Square from the major reconstruction that, in the opinion o f Benois and his colleagues, equaled its destruction. Before the excavations on the Field o f Mars could start, the trenches left since the last war games had to be filled in and the ground had to be leveled. Fomin himself, as well as S. V. Dombrovsky. Lev Rudnev. Evgenii Schroter. and A. L. Shilovsky accompanied by the students of the Academy o f Arts and o f the Institute o f Civil Engineers supervised all the works. Petrogradskaia gazeta [Petrograd Newspaper] informed its readers about the project in progress: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 The communal graves are located in the center o f the Field o f Mars. They will have a shape o f a square with a side o f 18 sagenes [128 feet]. The monument will be erected in the center. [...] The Field of Mars will contain several graves; twenty-five freedom fighters will be buried in each.1 0 The burial ceremony was well-planned, and its detailed itinerary was published in the newspapers. At first, it was scheduled to take place on Friday. March 17, but it turned out that too many citizens wanted to join the procession. Therefore, the date was changed to March 23. A w itness wrote in her diary that this ceremony was the most unforgettable spectacle: Silent processions came from all parts of Petrograd because almost in every hospital several bodies were lying. All the processions gathered in the same place. After the Requiem Mass they proceeded slowly towards the parade grounds. In the streets a long row of leaden coffins moved slowly. They were covered with red Hags on which it was written: "In eternal memory o f the fighters for the freedom o f Russia." [... ] The people were silent. Their faces were solemn. [...] At the parade grounds the coffins were placed side by side round the edge of an immense grave, and their red palls looked like splashes of blood on the white snow." The participants o f the marching procession carried the coffins on their shoulders, and the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress saluted each time a coffin was put down into the grave.1 2 When three years later, in April o f 1920. the Soviet government decided to bury "the victims o f the October revolution." mainly the Bolshevik officials killed during the civil war. the works on the Field o f Mars were made using forced labor and the burial ceremony did not gather hundreds o f thousands of people. Among the banners and political slogans carried to the Field o f Mars on March 23 o f 1917 there also was a banner "Svobodnvm khudozhestvam" [To the Free Arts].1 3 This famous dedication that Catherine the Great ordered to engrave on the fronton o f the Academy of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 140 Arts represented not only the academicians but also the artists o f the World o f Art circle who consolidated with them in their preservationist efforts. The protection and conserv ation of material treasures was only one side o f the three fold devoir leading to the "museification” o f St. Petersburg. The other two goals required the preservation o f the city's cultural heritage and the "exhibiting” o f this new museum space. Institutions like the Museum o f the City History and the Pushkin House took upon the task o f preserving and collecting, and the "Old Petersburg" society and the circle o f Nikolai Antsiferov developed a new method of museum work— thematic excursions around the city. In 1907 the Society o f Architect-Artists at the Academy o f Science formed a commission whose goal was to study and depict old St. Petersburg. The commission led by Alexandre Benois included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Ivan Fomin. Prince V. Ia. Kurbatov. Evgenii Lanceray. Nikolai Roerich, and Vladimir Shchuko. They suggested creating the Museum o f Old Petersburg, which would follow the city's history from the moment of its foundation in 1703. The preserv ation o f St. Petersburg's heritage was stressed as the most important goal o f the Museum. After the Ministry of Interior Affaires confirmed the official status o f the Museum in December o f 1908, the first exhibition was opened in one o f the halls o f the Academy of Science. Very soon, however, it became obvious that there was not enough space for the collection that was quickly growing. Count Siuzor. the head o f the Society of Architect-Artists, provided several rooms o f his own house on Kadetskaia Line o f Vasilievskii Island for the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 Museum. Although this was considered only a temporary housing, the Museum o f Old Petersburg remained on Kadetskaia Line for ten years. At first, the Museum was open to the public twice a week, but since 1912 it began to operate on a daily basis. The majority of its collection consisted of photographs, drawings, and models o f buildings either destroyed or reconstructed beyond recognition. The Museum staff regularly updated the Reestr vundulizma [Register of Vandalism], which was widely distributed. The Register included names of those who were held responsible for the aesthetic transgressions o f the architecture o f old Petersburg. This side o f the Museum's activity reflected the general tendency to revive classical St. Petersburg. The illustrated articles by Alexandre Benois in M ir iskusstvu [W orld of Art], Apollon [Apollo], and Starve godv [Bygone Years] magazines, books by Georgii Lukomsky on contemporary and old St. Petersburg (S'ovyt Peterburg. 1915; Sovremennyi Peterburg and Staryi Peterburg. both 1916) provided a catalogue of the city's architectural treasures and losses. In 1911 Benois became vice-president o f the new St. Petersburg Society for the Protection and Preservation of Russian Monuments o f Art and Antiquity. The Provisional government that came to power during the February revolution o f 1917 granted the “authority to form special police units responsible for the protection o f monuments and museums'’ to the Society.1 4 The organization continued its activities after the October revolution under the supervision o f the People's Commissariat for the Enlightenment. By May o f 1918, the collection of the Museum o f Old Petersburg consisted o f some four thousand items and was in desperate need o f a larger space. After the Bolshevik Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 government fled to Moscow, the Museum moved into the Anichkov Palace abandoned by the Ministry o f Provision. A former royal residence, the Anichkov Palace on the Fontanka embankment is the famous architectural masterpiece that was constructed in 1741 by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli and then remodeled by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1805-1806 and finally by Carlo Rossi in 1818. Its ensemble was completed in 1839- 1841 when Petr Klodt decorated the nearby bridge across the Fontanka with four bronze Horst> Tamers that must be numbered among the finest achievements of Russian classical sculpture. For the Museum of Old Petersburg, it was a perfect building, not to mention one that deserved to be listed in the Register o f Vandalism. A correspondent o f the newspaper Ekho [Echo] v isited the Anichkov Palace in January o f 1918, when it still housed the Ministry o f Provision, and left a telling description o f the wrecking: The most turbulent place in the palace is the so-called Red Salon. It was the favorite salon of Maria Fedorovna. Oh. my God! What would have happened to the empress if she saw the transformations that took place here.... The magnificent rococo mirrors reflecting the walls draped in red silk, crystal opalescent lamps with the finest cutting together w ith the rows o f writing-desks, simple Vienna chairs, type-writers, ink pots. forms, bills. A beautiful clock made in Paris stands on a fireplace mantel. Across the room from them, there is the sign "Department o f Soap. Candles, etc..” and on a side another alluring sign states: "Benzene, kerosene, lubricating oil.” 1 5 The rest of the salons, cabinets, and chambers also bore the signs o f the same Deluge like mixture of "clean and unclean" objects as in any St. Petersburg dw elling in those post-revolutionary years. The trades of the building were damaged by the gunshots and needed repairs, but in general the rooms and enfilades o f the Anichkov Palace provided the best possible environment for the Museum of Old Petersburg. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 On October 4. 1918, a decree was issued nationalizing the Museum and transforming it into the Museum of the City. The new name reflected a shift from local to comparative urban studies, an ambitious and advanced task for 1918. St. Petersburg/Petrograd, however, remained the main focus of the Museum’s activity. In December o f 1918. the architect Lev II'in became the new director o f the Museum, succeeding Benois. Il'in also belonged to the same group o f passionate adepts of the neoclassical revival o f St. Petersburg as Benois or Fomin. Therefore, the change of directors did not result in any dramatic change of the museum's strategy. In 1919-1921 several major exhibitions were organized in the Anichkov Palace showing hundreds of drawings and engravings depicting St. Petersburg by Russian artists o f the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The Museum continued its efforts to preserve St. Petersburg cultural monuments. Its staff used all their influence to promote the promulgation o f several crucial decrees. The Decree on Protection o f the Libraries and Book Depositories was issued on June 17. 1918. followed by the Decree on Registration and Preservation o f Monuments of Art and Antiquity on October 5 and the Decree Declaring Scientific. Literary. Musical, and Artistic Works the Property of the State on November 26 o f the same year. One of the best artistic documents o f this struggle for the preservation o f cultural heritage of the city is the poster “Citizens. Preserve the Monuments o f Art" designed in 1918 by Nikolai Kupreianov, a graphic artist and a student of Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Posters were the leading media o f Bolshevik propaganda and covered all the topical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 issues o f the day, from the victories o f the Red Army on the fronts o f the civil war to the campaigns o f liquidating illiteracy or lice. Among hundreds o f posters created in the first years after the Revolution, Kupreianov's preservationist work is unique. The young artist successfully solved a difficult task— to unite a variety o f objects in an arrangement that would be easily perceived at once by the viewer. The message of the plea to preserve the monuments of an is repeated twice in the poster, first as the text and then as a row o f visual images. They contain a central part of a classical portico, a sculpture, a painting, a vase, a fragment o f an Egyptian obelisk, a scroll, a medieval illuminated book, and finally a medal, each representing a different kind of art. Although the foreground is overcrowded and looks like a depository of the artifacts confiscated by the Bolsheviks during the nationalization campaign, the poster has a well-organized composition. Its geometrical structure forms a pyramid that also symbolizes a certain hierarchy. The majority o f the artifacts at the pyramid’s base are emblematic, for instance, the painting is represented simply by a frame and the scroll does not contain any writing, but the building in the middle and the sculpture on the top of the pyramid are concrete St. Petersburg landmarks. The building is the Academy of Arts with its recognizable cupola, and the sculpture is one of the four Horse Tamers from the Anichkov Bridge. Therefore, the Academy o f Arts as an institution is subordinate in the poster to the Museum o f Old Petersburg located in the Anichkov Palace. Kupreianov’s choice o f the Horse Tamer is also significant. Each o f Klodt's groups depicts a naked youth restraining a rearing horse. In one the horse is wild and strong and the youth lies on the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 ground; two others show the struggle; finally, in the fourth the youth leads the tamed horse behind him. Kupreianov places at the pinnacle of his composition the first group with the triumphant horse representing the untamed and free spirit o f arts, the spirit to which Catherine's motto (‘'Svobodnvm khudozhestvam”) was addressed. Another prominent force that continued to fight for the old St. Petersburg culture was the Pushkin Mouse (Pushkinskii Dom). It was established in St. Petersburg in 1907. although the idea of its creation was first proposed in 1898 by the organizing committee for the celebration o f Pushkin's two-hundredth anniversary.Ib It was meant to become not just the poet's museum but rather the Pantheon of Russian literature, "a literary mausoleum for the heritage of Pushkin and other Russian masters of letters of the 19lh century."1 Academician Nestor Kotliarevsky was appointed the first director of the new institution. The Stale and individuals donated around 150 thousand rubles for the Pushkin House in the years prior to World War I; this money was primarily spent on requisitions. The remaining sum (about 30.000 rubles) was not enough to construct a new building, as it was originally planned, and until 1922. the Pushkin House remained homeless, cooped up in the Academy of Science, first in its attic and later in three small rooms on the second floor. By 1917 the library o f the Pushkin House consisted of 30.000 books and 10,000 manuscripts. Revolutionary7 turmoil caused the further growth o f the collection. For instance, when the gendarme headquarters was burned down in February o f 1917, the staff of the institute rescued the archive of the III Department (imperial secret police), which contained the rarest documents. After the revolution, the Pushkin House moved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. * 146 into the large conference hall o f the Academy. Among the strange, distorted environments created by the revolution, it was probably the strangest. The archivist N. V. Iakovlev recalled: B EojibiuoM KOH(j)epeHit-3ajie AicaaeMHH Hayic aa ajihhhom nocTaweHTe ctohji raraHTCKHH CKeaer aoncTopHHecKoro xcHBOTHoro, aannoaoKa. riepneH^aKyaHpHO k dtomv nocTaMeaTy Sbuw ycTaHOBjieHbi jtpyr aa apyre autHKa b ^Ba-Tpa pa^a, cMOTpa no pa3Mepy. Taa noaynajiacb cieabi, a BityTpn aax— 3aKyTbi, Ba>Kao UMeayeMbie “KaSaaeTaMa” . [In the large conference hall o f the Academy of Science, on a long pedestal stood a giant skeleton o f a prehistoric animal, a diplodoc. Perpendicularly to that pedestal, boxes were put on top o f each other in two or three rows depending on the size, thus forming walls with tiny cubicles inside that were haughtily called "offices."!IS In the same way as the homeless protagonist of Grin's story "Krysolov" [The Rat- Catcher] was seeking shelters in different and sometimes the most unusual places, the Pushkin House could not find its perch. In the 1920s. in a desperate search for more spacious and at the same time warmer premises— a combination almost impossible in the frozen post-revolutionary Petrograd— the Pushkin House ocuupied six different locations.1 9 During those wanderings and until 1927, when the Pushkin House finally settled in its present building on Tuchkov Embankment, the conference hall of the Academy o f Science with its giant prehistoric skeleton continued to shelter part of the institute. It is this building that appear in Blok’s poem “Pushkinskomu Domu” [To the Pushkin House], written in February o f 1921, when the poet was asked to sign the House’s album for honorary guests. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hmh riymKHHCKoro floMa B AKaaeMHH HayK! 3ByK IlOHHTHblH H 3HaKOMbIH, He nycTOH arm cepaua 3ByK! 3 to 3BOHbi aeaoxoaa Ha TopjKecTBeHHofi pexe, nepeiaiHHKa napoxoaa C napoxoaoM Baaaexe. 3 to apeBHHH C(J)uhkc, raHajmuifi Bcaea MeiuiHTejibHofi Boane. Bcaamix 6pon30Bbin. aeTHmufi Ha iieaBinxno.M cxaxvHe. Haiun CTpacTHbie nenanii Haa TanhctbchHofi HeBoit, Kax Mbi nepubifi aeiib BCTpenaan Beaoii hohwo onieBon. H ro 3a naaMemibie aami OTKpbiBana nasi pexa! Ho He 3TH , 3 1 1 1 1 Mbi 3Ba.HI. A rp«;iyuuie nexa. riponycxaan alien nieryiniix KpaTxoBpeMenHbiH oo.Maii. npo3peBarm anert rpjiayimix Ciuie-po30Bbiri Ty.Maii. nyiHxnn! Taimyio ccouoOy nejin Mbi Bocaea reoe! JJafi naM pyxy b Henoroay, noMom b neMofl 6opb6e! He tbohx an 3bvxob caaaocTb BaoxnoBaaaa b Te roaa? He tboh an, nyuixiiH, paaocTb Oxpbiaaaa Hac Toraa? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 Box 3aneM Tatcon 3HaKOMbifi H poflH ofi ansi cep a u a 3ByK— H m h riyxiiKHHCKoro ^O M a B AicaaeMHH HayK. B o t 3aneM. b nacbi 3aKaTa Y x o iw B HOHHVTO TbM y, C Seaofi naomajiH CeHaTa Thxo KJiaHHiocb eMy. [The name of the Pushkin House at the Academy of Science is a clear and familiar sound, not an idle sound for the heart. It is the chimes o f the drifting solemn river and the distant roll call o f two steamships. It is the ancient sphinx that follows with its eyes the sluggish river and the bronze horseman that flies on the motionless horse. It is our passionate sorrows above the mysterious Neva when we waited all white and fiery night for the black day. What ardent distances the river showed us! But we called not for those days but for the future ages. We ignored the transitory falsehood o f the oppressive days and foresaw the blue and pink mist of the days to come. Pushkin! After you we praised the secret freedom ! Give us your hand in the foul weather and help us in the mute struggle! Was not it the sw eetness of your sounds that inspired us in those years? Was not it your. Pushkin, joy that gave us the w ings? That is why the name of the Pushkin House at the Academy o f Science is such a familiar and dear sound for the heart. That is why at dusk before leaving into the darkness of the night. I quietly bow to it from the white Senate Square.] The poem was published in the second issue o f Dom iskusstv. It is Blok's last finished poetic work, and the theme o f farewell in the last stanza is tragically prophetic. The poet's quiet bow before leaving into the darkness o f night and non-existence is also a farewell to the old St. Petersburg culture for which the black and oppressive days had begun. For Blok, the only true meaning of poetry is the secret freedom that is opposed to the pseudo-freedom announced by the new regime, and Pushkin is praised as a bard o f this secret freedom. Although the actual quote is taken from Pushkin's youthful poem addressed to N. la. Pliuskova C'Jlto6oBb h TaHHaa CBo6o.ua BHyiuann cepjuty Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 riiM H n po cT O H ...” [L o v e and secret freedom inspired a sim ple h y m n in the h e a r t...]), it is the lines from the poet’s later fragment “Iz Pindemonti" [From Pindemonti] that Blok has in mind: HHafl, JiyHiuafl, noipe6Ha MHe CBoooita: 3aBHceTb o t uapH, 3aBHceTb o t napo^a— He Bee aw HaM paBHo? [...] [1 need a different, better freedom. What difference does it make after all— to be a vassal o f the Tsar or o f the people? [... ] On January 21 o f 1921. only two weeks before he finished "K Pushkinskomu Domu.” Blok wrote in his diary: "‘ l-h nnHae.MOHTn " [...] B ot cBoooaa!" [From Pindemonti" [...] That is real freedom!]2 0 The theme of secret freedom as a pledge of free conscience became the essence o f Blok's speech "O naznachenii poeta" [On the Poet’s Predestination], dedicated to Pushkin. In February o f 1921. the Pushkin Days were organized in Petrograd to commemorate the anniversary o f the poet's death on February 10 (January 29. o.s.), 1837. On February 11, the House o f Literati2 1 held a Pushkin Evening at which Blok. Anatolii Koni, Kuzmin, and Sologub. among others, gave speeches and read poems. A special declaration was signed, announcing that the anniversary o f Pushkin's death should be commemorated in Russia every year. Blok. Khodasevich, Kuzmin, Sologub, and Eikhenbaum participated in another evening that took place on February 14. During the Pushkin Days, the House o f Literati also organized a music concert at which M . Brian. M . Bikhter, and E. Braudo performed, as well as an exhibition o f the poet’s manuscripts and various editions, illustrations, and criticism about Pushkin. In a series Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 o f lectures, P. Shchegolev read a paper on Pushkin’s final duel and Koni gave a lecture about Pushkin's moral make-up.2 2 Blok, together with the literary critic Evgenia Knipovich, was planning an edition o f Pushkin’s select poems, whose index he wrote down in his diary.2 3 1921 was not a jubilee year for Pushkin: it marked the eighty-fourth anniversary o f his death. Clark is absolutely right when, addressing the issue o f the commemoration o f Pushkin’s death, she links it with the Petrograd intellectuals' own existential dilemmas: One reason for this is the fact that Pushkin's death in a duel and his fraught relations with Nicholas I had helped make him a martyr for the intellectuals' cause. Hence the celebration of his death was an obvious venue for them to express anxieties about preserving their values in the face o f what they saw as an oppressive and unheeding state. [...] The Pushkin anniversary, then, was not merely an excuse for lamenting, but also an occasion for examining or reaffirming the consensual norms (ethical and aesthetic) o f the intelligentsia and for looking anew at that perennial issue o f Russia's historical destiny.*4 The Pushkin commemoration was a clear attempt to preserve the city's cultural aura and the sense o f tradition, and the poet's name, as so many times before, was chosen by the cultural preservationists as their banner.2' In so doing, they followed the Russian Symbolists. While the Futurists called to "cast Pushkin off the steamship of modernity." Andrei Bely, Mikhail Gershenzon. Viacheslav Ivanov. Dmitrii Merezhkovsky. and Vladimir Solov’ev saw in Pushkin a philosopher, a metaphysical visionary-’, and the creator o f the Petersburg myth.2 6 Those who commemorated the poet in 1921 continued the nineteenth- and twentieth-century tradition o f paying tribute to Pushkin. Signs of the changed cultural environment, however, inevitably stand out. In Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 the time o f St. Petersburg's transition into non-existence, its intellectuals were striving to return to the Golden Age o f the city's history. A poem by Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky gives an interesting example o f this •'reviving” tendency. Rozhdestvensky re-creates St. Petersburg’s “cultural geography” during the Pushkin epoch. The opening image of the poem, the sky that looks like a naval map, directs the reader to the city's locale. Memory is. o f course, another guide; it is memory that leads us to the city's past and makes it possible to unite the different epochs in one im aginary tim e and space: Bbi.no oto iieoo. k u k MopcKaa Kapia: )Ke;iTbifi uieaK cerojiitH, riene.ibubifi uiiepa. 3uaeutb, b HeTepGypre, »a ncxoae NtapTa, To.nbKO It OblBatOT 3TH BCMCpa. Bwcoko cTost.na ponoBaa jibjuttiKa. CjIOBHO JIOMTHK JlblHIt B BltTape BHIta. 3 t o naxt c to o o i o noKJioHUJicfl r.nituKa. riyuiKHH y.ibiGny.ncji tin Toro oxna. CojiHeHHyto na.MHTb y3eaK0M naBH/Ke.M. HttKOMy He CKa>KeM, BcraHeM h nofueM : Haa H3rn6oM M ohkii, t^m , 3a 3pMitTa)KeM, Fo.ny6ofi n oe.nbtft b MejanbOHax j o m . Ha.M . ih He pacc'Ka/KVT cKB03b r.nvxne nenn BojiHbi, hto meanaMH o rpaHHT uiypuiaT: 3Han jih EapaTbiHCKHH cTepTbie cTyneHH, H . i i o 6 hji jih fle jib B H r bo t TaKOii 3aKaT. Tjte Tbi? rioMHHUib Bepobi cojiHeHHoft Hejtejin, Te.MHbiH HcaaKHH, jxbiMHbin njiam FleTpa? O. KaKoe hc6 o ! Taxi b hh o m anpejie, Haw c to 6 o h npHCHHTCH 3 th Benepa. [Tliat sky was like a naval map— o f yellow silk today and o f ash-gray silk yesterday. You know, nights like this fall in Petersburg only in the end of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 March. A pink icicle stood high up in the sky as a slice o f melon in the amber vine. This was Glinka who bowed to us and Pushkin who smiled from that window. Without telling anyone, we will knot a sunny memory into a small knot, w ill rise and go to the blue-and-white house with the medallions standing above the Moika’s curve, there, behind the Hermitage. The waves that rustle on the granite like silks will tell us with subdue sorrows whether Baratynsky knew the effaced steps and whether Del’vig liked such a sunset. Where are you? Do you remember the willows of the sunny week, dark St. Isaac’s, Peter’s smoky cloak? Oh. what a sky! Later, in a different April, we will dream about these nights.] The poem seemingly belongs to the Modernist tradition that brings together the classical St. Petersburg and its poetic double, associated with names o f the classics of Russian literature. Perhaps the most famous in this discourse is Valery Briusov’s poem ”K Petrogradu" [To Petrograd], written in 1916. Its opening stanza defines the metaphysical landscape o f the city: Topoa 3 m c h u MeaHoro BctumiKa. nyuiKima r opo.i h /locroeB C K oro. Hbme. Bnepa. Ben ho— ejntibifi. O t neoocKpeooB ao na.incaainiKa. Ot o c tp o b o b a o u iv m h o to H c b c k o to .— Mombio neipa, TaftHOH— 3MeHHOfl! [The city of the Snake and of the Bronze Horseman, the city o f Pushkin and of Dostoevsky, is now as in the past and forever united— from its skyscrapers to the front gardens and from the islands to noisy Nevsky— by the power o f Peter and the mystery o f the Snake.] Briusov’s longer lines contain oppositions— mythological and literary, as well as spatial (high and low. the outskirts and the city center) and social. The shorter lines carry' the basic antithesis of Logos (the Tsar's power and will) and Chaos (the snake o f Falconet’s monument), which is invariable in time. Pushkin and Dostoevsky only appear as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 emblems in the context of the poem, and Briusov does not further elaborate their role— it is the "miraculous royal forethought” (Polon ty divnym. tsarstvennym pomyslom) that fascinates the poet the most. In Sergei Gorodetsky’s 1912 poem. “Petrogradskie viden'ia" [Petrograd Phantoms], the St. Petersburg o f Peter I. Nicholas I and Alexander II is at the same time the city of Gogol’ and Pushkin. They are only phantoms o f the night, however, and are presented almost as caricatures, although this could hardly be Gorodetsky's intention: [...] H iu p yr cepeopoTKaiinofi m i . io io JJoxnyno neoo. Honb npuuiaa. 1 1 o/Khjio BOKpyr obiaoe. H ripinpaKa.viu craaa .\traa. I I . TotHac h o m ii TKaub paeriyTaB. BuoBb npHM n CBeTea HeBcxim obia... C MopCKOH. BCIO UieiO B Uiapt]) V KVTaB. nymiiBO roro.ib Bbixoana. OcTauoBH.'icH. Or.iKiiy.ioi. Baoxtiya npoxaaanvio crpyio H TK/KK1IM BIOpOM BBepX MeTHVHCK. Kax 6bi npeaHV'BCTBV K aapio. I I Tax ctok. i . Bee Bbiuie. Bbiuie 3ar.iKabmaKCb b Heoeca, Kax 6 v a r a b TafiHOM yipe c.ibimaa ripopoHecxne roaoca. Ka3aiocb BHOBb: Pocchh cnacTbe— He npinpax, ne sieHTa. He coh. H 0 BTOpOH. 3aBeTH0H H3CTH CBoefi noo.Mbi ayMaa oh. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 Tna3a, 3anaBLUHe b nia3HHUbi EaaHceHHbi c ra n n h jierK H, H na jiyMHCTbie pecHHUbi ripOCHJlHCb CJie3bI. A C peKH H3HI11HO BeH aJIbMaBHBOH. O t BilOXHOBCHbH H BHHU EecneHHbiH, Myapufi h cnacT.iHBbiH CTpeMHJica riyuiKHH. He cTpaiuHa Po c c h h MepTBaa nycTbiHfl: Ee CKBO'ib TeM Hbie BeKa,— O h 3Han,— b ciiflHbc rueBHO p u tte r Hapnua CTpyn, e ro pyxa. Bne3anHOH BCTpenn mht own cuere.i. H o ’“ Tbi” oh T o ro n to CKa3a.n. H t o t na " B b f e.wv o tb c th .i... A ropon hoboc hb. im . t [...] [...] Suddenly, the sky exhaled a silver haze. The night fell, the past came to life, and the haze turned into the ghosts. Immediately untwining the fabric o f the night. Nevsky was again straight and light... Gogol' appeared tim idly from Morskaia. wrapping his neck in a scarf. He stopped, looked around, inhaled the cool air. and darted up a gloomy gaze as if foreboding the dawn. He stood staring higher and higher into the sky as though he heard the prophetic voices in a mysterious morning. It seemed again that Russia's happiness was not a phantom or a dream. And he was thinking about the second cherished part o f his novel. His deep-seated eyes became blissful and light, and the tears were on his shining eyelashes. And from the river, careless, wise, and happy Pushkin hurried, gracefully waving his almaviva. full o f both inspiration and wine. Russia’s dead desert did not frighten him: he knew that the Queen o f strings, his hand, would throw it across the dark ages into the radiant future. The moment o f sudden meeting was bright, but he said Gogol' “you" and Gogol' answered “Thee.’’ Meanwhile, the city has changed. [...] The city in Rozhdestvensky’s poem differs distinctly from both Gorodetsky’s “Petrogradskie viden’ia” and Briusov's “K Petrogradu.” It is called Petersburg not Petrograd. and that is more than a retrospective gesture. Petersburg is shown as an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 eternal city of poets where, as on the legendary Parnassus. Rozhdestvensky’s contemporaries meet with Evgenii Baratynsky. Anton Del'vig, Fedor Glinka, and Alexander Pushkin. The poets o f Pushkin's Pleiade are neither the mere phantoms nor the emblematic names. Their presence in the poem is intertextual. For instance, the yellow and ash-gray colors o f the sky in the opening stanza correspond with the golden and silver palette of Glinka's Petersburg poem "Kartiny" f Pictures]. The question addressed to a friend in the last stanza ("Tae rbi?” [Where are you?]) suggests the borrowing from Baratynsky's "Poslanie k B[aronu] DeFvigu” [Epistle to B[aron] Del’vig]. in which it is repeated three times. The center of the Petersburg universe shifts in Rozhdestvensky's poem from the Bronze Horseman or Nevsky Prospect to the blue-and-white house on the Moika where Pushkin lived the last years o f his life. While St. Isaac's Cathedral and the monument to Peter the Great are pushed out to the last stanza. Pushkin's house in the middle stanza o f the poem becomes its focal point. It turns into the memorial shrine of St. Petersburg culture, the place o f pilgrimage.2 7 The time in Rozhdestvensky’s poem also signifies the sacral meaning o f this pilgrimage. The mentioning o f the "willows of sunny week” in the end o f March or in April points to Willow Sunday. It is the Russian Orthodox equivalent of Palm Sunday, the holiday that commemorates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, greeted by the same crowd that in less than a week would demand his death. The Christian connotation is intertwined with the idea o f the poet's martyrdom. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 Blok in his speech commemorating Pushkin in February o f 1921, stresses the idea of the immanent conflict between the poet and the rabble (ch ern ') in the result of which the poet is doomed to perish: riocneztHee neitcTBHe a p a M b i 3aKJUOHaeTCH a 6opb6e noaTa c n e p H b io [...] O ho 3aKaHHHBaeTCH Bcerjta niSe.ibio noaTa, Kan HHCTpyMeHTa, KOTopbifi p'/KaBeeT h TepaeT 3ByHHOCTb b vc;io b h « x oKpywaiomeft BHeuiHefi > k h 3h h . 3Ta >KH3Hb npaBa, eft HHHero, KpoMe nonb3bt He HyxcHO, Sojibiuee— una Hee Bpar, h 6 o o h o CTpe.MHTca ymmTOJKHTb ee, HToflbi co3itaTb na ee stecTe HOBytO >KH3Hb. HHCTpyMCHT THOHeT, 3BVKH, HM pOHtaeHHbie, OCTaiOTCJt H npoao.T/KatoT cojteitcTBOBaTb t o h caMoft LtejiH, anx KOTopofl hc k v c c tb o h co3aaHo: HcnbiTbtBaTb cepaua, npoit3BonnTb o to o p b rpyaax HenoBenecKoro ui:iaKa, joGbtBaTb neHeaoBenecKoe— 3Be3^Hoe, aeMotiHHecKoe. anrenbCKoe. jta>Ke— n To.tbKo 3Bepnnoe— H3 6btcTo naymeft Ha v6butb nopoabi, Koropaa h o c h t Ha3BaHtte "He.ioBeHecKoro poaa", hbho necoBepmeHna h ao.T/Kua obtTb 3a.\teHeHa oo.iee coBeptueHHoft nopoitoH cyurecTB. [The last act o f the drama consists o f the poet's struggle with the rabble [...]. It always ends in the death o f the poet as an instrument that rusts and loses its sonority in the circumstances of the surrounding extrinsic life. This life is right, it does not need anything but utility, everything else is its enemy because it strives to destroy this life and to create a new one instead. The instrument perishes but the sounds it gave birth to remain and continue to serve the very same goal for which the art exists: to try the hearts, to select from the heaps o f human slag, and to discover the non-human— starry, demonic, angelic, even— and only— bestial— among the receding species that are called '’humankind," are obviously imperfect, and have to be changed for a more perfect species.]2 8 It is significant that Blok constantly uses the word "poet" instead o f “Pushkin." It allows him, while talking about Pushkin’s death, to universalize the conflict. On the other hand, it provokes a personal projection to Blok himself. Addressing Pushkin’s tragic end only half a year before his own death in August o f 1921, Blok contemplates his personal destiny and the destiny o f the poets o f his generation. Quoting Pushkin’s poem “Poet i tolpa" [The Poet and the Mob], he translates the metaphorical sweeping Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 o f the “noisy streets” into a very up-to-date argument in the discussion on the utilitarian aspect of art: Ohh rpe6yiOT o t noaia no;ib3bi. omi TpeoyiOT. HToobt oh “CMeTait cop” c hx "yjiHU uiyMHbix”. noTOMy hto He Mory’T. He yMeioT h, we>K^y npoHHM, HHKorjta He cyMeioT Bocnojib30BaTbCfl SojibuiHM. tcm . hto npeaaaraeT hm H03T. [From the poet, they require utility, they require him to “sweep the sweepings” o ff their “noisy streets” because they cannot, do not know how' and, by the way, w ill never be able to use this great gift that is offered to them by the poet.]2 4 From the beginning o f the 1920s, the "productional" view of art brought together the artists and writers o f Proletcult3 0 and various Constructivist groups and became an aggressive slogan o f the epoch. While Aleksei Gan. Osip Brik. El Lissitzky. Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Vladim ir Tatlin shared the general enthusiasm for industrial design. Blok, one of theSymbolism old guard, continued to believe that the poet had a greater gift to offer. There w as another contemporary subtext for the transformation o f the "sw eeping” metaphor into a literal reality o f life: in the era o f War Communism, sw eeping the streets was one o f the jobs the St. Petersburg intelligentsia were forced to do according to the law o f compulsory labor. Certain exceptions w ere made for artists during the revolutionary celebrations and street festivals. For instance, in the fall of 1918, the newspaper Vestnik obshchestvenno-politicheskoi zhizni, iskusstva, teatra i literaiury [The Herald o f Social and Political Life, Art. Theater, and Literature] stated: At the present moment, the artists of all kind (painters, sculptors, and architects), writers, actors, and musicians are called for the state art works creating the propaganda monuments, staging the October celebration, etc. The Committee o f the People's Enlightenment decreed that the artists are Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 dismissed from the compulsory labor with the certificates issued by the proper Departments.3 1 However, it is the closure o f Blok’s speech on Pushkin that provides the most crucial autobiographic parallel and sheds the light on the phenomenon o f the “late Blok.” The poet who fell silent after he composed Dvenadtsat' [The Twelve] and who bitterly ascertained in his diary a sense o f his alienation to the new order, talks about Pushkin's death not as a tragedy for the national culture but rather as a predestined and ordinary occurrence: m je fic T B H T e n b H o , b 3 to m n p o u e c c e h HeT p o b h o H H H ero “ o H H in a io m e ro ” , HMKaKoro K a ra p c H ca ; n p o H c xo ;tH T 6 o p i.6 a cy m c cT B , paB iio HecoBepuieHHbix, BCJieacTBHe Hero nofieaa He ocraeTCH h h ia Kew: h h 3a iio i h S iiih m , ifh 3a u o ry o u B u w M . T o t , k to dbmaer " b c c x im m to xc iic h m « k AeTeil HHHTo>KHbrx Mupa”. He ecTb Kanoe-To HeoobiHafiHoe cymecTBo, Hbeii ih G c jih c o n y ic i ByioT iie o c c tib ie 3iiaMCHHH; tu k> kc h t o t , k t o n o iy 6 n ji. uc ecTb npeacTaBHTenb KaKofi-HHoyztb ocooeHHoii cimbi; 3 to — qepHb KaK ucpiib. [I]ndccd, there is nothing “cleansing” in this process, no catharsis at all. It is a struggle o f the creatures equally imperfect, and as a result, nobody wins— neither the destroyed nor the destroyer. I Ic who could be “the most worthless among the worthless children of the world” is not some extraordinary- creature whose death is accompanied by the celestial signs; similarly, the one who destroyed him, does not represent some remarkable force; it is just a rabble.]3 2 This devaluation o f the mystical and cataclysmic conflict between the poet and the rabble that kills him is Blok’s personal realization. The reality o f Petrograd life in 1921 indeed proved better than any words that poets, as Gumilev and Blok himself, were fragile and were sentenced to perish. Blok died o f endocarditis complicated by severe malnutrition and nervous exhaustion; he had not reached his forty-first birthday. Gumilev was at the age o f thirty-five when he was arrested as a member o f the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 Petrograd Military Organization plotting an uprising against the Soviet regime and shot by the Petrograd Cheka (Extraordinary Commission). Gumilev’s execution in August o f 1921 shocked Russian intelligentsia. A legend about the circumstances o f his arrest was immediately created in Petrograd using Pushkin's case o f 1825 as an archetypal scenario. According to a popular belief, Pushkin, recalled from exile by Nicholas 1 for interrogation after the Decembrists uprising, told the emperor that he would have joined his mutinous friends had he been in St. Petersburg on December 14. 1825. In a similar manner. Gumilev admitted to his investigator that if there were a hypothetical anti-Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. he "in all probability" would be able "to gather and lead a band o f passers by, using the general mood o f opposition." ’3 The records o f the interrogations published in the 1990s indicate that Gumilev was not trying to hide his monarchist and anti-Bolshevik views. O f course, no record would unveil the mystery of whether or not he was indeed consciously following the model o f the 1825 political trial but it is obvious that the new inquisitors were not eager to forgive a poet. Gumilev paid the ultimate price with his life, but, as Solomon Volkov poetically formulated it. "sprinkled w ith fresh blood, the Petersburg mythos took on a new life.',j4 the life beyond death and sufferings. Khodasevich wrote in his article "Dom Iskusstv" [The House o f Arts] again uniting the names o f St. Petersburg and o f Pushkin: [I"I]eTep6ypry oKa3aiiocb k jnmy HecMacTbe. rieTepSypr cTaa BeniiMecTBeHeH. [...] Ecn> moan, KOTopue b rpo6y xopoineioT: Tax, KaHceTcn, obijio c n yu iK H H b iM . HecoMHeHHO, Tax obuto c fleTepSypro.M. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 [M]isfortune appeared to suit Petersburg. Petersburg became solemn. [...] There are people who grow better looking on the deathbed: it seems that is what happened to Pushkin. It definitely happened to Petersburg.]3 5 The beautiful and solemn necropolis, post-revolutionary Petersburg recalled a “Museum of history and culture temporary closed for visitors."J b Preserved from complete destruction by the titanic efforts o f its intelligentsia, the city in its new function o f a museum “opened for visitors” in 1921. In that year, the Old St. Petersburg society was founded by the initiative of the scholars Ivan Grevs and Nikolai Antsiferov to study local lore. They also created the Petrograd Excursion Research Institute, which elaborated the new methods of systematic analysis of the city's topography. monuments, and landscape, as well as its economy and social life. In his lectures and seminars on the literary heritage o f St. Petersburg and on excursion strategies, and in his books Diisha Peterburga [The Soul o f St. Petersburg] (1922 ). Peterburg Dostoevskogo [Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg] (1923). and B y l' i m if Peterburga [Truth and Myth o f St. Petersburg] (1924). Antsiferov suggested a synthetic approach to St. Petersburg. In the 1920s. Antsiferov wrote fifteen books and twenty-nine articles on local lore and urban cultural studies. The necessity of such an undertaking was existential. Grevs explained this urge, introducing Antsiferov’s first book to the reader: B 3noxn Kpn3ncoB bcjihkhx Ky.ibTyp ocofieHHo ocTpo npooyacaaeTca co3HaHHe coztepacauuixca b h h x ztyxoBHbix ueHHOCTeft, ocooeHHO apno nozuniMaeTca nyBCTBo . h o o b h k h h m h BNiecTe c Text ^e.naHHe h xaatzta xpaHHTb h x h 3ammuaTb. [...] Korna Ko.neS.neTca aonHeHHOCTb bcjihkoh KyjibTypbi. cepzme neBo.ibHO BJieneTca norpv3HTbca b Hee, nynrne ee pa3raziaTb. c.tHTbca c Heio TecHee. B nacTHOcTH, xoaczteHHe no naMHTHHKa.Ni ee CTaHOBHTCH npn 3to m cneuH^imecKH aoporHM ztenoM, xoneTCH ocofieHHO acryne npoHHKHVTb b TafiHy to to, irro o hh roBopaT. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 [In the time o f crisis o f great cultures, the realization o f their spiritual treasures becomes especially powerful, the love for them as well as desire and zeal to save and protect them grows especially strong. [...] When the vitality o f a great culture is threatened, our hearts unconsciously desire to plunge into it, to unriddle it, and to melt with it. In particular, touring its monuments becomes an especially dear endeavor. We greatly desire to solve the mystery o f their message.]3 7 It was this fascination with the mystery of the old St. Petersburg that led to nostalgia and a peculiar retrospectivism. After the myth of St. Petersburg culture was carefully cataloged and described in the 1920s, a new myth began to crystallize— that o f Leningrad— on the basis o f this museification. I Sharon Leiter. A khm atova 's Petersburg (Philadelphia: University o f Pennsylvania Press. 1983), 75. : On the semiotics o f fire and water in the diverse religious accounts o f the “last journey" see Michel Ragon. The Space o f Death. A Study o f Funerary• A rchitecture. D ecoration, and Urbanism (Charlottesville: University Press ol'Virginia, 1983), 65-71. ' Pod sozvezdiem topora, 498. 4 Clark, 157. 5 “Strazha na Neve” [On the Watch above the Neva] was the title o f introductory text in the collection o f articles P eterburg i M oskva (St. Petersburg. 1918), column 30. The article was written by the famous historian and religious philosopher G . P. Fedotov but appeared untitled in the collection. 6 Dated July 2. 1922.— Somov. 209. Another entry in the diary’ made on M ay 12, 1920 is pleased and optimistic: [ri]oc.ne o6eaa xoaua b Ek-aTepHnrotJ), ciiaea Taxi Ha nHe it .iio6oBajics BeceHHefi cBe/Keii lejieHbio. ^Bopeu He mnbKO He pa3pyuieH, ho ja w e nonpaBii.iii. Cae.iana tum hobba Teppaca, 6a.nocTpaaa, bmccto crmiBunix. [...] [A ]fter dinner, I went to Ekaterinhof, sat there on a stub, and admired the fresh spring greenery. Not only the palace has not been destroyed but they even restored it. New terrace and balustrade were constructed instead o f the decayed ones. [...] Ibid.. 199. 7 Ibid.. 202. ' Alexandre Benois. D ia n - (Archive o f the Institute o f M odem Russian Culture), 152-170. Ibid., 163. Iu “ Bratskie mogily na Marsovom pole,” P etrogradskaia gazeta (1917, March 16, No. 64), 4. II Eugenie A. Korvin-Kroukovsky. D iary’ (Hoover Institution Archives, 71011 -10.V ), 21-22. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 12 “Pokhorony pavshikh bortsov za svobodu,” Petrogradskaia gazeta (1917, March 25, No. 71), 2. 1 3 It can be seen on a photograph from the Hoover Archive (Russian Pictorial, X X 7 64-1 0.A V ) Env. AP. 14 Benois. D ia ry , 140. 1 5 B. V . “ V Anichkovom dvortse,” Ekho (1918, January 29, No. 19), 2. 16 50 let Pushkinskogo Dom a (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1956), 5-27. 17 V. N. Baskakov. P ushkinskii Dom (Leningrad: Nauka. 1988), 19. 1 1 1 Ibid., 49. In 1918. the manuscript collection moved into the apartment o f the late academician A. A. Shakhmatov. From 1920 till 1925, the former mansion o f Prince Abamelik-Lazarev on M illionnaia Street housed the conferences and exhibitions o f the institute. In 1922, the Pushkin House moved into the Old Merchants’ Row on Tiflisskaia Street; then, in 1925. it received one o f the premises o f the Academy of Science located on Tuchkov Embankment. Finally, in 1927 the Pushkin House occupied the neighboring building o f the former St. Petersburg custom house. :o Blok, D nevnik, 330. 31 The Petersburg House o f Literati was organized in Spring o f 1920. Volynsky was elected its chair, and Blok, Komei Chukovsky, G or’ky, Koni, and Viacheslav Shishkov formed the board o f directors. As its main goals, the institution proclaimed financial and nutritional aid to the St. Petersburg literati and the organization o f literary evenings. Dom Iskusstv (Petrograd. 1921, I ), 73. -;lb id . 1 2 1 . 23 A. Blok. D n evnik (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia. 1989). 329-31. 34 Clark, 157. 35 For an account o f Pushkin celebrations in the nineteenth century see Marcus C. Levitt. Russian Literary P o litic s a n d the Pushkin C elebration o f 1880 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). 36 Among the most recent publications on Pushkin and Russia’s Silver Age are Boris Gasparov, Robert P. Huges, and Irina Papemo, eds. C u ltu ra l M ythologies o f Russian M odernism : From the G olden A ge to the S ilver Age (Berkeley: University o f California Press. 1992) and Brian Horowitz. The M yth o f A. S. Pushkin in Russia 's S ilve r Age: M O Gershenzon. Pushkinist (Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 1996). ' The building (M o ika. 12) became a part o f the Pushkin House and a museum o f Pushkin's life only in 1925. Before then, it remained an apartment building, and a family lived in the poet’s apartment. ** Blok. D nevnik, 335. Ibid. 1 ( 1 Proletkult was the proletarian culture organization formed in February o f 1917 and led by Aleksandr Bogdanov. Jl "Osvobozhdenie deiatelei iskusstva ot trudovoi povinnosti." I estnik obshchestvenno-politicheskoi zhizni, iskusstva, tea tra i lite ra tim (September 25. 1918, No. 7), 3. 53 Blok. 335. 33 Volkov, 235. 34 Ibid., 237. j5 Khodasevich. “ Dom Iskusstva” in Lite ra tu rn ye s ta t’i i vospom inaniia (New York: Izdatel’stvo imeni Chekhova. 1954), 400. 3‘ Milashevsky, 180. ” Ivan Grevs. “ Predislovie." N. P. Antsiferov. D uslia Peterburga ( St. Petersburg: Brokgauz-Effon, 1922), 9. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Conclusion City as Collective Memory' 163 Years o f political turmoil, economic crisis, and establishment of the oppressive Bolshevik regime brought the most traumatic experience in the life of St. Petersburg citizens; in dealing with these problems, they created the new image of their city. St. Petersburg, as opposed to Petrograd and Leningrad, became their refuge, the ideal locale to which they were striving to return. Although the passeislic tendency was characteristic of the city's culture since the beginning o f the century, it developed a very different flavor in the 1920s. The cultural preservationists o f the World o f Art circle idealized the neoclassical city of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and rejected contemporary St. Petersburg. After the revolution however, it was the St. Petersburg o f the early twentieth century that was most idealized. The year o f 1913. the last > ear before World War I. became the chronotope that attracted artists and writers of the post-revolutionary city. Anna Akmatova's untitled poem, written in 1917. contained one o f the first artistic references to that boundary' year: T o t pojioc, c th u ih h o h bcjihkoh cnopa. no6ejty oaepacaji Haa th u ih h o h . Bo mhc etue. KaK necHJt hjih rope. rioc.Te^HJut 3HMa nepe:t b o h h o h . Benee c b o h o b CMonbHoro coGopa, TaHHCTBeHHeii, neM nbiuiHbiu JleTHHii caa, OHa 6biJia. He 3Hajtn m u , h to CKopo B Tocxe npe^e.ibHOH no maun m Ha3ait. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 [That voice arguing with the great silence gained a victory over the silence. The last winter before the war is still within me like a song or a sorrow. It was whiter than the vaults o f the Smolny Cathedral, more mysterious than the splendid Summer Garden. We did not know that soon we would look back in extreme anguish.] Many St. Petersburg intellectuals shared that feeling o f “extreme anguish” for the epoch that had forever passed. Some started to call their city “Leterburg” 1 — the combination of the words "Leningrad" and "Peterburg." which contains an allusion to Lethe, the river of forgetfulness whose waters cause the loss of memory in those who drink o f it. Others responded by pretending that nothing had happened, continuing to live in the parallel reality o f the pre-war and pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. The graphic works of Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, a member of the World o f Art group, provide an interesting example o f that tendency to ignore the changes: her post-revolutionary cityscapes depict the same beautiful but empty and cold neoclassical St. Petersburg she always portrayed, with no signs o f the new epoch. In 1917 and 1918. during the time of trouble and chaotic disorder, Ostoumova's older colleague Konstantin Somov was w orking on his second edition of Le Livre de la Marquise [The Book of the Marquise] and left the most telling notes in his diary: 25 [oKTJiSpH 1917 r.] CeroitHK noGeaa SojtbuieBHKOB. Co6biTHH. 27 [okth6 ph 1917 r.] He pa6oTan. Tynan no MopcicoH k 3HMHeMy jBoptxy. H 3 Hero nyna.iH no HabepexotoH. [...] 28 [o kth6 ph 1917 r.] MeHcnyyco6Haa BofiHa. [...] Cpenn cnyxoB laHHNiaeMCH 6e3Mjrre>KHbiM: OTbiCKHBaeM Ha3BaHHa nna pncyHKOB h BttHbeTOK TexcTaana “Le Livre'a” [...] [25 [of October, 1917.] The Bolsheviks took over today. The events. 27 [of October.] I did not work. Took a stroll along Morskaya to the Winter Palace. They were firing guns at the embankment from there. [...] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 28 [of October.] The internecine war. [...] Amidst the rumors, we have a serene occupation— we are finding titles for the drawings and text vignettes for Le L iv re .]' Somov's reading list in December o f 1917 included Boccaccio’s Decameron in the original and La Prusse Galante [Gallant Prussia], a collection of gossips about Berlin high society o f the eighteenth century/ Vladimir Milashevsky, venomously reducing Somov's work during the first post-revolutionary years to the representation o f "a marquise peeing on a chamber pot." admitted that his own oeuvre also revealed traces o f a similar escapism: B n p o itevi. h Beab To>Ke. noxt rpo.\i K poim m m TC K oft KanoHaaw b stapre 1921 roaa. pncoBa.’i cbohx KaBuaepoB x m Cosi fa n tuite MouapTa! [Though 1 too. during the thunder o f the Kronstadt cannonade in March of 1921. was drawing my cavaliers for Mozart’s Cosi fa n tutte '.f In cases o f such escapism, the major political upheaval shared by St. Petersburg intellectuals was turned into a silent event about which they actively avoided talking. According to the Moscow-Tartu school, culture is a phenomenon that exists as collective memory that therefore relies upon the dialogical interaction o f its members. Thus "culture [...] creates a social sphere around man which, like the biosphere, makes life possible; that is. not organic life, but social life."5 The attempt to suppress unwanted thoughts and to pretend that nothing had changed could not last long and ultimately failed under the dire circumstances. The tendency to "look back in extreme anguish," however, became one o f the important characteristics o f St. Petersburg’s post Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 revolutionary culture. It was echoed in the last lines o f Mandel’shtam’s 1922 poem "Vek” [Age]: [H]o pa36HT TBOH rt03B0H0HHHK, Moii n p eK p acH b iii w ajiK M ii b c k . H c 6eccMbicJieHHofi yjibi6KOfi Bcn«Tb rjiflitHUib, wecTOK h cna6, Cjiobho 3Bepb, Koraa-To rn 6 K n ii, H a c.ncvtbi c b o h x w e n a n . [B]ut your spine is broken, my beautiful and pathetic age. Cruel and weak, you look backwards with a senseless smile, like a beast that is no longer lissome looks at the traces of its paws.] The term collective memory can be traced back to the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Each questioned the assumption that memory resides in the individual. Halbwachs addressed the topic in his fundamental study On Collective Memory, and Vygotsky in his book M ind in Society: The Development o f Higher Psychological Processes presented a theory o f the mind. Halbwachs asserted that all memories are formed and organized w'ithin a collective context. Virtually all events, experiences, and perceptions are shaped by individuals' interactions with others. Society, then, provides the framework for beliefs and behaviors and recollections of them. Vygotsky’s assumptions were similar in noting that adult memory' is dependent on society or community. The social mechanism guiding memories is language— the primary symbol system that defines the framework for individuals’ memories. Art and literature are among the mechanisms that help to keep collective memories alive. The nostalgic image o f St. Petersburg that many o f its citizens embraced in the 1920s could serve as a perfect example o f the process of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 collective memory. While the official Soviet ideology emphasized the nineteenth- century cliche of the reactionary and vile character o f St. Petersburg, the city's intellectuals consolidated in creating the idealized St. Petersburg o f their dreams. O f course, it was the classical St. Petersburg of Falconet and Rossi, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky but most of all it was St. Petersburg o f the 1900s and the early 1910s that they chose to escape to from contemporary Leningrad. American scholar James W. Pennebaker. after studying various examples, found that approximately every twenty or thirty years individuals and societies look back and reconstruct their pasts.h In the 1920s and 1930s. looking back from the necessary psychological distance that helped to soothe and lessen pain o f the loss. St. Petersburg intellectuals were enchanted by the city o f their childhood and youth. Sergei Gomv's tale Sanki-Peterburg [St. Petersburg], published in Munich in 1925. is a Proustian narration marked by "the desire to come back to an idealized past."7 Unforgettable and beloved. St. Petersburg is the central character o f Gomy's tale: M H o ro neT MOMcer npofrnt. no ae taobiTb MHe MiiroB h ohhkob npouutoro. nayTHHOK b na.\um i— KaK He 3aobiTb pojmiKii na .tim e hioohmoh. JlHUO JIIOOHMOft. CaHKT-fIeTep6ypr. [Many years may pass, but I will never forget the moments and specks of the past, the gossamers of memory— as one cannot forget the face o f the beloved. The face o f the beloved. St. Petersburg.]8 Recalling is the theme and the narrative technique o f the story that starts with the words "51 Bcerjta BcnoMUHaio" [I always recall]. Almost every other paragraph contains either Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 a similar statement or a reassuring question addressed to the reader (“Bbi noMHHTe?” [Do you remember?]) and rhetorical exclamation (“HHicoraa 3Toro He 3a6biTb!'” [One can never forget!]). Gomy appeals to collective memories about St. Petersburg o f the beginning o f the century' that he shares with his readers— hence his constant use of collective personal and possessive pronouns (we, us, our). All that they have left is memory, and they preserve, cherish, and distort these memories towards perfection: ro c n o ^ n ! E cjih ne 3ac.iy>Kn:iii. irro 6 b i B epnyviocb. n y c rb n p iu e T HOBoe. coBceM HOBoe, HHoe,— ho nvcTb oepevKuo ocTaHeTca no.a OBanbHbiM cTeicnoM HepyuiHM oe n im o 3ano B e;uto e. xpenK o. naBeKH cp o an en n oe mmo C pOm iHKa.MH. CMeUlHbI.MlI nHTHbllllK aM H. M O puniH K aM H vnHttbi. J Ih u o GeccMepTHoe. C aH k t - rie T e p 6 y p r . [Oh, Lord! If we do not deserve that it returns, let the new begin, totally new and different. But let that face, inviolable and blessed, remain behind an oval frame, the forever-affined face with birthmarks, funny spots, and wrinkles of the street. The immortal face. St. Petersburg.]9 Together with remembering, another refrain constructs the narration— the desire to forget and to repress negative memories that parallel the traumatic events: “XoneTca, [...] HToSbi HHHero 6oJibuie He 6biJio. He 3HaTb t o h >KH3HH, h to Hacrynmia noTOM” [You wish [...] that nothing else has happened and that you do not know the life which began afterwards].1 0 The process o f forgetting also includes that which is negative in the past, and Gomv’s St. Petersburg shines as a kaleidoscope o f festive images. In the introduction to Sankt-Peterburg. Ivan Lukash stresses the nostalgic quality o f the text: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 3 to ManeHbKHH CaHKT-neTep6ypr H3 tuxaTyjixH aeTCTBa, Korna m h 6buiH rHMHa3HCT3MH, roHHJincb no nbay Ha ‘MtxcaxcoHreHxax”, neTajiH Ha 3 eJieHbix caHKax nepe3 HeBy k Ceiiary, bho;ib eabmixa na Geabix cyrpo6ax, TpHCJMCb k nepBOMy ypoxy no TopoxoBOH b CTapymxe-xyxymxe... 3 t o t MajieHbKHH CaHKT-neTep6ypr— cxa3xa o to m , h to y>xe 6buio h h to Gyaer xoraa-HHoyab ohobu. [It is a small Saint Petersburg from a box o f childhood when we were schoolboys, chased each other in our ice-skates, rushed in green sleighs across the Neva to the Senate, along the fir-grove in white snowdrifts, and jogged in a good old horse-car on Gorokhovaia on the way to our first class... This small Saint Petersburg is a tale about what has already happened and what will again happen sometime.]1 1 A poem by another emigrant. Nikolai Agnivtsev. provides a similar image o f the city that fits into a box o f memory: this time it is a matchbox produced by St. Petersburg Lapshin’s Factory, nationalized and renamed after the revolution: Kax B3j3porny.i .\io3r. xax cepjue oxaaocb! Becb zteHb 6e3 caoB. bch nonb Gea cna!.. CerojtHK b pvKH Mne nonaaacb Kopooxa cnimex "JlanuniHa"... Ax. cepauc— paG Gbiabix npiiBbinex! I I nepea hum BiueHbesi. Bapyr. I I 3 Maaeubxofi xopooxn cnnnex Bcraa Becb ruraHTcxjifi Flerepoypr: HcaxHH, IleTp, HeBa KpecTOBcxtiH. CT03B0HH0-naemyutHfi nacca>K, W naaBHbifi KaMeHHoocTpoBaxnfi. H oacHocaoBHbm 3pMHTa>x. H nepBOH paaocTH 3apHimbi, H rpycTH nepBaa cae3a, H HbH-To aaHHHbie pecHHitbi. H HbH-To cepbie raa3a... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 rioHMeTe ,nb b h , Mysore crpaHbi, MeHH b 6e3yMHH MoeM?.. B ejb 3to lOHocTb H3 TyMaHa M ne NiauieT oe.abiM pyKaBOM!.. flocaeaHHM uionoTOM npiiBeTa O t rieTep6ypra JiHuib ojiHa OcTajiacb M H e, Bcero numb, oTa— Kopooxa cmmex "JlammiHa” . .. [How the mind is trembling, how the heart is wrung! All day without a word, all night without sleeping!... I found today a matchbox from “Lapshin.” Ah, heart— a slave of past habits! And as a sudden vision in front of it, the whole gigantic Petersburg rose from the tiny matchbox: St. Isaac's, Peter, the Neva. Krestovsky, the Passage splashing like the hundreds o f chimes, smooth Kamennoostrovsky, and the fabulous Hermitage, the dawns o f the first happiness, the first tear o f sorrow, someone's long eyelashes, and someone's gray eyes.... W ill you. the foreign lands, understand me in my madness?... You know, it is my Youth that waves to me from the mist with its white sleeve!... Like the last w hisper o f greeting, all I have left from the w hole Petersburg is that matchbox from “Lapshin.”] For Agnivtsev too. St. Petersburg is a kind o f Holy Land or enchanted island to which the poet cannot return physically (not only because he is in emigration but because the city no longer exists) but to which he can travel in his dreams and memories. A variant o f the same theme could be found in another o f Agnivtsev's poems: B KoHCTaHTHHonojte y rypxa Bana/ica. nopBatt n 3ara»eH, “njtaH ropoaa CaHKT-rieTep6ypra" ("B KBaapaTHOM atoitMe— 300 ca>xeH...") H B3aporHy.ni BocnoMHHaHbJt!.. H 3a\tep m ar... H B3op moh BjiaaceH... B Moen TocKe, xax h Ha naaHe: — “B XBajtpaTHOM mofiMe— 300 caaceH!.. ” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 [In a Turkish store in Constantinople, all tom and dirty, lay “The Map o f the City o f St. Petersburg” (“One square inch equals 300 sagenes...") And the memories started!... M y steps slowed down.... M y eyes are w et.... In my grief, like on the map, “one square inch equals 300 sagenes\..."} Nostalgia for old St. Petersburg is not predetermined by the fact o f emigration. Those who remained in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s shared the same feeling. Refusing to call the city “Leningrad,” they also created the idealized St. Petersburg. One o f the peculiar examples of the distortion and perfection image of the city is Mandel'shtam's untitled poem written in 1925. Returning to Leningrad from Moscow, the poet greets his city, deliberately calling it "Petersburg" not "Leningrad": Bbi c KBaaparHbiMH oKomKa.Mii tteBbicoKne aosta.— 3apaBCTByn, 3apaBCTByfi. nerepovprcK aa necypoBaa 3HMa. H TopnaT. xaK luvkh peSpa.MH. He3aMep3ume KaTKii. H eme b npoxo>KHX c.ieneHbKitx BaaaiorcH KoubKH. A aaBHO ;ih no xanaay ri.ibia c KpaciibiM ooAiiroM ronnap. ripoaaBaa c rpainiTiion aecenKn aoopocoBecTHbiii TOBap. XoflJtT SoTbi, xoaaT cepbie y PocTnHoro aBopa, I I caMa cooofi canpaeTca c MatuapunoB KOAypa. H b MemoHKe KO(J)nft A apen b ifl, npa.vio c x o a o a y aoMon, OjieKTpHHeCKOK) MeJlbHHIteft CMOJIOT MOKKO 30JI0T0H. IIIoKOJiaitHbie, KHpnHHHbte, HeBbicoKHe a o \ia . 3apaBCTB>'H, 3itpaBCTByH, neTepoyprcKaa HecypoBaa 3HMa. H npneMHbie c poaaaMH. rae no xpecaaM paccaa«B, JloKTopa Koro-To noTnyioT BopoxaMH cTapbix “H hb” . flo c a e oaHH. n ocae onepw . Bee paBHO. tcyaa h h m ao . BecToaKOBoe nocaeaH ee rpaMBaHHoe Tenao. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 [The short buildings with square windows,— hello, hello to you, Petersburg warm winter. The skating-rinks are not frozen and stick out their ribs, like a pike, and the skates still lie in the dark antechambers. Was it a long time ago that a potter with red pottery was boating down the canal selling his quality product from the granite steps? The gray galoshes walked by the Gostiny Dvor, and the rind peeled o ff the oranges by itself. Roasted coffee in a small bag— home from the cold street— golden mocha was ground in the electric mill. The chocolate, brick, short buildings.— hello, hello to you, Petersburg warm winter. Waiting rooms with the grand pianos where, sitting their clients in the armchairs, the doctors treated them to the piles o f the old \'iv a issues. After the baths, after the opera— no matter where to— in the remaining foolish warmness o f a streetcar.] This warmness of St. Petersburg presents a striking contrast to the ice-bound city of Mandel'shtam's both pre- and post-revolutionary poetry and prose and owes its appearance to the deforming mechanism o f memory. In the works o f the late 1920s and 1930s. such as A. Egunov's Bespredmetnaia iunosi' [Non-Objective Youth], Daniil K.harms' Komediia goroda Peterhurga [The Comedy o f the City o f Petersburg], and Konstantin Vaginov's Kozlinaia pesn' [Goat Song], old St. Petersburg appears as the cultural treasury opposed to Leningrad's lack o f spirituality. Escaping the reality, the intellectuals seek shelter in a city that exists not on the maps but in their dreams. They inhabit this city w ith their own shadows and the ghosts o f those who are dear to them. and they mourn the loss o f St. Petersburg, as in the epilogue of Akhmatova's Poema be: geroia [Poem without a Hero]: 51 c to 6 o io Hepa3JiyHHMa, Tem> Mojr Ha CTenax t b o h x . OTpaaceHbe woe b KaHanax, 3 b >'k m aroB b DpMiiTaxcHbix aanax, Dae co m h o io m o h a p y r SpoztHJi, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 W Ha crrapoM Bojikobom none, Tne Mory h p b iaaT b Ha Bone, Han 6e3MOJiBbeM 6paTCKHX MorHJi. [I am inseparable from you, my shadow is on your walls, my reflection is in your canals, the sound o f my footsteps is in the I lermitage halls where my friend wandered with me and on old Volkovo Field where I can sob freely over the silence of fraternal graves.] 1 Coined by Daniil Kharms in 1926, this neologism became widespread in the intellectual circles of Leningrad. SeeG . S. Knabe. G rotesknyi epilog klassicheskoi dram v A ntich no st' v Leningrade 20-kh godov (Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitete. 1996). 22. ' ’ Somov, 183. I Ibid.. 184. 4 Milashevsky, 241. 5 Yu. M . Lotman and B. A. Uspensky. "On the Semiotic Mechanism o f Culture." Xew L ite ra ry H isto ry (1978. IX : 2), 213. ” Pennebaker. James W „ and Becky L. Banasik. "On the Creation and Maintenance o f Collective Memories: History as Social Psychology" in C ollective M em ory o f P o litic a l Events: S ocial P sychological Perspectives (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1997), 3-19. ' J. Kleiner. "On Nostalgia" in The W o rld o t Em otions (New York: International University Press. 1977). II. * Sergei G om yi. Sankt-Peterhurg (Munich: Milavida. 1925). 12. 4 Ibid.. 16. Ibid.. 30. II Ivan Lukash. Introduction to Sergei Gorny i. Sankt-Peterhurg, 6. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bibliography 174 Agnivtsev, Nikolai. B lista te l’nyi Sanki-Peterburg. Berlin: Izdatel’stvo I. P. Ladyzhnikova, 1923. Akhmatova, Anna. Sochineniia v 2 tomakh. Ed. V. A. Chernykh. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia Iiteratura. 1990. Akimov, V. M. "Dorn iskusstv i 'Serapionovy brat’iaV ’ Literaturnaia gruppa "Serapionovy brat 'ia istuki. poiski, traditsii. mezhdunarodnyi kontekst. Mezhdunarodnaia konferentsiia. St. Petersburg. 1995.21-23. Alekseev. Gleb. ed. Peterburg v stikhotvoreniiakh russkikh poetov. Berlin: Sever. 1923. Anna Akmatova. T rikn ig i. Ann Arbor: Ardis. 1990. Annenkov. Iurii. Dncvnik moikh vstrech. Tsikl tragcdii. 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Creator Yudina, Ekaterina L (author)

Core Title Metropolis to necropolis: The St. Petersburg myth and its cultural extension in the late 1910s and 1920s

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Slavic Languages

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Art History,history, European,history, modern,Literature, Slavic and East European,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

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Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-581716

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