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The Russian metahistorical imagination and Russian fiction of perestroika
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The Russian metahistorical imagination and Russian fiction of perestroika
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NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. ® UMI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE RUSSIAN METAHISTORICAL IMAGINATION AND RUSSIAN FICTION OF PERESTROIKA Copyright 2005 by Amy Isaac Obrist A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) May 2005 Amy Isaac Obrist Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3180410 Copyright 2005 by Obrist, Amy Isaac All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS 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 bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send 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. ® UMI UMI Microform 3180410 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest 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. Table of Contents Abstract..... ............................................................................................................ ail Chapter 1: Introduction................................. ........................................................ 1 Chapter 2. ITieorelical Approach........................ 26 Chapter 3. Echoes of an Alternative Past: on Georgii Vladimov’s General i ego armiia and the Tradition of the Russian Historical Novel.....................................51 Chapter 4. Opening the Past: on Mikhail Kuraev’s Kapiton Dikshtein ...............190 Chapter 5. Utopias and Histories: On Mark Kharitonov’s Novel Linii sud’ hy, H i sunduchoh Milashevicha.....................................................................................292 Chapter 6. Conclusion..........................................................................................379 Works Cited................................. .............383 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 3 . Abstract la my dissertation, 1 investigate the use and impact of historical themes in Russian literary fiction of tiie perestroika period. The use of historical materia! in literary works has deep roots in Russian literature, and scholars such as Andrew Wachtel and Gary Saul Morson have established the traditional importance of works that operate at the boundary between history and literature and create dialogue about the nature of history and history-writing. This genre, which spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, can fee called metahistorical writing. Although the trend for metahistorical fiction to play an overtly politicized role in society waned in the early 1990s, it remained a dominant mode of writing in the wake of perestroika because it functioned as a forum for people to process their understanding of the nation’s past and their personal involvement in it by creating alternative histories through which Russian society has been able to begin evaluating its past and reconstructing new meanings and a new cultural identity. Instead of a defining Russian culture in terms ofLotman’s well-known negative type of “essential polarity,” metahistorical works validate a new, positive understanding of Russia’s boundary existence, and attempt to do so even in a historical sense. These works strive to change the nation’s perception of the past by representing its alternatives, a process that reveals the oversimplification and reductivity of the way Russia has been represented; it is possible that such works even, unconsciously attempt to show or increase the complexity of the past in order to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. redeem if, This functions as a paradox in regards to Lotman, who reduced Russian culture to a binary interpretation while suggesting that complexity is the desirable outcome of an artistic text. In the end, the past itself is not transformed, but rather its complexity is revealed retroactively is and through the artistic text, so that Russian cultural identity may be cansformed in the present and for the future. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ""[« > I jssian Metahistorical Imagination and Russian [-Ecstif,'.' 'rPemsimika Why remember? —Tengriz Abuladze, Repentance Chapter 1: Introduction In the Russian tradition, it is commonly said that literature plays the role of the nation’s conscience. This is especially the case when history or politics are themes of literature. Literary works have traditionally been taken very seriously in Russia by government as well as the reading public, and writers have understood and taken advantage of their position as mouthpieces for moral and social issues. As a result, the perestroika period, a time of intensive and profound questioning about Russia’s communist past, witnessed a surge of fictional works on historical themes; at a time when historians were unable to respond quickly enough to the popular demand for the “truth” regarding Russia’s past, writers took the ball and ran, publishing historical novels, stories, and plays that attempted to convey a sense of “what really happened” and to present “tacts” that had long been covered up about Russian history during Lenin’s and Stalin’s times, often with the aim of disparaging present political views they themselves were opposed to. Even as the closed book of the perestroika period in Soviet Russian literature receded .into the past, Russian writers continued to reflect on aspects of the nation's past in their works of fiction, creatively probing events of the past as well as the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 nature o f the historical process itself in works that can best be described as “metahistoricai.” Although the trend for metahistorical fiction to play an overtly politicized role In society watted by early in the 1990’s for a number of reasons (previously suppressed works of historical fiction had all been published, and historians have ever since that time been working to set the records straight in a way that has eliminated the need for writers to merely present historical material, among others) Russian critics have expressed approval that writers are finally able to focus less on their political views and more on their literary craft. There is a general feeling that this will lead to literature that is of higher artistic caliber. During perestroika, fiction on historical themes became a primary outlet to express political and social concerns. Because the Soviet government depended so heavily upon the myths it had created for its own legitimacy, the political changes introduced by Gorbachev necessarily led to a reopening of discussion about past politics, ie,, history. Gorbachev’s goal was to reassess the past and repudiate the legacy it left; Marsh notes that this reassessment, to some extent, became an end in itself. (Marsh “Reassessing” 91) Literature, albeit in the form of suppressed works, for a while provided virtually the only existing and universally accessible record of past alternatives to events in the political arena—history that might have been; Gorbachev’s policy o f glasnost’ , or openness, in regards to culture was therefore considered indispensable to the success of Ms political changes, Glasnost ' itself proceeded in a logical manner, at least at the beginning. Gorbachev’s immediate problem was to stimulate a very sluggish economy, and to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 this end he 'undertook to detank political,, economic, and cultural processes that had become institutions during the Stalin years, This process had already begun, to some extent, during previous thaw years under Khrushchev. Based on this, glasnost ’ opened political, social, m d economic policies tip lor discussion gradually, beginning with Stalinism, the least offensive topic for conservatives, and moving from the already-accepted to the not-yet-aeceptable areas of discourse: from the purges, collectivization, and camp terror, to his mishandling of the Second World War, to Leninism, to the Civil War and Revolutions—the latter of which by necessity called into question the very basis of the communist government’s legitimacy and ultimately led to Gorbachev’s and the Soviet government’s downfall. As had been the case during the Thaw years under Khrushchev, the publication and public discussion of literature addressing newly opened topics of discussion went hand in hand with political relaxation. At the beginning of perestroika, there was a significant body of literature available to serve the ends of glasnost', in the form of previously written but unallowable works that had either been published abroad, or not published at all. These included important works such as Rekviem, by Anna Akhmatova (published abroad and in samizdat), Arkhipeiag gulag, by Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn (first published abroad in 1973), Fakul 'tet nenuzhnykh veshchei by lurii Dombrovskii, Deti Arbata, by Anatolii Rybakov (finished in 1966, remained unpublished), Doktor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak (published in Italy in 1957), and Zhim 1 Sud’ ba (1960) by Vasilii Grossman, among Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 many others. The systematic publication of these works in the Soviet Union began early in . 1987. At the same time, writers readily took advantage of the opportunity to create .new works that reflected on Russia’s communist history. From 1987-91, .an enormous number of works of fiction were written (or completed) and published that took Soviet history as their topic, as writers took it upon themselves to retell what had happened, speculate on why it had happened, and interpret the meaning of past events for the present and fixture. This amounted to a nationwide, public discussion of history, yet historians themselves—partly because they had become too subservient to the communist system and furthermore because so much new information about the nation’s past was becoming available so quickly that it became difficult for anyone to verify information or soundly interpret it—were slow to the draw. Generally, both repressed, “buried classics” and newly written literature offered an ideal forum for reexamination of the past. Marsh lists several reasons for literature’s important role in glasnost” : besides opening up new arenas for public discussion, ft also provided a place where previously unknown facts could be presented, it powerfully illustrated “the human cost of an event and the impact of policies on individuals,” and it challenged historians to return to the same material and process it in. a factually more accurate way (Marsh “Reassessing” 91). Very often, authors used fiction as a means to present for the first time historical material formerly suppressed by the Soviet government. Mikhail Kuraev discloses new Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 information about the mutiny at Kronstadt, previously a forbidden topic, in Ms 1987 work Kapiton Dikshtein, as does V asili Aksenov in Moskovskaia saga. Most people were unaware of Stalin’s “special prisonsV or sharashti, until Solzhenitzyn’s V kruge pervom came out in 1990 (Marsh 47), In his novel Nochevaia tuchka zolotaia, written in 1981 and published in 1987, Anatoli Pristavkin shows the impact of Stalin’s deportation and punishment of whole nationalities during the Second World War. Topics such as these illustrated a past that incriminated the Soviet government as well as incidental participants. Literature has an incisive ability to probe into past questions that the government once considered closed, to open them for discussion, and to educate citizens of the USSR about unknown events in their past (Marsh “Reassessing” 91). In doing so, it often reinterprets history or casts an alternative shadow of meaning on history to the one officially promoted during Soviet years. While the first thaw had allowed Soviet people the opportunity to explore Stalin’s crimes and grieve in a limited way, it would have been taking things a step too for to suggest during that time that the circle of responsibility may have to widen to include people involved is the state’s sdministration, and further, each Soviet individual, as Solzhenitsyn reveals in Ms historical works. As the case o f Anatoiii Rybakov’s novel Deti Arbato, written in 1966 but published only in 1987, shows, even works that were artistically inferior or Mstorically inaccurate could have an enormous Impact on society during perestroika, primarily because they astutely comprehended the important questions to ask, historically speaking, Indirectly, this novel raises the issue of the extent of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 Stalin’s involvement in Kirov’s murder and doubts about the claim that Stalin curtailed NEP early in contradiction to Lenin’s stated opinion about economic policies. It also suggests to Soviet readers that Stalin’s terror preceded the January 1934 Seventeenth. Congress, which was generally unknown before perestroika (Marsh 62), Marsh quotes Soviet historian Alexander Latsis to explain the profound education literature provided at that time. Latsis stated “‘Having taken into your hands Rybakov’s book, you lose forever the possibility of not knowing, not remembering, not comprehending’” (Marsh 62). It is, of course, ironic that historians were learning from writers. By the end of the perestroika period in 1990, it was no longer asked of literature to recall and present historical events directly to an unknowing populace, because naturally, historians rose and are rising to this challenge. It was also no longer so crucial for literature to suggest alternative interpretations to specific political conditions and circumstances, since the public imperative had waned with the opening of politics. Literature on historical themes became less concerned with contemporary political realities and has assumed a more reflective role in regards to culture. Many works of the later perestroika years and beyond have reflected their artists5 greater freedom to think about the meaning of history making and history writing and their role in society. Andrei Bitov’s novel Pushkin House published in 1987 avoids mentioning the name of Stalin and uses nonrealistic literary presentation, to define connections between history and the consciousness of the intelligentsia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 Mark Kharitonov’s novel Linii sud’ by reflects philosophically on the nature of historical meaning and how it is created but attempts to steer clear o f political statements altogether by avoiding names of historical figures that are known to all; in fact, the absence of direct interaction between Ms characters and real 'historical people (as characters) in a novel that so directly addresses the past functions conspicuously to define the author’s relationship to the past in direct opposition to novels of historical fiction published earlier during perestroika. In any case, Russian fiction on historical themes has roots that reach far deeper than 1986, the beginning o f perestroika. In his survey of fiction of the late Stalinist era until the early years of Gorbachev, David Lowe asserts that "the primary orientation ofRussian prose fiction since 1953 has been documentary or historical," and asserts that some main factors from which this trend stems include a tradition of civic-mindedness in Russian literature and varying reactions to the literary heritage of Stalin's time and its falsification of history (Lowe 47). From the so-called Thaw of the 50's through to the Gorbachev era, writers dissatisfied with the official version of Soviet history gradually (and to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the political climate) stretched the boundaries of the official point of view on history, in the later period to the point of rejection. Those who stretched the boundary to the point of breaking, along with those whose views were never able to fit within official definitions, could not. publish their works on. historical themes before the perestroika years, thus the abundance of previously written but unpublished literature, the “buried classics,” that appeared between 1987 and 1990. Some o f these works had Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I teen previously published abroad, such as Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, a number of works by Solzhenitsyn, and many others. Ultimately, the use o f history in works of fiction during the perestroika period in the Soviet Union cleared a space for a new history to be worked out in Russia, and for new histories to be worked out in the other former Soviet republics. The use of history in these literary works and many others functions both as a vehicle of social and political discussion and as a forum in which to reinvent a national history, and to work out cultural, political and social concepts of identity that are organically sewn up in a nation's view of its past. Review of Scholarship This study will deal with a group of novels that vary significantly in the way they combine literary fiction with historical material. What they have in common, however, is a shared choice to use the fictional novel as a means of reflection on history in the wake of perestroika, both in the sense of what happened and in the sense of the historical project—considering the premises underlying the writing of history. At a theoretical level, the discourse of history in novels by perestroika-sm and post-Soviet Russian writers is a subject that has been only sparsely investigated. Several recent studies give factual information about the extensive body of material published in this relatively short period of time. Dealing Brown surveys the last fifteen years of Soviet literature and discusses the initial reassessment of Stalinism in a single chapter o f Ms book The Last Years o f Soviet Russian literature (1993) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 Several, attempts have been made to establish chronologies of late Soviet works and historical themes employed in this body of fiction and to discuss literary and cultural politics in the decade ofperestroika; these include N.M. Schneidman’s Russian Literature 1988-1994: The End o f an Era (1995) and. Riita Pittman’s “ Perestroika and Soviet Cultural Politics: The Case of the Major Literary Journals.” The most extensively researched of these and the only work to deal exclusively with the genre of historical prose fiction, Rosalind Marsh’s History and Literature in Contemporary Russia, surveys works that employ historical themes and materials, arguing that the debate engendered by the phenomenon of metahistorical fiction is really a political debate in disguise, whereby politicians and media alike turn to historical events and their beiietristic incarnations in an attempt to control the present. Such studies, including Marsh’s, focus on the role historical themes in literature have played in influencing social dialog and political debate and do not seek to interpret the meaning and significance of metahistorical fiction for a Russian culture in the process of overcoming a morally and psychologically problematic past and looking to create a new national identity. Several studies have begun to investigate late Soviet and post-Soviet metahistorical fiction to understand the role fictional writing plays in connecting Russians to their past. Many critics who attempt to interpret individual works in this vein are most interested in where Russia belongs on the world scale from modernity to postsodemity; moreover, they often bring to the literature their own poststracturalist assumptions, giving the impression of viewing Russian literature or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 mdividuai works from the privileged vantage point of Western postmodernism. There are two critical approaches, or sets of assumptions about Russian culture and literature that are relevant to this discussion. Some critics identify the era of glasnost’ as one in which Russian culture comes into its own as an era of foil-fledged Modernist values and institutions. They view the Soviet era as a mere interruption to Russia’s “normal” cultural development that would have and should have taken place, based upon the modernist values already embedded in Russian culture at the turn of the century. Nadya Peterson, in her book Subversive Imaginations: Fantastic Prose and the End o f Soviet Literature, 1970 ’ s-1990’ s finds that recent “alternative” fiction on historical themes (for example, Mikhail Kuraev’s Kapiton Dikshtein) belongs to a final ascendance of Russian Modernism and reasserts a strong sense of anti-establishment value in the message of these novels through self-referential discourse. She comments that the trend in recent historical fiction is an “increasing concentration on the whims of representation” (147), and thus historical discourse itself is shown in metahistorical works to depend on cultural constructs despite the rigidity of narrative forms created to contain it. She points out Mikhail Kuraev’s Captain Dikshtein as an example, asserting that the aesthetic break from realistic representation signifies a break with the Russian Realist tradition of attempting to find moral truth in literature and “from its initial belief'in the possibility of finding meaning to a game with empty signifiers—an illustration o f the relativity o f all and the meaninglessness of everything” (141). Peterson notes that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 It is only now that we can say that Russian letters has finally gained entrance into the literature o f modernity—by divorcing itself from the certitudes of realism, by ironically distancing itself from its own culture, by deconstmcting the language o f Soviet society, and by celebrating the end of its literature. (194) She draws attention to 'the increased presence of apolitical, metahistorical themes in historical fiction and points out that the Russian, people and culture are becoming more self-reflexive about the value of history in determining cultural identity. For her, this type of literature represents the culmination o f the modernist project. TMs is reflected in a sense of skepticism conveyed In her analysis about history's ability to provide a grand-scale narrative that interprets past events for the construction of national and personal identity, and in a general sense that the writer of history cannot really interpret past events objectively or affect the course of history. Peterson looks at this phenomenon of “new Russian Modernism” from the advantaged position of a post-structuralist, as if Russia, an outsider to the culture of Western postmodernism, by means of the literature of perestroika, were soon to finally arrive at Western postmodernism, too. Other critics believe that modernism actually culminated in Russia in Socialist Realism (for an example, see Boris Greys, The Total Art o f Stalinism, which makes a cogent argument that Soviet culture is indeed the summit of the avant-garde) and that the post-Soviet era is already contoured by attitudes and values that give evidence of a legitimate postmodern condition. Sven Spieker, in Ills 1995 book Figures o f Memory and Forgetting in Andrej Bitov’ s Prose: Postmodernism and the Quest for History, argues first that postmodernism is a viable concept for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 some late and post-Soviet literature in Russia on the basis o f both periodization— • that Socialist realism was the culmination of the modernist project (here he cites Boris Groys, The Total Art o f Stalinism), and outlie basis o f what he identifies as a postmodernist epistemology and aesthetics, albeit unconscious or subliminal, on the part of certain later Soviet writers such as Andrej Bitov (165-6), All of the literary movements that succeeded Socialist Realism, he argues, were in fact seeking to engage the traumatic experience of the literature of Socialist Realism, and works of this period, he argues, can be characterized by their continual failed attempts to “revive modernist theory and devices (deep memory, ostranenie [defamiliarization], primal scene) in order to create for themselves a viable metaposition’5 (166) from which they can experience themselves in a historical context in their search for their own historical origins. Spieker attributes this failure to their protagonists’ growing awareness of a postmodern reality in which it has become impossible to distinguish the real from the simulacra—official from unofficial culture, present from past, inside from outside. Because the dominant mode of literary interpretation throughout the Soviet period was a historicist one in which writers were expected to imitate a history that had never happened, they became creators of simulacra of this non existent history (here he cites Epstein’s 1993 interview “Postcommunist Postmodernism”), choked to death by the omnipresent historical images that do not refer to anything and thus have really become simulacra. In a Freudian move, lie then argues that Bitov’s heroes repress all memories o f the Stalinist times and replace them with simulacra, but that the characters’ need to experience themselves in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 historical context to redeem their imaaingless existence drives them to a postmodern quest for history. Here they reenter history “at a point prior to trauma, prior to that point at which they learnt about the crimes of Stalinism and their parents’ (possible) involvement in them” (Spieker 168). He claims that many Soviet writers write postmodern works but are not aware that they are doing so. The tendency to approach contemporary Russian fiction in general with post- structuralist premises as well as to find variants ofWestem-style postmodernism in manifestations of native Russian culture has arisen despite heated debates in and outside of Russia about whether postmodernism is a viable concept for Russia at all On the one hand, Russian artists and critics alike recognize aspects of postmodernism in their culture, what can be called a kind of “postmodern sensibility.” According to N. N. Schneidman in his book The End o f an Era, this is mainly a question of identifying superficial manifestations of postmodern aesthetics in contemporary Russian culture and is a misnomer, since for Russians the coming of age of modernism was cut short by the arrival of Soviet power and was not actually experienced. However, Mark Lipovetsky, Mikhail Epstein, Sven Spieker, Edith Clowes, Kevin Platt and others all argue that Russia has responded or is in the process of responding to modernism not just as a matter of aesthetics, but also in a post-utopian epistemology on the part of writers, in which “demythologizing cultural play...shows that sacred, symbols are nothing but a language that describes reality from oae perspective or another, but no perspective Is adequate. Postmodernism goes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 even further, demonstrating that reality itself is hat a combination of various languages and language games, a colorful crazy quilt of mtertexts” (Lipovetsky 17}. There is no doubt that many Russians themselves consider postmodernism to be a useful concept and a prevalent attitude in the contemporary cultural scene. Yet the presumption that postmodernism can be found in Russia is hotly disputed, even scandalous, according to Lipovetsky (233). He claims that “Russian critics have not engaged in such heated arguments since the time of the Thaw: the gamut runs from hosannas to anathema, from proclaiming postmodernism to be ‘progressive and relevant’ to warding off the devil with an Orthodox cross” (233). Schneidman presents a judicious discussion of the debate in the Russian press over the concept and whether or not Russia “has postmodernism” in The End o f an Era. According to Schneidman, both opponents and proponents of the idea of Russian postmodernism attended a conference in 1991; it can be inferred from this event that it is no longer really possible to deny that it exists at least as a sensibility. Thus many critics have decided to take postmodernism head on and argue whether it is right or wrong. Some Russians denounce postmodernism on an ideological level for abolishing aesthetic value and, according to V. Malukhin, for its “iiidiscrissinate appropriation of all intellectual wealth” (Schneidman 176). Lipovetsky argues that the reason for the conflict lies not in people’s conflicting ambitions. ‘The question of Russian postmodernism is dearly more significant than the perfectly normal historical phenomenon of a literary trend elbowing its predecessors and its more traditional contemporaries aside. It is, first and foremost, a question o f Russia’s cultural Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 identity*’ (233). in fact, it is not surprising that such a debate arose in a time of cultural chaos, when old structures had been abolished or simply M ien down in . shambles, and new ones were and still are in the process of construction. For to build up a new edifice o f Russian culture, and in particular to make Russian literature great once again, is to create a cultural identity. Since postmodernism is typically understood as a Western phenomenon (much theory has developed that places it organically in the West, such as Frederic Jameson’s Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic o f Late Capitalism), assertions that phenomena o f Russian culture are postmodern raise a traditional and even archetypical Russian cultural debate, that is, over Russia’s identity vis-a-vis the West. Lipovetsky notes that Russia, as Latin America, can be seen as having a certain type of “inferiority complex” that is “expressed equally in Westernizing and nationalism” (237). Indeed, some writers and thinkers, such as Epstein and Lipovetsky, are vocal in their claims that Russia has caught up to the West in the development of its own postmodernism (Westernizing) and that Russia may have even surpassed the West in recognizing earlier the limits of postmodernism (nationalism). As Schneidman mentions, in addition, there are Russian writers who attempt to avoid this debate and quietly “endeavor to place Russian postmodernism within the generally accepted theoretical context [of Western literary theory]” (Schneidman 177)—providing energy &r the arguments o f those who oppose the wholesale adoption of Western culture without even reflecting upon unique Russian applications. Naturally, others oppose identification of Russian cultural phenomena Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 as postmodern precisely because they perceive it as Western and thus a threat to the development o f Russia's own, unique cultural identity. They feel that if Russian writers adopt Western styles and philosophies, Russia will lose part of its creative identity, its Russianness. Ironically, in some sense, proponents of both positions come to similar conclusions: Schneidman concludes that Russian postmodernism is a (superficial) reaction to cultural shifts over the last decade and to Soviet dogmatism that signifies a “deep crisis of consciousness” but that indeed expresses true pluralism (177). Epstein, too, comes to the conclusion that Russia’s approach to postmodernism leads to a new and true pluralism. Western post-structuralist approaches to literary and historical texts as well as the “postmodern condition” in which we supposedly find today’s world, assume the indeterminacy of real-world concepts such as time, subjectivity, language, literature, politics, and history. In removing such foundational epistemo logical concepts from the study of literature and culture, they apotheosize textuality and deconstruct any sense of essential value from their objects of study. Value is said to be contingent at best, absent at worst. The application of such a position to Russia is problematic, at the very minimum because of empirical evidence. In Russia, literature has traditionally been taken very seriously. Too seriously, in fact, to suspect that the meanings and interpretations o f Russian culture it engenders are seen as entirely contingent by a significant number of people. Malukhin is understandably outraged, at the prospect of postmodernists “indiscriminately appropriating” Russia’s intellectual wealth, for the evidence is stacked against those who would deconstruct Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 the wealth of cultural reflection that is the Russians* vital heritage. Western postmodernism proclaims the death of the author and deconstructs ail of culture but fails to fill the empty space it has cleared with a creative, new alternative representing cultural hope for something new. Lipovetsky, however, suggests that Russian postmodernism differs in key aspects from Western postmodernism, in particular because of their ending points. He notes that, in Western postmodernism, the fimdamental problems include “the blurring of the boundaries between center and periphery, the decentralization of consciousness (expressed in the concept of the ‘death of the author’), and the fragmentation of the modernist model based on the integrity of the creative subject and Ms or her absolute freedom; these lead to the end of history and “the bad infinity of self-repetition” (238). Yet Russian postmodernism “arises from the search for an answer to a diametrically opposed problem: cultural fragmentation and disintegration, as well as the literal (rather than the metaphysical) ‘death of the author’” (235). Thus, their search for inner wholeness through art takes a different route, a search for the author’s lost context through quotation, rather than Western postmodernism’s clash with context leading to a final, self-satMzlag, postmodern utopia (237-8). Lipovetsky then argues that for Russian postmodernism, “death becomes [its] integral image” (239). Remembering that art has historically functioned as the individual’s attempt to overlie chaos with order, and pointing out the universality of temporary death as a 'universal cultural archetype necessary as a precursor to rebirth Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IS with new qualities, Lipovertsky claims that death provides a point outside of all cultural and artistic systems from which a new order is identified. Death acts as the universal strategy tor translating from one cultural language to another, for connecting the archaic and the contemporary, the avant-garde and the traditional, the classical and the paraiterary, Socialist Realism and high modernism, in their mutual weakness in the face o f ontological chaos, in the powerlessness o f their attempts to bring order to life and overcome death. (239 emphasis the author’s). Moreover, he argues that Russian postmodernism itself can be seen as symbolizing the temporary death of culture; he cites Lotman: In one of Ms last works, lurii Lotman wrote that a phenomenon can “become a language...only at the expense of immediate reality and of translation into a purely formal, ‘empty’ sphere that is therefore ready for any content.” (Lotman 1994: 22) Does this not mean that postmodernism, which enacts the temporary death of culture with obsessive reflexivity, thereby empties and formalizes death itself, renders it obsolete, a process that inevitably consigns postmodernism itself to obsolescence at the same time? (241) In the deaths of Russian postmodernism, a new cultural space is thus created. In this space, “critique of surrounding, contemporary contexts proves to be productive because i creates its own cultural space, a postmodern space of language, a ‘creative chronotope,’ in which simulacra, the imaginary, and fictions replacing a lost reality can take on a new status o f authenticity1 ' (237 emphasis the author’s). Lipovetsky finally argues that both Russian and world postmodernism are in a state of crisis, and that on a world-scale, what is happening today “can be viewed as an attempt to reconstruct the edifice o f humanism in the space o f chaos" (247 emphasis the author’s). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 The debate about whether to view Russian literature through the lens of postmodernism takes on. a different character in light of theories that understand Russian postmodernism as its own unique phenomenon and explain it as a symbol of the death of utopian thinking and culture in Russia, Immediately in the wake of perestroika, scholars often attempted to place works of new Russian literature, especially those concerned with history, within the framework of postmodernism already established in the West. However, in the mid- to late nineties, more scholars turned to the search for organically Russian explanations for the increasing number of what appeared to be postmodern works of literature. It is generally agreed that perestroika established a clear break with tradition and put an end to utopian thinking in Russia, and there is a growing body of scholarship that believes postmodernism in Russia was a short-lived phenomenon that both re-established Russian literature’s context and connection to modernism and to world literature through postmodernism, and also acknowledged the central presence of the break with tradition. Regardless of one’s views on Russian postmodernism, Russian literature on historical themes after perestroika can thus be broadly viewed as a starting point, a . clean slate from which it is imperative to move on, a cultural space that is empty, but filled with potential.. 1 will argue that it is precisely in . this ultimate break with tradition, one in which its fundamental precepts were thrown into doubt and not so much erased as crossed out (struck through with a line, so they are still visible), that Russian society has been able to begin evaluating the past, through literature, m d reconstructing new meanings in and front the nibble. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 Scope of this Dissertation The particular works o f historical fiction to be analyzed in this study have been chosen primarily for their use of historical material in a way that refuses to sacrifice aesthetics to an ideological agenda—a type of literature that resurfaced in the perestroika period. Furthermore, they are boundary works that operate along the borders of the literary and historical realms, and consciously play with the intersection of genres. They reflect not only on history, but on the way history has been made and told through literature in Soviet Russia, Moreover, although literature on many previously forbidden historical themes was published during the perestroika years, the works chosen for analysis in this dissertation take events from the Soviet era as their themes. Works that have proven interesting, meaningful and worthwhile to a large number of people are targeted. This consideration and judgment was based on reception and response in critical literature and on whether a book was nominated for a prize. Certain earlier works are used for purposes of comparison. Although the political events and societal change that went hand in hand with perestroika and glasmst’ are key to understanding Russian literature of this period, discussion of these fells outside the scope of this study, and only a brief summary of these events has been included. The primary focus of attention is placed on literary and theoretical considerations, in line with the thrust of my argument Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2! Structure In the introductory chapter of this dissertation, I have examined on a broad level the scholarship that has 'been done on Russian metahistorical fiction, defined broadly as literature on historical themes that engages in a debate about how history is made and written, during and since perestroika. This discussion has, in particular, examined approaches taken to the interpretation of history and historical representation in peresiroika-tm literary works. Scholars often choose one of two approaches: either they describe the new literature as a return to modernism in Russia, or they attribute a set of postmodern assumptions to the portrayal of history in contemporary fiction, pointing out the narrative nature of history and suggesting that these works set before themselves primarily the task of deconstructing official history to convey that there is no historical Truth outside of the patterns interpreted by writers of history. I have shown that while this may be the philosophical starting point for some glasnost’ writers, to analyze Russian literature of today in terms of Western postmodernism is a mistake that may lead one to overlook more critical insights. As I argue in this dissertation, the most important trend in Russian metahistorical fiction is the one that unites writers across the spectrum—from the traditional to the eclectic to the postmodern—who advocate for the necessity of an open understanding of history and indeed time and who view historical processes as a primary means for seeking truth, meaning and a helpful understanding o f the commonly lived phenomenon of Cfommunismu Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 The second chapter is devoted to the development of theoretical terms and concepts that are used as tools to examine the literary works in this study. I elaborate my theoretical assumptions and argue for the potential o f genre theory and theories of time (recall Bakhtin’s chronotope) to help explain contemporary Russian metahistorical fiction; my major philosophical sources include Tolstoy, Lotman, Epstein, Lipovetsky, Wachtel and Morson. In the theoretical chapter, I show how the prevailing assumptions about and approaches to history taken by certain post- Soviet writers can be illumined by recourse to these theories, and I reflect on the specific nature of Russian postmodernism in the post-Soviet context. In addition, I discuss the potential for interdisciplinary theory, in particular chaos theory and current approaches to the philosophy of potential in the philosophy of history, to generate productive interpretations of the relationship between literature, history, identity and society. In subsequent chapters, I examine three works of literature and their specific critical receptions, looking at what meaning their approach to genre, narrative, time, and history creates for the characters and for the audience. The genre of each work is examined, both through their echoes with the Russian literary tradition (intertexts with classical nineteenth-century works as well as modem works), and with regards to theories about literature that operates on the boundary between history and fiction. Next, I analyze the inetaMstorica! aspects of each ’ work, probing into the way each work interacts with the established tradition in Russian literature of philosophizing about history and also the new ideas the works put forth in this regard. A salient Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 aspect o f much post-Soviet Russian metahistorical fiction, 1 argue, is its creation of as. open sense of time using the device of what Morson calls “sideshadowingM to show the power of past what ifs on the present I argue that the chief purpose of this metahistorical fiction is to work out alternative histories. These alternative histories, fey preserving and valuing alternative historical potential, construct individuals’ and the nation’s relationships to their past, Ultimately, I argue, such literature provides a new kind of historical knowledge that aims to transform the individual and society in two ways. First, it is anti-utopian; it shows that the individual can make a difference in the outcomes of history, a concept which reinforces notions of responsibility and values in society at all levels. Second, this literature both models reality and facilitates experiments with it. Through visions of alternative pasts, Russian writers are creating and preserving a new cultural identity and thereby playing a role in the actual transformation o f their culture and society. The first work to be examined is Georgii Vladimov’s novel Feuepm u ezo apMm [The General and His Army], 1995 winner of the Russian Booker Prize. Vladimov, a Soviet dissident who participated in the straggle for freedom and human rights during Soviet times, is the most conservative novelist to be examined in this dissertation. His novel relies heavily on Modernist structural devices and intertexts with the Russian literary tradition to establish the historical complexity o f Russia’s involvement in the Second World War; he raises new questions about the pat versions ofhistory that have incorporated war events into the national consciousness and Russian identity. He also argues for the importance of widespread recognition on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 the part of all Russians that individuals, not countries, are responsible for a nation5 s history. The novel Kanuman JJumumem, tpmmacmmectcoe nmecmeoemve {Captain DiksMein: A Fantastic Tale] by Mikhail Kuraev, is the focus o f the next chapter. Kuraev is an eclectic writer to whom some Western critics have looked as a representative of emerging, perestroika-em, Russian postmodernism. This short novella (noBecrt.) probes into the potential power that events of the 1921 Kronstadt uprising had to change the course of events in Russia in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and civil war, and into the oft-forgotten local history or individual's historical role in constituing larger events that affect the nation. He shows how self- identity and national identity are at stake in these local histories. The final work examined by this dissertation is Mark Kharitonov’s Jlrnuu cydbSu, m u cyudynoK M wmueem a [Lines o f Fate, or Miiaskevick’ s Trunk], Kharitonov was virtually unknown as an author in his own right until the publication of this novel (he was better known for his translations of German works); JImuu cydb6u is the most successful work in a trilogy to which it belongs. Kharitonov’s work is a self-consciously postmodern work about a 1980s literary scholar who is investigating a minor author from the revolutionary era known as Milashevich. Although this work casts doubt on the knowability of the past, a doubt that spans narration o f the indivuai’s past as well as local and national histories, it suggests that it is in the search for our pasts and in our willingness to create meaning in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enmeshings of the details or iafbrmstioii we can find that meaning is constructed, despite the incompleteness of knowledge that we can access. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2# Chapter 2, Theoretical Approach Only a conception of history pruned of its most fruitful part contents itself with the facts alone. —Alexander Demand!, History That Never Happened The discomfort that many Russian writers feel in applying paradigms of Western postmodernism to analysis of contemporary Russian culture and literature, along with the fact that many literary analyses approaching contemporary Russian literature with postmodern assumptions are written by Western scholars or Russian scholars living in the West, suggest that one might, at minimum, proceed cautiously in application of Western theory to the Russian cultural milieu. This is not to abandon inquiry into the role of modernist/postmodernist assumptions and paradigms in contemporary Russia altogether, but rather to suggest that if these categories are appropriate, they require systematic reflection and analysis of the particularly Russian manifestations of what is often assumed in the West to constitute a prevailing cultural attitude, the postmodern condition—and to inquire into alternative explanations. Mikhail Epstein, m After the Future: the Paradoxes o f Postmodernism and Contemporary Culture argues that postmodernism in contemporary post-Soviet fiction has a qualitatively different character from Western postmodernism. In his view, Western postmodernism is a response and reaction to utopian thinking, but one that ends with itself, because it envisions itself as a kind of inevitable, final utopia: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 Postmodernism is essentially a reaction to utopianism, the intellectual disease o f obsession with the future that infected the latter half o f the nineteenth century and the first half o f the twentieth. The fixture was thought to be definite, attainable, and realizable; in other words, it was given the attributes of the past. Postmodernism, with its aversion to utopias, Inverted the signs and reached for the past, but in so doing, gave it the attributes of the future: indeterminateness, incomprehensibility, polysemy, and the ironic play of possibilities. The phases of time have been castled. But this postmodern replacement of the future by the past is in no way better than the avant-garde replacement of the past by the future. In revealing the indeterminateness of meaning in classical texts of the past, deeonstruction reveals itself to be the mirror image of avant-garde constructivism, which posited rigid and absolute meanings in an as yet unconstituted fixture. (Epstein 330) He goes on to argue that postmodernism was the “last great utopia” (332) because it claimed itself to be an all-embracing cultural space with a derivative nature, “a utopia of the eternal present, of endlessly playful self-repetition” (332). Russian postmodernism, Epstein argues, is different from the Western type. Based on lury Lotman and Boris Uspensky’s well-known theory1 that, in Russia, cultural change proceeds by means of complete reversal of signs in any semantic opposition, so that new values are always considered the fixll opposite of those rejected, and those rejected are never allowed to remain in some neutral value zone, that is, exist within a continuum of old and new values and ideologies, but always are seen as the utter antithesis of those that replaced them, he argues that the profound tendencies toward irony and complete reversal characteristic of Russian culture allow it to at once embrace postmodernism and reveal its limits in a single act of crowning and dethroning. In Russia, postmodernism is perceived as a parodic unmasking of centuries oflogocentrism in Russian culture, of captivity to the word and the ideological principle. But this profound parody parodies itself as it gives rise to ever new enactments and ‘ For a fcl exposition of this theory, see Jury Lotman and Boris Uspensky’s The Semiotics of Russian Cultwv, Michigan Slavic Contributions, No. 11. Ed. Ann Shakesaa, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1984. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 unmaskings, whose ultimate victim turns out to be postmodernism itself. (328) Epstein believes that in Russia, postmodernism has now teen replaced by new tendencies to view time and history in the mode of what he calls “prototemporaiity,” a new way o f thinking that rejects a utopian view of time, or to use Bakhtin's term “chronotope,” altogether. He claims that the overcoming of postmodernism represents a ‘Rehabilitation of the new” (and this view dovetails with Lipovetsky’s idea of empty space for new beginnings created by the death of culture), which implies that, in line with Lotman and Uspensky’s view of cultural progression in Russia, “culture repossesses all the things ‘forbidden’ by the postmodern fashion: originality, history, metaphysics, and even utopia. But these things have lost the totalitarian pretensions that once made us suspect them o f‘master thinking.’” The future is not yet with us and therefore cannot be known; It is the most Other of all others. The past must be seen as a beginning that leads into an open future fell of potential and possibility, and for which the concept of ending is alien. Epstein’s theory provides a powerful starting point for thinking about post-Soviet Russian metahistorical fiction because it apprehends the broad cultural need of contemporary Russian writers to think about time, history, openness, and new beginnings. Utopia and M etahistorical Thinking Epstein’s ideas about a Russian culture in the process of overcoming utopian thinking through a chronotope lie calls prototemporality are emblematic of a broad Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 tendency for 'writers within post-Soviet Russian literature to work towards reestablishing a more correct relationship to historical time, regardless of where they stand in regards to the modernist/postmodernist debate or whether their writing is considered modernist or post-modernist In the wake of communism, anti-utopian thinking has gradually been replaced with post-utopian thinking, and 1 will argue that many writers and cultural thinkers implicitly understand the need to move beyond a simple understanding of the past as something one must object to and stand up against and instead move towards a metaposition in regards to what Lotman and Uspensky identified as the Russian tradition of persistent conflict between two political and ideological poles that inevitably led to binary reversal of ideological values—whether their writing is informed by postmodern sensibilities or not. This trend has been noted by others and commented on from various perspectives in one form or another; Kevin Platt, in History in a Grotesque Key: Russian Literature and the Idea o f Revolution (1997), starts with the assumption that this binary cultural process is in effect, but uses methods of psychoanalysis to reach his conclusion that the public discourse surrounding the end of communism distanced itself from the type of revolutionary discourse that had repeated itself in all revolutionary eras up to this point in that it did not speak of the new order in contrast to the old order, preserving the same signs and reversing their values, but rather dictated a self- proclaimed absence o f a i prescribed values and an exit from utopian (modernist) thinking into postmodernist skepticism (171). Note that Platt’s interpretation of post- Soviet discourse recognizes the existence o f a fundamental break from past Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 interpretation of Russian culture via a break away from binary polarities, even though it fails short, by felling to posit a new model, other than “postmodernist skepticism.” In this vein, a strong argument can be made that perestroika and glasnost’ constituted a major historical break; in accordance with tradition, this era began as a time when all old manifestations o f ideology were attributed with reverse values, and at the same time presewed the deep structures of the old value system. Statues of Lenin and other previously revered communists were decapitated and all things that idolized them were assigned a negative value, but there was no real change to the deep structures within the culture at first, symbolically proved by the phenomenon that the fallen heads were sometimes replaced with other, politically correct ones, at first. Yet, if, in the early years ofperestroika, works o f historical fiction were being published that laid blame upon an individual (first Stalin, and later Lenin) or upon tbs system (Stalinist), both reversals o f Soviet interpretation, the later year's and beyond have witnessed an increase of reflection upon the complex process of history and how people and events conspired together to construct the history that took place—and upon what meaning this historical, process has for Russia today. It is m longer necessary to come out against the false utopia that was communism so much as to deepen one’s awareness of the processes and mindset that led to utopian thinking in order to dude it and even surpass it. In other words, the process of change through reversing the polarities ended with a rift, symbolized by the end of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. perestroika, that split far enough away from the deep structures of the past for there to no longer be a need to fear the power they once held over Russian culture. Thus, if Russian culture dethroned and revealed the limits o f Western postmodernism with its sawy orientation towards utopian thinking, as Epstein argues, then lie is incorrect to characterize Ms concept of prototemporality as a rehabilitation of the new in the sense o f Lotman and Uspensky’s thinking, under which new values are transfused into old forms through reversal, because by Epstein’s own comparison the old forms are inadequate and have already burst open, as old wineskins when new wine is poured into them. Utopian thinking no longer holds the same political, social, or even creative power, and a new orientation towards time is in place. Rather, I would argue that the development of metaposMons in political, historical, and literary debates is deeply connected with the opening up of the neutral cultural space that Lotman and Uspensky argue has been established for centuries in Western European culture, and which Clowes associates with post-utopian literature. Lotman and Uspensky write that “this neutral sphere becomes a structural reserve from which tomorrow’s system develops. Since continuity is obvious here there is no need to emphasize it structurally or to reestablish it consciously and artificially” {Semiotics 4), Such a space, by representing time viewed along a spectrum rather than as a series of breaks that infuse mutual exclusivity into old tilings and new things, allows the old to co-exist with the new, thus establishing a more gradual mode o f historical change. For Lipovetsky, this space is one which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rather than resolving contradictions,Jeadfsj to a new intellectual space for the constant interaction of binary opposition. O f course, such a space cannot help bat be the source of new conflicts and new contradictions; yet such constant interaction is also the inexhaustible source of new artistic and philosophical meaning. (Lipovetsky 31) Thus, while Western postmodernism has been effectively rejected, the perspective gained through metapositions may be attributed to a different, but originally Western (at least to Russian thinking, supported by Lotman and Uspensky) cultural mode. As we can see, there is a degree of unity in contemporary thinking about Russian culture’s response to communist utopian thinking; a consensus exists that a fundamentally new beginning has been achieved—rather than a state of postmodernist parody and play. This new start returns a real sense of historical time—under the reign of which outcomes are not yet secured, as opposed to under Ideological utopian thinking—to reflection on Russian cultural history and can be seen in many examples of post-Soviet literature on historical themes. Moreover, I will argue that a dominant feature of such works is that they are deeply metahistorical; that is. they do not stop at presenting a version of historical events that has fallen by the wayside of official historical narrative, but rather, they tend to present their versions o f the past as a fecund meditation, on that history and its making and telling in anticipation that it will lead to real change (in thought, values, and actions) in the reader and perhaps society. This is primarily accomplished through the use of a mixed genre and the establishment o f a new sense o f time, or chronotope. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 Genre The fees! works of metahistorical fiction are those that M e at the boundary between genres and can he considered essayistic; that is, they are literary hut have legitimate pretensions to being documentary, and the nexus of their operation is to generate productive collisions o f the types o f meaning usually created by one genre or the other. Literature serves different purposes than does history, generally speaking, and “[tjo classify a work as literature rather than non-literature is to open up its semiotic possibilities” (McCarthy 21). Thus literary manifestations o f historical reflection are different from historical narrative that merely attempts to tell what happened, even when the historical fiction sticks closely to established facts. The writing of historical events into literature often attributes a greater degree of complexity to the course of history than can be found in documentary historical writing. It follows that literature may give a fuller (though not necessarily a more accurate in the traditional sense of the term) sense of the past, since it is a medium in which multiplicity of perspective inheres to a greater degree than in documentary historical narrative. Andrew Wachtel, in Ms book-length study An Obsession with History: Russian Writers Confront the Past, notes that Russian culture has traditionally maintained a paradoxical attitude towards history. On the one band, folders on “non- persons” in official Soviet files were marked “preserve forever,” but on the other, the use of and attitudes toward history on the part of officials betrayed a fear that history would someday avenge itself on them (Wachtel 3-4). If history is protected and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 feared at the same time, it is because it is manifestly interconnected math the ethics of national self-identity and culturally defined conceptions of truth. History has a degree o f real power, and those who control the telling of “what happened” control, to a certain, degree, who Russians are, who they appear to be, and whom they can make themselves into. Wachtel’s argument is that individual Russian writers from the nineteenth century have a tradition of writing multiple monologic narratives on the same historical materia!;, usually one fictional and the other non-fictional. This, he argues, shows their implicit understanding that dialog between genres—not within a work, as he carefully distinguishes Ms conception of dialog from Bakhtin’s—is the best way to present historical material because it conveys the importance of a higher, poetic truth over and above that of simple historical events and facts. Wachtel attributes this to a general cultural attitude that “our history is too difficult and complex to be left to Mstorians...but poetry alone is also inadequate” (Wachtel 11- 13). Although he ends Ms discussion with Solzhenitsyn, Wachtel’s arguments are pertinent to m m y perestroikasra writers as well. History—that is, the course of past events along with their current interpretations—means something that really counts (recall the symbolic toppling of all Soviet historical monuments and the renaming of city streets to pre-Revolutionary titles). As a result, Russian historians dining perestroika and afterwards, along with the government, have been encountering great difficulties in deciding exactly which events and Interpretations should constitute a contemporary understanding of the nation’s past. Fiction writers, on the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 other hand, do not have to concern themselves with some of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles involved in conveying the basic truths that are attached to the recounting of what, Actually, really happened in history, because they are at liberty to portray a higher, poetic truth. In their writing, they can combine elements and events o f the nation’s factual past with fictional narrative and hypothetical treatment of historical subjects aad materials. If, as Wachtel argues, nineteenth- century writers accomplished this effect by creating multiple narratives o f the same event in different genres, it can be argued equally cogently that twentieth century writers have done the same thing by creating the appearance of multiple narratives within single works. Wachtel makes this case for the work of Solzhenitsyn. Moreover, it is my argument that such a trend continued into and beyond the perestroika period with works of the type referred to as “boundary works” by Gary Saul Morson in Ms book The Boundaries o f Genre (1981). Many o f these works can be understood as essayistic works, or works that are “hybrids o f science and literature” (McCarthy 21) which, in their combination o f Mstorical material and analysis with fictional writing, create within themselves the dialog between genres that can. lead, to complex perceptions of the past as more than just a compilation of facts or a chain o f events leading to a certain, probably inexorable, outcome. Philosopher of history' Geoffrey Hawthorn approaches this problem from another direction by means of what he calls a ' “paradox o f explanation” (37). His claim that “in explaining (history] we increase alternatives as we also reduce them” (37) suggests that the search to understand history has a purpose greater than just Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 accumulating tactual knowledge about events of the past; moreover, in this view, the affinity o f literary enterprise to historical understanding is corroborated and given form. It is not even necessary to point out the narrative nature ofhistorical discourse, as many contemporary historians, most notably Hayden White, have done in the past few decades, to argue that the boundary between literature and history is highly productive in its ability to generate connections between these two disciplines. White, in W s article “Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” questions the “epistemo logical status ofhistorical explanations as compared with other Muds of explanations that might be offered to account for materials with which historians usually deal” (Writing 42). While my argument throughout this dissertation recognizes epistemological value in both historical and fictional narrative, I do not believe that one necessarily detracts from the other. As Ewa Domanska notes, “the central issue... is not ‘modernism’ versus ‘postmodernism,' but rather the question of the relation between the aesthetic dimension of history-writing and concerns that we might call ‘scientific’ and ‘philosophical’” (3). If there were a scale o f aestheticity in the writing of history, the metahistorical novel would lie at its very extreme. Here it might be objected that metahistorical fiction is not history at all. In order to respond to this concern, it is necessary to think about the purpose of historical knowledge. In Ms book Plausible Worlds, Hawthorn makes a distinction between historical knowledge and historical understanding. We can dig up mounds Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 o f facts, explain them, and try to make sense of them, lie argues. But if we want to understand & © past (as opposed to just knowing), and if to understand is to consider what might have been possible; if what might causally or practically have been possible is not true of something at some other possible world but is at best only plausible at this; and if what was possible can at best be assessed but, since it did not. occur, not be known: then the dialectic of Inquiry and reflection by which we come to understand is one which reduces our certainty and in that sense our knowledge as it adds to it. In this way and to this extent, success in History...as perhaps in life itself, consists in understanding more and knowing less. (37) Paradoxically, metahistorical fiction sheds light on real history. Its interdisciplinary scope, as Mikhail Epshtein might call it (Epshtein, Essayism, 155) allows this literature to unite these disparate modes of discourse, these “fragmented portions of culture,” (156) into a discourse characterized by “boldness of propositions and meekness of conclusions” (157). Such dialog within a metahistorical work functions as a nexus between real events and the sought-after higher, poetic truth, turning the past into a rich field of possibility, a place where things could have happened much differently than one has been taught to—and has grown accustomed to—think. The past becomes opened to interpretafion—and the key action here is opened. Alternative History This essayistic mode of w itiug found in metahistorical fiction, manifests in literature a prevailing sense of time, or temporality, of which the most essential characteristic is openness (in this respect, it is closely related, to the genre of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 novel, and it typically operates within the genre of the novel). Openness is fundamentally opposed to utopian thinking about time and history, which presumes a ideological and therefore closed view of past events, epitomizing the view that freedom and chance are illusory and that all events that have taken place were feted to lead up to the present that we are now experiencing and a future that is predetermined. The elevation o f the quality' of openness is intended to lead to a more correct view o f the present, a concept traditionally held Is low esteem by Russian culture. Epstein comments that The present normally represents authentic reality, whereas the past and future appear as its long-distance projections. Not so in Russia. Here, the present has almost never enjoyed its own worth, but rather was perceived as an echo of the past or a step toward the future. When Diderot was corresponding with Catherine the Great and began to despair of making Russia grow accustomed to the fruits of the Enlightenment, he wrote that this country was “a fruit that rots before it ripens.” In other words, the future o f this fruit turns out to be in the p ast.... fTJhis prevailing pattern explains why present time figures weakly in Russian culture: the present is a middling, neutral member in the historical opposition of past” and “future.” (xti) The prevalence of the idea that the present is important is thus unique to the post- Soviet period in Russian thinking. Gary Saul Morson’s work, including the article ‘T or the Time Being” and his book Narrative and Freedom: the Shadows o f Time, persuasively argues for a corrected orientation towards present time in thinking about culture and especially literature and history. He theorizes on the temporality of the novelistic genre, in part developing upon the ideas o f Mikhail Bakhtin, who thought of literature, especially great novels, as an expression of individual creativity and moral responsibility Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 inextricably tied up with an understanding of chronology as open to t o r n agency. Morson, relying on Bakhtin, shows that an open sense o f time means that we mast view the past as open to decisions, unfinalizable, just as we view the present in this way; he recognizes that “the heart of the question, then, is whether there are more possibilities than actualities and whether it therefore makes sense to speak of unrealized but genuinely possible futures (or presents or pasts)” (Morson Narrative and Freedom 83). Fop he argues, if we fatalistically view the past from the perspective of the present, believing that the only course of events that was. possible was the one that has taken place, we commit a perceptual fallacy of the present time, essentially closing off the potential alternative routes that history could have taken, the “event-potential” of time. TMs perceptual fallacy can lead to what Morson refers to as the “lie of foreshadowing” (which Lev Tolstoy considered a “fundamental violation of a true historical sense”), which allows people to surrender their freedom and real choices to various fatalisms and “fail to consider the choices and obligations they really have” (Morson “For the Time Being” 213). From this perspective, to impose closure on the past is to falsify it. What unites Tolstoy, Bakhtin, and Morson is a heightened sense that the past involved true alternatives and therefore real freedom o f agency for the subject. TMs freedom is the basis of human creativity at the individual and social levels. Literature, especially the novel with its ability to depict massive amounts o f prosaic detail, shows history in a way that highlights individual choices, the “contemporaneity of each past moment” (Morson “For the Time Being” 218). The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 past is shown as an experimental becoming, where there has been an outcome, but ♦hat outcome was by no means the only possible one, Morson creates a neologism for the novelistic technique of depicting a sense that something else might have happened; he argues that to portray an accurate sense of time, one must convey its sideshadow. “People of the past could have made other choices, Or if they could not have, then neither can we” (Morson “For the Time Being” 220). The necessary effect of such literature is one of “epistemic modesty” (Morson. “For the Time Being'5 221), or an understanding on the part o f those who ‘"believe they at last have the theory of theories... that history did not lead inevitably to them” (Morson “For the Time Being” 221). In Ms suggestion that sideshadowing “recreates the fiillness of time,” Morson leaves us with one more highly provocative thought: Sometimes sideshadowing suggests that even unactualized possibilities may somehow leave their mark on history. When an author advances this suggestion,, the importance of understanding the field [of possibilities] grows: not only does such an understanding allow us to appreciate the significance of actual events in relation to their alternatives, but the alternatives themselves somehow leave strange messages in the shadows of existence. To switch metaphors for a moment; it is as if one possibility out of many became actual but carried another as sort of a recessive gene, invisible to the eye but capable of affecting future generations of events. In this way, the future grows partly out of an unactualized as well as an actualized past. (Morson Narrative and Freedom 120) This field of possibilities is particularly influential for the heroes, literary and historical, in many perestroika novels written at the boundary between fiction and history; one of the most obvious ways it can be experienced directly is in the minds of protagonists who remember their past choices and the circumstances that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. surrounded them. As events become history, protagonists remember and reflect upon their choices by posing questions 'beginning with “what if?” or “had 1...?”. The “what !fs?w can maintain a powerful grasp on the present life of any character, too. For example, in Vasily Aksenov’s Moskovskaia saga, general Nikolai Gradov lives his entire Ife in the wake of Ms role at Kronstadt as a young navy officer reflecting on his role in stifling freedom. His belief flat he was a traitor (even though doing what he was commanded to do) furnishes Ms soul with a consciousness of right and wrong that eventually leads to Ms death at the hands of Ms superiors. In Ms unactualized past that plagues Ms thoughts, Gradov might have disobeyed orders at Kronstadt. Later, he makes actual the right choice that could have once been, by allowing some repatriated soldiers who have been returned alter being captured by the Nazis to go free, against the will of Ms higher-ups. Sideshadowing shows that unactualized possibilities of the past could have happened and that there are real alternatives to the present we know (Morson Narrative 6). This open sense of time is anti-utopian and does not permit monologism in the presentation of real events. Edith Clowes, in her book Russian Experimental Fiction: Resisting Ideology after Utopia, similarly argues that meta- utopian literature deals with a kind of “social imagination,” and has the function of showing how alternative worlds are framed and what impact they have on people’s behavior and perception of social “reality.” In a manner similar to Morson’s, she places value upon portraying alternative realities with the intent of influencing people’ s understandings and behavior in a real-events atmosphere long dominated by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 mono logic Interpretations and uses of history, Novelistic truth as described by Bakhtin and Morson may have tost the battle to monologic ideology with the arrival of Socialist Realism, fm a while. But the literature o f perestroika brought with it a , resurgence of the sense that there were many unrealized possibilities, or sideshadows, that crossed the path o f the past even during the years of communism, and that these can have a redemptive moral significance for today. In a similar vein, many writers and historians are also preoccupied with perhaps the heaviest and most taboo paradox ofhistorical inquiry, that "the course of events would have sometimes been different if small details had turned out differently” (Demandt 9). Alexander Demandt’s book-length essay “History that Never Happened: a Treatise on the Question, What Would Have Happened If. makes a very cogent point that “[c]onsideration of past possibilities extends our knowledge of the past by adding something that is knowable” (9). He believes that inquiring into the question “What if f 5 can complete our knowledge as potentials that did not occur but that are apart of history may have consequences somewhere unseen (think of Morson’s “recessive gene”); he wants us t© understand what he calls the “crucial situation” in its historical moment (this is similar to what Bakhtin calls “eventness”), weigh causal factors, give value judgments, assess possibilities, and most importantly understand the dynamic relationship between coincidence and deliberateness. He advocates a view that alternative histories are “heuristically useful and didactically indispensable” (36). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 The literary work is a natural way for any society to work out alternative histories. Paisley Livingstone, who takes .issue with the state of literary criticism today for not being capable of defending the literary profession from critics who believe literature has no inherent value, defends literary knowledge as having epistemic value (261), that is, the ability to discover and validate our knowledge about history' and identity that may otherwise be forgotten, a view not incompatible with the approach I have outlined here for understanding literature as a heuristic means o f generating alternative histories. David Novitz, in feet, argues that a primary purpose of literature is that it is an exercise of the fanciful imagination, in his opinion a prerequisite to knowing or gaining empirical knowledge. It is my view that Russian writers across the spectrum, from conservative and ideologically didactic, to the eclectic, to self-acknowledged postmodernists, continually return to historical themes because they intuitively know that there is truth to be found in a better understanding of history, but only if history is understood to be a complex system driven by human agency. Moreover, recent writers of metahistorical fiction demonstrate in their writing the imperative to understand history in the way that Bakhtin and Morson propose: remembering that for each past moment, there were open alternatives, and that people of the past had real choices—going beyond the truism that we should learn from history. In this way, they reify what has almost completely become an abstraction both in a world wearing postmodern glasses ('western) and also in one that was subjected to utopian (communist) thinking, a sense of personal agency and responsibility for the future. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Moreover, literature itself is understood to have an inherent, essential value within the cultural system, that is, it controls and channels the play of cultural thought into recognizable possibilities, while at the same time it can confine an infinite number of potential realities within the closed space of literary genre. Thinking about alternative history or alternative pasts is a phenomenon that is nearly ubiquitous in post-Soviet fiction and, especially In the years during and Immediately following perestroika, clearly struck a tender nerve with the Russian audience. Historical Knowledge and Transformation of Identity The idea that literature nay serve a crucial purpose in constructing a nation’s and individuals’ relationships to history along with the valuing of alternative historical potential have recently become a topic of a broad interdisciplinary discourse. Mark Lipovetsky, Klaus Mainzer, Paisley Livingston, Alexander Argyros, Nancy Easterlin, and others seek to explain cultural phenomena as governed by highly complex laws known in the natural and social sciences, in particular theories of chaos and complexity. Chaos theory has a clear potential to illuminate my analysis because It provides a clear metaphor for what happens if the sideshadows o f the past are ignored and reinforces Bakhtin’s idea of the need for responsibility and value. Frederick Crews writes that “[c]haos theory’s discovery of “sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the so-called butterfly effect) calls into question the classical detemiinist Idea that minor individual actions are necessarily overwhelmed by the giant systems containing them, whether those systems are social or physical” (S). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 Bakhtin’s insistence on a close connection between “eventness,” ethics, and temporality as well as Morson’s association o f“sideshadowiiig” and individual responsibility are undergirded by the implications of chaos theory that individuals and their words and actions can make an indeed overwhelming difference even in a gigantic system: thus, power does not wholly determine truth or even the way things have come to be. Argyros argues for a chaotic theory of narrative as an alternative to narrative deconstructed.2 He asserts that most narratives are not of the rigidly linear type frequently held up as examples in deconstmctive arguments, but rather fertile and creative examples of human thought. Narrative shows that ’ the mind’s habitation of the world o f the possible” through language, along with the mind’s ability to “surround itself with a cloud of alternate futures and, to a lesser extent alternate pasts” in narrative, makes narrative a principle agent of cultural change (312). He further notes that chaos theory also ’frehabilitate[s] the concept o f progress” (7) deconstructed by post-structural theory, a step that is necessary for an interpretation that claims literature has moral value to effect real change in people. Chaos replaces post-structuralist indeterminacy with the possibil ity of making real hypotheses through narrative about potential consequences of a certain view of the world. The smallest task we place before narrative is to model reality, yet its primary function reaches far beyond this—to experiment with reality and project implications of 2 Lipovetsky’s book Russian Postmodernist Fiction: Dialogue with Chaos argues that chaos theory is relevant to perestroika literature as well, but assumes a necessary connection between chaos and postmodernism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 various pasts and presents for the fixture. The ultimate conclusion of chaos theory is that “managed creativity” or “controlled novelty"—that is, aesthetically pleasing and freely flowing information that is directed to a useful extent—provides the greatest likelihood to bring about a successful society (330). For Russia during perestroika and in the 1990s, metahistorical works of fiction dominated the cultural scene chiefly because it was a time of individual and societal identity crisis. An oversimplified and reductive way o f looking at the past had just crumbled. Russians sought knowledge and understanding of that past, in particular an understanding that had previously been denied them acknowledging history as complex and open to human agency—and they needed to construct alternative histories in order to discover and reveal the complexity of what had happened. Moreover, it is my argument that through their alternative histories that they have found and are finding, Russian writers are also seeking to create and preserve a new Russian identity, one that is alternative, dialogic* and transformative. Russia’s self-view has long included the idea that Russians are people defined by their location on a boundary: between East and West, Asia and Europe, ■uncivilized and civilized, primitive and modem, unenlightened and enlightened, Orthodox and Roman, etc. In the continual binary value reversals identified by Lotman, Russia struggled to define cultural identity through times of historical change by reversing the values attributed to various cultural phenomena at the time or is the process of crossing a boundary (Lotman 23). Lotman theorizes that the struggle came about Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 because of attempts to define Russia in negative terms, Le., always creating a new self-image by crossing boundaries to exclude the negative value of the old or former realty as other— -an either/or mentality. Metahistorical fiction wields alternative and dialog as weapons to burst out of this wom-out paradigm in an attempt to transform cultural space, to carve out a new space what Lotman calls a ‘‘ neutral sphere” in cultural advancement: The basic cultural values (ideological, political, religious) in the system of medieval Russia are arranged in a bipolar value field divided by a sharp line and without any neutral axiological zone.... This neutral sphere becomes a structural reserve from which tomorrow’s system develops. Since continuity is obvious here there is no need either to emphasize it structurally or to reestablish it consciously and artificially. (Lotman 4) Although Lotman’s comparison of Russia and the West refers specifically to medieval times, I believe the argument can be validly extended through the cultural progression of the communist era, up to perestroika. Lotman’s concept of a neutral sphere is also similar to Lipovetsky’s and Clowes’ “neutral space.” The recent inclination towards metapositions in regards to cultural phenomena no longer requires that cultural values fell on a location on one side of the boundary or the other in the manner of either/or thinking, because the metaposition attempts to stake out a neutral ground for detached reflection, where it is possible to withhold immediate acceptance or rejection for the purpose o f analysis and evaluation. Instead, the new space relies on a both/and metaphor, similar to the one created by a Venn diagram. Rather than insisting “we belong either here or there,” the new model claims “we belong both here and there.” The boundary Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 becomes positively incorporated into Russia’s self-image, as rnetaMstarieaL mufti- generic works strive to exist on both sides of the boundary at once, defying any attempt to claim that any one discourse or ideology is right. They imagine a new identity that is pluralistic, productive and dynamic. Lipovetsky notices this paradox as well; noting that “Postmodernism in Russia attempts to overcome what Iurii Lotman and Boris Uspensky call the ‘essential polarity’ of the Russian cultural tradition,” he goes on to discuss Epstein: At the same time, one cannot help but agree with Mikhail Epstein that the uniqueness of Russian postmodernism in world culture can be defined in terms of the dualist maximalism of the Russian tradition. Russian postmodernism is capable of making a “paralogical” compromise between traditional Russian binarism and Western ternary models. [He quotes Epstein here:] “In order for Russian culture to adopt the ternary model, it needed to add neutral and mediating zones without renouncing the productive aspects o f binarism. It is this very dualism... which may prove to be Russian culture’s invaluable contribution to the contemporary, homogenized ‘post-historical’ state o f Western culture”. (Lipovetsky 33) Paradoxically, Russia retains the binary model, for the purposes of generating dialog, but also adopts the perspective gained through the ternary model. Thus, the epistemic value of metahistorical works, in creating alternative histories, is the validation of the new cultural kno wledge that a boundary existence has positive value in the new Russia; there is no longer a sense that Russia should strive to locate itself on either side of the boundary. Their heuristic value is manifested in their discovery of a multiplicity of values, perhaps even self- contradictory and as o f yet unable to folly manifest themselves in society. Furthermore, I believe that they have a transformative potential—literature can be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seen as a means to transform the Inherent values of the old Identity from what is undesirable into what new realities have allowed them to see as more desirable; in this way., they have overcome the no longer accurate portrayal of Russia by Lotman as a nation of bipolar values. Just in . case it was formerly true, metabistoneal works declare that it is no longer true; at the same time, they strive to change the past and the perception of it by representing its alternatives. This has the potential to reveal that Russia has been unfairly reduced, oversimplified into being a nation of binariness; indeed, perhaps these works unconsciously attempt to show or increase the complexity of the past in order to redeem it. This would function as a paradox with Lotman, who reduced Russian culture to binary interpretation, while suggesting that complexity is the desirable outcome of an artistic text. In the end, the past is not transformed, but rather its complexity is revealed retroactively in and through the artistic text, so that Russian cultural identity may be transformed in the present and for the future. What Epstein calls a simultaneous crowning and dethroning, that is, his approach to postmodernism in Russia, can now be elucidated further. The use of postmodernism as a reference point can be seen as an attempt on the part: of some writers and critics to take what they see as useful from Western theory m d culture while still holding on to Russia* s uniqueness: standing on both sides of the boundary but refusing to choose one. Epstein, as cited above, continues by declaring that Russia lias postmodernism, but that it lias already overcome it and understood its limitations. Ultimately, postmodernism is not adequate to describe the most salient Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 and dynamic aspects of the new literature, and as a type of expression, it is only part o f the larger tread to seize, from the vantage point of being on the boundary, what one wants to take for one’s own, and to do with it what one pleases. In the chapters that follow, I will show the epistemic, heuristic, and transformative functions of historical alternatives as found in some works of recent Russian metahistorical fiction. In particular, I will focus on how they generate and validate knowledge and understanding of history and identity and how they transform the knower and the knower’s culture. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 Chapter 3, Echoes of an Alternative Past; on Georgii Vladiinov’s General i ego armiia and the Tradition of the Russian Historical Novel He C M 6 T & ! He c m c t b. pa3MHmraTk! H e cm ctb nepeHrpHBan*, h h i p x e o6^yM HBaT& h h h c BapnaHTW npoHCineflciero!.. M m Qmmm raicHMH, k b x b m b 6 b im , b o # p y r n x m e 6 h jio ! Don’t dare! Don’t dare to reflect! Don’t dare to replay, or even think about other variants of the past! We were who were were, and there wasn’t anyone else! —Georgii Vladimov, on the bitter opposition to Ms novel...1 Georgii Yladimov’s 1995 Booker Prize novel Fem pm u ezo upfitm [The General and His Army] was received with the apprehension typical of the post- Soviet Russian reading public. On the one hand, the novel was acclaimed as a “masterful” and penetrating portrayal of events from the Second World War. Aleksandr Kogan, V. Kardin, and others defended the novel as an accurate and insightful reflection on important events of Russia’s history. Yet not everyone was enthusiastic about Vladimov’s work; not surprisingly, it incited a heated debate in Russia between 1995 and 1997, 'between conservatives who feared that repudiation of the past be taken too far lest more of the foundation should crumble—and those who preferred to face new and often threatening historical information head on, lest they allow the chance to understand the past to escape for good. 5 This m i all other translations of Georgii Vladimov’s writing are ray own. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 The spark that proved so incendiary is the novel’s presentation of historical material about World War II and especially the Vlasovite movement, also known as the Russian Liberation Army Movement/ in a more truthful (in a documentary sense) manner than heretofore. Even in a p»Mi~giasmsl ’ era, when the so-called, marketplace of ideas had supposedly prevailed, many people were still not ready for the exposure of certain events from Russia’s stormy past, especially those with the potential to disperse shame on the living hegemony, la the nineties, World Wax II remained one of the last holdouts of conservativism in presenting and interpreting the past, despite widespread acceptance of de-Leninization, de-Stalinlzafioa, and perestroika. It must be acknowledged that there was good reason tor this, since the truth about World War II was that hundreds o f thousands o f deaths and an unfathomable amount of loss came about as a result of blunders at the highest levels of the war command—from which the popular conclusion follows that much of Russia’s profound historical suffering was in vain, aad therefore meaningless. Despite the virulent debate in the press over this work, which will be discussed in depth below, and despite the book’s positive reception by much of the reading public aad several critics (if received a Booker Prize in 1995), there has been very little analytical criticism written on this work. A few thematic studies have been done that examine particular themes, including Natalia Ivanova’s article 2 Barry Lewis discusses tie Vlasovites is his article “War o h Two Frosts: Gsorgi VJadimov’s The General and His Army? World Literature Today, Vol. 3, No. I Winter 1999,29-36. Vladuaov also offers a aonliterary commentary m the Vlasovites is his article “Novoc sledstvie, prigovor staryi,” which is included as m appendix to his novel. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 OTeneciBa" [Smoke of the Fatherland] -which discussed folklore motifs in the novel, and Svetlana Shmtman-McMiliin’s article “The Troika on the Road to Loneliness and Dishonour,” which addresses the motif of isolation reflected in the characters of the novel’s three generals and the theme of Smersh, or the kind of political schizophrenia that dominated Russia under Stalin that resulted in Russians fighting Russians in World War II. While the latter makes several interesting references to intertexts with Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin, her overall assessment o f General Kobrisov is arrived at through analysis of Ws subordinates’ interactions with the Smersh agent Svetlookov; it is not surprising that her reading senses overwhelming existential defeat in this war: “All the participants in this war, both voluntary and involuntary, both General Kobrisov and Ms opponents, are feted to experience, whether in reality or in the plane o f metaphysics, only defeat” (302). In attacks published on the novel, Vladimov is accused of writing about events he himself did not witness, and about which he therefore, it is claimed, does not possess the authority to write a novel. He himself defends the legitimacy ofhis enterprise in a press interview, where he writes that the time has come when a new generation of writers has stepped forward and begun to reflect on the Second World War. These writes are too young to have witnessed the war themselves; however, the nation’s reflection on the topic is for from complete, and moreover it is necessary for the next generation to process the meaning of the war for themselves and for the nation today. “MHoroe ocranocB aepocsasaBHHM o npomesmeh Boise 11 He fiyaei yace, a pjMaio, pocKanaHo mortbMii bochhmmh” (Vladimov “H 6m cefliac”) [Much Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 remains unsaid about what happened in the war, and I doubt it will ever be told by people o f the war generation]. Ironically, most of the criticism that has been raised against the novel has little to do with the work as a novel, but rather is consented with the novel as a historical document. Instead o f discussing how the novel treats its historical subject in a literary manner, critics "bcc cboah k cnopy o HeTOUHocrax," [make it into an argument about inaccuracies] as V. Karelin claims in his article “CrpacTH m npHCTpacTna” (Kardin 2000). In order to appease such critics, he insinuates, it would have been necessary for Vladimov to write a historical document with no pretensions to literariness. The foremost critic with the most comprehensive (or nitpicking) criticism o f Vladimov’s work is conservative V. Bogomolov, who wrote his own historical novel on the final phase of World War II, August 1943y in the seventies; he discusses Vladimov’s novel along with several other works in a fragment of his own book "CpaM H M yr m xhbbic, h MepraHe, m Pocchs...” [Shame on the living, and the dead, and all Russia] published in Knuomuoe oSmpemie under the title “'HoBoe BHjtemie m m u 1 , 'hoboc ocMHCJienue' hjih nonm MH^oJioriisT’ [The new view of the war: new interpretation or new mythology?], Lumping Vladimov’s novel together with his brief essay “Hoboc cneacTBHe, n pH F O B Q p erapHH5 ’ [New investigation, old verdict], Bogomolov promises to analyze % gpyrm ’ nacKBHJSHMe cowmsBM', m epmmime Ore^scmeHaym aotbay a mscmtxm mhjmhohob ee wmwsx h mepmux yvacTHHicos”® ' [other “libelous compositions,” which blacken the Great Patriotic War and tens of millions o f her living and dead participants] (Vladimov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 423). The gist of Bogomolov’s argument is that, first o f a ll there are far too many errors in The General and His Army, wbich allegedly reflects the author’s lack of ability as well as Ms lack of legitimacy in the jurisdiction of World War Two novels. For instance Vladimov, in the novel, writes of telephone connections, when it would only have been accurate to call them telegraph connections. Further, Bogomolov finds that characters in the novel are portrayed either inaccurately, with details that are not found in or contradict those found in historical documents, or in a manner that M is to reflect a more general sense of truth as found in historical documents, with regard to characters who are not historical figures per se. Additionally Bogomolov criticizes Vladimov for making statements or showing situations that clearly contradict the reality o f contemporary laws and logic—for instance, be argues that General Kobrisov would never have been afraid o f Major Svetlookov, since he outranks Mm, and that any true general could have simply complained to Statin or his administration to have the SMERSH officials stop hassling them The critic also disagrees with Vladimov5 s depiction o f General Vlasov and almost every oilier detail of the novel that subjects the official, Soviet version of history to doubt As Kardin notes, Bogomolov’s criticism is only w ild If we take Stalin at Ms word (201), something very few people continued to do in 1995, Still, Vladimov himself felt the need to defend his work in response to Bogomolov and other readers having similar historical and cultural views in two articles. In “Hoaoe cneacrBae, npHTOBop cTapHftf’ lie defends Ms work for revealing information that the government concealed and for resurrecting and validating people’s memories. The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 article explains more explicitly than the novel the author’s views on the key political and historical situation of tbs novel-— the problem of turncoat Russians who took up arms against their own country after having teen captured or given themselves up to the German side. Vladimov offers a critique of Leonid Reshin’s essay on this historical subject “Kojma6opaimoBHcra h xepm e pem wa” [Collaborators and victims of the regime], which was published in Znamia in 1994 and addresses the same historical material as Vladimov’s novel; Reshin, Vladimov argues, while presenting valuable new information and opening up a historical topic heretofore residing as a ghost in Russia’s closet, has limited himself by Ms assumption that soldiers donned enemy uniforms out of pure necessity in every case—that is by his unwillingness to recognize that many people chose deliberately to betray the Motherland because they held anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist views and may have either not cared about Soviet Russia or even desired to take revenge on the government. In a poignant passage of his novel, Vladimov has already made this point: Y Kax/pro Stum cbcm ixpmmia, ho to ©fence, nro cimorano hx, aacxaBMio Hswem BpaacecKHt Mynrpip h mafmih opyxne npowB cbohx—k rouy ate m nenoBHHHHx, noTO M y uro hcthbhmc h x oShiphkii He hmcjih oSwKHoseHHa X O P H T b B U lT H K O B H e S IS K M , —310 oSipee, S apU H C e O & tH B JieH H O e 6 4 H 3 M € H O h ”s H e npocTHTCs otpjsaifOBO H H K O M y , paste ne Sysei ycjramaHo. (369) Each person had Ms reason, but the one thing that united them, forced them to don the enemy’s uniform and raise weapons against their fellows—-and moreover even innocent ones, because their real offenders did not have the habit of attacking with bayonets—the one thing, their having confessed to being ftraitorsf’ can never, however, be excused for anyone, ft will not be tolerated. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 Reshin is quite willing to accept questionable German, and Russian sources of information at face value, -and does so in order to cling to a perspective that is reductive and tails to acknowledge the historical complexity of the situation. Vladimov here offers an extensive critique of SesMa and proceeds to extend his own interpretation of Vlasovites and other Russians who, for some reason or another, decided to fight against Russians. Frank Ellis, in Ms article “Georgii Vladimov’s The General and His Army : The Ghost of Andrei Vlasov,” argues that what is at stake in this debate goes beyond the theme of political loyalty (recall Marsh’s argument that debates over historical fiction after perestroika have often been the surface manifestations of debates about political loyalty). He holds that the failure of loyalty is a two-way street, and that such failures as the one embodied by the question of Vlasovites in Vladimov’s novel were reciprocal, i.e.} the real problem is not that large numbers of soldiers betrayed the motherland to go over to the German side, but that they had themselves been betrayed by the government. Moreover, Ellis argues cogently that there is a legitimate moral reproach made by Vladimov’s novel, one that has not really been heard strongly up to now, that people who denied themselves for the sake o f total identification with the regime of Stalin “such that [they were] no longer capable of individual action” led to a state of affairs in Russia under which there was “no social contract, no rule of law, no civilization, only the endlessly savage whims of the refer and the ruled, the latter colluding in, and perpetuating, the agony” (445). Ellis suggests that the inability to act on individual initiative combined Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 with lack o f allegiance to the state ted to a great catastrophe with implications for the core of national identity (448). Vladimov also discusses the practice of inventing alternative histories and proceeds to illustrate his ideas. Vladimov’s own claim and a main thrust of Ms essays is that there is theoretical value in seeking to understand alternative histories; in presenting what might have taken place if a few circumstances or historical decisions had been different, he seeks to show the moral significance of historical choice. He puts into practice what he advocates by presenting an alternative historical possibility—what might have happened if Vlasov had been different or acted differently, or if the circumstances o f the ROA (Russian Liberation Army) had been different—in Ms essay. It is notable that Vladimov’s novel, which alludes to the role of General A. A. Vlasov in World War II and speculates upon the phenomenon of Vlasovites as one of its important themes or subplots, was not about Vlasov or Vlasovites per se—and yet many readers as well as critics responded to this theme as if it were the most important in the novel, most likely because the topic was current in 1994 (as seen, for example, by the publication ofReshin’s article in 3hojm, 1994, vol. 8). Bogomolov devotes a significant portion of Ms chapter about Vladimov to refitting the author’s views of Vlasov and Vlasovites. Ironically, in Ms rejection of the novel’s perspective as an after fabrication, Bogomolov invents Ms own version o f a counterfaisfcoiy, as it were from a conservative point of view. Here is a portion of Ms description of Vlasov by which, he intended to oppose Vladimov: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 M eC TO M O fiH BH i H IIOTOMy Kap&epHHM, JIB C T B B K lI C B B ID ieC T O M H U M H H 6e3pa3JiHHHMt k nonBSOBaxics ^ m c p n m . Crajianaa, poc b 3B 3H H 8X H flO fflm O C TSK H , H € C K pH B SE, pagO B EU C * 3T O M y. Oh I’ O pflH JIC S, W O jihiio y aero b pafcaax, sax y Crmma% pmrmmpmm c hhm ho T6Jie|®Hy BH» npHcyrcTBHH reHepaaoB 1 1 mmQmux o#anep©B5 BMramBantca no cTosite 'cM H p H O * if ycmaiBaji HpHpoaHoe oicaiae, y§e2icff,eHBei, w o box,®© srro HpasHTcs. K tomj xe eiae, Bocae MockobckoI 6htbh9 ©ipajtan yna^KOM cnyxa. (Quoted in Vladimov “Kogda”, 436) Ambitious and therefore careerist, smooth-tongued with Ms higher-ups and indifferent to Ms subordinates.. .he took advantage o f Stalin’s trust, grew in rank and responsibility, and was visibly pleased with, all this. He was proud that Ms face was pockmarked like Stalin’s, and talking with Mm on the telephone in the presence o f generals and staff officers, “submissively” drew himself into an upright position wMle stressing the [normally unstressed] “o,” convinced that this was pleasing to the Leader. And even beyond this, after the battle for Moscow, “suffered from a loss o f hearing.” Vladimov takes pains in Ms following self-defense to show, based on reliable sources, that this description of Vlasov is in some places completely fabricated, and in other places taken from descriptions about other people, some close in rank or milieu to Vlasov. He did not have a pockmarked face, Ms speech did not stress “o” when it should sot have, he conducted himself with superiors as is normal and necessary within military hierarchy, and he was well respected among subordinates, whom he treated appropriately. Bogomolov claims Vlasov did not do significant damage to the German army in 1941 at Moscow; Vladimov convinces that he did. Bogomolov implies that he did not even participate in the battle because he fell ill on the eve of the assignment (suggesting that the entire popular and accepted version of events viewing Vlasov as the general who freed Moscow is illegitimate); Vladimov refutes this by arguing that it was actually another general who fell ill, by the name ofKiriukhin. And so on.. Bogomolov has managed to pen a completely new narrative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 (not only Vladimov, but Kardin and other critics note his inaccuracy) that coincides more with “official Soviet ideology” repeating its refrains, than with actual history. In doing so, he shows his own sort of awareness of the usefulness ofmufciple versions o f history in furthering one’s interests—an understanding that, as noted above in regards to Wachtel’s thesis, has been deeply engrained in Russian culture from early on, whatever the ends to which it has been used. Throughout Ms refutation, in the article “Korpa Maccmpoam KOMnereHmno: otbct B. EoroM OJiOBy,” o f Bogomolov's version of events (which is a far greater flight o f fantasy in relation to actual people and events of the past than is the novel under discussion, The General and His Army), Vladimov is concerned mainly with correcting inaccuracies. He does this by dividing Bogomolov’s criticisms into several major themes of the novel and offering well-researched historical arguments (and an occasional literary one) to justify Ms own positions as developed in the novel. The article specifically refutes points made by Bogomolov in criticism of Vladimov’s historical material, and delves deeply Into some of the major issues raised in the novel and the criticism it received: the portrayal of famous German General Heinz Guderian, the depiction of Russian General A. A. Vlasov and Ms conception of a “Third Power,” the subject of Russian traitors to the Motherland, and General Kobrisov and. the 38* army (real-life Chibisov and the 38te army). Here, again, he weighs some historical choices, “in the subjunctive mode,” creating what he refers to as “counterhistories”-— “what if’ versions of historical events. These usually serve to correct popular but wrong ideas about what happened, or to unveil Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 historical events and places about which others have teen silent, usually for reasons of vested interest. Moreover, they explore historical choices and possibilities that remained unchosen in the real past, choices on which outcomes relevant to the present were contingent. Vladimov holds that Hcropas o 6huhms c ee n p ejm an ep raB H JiM H , c ee tiyfi osai'H M noeiyjiaxoM “janane 6htb” H e m ofjio, n o x o M y mo 6hjio T a x — .a e lc T B H T e jib H o , H e ocrmmci- H e jio B e u e c T B y m hoxo cbo6o^i H S B jf ie K a n . y p o K H H 3 nponuioro,--Tor/ta xax “a jiB T e p H a T H B H a x ”, H e m pm n m hhoto B H S o pa, nom epK H B aex oiB ercrB eH H oc x& hctophhcckhx m m 3 a h x p em eH H a, y u a u H B ie hjih o n m S o H H & ie , m /renaer H 3 hhx bmbqhm aa 6ynymee. Tax m a x M a T H C T H yaaxca n o b e sK fla x B , riepeH H auH saa xojtti npoH rpam i& ix hjih H H aefeH X napurit. (Vladimov 453) Everyday history, with its fated predestinations, with, its coarse postulates, could not “have been different,” because it really was the way it was, but it allows humankind a good deal of freedom to extract lessons from the past, whereas “alternative history,” without negating other choices that were made, emphasizes the responsibility o f historical personages for their decisions, successful or mistaken, and draws from them conclusions for the future. In the same way, chess players learn to win—by going over the moves of lost or tied matches. Correcting the past is not accomplished merely by substitution of one event for another, but rather by highlighting the “thick points” or points at which possibility generated a moment of choice, which was then acted upon, Vladimov is not content to fix someone else’s version of history; lie understands his vocation as presenting alternative. He views history and literature as places where choices can be explored; in the discipline of history, this is manifested in the creation of co'suitertestories, and in the discipline of literature, fey writing works that reflect the multiplicity inherent in telling the past. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 In her article “Semantic Slide: History and the Concept of Fiction,” Ann Rigney argues that a gradual slippage in the meaning of the word “fiction” has led to a state of affairs in which many critics today can claim that “narrative” and “fiction” are equal; they then base claims about the narrativity of history on their own and popular misunderstanding—1 when “fiction4 5 in reality means more than just “made up.” A primary distinction between histoiy-writing and novel-writing, she claims, is that history is dominated by the cognitive function, that is, it gives information about the past along with insight into it, while historical fiction gives primacy to the aesthetic function. History, while it may allow some degree of invention, does not give the historian the freedom to invent with impunity (Rigney 37). In the writing of history, fiction defined as “make-believe” is usually, but not always, out of place; it is occasionally compatible with the historian’s goals if the original state o f affairs was poorly documented or in respect to private domains where a historical writer may “try to imagine what probably—according to evidence available regarding similar situations—did happen in the particular situation to which they are referring” (Rigney 40). In this type o f make-believe, the historian invites the reader to go along with a conjecture or hypothesis concerning actual states of the world in the past.... Indeed, the fact that historians have recourse to the ‘as i f o f hypotheses is again symptomatic of the fact that, unlike novelists who can make assertions at will, they are not free to design the world they represent. (Rigney 41) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 Rigney recalls Roman Jakobson’s assertion that certain types of speech are dominated to a greater or lesser degree by certain functions, but that one function tends to dominate in particular. She continues: Thus if novels offer information or Insight concerning human affairs (a cognitive function which is particularly important in the case of historical, novels), they are normally dominated by their aesthetic function. Conversely, historical works may have an aesthetic dimension (and arguably all successful historical works are in some way a pleasure to read), but they are normally dominated by the cognitive function; i.e., they are primarily designed to provide information regarding the past together with insight. (Rigney 38) The implication of all this is reflected first and foremost in the reception of a work. Novels are criticized primarily on aesthetic grounds. History, on the other hand, invites criticism both on the basis o f the quality o f the information it provides, and according to the significance of its contribution to our understanding of the past (Rigney 42-3). Rigney’s paradigm, because it addresses the reception of literary works in a society steeped in postmodern ways of perceiving the world, can be applied to our thinking about Vladimov’s novel even though he himself is not a postmodernist. With this in mind, it is possible to examine the reception of Georgii Vladimov’s novel in light of the comparison between fictional freedom and historiographical responsibility. As I have shown, Vladimov was criticized mainly for an inaccurate representation o f history, although Ms critics clearly understood that Ms work was a novel Moreover, in Ms response to Ms critics, he defended Ms view of history as truthful and accurate, rather than defending his freedom as & creative writer to write as he pleases. This is* at one level, possible as an outgrowth Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 o f the traditional and well-documented, extraordinary political role that literature has always played, in Russia, and still does, to some extent But 1 will argue that there is significantly more to it than this. Vladimov’s novel is representative o f a broad trend in post-Soviet fiction to use dialog with genre (here, with the archetypal, Pushkinian historical novel and its echoes and development in Russian literature, with Tolstoy’s development o f the historical novel, and finally, with Soviet paradigms for historical novels, especially those about World War II) to place his vision of an alternative past within the framework of existing discourse on the making of history. This dialog allows him to formulate a coherent position on the meaning of history for the present because the genres with which he engages in dialog clarify other recognized, culturally legitimate positions. But his views about history-making go against the established paradigms o f twentieth century modernisms, which seek to protect the widely held view that the past came about o f necessity. Fear that something meaningful in the nineties’ assessment o f the past will be lost—that the past might be impoverished—if events that tore asunder human existence during the Second World War turn out not to be the culmination of necessity drives a defensive posturing before proposals of reconsideration, of past events. This is natural, since novels that psychologize the individual and endow characters (in history and historical literature) with depth, freedom, and personal responsibility often do so at the expense ofMstory’s inherent worth (Shaw 34). Ultimately, however, Vladimov’s protagonist never transgresses the outer limits of historical circumstance; he does exercise personal freedom and recognize individual respoB.siM.fity, and yet he does not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 entirely escape being historically determined to some extent because his choices are diluted, with the consequences of choices made fey others (historical contingency). Vladimov uses dialog with genre to work toward persuading his reader of the importance of seeing history’s alternatives—and as validation of the moral significance o f the past (bat not of the wrong choices of the past) in which Russia today is rooted. If on one level, the reason that The General and His Army was hotly debated in the press was that typical o f the Russian historical novel, it reflects an attempt on the part o f its author to practice the role of the historian—at the same time, it is because the history It offers radically challenges the histoiy that has been officially accepted and promoted along with basic assumptions that go along with it. Not only are the events of the novel not fabricated, but they reveal part of who the Russian people are and might have been under just slightly different circumstances, if only... and they cause the reader to reflect on certain Important events that changed histoiy during the recapture of Kiev—the “pearl of the Ukraine”—events that the reading public had little previous knowledge of. thanks to the Soviet government’s attempts to conceal its own mishandling of the war. Finally, in a place where lots of skeletons already retrieved from the closet are floating about, shaking off their dusty limbs, it would be as oversimplification to say that people are enraged just by Vladimov’s reconsideration of Russia’s national history. What is particularly maddening is bis probing into more “local” histories— -the acts and statements o f individual participants In the war, some of which their owners were glad to leave behind them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 Vladimov strongly asserts that local, individual choices interact with historical circumstance to construct both individual and national history and identity. Summary The General and His Army is a novel about the recapture of Kiev (PredslavT in the novel) in the Ml of 1943. But it is also, and more importantly, the story of an individual lieutenant-general, Fotii Ivanovich Kobrisov (based on the real-life general Chibisov), among many other, more important generals (including Zhukov, Vlasov, and other real historical figures, some under pseudonyms), who must find a balance between making decisions that he is expected to make and making decisions that his conscience can live with. The novel is structured by a narrative frame, in which Kobrisov and his traveling companions, his three closest military subordinates, are driving to Moscow in a car. Most of the narrative takes place within the timeframe of their journey, a two-day affair from just north of Kiev to the capital, in the form of extended memory and flashback. The memory and flashback, however, portray approximately three years of the war, including several months leading up to it, and the final chapter includes a section that jumps to a time fifteen years subsequent to their journey. The seven chapters do not follow in chronological order according to the flashbacks, and the reader thus does not experience the narrative as continuous and unbroken, but rather as a puzzle that must be put back together to see the scope and contours of the picture. What follows is a chronological Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6? recomfruction o f the events described in the novel; the past tense is used because they are described in the past from Kobrisov’s point of view as lie rides in the can General Kobrisov was indicted in the thirties in Stalin’s purge o f the military for Ms failure to achieve military goals in the Far East, in other words, for being willing to give up disputed territory to Japan in an effort, to avoid greater human loss when the Russians were losing the war. For this he spent forty days in a special prison in Moscow under Interrogation. There is a hint that he always attempted to act according to Ms conscience; the narrator mentions that he was arraigned because he was not one of their own, or not like the other generals. Prison catalyzed a period of personal moral and psychological growth for Fotii Ivanovich. At first, he was unable to relate to the other prisoners, including Ms cellmates. But when one of them shares food he has received from home (they are Muscovites and so receive packages from family), Kobrisov begins to feel a shared humanity that transcends the military rank that has always separated him from those under his command. When one of his cellmates willingly accepts a 25 year sentence just so that the authentic letters of Voltaire in his file will not be burned by his interrogator, who is using this threat as a means o f spiritual and psychological torture, Kobrisov begins to understand the kind of freedom that a person can have who makes decisions according to his conscience. At this point, he expects yet does not fear a heavy sentence; however, a few days later, M s interrogator, Opriadkin, brings him into a chamber and addresses him not as an inmate, but as TosapHm-reHepasi [Comrade General], and informs Mm that he has been freed due to circumstances (Stalin needed more experienced military Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m personnel tecau.se the war bad just broken out; he had purged too many experienced officers), Kobrisov, along with over a hundred other Mgh-ranking officers, were gathered together for their reassignments; their freedom remaining contingent on adherence to the no-retreat policy as well as successful performance. At this time, Kobrisov overheard Stalin himself making insulting conmients about all of them, in Georgian Kobrisov is then assigned to an army located in Lithuania, where he is shown to be a man of leadership who understands how to act in difficult situations. He comes to Ms army to find basically a massacre o f soldiers in process, because the ranking officers dread Stalin and the secret service and are afraid that anything bat a direct assault strategy will appear to them as “retreat” They welcome Kobrisov’s leadership; he leads them back to Moscow, and in the course of their journey they are surrounded by the enemy several times. When they arrive at Moscow, three SMERSH officers parachute in to begin interrogating Kobrisov and splitting up Ms army, standard policy for those who have been surrounded; after all, they may have entered into enemy service as spies. Once again, Kobrisov resists them, and moreover, lie is lucky a second time. The secret service officers are unable to continue their investigation because Kobrisov has arrived on the eve o f the German, attack on Moscow, and all arms are subsumed in the great defense. The®, while still located near Moscow, Kobrisov accepts aa invitation o f an officer in his array to enjoy French cognac that the enemy lias left behind, ate. due to that officer’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. blunder, lie is shot eight times in the stomach. His orderly, Shesterikov, risks Ms life to save him, and the two become inseparable for the duration of Kobrisov’s service. Alter Ms recovery, Kobrisov is assigned to the 38& army some time in 1941, but there is a gap in the reader’s knowledge of events between 1941 and 1943, when the reader, through flashback, encounters Kobrisov in the vicinity ofPredslavl’ (Kiev, in the novel). The reader first encounters the Kobrisov o f this time period in a meeting with the other commanders of the Eastern Front; they are trying to decide on a military strategy. On the way, he has been struck by the wondrous view of the city and decided in Ms heart that the capture of the city will belong to him. However, Kobrisov is the lowest-ranking commander of the Eastern Front, and the only one who is not a “khoMiol” [Ukrainian]; although he objects to the plans of the others for strategic reasons, they win out in the end and decide to concentrate the main attack forces in the city ofSibezh (Bukrin), to the south of Kiev. Kobrisov and Chamovsky are for attacking from the north; this is the most logical, since the swampy conditions make attack difficult from the south, and moreover, the Germans are expecting a southern attack. After the meeting, Kobrisov is shown to have formulated his own, secret plan for the capture of the city. Musing over a map about where the most logical place from which to launch an attack would be, he uses a compass to determine which point is directly north of Sibezh—i.e., 180 degrees around the periphery ofPredslavl from the southern beachhead—and the tip rests on a black ring with a Mack circle within it, representing the small tows, of Myriatin (Liutezh). As quickly as possible, he calls headquarters to obtain permission to ford the Dnepr permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 and take the bridgehead at Myriatin, presumably to be in a better position to provide support other forces when they finally enter the city ofPredslavf, Vatutin gives Ms permission and within a couple of days, Kobrisov has accomplished this skillful military feat and taken the bridgehead. Shortly thereafter, he extends a pincer formation halfway around the town to begin surrounding the town. It greatly surprises Mm that the opponent does not use this opportunity to retreat, but rather begins to strengthen defenses. Having decided he needs to interview an enemy captive, he finds an escaped radio operator who, to Ms surprise, speaks Russian, and nothing else. In this way, he discovers that the town o f Myriatin contains an ominous secret—the troops there are basically all Russians who have given up their own uniforms and donned German ones. The radio operator tells Kobrisov and SMERSB official Major Svetlookov how he was part of a badly planned operation at Sibezh, where many planes M l of poorly prepared parachutists were dropped with inadequate plans for communication into a hotbed of enemy troops—and were nearly all captured. The Germans brought them to Myriatin, saying they could deal with their own countrymen (there were already Russian turncoats there waiting for orders from the German command). The radio operator has left them because he did not want to betray his country, and no one forced him to stay, but SMERSH official major Svetlookov conveniently comes by to bear this interview, and Kobrisov, sympathetic to the young soldier, is obligated to give the young man up to the authorities, who of course disbelieve his story, which would make Vatutin and other high-level commanders look bad. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 As a result of this .new information, Kobrisov’s entire mindset changes. He Is morally perplexed at the thought of seizing a town of Russians, at the Idea that they would “njiaraiiw Poccnel sa Pocchso” jpay for Russia, with Russia]. At the next command meeting, he tries to argue that it Is not necessary to take Myriatin, because the enemy is unlikely to fight back. Zhukov, Vatutin. Tereshchenko, and Khrushchev have become aware that the Myriatin bridgehead would be the most logical point from which to launch an attack, since the Sibezh operation has turned out to fe e a fiasco o f casualties, and they accuse Kobrisov o f planning all along to go against the plans the others had. accepted (it is true; he had objected to the southern plan, foreseeing the enormous number of casualties it would entail). Still, it Is clear to all that Kobrisov is in the best position to recapture Predslavl’, and they are jealous. To make things difficult for him, they insist that lie first complete the task at Myriatin and secure that town (which will give them time to bring their own troops around and storm Predslal’); he Is unable to explain to them why he doesn’t want to take it (240) but refuses. They give him the ultimatum that he formulate a plan for the capture of Myriatin within two days; however, the narrator reveals 'that they already had planned for a Ukrainian to have the privilege of taking Kiev, the “pearl of the Ukraine,” and that objecting to Kobrisov’s refusal to take Myriatin was fimctioning In their favor, simply as a more convenient way o f getting rid of him. Kobrisov can do nothing without going against his conscience, and so does northing for two days (but read Voltaire). Vatutin then calls to inform Kobrisov that he has been relieved of duties and that he should take a vacation for two or three weeks; Kobrisov and Ms Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 retinue get in. the car to drive to Moscow (the drive that constitutes the present-time event o f the story), but stop at the local headquarters first, where the general is not welcomed and Is treated as a nobody already; he realizes that it was a mistake to drop by, that he was already not needed in this war. They continue on to Moscow, and atop the Mil that they think is Tolstoy’s PoMomiy Hill (but it is not) they stop to breakfast and wash. There some women give them a radio, and they hear the news that Myriatin has been taken and general Kobrisov has been honored and given awards for it (ironically, in Ms absence, and when he did not want Ms name to be involved in this operation). He hears that Tereshchenko, a Ukrainian, has taken control o f Ms army, and knows that his army, under Tereshchenko’s control, will now take PredslavP. He feels a strong need to return to Ms army, because he has always felt that a general’s place is with Ms army, at the head, visibly, to provide real support for Ms troops. He insists that the car return to Myriatin, against the wishes of the others, and at a checkpoint near their destination, when lie has gotten out o f Ms car to talk with an official, his car comes under fire and Ms three companions are killed. Ironically, they have been targeted because the driver, Sirotin, las called the SMERSH officials to tell them their location, so they would be safer—and the officials use this information to make it appear as if the Russian traitors swarming the woods after Mjdatm’s capture have fired on the general’s car. An even greater irony is that the general’s men were killed by Russian fire, which is precisely what the general had wasted to avoid doing himselfi— firing on Russians—and what the commander who had fired the shot bad been fervently wishing to avoid m well. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 Genre, Boundaries, and Metahistorical Fiction Reflection on Genre I: the Boundary between History and Literature The General and His A m y interacts in a number of ways with the literary tradition. By showing where Ms novel stands in relation to the tradition of historical fiction in Russia, Vladimov is also positioning himself as someone with specific views on the historical process as well. WachteFs thesis that Russian writers typically write multiple naonoiogic narratives on the same historical material, usually one fictional and the other non-fictional, and that this shows their implicit understanding that dialog between genres conveys the importance of a higher, poetic truth over and above that of simple historical events and facts, is confirmed by Vladimov’s two historical essays, which explicate Ms ideas about the historical material that forms Ms novel Moreover, these essays suggest that Vladitnov’s literary and historical work are inseparable, and this feet itself locates Vladimov at the end of a long line o f Russian writers qua historian. For Wachtel, two components of rewriting the past are typically found in works of historical fiction by Russian authors: a less important element o f making corrections to a story that has been told, and a more important idea that whatever story has been told cannot capture the whole essence o f the past, ofhistory, and so recognizes that multiple perspectives are possible. In other words, a writer’s desire to show history as it really happened (encrypt history or .make amends to existing history) is not the sole motive, nor necessarily the most important one, when he or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 she wields a pea over the past. The tradition of Russian writers encoding historical material in multiple versions— -both, fictional and documentary—was a Russian answer to the problem of integrating subjectivity and objectivity in respect to historical narrative. This solution, rather than synthesizing the two spheres, uses intergeneric dialog as a way of presenting a complex national history without losing any o f the advantages inherent to either the historical genre or the fictional novelistie genre. Wachtel claims that neither genre is privileged or intended to supersede the other. la his discussion of Pushkin’s two works The History o f Pugachev and The Captain’ s Daughter, he writes that The view o f the Pugachev rebellion and the attitude toward history displayed in the novel are in no way meant to supersede the very different point o f view o f the history. Rather, Pushkin Implies that the two works are meant to be read In tandem. The clash o f their separate mono logic narratives leads to an intergeneric dialogue that emphasizes the multiplicity o f possible historical interpretations. Each firmly belongs to its own genre, but the two are linked to each other, and to a i o f Pushkin’s work on historical themes by his conception of history as a series o f possible stories. Each individual work of history should be imbued with what Pushkin called a “unified spirit,” but ultimate historical truth, if it exists for Pushkin, arises not from the synthesis of genres, but from their juxtaposition. (Wachtel 13-4) The question of what happened, exactly, is thus subjugated to the problem of how what happened must be presented in order to test preserve the whole meaning of all the parts, which cannot be captured by the writing of a single genre, and the solution is reached by means of dialogic juxtaposition of multiple narratives. In this tradition, then, there is an implicit recognition that historical truth cannot be achieve through one perspective, no matter how convincingly presented Instead, whatever truth can be achieved emerges from the uneasy coexistence o f multiple ways o f seeing and narrating the past. It is constituted Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 not through the authority of a single genre ta t instead through the principle of intergeneric dialog. (Wachtel 12) Moreover, the ability o f a fiction writer to present a counterhistory depends on the existence of an “original” version of the events in consideration, Wachtel describes how Pushkin used an existing version of the story of Boris Godunov (Karamzin’s) to create dialog with Ms own dramatic presentation of the same events; in the absence of an existing known, accepted, or official version, lie created one, and was compelled to do so before he could finish the novel—as seen in the parallel histories Hcmopm Uyzmeea [A History o f Pugachev] and “KamrraHCKaa floufca” [The Captain ’ $ Daughter} (Wachtel 76). As a novel, The General and His Army cannot be folly understood without taking into consideration how the novel’s historical narration interacts with existing historical versions of events described in the novel. Both of Wachtel’s components are present in The General and His Army. Vladimov is, on the one hand, interested in creating a literary exposition of major historical events, the echoes of which was heard in many public forums during the perestroika period. At the same time, he makes corrections to some of the stories that are still stuffed with leftover ideology, current prejudices, and often silent “black holes” where archival research has not yet filled in the space o f old ideology. Since the plot is predicated upon the historical blunders of the Soviet high command in making decisions about recapturing Kiev, it provides a useful example to juxtapose the novel’s version of these events with documentary evidence about the same events. At the same time, it should be kept in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mind that the post-Soviet reading public constitutes a complex audience in regard to their previous knowledge of an original historical version of these events. This will be discussed below. Most, of the descriptions of historical events in the novel are fictionalized versions of real historical situations and events; the creation o f a fictionalized version provides a fuller sense that more than one version of the past is plausible, and also corrects the reading public’s possible misconceptions about these events. The following example should suffice to illustrate my point. A main plot of the novel is the government’s treatment o f returned war captives. When General Kobrisov is faced with an unexpected situation in the M l of 1943, --i.e., the enemy does not appear to 'be withdrawing when they perceive they are about to be surrounded, he wonders why, and determines that he needs to interview an enemy soldier. A young man is brought to Mm, and it quickly becomes clear that there is no need to fetch an interpreter. It turns out the man is a Russian soldier who has left or escaped the protection of “the enemy” to return to Ms own side, despite fears and rumors he will be rejected by his own. This man, a parachutist, never intended to end up behind enemy lines; his story follows in Vladimov; HoBejiaji oh npo to , nero see xce xjtau reaepaji q t cbohx neiienemiiMiMx eocejiei, m o nepenojmnjiio yxee najnrryi© tip KpaeB xpoBasyio uamy CmSemcmm rmannapMa. B jpBepinesoie s c e i w m n o p u momn-armcb ee HCnpaB H TE H O B O ® aMHTI0f » I —B 03tQ T U H H M JiecailTOM, H C T O J I B M a C C H p O B a H H B IM , K S K O T O elite He BH^HBana H C T O p H H B O ftH . Obmero H H C Jia nneHHHfi, eerecTBeHHO, He m an, ho cboio B 03flymHO-aecaHTHyio fiparajay HasBaji im oft, H 3 nero reaepaji mot -sw am nm b 6es feflMHoi ohihoih, hto m tb hx, nom , H 6hjio BaaeficTBOBaso—uhcjio, npeanouirraeMoe MypMsmm... K Moryvmy sammy em,e %o6wiach rmem m ea aecama Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 H O H H O ro, r 'M O M lIOKpOBOM TeMHOHtl’— 6y,HTO BSMII®! C0CT3BHJI0 8m TIXKHi i p y a paccesTE s ito t noKpoB BpoxeicFopaM jg o g b € th tso th m m h pajceraMH, B H C J tH H M H 6oM 6aM H-JiaM UH OH aM H ! If O T C IO ga n O IB J IH BC e Gexbl. Bw 6pO C H T& m m Spm wt pemeHO 6&rao sa o m y mom., b K paiaeM cjiynaH 3a j p e , He HMea aapoapoM o® 6m m e neM 3a jroecra KHJioMerpoB o t /bienpa, He hm cs h c m m s e m s b jioeTETKe, 3 r o saxoI-H H 6yi& copoK aM ecraaift JIM-2 h o t ace 6yKCHpoBimiK niiaaepoB m o jm m 6bui s a home ueeiaMiBKO p efico s coBepraHTb, HecKOjibico B3jieix>B, nocaaox.,. 7 m cn ew a m , h to sajtany jiecaH TH H K O M C T S B H U H 3a m e mo BSJiera, a o S sy M H saaa ee h e Jieiy. T a t cneiHHJiH, h to b sKHnaxcH H aSpaaii h h jio to b , He HMesnmx oa& ira h o h h h x BBUieroB; Bsm epxam ayx H y ro Majiyio b h c o t j o h h h He crapaOTcn, o t o ru a SeUHTOK H H O H H H X HCTpeSHXeJiel yXGglDffl HOBHHie H y B C U I H H H B a O T cKOpocm, h flio a e i pa36pacHBajra h o orpoMHoft h HeHSBeaaHHoi n u o m a jp . n aa ajiH b Boppu .H nenpa— m to h v jih M ac rae , He cvm cb en ie b B03,gyxe ocBo6o«HT&ca o t crponoB. IlajpjiH, ocjienjiem&ie npoxeirropaM it, h e HCMemaie SoeBHe nopaara, na^ana HaBcrpeay xpaecaM seaaTHoro oraa, Ha MHoraacsbi npodHT&ix, e a cropaw m ax icynojiax napaniroiOB. Csmbix yaaajiHBBix othochjio SnarojoteTeOTinaM serpoM k csoeMy jieBOMy 6epery» a y x o cboh s s m p m m san o ao sp H B am aeaepTHpCTBO H3 6oa, KOTopoe h BnpMME He ts k cjio m o a m aecaHTHHKa, HayaeuHoro ynparaxTB a m m o m a chocom. Te ace, kto upuseMJiHJHicB Bce-iaKH b sajpnaoM Mecre, a o jix ia i Shim ero oQ om m wrh Koorpwm a paxeraMH, ho m m p c m hcm hh ib npoTHBoaecaHTHHX oipigoB cTajiH pasxararB Kocip&i a nycKam cboh pm erM . H h o I x e csmsm a e 6mmo: H3 onaceH H s, k3k 6 h p a m c n a He nonajia b naira Bpara c ceKperaHMH pajpoflaaBMMii, pemHHH u x He c o o S m a tt mo HpHseMJieHua, m am komm m ixcshbbh© s e r e m opuea&ho, b apyrax caMouerax, m a a s m s e He cy x aeao mm 6hjk> BoceoeOTHHTtex c 6ecnojie3HHM H paimsMH, xoTopiae o c zw m o c b T o j& m p m 8 m % m BB lSpO C H Tfc. 3 to m pm cm m bw m . rieeam«H8-paaiiCT? eme He Bncurae HcaepnaBiinift jmom bck> Mepy mayrnitnmM tojiobotmictbom. ™y H 3C « B C M mmpOMMM 0HJia HOfl K O T O H , & TOJIOCOM — T 8K y M C H B MHKpo^oHa Hery, He m u m n c co6ofi 6pam ,— tobophji oh c aenporaejaiiHM. HeH3XHTM M O TH aX H H eM ,— Hy, HTO... H V , a MOry O T X p h F F M M tckctom: cio^a, moji, He cSpacusaMw uioaei, iy r sacajiH spyroM... Ho kto x e mhc noBepirr, Koraa m paOTOOTHHUX ae bmoeo, ko^ob hc saaio, mom: hoshbhmx? Y K O M 6 axa Bee, a m e oh, komSet? “^eftcTBHTeJiBHO,— noflXBamii waftop CBeraooKOB, - k to x e ieoe HOBepHT. T h x e Beero Ha&naoaarB He mof. Hjih kto-to hotom paccKa3an xefie?” {Tenepmi 198-9) He informed Mm o f that which the general was still waiting for Ms not overly scrupulous neighbors to tell, him, that the bloody cup of the Sibezh incident Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. n was already filled to the brim. To make up for this whole escapade, they were Hying to correct the mistake by entering into another, similar fiasco-—an airborne descent, one more massive than any even performed in the history of wars. The captive did not, of coarse, know the total number of men involved but tie referred to Ms airborne brigade as the fifth, from which the general couM conclude without a gross error that there were probably five active brigades—-the number assigned to fools... To top off this threatening gesture o f might, they added the idea of a nighttime descent, “under the cover of darkness,”—as if if would constitute a great effort for the Germans to disperse this cover with searchlights, flares, suspended lamp-bombsl And this is where all the misfortune stemmed from. It was decided to drop five brigades in one night, and in an extreme case, in two, although there was no airport nearer than two hundred kilometers before the Dnepr, and they didn’t have enough airplanes. So some kind of LI-2 or towpknes for gliders were supposed to complete several flights each in the course o f a single night, several liftoffs, several landings... They were in such a hurry that they only informed the parachutists o f the mission an hour before they were supposed to leave, and the details were worked out on the fly. They were in such a hurry that they included in these crews pilots with no experience in night flights, and who did not even try to maintain the necessary minimum altitude; fearing the fire of the anti-aircraft guns and of the nighttime fighters, they flew higher and increased their speed, and threw out the men over an enormous, unknown area. They were falling into the Dnepr—and many drowned, not having freed themselves o f their shroud lines in the air. They were felling, Minded by the searchlights, onto the German battle formations, felling right into the lines of anti-aircraft gunfire, onto the burning cupolas of parachutes. The luckiest ones were carried on a beneficent breeze to the left shore, and later their own people will probably suspect them of deserting in battle, which isn’t very difficult for a parachutist trained to control his descent and ascent anyway. Those who for all these obstacles approached the ground in the predetermined place were supposed to designate it using flares and fires, but Germans in anti-parachute units very quickly began to light their own fires and shoot up flares. No other means of communication was available: out of caution, because radiomen might end up in the enemy’s clutches with secret radio information, it had been decided to not inform anyone until they were on the ground, whereby all these codes and call signs were flown on separate flights. And on the ground, they were not feted to come together with their useless portable radio transmitters, which were only good to destroy and throw away. The parachutist-radioman, who himself had not yet completely exhausted the full measure of his amazement at the bungled operation, told him all this. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 All of tie codes were with us, under lock and key, but we lad no voice—I didn't have a microphone, they never told us to take them,--he a id with despair that had not rum its course.—So, what,. .well, I can say openly: people should not be just thrown down here, there are ambushes all around., .But who will believe me, since 1 don’t have the radio signals, I do n’ t know the codes, or even my own code»name? The battalion commander had it alh but where is the battalion commander? “Indeed,” major Svetlookov seized upon this,—who would believe you? You couldn’t have observed everything. Or maybe someone just told you all this? Kobrisov’s question is answered. The “enemy” is not retreating because what the town of Myriatin conceals is not a camp full o f “Prizes” but many thousands of “Ivans” in “Fritz”5 uniforms— but who have as a result of a change of tides in the war been left by the retreating enemy with no direct orders from German command. Unfortunately, this information proves extremely problematic for Kobrisov precisely because it strikes at a politically sensitive topic among his Mgfaer-ups, who have an interest in how this stoiy is told. The passage itself points to the existence o f several (probably five) versions of what happened. General Kobrisov has requested that a prisoner be brought to him so that he can fill in the lacunae in his own elliptical understanding of what is going on, gleaned from meetings of the front high command and rumors he has heard circulating amongst his peers about operations of the Sibezh (historically, Bukrin) bridgehead. He himself is aware, however, that Ms fellow generals have a spectrum of personal interests tied up in this battle, most o f which fall under the rubrics of fame and glory for the hero who successfully storms and takes ancient Kiev from the Gomans—combined with mortal fear o f Stalin, For them, any means justifies the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m end, m d tkeir descriptions of events taking place at Sibezh are remarkably incomplete numerical quantifications of human loss and need. The only inference Kobrisov can coast on based on the version he hears from Ms peers is that the latter utterly disregard the value of the individual and are willing to subject their armies to great losses for only small gains, in terms o f the war—selling life cheaply. Their view telescopes the events so that only outlines and numbers can be made out. The parachutist’s version, on the other hand, shows the airborne descent microscopically, so that the many almost unbelievable and horrible details of the catastrophe are magnified and all become too prominent for a whole picture to be seen. Thus the details fail to cohere into a single story, providing exactly the opposite effect of the high command’s version. What the parachutist has seen has made a searing impression on Mm, but the listener gleans only a partial picture o f the evert, lacking in perspective, that must be combined with the knowledge he already possesses to form an opinion, Kobrisov thus develops Ms understanding based on the other generals’ version, the parachutist’s version, and Ms knowledge of this war and of war in general As the narrator with whom the reader is supposed to sympathize, he offers the best countefhistory to the versions extent in the story. His version is never told outright, in chronological order, bat is constituted by what the reader knows (along with Mm) after experiencing vicariously wbat he experiences, and hearing what he hears. Were Kobrisov to tell the story, it would include information from both versions, but would also reflect Ms own disapproving judgment of his peers’ actions Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. II and o f their slanting of how events are told, which lie feels violate core human values. The fourth possible way to interpret the descent is offered by Svetlookov. The SMERSH officer just happens to arrive at the general’s office in time to s i in (against the general5 s preferences) on Ms interview with the parachutist, and Ms presence undermines the general’s authority. Significantly, Major Svetlookov provides a perspective necessary to the author’s intentions. The parachutist gives an eyewitness account, which the general is inclined to believe and view empathetically; the general, moreover, is a reliable judge in the novel, if somewhat limited in historical perspective by Ms humanity and confinement in time and space (he Is also somewhat fatalistic, wMch the narrator and Vladimov are not). Svetlookov, however, represents the “official” point of view that is too familiar to the Soviet reader—a view that does not even allow facts to lie where they fall, but that chooses bits and pieces o f real events and weaves them into a story according to its own interests. According to this version, the parachutist is guilty because he allowed himself to be captured rather than fee killed, because he has returned from the captivity o f an enemy who might have finned Mm into a spy, because he does not know Ms secret radio codes, because he witnessed and is speaking about mistakes of the high command, etc. Select details would fee singled out for dose examination but necessarily removed from their context It is telling flat this version remains untold; it is not necessary to tell it because all parties know how it goes without telling i t and it would fee superfluous to tell it. The eyewitness account of the parachutist Is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 provided as a corrective to this "''official” (but not original or historical) version. The parachutist (and reader) has been thoroughly trained to interpret events according to Soviet ideology, and expresses Ms awareness, surmising that he will not be believed; he is aware that his story does not correspond to the ideal that is dictated from above and on which the official version is based (he speculates aloud that he wilt not 'be believed), but rather to a reality that poorly corresponds to officially narratable events. The SMERSH officer agrees almost too eagerly with Ms surmise. In any case General Kobrisov has opened the dialog by giving the parachutist the floor to tell Ms story. This was General Kohrisov’s role; if the prisoner had been handed over immediately to the proper organs, there would have been no forum for his version of the facts. The novel thus activates a dialog with the official version of this story, even though this official version is only hinted at. In any case, the parachutist’s story is nearer to what is probably the truth than the high command’s by virtue ofhis being an eyewitness to the events, which none of the high command can claim to be—and because the narrator himself casts a shadow ofVladimov’s authorial perspective over the parachutist’s narration (it is only occasionally in the first person; mostly it is in the third person, expressed in indirect speech that refers to the general’s hearing and processing of the parachutist’s story, so that this version combines details only known from the parachutist with knowledge and interpretation available only to Kobrisov. This is best illustrated by juxtaposing to the example drawn above the following historical version, which was written after the fact and represents an attempt to present the aerial descent as a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. historical event in a documentary manner; fee versions are nearly identical and obviously fee infonnatfon came from the same source. The literary version merely attempts to limit the information selected for retelling to that which would have been known fey the casual enlisted participant: After participating in the battles o f Stalingrad and Kursk, Chibisov led the 38th army eastward as part of the Voronezh Front to the region, just south and east of Kiev. As a result of circumstances, the 38® army progressed along the northern periphery o f Kiev (rather than moving southward with most of the Voronezh Front), and in October of 1943, Chibisov with the 38® army seized Liutezh (Myriatin in the novel). In the meantime, the Stavka had ordered Vatutin and Moskalenko to take Kiev from a bridgehead at Bukrin, from the south. Vatutin’s idea was to launch the primary attack from the bridgehead at Bukrin to outflank Kiev from the southwest and to cut off German escape to the west, while the 38* army and the 5 ® tank army would provide a supporting attack from the northern Liutezh bridgehead. However, conditions surrounding the Bukrin Bridgehead proved too difficult to overcome; Ziemke writes that "feecause the Russians lacked the bridging material to get the heavy artillery across, and because the fields of observation on that stretch of fee river were too limited to permit accurate fire from the left bank, the two attempts foiled.” (Erickson 184) Swampy conditions also played a role (184). While the armies located to the south of the city did manage to establish several bridgeheads across the Dnepr, their attempts to expand and hold them were miserably and catastrophically planned, Erickson describes their felled attempt to penetrate and secure the area around their bridgeheads on the western banks of the Dnepr: The Soviet air command flung in three airborne brigades to hold and expand the Bukrin bridgehead, which a mechanized brigade had widened to some ten miles by 24 September. Aerial reconnaissance showed at that time only a weak German defense with no reserves, though much of the situation remained obscure. The airborne drop, directed by the Airborne Forces commander Maj. Gen. A. G. Kapitokhin ...received Marshal Zhukov’s fell Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 approval: 3r d and 5th brigades would go in during the night of 26 September. 1st would be held in reserve to be dropped during the second or third night. Golovanov’s ADD, the long-range bomber force, would provide 50 PS-84 bomber-transports and 1501 1 -4 and B-25 mght-bombers; the Airborne force, 10 glider-tugs, 13 11-4’s for dropping weapons by parachute, 35 A-7 and G- 11 gliders. The transports were scheduled to carry twenty paratroops bat the pilots pointed out that the planes would at best take only fifteen to eighteen men: fewer transport planes arrived at the forward airfields than had been planned and planes were late owing to bad weather. During the night o f 26 September, 3rd Airborne Brigade flew out westwards, 296 aircraft sorties dropped 4,575 men but none of their 45mm guns, 13 planes turned back unable to find the dropping zone (dz), 2 dropped their paratroops too deep in the rear, one plane unloaded its paratroopers in the Dnieper and one dropped men on Soviet positions; 5th brigade had only 48 o f an expected 65 transports, and four tankers could not refuel all the machines on time. Nor was there enough feel at BogoduMiov airfield to supply all the transports...Two battalions—some thousand men—got down, but lack o f feel caused cancellation o f further flights. ...With transports speeding over the dropping zones, the paratroops fell in widely scattered groups. As radio operators were separated from their few (about half a dozen) sets or sets were separated from their batteries, the brigades were practically bereft of communications with Froat HQ. The three signal groups dropped during the night of 28 September never linked up, and a PO-2 plane with powerful equipment that same day was shot down. Towards the end of September, forty-three independent groups, 2,300 men under the officers of the and 5 ® Brigades, operated in the German rear; about 600 men under Colonel Sidorehuk concentrated in the woods near Konev. The Soviet paratroopers landed in a hornet’s nest, with three German divisions in fee area o f the drop and two on the move towards it, information actually in the possession of Vatutin’s HQ but not passed on to the airborne commanders. Nor did the airborne troops have any other mission than to ‘hold ground’ until 40® Army moved up, but Front HQ was none too confident that 40® Army could close up. Assembling a corps had been done pell-mell, m over-rapid improvisation in which the worst weakness was a lack o f unified command over the actual aircraft designated for the operation. (128) This historical version is the fifth possible version reflected la the text; its existence Is implied by the tact that the reader has been shown three conflicting perspectives already and should be curious enough about what happened to want to continue Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 reading the novel in hopes of resolving this mystery fey finding out the “truth.” It would so t be a hard stretch to argue that this version is what VMunov’s point of view is based on, which would show him to be knowledgeable of a perspective above that in Ms work; it adds to Kobrisov5 s a necessary distance in time, giving the perspective of a completed past, as well as removing the aspect of personal interest, which Kobrisov cannot escape by virtue of his own involvement in the events. Vladimov’s literary version of this airborne landing is clearly based on historical sources. However, it is likely that the general audience of the novel was unfamiliar with this historical information, since this it was originally published in 1968 by Voenizdat and then held in limited-access archives. Thus the story of Vladimov’s parachutist, wMch polemicizes with the officially acceptable Soviet version o f history, proves to be a limited but reasonably accurate alternative reading of war events discussed in the fifties but not widely known among the Soviet reading public o f the sixties through the early years o f the post -perestroika period. Indeed. The GeneraI and His Army engages several versions and imaginable versions of events o f the Soviet past explicitly while implicitly offering its readers a more “objective” version of what happened than they may have learned as they were “learning history.” In the works Wachtel analyzes, the narrators of the alternative versions of the past, --ie., fictional and historical, remain unaware of the other’s existence. The historical version of events is written as history, and the fictional version as fiction, whereby neither narrator mixes genres (for him, the obvious stumbling Hock that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 Tolstoy5 ' s W e a r and Peace contains different genres is explained by attributing the narration to three different narrators of the respective genres, all coexisting within the monstrous text). Vtedimov’s fictional and Mstorical narrators may prove less careful in fins respect, since lie likes to throw in occasional metahistorieai references with satirical comments and intertextual allusions. In contradiction to what Wachtel has identified as typical for traditional historical fiction, Vladimov’s fictional narrator(s) of alternative Mstorical generic visions is (are) aware of the other (each other) and of the competitive nature of their relatiossMp, Besides the general awareness o f most characters of the phenomenon of multiple versions and the widespread tendency to use them to one’s own advantage, something Wachtel does anticipate as a possible complication o f a “cultural system that implicitly denies the possibility o f discovering historical truth outside the dialogic interaction of narratives” (225), the fictional narrator o f The General and His Army often drops metahistorieai comments such as the one on page 105, where he notes one of his character’s relationship to actual history with the claim “earn 6m [UlecrepHKOBy] crasaJiH, h t o o h n p acyiC T B yeT npii Hamas B&mxoro HactyiuieHM, o h 6m h c t o h t o hc iiosepHJi, a He flonyeran 6m mo y m ” [ if someone had told Shesterikov that he was present at the beginning of the great attack, it is not that he wouldn’t have believed it so much as that he would not have dared allow the thought to enter Ms mind]; moreover, he cannot resist the frequent approving or disapproving remark that seems to boast o f Ms facile ability to move outside the fictional text and make judgments about the events he is describing, hinting that he prefers a certain version Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 over another. Thus he informs on page 103 that Vlasov’s decision to move in an attempt to save Moscow was M paaioi&HOM pemeaHH-~»iopoM b o t o t & eBb” [the right decision, the second that day]. His historical narrator in “Hosoe cjiescrsae, rpaoroBOp cxapnit,” on the other hand, is less aware of multiple versions for the sake of multiplicity (he does not mention fictional versions, only wrong ones). This narrator performs the more mundane editorial task of correcting historical narration and is intent on ensuring that the truth fe e told. Yet the reader, when presented with all available versions of what happened, still does not have quite enough information to resolve all the loose ends and say definitively what has happened Analysis of these five competing versions of the aereal descent suggests that while an attempt to present an alternative past was no doubt at the core of'Vladimov’s artistic vision, correcting popular versions of what happened in the past is not unimportant to Mm either. Although Wachtel considers this component o f Mstorical fiction to be less important than the desire to write alternative versions of the past that stand lit dialogical relationship with one another, it nonetheless merits examination. Basically, 'Wachtel is correct. That is, a mature and respected writer such as Vladimov did not set out to write a novel merely to correct history; Ms ultimate purpose was to show the complexity o f the past, its presentoess as it was coming about Still, when popular reception proved that certain readers and critics held what lie considered to be incorrect understanding ofhistory, Yladimov considered it vital to respond in the form o f a Mstorical essay along with a literary essay that used Mstorical argument to argue for the novel5 s literary validity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 In these essays, he both defended Ms work against what some opponents sited as wrong views, false perspectives, ideological faults, or sheer mistakes and also elaborated his beliefs about the essence of historical narration. Reflection on Genre II—Engaging the Russian Tradition of History in Fiction: Despite its somewhat unconventional structure (the novel is presented through backflash and memory, and the chapters and sections are not in chronological order, so the reader only comes to know the order of events gradually), The General and His Army is at the narrative level a historical novel in a more traditional sense than the others that are analyzed in this dissertation. Vladimov relies heavily on interetextoal dialog with the express©® of several, key moments in the development of the historical novel in Russia, from Pushkin’s adoption of Sir Walter Scott’s paradigms for the historical novel, to Tolstoi’s “loose and baggy monster,” to the Soviet World War II novel, to Solzhenitsyn’s Kpacnoe k o m g o [The Red Wheel], making The General and His Army into a forum for discussion of important concepts of history, understood through the Russian literary tradition. Vladimov’s dialog with Pushkin, Tolstoy, the genre of the Soviet war novel, and Solzhenitsyn provides a good forum for discussion of his views on history making. The Russian reader will recognize the genre o f Mstorical novel as one that has often served as a venue for an author to raise historical discussions and awareness o f historical controversy. Moreover, because the historical novel, beginning with Pushkin, has traditionally (in Russia) functioned as a forum for the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 discourse on the making of history, the author is able to incorporate Ms views smoothly into the structure of the novel by simply referring to this tradition within Ms own work (without, for instance, devoting lengthy paragraphs to it, as Tolstoy did). The historical approaches of Pushkin and Tolstoi along with rejection of the genre o f Soviet War novel, thus provide major points o f resonance for Vladimov. Solzhenitsyn Vladimov and SoMieitsyn are basically contemporaries, and some o f the same historiographical themes are present in both writers’ ouvres. Wachtel comments that “each major writer who inscribes himself into this tradition must rethink the relationship of fiction and history” (199). He goes on to show the palpable anxiety of influence Tolstoy exerted on Solzhenitsyn, who after setting up his views on history in opposition to Tolstoy defined Ms own views. Vladimov uses Tolstoy in many o f the ways Solzhenitsyn does, as described by W achtel Like Solzhenitsyn, Vladimov creates heroes who “reject the twin Tolstoyan virtues of nonresistanee to evil and lack o f involvement with society at large” (Wachtel 204). He also, as does Solzhenitsyn, rejects Tolstoy’s belief that great leaders do not exert control or at least a strong influence over the course o f Mstorical events. Finally, Vladimov’s narration underlines the fact, by disrupting the expected flow of the narrative, that something completely different was entirely as possible in history as that which did come about—an argument that Wachtel makes about Solzhenitsyn (218). In the end, however, although it is probable that Solzhenitsyn exerted some Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9# influence on Vladimov due to Ms stature and political, situation, it is not simple to argue the specifics o f this influence, since the two men’s fives coincided to a large extent, and since neither was able to publish freely in the years the works under discussion were written (both were in exile as dissidents—Solzhenitsyn in the United States and Vladimov in Germany). It would be a stronger argument to say that both witnessed tragic events of the twentieth century that cast a threatening light on Tolstoy’s historical Mews, since such views could fail to hold men of great power with millions of murders notched into their sticks accountable for their actions. Indeed, the narrative structures of the two writers in their historiographical fiction are very different. Soviet War Novel By reaching back to nineteenth century Russian models of historical fiction, rather than following patterns of the typical Soviet war novel, Vladimov frees himself of a good deal of cultural baggage that stands in the way of processing the Soviet past. In his article, “Russian Literature about the War and Historical Truth,” Lazar Lazarev writes that the war brought about a greater freedom to publish information than there had been throughout the thirties. During a time of war against a malicious and bitter enemy, lie argues, truth was essential for the nation's survival, “fhjeuce the paradox that this cruel and bloody war brought with It an emancipation of the human spirit, a spontaneous release from the chains of the Stalinist dogma that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 had enslaved us” (29). However, this liberation was short-lived. The war was a humiliating experience for Stalin. Stalin had no desire to remember the war. Mo .matter how often people might write atom Ms military genius or bum incense to him as "the Savior of the fatherland”—because of course they were required to do so—he himself never forgot Ms fear and humiliation in the first months of the war. and the catastrophic losses caused in large part by his failure to heed repeated warnings of the German attack. Nor did he forget Ms feeling of dependence on Ms military commanders. He viewed them as a threat, and thus soon alter the war he began to settle scores with many of them. (Lazarev 30) He insisted that Victory Day be cancelled as a State holiday, caused veterans and returned prisoners o f war ruthless suffering, and put into effect an extremely narrow principle o f selection in regards to what could be publicly remembered (Garrard 6). Stalin feared the truth, and prevented the publication o f honest memoirs about the war that might “destroy or call into question established and official myths about the war sometimes without any intention o f doing so, but simply because the writer was recalling honestly events that he himself had witnessed” (Lazarev 31). Thus a situation developed in wMch memoirists and historians were denied the right to publish information about the war, even if that information had been public Information during wartime; for example, it was prohibited to cite wartime edicts such as Order No. 270, which established that war prisoners would be punished, or Order No. 227, the infamous no-retreat edict that coined the slogan “Die, but do not retreat!” Documents about the war were locked up and historians were expected to glorify the past by drawing from a set stock of facts and documents that were officially accepted. Creative writers, at least, were not dependent upon Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. closed archives or incriminating statistics to continue their work, and tlieir situation was somewhat better (Lazarev 32), War literature that developed under such circumstances returned to the conservatism of Socialist Realism with its stock motifs, and this war seems to have been a propitious theme for such literature. Schneidman notes that close to 20% of all published fiction after the Second World War used the war as its major theme. Such literature usually depicted the “devastation and horrors of the war, but also glorified the heroic exploits of Soviet soldiers and officers. Furthermore, it was suppposed to instill a spirit of patriotism and dedication to the Soviet fatherland...” (124). With regard to the German invasion of Russia, this type o f war literature could fit easily onto accepted paradigms: there was a clearly identifiable front ike, and the enemy was an invader onto Russian soil, the cause was just, and ft is one’s right and duty to defend the motherland. Thus, war literature did not need to confront the main objectives or the justice o f the cause (Schneidman 124). Katerina Clark, in her well- known book The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, summarizes some acceptable motifs for literature about World War II: it is usually about Stalingrad and Berlin, rather than about minor battles; in it, a man who has been through, the war comes out a changed man; Stalk appears in person as a superior mentor, often via the ears of a radio audience as they hear, firsthand, Ms major wartime speeches and respond to them with renewed vigor and. ability to fight (Clark 198). The General and His Army confronts these three motifs directly. Stalingrad remains in the background la this novel, and so does Kiev, because tie plot rotates permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. around the bridgehead at Myriatin and the battle of Bukrin (Sibezfa, in the novel). After taking the bridgehead at Myriatin, Kobrisov wants to move directly to Kiev (Predstovl’ in the novel), bet higher command forces Mai to stay focused on Myriatin, even though it is had strategy. The suggestion is that the war cannot be summed up as just the great victories that are acceptable in public discourse. Kobrisov, to souk extent, does come out of the war a changed man, but his inner transformation is not the result of the war per se. Rather, it began when he was in prison during the thirties, where he learned about freedom, responsibility, and humanity from a Christian fellow inmate and from this man’s love for Voltaire. Moreover, his experiences at a high level o f military leadership during the war push him towards a more critical understanding o f the regime and its ideology, rather than renewing his zeal for the Revolution and working towards commEnism. Finally, Stalin appears both in person and through radio broadcasts, and in both situations, which are discussed below in depth, the Leader is shown in his ugliness, weakness, and lack of compassion for the Soviet people. In fact, to some degree Kobrisov’s transformation is attributed to his later hearing of one famous war speech, where he compares how lie received it in the context of the original war broadcast with what is really in the speech. .After 1956, it became acceptable to correct falsehood in regards to the war to an extent, especially in dealing with topics that had undergone de-Stalinization, or post-Thaw Mstorical revision within Soviet society. These include collectivization, retreat, early defeats (mainly a result of Stalin’s poor judgment), poor military permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 strategy, and anti-Soviet attitudes among the populace in WWI1 (Brown 335). However, the extent to which Yladimov blames people beyond Stalin, including many wartime generals, his frequent allusions to widespread guilt at many levels of society, including military people in various positions and possibly even spectators or bystanders, and finally Ms clear implication that some members of society might have chosen Hitler’s Germany over Stalin’s Russia wittingly all constitute a challenge to social acceptability even as late as 1994, when the novel was first published in Znamia. Echoes o f Pushkin’s Ristoriogapfaical Fiction What does it matter whom you dine with as long as you fee well at table? —Voltaire, Candide The most vulnerable side of dialog, Bakhtin may have sensed, is its benevolence. For even a cursor}*' reading of Bakhtin reveals that the implied potential other in Ms dialogues lives oa friendly boundaries and continuums. —Morson and Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation o f a Prosaics The General and His Army, on the surface,, is very similar to what can be considered the prototype for Russia’s own genre of historical novel, Pushkin's Kamm mcmn d m m [H e Captain‘ s Daughter]. To take a step back, however, Pushkin’s novel The Captain’ s Daughter must be seen in view o f the tradition of the Scottean historical novel in Russia. Pushkin, along with most of the reading public of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 Ms day, was completely taken by Scott’s novels. White many of Ms contemporaries wrote novels that imitated Scott, Pushkin wanted to “out-Scott Seottfo and arguably did so in The Captain’ s Daughter. His acquaintances 'heard him make statements like “Bor tpcx, mh nmwuem KCTOpsraecmt pomm, aa mmepw& & m wam noJDoSyKwca” [God willing, I’ll write a historical novel that even strangers (people from other countries) will M l in love with], or T ioroaa. naif Mne coSpaTfecs, % sa nose saxiaiy Bajxnrepa Cicona” [Just wait, once I get my bearings i will outdo Walter Scott] (Dolinin 231). Scholarship has abundantly illuminated the role and influence of Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel in Russia; novels that superficially imitate the elements and form of his novels mast at least be considered in relationship to him. Pushkin, furthermore, began a Russian tradition o f borrowing Scott’s successful forms as a vessel into which new meanings o f past experience could, 'be poured. It has been recognized that Pushkin did not “borrow Scott’s presentation of rebellion as Romance, safely situated in the past and hence to be seen—in contrast to the prosiac present—as something delightful and picaresque. Nor does lie see the past as something over and done with, and thus the novelist’s preserve. Unemphatically placed as it is, the comment of the narrator in the penultimate chapter—“God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless!”— strikes like a hammerbtow” (Bayley 69), In Pushkin’s rendition o f this type o f novel, the reader is painfully aware that the history under scrutiny, along with the consequences it has led to, has implications for the present. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 More importantly, Pushkin's novella goes artistically beyond the “Scottish wonder's” own novels: M acrae cjarryaitHH aaaJiorjMHBi, MHorae qeraaH cxq'xm, MHoroe neisoesKHO nanoMBHaer o B , €i<0T T e« --x o H C T arap y er & IX ^feySoBH^-HO b qejioM poMan, sapaaH ero noeTpoemw, cmhcji ero wssmx m pyccKod qeicTBHTejiBHOCTH.„o6pa30B—qpyroi, npummiiHajinHO hobhI, xyqoacecxBeHHo bhcihhI.,,. Kpaixnl no pasMepaM, 6wcxpwfi no paccxasy, npepeiaao khbiS no cthjuo, uacHiseHBHi reHHauMBiMH © SpasaM H h n e x K o i, H in y m e il mhcjimo, n y m K H H C K H fi p c M a u H e n p o x o ^ H M o io nponacTbio O TaejiM H ca o t nHrasraHx ero poManoB B, CKorra. (Dolinin 234) Many situations are analogous, many details are similar, and much calls to mind W. Scott,” claims D.Piakubovich, “but all in all the novel, the way it is constructed and is basic conception are taken from Russian reality.,.with different images, fimdamentally new and artistically superior.... Short in length, a quick pace o f narration, an utterly clear style, an abundance of pleasant images and precise and searching in thought, the pusMdnian novel places an impassable divide between itself and the novels o f Walter Scott that nourished it.) According to Dolinin, the most significant innovation of Pushkin is the understanding that two generations into the past is as far as it is possible to go and stil develop Scott’s literary types into the fuller psychological characters he imagined. Moreover, Pushkin recognized the great potential o f Scott’s genre to develop a certain kind o f reflection on Russian history (that, according to Wachtel, had begun already in the works of Karamzin). Dolinin claims that in The Captain’ s Daughter, w M h hmbcm sen© yme He c 'vm m a1 , a c H H aH B H nyaaH 3H poB aH H M M H , HCxopHsecxH b acwxm m rm xim socTosepJttsMM xapasrepaMH, m im e IIOBepXBGCTMKM MeCTHHM KOJIOpHTOM, a C r jiy & S a l lllH M npOHHKHOBeHHeM B ipararaecKHe koh^jihkth poccnicsoI hctophh” [We are not dealing with types anymore, but with individualized, historically and psychologically accurate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. characters, and not with superficial local coloration, but with the deepest penetration into the tragic conflicts ofRussian history] (Dolinin 233-4), Thus it is not the popularity o f Scott’s type of novel that attracted Pushkin, exclusively. While he often succumbed to the temptation to play with and master popular genres, Pushkin did not succeed at writing a Scottean historical novel until public interest in the genre had already begun to wane—and until he had developed a personal interest in and approach to the study of history' itself. Approaching the genre of Scott’s historical novel from a Russian perspective, that is, in line with what Wachtel has identified as a desire to reflect on the need for multiple perspectives in the portrayal o f historical events, Pushkin seized upon the genre as highly suitable to attain ends he bad begun to envision in Ms study of history. Much has also been written on the endurance o f Scottean devices in Russian novels o f the twentieth century. The General and His Army uses most Scottean devices at several levels in that they appear as hierarchical embeddings of plot and subplot. Vladimov’s overarching plot is an instance of the prototypical Scottean theme, that of the hero on the boundary between two opposing camps in battle, with similar subplots embedded into the main storyline. Most other Scottean. elements are present as well; in feet, the only Scottean device that is notably absent in the novel is the romantic component, in which the young hero falls in love and this relationship forms the central plot of the novel Yet, Vladimov’s historical novel interacts with to a greater extent with Pushkin’s use of the genre—as as way to probe into how history is made and written— 4han with Scott’s easy ronmnticisition o f the past. For the permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 purposes o f this discussion, if will suffice to enumerate the major characteristics of this genre and discuss them briefly in conjunction with the novel First, history and fiction are synthesized in an. unprecedented way in . Scott's .novels. AMmHer calls this a ‘tcuHTe3„.npHHitunM SJtt»HO Hecoe„ipiiHMoro: xygoatecTBeHHoro B M M H C Jia m Hcropiraeciooro bhmhcjkT [synthesis of what in principle cannot be synthesized: the artistic concept and the historical concept] (12). The historical reality presented carries with it an understanding o f local values and beliefs, whereby the best Scottean historical novels are not so far removed from the present as to become apersonal (the so-called sixty-year rule); history is transmitted in what Pushkin called ‘^oMamuHM ofipasoM” [“a homespun way”] (Altshufler 15). Vladimov endeavors to present history in a kind of fullness and detail, where details are abundant and serve to portray the everyday realty surrounding the historical events described. He also approximates the well-known 60-year rule; the subject of World War II Is accessible through the memories of now aged participants. Vladimov himself, as mentioned above, has been criticized for writing about something he did sot experience.. However, this is part of what makes his work a historical novel, as opposed to hackneyed Soviet war memoirs or, alternatively, romantic fiction. Next, the historical situations that predominate in Scottean novels are boundary situations that described opposition and. conflict between two cultures, nations, religions, ways of life, etc. (Altshuler 16). Vladimov’s choice of the second world war and the battle for Kiev contains two examples o f this. First, the overall Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. situation of the war is m e in which two equal sides (major world powers) are each presented in personal detail through their respective representatives. Readers get an inside view o f the German side through the lengthy scenes with General Heinz Guderian, and of the Soviet side through tie meetings o f the War Command at headquarters. There is irony in that the two camps are nop as the reader is aware, equally tolerable as in prototypical Scott novels, but rather equally intolerable. (In Scott’s novels, the only thing that makes one side take precedence over the other is the outcome of history and the value of progressive enlightenment—not that one camp is inherently better than the other.) Embedded into the main plot of the novel, there are at least two other important boundary situations, both subsets o f the first. Kobrisov finds himself caught between two camps within Soviet leadership, which may be broken down in a number o f ways: those who value only the outcome of the war versus those who care about the means; those who fear Stalin versus those who fear their own conscience; those who count individual lives versus those who count units and brigades. Furthermore, there is another significant set of camps in the Vlasov subplot, and this provides the most classical example of the literary prototype (discussed below). The Scottean hero is always young, handsome and educated as regards superficial characteristics, and clever, good, and noble. Morally, the hero always possesses the same virtues: honest, MthJM, ready to pay with Ms life for any mistake of his own, true to his word, good and attentive to those who serve him, and feith&l in love. Vladimov’s protagonist is young (though there is some irony in that tie is not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 practically a youth as many of Scott’s heroes, he is the lowest-ranking general o f the Eastern Front, and the second youngest, age-wise), handsome (he is said, to have been winsomely attractive in Ms youth), and educated, as well as exhibiting strong character and intelligence. He possesses the enumerated virtues, and there are explicit references to certain o f these, some of them ironic. For example, he is willing to pay for his mistakes with Ms life and in several places reflects on tMs himself. He also lias had several close brushes with death. One of these plays a prominent rote in the story, as the occasion for the first meeting of the general and his devoted servant, Shesterikov, and as the point of entry into the main storyline of the Vlasov subplot. The general receives a call from a high-ranking officer encamped in a nearby town. The officer has just happened upon some booty—the enemy left several cases of French cognac in their rush to leave. The commander, who knows that this loot cannot be officially reported because it would look suspicious, invites Kobrisov to enjoy it with Min, knowing Kobrisov well enough to be sure he will not look askance at the invitation. The officer says lie is located as Bolshie Peremerld, a nearby town. The general accepts the invitation and sets out, despite a raging blizzard, os the six-kilometer walk with an orderly who happens to pass by, Shesterikov. When the two arrive in what they think is the town, they hear voices, and General Kobrisov is shot by German bullets. It turns out that the officer was actually located- in Malye Peremerki, but thought it was Bolshie Peremeriri because it was the physically larger of the two towns; however, the originally smaller town has outgrown the other one. Critics, notably Bogomolov, accused Vladimov of creating Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. io i an alcoholic. Vladimov, for Ms part, defended his general, as simply a normal man who was w iling to enjoy life if the opportunity arose. The irony and play with the original genre here is undeniable. First, the narrator notes Koferisov’s willingness to pay for Ms mistakes with his life. Yet the mistake here was clearly not Kobosov’s, but the officer’s (unless we accept Bogomolov’s criticism that a general should not be found en route to enjoy a glass of French cognac). Svetlookov mentions to the chauffeur and to Shesterikov at various times that the genera! has come close to paying for Ms mistakes with death, first to counter the chauffeur’s belief that the general is under a charm, and later to oppugn Shesterikov’s heroic view of the general. In matters that count, however, the general does risk Ms fife in the execution of Ms duties, as he understands them. Svetlookov’s careful observation of Kobrisov is attributed to the latter’s supposed reckless behavior in wMch lie unnecessarily risks Ms life—specifically, fording the Dnepr with Ms troops to establish the Myriatin brigdgehead, a situation in which Ms troops looked to him for moral support and appreciated Ms presence. Most generals would have not chosen to accompany their troops, but Kobrisov has, and this decision proves to be the correct one, from a narratorial perspective, much in. the same way as Kobrisov’s final decision to return to his troops to participate in the celebration of their victory at Myriatin ami, presumably, Predslavf, is shown in a positive light, even though It led to the death of Ms companions (recall that the image of a general dancing by the side of the road and returning to Ms troops at an emotional moment is partly responsible for Vladimov’s choice of subject). He is a man of character and virtue who always Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 acts according to conscience. Bat he is not romanticized, and to remove the irony from the depiction of this general would tweak the novel towards romanticism. The Scottean hero 'typically fells in love with a woman early in the novel (a Monde), and there is a second woman, a brunette, who also plays a significant role in the story, usually one of friendly rivalry for the hero’s attention and sometimes assistance to the hero. The love theme lingers behind the curtains, so to speak, in The Genera! and His Army—again, casting a hue o f irony on the genre. The general is actively engaged in an affair with a nurse young enough to be his daughter (she is blond), while the brunette-wife is at home. Kobrisov’s wife is faithful and traditional, and he entertains no notions o f leaving her for the nurse; there is one intimate scene, after which the young nurse drowns fording the river. The Scottean hero is usually encountered on a journey from Ms home, or from a military encampment. Kobrisov is encountered en route at two levels; first, in Ms car ride that extends for the duration of'the novel, bat more significantly, in each episode of flashback and recollection. Each journey functions as a backdrop as the reader comes to see a more complete picture ofKobrisov’s character. In the first chapter, significant encounters occur is the lives o f each o f Ms servants and in the life o f Kobrisov himself The three servants’ meetings with Svetlookov are described; each takes place as a stop along the way of a journey. The second chapter reveals how Kobrisov, while on Ms way to another village, begins an adventure that joins Ms life with the life of Ms faithful servant. Another important chapter shows Ms journey with his troops from Lithuania to Russia, a walk during which he spent much Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 o f Ms time conversing with Commissar Kimos, and corning to understand the mindset o f a simple, idealist, Soviet-minded man. The captors of the Myriatin bridgehead is also a journey. The enemy is depicted ready to begin a wise retreat. Finally, the Vlasov subplot tells o f Vlasov's march out o f near-encirclement to save Moscow. The ultimate plot of the novel, moreover, is a meaningful journey away from Ms military encampment that focuses the entire problematic of the novel on the place Kobrisov occupies in between the warring positions, historically speaking. The only chapter in which the principle action does not constitute a physical journey is the one in which the reader becomes acquainted with Genera! Kobrisov at a deeper level and becomes privy to a deeper, reflective side of his character—and the author accomplishes this by showing Kobrisov’s moral journey in chapter five, where he lands in prison. The position of a Scottean hero is always at a focal point between two sides o f the opposition in the boundary situation. In one flashback to Ms institute days, Kobrisov is shown on the verge of a decision:—whether to join some of Ms peers in a rebellion against the government, or s o t He agonizes on the train platform, and the resolution only occurs as he fails to board the train and thus decides not to participate in the uprising. He found it difficult to decide because be did not feel that either side was completely wrong. Kobrisov’s historical situation as a general is a boundary situation in which two countries and ways o f fife are clashing. Within this situation, Soviet generals with different beliefs and cultural backgrounds stand in opposition to one another—-the political Soviet leaders (Stalin, Zhukov, Vatutin, Khrushchev, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 Tereshchenko (Moskalenko)), against Kobrisov, and to some extent, Charnovsky. Kobrisov mediates between this leadership and the army ranks. While he is a general, he sympathizes with them, and defends them, against the caprices of the High Command. He also ends up between the Command and the encampment of Russian soldiers who have put on German uniforms, at least in Ms sympathy and understanding for them. Furthermore, he is looked upon at meeting of the High Command as not quite belonging; they consider him not to be one of their own, and tend to condescend to him as if he were far below themselves in rank (indeed, he is the tawest-ranking general among the leadership of the Central Front). Their differences are irreconcilable because their basic views about life and war differ fundamentally; Kobrisov values the individual lives o f the men that comprise Ms army, and the others value personal advancement and political gain. The Vlasov subplot amplifies this theme and even exemplifies it more folly, since General Vlasov stands between the Russian leadership and the German leadership, and does not belong to either one. In Ms historical essay, Vladimov discusses more felly than in the novel the very real potential that Vlasov faced as the idea for him to play one side off o f the other (Hitler off o f Stalin) to create a Third Power seemed possible—though Vladimov concludes in that essay that it was not a very plausible chance once all other factors are taken into consideration. However, Kobrisov could not have known all that Vladimov knew, and in 1943 rumors are circulating among Soviet leadership that Vlasov is trying to either help Hitler defeat Russia, perhaps ultimately to gain popular support among non-Russian Soviet Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 peoples and among Russians disillusioned with Stalin and become a legitimate Third Power, The Scottean hero often displays a kind o f passivity in the heat of complex situations, which he falls into despite himself (AJtsbuller 16-17). This passivity enables Scott to explain and promote the values o f tolerance and moderation: CKOTTOBCKHt H p O T arO H H C T , II O M H M O JjpyT H X C B O H X 6jiarOpO£HHX ffym&BHbix Kauecra, Bceiyta evm m erm yMepeHHocrtio, xonepaHTHocnMo. Oh uyaca ^aHaiH3Ma, ero nomrraraecKHe yoesgteHus HHKoraa He 6hb3iot spafiHHMH. Oh Bcenja t o t o b BHCJiymaTB npO T H B H H K a. Ecjih re p o t 0 He coraacea c hhm, to to to b njajsHaTt ero cySteirraBHyio npasoTj, MeiioseuecKax xchshb Beer® sa x n e e r m Hero, hbm HaBpoHajaBBie h HOJiHTHHecxHe pasH oraacM . JIoaroM y npoxaroHHCT ctojh. nacxo OKaaBiBaeTca b h ojio m h h h Mexpy asyMa BpaxjtyfonpiMH JiarepaMH, b t o I n o rp araH H o i cH xyaura K oropas c ra m xaparrepHa rjm poMaaos CKOTTa. (Altshuller 18) The Scottean protagonist, along with his other beneficial spiritual qualities, always distinguishes himself by Ms moderation and tolerance. Fanaticism is a stranger to him, and his political convictions and never extreme. He is always ready to hear out his opponent. If the hero is not in agreement with him, he is willing to recognize Ms right to Ms own subjectivity. Human fife is always more important to him than national and political disagreements. For this reason, the protagonist so often winds op in a situation between two enemy camps, in the boundary situations so characteristic of Scott’s novels. (Altshuller IS) While he clearly resists going along with the tide of opinion among Ms peers, Kobrisov is not an extremist. In many passages, lie is shown as basically loyal to the government It is a very gradual process by which he comes to understand that the “great leader” Stalin is not worthy of worship. Even when he begins to doubt Stalin’s management of the war, 'lie still is not skeptical of the Soviet system, and does not seriously consider going against it (even though the idea occurs to him in Ms Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 reflections about Vlasov, it is not something he would ever act on). Instead, he stays firm lit Ms intentions to act according to Ms own values, which will preserve human life and achieve the goal in the end. The entrance onto the scene of historical figures is also key. In Scott's novels, historical figures play a significant role, but always on the periphery of the novel's m ain story and in the life of the protagonist. Princes, ministers, or known government leaders are “conpHnacTHM M H ero cygtfie, Hrparox saMefimyio, qacre peinaiQHiyjo pojit b ero xjbhh” [co-participants in his fete who play a most important and often deciding role in Ms life] { Altshuller 20). They are generally not recognized at first; this allows for the reader to experience a degree of ocmpamuue Iostranenie]5 3 or defamiliarization, and also provides a later epiphany of recognition as a contrast (Zholkovsky 3-4), Rarely, historical personages will play a larger role. Several historical figures enter into Vladimov’s novel: Stalin, Zhukov, Vatutin, Khrushchev, appear by name, and the other generals’ depictions are based on real men bat renamed. My focus will rest briefly on the appearance of Stalin. Kobrisov’s encounter with Stalin, while it comes late in the narrative, is chronologically the earliest event of the story, with the exception of certain memories that Kobrisov dwells upon at length. He first sees the Leader at a distance around 1939, when he is called to Moscow from the Far East to put together a new 3 Ostranenie { OcmpaueHve), which can be translated as defamiliarlzatiois or making strange, is s term introduced by Viktor Shklovsky to describe as artistic or literary means of combatting the automatization of perception; lie claims feat art, by isolating things fro® feeir typical context so that they appear strange to as, forces us to see rather than to just recognize what is before us. V. B. Shklovskii,“Iskusstvokakpriem Oteoriiprosy, 1929,pp. 7-23. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 army, though the summons is suspicious, since it is not typical for a low-ranking general to be catted to serve in the capital Indeed, shortly after his army is complete, they are marching on parade and two tanks stop briefly to fix a mechanical problem, and he is imprisoned the next day for rim attempt on the life of the Leader.” The reader learns about this incident in the past tense, during Kobrisov’s interrogation, which forms chapter five o f the novel; the interrogator reveals that he is being accused o f conspiring with, the two task drivers (whom, incidentally, he had never met before and could not have talked to) to slow down and attempt to shoot Stalin in front o f Lenin’s mausoleum. The case is obviously made up, although this has nothing to do with Ms acquittal. But what ensues after Kobrisov’s retease—he is released along with hundreds o f other high-ranking military men who had been “purged” in the late thirties because Stalin needed these seasoned leaders to fight the Great Patriotic War after the Barbarossa attack in June of 1941—is interesting for the portrayal of the Leader. Kobrisov remembers and the narrator then flashes back to a scene where the newly released men are gathered in a great hall. They have all just come from their cells, and some of them are in fairly poor psychological condition as a consequence of their interrogation. Stalin appears in the hall, accompanied by three other men, and it is not immediately clear that it is he. B aiia msms. erpftBBoeix b tom, mm ohh m m h x m m m pm m apyr c npyroM. Jim hhx cjiobho 6m ae cymecTBOBasio sv o l niepesrii K O M a n jc tH p O B , H S B H C H IM X Iiatl H H M H B IIO U T H V ejIB H O i CTO iS® , O H H B O O T H C J IO B H O §M H O nycroMy sany, m m & m oM M snepejtH rosopiiJi wm-m sjioc c m a tj cnyraHKy, ae o6opaunBagc&, a to t oxeeuaji, saxom to cnpasa, to cnesa, nocsepKHBai cTeKjiM m icaM H nencHe, O h h to b o p h jih rpoMKo, nopoio jtaace k p h h o k h , h o la x Hepaa&puHBO, «rro p ern hx w s a m c b kbchm -to jieneroM. B to ice BpeM* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. oTuero-To comhchhH ae 6hjio, uro ohh rosopjrr mm©hho o Tex, mhmo m m npoxom w , cO Bepm eHH O ne upmamim hx bo BH H M aH ae,— sm saMeaateaBHo 3vo ju m ir KaBKaaiiH, oueiKHaset o t bccto oKpyxcajomero, X B m B CB06M B3HKG, B CBGeM HjieMCBiu, B CBOel HOTOpUH, OciaHOBsct rip o T H B ICoSpacoBa, nepBHi to>-to exaji roBOfsra., to jib cmv ajipeeosaHHoe, to jjh mems-twf csajp. T o t, bo bcskom caiynae, npoaojixcaa m wm m b, crapaacB, ksk KasajiocB, ero yciioioam , nonpaBJiss G Boe neH C H e a kphbo ynwbascB. llpmto nepen KotSpncoBHM ctohh h cm o , oShsho Majiei&KHi, pMseeBaTHft, e rpySHM paSoBamM jihhom; o h C M O tpen b hhqo K ofip H C O B y c HeaaBHCTtio; TonopmHimcB, w as . y paccepaceHHoro niHUffluero m m , oSsHciiBie yen, tpenerajiH tc p b im > M mhchctofo rpySoro Hoca,— h b to -to o h Heneraji sjioe, paajtpaxeiiHoe h rpo3Hoe. B tsxcjiom ssFJiaae a ceu T O -T a fia n H B D c raas ropejm 3Jio6a, h cxpax. m O TuasH H e, icaic y noapaneHHoro h roHHM oro ssepa. B nposoaxeHHe xex cexyna, uro oh CMOipea Ha KbdpncoBa, t o t u y B C T B O B a n rojioBO K py»ceH H e3 Baraoe tern 6yirro npoBajiHBajiocB icyaa-io, b o te ero ae sepm om . IloKasajioci., croaBHiHfi nepe# hhm h to -to cnpaniHBaa y Hero, oh noBiopHJi csoft lonpoc, HO OTOSBSJICa CTOlBIHHfi 3ft CflHHOt J H6TO, H T0TH8C CXB03B KOTIKC nposcypeHHHe ayfi& i B H icapK H yjiacB pyraHB. He hohhmm hh cjiosa, KoSpacoB sBcxaeHHO pasjHwra b neB H S T H O M aenere, b ropraBHHX ofipMsrax «|pa3t ‘xpycw, HpeaaTejffi, rnaeM BMHycrajiH, hheom j bcpktb Hem&g...’ Tax cjitnnHTCB aaaa Spam* b co6a*aeM aae, b Kpiuce BopoHH. B sm rb axe h cnHraaxB 6mho h cxpanjHO, h fipearoiH® — mor jib tm seem ce6« HejioBeK BoeBBHft. m npocro MysraiiHa, mot hh—Boxhb! H6o crosBinee nepes hhm, pafosaroe, satpaBjieHHoe, iieueuymee, oto h feuio— Cramra. {Vladimov Genera1297-8) There was something strange in the way they were walking and talking with one another. For them it was as if this column o f commanders, hanging above them in a deferential stance, did not exist, and they walked as if in an empty M il; the one in front said something evil to his companion, not turning around, and that man answered, going off first a little way to the right, and then to the left, Ms glass pince-nez glistening. They spoke badly, at times even yelled, bat it was impossible to make out what they were saying, it seemed like babbling. At the same time, there was for some reason no doubt that they were speaking about those men whom they were walking past, yet with complete disregard for their presence,— people o f the Caucasus are quite good at this, shutting out everything around them, living in their own language, in their own tribe, in their own history. Stopping in front o f Kobrisov. the first man began to speak, and it was not clear whether he was speaking to the man he had just addressed or to the one behind him. The latter, ia any case, responded, trying, it seemed, to reassure the speaker, adjusting Ms own pince-nez and smiling crookedly. of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 Directly in front of Kobrisov stood a certain, offensively small, ruddy man with a rough, pockmarked mag; lie looked into Kobrisov’s face with hatred; Ms drooping whiskers bristled Eke an angry, hissing cat, like wings quivering under Ms course, meaty nose,— irritated and threatening, lie babbled something evil In the oppressive glare of the tobacco yellow eyes, burned malice, fear, and despair, like that of a wounded and hounded beast. During the seconds when he was looking at Kobrisov, the latter felt his head spin, his soft body seemed to be felling, as if his legs could not hold him. It seemed to him that the figure before him was asking him something; he repeated his question, but someone behind Kobrisov responded and immediately abuse poured forth across the smoke-yellowed teeth. Though he could not understand a word, Kobrisov clearly made out in the indistinct babble, in guttural snatches, a few phrases: “Cowards, traitors, why were you released, no one can be trusted” It sounded like the evil language of the dog’slair, the cry o f the wolf To hear it was both terrible and disgusting—could a war commander conduct himself in this manner, could even a simple man, could even,. .the Leader! For the one standing before him, grousing, badgered, and babbling—was Stalin! Stalin plays a marginal role here. As is typical in Scottean novels, Ms initial appearance in the story comes chronologically before the main events of the novel, and he is encountered more than once by the main hero (at least twice, and once he was supposed to appear at a banquet where Kobrisov was, although he reported ill). Although Stalin’s direct word leads both to Kobrisov’s imprisonment and his release, and he thus plays a deciding role in Kobrisov’s fate, their contact is fleeting and impersonal. At the same time, there is an element of defemiliarization. We do not know right away that Stalin has entered, and the men who have come in are speaking in a language that Kobrisov does not understaxid. He only understands that they are speaking basely of the newly released prisoners. The hero and the reader only gradually come to know that one o f the men standing before them is Stalin; the very end o f the passage contains an epiphany o f recognition (at feast for the reader, but Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. probably for Kobrisov, too) where the Leader’s “greatness” is contrasted to the description that has been given of Min as a nasty, insulting, and rude man. In Scottean novels, the character of a secret helper can usually be found. This character plays a m k similar to the magical helper in a fairy tale, but it typically is not a magical character. Sometimes this role is inverted and the character, in trying to help, actually hinders the positive action o f the protagonist. Major Svetlookov plays a corresponding role in relation to genera! Kobrisov. Here, too, one irony is overkid on another. First, Svetlookov is a SMERSH agent, a secret service worker, whose official role is to help protect the Russian people from ideological enemies. As such, Ms role is to help Kobrisov, who is also fighting the Soviet Union’s enemies. However, there is a discrepancy in that Kobrisov is mainly fighting the external political enemy, while Svetlookov works for a branch that is about the business o f saving the Soviet people from internal enemies, namely themselves. For this reason, his intentions often end up in conflict with those of Kobrisov. He, along with the branch of service he represents, is far too “secretive” to be o f real help to the war and his work is shown to undermine the efforts of Kobrisov and his army. He seems to be omnipresent, and Ms interactions with the other characters o f the novel are what lead to the catastrophe that ends Kobrisov’s war career and to the death of the general’s travel companions. The ultimate irony is the mass self-deception involved— an entire institution of “helpers” exists that has estranged itself from its helping fonction and is characterized by secrecy so utter as to be almost magical. permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i l l The final major category essential to the Scottean historical novel is that of the servant; there is usually a beloved and devoted servant, who (not forgetting Ms own interests) plays a key role in furthering the objectives of the hero (Altshuller 22- 3), Shesterikov, who considers that Ms service with Kobrisov has been the greatest fortune o f Ms life and has staked Ms future on their relationship, is such a servant. Their relationship begins when Shesterikov goes along with Kobrisov to the town of Bolshie Peremerki and saves the injured general’s life with great difficulty. Over the time he spends with the convalescing general, he develops a close relationship with all family members and makes private plans to spend Ms life with this genera! that fate joined Mm to. When he teams that the government is planning to reward high military leaders with dacha properties in Aprilevka, he dreams of taking over the household economy for the presumably retiring general after the war, since the latter does not know enough about the land to really manage such a pristine little garden property himself. Shesterikov truly loves the general, even after discovering a few irrevocable skeletons in Ms closet (one could not become a general and. remain one during the thirties without participating in some way in the collectivization efforts that destroyed Shesterikov’s own parents); yet Ms love is not devoid o f selfish interest. Shesterikov manages the day-to-day business of the general and In this capacity, aside front having saved Ms life and nursed him back to health, does play a key role in the general's success. Shesterikov is the only truly devoted member of Kobrisov’s military suite (Domkoi has rank on his mind, while chauffeur Sirotin thinks mainly of getting some kind of pleasure out of his life). He is the only one to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 resist Svetlookov’s bribes, flatly refusing to report on the general to the secret service, Vladimov’s novel, which does in fact preserve many o f fee tropes of the Scott novel, including fee 60-year rule, more closely resembles Pushkin's in Ms exploration o f the psychology o f the characters and in Ms use o f the novel to think seriously about difficult problems o f Russian history, rather than using history merely as a backdrop to a plot. While Scott was known for his abundant use of historical detail and reconstruction of the ambience of whatever historical period he was subjecting to noveiistic presentation, he was also notorious (albeit sometimes in a celebratory way) for bending some important historical facts to fit them more smoothly into his Active past Pushkin, and like Mm Vladimov, firmly believed in adhering to the “real story” as a backdrop to a historical novel, and making up a fiction that did not conflict directly with what actually took place. Most likely, this stemmed from the unique facts surrounding the historical profession in Russia, where censorship severely limited what history could be told (history was not allowed to make the Tsar look bad), and where there had already begun to develop a tradition o f using multiple genres, as discussed w ith regards to Wachtel above, to give a feller understanding of fee past. To a certain extent, these peculiarities were present almost continually in Russia, since fee Soviet government followed soon alter the Tsarist one and, after a relatively short window in the twenties, was even more restrictive about what information could exist in the public domain than the Tsarist government had been. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 What was Pushkin’s historical project? In general, scholars agree that Ms interest in Mstory, which was still maturing when Ms untimely death occurred, was serious, and that he wasted to be a historian in addition to Ms established role as poet. Svetlana Evdokimova, in her book Pushkin’ s Historical Imagination, acknowledges the apparent similarities in her approach to WachteFs, yet insists that her approach is essentially different and argues for the complementarity o f Mstory and fiction in Pushkin’s ouvre. She emphasizes that Pushkin believed in “fully independent coexistence o f sometimes mutually exclusive approaches and views” (14). While her argument, in places, pidgeonholes Pashkin into too-narrow paradigms for its own sake, Evdokimova’s conclusion is that Pushkin’s historical imagination strove towards European thinking by conceiving of the two roles of poet and historian as very distinct. “Pushkin emerges as a perfect representative of the nineteenth century, embracing the prevailing assumptions about the relations between art and science. Moreover. Pushkin, does not privilege one kind o f writing over the other, the trap that most theoreticians of both history and fiction rarely manage to avoid. Neither poet nor historian, according to Pushkin, can portray the way things really happened” (27). Vactoel, while acknowledging that Pushkin, chose to stand outside of contemporary polemics on how history should be approached, holds that “Pushkin... felt it most important for the writer to be aware of the multiplicity o f ways in which historical material could fee encoded” (Wachtel 81). He holds that Pushkin thinks it is inevitable for history to eventually be encoded in multiple versions and genres, and that the meaning ofhistory can best be understood Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. S14 in such a juxtaposition, through tandem readings of multiple encodings (82-3). The m ain dif ference between Evdokimova and Wachtel lies in their view of the implications: the former feels that the tension cannot be resolved and that a writer must choose at a given time to be either poet or historian, in both cases taking (Mm)se!f quite seriously, whereas Wachtel feels that the multiplicity in itself is the resolution. The latter view allows greater room for intentional irony on the part of the writer, a quality difficult to overlook in Pushkin’s work. Both views, however, promote a similar historical project, one that certainly made an impression on generations of writers that followed. Vladimov clearly uses Ms novel The General and His Army to define his position with regard to this tradition. The surface-level similarities are not coincidental; they point to his penchant for philosophizing about Mstory. Vladimov endorses the value of multiple encodings o f historical material and he assumes that the writer of imaginative literature is entitled to participate authoritatively in historical discourse. Partly because he is a product of the twentieth century, and partly, perhaps, because Wachtel is correct about multiplicity of genres (they supplement each other) and Evdokimova, is incorrect about the implications of her notion of complementarity (I have argued in the first chapter of this dissertation that it is not necessary to choose between historical and literary modes o f understanding to read historical fiction), Vladimov allows the two discourses to mingle in his work. His fictional narrator is aware of the historical discourse of the events under his novelist® scrutiny, and Ms essayistic voice dialogs with his fiction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Echoes of Pushkin’s work at a thematic level underscore this. Todd suggests that Pushkin’s overall theme in The Captain '$ Daughter casts Enlightenment historigrapfay, —Le., a view o f history that implies the eventual victory o f law and reason over superstition and unciviiization—into doubt, since the editor’s perspective (Pushkin’s own) illuminate[s]...the conflict as one between the culture and government of the Westernized gentry (Catherine IFs state) and the culture and government o f the un-Westemized, Cossack Old Believers (Pugachev’s state). The Cossack army, which appeared to the naive young man and to the enlightened older Grinyov as anarchy, is seen from this perspective as a cultural phenomenon, with its own laws, beliefs, and political organization, no more violent and arbitrary than those of the Empress’s state. (360) Pushkin’s critique of enHgfatenment historiography resounds in VW imov’s novel, which reveals, a century and a half later, the same thing: warring Germany and Russia are clearly violent and arbitrary states, proving that the impulse towards viewing history as having potential to “make progress,” to eradicate barbarism and uncivilization, is misguided. Implicit in the Russian concept of historical fiction, 1 have argued, is awareness that the elusive identity o f Russia and Russians inhabits the 'border kingdoms of genre. Vladimov selects the device of warring camps as a backdrop on which to build his novel. People in either camp are shown to be similar in certain ways, but there is not the suggestion that these things are universals. The author introduces Ms Russian readers to what a German pea has written about who they are. German historical versions o f an event invade the territory o f Russian historians (whose inascuraci.es am pointed out), and so-called literary versions poach Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 supposedly historical ones. Under these constraints, the hero ranges, forced to go from one side to the other and back again. The reader might recall Wachtel’s warning mentioned above that there is “at least a potential danger in a cultural system that Implicitly denies the possibility of discovering historical truth outside of the dialogic interaction of narratives” (225), which suggests that this approach is only safe if there is a belief in an ultimate truth. In the particular case of the Russian approach to history, we may well want to ask whether the apparent belief of the Soviet state apparatus that history is merely a series o f narratives to be manipulated was a logical outcome (not the only one, to be sure) of the Russian literary views of historical truth as inherently dialogic. (Wachtel 225) In other words, it would be naive to think the Fritzes or Ivans on the other side of the line are always going to be friendly. Pyetr Andreyevich Grinyev’s sincerity may have earned him the mercy o f Pugachev, thanks to Pushkin’s romantic approach to life and history. Audrey Andreyevich Vlasov’s sincerity, in The General and His Army, was clearly naivete (called in the novel a lack o f understanding of the contemporary Russian spirit), and earned him not the expected trust and freedom to pass with ease from one camp to the other, as his perhaps all too literary expectations led him to anticipate, but instead mistrust and unfreedom from two generals, one German and one Russian, who understood their historical reality as one suspicious of those on the other side of the boundary. Yet this is not the final word for Vladimov. As the novel’s main protagonist, Kobrisov seeks t© straddle this boundary in a way that Vlasov never manages. To start with, he rejects Vlasov’s political naivete in his mint! as he reflects that Voltaire Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. II? was wrong—Mstory in Russia might have been different, lad people not been so willing to dine with those of whom they harbored suspicions (357). For Kobrisov, this mindset of willingness to seek agreement at the cost of truth undermines identity. Moreover. wMIe he actively seeks to reveal multiple perspectives on events, he strives to act rightly and openly within and despite Soviet power structures that discourage him and others from doing so; he does not attempt to hide the truth under a veneer of politically correct or personally auspicious narrative, but understands that the truth is to be found in the presence o f alternative narratives available to him. The Loose and Baggy Monster Harnessed While Vladimov rejects the Soviet war novel and returns to the traditional historical novels via Pushkin and, concomitantly, Scott, to set the generic parameters of his work and establish the metahistorical nature of Ms undertaking, he engages Tolstoi in a more specific level o f dialog; in particular, he engages in dialog with Tolstoi’s ideas about historiography as his primary way of entering into this discussion about history throughout the novel. Peter Rollberg alludes to this tendency ofVladimov’s, noting that “a number of Vladimov’s characters are quite aware of the literary parallels to their own situation; classical narratives have shaped many Russians’ m iessim dkig o f themselves and of the historical processes into which they are drawn” (Rollberg 2), That Tolstoi’s presence is felt throughout the novel is not surprising, since Tolstoi remains the writer ofhistorica! novels most known for Ms reflections on the making and writing of history in the Russian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 tradition.. The novel The General and His Army interacts with Tolstoi’s War and Peace in three important ways: there are situations in the plot that parallel situations is War and Peace; several characters in the novels reflect m their own reading of Tolstoi’s masterpiece (sometimes quoting the novel in application to their own situations) and look for analogies to their own lives, and there are statements and comments made by the narrator that directly engage Tolstoi In an ideological debate about the nature of Mstory and the writing of history. The first two of these ’ will fee discussed as a . part of this section on genre; the third will be the focus of the following section discussing Vladimov’s Mews on Mstory. Parallel Plot Situations and Themes In the course of the novel, there are several key scenes that resonate strongly for a reader who has read War and Peace. Early in the novel, the author describes, from Orderly Shesterikov’s point of view, the exodus o f people out of Moscow on the eve of aa anticipated siege by the Germans. This sees© Is similar to Tolstoi’s description o f what took place in Moscow when Napoleon arrived, and stands as a possible (bot not to be realized) prediction (a, false foreshadowing, in Morson’s te a s ) about what might come; in War and Peace, the city is evacuated, while in The General and His Army, things only approach a real evacuation. Each is described from, the perspective of the road, where a bystander with Ms own separate needs and agenda is watching people pour out o f the city, while himself having at the same time a reason to go against the flow and into the city. In both, wounded are brought Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 into the city, while everyone else is trying to leave. In each novel, there is a battle devastating in terms of human lives that nonetheless constitutes a moral victor;/ (Borodino and Stalingrad, although this is a focal point in Tolstoi's longer novel and serves as background information in Vladimov’s); for Tolstoi this battle signaled the inevitability of Russian victory, even though it was a military defeat, while i m Vladimov, it represents a legitimate new confidence In Russia's strength. Both novels include a scene depicting a meeting o f the War command at which the main hero (Kutuzov, in Tolstoi's work, and Kobrisov in Vladimov’s) is a victim of others’ condescension. Each novel features a long march back from a foreign territory (from Austria in War and Peace, and from Latvia in The General and His Army), fed by the respective general (Kutuzov and Kobrisov), where the Russian army must regroup and prepare to defend Russia against a foreign invader. In another scene. Kobrisov and Ms companions, when they finally reach the outskirts of the city, believe they are on the M B Poklonmia Gora, from which Napoleon stood and looked into the city (actually, they are not quite that close yet); Donskoi and Kobrisov, forthcrmoic, reflect about the significance o f this. During one episode that finds Kobrisov “planning the past,” he thinks that b c s Hcropm P o cch h, m o x c t cxaTbcx, npyrHM pycnoM 6m noTeiora, eon* 6 omasMBanHCi* mh ecu. h m m co 8 C 6 M H , koto HOflospeEaeM” [all of Russian history might perhaps have taken a different course, had we refused to eat and drink with those of whom we harbor suspicions (357). This answer to Candide, which Kobrisov is reading during the time of the novel as others read War and Peace, declares the titter importance of refusing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 bad alliances with take friends and also alludes to Batashev’s dining with Napoleon in War and Peace, On 'their last journey in the ear, Shesterikov adjusts the general’s scarf, but the narrator interrupts, saying that “ O h m o f g m o t o f o h b c mnm%, reaepanM—-iconp. o ra smvt k boIcksm— me npecrfM m sm m s'' [He eouM have not done this. Generals on their way to their troops do not catch cold] (375); this is an allusion to, but refusal to parallel, Tolstoi’s portrayal o f Napoleon one the eve of Borodino as having a cold. Kutuzov and Kobrisov experience similar endings to their careers: they receive highest honors after a decisive battle in which their peers consider their importance to have been exaggerated, and due to political processes, each is removed from Ms command position and left without a further meaningful role. Kutuzov dies physically, Kobrisov in spirit. These are just a few examples of the prevalence o f intertextual references to Tolstoi’s magnum opus in The General and His Army. History through the Experience of Oneself as an Allegory in Penmcui u ezo apmufL or Tolstoy: War and Truth J lfi. B C « H C T O p B Jl P O C C H B L , M O X f f iT C T a X B C M , pp>TifM p y C J I O M 5m n O T C K J ia , com 6 oT K asB JB an H ci. m m ecn. ii iH - ix f c co B ceM H , k o to ncutospesaeM. All o f Russian history, perhaps, would have taken a different course, Had we refused to eat and drink with people o f whom we are suspicious. —Georgfi Vladimov, The General and- His Army Characters’ Reflections on Reading. Tolstoi “[H]e knew the work of Tolstoy, Korolenko, and Chekhov. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 Well, what did he learn from them?” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago Several ofVladimov’s characters, mcludiag Adjutant Donskoi, German genera! Heinz Guderian and General Kobrisov, reflect directly on Tolstoi’s War and Peace. Adjutant Donskoi, whose namesake is Andrei Nikolaevich Bolkonsicfi and who is a conceited man fond of thinking that that he would m ake a better general than Kobrisov (just as Andrei Bolkonsky in War a n d Peace thought in the early part o f his career th at his own plans were te tte r than those under w hose command he served and enjoyed im agining himself as general), loves th e novel because to oScroaTejttCTBO, m o ajpM rm r KOMaaayioinero 6hjj nyn» He fjisbhum repoeM ononeu h ero jnoflnjia nyn. He raasnaa repoHua, onpeflejieHHO B cejrao mpMocrh. Ms csoero seica immh AagpeM E n m n m B m BojikohckhS upoTSTHBEn C B O io MajieH&Kyio pyicy AHapeio HaKOJiaeBMny ffpm cm m j & o/pSpirreuMJo HoxjionHBan no mieny. H to khh3£ A aap ei 6hji Heflojitinoro pocra h cjiafltii, axo J |o h c k o I 3anocHJi m y b m h h jc, a cefe b mnoc, no ‘ycranoMy cjcynaiomeMy m p y ’ > m no ‘rnxoMy h MepHOMy m ar}’ ' ’ hx M OCm M OBBS. y x e U p H M ep H O C p aB H JB lH C B , H O B O X C B O H M U e p T O B C K H M y M C H H C M ‘no npH B B W K e nepexotpTfc iia ^ p a m ty scK H l5 khsbb ero ocraBJisii MQjism nosaga, xots floacK o! eefls onpaBgHBaji, u to Boroer He c ^paHuy3aMH, a c iieMuaMH, O ho, npasga, h Ha Henem®! ‘nepefira no n p H B M U K C ’ H C B B IX O g H J IO ... (35) the circumstance that the adjutant of the commander was nearly the main hero o f the epic and was loved, by the girl who was almost the mam. heroine gave Mm a certain pride. From out o f Ms century, Prince Andrei Nikolaevich Boikonskii extended his small hand to Andrei Nikolaevich Donskoi and approvingly and clapped him on the shoulder. That Prince Andrei was short and weak, Donskoi counted as a minus against him, and but counted for himself as a plus; for their “fatigued, bored look” and for their “quiet, measured gait” they were equally matched, but here, for this devilish ability “to start speaking French out o f habit,” the prince left Mai behind, although Donskoi did justify himself since they were not fighting the French, now, but Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 the G e r m a n s . True, it w a s not p o s s ib le f o r him t o “ s ta r t s p e a k in g German o u t o f habit* e i t h e r ... Donskoi compares h i m s e l f to P r in c e Andrei in every s m a ll detail a n d often tr ie s to im i ta t e him, which p r o v e s ineffective; in th e ir w a y o f r e la tin g to women, K H J J 3 & Annpefi yneji s^opoBO ero BaptHpoBaTt.: c oam iM H ‘Mopmnn» jih h o b rpaMacy, BwpaacaioiHyK}, m e s s y ', /tpyrax ‘jiacxoao n p H O T H B aT B sa pyxas. h t o 6 h t o t H e BcraBafi’; y floHCKoro no saS H O T H B ociH h b cnesiKe h s e c t 3^4>eKT ne t o nr© npona#aji, a 6m ji npsMO npoTHBonojioacHHft. K ripmiepy, x o tc jio c b m .y neperum* y khsbh ero HacreH&Ko ynoM UHaBumic* ‘HeirpHffTHM fi C M e x h kbk 6w 3To cto u h jio cb iipn ciiynaei Ho, C K O J I B K O O H 9 t o t c m c x h h KyjiKrypHpoBaii, a BHxoaH-To Jiafe Bao6opor, naxe eme npHsrniee, h coSece^iHXH yM U JM JiH C i. h pacH JiM BajiHCB oTBenaiMH yjitiSicaMH, 3 ih 6 o ym T ax ^ a n H n u B O , ro rjia a H B a riH c onacKoft— He pexHyjics jih . H aooSme, ofinapyafflBajiocB, k y^HBJieHmo ^obckofo, exopee HenajiBHOMy, m o Boiaa ara h m o m h a b o h h c 8 k h i i ae c o b c c m t o , mo b 1 8 1 2 -m . ( 3 5 - 6 ) P r in c e Andrei h a d th e a b ility to use various approaches: with some of them, to “wrinkle” his face in to a grimace, expressing vexation, o th e r s h e w o u ld “ s w e e tly p u ll b y th e s le e v e , so t h e la tte r w o u ld n o t s ta n d u p ” ; D o n s k o i o u t o f forgetfulness a n d haste, n o t o n ly c o u ld n o t a c h ie v e th e s a m e effects, b u t o f te n p r o d u c e d th e e x a c t opposite. F o r e x a m p le , h e f e lt lik e borrowing f r o m t h e p r in c e a b it o f M s oft-mentioned “ u n p le a s a n t la u g h te r ,” h o w a p p r o p r ia te th is w o u ld b e in s o m e s itu a tio n s ! B a t h o w e v e r h e m ig h t tr y t o c u ltiv a te th is laughter, it e ith e r c a m e o u t th e o p p o s it e w a y — e v e n m o r e p le a s a n t, s o t h a t w h o e v e r h e w a s talking w ith w o u ld s o f te n a n d r e p ly w ith a n a n s w e r in g smile—ot it sounded s o false, t h a t t h e person w o u ld v ie w him a s a t h r e a t - th in k in g lie w a s mad. A n d in g e n e r a l, it seemed, to Domkoi’s s a d s u r p r is e , th a t this w a r , a n d the p e o p l e in it, w e r e j u s t n o t t h e same a s th e y were in 1 8 1 2 . Donskoi’s r e f le c tio n s a b o u t Tolstoi’s novel remain s u p e r f ic ia l, and he c o m p a r e s himself just a s e a s ily t o SMERSH a g e n t Svetolookov a s to BolkonskiL H e remembers th a t the forma*, d u r in g th e e a r ly d a y s o f t h e i r acquaintance a n d b e f o r e h e had advanced to his high rank within the SMERSH organization, a ls o (lik e himself) lo v e d literature a n d knew something about it While this assessment r e f le c ts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 doubtfully on Donskoi’s intellect and character, he is incapable of recognizing it Donskoi’s silly reflections on Tolstoy stand as a foil to other reflections on Tolstoi in the novel; his trivialized view of the past, and his assessment that the current war and the people in it are just not the same as the war and people i, contrast with the serious discussion o f Tolstoi In the novel to reveal that, ironically, this is precisely the problem—that people have not learned from the past and changed themselves in response to it, because they prefer nostalgia to real and active memory. At times, Donskoi attempts to draw analogies between War and Peace and his own present situations. At the end of the first chapter, but a part o f the frame story device that occupies a chronologically later time in the novel, Donskoi is planning what he will tell Gafochka, a redhead from the political department of the army, when he returns from unexpected leave in Moscow. He daydreams, “[a] ecsra o h s cnpocar, ae cKynHo jib 6hjig b Mociffie, m oxcho yjttifinyr&ca M H oro3H aH H Tejn>H O , yroMJieHHo: ’ MocKBa—K HBeT!’ ” (53) “and if she asks whether it was 'boring in Moscow, F I fe e able to smile significantly and say wearily, ''Moscow—is alive! His thoughts about Prince Andrew precede this passage by just a few pages, as well as Ms own imagined assumption of general Kobrisov’s role and status as general; the suggestion is that he, ik e Kutuzov in War and Peace, is now on Ms way to Moscow to investigate whether Moscow is still alive in spirit, and will return with the answer in a few days to the girl at the center of his daydreaming. Donskoi keeps returning to Galochka hi his imagination even though lie suspects that this current “leave” will ultimately lead to his reassignment. He just has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 a feeling that lie will return to the 38* army, sometime—and triumphantly. “Co iHMTOMs“-HpH6asjm3i o h , --BenpeMeHHo co jhhtom ! K a m sb Amtpefi, w i CBoero s e a , m m m sim m io*e H ssypaoft Bapiiaiix: “3ro Syser m o! lyjioiiP [Triumphantly-— - lie added—in complete trkmiph! Prince Andrew, in Ms own century, put it in a rice way: ‘This wiii be my Toulon!”] (53). This ironic use of false prediction completes the picture of Donskoi as a mere shadow of Prince Andrei, since the latter only dreams of finding his Toulon (a reference to the battle which Napoleon first distinguished himself) early in the story, before he has any war experience and before the he undergoes growth in his character. The truth is, Donskoi is on Ms last journey, to be interrogated and reassigned, and he has already served with general Kobrisov for two and a half years without learning anything about true heroism and leadership despite Kobrisov’s own positive character and example. Indeed, the automobile will turn around when Kobrisov decides he must return to his army, and the mood is one of victory—but Donskoi is killed by “friendly” fire without ever arriving. He never finds his Toulon, not because he comes to understand history and the role of leadership in a new way, as did Prince Andrew, but because he is petty in character and never acts heroically or without self-interest, even when presented with an opportunity to do so. The minimum act that he could have done is to have informed the general that Smersh secret agent Svettookov had spoken with him, and for Ms omission (he said nothing), which the general understands he is committing, the latter seems to reproach Mm silently. Only in the final moments before Ms death does Donskoi learn something about himself; according to the narrator, Donskoi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 realizes that he would not make a good general and in fact would not even like to be a general That he is self-complacent and remains unchanged in spite of this revelation confirms the pettiness of Ms character. The implication that can be drawn is that many people might experience and read about the past and still never grow personally. Guderian In the second chapter of the novel German Genera! Heinz Guderian is camped out at lasnaia Poliana, eating at Tolstoi’s dinner table and considering his next move. Here, he allows Ms own reflections to echo the great Russian novel War and Peace, and thinks about Ms own military situation in words that clearly echo Napoleon’s in the novel: “Hto x e oro sa crpana, rae, tpHFaaci* o t no6e/u>i k no6eae, npnxoflHiuB HeyK ocH H M o—« nopaxemno?” [What kind o f country is tMs, where, moving from one victory to the next, you arrive at defeat?] (87), which he has just read. The analogy between his own situation and that o f Napoleon occurs to Mm as he contemplates the retreat he is about to command his troops to make, and he envisions the freezing and hungry trek across Russia in mid-winter through the eyes of Tolstoy’s French army. Guderian himself faces the same basic difficult situation as Napoleon had; it is the turning point o f the war. and the recent German defeat at Stalingrad is compounded by the corning winter (although Napoleon had just defeated the Russians at Borodino in War and Peace, Tolstoi would have Ms readers believe this battle was the Russian’s first, albeit only moral, victory over Napoleon). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 It has become apparent that the Germans are not making adequate progress to he in a safe position before the onset of winter, Guderian’s men are not dressed warmly enough, and they are hungry. High Command does not allow retread yet it is what Guderian must do to give his troops a chance at survival. At this moment, Guderian reads Tolstoy’s version of the Battle of Borodino, where he notices that He o m a Hanojieoa HcmorHBaji to noxoacee Ha CHOBiaeBte nyscTBo. m n GTpaniHHit pa3Max pyK H nanaer fieccuHBHO, ho see renepajiu, Bce— coaaaTH $panny3CKoI apM H H .. .H cnG w iH BanH o^praaKOBoe nyBC TB o yacaca nepea tc m B paroM, K O T O p H fi, noxepxB IIOJIOBHHY BOHCKA, c tojui tek x e rpoaHO b m m e , ms. h b Hanajie cpaxsHM... He xa noSeaa, KOTopaa onpeaejtierca nojpcBaneHHHM H KycxaM H M aT epH H Ha najixax, HasHBaeM HX snaMeaaMa, a tcm npocTpaHCTBOM, Ha KOTopoM c to sjih h c to s t BoicKa,— a noSeaa HpaBcraeHHas S a n a o jie p x a a a pjcckhm h iio a Bojx)«hhbim ...(88-9) not only Napoleon experiences that feeling, similar to in a dream, that the terrible span o f Ms arms was falling down powerless, but all generals, all soldiers of the French army.. .experienced the singular feeling o f terror before an enemy that, having lost HALF OF ITS STRENGTH, stood just as threatening at the end of the battle as it had at the beginning... It was not the kind of victory that is defined by the seizure o f materials on sticks, known as flags, or by the area on which the troops had gained, but rather, it was a moral victory that the Russians gained at Borodino... Yet Guderian is unable or unwilling to appropriate felly the so-called moral of the story, which he seeks to draw from Ms reading o f Tolstoi He straggles unsuccessfully to draw from this passage a particular lesson he is seeking t© apply to Ms own circumstances: If 3 othx cipoK , tek ©HeprEraio m ym vm m x H a a©Meipc©Ms h o , 6bxx» M oxteir, yipaTHBHiHX b nepeaoae c b o ii H o a e a y ip M l, macmmcmM cm m cji, o h x o ig ji BSBJI6UB ypoK jum ce6st— h lie mof H 3BJieH B, xoth men x a * S jih sk o o t p o p o r a H anoaeona a iisc x o jim ® pm ee nepeceicaa. O h He HcnKtiHBaa iia jio * e in » : H&ei 6 h t o im 6m m o p ym , cH jaH ehm eft, msm e r o p y x a . He © s y a ia j j 1 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 H paB C T B B H H O rO npeB O C X O SC T B a C O B C T C K H X reHepeuioB, tax me,npo gpocaBniHx Jiyqnme m im aa yfk®, ties pacaexa w ciH CJia...” (89) From these lines, which sounded so energetic In German, hot, perhaps., had lost their hidden, mystical meaning in translation, he 'wanted to draw out a lesson for himself—and could not, although he was located so near to the road Napoleon had 'used, and had even traversed it several times. He just did m i feel the weight of anyone’s hand, stronger than Ms own, did not fee! the moral superiority of the Soviet generals, so generously tossing their best forces into battle, without sen* and without accounting... While he sees parallels between the two situations physically, he does not see them to be related in their moral implications. Try as he might, he cannot bring himself to feel the moral superiority o f the Russians (referred to by Tolstoi in his novel) as a heavy hand upon the Germans, because even if he gives them credit for their bravery and willingness to give up their lives, they still differ from German soldiers in their lack o f initiative, their fear in the face of uncertainty, and their behavior that they themselves could not even predict. Vladimov’s passage obscures whether Guderian himself comes to think o f Russians in tMs way on the basis of the Russians he has observed in battle, or whether Ms view is more of a literary prediction developed on the basis o f Ms reading o f War and Peace, where Tolstoy suggests that history is made in this manner and purposely portrays Ms characters as lacking initiative, being unable to predict their behavior, and fearing uncertainty'-—which leaves a purposeful ambivalence. That is, it is also conceivable that Gtiderka makes his assessment on the basis o f his personal observation of the Russians in this war, since Vladimov portrays the Russian side as chaotic at times due to poor leadership. In any easts, if Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. l i t Guderian has arrived at this view o f Russian soldiers as a result o f Ms reading of Tolstog bat does not understand that the depiction of uncertainty, chaos, and lack of initiative is a formulation of Tolstoi’s view of history and therefore should fe e understood not as a character flaw but as a reflection of historical processes, then it should come as no surprise that lie can not figure out how to make an analogy for Ms situation. The right analogy, based on a reading o f Tolstoi would be to understand that these descriptors also apply to Ms own German troops, and that they represent man’s inability to control historical forces—precisely what Guderian is reflecting upon himself. Moreover, Guderian ironically fails to notice that, even if he is correct in all other aspects, the Russians have inherent moral superiority (as they did in the War o f 1812) at the very least because they were the ones who have been invaded, and regardless of how the war has been fought thus far, Guderian is a general leading Ms forces to conquer a land that does not belong to Germany by any right or tradition. Vladiinov portrays Guderian in a better light than Tolstoi Napoleon, in an overt juxtaposition—both start out in an almost brilliant situation, on each rests the fate o f Ms nation, both wage war against Russian generals who allow an enormous number of men to die perhaps unnecessarily, and both ate shown to be simply men. despite their power—yet while Napoleon seriously underestimated both the physical and moral strength of the Russian army and overestimated the physical and moral strength o f Ms own men, Guderian’s reflection leads him to make what VTadimov’s narrator approves as the right decision. He decides to retreat, knowing that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 consequence will be Ms own removal from command fey Hitler* —ie.„ that he is making a life-changing decision. After Guderian makes the determining phone call, the narrator interjects, Cosepniaa e»oI nocryuoK—m o x c t 6mte, BHcmafi b ero m m h f o h nysciB O B aji H e « r r o noxoxe Ha CMepraoe p aB H opym ite SeryHa, K O T O p o M y sflpyr fepasjfflH H H iM H iioxam jiH CB see nonecxH, oaomaiomHe e r o H a < f)H H H in e , h H H H T o a o a H M , S e c c M H C J ie H H H M —a3apT nepBH X M H H y r Sera. Emcoraa te k h x Tpyaps H e ctohjio m y H a im ca T & jwckojimcq tfspsa. (98) Having completed this act, perhaps the highest act of Ms life, he felt something akin to the mortal indifference of a runner who suddenly realized that all awaiting him at the finish line did not matter anymore, and that the first exciting minutes o f the battle fed been for nothing, senseless. Never before had it cost him so great an effort to write down a few sentences. That the narrator labels Guderian’s action as the ultimate action he has ever made and could possibly make indicates that Guderian has indeed learned from history and is unwilling to repeat grand mistakes made by others, even if he does not fully understand how Mstorical forces operate. Kobrisov General Kobrisov, unlike Donskoi and Guderian, is not reading Tolstoi’s War and Peace during the time described by the novel; he is occupied with Voltaire’s Candide, However, ft is clear that Kobrisov is familiar with Tolstoi’s novel and that he, too, seeks analogies between it and Ms own experience. Moreover, i f Vladimov evokes comparisons between the pairs Donskoi and Bolkonsky and Guderian and Napoleon through his characters’ experiences o f themselves as analogies, lie creates a similar comparison between Kobrisov and Kutuzov. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 The novel's overall portrayal o f Genera! Kobrisov evokes a conscious comparison with General Kutuzov in War and Peace. Both generals are shown in scenes responding to soldiers, and both possess a hero's status in the eyes of their soldiers. Each is seen as a fatherly figure by at least some of Ids subordinates. General Kobrisov calls to mind Tolstoy’s Kutuzov in Ms simplicity and lack of worldly ambition that the other generals live by, and in Ms perceptive understanding of Ms soldiers’ spirit. He also resembles Kutuzov in that he is portrayed as the only general to make correct judgments about the progress o f events o f the war; when he disagrees with the other generals about the appropriate action, Ms suggestion proves correct in the end. Other generals look condescendingly down on him, believing him to be inferior in judgment or mental capacity and incompetent to make decisions about how to conduct a war. At the same time, the success of each can be attributed to his pMlosophy of how to conduct war, which for each functions as a reflection, of his views on how history is made, and both are portrayed as heroic precisely because they understand history and their own role as leaders within it. On occasion, Kobrisov quotes Kutuzov directly; for example he echoes Kutuzov’s threat in book 11, chapter IY of War and Peace that the Russians will make their enemies eat horseflesh like the Turks. Finally, Kobrisov experiences himself as an ironic analogy to another general, Napoleon, of War and Peace, a passage that will be discussed below. Kobrisov’s moment of experiencing himself as an analogy to War and Peace occurs when he and Ms retinue arrive at what the general mistakenly identifies to the others as Pokkmny Hill, a passage which will also be discussed at length below. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 Each author lias created a narrator who expresses Ms views on historical processes and a character, a general who embodies those views. WacMei argues that Tolstoi creates a historical narrator who most expansively elaborates the author’s point of view and brings to a head the novel* s central, issues concerning the making of history (96). In a similar vein, Vladimov voices Ms ideas about the accursed questions of history chiefly through Ms metahistorica! narrator. Generals Kutuzov and Kobrisov then manifest these historical views of their creators, fonctioning as a kind of application of theory. Despite the liberal measure o f similarity in the characters of Kutuzov and Kobrisov, which makes each the hero (in the positive seme of the word) of his respective novel, the views on history and the role of the individual leader within it that they reflect diverge widely. For Vladimov, the convergence of history and literature becomes most visible along the boundary lines of genre, and from the discussion above it is clear that The General and His Army is an example o f what Wachtel refers to as a boundary work. In its combination of historical material and analysis with fictional writing, it creates a dialog between genres that reveals the complexity of the past as more than just a series of events that led to a certain, possibly preordained outcome. The juxtaposition of historical feet and literary versions of the past is never completely resolved: we never know the whole truth about the parachutist; much of what is said about Vlasov remains in the end Kobrisov5 s speculation, colored indeed by Ms own needs and the desire to find a model or even ally in rejection o f official narratives; finally, the various characters* tendencies to seek understanding of their own situations through Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 reading of artistic literature adds another layer o f juxtaposition o f fact and fiction, 'Vladimov manages in this work to contribute to Ms readers" historical knowledge. However, Ms more important achievement is to contribute to their historical understanding, if we recall from the second chapter Hawthorn’s claim that if we really want to understand the past, we must understand what was possible. Engaging ia the Debate on H istorigraplical Problems We might look for consolation to Tolstoy’s belief that armies are not led by generals, sMps are not steered by captains, and parties are not run by presidents and politicians—but the twentieth century has shown us only too often that they are. —-Alexander Solzhenitsyn,4 August 1914 The individual in History—Great Leaders. Decisive Action, and Accountability Vladimov fiuther engages Tolstoy’s views (as he understands them) by raising several themes central to the historiographical sections o f Tolstoy’s work; Ik is particularly interested in the role o f the individual in history and the question o f necessity versus free w ill An answer to these questions, tor Vladimov, wall allow human choices and actions in Wstory and in the present to be understood through the lens of morality and, furthermore, lay bare the processes by which, identity, individual and collective, is constructed. In The General and His Army, Vladimov clearly focuses on the role o f the great individual in history and challenges Tolstoi’s views on this matter. It is General. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, August 1914, p. 302. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 Heinz Guderian from the German side who first broaches the subject of a general’s leadership role. To Guderian, it seems obvious that war is an art in which military officers and generals actually lead their men by means of more or less effective orders and commands, and that events can be planned and to some degree predicted—and that even Tolstoy could not totally elude this assumption, since lie unwittingly gave credit to Napoleon for leading the Russians to a place o f battle that was not strategic for them. HeKOxop&ie memaue cipaH M H & i Tojictofo oh He Mor wraTH 6es uyBcraa H 6 J I O B 1 C O C T H ' 3 8 . aBOTpa...fifej!B3» ShJIO H H H |5 0 C T H T B , H H U Q E ST h C F O ynpSMOe H enpH SH aHH e bohhh ksk HCKyccrsa, a He tojibko fiejpaMa, xaoca, a kotojwm hhkto Hanero npeflBnaert. H e Moxet, a noaroMy amcaKofi nojncosonen aa canoM Mens emcm He pyKOBO^T. Ckojm o C T p E C lH & dio H O T p an eH O — ^oxasaT& , m o Hanojieoa m pyKosojsjm m me mof pyjcoBorpfrB xo^om cpa*eHM npH Bopo^HHe! (90) He could not read some o f Tolstoy’s pages depicting battlewithout a feeling o f awkwardness for the author....It was possible neither to excuse nor to understand Ms stubborn refusal to recognize that war is an art, and not just bedlam, a chaos in which nothing could be predicted and therefore no commander in actuality was directing anything. How much passion was wasted to show that Napoleon was not in control and could not have directed the course of the battle at Borodino! In Guderian’s view, if there is too much unpredictability, fear and lack o f initiative in actions during battle, it is a problem pertaining to individual character, not to an essential limitation to the potential o f an individual’s role in. history. Guderian is offended by Tolstoi’s hypothesis that the skillful command o f a good leader is irrelevant, taking issue with the great author’s idea that no commander is really eontfoffiaig anything (90). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 For Guderian, war is an art. Thus Guderian resets the paradigm, for Tolstoi established an opposition between war as a game (like chess, depicted through Napoleon as well as some Russian generals) and war as chaos, an unpredictable event controlled by no one and snhmiiting to no rales except that of hundreds of thousands of individual wills, each with needs and desires that it is seeking to fulfill (Kutuzov, Bolkonsky). Guderiaifs postulation of a counterargument to Tolstoy’s views is interesting not only because it makes the references to Tolstoy into an overt dialog, but because it attributes this line of thinking to the German side. All further interaction, the rest of which comes from Russian characters, with Tolstoy’s novel in this text still preserves this fundamental perspective that Tolstoy was wrong in Ms pMlosophy of Mstory when he thought that the Russians won because they were morally right and it had to be so. In this way, Vladimov refuses to describe a situation in which the opposing camps (here, German and Russian) are so far apart in their thinking that the weaker of them (and historically, the loser) sacrifices legitimacy, and thus the author reinforces his use of the Scott paradigm by allowing them both to be “right.” History does not choose its path based on some inherent value retroactively attributed to whatever course o f events ends up taking place (that is to say, a historical outcome is not better than alternatives that existed to it simply by virtue of its having come about, to use Morson’s formulation {Narrative and Freedom 281)); rather, it is influenced by personalities and power relations—in a word, individuals—and those with more power have a greater degree of influence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 Vladimov’s narrator raises the issue of an individual’s Mstoricai role of leadership ia Ms portrayal o f the other two generals who play leading roles in the novel as well. The issue is especially marked when Vlasov’s and Kobrisov’s armies are each shown in scenes preparing for an upcoming battle. In these scenes, the value of the respective general’s leadership Is brought under circumspection. “H h k to h h o hcu ne cHpannfBan reHepana, see npoHcxoruuio caMo eofoio...” [No one asked the general about anything, everything happened on its own] (103-4), and even the general’s (V lasov’s) command to m ake ready for battle is distanced from his willingness to undertake these preparations: “A bhhoh to m y— cjio b o , KOpoTKoe, copsaB ineeca kek 6m m hcbojibho...” [and a short word is the cause of this, one spoken, as it were, unwillingly] (103). Kobrisov feels that, in the midst of these preparations, he is a “ jih ih h h m HeJiosexoM,” [superfluous man]. These nursings on the part o f three generals pose Tolstoi’s old question of how Mstory comes about for a new audience. Vladimov endeavors to provide a fresh answer, too. To explain this, I will backtrack just sightly to address General Kutuzov, Tolstoi’s hero and the archetypal model for generals in Russian Mstoricai fiction, in aspects pertinent to my discussion. Kutuzov’s fellow generals are dissatisfied because he refuses to take positive, controlling action, and allows events to develop their own course, rather than try to prevent something devastating from happening, namely, the abandonment of Moscow. He exemplifies the narrator’s stated vision that Mstory is determined by hundreds of thousands o f individual wills influencing one another and the course o f events. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 J|OM 'OJiei’ UHM B O eH H H M O H U T O M OH 3H3J1 H CTajneCKHM JMOM H 0H H M 8JI, H T O p y iC O B O ^ H T fc C 0T H 2 M H T H C S T H UejIOBeK, 6opK>mHXC« C C M S p T H I O ,, HCI1K3JI oauoM y HejiOBCKy, h 3H8JI, bto pen iaio r ynacTB cpascem ui He pacnopam em i* rJHBEtHOMOMamjyioinero, He m c c to , s a k otop om c t o h t B olcsca, He m m ^ s c t m nym eic h j Shthx jno^eft, a Ta HeyjioBHMaa c a m , MasBJsaeMaji .ayxoM isoiexa, h o h cneHffli 3a otoM ch jio S h pyKOBoaon eio, HaexojoKO axo 6 h jio b ero BUSCTH. (245) From many years of war experience lie knew and with Ms old brain understood that it is impossible for one man to command a hundred thousand men who are fighting for their lives* and he knew that it was not the commands of the leader that decide the outcome o f a battle, nor the place where the troops stood, nor the number of guns and people killed, but that elusive force catted the spirit of the army, and he chased alter this force and commanded by its power to the extent that that he was able, Tolstoi takes great pains to prove the wisdom and heroism of Kutuzov’s attitude, partly by showing that as Andrei Nikolaevich Bolkonsky matures in Ms views, he moves closer to the views o f Kutuzov, Kutuzov is unable to determine when the deciding moment occurred that led to the necessity of abandoning Moscow, from which Tolstoi’s belief that it is impossible to determine Mstoricai causes is argued. The leadership Kutuzov gives to Russia is spiritual and moral, rather than directive and managerial, and Tolstoi shows It to be the most truthfiil stance possible of a leader. The medium o f leadership, he declares, is the “HeonpenenHMoi, TaHHCTBeuHoM CBH3MO, n o flse p iK H B a io iite ft b c io apM iaao m co c x a B J u n o m eft rnaB i& ift HepB boIhh” [undefinable, mysterious connection that gives moral support to the entire army and constitutes the main nerve of war] (24S), To a partial extent, Vladimov’s understanding o f power is akin to Tolstoi’s, since lie tries to convince that a kind of spiritual aspect o f leadership is at least as important as the role of power vested in commands and orders, Kobrisov, like Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 Kutuzov, believes Ms role as leader lias a significant psychological and spiritual component. Practically speaking, Kobrisov’s leadership plays this oat better than does Kutuzov’s (It is noted in War and Peace that the latter inspects battle-ready troops only some of the time, and he is shown to be idle, just letting things happen of their own accord). In chapter three, when Kobrisov is fording the river with his troops, the omniscient narrator, peeking into Kobrisov’s mind, comments upon the relationship between the general and his soldiers, remarking that Kobrisov has noticed many times a tendency among his soldiers to imitate him in deportment as well as fashion: M om b 3 8 - # apM H H , icaie y x e ne pas o t m c w i renepaji, a c x p m u i a o t aero; Te, x to h© mof ero BHflert, nepenHM ajia ee o t B H inecT o«iH x,-a m m m , o h , a n e KaKoft-HHSyjp* jie r e im a p H H # pasBejpniK hjih h h o # rep o # , 6sm c s m h m nonyjiapHHM b apMHH mmMSKou; 3 to m n p m m o 6 h jio cosuasaTfc, a ‘oTHacxa paaapaxajio: c c jih xaxa& ift sax o n er noxo^uT t Ha5 KoSpucoBa, M yapeH O o t j b m h t b c s c b m o m j K o G p n c o a y . ( 1 6 4 ) Fashion in the 38® army, as the general had noted once before, originated with Mm; whoever could not see Mm got ft from their immediate superiors, and thus he, and not some legendary secret service man or some other hero was the most popular man in the army; this was both pleasant and irritating at the same time: if everyone wanted to be similar to Kobrisov, it was hard for Kobrisov to somehow make himself stand out. This relationship is key to the army’s morale, and not just in this passage. His presence m d appearance among Ms troops both in preparation for battle and during it is shown to be a key to their success—not irrelevant or optional (since history will take Its inevitable course), as in Tolstoi Fellow generals all thirds: Kobrisov is crazy for having endangered Ms life to accompany Ms troops on the dangerous fording of the Dnepr at Myriatio, and cannot understand that he did this because of his innate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 undemanding of the deepest need of Ms soldiers to be in the presence o f their leader. (This also plays a part in Ms later decision to return to his troops; he does not return with the assumption that he will rejoin them and take over Ms command from Tereshchenko to storm Predskvi’; rather, he recognizes his army's need for their respected and beloved leader at a time o f what will amount to an acute crisis, when they realize the enorm ity of what it means to take Myriatin, to shoot Russians rattier than Germans.) In the scene discussed above, Kobrisov’s reflection alludes to th e stance on leadership taken in War and Peace, Standing in th e m idst of his soldiers, he begins to feel as if he w ere not needed there, as if he w ere superfluous (“jihiuhhm”), because it is clear that the preparations for battle are going on w ithout his ow n involvem ent in th e minutiae of details—every m an know s w hat he needs to do and carries it out (167). At the same tim e, looking at his cavalry, he contradicts this line o f thought w ith another, thinking that he “noriHMaji h x HeHsbeacHyro c e fe a e oTpemeHHocm, yraySjieHHe b ce6x, h o c 6e30TuerHofi peBHOcn.ro x o tc ji 6m HanoMHHn. hm, h to h ox Hero o h h sebhcst lie M eam e, hcm o t csoei miaamiH” [understood their now unavoidable resolve, their absorption in themselves, but with as inexplicable eagerness wanted to remind them that they depended on him no less than on their own plans (169). As he moves around the field where these preparations are being executed, he discusses them with Ms men. and barks out a few orders when necessary. Yet he still expresses a feeling o f superfluousness, to the extent that the narrator feels compelled to break in, reassuring the reader that flits is not so, “Oh Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 qyBCTBOsaji ce6s jm m H H M h sjpcr. Ha cem om .nexie tyro He Gmm tek, o h newsy 6 b o i a y x e a , TOJH.KO He sareM , h t o 6 coo6xmm> H ioaiM t o , h t g o h h s h s jih h 6 e s H ero, a hto6 b o S t h b h x naeTpoentie a nepea& Tb iim case. H s t g - t o s h o t u m m hofo S o jitH ie, hcm ero pacneKaaiis a eonem” [Even here tie felt that h e was superfluous. Actually this wasn’t the case, and he was needed everywhere, but not to inform people what they already knew-, but to enter into their mood and convey to them Ms own. And this meant much more than Ms orders and advice] (170). The fundamental reason why Kobrisov values spiritual and psychological aspects o f leadership, however, is very different from that in Tolstoi’s portrayal of Kutuzov, for whom a Mstoricai role of leadership is mostly just a sinecure— presiding with awareness over the destiny of one’s nation, but altering nothing. General Kobrisov thinks consciously about Tolstoy in several passages in the novel, often in connection with a topic that is very close to Mm—that of the extent to which his own power and that of other generals was linked to the outcome of events of the war, in particular whether any more lives could have been saved had things gone differently. Indeed, despite Kobrisov’s moments of doubt, he believes that the outcome of the war is determined largely by decisions and plans made by members of the War Command and other general conducting the war—and he views his leadership and the leadership of others as the key factors in the making o f Mstory. Plans and orders are not completely Irrelevant in The General and His Army, in . opposition to War and Peaces where Tolstoi takes great pains to convince Ms readers that they make no difference in historical outcomes. Throughout this scene, Kobrisov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140 is moving around, barking out orders of all sorts to Ms troops (in fact, he resembles Napoleon more than Kutuzov in this respect). Unlike Napoleon"s—and Kutuzov’s— orders, which Tolstoi shows as having little or nothing to do with what actually takes place during battle, Kobrisov’s orders clearly generate actions and events, even if they are not their sole source because other factors and contingencies are intertwined with them Knowing this, Kobrisov’s disposition during his rounds is tempered with advance feelings of personal guilt. He thinks of the individual soldiers and even horses, feeling remorse that he must send them into a battle which is sure to result in many of their deaths (169). While he is not deluded by the nature of Ms power, he finds it ironic that lie can command the actions o f 100,000 men but is powerless to preserve a single life. Later, as Nefedorov is dying, Kobrisov feels he is not adequate to his role as leader: “renepaa ne s b e h , u t o eme CKa3an> yMHpaiomeMy, i « o& jtpsm Bcji ero uy^oBiHjptaa BJiacn.—ormoro mm coraeio tm c « —ceftuac 6sraa SeccH jibH a He t o u t o homoub 3 T O M y napmo b b e k h tu , ho x o tb yMeroniiiTfc erpanaH H *" [the general did not know what else to say to the dying man, how to lift Ms spirits. All o f Ms monstrous power—that of one over a hundred thousand—was now powerless, not only to help this young man live, but even to lessen his suffering] (184). These very doubts about his own leadership role suggest that Kobrisov understands clearly the function o f Ms own power and the real responsibility and guilt that accompany it. His views at times seem to be colored by Ms reading of Tolstoi, and this is probably the main source o f Ms occasional attacks of self-doubt in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 regards to his own role on the battlefield. In tins sense, he stands between the extreme personalities Tolstoi has created, Kutuzov and Napoleon, as a moderate. Napoleon’s view is that the war with Russia has come about because be himself willed it, and he is not at all disturbed by the heavy losses on the battlefield: Oh Boofipaacaji ce6e, mo no ero Bone npoioonma aottna c Poccneh, m yacac coBepniHBHieroca He nopaacaji ero nyrny. O h cmcjio irpHHHMan he ce& bc» O T B eT C T B eH H O C T B CO0HTHS, B C F O HOMp&HeHHHi yM B B H tejl OHpaBJBHHC B to m , w o b H H C J ie coven ru cm m m Snm x mourn Sbuio M eH B nie (jjpaanyjoB, hcm reccemteB h SasapneB, [He imagined to himself that the war with Russia came about because he willed it, and the horror of what had taken place did not strike Ms heart. He boldly accepted onto himself the entire responsibility for all these events, and his dark mind justified everything with the thought that out of the hundred thousand people that had perished, there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians] (260). Thus the spirit of the army is not discounted but not elevated to the exclusion of other, equally important, factors; moreover, planning, decisions, orders and individual actions are redeemed as valid elements o f history-m aking. Individual, moral responsibility is the implication of this, and in the general’s understanding, Tolstoi’s system (at both extremes, Kutuzov and Napoleon) ultimately denies human accountability for what happens. The novel implies that such a view as Tolstoi’s, a view of Mstory as chaotic and com pletely dependent on contingency, can allow the false and dangerous notion that human decisions and actions are meaningless, and that people are not truly responsible for outcomes related to their decisions. If the efficacy of leadership is denied and outcomes cannot be attributed to any cause or agent, no one accepts accountability for what happens. When Kobrisov interviews Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 the parachutist, the poor soldier’s defense for Ms lack o f preparedness is that “y M e m * MUKpofoaa uery, H e senem c cofSoi 6 p a T & ” [I didn’ t have a microphone, they didn’t order m to take them] (199). Bat when he is captured, authorities hold Mm accountable. War command is to be held responsible tor the slaughter at Sibezh (Bukrin), according to the novel; Kobrisov agonkes over this feet, and even Zhukov acknowledges It indirectly: pCoSpMcos] suzpji t o t Bonpoe, Ha KOTOpwft h .jmaMWth ® TpnnnaTB .hst cnycTJ* Q yayr hckhtb oT sera a He naxotpTE ero : h to ace, sapanee He 6 h jio sch o , wto w m m & njianpapM y ceaa C u fiex — oiniiSxa, sananHH? M to o sp a ra , jieca m Somra, He npeHM ymeciBa axoro BBifepa, ho raacKoe ero ocjioxH euH e? Oraero rm h c b h ith h , yioiOHHHBH o feacaeH H i hctophkob: “K coxajieuH io, CiiSexccKHi iDiawppM oxaaajica chjibho nepeceneH H oi MecTHocrsio, H30§HJiyiomeS...” K or^a “oKaaaaca”? Jlp w m nocjie nepenpasw ? — H to x e tb i cHHTaem&,--CHpocHJi le p em eu x o , fojioc Grot to h k h h , jiom khS, ene He yemmm, Baum n o ie p a o 6 u p e , x e p rs H Hanoi— Bee spa? EEoueMy x p aaain e mojihbji? A caM th x o I canoft, noHHMaeinfc..,“OH He m ojiheji,— CKasaa XCyxoB, mmuyp&ch. (234) [Kobrisov] asked the question for which even twenty, even thirty years later people would still be looking in vain for an answer: wasn’t it obvious well in advance that the southern bridgehead at the village of Sibezh was a mistake, a trap? That the ravines, forest, and swamps were not an advantage o f this choice, but a most serious complication? Where, then, do we get the Incomprehensible, evasive explanations o f the historians: “Unfortunately, the Sibezh bridgehead turned oat to be heavily broken terrain, abounding in.. When did it “turn out” to be like this? Before or after the fording? “What do you think?” asked Tereshchenko, with a thin,, broken voice, close to crying, “Are our efforts, our general losses, out sacrifices all in vain? Why didn’t you say something before? And yourself) on the sly, you understand....” “He did say something,” said Zhukov, frowning. Personal interest on the part of the generals involved, along, with the ideological- titopisn view of history propounded by the Soviets that communism will be victorious, together make a formidable Ideological opponent for a lesser general Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 trying to just do the right thing, For the perestroikn-em reader, Vladimov’s insistence that personal interests of those in power often trumped the greater good is itself proof that the communist vision was just one of many possible Mstoricai outcomes, and that this vision possessed no moral superiority over whatever else might have happened, had other choices been made. For Vladimov, the antidote to Tolstoi’s view of great men and Mstoricai leadership—as well as to communist utopian beliefs—is an emphasis placed on the value o f personal, individual acts of decisiveness. Each general, Guderian, Vlasov, and Kobrisov, ends Ms reflection on Tolstoy in a decisive and selfless act, Vlasov, after mulling over whether to try to break out o f near encirclement outside o f Moscow, decides to act based on Ms knowledge and despite the feet that failure would mean the end of Ms career if not his life. Guderian, realizing that there is no help in the vicinity for his troops, who are nearly frozen and starving in their trenches, and perhaps heeding the elderly local who warns him that ‘feaxonaft mar uejioBeKa een> omssSm, eejin He pyKOBOflcrayercs o h jho6ob&k> 1 1 M HJiocepjueM” [every step a person takes is a mistake if it is not guided by love and mercy] (95), at length arrives at his decision to retreat, knowing that it means the end of Ms good graces with Hitler. In both of these cases, the narrator affirms the respective general’s decision, even interrapting the narrative to voice Ms agreement. The narrator comments that in Vlasov’s moment of decisiveness, Moscow’s ftte was decided, and approves his decision as the right one. Guderian, who recognizes the irony that he is sitting at Tolstoi’s writing table as he makes his decision and begins Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 to write out his orders to retreat (irony in that history is repeating itself, and a second great war genius is retreating tail between legs just as the first, Napoleon, described by the original owner of this table), fails to see the deeper-level irony that Vladiinov weaves into this passage: Guderian is right, because he is proactively commanding a retreat—making the crucial order at the desk of the great writer who denied that orders have meaning; Tolstoi is wrong, because Ms ideas about leadership and moral superiority remained blind to human responsibility. In the Second World War, as in the War o f 1812, Russia's overwhelming losses in men were not inevitable, but were the result of poor decisions. Good leaders make financed decisions that do not excuse wretched means in pursuit of elusive good. It was precisely during perestroika that such examination o f the government’s leadership in World War II became possible, and The General and His Army may have helped to open this topic for discussion. Kobrisov’s own moment of reckoning with Tolstoi at Poklonny Hill follows suit. Knowing what it means that he has been sent “on vacation,” he nonetheless decides to disobey orders and return to his troops. Kobrisov does not immediately and openly acknowledge that this decision will severely impact if not end his military career. Subconsciously, he must have known. The situation he feces in his moment of decision is far more ambiguous in its implications than those of the other two generals in the story, who had to make the choice: my men or myself? Kobrisov all along has known resolutely that Ms actions and orders must consider his men; in the span of the story he consistently takes the cost in men. into consideration when he plans war operations. The reader comes to know that this is a part of who he is. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 probably ever since Ms symbolic forty-day prison trial Yet Ms men are inexorably committed to a secret, hellish battle by powers above him. He considers himself responsible for their involvement, even though he could not have foreseen this turn of events, because it was the consequence of his original military strategy. He was unwilling to speak up at the meeting o f War Command in explanation of why he did not want to take Myriatin (which certainly would have resulted in Ms removal but not the salvation of his troops); and Ms attempts to have this cup removed from himself failed, since Charnovsky, for whom the feet that this task required the slaughter of Russians may or may not have been a moral issue, at the last moment failed to support Kobrisov. Thus the question for him is whether he will participate with his army in the indirect consequences wrought by decisions lie has made and sees himself as personally responsible for—even though Ms participation will most likely only affect the spirit, not the reality, o f the outcome. His answer is affirmative. His resolute choice is the right one and he acts accordingly, yet he proves powerless to change anything, it seems. The connection between responsible leadership and decisiveness in the face of uncertainty in Vladimov suggests at once an acceptance of certain of'Tolstoi’s views on the essence of history as well as a rejection of what the nineteenth century author held to be the implications. It is not wise leadership—here he contradicts Tolstoi—to resign oneself to incomprehensibility and therefore ride the wave o f events that take shape as a result of the hundreds of thousands o f m ils that contribute to them This is confirmed in many passages o f The General and His Army. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 Vladimov is willing to accept at least som e degree of uncertainty and describes good leaders repeatedly as those who cope w ell with this—but refuses to just let things happen. He believes that despite the episteaioiogieal uncertainty Tolstoi argues for, and his embracing o f whatever fate ensues as a result, that even the fatalist lives in this world and is subject to the real sense of Ms participation in events, as seen in Kobrisov’s reflection that “ [h ]o settt a ^atajiHCT, Spocajomafics HaBcrpeay npertJHaMeHOBaHino, Be toxe&ko yjsm y npetnyscTByeT, ho onjymaeT xojioa b rpytm, cxpax Hen3BecTHocTH,? [even a fatalist, though he embraces an omen, does not only sense Ms upcoming success, but also feels the ch ill in Ms chest that comes from fear of the unknown] (136). When, immediately upon his release from prison, he is shuttled to Lithuania to take command of an army, he is the only general among five who appears to know what to do in an impossible military situation. General-major Goriachev, like the rest, refuses to take command: Hmcio caMooTBO#. ...C jioM Bniyioca oScrauoBicy He noHHMaw. He MOiy O & b a C H H T fc J U O flB M , H O H C M y O H H A p J O K H H T O K aetCTBGBaTfc, a B © H H EBe. He s h » , »yaa Becra mopiefi, h t o o t mix Tpe6oBan>. Ko6pHcoB— 3naer„ M oxer 6 w m , h a e 3Hser, a lojshm bum sejiaer. Ho n m s s m om b jm b .0 m jc k c c tb o , a y m em ero met, H 3B H H H T 6.” Kobrisov responds: “T o x e a e 311a®, KOJinerH....A s a g aenaio noTOMy, b t o juo,hh sojbshm H yBC TBO BaTt: o h h He SpGiiienBi, K 3 K natraJiB Ha aopore, k t o - t o o h h x nyMaer. Ji3 othx coofipaaceHHH coniaceH apMHio nphhstb. (303) “1 am withdrawing. ...I do not understand the situation that has developed, 1 cannot explain to people why they should do what they have been ordered to do, and not something else. I don’t know where to lead the people, what to demand of them. Kobrisov knows. Perhaps he doesn't, and is only pretending. But for this, courage is seeded, and I lave none, I am sorry.” Kobrisov responds: “I don’t know, either, colleagues. ...But 1 am pretending because people should not feel that they have been discarded like carrion on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 the road—that someone is thinking of them, CM of these considerations, I am prepared to assume command of this army. Vladimov recognizes that fatalism combined with an understanding of history that denies individual responsibility for outcomes is echoed in the world of communist thinking, with dangerous potential that becomes apparent in the other generals" Inability to function effectively, much less make even small decisions on their own. In contrast to this way o f thinking, he posits that even if one believes in fate or leaves outcomes to fate, it is still natural to try to take thoughtful action in challenging situations, and conversely, even if one does not feel responsible for the course of events, one is accountable to one’s individual role, large or small Finally, the novel upholds one earlier example, chronologically speaking, of an important incident proving the moral value o f decisive, selfless, and honest action. While the general and his wife are on vacation in Yalta, Madia Afanseevna, Kobrisov’s wife, teams from her husband that a silent panic is prevailing outside of their hotel because someone has defaced the huge monument of the Leader with some substance. Everyone is afraid to walk anywhere near the monument, but also to warn others, for fear of being blamed. Masha summons her maid without a word, takes a mop and bucket and goes with the girl to clean the statue. She directs the girl, while helping her to stand cm a lower part o f the stone to reach the substance with her mop. “Hspa,” [Caviar] she reports—and never speaks another word about the incident again. It is clear that she has endangered herself to spare others, and this action changes her, from that moment on, into a heroic Russian wife. Decisions and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 decisive actions change people, and this Includes, incidentally, real historical persons. (In Tolstoi, historical figures do not undergo character development) Decisions and plans are not seductive social fictions, as they are for Tolstoi (Morsoa Hidden 224) and wisdom is not merely recognition that uncertainty reigns where we are prone to see rules. Basically, Kobrisov’s actions in the novel do follow from Ms intentions. Because there is a high degree o f contingency inherent in historical situations and events, outcomes often vary somewhat from intentions. That is why generals must be accustomed to thinking on their feet, while in motion, as Vlasov and Kobrisov both do (for Vlasov, this is Ms downfall; he can only see the individual situation and is blind to the larger picture). But Vladimov urges Ms readers to trust their senses and instincts, and act meaningfully. Especially during perestroika, at a time when old social structures have fallen and an open space has been cleared for something new, it is important for Russian society to be aware o f the potential impact of the individual, and to have hope for something fundamentally new. Because it is contingent upon the decisions and actions of individuals, the future is yet to be determined. Necessity ^Determinism) and Free Will: Utopian Thinking Undermined This raises the accursed question of the opposition between freedom and necessity, of central concern to Tolstoi, and in regards to which Vladimov engages Tolstoi extensively in The General and His Army, Specifically, Vladimov uses Tolstoi’s ideas about the nature of history, as he understands them, as a springboard Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 for Ms own reflection on freedom and necessity, Tolstoi argues forcefully for epistemological uncertainty that renders the individual incapable of influencing the course o f events or even knowing what causes any event. Yet, at the same time, lie bases this uncertainty on the idea that events occur as a result of what is possible at a given time, and people's response to this “field of possibilities,” to borrow Morson’s term. Finally, Ms writing reflects a quest for a unifying natural law of necessity to describe what he viewed as an unavoidable historical determinism, albeit one that he never pins down specifically, and perhaps does not understand clearly himself. Vladimov believes, as argued above, that individuals do have power and freedom to influence what happens and that the power of a leader over the masses is no illusion. The implication, of course, is that tMs power carries with it a moral responsibility, and to deny tMs is tantamount to accepting the blame for any wrongs that ensued as a result of one’s power. Vladimov plays with the opposition between freedom and necessity in his novel, at times using irony and at other times discussing the issue directly to suggest that, while there is possibly a kind of determinism at work in the forces interacting in history in that a large number of wills in agreement can overwhelm the individual—in line with Tolstoy-— nothing is really inevitable because the choices and decisions o f individuals constitute the stuff of history. In tMs last position, Vladimov takes a stronger stance on freedom than does Tolstoy, who finds contingency a stumbling Mock to true freedom. Moreover. Vladimov attributes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 to Tolstoi a greater degree of fatalism than he may lave actually endorsed, if one is to agree felly with Morson’s reading of the great author/ Vladimov uses irony to lay the groundwork for this discussion. In the opening passage, Chauffeur Sirotin has 'been invited to “chat” with Major Svetlookov from the SMERSH office about Kobrisov. Sirotin appears depressed, and confides to Svetlookov that he is convinced he will not survive the war as long as he is obligated to remain in Kobrisov’s service; it seems that two o f Kobrisov’s chauffeurs have already teen killed in service before be was assigned to the general. Both times, there was an attack on the general’s car, apparently because someone wanted to kill Mm, and each time, Kobrisov himself had been lucky enough to escape; he had exited the car briefly. Sirotin wonders if the general is under some kind o f spell, but is sure that he himself, in any case, is doomed. Svetlookov reassures him by telling Mm flat the general has not always escaped harm, and tells how he was wounded. Sirotin muses that someone can even just throw a mine, and it could get carried away from its target by the wind and kill you, even if it was not intended for you. This scene opens the novel, and sets up a framework of inevitability; in the penultimate subchapter, closure is attained when the general’s car is fired upon at the direct order of Svetlookov (but secretly); once more, the general survives because he has gotten out o f the car to speak with a checkpoint official, but the other three, including Sirotin, are killed, ironically, the Russian officer who fired 5 In Narrative and Freedom: the Shadows of Time, Morses repeatedly emphasizes Tolstoy’s insistence on an open view ofhistorical time, and recognizes that toe great author has often been misread in this regard, as many readers take toe views of his characters for toe author’s own. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 was wishing precisely that this would happen—that Ms fire would get carried away by the wind and not hit its intended target—bat the plan was fulfilled. The height of the irony is that it was not an accident as feared by the two agents, and that it could not have occurred with Sirotin’s help, since he phoned the SMERSH agent to inform of the traveling party’s whereabouts to ensure the party’s safety. Embedded in this is yet another layer of irony because a different explanation is proposed by Shesterikov, the general’s right-hand man: when he met Kobrisov tor the first time, the orderly whom Shesterikov replaced gave him the evil eye. He remains convinced to the end that all of their misfortune is the result of that powerful glance, and he has been certain all along that he would come to a bad end because of it. Vladimov’s use of the superstition of uneducated characters to provide hypotheses regarding the future trivializes a deterministic worldview and sets the stage for a duel with Tolstoi. In feet, this issue of freedom versus inevitability is a major concern of Tolstoi’s. One of the most famous moments in War and Peace occurs when the metahistorical narrator discursively ponders the position of Borodino as a site for a fatefol battle. Tolstoy uses this rumination as a forum for presenting his fully developed views on history: that Kutuzov and Napoleon both acted contrary to their intentions and good sense in engaging in battle at Borodino and thus did so as involuntary instruments for the execution o f cosmic events, but that historians nevertheless strive to pro ve that the battle took place because o f the generals’ ingenuity; Tolstoi contends that the battle site was chosen not because it was an ideal place or out ofibrsigI.it but as a result o f contingency, in the sense o f a kind of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 tyranny of circumstances, combined with Ideological necessity (Russia was somehow destined to win because o f her moral superiority); but, Tolstoi argues, the actual battle was fought in a manner completely different from the way it has been described, since historians gloss over leaders’ lack of control over events and try to make things appear as if the outcomes were planned as they actually occurred. In The General and His Army this passage is the object of three separate reflections. In Guderian’s reflection, introduced above, Vladimov’s position in regards to Tolstoi’s philosophy of history is formulated. If he were to agree with Tolstoi, the labeling of an action (here, Ms choice to call headquarters and say he was retreating with his army) as “high” or otherwise would be irrelevant, since there is no room for tom an initiative or responsibility in a system where outcomes are predetermined. It does not sit well with Guderian to think that the course of events is inevitable and that the Russians are morally superior for understanding this, and he comprehends the crucial role of human decision in making history, in particular as regards powerful leaders. Furthermore, in Vladimov’s understanding, people carry a burden o f responsibility for decisions they make, and this burden must be accepted and internalized (remembered), if blunders are not to recur. Guderian5 s skepticism in regards to his reading of Tolstoi's novel thus encapsulates Vladimov’s thinking about two major issues: the role of the powerful leader, as discussed above, and freedom versus necessity. Furthermore, Guderian arrives at the question of whether Kutuzov himself really would have predicted the selflessness of the Russian people in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 abandonment of Moscow, and whether he was counting on the main advantage of Russia—"TaraH TC K H e n p o crp a H C T B a P o c c h h , c e o c o S h o c tb ee aapopa SesponoTHO— h §es > x a H © e x H —n o x e p is o B a T i. bccm , ne nocHHrmca hh c kskkm mimnscTmm MM'imW" [the gigantic area of Russia, and the capability o flier p e o p l e to submissively and without c o m p la in t sacrifice everything, not stopping to reckon even the great n u m b e r of Ives that would be lost] (91). if he w a s able to predict tMs, and if Napoleon was n o t then Napoleon lost the w a r himself because of Ms inability to foresee, and Kutuzov won on account o f Ms foresight, not because the o u tc o m e was inevitable. Guderian concludes Ms reflection on the novel by c o m p a r in g h i m s e l f to Napoleon: “H w o ace, o h , ry z je p u sH , araro H e iipetpnnen? fine x e xenepb H cieaT fe ezo Eopodm oT [So what, could he, Guderian, fell to foresee it? Where, then, should he seek Ms Borodino?] (91). His Borodino, Guderian opines, can only be PredslavF. The situation is hopeless; he is unable to accomplish the impossible task he had set before him because the Germans have been significantly weakened by the Kursk offensive, Ms own Panzer army included. Borodino, tor Guderian, signifies a trap above all, a battlefield over which he cannot maintain control, and which guarantees heavy losses to Ms army. It is a place where the myth of the “Heiiooe/jpMoeTH pyccicoro Kojiocca” (invincibility of the giant Russia] was bora (wMch Guderian does not 'believe in, by the way), because the entire country is at stake. The battle at Borodino led to Natasha Rostova’s sacrifice other possessions so she could carry instead the wounded on the family’s wagons out o f Moscow, whereby “Meaqiy t© m Qua [EoHanapTyj o&MBBjia Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 cbo3D BOHHy—h H e jierne Bofiifti JCyrysosa h E a p K Jia s!...” [and incidentally she d e c la r e d her own war on him (Bonapart)—not a n easier wax then Kutuzov's and Barclay's] (97) and also let! to Napoleon's fetife wait for the Kremlin’s keys at Poklonny Hill. General Guderian weighs the grim circumstances surrounding Mm carefully because tie is aware of Ms responsibility to Ms army and that to act on his men's behalf by authorizing a retreat will entail the sacrifice o f his own career. He is a hero in the novel because of Ms decision— in Vladimov’s mind the only thing that can make a person a hero. Unlike Tolstoi’s most heroic leader, he does not hold that a certain future is inevitable and that the correct stance for a leader is to succumb to the wave of events that bears inexorably down upon the present. Guderian is a realist, knows Ms strength, and does not sacrifice others to acMeve his objectives. He is a sensitive man who is shown to understand the spirit of the Russian people better than the other Germans and indeed most of the Russians—and is unwilling to fight from a position that is not any more of a position than any other field in Russia—or to accept that such a position, with such constraints on human freedom (the heavy hand), could exist. Thus rests Vladimov’s case: the heavy hand refers to something beyond some kind of Russian moral superiority; Vladimov, in Guderian’s character, casts doubt on the spectre of ideological thinking—the idea that anything in history is inevitable. Instead, he implies, we should be concerned in the here and now with what is right and wrong. Choices constitute history. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 Viadimov’s narrator also quotes tMs Tolstoi passage directly following Guderian’s and Vlasov’s reflection, in reference to Vlasov’s attack on Germany’s 9th army (Guderian’s), the only resistance to the Germans at the time, but which sufficed to stop an already weakened army -unprepared for the Russian winter (another analogy to Tolstoi's Napoleon): “Ho m 9-s apMM ocraHOBraac&. Ho m e i H e xBaniJio can p[BH H yrBca nepeciynHB nepes ax Te.ua. Cawoe 6ojn.mee, aero oaa nocTurJia,™ aasjiapejia Hena^oJiro noneM, K O TO poe 6 u n o m 6oJiee n o n o fu e u , hcm m o d o e d p y z o e none e P o c c u u , m na k o to p o m mmucmmo 6 umo ydepxam b e n p o d o j& cettu e mpex n a c o e apmum o m c o e e p m e u m z o pmzpoma u Q e z c m m ...” [But even the 9* army stopped. Even tMs army lacked the strength to move farther, to step over their own bodies. The biggest tMng it accomplished was to seize, for a short time, a field that w a s no more a position than any other random field in Russia, and on which it was unthinkable to to keep an army from utter defeat andflight fo r even three hours] (107 italics in original). Tolstoi is speaking of Kutuzov’s defending, Russian army, Vladimov of Guderian’s invading, German army. This transposition in camps o f the object o f the quote hints at Viadimov’s displacement o f its original meaning and emphasis. Tolstoi is concerned mostly with Ms idea that the field o f Borodin© was not selected, a point from wMeh ft can be generalized that nothing in war rests on human choice (and since war is the best representation of events making history come about, nothing in history rests on human choices)—-and that what we consider history is mediated by writers with particular interest in concealing the mistakes of leaders and glorifying the Russian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 army. Vladimov5 s echo forces the reader to reconsider Tolstoi’s suggestions, The fact that one fights a b a ttle on a position that w a s “He t o b mod He CHJiMia, h o b o b c c me ecn > H O ueM y-H H dyttn S oxiee n o s H m ta , hcm B ca x o e a p y r o e m c c to b P cic eH ficic o i HM nepHH, na smopoe, rapau, yxaaaTB ISu fiyjiaBKofi he Kapre” [not only a weak one, but of which it can not even be said that it is a position, any more than any random place in the Russian, empire which, guessing, one might point out on a map using a pin] (186), does not automatically lead to Tolstoi’s conclusions. Kobrisov’s actions speak where no words are used: when he decides in Ms mind and heart that he wants to take PredsJavf, Here he plays with a compass on a map, allowing what he is thinking of as Tolstoi’s pin to be poked into whatever town happens to be 180 degrees from Sibezh, and he thus decides that Myriatin is the ideal town from which to launch his operation T o , h t o jiam ca BOTKHyjiact b ca M H t u eir rp ie p y x x a , n oK asajiocb 3BaM6BaTejii»HMM. CaMa cyjp>6a turn B o r , k e k hh naaoBH , nojrtBepjtHUH e r o peineme. Ho settB m (j& ranH cr, S p o c a jo m n fic s naBCTpeny npea3HaMCHOBaHHio, He t o u b k o y ^ a u y npejpiyBCTByeT, h o o m y m a e r m xojiqr b r p y a a , cxpax HeH3BecTHOCTH. H t o - t o b s a y M HuyTy c x a s a jio K o6p H coB y, TTO C 3THM 6e3BeCTHBIM MtlpHTHHOM CBHXCSTCS, ShlTb M03KCT, H CSMOC o ia B H o e s ero 2 C H 3hh, h caM oe cT p am H oe, H e HCKsuouas h CM epra. (136) That the ami o f the compass touched down at the very center of tbs circle seemed, significant. Fate itself or else God, whatever you call it, confirmed Ms decision. After all, even a fatalist who faces the omen head-on, does not only have a sense of success, but also a foreboding feeling of cold in Ms chest, the fear of the unknown. In tMs moment, something told Kobrisov that tMs Myriatin would be connected with something important for him, perhaps the most glorious thing in his life, and also the most terrible, not even ruling out death. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 No position in war is ever free from the circumstance and contingency that occasions it. Choices are limited in their range. Yet even a position that Is no more than m y other will become a battlefield only if a general decides it should be so. The circumstances leading to Kobrisov’s decision do not compel Mm in the least to make tMs decision, his status among the generals of the front is low and they do not want to hear Ms truly wise plan because it interferes with their interests. His reflections on being a fatalist are, moreover, the object of constant subversion by the narrator, who implies that Kobrisov’s belief that it is Ms fate to take Predslavf is not much more than fanciful imagining. Whereas Kutuzov, for all Ms wondering about which decision led to what, remains confident about the ultimate outcome o f things, Kobrisov fears. Kobrisov plans to take Myriatin because he believes it to be fate, but the other generals contrive to take this away from Mm. Kobrisov predicts Ms death at Myriatin, and then lives to see everyone around him die wMle he must live a long life despite his military' duty and several serious attempts on his life. In a later chapter, Kobrisov’s thinking reflects a subtle reference to this same Toistoian passage. Marching to Moscow from Latvia, Kfcaos accuses him, with a small degree of irony, of choosing a ‘Wise tactic”—to simply forgive everyone. Kobrisov has just been released from prison, and the novel implies that there he accepted the filth in God of his fellow prisoner, a Christian, who also introduced Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 Kobrisov to Voltaire and the idea that true freedom may not be merely escaping physical bondage,® The narrator informs us: Ho reH ep aa HBKaicoi t& kthkh se r o S n p a ji, n p o c x o BJia,nejio hm TBepa;oe co3H H H B e , mo see s t h mom, OKpymmnme ero, im smaornxu. F ie m cmei B m e o h h npoH rpajiH n ep B w e q o h Ha rp a ifim e— to jib k o m s jio t M or npiiicaaaTB hm cpaacaT&ca ts m h , 3HaHHT, paccM aT puB axt ycjiOBHyro h CJiyna&iyK) jih h h io khk f i o e s o i pyC exc. C p a x a x b c a — h m e pyneeK x cy p n a r, h ryte o n a — c e p e /p a a peKH, h m e — HH3 x o m m b . T a x © M ierm n if HeMpaM sa p a n y — BopBaT&ca a a h x njienax Ha ik b h h h h yicpeiLnteHHHe. sa p a n e e npepycMOTpeHHHe ajim ofiopoH M m xenept G ecm xsw e. B o x o h ycjiBimaji o t|»aierope BHesaHHOCiu, x o x o p H ft co cT a sjia ji B p eM era o e npeH M ym eerBO HeM peB, a e m u c 't a m a m B m s a n m c r b 6 a m b to m , h t o B e j im a in n ii nojiK O B opep BCex B peM ea h n ap o ^ o B o x a s a a c s a e jto y n x o i h a esep x a p o M , h e H cjibix ojpH H ajm aTB japei ycrpaHHBmHM Cs o x icoM an n oB am a. M xo x e b h h h tb ! (311) But the genera! did not choose any particular strategy, he was simply led by a firm awareness that all of these people around him w e r e not guilty. It was not due to some guilt of their own that they had lost the first battle a lo n g their b o rd er— o n ly a n idiot would o r d e r th e m to fight th e r e , c o n sid e r in g the arbitrary and artificial border to be the line of battle. To combat where streams are bubbling up, in the middle of a river, and at the base o f a hill. In so doing, they made th in g s easy for the Germans, throwing themselves head- on into the opponents’ reinforced positions, one which had been chosen in a d v a n c e fo r their defensive capacity and now fettle. And h ere h e heard people speaking about the factor o f surprise, which constituted a temporary advantage for the Germans, but the only surprise was that the greatest military leader o f all times and peoples turned out to be a half-educated deserter, leaving his command for an entire eleven days. How could they be Mamed! Kobrisov, without mentioning Tolstoi alludes to Ms “position” argument in this passage, suggesting that an infelicitous position is not happenstance. Stalin (and b y backward extension, perhaps even Kutuzov), by failing to act in a positive way to 6 Tilts seems to be an allusion to Alyosha the baptist ia SoLdtenitsyn’s Odin den ’ Ivam Denisovicha. Alyosha fervently believes that true freedom is a spiritual state, not merely escape from physical bondage. He, too, is shown to prize a ho ok, the Bible, a w Ms freedom, similar to Kobrisov’s prison acquaintance with regards to Voltaire. I am indebted to Thomas Seifrid for pointing this oat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 determine where the war with Germany would be fought (he refused to believe that Germany had attacked for several days alter the fact, retreating to Ms quarters and issuing no orders), made himself into an idiot and a deserter. If it was necessary for the Russian to be initiated into this war by fire, it was not inevitable that they allow themselves to be slaughtered along an arbitrary L ine of defense, the nation’s boundary. History did not lead inevitably to its outcome. Writing History. Writing Fiction History would b e an excellent thing, if only it were true. —Gusev, Two Years with Tolstoy Vladimov affirms the role o f the individual in h isto r y , and he affirms th e p o s itiv e v a lu e of history its e lf, albeit with some hesitation, since he cannot e sc a p e reading history through the e y e s of Tolstoy, like many Russians. He fully recognizes the phenomena of historical narration that endanger the narrative project in Tolstoi’s eyes. As is well known, Tolstoi devotes many pages to the refutation of “history” and “historians.” For example, in describing the Battle of Borodino, he first summarizes the commonly accepted version of events, and then declares that “jVjaic roBopirrcs b HcropHHX, h Bee o t o cQBepineBfi© H ecnpase/m H B O , B Htu JierK O ySetprcai b c sk h II, Rio xoner B H H K H yr& b cymHocn. jnena” [tMs is what is written in the histoiy books, and ft is completely incorrect; anyone who looks into the tru th o f the matter will be quickly convinced] (185). He proceeds to inform the reader of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 wliat really took place. Historians rewrite history, he believes, in order to conceal the mistakes of leaders and increase the glory given to them—in short, to promote whatever interest they have in explaining things in a particular way. Tolstoi believes that as long as history does not tell all, that is, the story of every individual taking part in an event, it cannot explain anything. As any other system, it is inherently false. Order should not be sought where there is none to be found; events depend on an infinite number of contingencies, and to try to understand causes fey imposing rales is futile. Yet we cannot help imposing rules, because our perception and our memory seek to establish order. Writing about War and Peace, Morson summarizes Tolstoi’s argument with historiography: Tolstoi parodies ail possible models of historical narrative. In Ms long polemics with “the historians,” he repeatedly asserts that historiography, all of it, is false, and that, in principle, there can be no solution to the problems o f the discipline. According to Tolstoi, historians select events in an essentially arbitrary manner, order them according to ill-considered conventions, and produce narratives that could not be true. In short, they engage in an essentially literary pursuit that they misrepresent as a science. {Hidden 100) Vladimov would agree with aspects of Tolstoi’s perspective. He acknowledges that the purpose and audience are important factors in how something is reported (subversion of truth by genre and audience); he acknowledges that all facts necessary to properly tell a story may m l be available, and that a given version, of a narrative Ms many alternatives, as in the story of the parachutist. Is several places, lie alludes to as important theme in Tolstoi’s novel, ‘ the psychological constitution o f the viewer or listener as a factor to their perception of events and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ml indeed in the event itself. Morson claims that in Tolstoi “the listener, although not always present at the event, Is always a co-author of any account of it” (Morson Hidden 109). In Vladimov’s work, moreover, in such eases, the “Tolstoian” factor seems, prima facie, to prevail. The spectator in Ife General and His Army Is stymied again and again. General Guderian, an obvious outsider, comes into villages one by one. only to find that political prisoners have been executed, even though they had not been sentenced to death. He confronts an old man, who tells Mm that, as an outsider, he cannot understand. Genera! Kobrisov, an unwitting witness to a seemingly unjust military heating committed by a peer of Ms, speaks up in defense of the victim, who as a result is shamed even more, and who makes It dear to Kobrisov that, even as a spectator, he has been an agent o f the beating. Finally, Kobrisov, when he Is released from prison, hears Stalin’s later famous speech, in . which the Leader is heard to change Ms relationship with the Russian people, turning to them as a brother, not a father, in a time of historical crisis. Even the German general Guderian bases Ms understanding of Russian people and politics to some extent on his hearing of this speech. But several years later, Kobrisov hears the broadcast again, as a film trailer, and realizes that the tears and quaking heard by all in the Leaders voice during that speech were sot to be beard—flat they were exclusively a product of the listeners’ spiritual and/or psychological composition at the time of the broadcast. 3 to y Hero, KoSpacoBa, apoxcano b ymax, oto b hcm mioiorajiH cjicsm, o to ewy xaxsaaocfe nojpiecTH k nepecoxmHM r y b * CTasaa. C hpojiom nimem nojopSsoro H e n p o H C X Q ,a H jio , b m m — m a m m H e .sporayno. Oh ee6e H e pm Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 rpym B H oxH Tfc b c b o io pern m x e Toimsy Boim&mm, nycn» Sh h amepcrBa, ae nofiM-mics Botra b pom my®, hbm pm m Beerpa y c B O H J i. Oh 3H asi sasesoMO, mo ero Bocnpnryr. xaic xoHeres eMy h H e3asH CH M 0 o t t o t o , yaacrcs emy mm. ae ygacTcg ymimt- c b o i o nocnynrayio ayEprropHio. (299) The trembling had been in Kohrisov’s own ears, his own parched lips had made h im thirsty, and the tears had welled up in Mm. Nothing of the kind had happened to the idol [Stalin]; in Mm, nothing had wavered. He had not even made the small effo.it to insert into Ms speech the tiniest bit of emotion, even to pretend to take on a role other than his usual o n e . He was felly aware that people would p e r c e iv e w h a t he wanted them to, regardless of whether he succeeded in entertaining his obedient listeners. Yet Kobrisov has acquired the wisdom to take a critical perspective in regards to his o w n spectatorhsip. The difference of o p in io n b e tw e e n Vladimov and Tolstoi resides in the fact that, while th e latter r e je c ts narrative on epistemological grounds, and believes representation in narrative is fundamentally impossible, Vladimov is sk e p tic a l at a practical le v e l. He does not d e n y th e s e failings of narrative, nor is he satisfied to reconstruct the past more folly or in greater detail, offering a more complete version (which Tolstoi would still not be satisfied with). This is not to sa y that Vladimov never attempts to present previously unknown historical information. For instance, th e parachutist's story completes knowledge about an event that Kobrisov would not have h a d access to otherwise. It is better than the “official” version (suggesting that, unlike Tolstoi Vladimov places higher value on eyewitness accounts of historical events, and on accounts of less powerful individuals with fewer vested interests in the implications of bow their story is told)—but nonetheless it is not complete. Instead, he offers a new view o f what readers can do, given th e falsity of narrative. All three examples in the above paragraph end by the character Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 (Guderian and Kobrisov) coining to awareness of their misperceptions and trying to come to terms with their involvement in the deeds represented and in which they participate. Vladimov’s purpose is to tell the truth to the extent that this is possible. He is more moderate than Tolstoi in Ms skepticism, preferring to argue for the possibility that much lost information can be found, and that carefol attention to the feet and to various interests can provide a helpful picture of the past, one that can inspire people and move them towards something new. Russia’s official, utopian history is amazingly similar to Tolstoi’s parodic imitation, in that seemingly crucial events were deselected and made irrelevant or even rendered unknown, and events held officially to be marginal have turned out to be central. What is to be done? Vladimov crosses out and fills in the spaces between the lines, humbly acknowledging the awkward position Russia has been placed by the Germans who, having participated in the same war, owned up to their own deeds and revealed Russia’s closet skeletons years in advance of the Russians themselves: A M eapty tcm b o th MHHyr&t b H c r o p m o npeflCJiaBCKoft o n e p a ip iH , b HCTOpHK) B C el BOHHM BHHCiffiaiiaCB CTpaHIIip, yaifB H ieflb H aS n o ^epSOCTH II K pacoT e HcnojraeHHJi, K oxop ofi cysmeHo 6ym r b o h th b ynedraiK H onepaT H B H oro a c sy c c T B a h onpOKHHyTB M H orae ycT O flB nraecs npejtCTaBJieHHa, h o h c x p a iim ia s a r a s o ^ a a s , e:mc 6 u um Q C xm am im , me COXpaHHBHiaM KM6HB aBTOpa. CipaHHuy 3xy HasoByr— MBiparmicKjai ruiamtapM. Ee, mm boshvcx b cxpaue, rne t s k m o t e nepenrpHBaTb npoum oe, a d o t o m j Tax Mas© HMdomefi Hajjeaca na fiyaym ee, npHcnocofiar k hctophh, s m eft Haaneacajio b h raasexu, ho He K a K BsirjBJaena. ona Ha cm m m sejie, u noHaropeBHnie b 3 T O M J IC K T O p H H 3 B C T C p a H O B , JIp H X p a M H B a S E B H O J I B lapTM C yXSSKO it, y fie jp iT e jiH io J to x a x y r , w o M h j m t h h c cmmm m m m em rm es m m m p u o M ochobhmm, a a e oiBJieKajomHM,— spy pora oraesyr Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 CwSexy, — 1 16tm> mo, ms.rn.ao ace, sapaase cm iaHH poBaH H HM waaeBpoM, a ae Tax. K a K ciiyqalHo xicayjiacfc Jiamea n a p ic y n a . Box passe hto CBinerct Bce-TaKa aoxoiUHHi HcropHK, KOTopHi H e m m m m v nrraBOB b ycHjpmBOM pBeHHH h soKonaeic* s o hcthhbi? Mjm aaise x ca memconep, fiyMaroMapaxa, sy iaa TpanHBOKHH, pa3poer, BMranprr, b c tsb h t b cboio jiHrepatypy— h txm cnaeex reiiepajiteKj® necxb?” Bnjxraew, h m om He nano. npoiHBHHK, c y m [ t ] sac nopoto cnpaBesJiHBee, ucm m m spyr apyra. ...(258-9) And incidentally, during these minutes a page was being written in the history of the Predslavi operation, in the history o f the entire war, which was surprising in its audacity and the beauty of its completion, and which would be feted to enter into the textbooks of war-operational art. and would overturn many stubborn notions, but it is a page that is somehow mysterious, not written to the end, and one one which the author’s name has not been preserved. The page is called the Myriatin bridgehead. As is done in our country, where everyone so loves to rewrite the past and therefore there is so little hope for the future, tMs page is being conformed to history as it is supposed to look, but not as it actually appeared, and having become experts in this, lecturers from among veterans convincingly prove, hobbling along the map with a pointer, that Myriatin from the very beginning was considered the primary bridgehead, not a secondary one—this role is played by Sibezh—and tMs was naturally a maneuver planned well in advance, not coincidentally where the arm of the compass touched down. Witt the historian truly sate himself to the point of nausea, the same historian who does not spare himself in Ms painstaking zeal to dig up the truth? Or will a hack, a scribbler be found who will rummage through and drag it out, put it into Ms own writing—and thereby save the general’s honor? Incidentally, all tMs isn’t really even necessary. The enemy has judged us more fairly than we have judged ourselves. Thus, according to Vladimov, German memoirist Erich von Steiner first acknowledged the elegance of Kobrisov’s maneuvers in gaining the Myriatin platzdariB, and the stupidity of Russian command in wasting time and hundreds of thousands of lives fighting at Myriatin instead of simply storming Kiev (259). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “A hundred million chances” couki have fed to quite different outcomes. —Gary Saul Morson, “For the Time Being” Kobrisov mistakes some high point along their way for Poklonny Hill, which signifies tor him the place o f decisive and necessary action, bet this stop on a hilltop is Poklonny neither geographically nor analogously—-just as it would he incorrect to identify as Ms “spiritual” Poklonny only his most recent refosal to comply with War Command and the forced “vacation” this occasioned. Yet there is an important analogy connected with this hill in the novel; Kobrisov has spent this entire trip “planning the past,” incidentally, as Kutuzov is shown to do at Poklonny, trying to know what event or decision led to Ms inability or unwillingness to do what was required of him at Myriatin. For Vladimov, all of the small decisions that have led Kobrisov to this place must be seen as “Poklonny Hills.” Unlike Kutuzov, General Kobrisov is able to identify some specific, determining causes of what has come about. “Bot ona b noKaoHHaa, 6pam n kpouhkh” [Here's Poklonny, old 'boys] (348). They exit the vehicle and admire the city from a distance. The narrator notes, however: To, m o npHHHM aa reaepaji sa Ilomonwym ropy, Ha g em om aene H e 6 hdio e» . ...pEJiip K H JiO M erpO B nan, h o t ineen. mmTis&c ero o t tot© HeBH coK oro h ne cto m > B H p a 3 H T C J iB H o r o xojiMa, marax b jmyxerax ot 4>HJieBCRofi i& 6 u Kyiy30Ba, rjm a c to s u i HanoneoH, c/gmnm Hanpacso K JH onei o t KpeMJis....H hc Hairra yxte xoro Mecxa, rae b & m s H 3 nocnem m . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 jjmsu o r a S p s 1943 roaa ocTaaoBmiCH saKHpsHiiraS rpJB&io “bhjuihc”, He onpejiejiH 'tt aocTOBepsK), rjse xce o ia 6am , nomioHHaa ropa KOMaasapMa K oG pH C O B a. (348) The hill that the general took for Poklonny was actually not the right one. .. .Another five or six kilometers separated him from that not-so-taSl and not very expressive hilltop, about two hundred steps from the slatted hut of Kutuzov, where Napoleon also once stood waiting in vain for the keys to the Kremlin.... And it is already impossible to find the place where, on one of the last days of November in 1943. the mad-covered Villis stopped, to determine with certainty where army commander Kobrisov’s Poklonny Hill was located. This undetermined (and indeterminate) hilltop is the site where they hear what has become of the 38th army in their absence—victory at Myriatin, with all the sacrifice on the part of Russians that it entails. What does Poklonny Hill signify? To Kutuzov, it was the place at which it became clear to him that Napoleon had been allowed to reach Moscow, and where he tries to figure out at what point he had allowed this to happen; it signifies moreover the moment that necessitates decisive action. Kobrisov’s mistaken identification of this hill as Pokonny implies his search throughout this journey for those important moments and his attempt to process and understand the events in his own life. Besides, Poklonny Mill possesses additional meaning in that ft was the point at which Napoleon waited for the keys to the Kremlin to be brought to him when he erroneously believed himself to have defeated Russia at Borodino. In this moment we find the shadow of an allusion in an unexpected reversal; the most recent events of Kobrisov’s life are in fact analogous to Tolstoi’s Poklonny. Napoleon was cheated out of the Kremlin keys by the abandoning of Moscow—there was no one to turn Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 them over to him. Kobrisov was “in position,” waiting for permission to storm PredsiavF (the keys to the city), when he was cheated out of this prize not by the Germans, but by his own colleagues. As Kutuzov once did, Kobrisov feels a need to decide something atop Poklonny H ill In his own perhaps subconscious perception, this is the right h illto p , and against the wishes o f his companions, he cals for a haft. He is preoccupied by the fact that lie is not returning to Moscow “he k o h c ” [riding high on a steed] (350) but timidly, anxiously—and feels as if he has abandoned his own necessary role o f leadership, even though he was obligated to take leave. As they listen to the radio broadcast telling of his own 38th army’s victory at Myriatin in his absence, he thinks about Myriatin and how it had been decided to put into action the very plan of attack he had thought up originally and then tried to conceal when be discovered the horrible secret of Myriatin—that it was occupied by Russians who hoped to return home but for whom return was barred. “H b o x o h s a ^ e ic T B O B a n , 6p om eH H H fl H a nojciopore imm, KOMy-To tm snouMxax noanepHyBmHftca non pyxy, h yxe Hrraero H e iicnpaBM TB, h h o h h o h mams > ae BepHvr&, HcrpaaeHHog corjiacao o t o m j miaay...” [And here it was done, a half-baked plan, hastily given into someone’s hands, and already it was too late to fix anything, to return a single life lost in accordance with this plan] (359). He malls over what has taken place, unconsciously coining to think in Tolstoi’s terms: npM m eja tot momcht decnoM onpiocm x o rx a see, m o iw x m m Q u m o m Morno & it& cgejiaflo, y » e oxgaiio b a p y ra e p y x a— - h Tenepb a a xpii n e ra e p ra , m jm m m > j k t o h o h h c BJiacreu *n< o~m 6o n s m e im u h , ...Tenepn Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16* Bee s a s H c e jio o t c o x e s h iM cm boju>, o t 'Mmmmm w m HeacejiaHHH, o t v e i - I© CMOJIOi aepSOCTH H JIH TpyCJIHBOi OCTOpOKHOCTH, o t H efi-io paCTOpOHHOCTH H J IH T O J I O B O T H n C T B a , HO Soilfeffle BC6FO— OT XpOXOTHHX cepHx fu-irj'poK, paccBinaBHBcccs no feroft nejieae ra-ierc®. (360) That moment of helplessness arrived, when everything that was supposed to have 'been and can be done has been given into the hands of others-—and now it is out of Ms hands to change anything to three quarters, no even to nine tenths o f a degree.. ..Now everything depended upon hundreds and thousands o f wills, on inclinations and disinclinations, on someone’s bold audacity or cowardly caution, on someone’s quickness or bungling, but most of all—on the tiny, gray figures dispersing onto the white sheet o f snow. Kobrisov’s notions of Ms personal role as leader have been shaded by Ms reading of Tolstoy, but like Guderian, he cannot reconcile Ms o w n understanding of Ms historical role of leadership over others with Ms understanding of Tolstoi’s. There comes a moment, he recognizes, when a leader no longer has control over every detail. But tMs does not mean that orders and plans are meaningless, as Tolstoi believes. On the contrary, Kobrisov comes to the conclusion that the plan and the operation it entailed came about as a discrete consequence o f Ms own choices and decisions, even though things did not go as he desired. While the so-called butterfly effect is dearly at work here, whereby small and unpredictable changes cause large, unforseeable changes in a system, the responsibility for the morbid results of Ms plan weighs heavily on Kobrisov, and he is cognizant of tMs. His heroic pincer operation, as a military maneuver, was genius, aid tie secured the village of Myriatin. But the consequences of tMs are dependent upon and affected by initial conditions he could not have known, both the feet that the village is inhabited by turncoat Russian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 soldiers in German uniforms and the arbitrary insistence of the other generals on pursuing their own interests to the detriment of others and the overall war effort They resonate in ever-increasing spheres of influence, so that in the end these intial conditions, set into motion by Kofcrisov’s brilliance, affect the greater war operations. Thus Kobrisov makes another—Ms ultimate— decision, to return to his troops, evidently in the hope that he can influence the outcome to even just the quarter or just the tenth degree that he tenaciously believes possible. An Alternative Past: A Step to the Side of the Road, of History Tax m axM aTH C TH yuarca noSex^aTfc. nepeHHauHsas xo$ h npoiirpaHHHX hjih HHueiiHHx napm i. [In this way chess players learn to win. Going over alternate moves in lost or tied matches.] —Georgia Viadimov, The General and His Army We must change the middle realm, the realm of possibilities, if we are to change actuality. Therefore we must try to change everyone’s, not just the criminal’s, habits of thought if we are truly to prevent evil. Morson, Narrative and Freedom The reader glimpses General Vlasov for the first time when Kobrisov is unconscious, just before Shesterikov miraculously manages to wave down a tank front Vlasov’s army to save Kobrisov’s life. The chapter is pieced together intricately, The reader has followed the desperate orderly, Shesterikov, who is dragging the half-frozen general, from the town where he was shot, through several neaM*escues-tliat-!tiigM*-have-bee.ti. to a point where the powerless Shesterikov has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 no hope. (The reader can. surmise that the general will be saved, since the opening of the chapter foreshadows the pair’s long and fortuitous relationship.) Events occur by chance or mistake; the reader finally is led to the tower of an old church where some general is reflecting upon his next move. It is General Vlasov, and the year is 1941. As the narrator describes this process, Ms thoughts are interrupted several times. Once, a messenger enters looking for general Kobrisov, because he is relaying to Kobrisov a new Siberian division of fresh soldiers. This false foreshadowing makes it seem as if the rescue is being set up; the reader can give a sigh o f relief because someone is finally looking for Kobrisov. Vlasov, however, says, yes, he will accept the division (any troops, even if not intended for him, are a windfall in Ms situation) —meaning that again no one is looking for Kobrisov. Finally, Vlasov’s army moves to defend Moscow, and coincidentally they pass the place where Shesterikov is standing beside the road with Ms general. Thus a real Mstorical moment is approached, literally, from the side, not from the all-knowing and self-interested perspective of historians a la Tolstoy; here the narrator makes a metahistorical comment that Shesterikov would find it hard to believe if someone told him this was a defining moment of history, and that he was witnessing it. The other scene in the novel where Vlasov is discussed takes place chronologically much later, in 1943, when Kobrisov has interviewed the young parachutist and has begun to understand the magnitude of the situation facing him at Myriatin. Here, General Kobrisov knows that Vlasov has been captured by the enemy and has heard rumors that he tried to either form an army to go with Hitler R eproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 against Stalin, or between Hitler and Stain (that is, a Third Force) to defeat both socialisms and start an anti-totalitarian movement At the time ofKobrisov’s reflection, Vlasov had already failed and, in the summer of 1943, a huge anti-Vlasov campaign was mounted (Erickson 93). At first, Kobrisov really believes the Russians at Myriatin may he Vlasovites, later lie realizes they cannot be, but the term “Vlasovites” has already caught on as a social category for traitors trying to play the Russians off o f the Germans. In any case, the role Vlasov plays in the novel is foremost a literary one, that is, Vladimov does not present this subplot chiefly to correct History. The specific historical material should not necessarily stand out by itself, since the novel uses other historical material more extensively, yet the Vlasov subplot is a keystone of the work. Indeed, the Vlasov scenario about regaining control o f the capital (which seems, but is not, lost) mirrors the fictionalized story o f the recapture of Kiev. I! has the same elements as the larger plot of the whole novel, in particular its climactic moments. A general is shown deliberating over a decision. The decision he makes is connected by literary devices to a solemn place (for Vlasov, a church; for Kobrisov, the h i! to the north o f Kiev, on. which the city’s founders are said to have first stood and from which the black angel of a churchtop can be seen); in this decision rests both the fate of the nation as a whole as well as the fete of many individuals under the generals’ command—and both generals are very concerned with tire latter, in opposition to most other generals who appear in the novel. Both generals rely on knowledge or wisdom gained from popular symbolism in making their decisions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 Vlasov has his soldier inquire of a local peasant woman as to the story of the saint for whom the church was named, and takes the answer as a foreshadowing that he will succeed, but be martyred. This happens. Kobrisov decides he will be the one to take Kiev (PredsbvT in the novel) while reflecting on the ancient story of the cfty’s origin; he remembers the story of the three brothers who founded a settlement there and named it in honor of their sister Predslava, and feels that his own fete will be connected with this city as well. He soon thereafter looks at the statue of an angel atop one church, from a hill above the city, and realizes that he will probably die in connection with Ms decision to take this city. Although he does not die physically here, the novel makes it clear that this is where Ms spirit dies, since after tMs he is forced to take a vacation, and never again is allowed to command an army (they post him to the military academy as in instructor). Both Vlasov and Kobrisov (Chibisov) find themselves removed from acceptable public memory, their stories silenced, despite their heroic efforts to save Russia and Ukraine’s greatest cities. General Vlasov has been vindicated by history in the post-Soviet period; he is now remembered. Mo doubt he was the greater general, since he led the victory over the Germans at Moscow. Chibisov, on the other hand, is little remembered, although most events in the novel did occur in some form. He was a less important general, and credit for the victory he earned at Kiev was taken away from Mm for 'political reasons. Vatutin and the High Command were reluctant to admit their mistakes on the southern bridgehead at Sibezh (Bukrin), but it was indeed necessary to face the fact that an attack from the northern direction would fere bettor than the failed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 attempts from the Bukrin bridgehead. The High Command met (this meeting is described in tie novel),, and Khrushchev did indeed pass out presents to Ms colleagues, as in the novel It seems to have been predecided that Moskalenko, a Ukrainian (Tereshchenko in the book), or any of the others besides Chibisov, all of whom considered themselves kholMy in some way, at least in spirit, would mount the main attack. Though little information is available about General Chibisov. he did indeed dance with the peasants along the side of the road, and he did indeed decide to return to Ms army, feeling a need as their leader to be with them during their moment of victory. Vladimov writes that “He u p im m &bw KOManaymipii apMHeft xtiKcaxt h e mocce, npn b ccm necraoM napoae, h o bot H h 6 h c o b Hmcanap EBJiaMUHesm ciuiMcaji h cneji h noexasi oSparao k c b o c h apM H H . H s noraji—oxo repoH poMaua. Ho—Moero poMana” [A commander of an army is not supposed to dance on the highway in front o f the common people, ta t here Nikandr Evlampievich Chibisov danced and sang and drove back to Ms army. And I understood—this is the hero o f a novel. Of my novel] (444), Bet to write a novel about Kobrisov, like one about 'Vlasov, is to suggest that the potential was there for things to have come about differently. The novel affirms that all k would have taken is for certain small but key actions and decisions to have been made differently. Had Vlasov ascended to become the third power he represents in the popular imagination, the topography of history in Europe and Russia might have been radically different. Had Shesterikov begrudged the then unknown to him general Kobrisov to sacrifice his own well being in the ultimately successful attempt Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 to save him, Kobrisov reflects, he may have himself ended up in captivity with Vlasov. Had Kobrisov5 s plan for the capture ofPredslavP been allowed to go forward, many individual lives could have been saved, and with them, personalities that may have changed the face of history in Russia after the Second World War. Had Kobrisov’s plan gone forward, at least some o f the shame o f the past could have been mitigated, because a few soldiers who fell on the wrong side of a boundary could have been anonymously shown political mercy. Political mercy, at the level of looking at the little men, the low-ranking soldiers, the peasants in uniform, could have gone a long way in changing Russia’s cultural legacy—to recall the proverb mentioned above, it could have avoided many mistakes. In a similar vein, had Vlasov succeeded—and Vladimov’s ultimate purpose here is not to argue that he could have, for sure—at least the suggestion is there that postwar Russia might have been a different place, mainly, not as Cold. Furthermore, this line o f thinking reaches deeper into the past as Kobrisov generates alternatives to more o f Ms personal choices in earlier historical situations. Who Kobriso v has become in the present time of the novel is strongly affected by the recessive gene principle discussed earlier In regards to Morson, whereby even unrealized choices from the past 'have a bearing os the present and on the perse® for whom they constituted a real choice, In a narrative flashback, the reader witnesses how Kobrisov, while a cadet at the Peterhof Ensigns’ School during the Civil War, Kobrisov Is faced with a choice. Apparently harboring mixed feelings about the 1917 Revolution, tie stands before the train door with Ms fellow students. They are Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 boarding the train in a rush to go and defend the Provisional Government against Leninist revolutionaries, possibly at Kronstadt, But the alternatives are not that clear, and no choice .is unambiguous. In a grueling attack of indecision, Kobrisov hesitates to cross the tracks and board; the train and his fellows leave without him. In Ms failure to exercise choice, Ms choice is made by default to follow the Revolution and even fight against Ms former fellow students in the civil war, Thus Ms devoted allegiance to the Revolution, and to Stalin in the earlier years o f Ms career before being imprisoned and undergoing personal transformation, came about almost by accident, by a kind o f tyranny o f circumstances, in an unpriitcipaled way. Things could have been different, if he had made a different choice, It is certainly possible that Kobrisov’s understanding of Ms own failure to choose, which led to Ms experiences of fighting Ms friends and fellow countrymen, also contributes to Ms principafed reluctance to allow Russians to destroy Russians at Myriatin—after all, they faced painful choices similar to those that had confronted him, without dear answers. Moreover, Kobrisov’s entire career, in which he certainly must have had to violate principles he now holds in order to become a general during times of civil war and forced collectivization in the Ukraine, etc., might not have followed the course it did, had he only gone along with his comrades. Magnified by hundreds or even thousands, had many more cadets and others chosen to defend against the Bolsheviks, the entire course of Russia’s history could have taken a turn away from communism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m If, as Wachtel argues, Pushkin’s Mstorica! and fictional versions of history strove to offer multiple perspectives on the past, and if Tolstoy’s did this out of a desire to correct popular conceptions ofhistory, Vladimov does both of these things but also declares: “It could have been otherwise!” This is a moral imperative; within the space of a seemingly closed narrative (he sticks very closely to documentable historical events and even personal characteristics of real people) he reconstitutes the past, shows that many alternatives existed, and at the same time convinces us that any o f a number of coimterMstori.es could have teen made into real possibilities by real choices o f real individuals. The post-utopian implication is that Russia today is defined by choices made by Russian people in the past, and today’s decisions made by individuals will define tomorrow’s reality and national identity—and not by a predetermined teleology invisible to humankind. Neither Stalin’s power, nor the Soviet Union’s initial defeats in World War II, nor the losses of millions and millions of fives in the war were inevitable. Much less the Revolution. Truth, Freedom, and Individual Choice: Identity in Transformation Pommy Bee jhq6«t mpmo, a orBercraeHHOCTb—He msc ropauo, [Everyone loves the motherland passionately—but responsibility, not so passionately.] General Cheraomyz, The General and His Army Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kobrisov’s views on individual power and circumstantial necessity have undergone a transformation since Ms imprisonment. The agents of change have included unjust imprisonment, friendship with a man of faith, and reading Voltaire. It is clear' in the novel that the general as a young man accepted Soviet ideology with its otopian underpinnings. His life journey, however, has teen one as a leader, and this vantage conduced to frequent clashes between ideology and reality. Being a man of conscience, he gradually comes to understand that events do not take place because of the unyielding advent o f socialism, the relevant utopia o f Ms time, but as consequences of choices made by the will of men, and that every choice entails ethics and impacts the course of real events. Upon Ms release from prison, his encounter with Stalin (discussed above) confirms what he has come to surmise: the Leader is led by neither secret virtue not lofty goal, and lives only for Ms own power. Kobrisov, whether or not he lias become a Christian believer as hoped by Ms cellmate, internalizes the ethic put forth by the positive characters in the novel: that ricaapt&ii inar uejioseita ecru oimftka, ecjia He pyKOBO^cvByexca on jh o S o b m o m M B JioeepjpeM 8 5 [each step a person fetes is a mistake if it is not guided by love and mercy] (95). Kimos comments on this (negatively), and the text confirms it. Kobrisov shows mercy where Stalin and other leaders refuse (he allows any former captive o f the Germans to return, regardless of whether they went willingly to the other side or unwillingly), and love where it makes no sense (he expresses kindness to the obnoxious Kimos) or where it is m i the cultural norm to do so (Ms demeanor towards his subordinates is affectionate and at times disregards his self-interest). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 The problem o f freedom arid necessity in history culminates in the question “Why?” The narrator asks whether any o f the characters in the novel, as agents (or subjects!) ofhistory, know why they are here and why the act as they do: “ 'nonuMan m o h Bnojnae, v m mn s t &i h sa n e M ? ..JEcaH 6 s o cnpocmi ero m r m , sa n eM o h 3 ,qec& s o h 6 h saT p y q H H jica o m e r m h , CeSnac, H a nyra b CraBKy, o h C M ym o cosHasaji, hto coBepnianoefe xor^a h c t o aHamrreji&Hoe h onpasaaHHoe, aasce HeoSxoflHMoe” [did they understand completely, what they are doing and why? ., i f someone had asked Mm then, why he was here, he would have had trouble answering. Now, on the road to headquarters, he was dimly aware that something meaningful and justified, even necessary, had occurred at that time] (171). Yet meaningful, justified, and necessary do not have to imply that there were no alternative possibilities. What happened? In the general’s mind, there is a connection between the process of achieving one’s intentions (how a person acts) and the value of one’s purpose. The general poses this same question—why?—about those around him, regardless of whether he is thinking about his own soldiers or the enemy. Nefedorov and his group o f men were successful in accomplishing their small mission, although most of them died in the process. Nefedorov also reports that they killed six out of eight. German soldiers whom they encountered. Danskoi attempts to find oat who distinguished themselves in battle, but Nefedorov refuses to commend a single man, saying "Hhkto™ . Mh hc oTjHimnMCH..Mar see crapajiHCB...KaK a Mory k o t o - t o oSHaetr&P (184) [No Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 one.. We did not distinguish ourselves. We all tried our best. How can I insult any one o f them!]. General Kobrisov realizes that the dead German soldiers m a c e He oTxaraajiHCH, ohh crap airacB . H to at, h ohh cbo! s o a r H cn o jra E ra , oxBeumif h o-cojwtckh he bhsob cyj|b6i»i, h o c3 m hm-t o ce6e O T B e ra jiM ohh, 3 d m u ohh 3aec&? 3aH 6M npHiruiH Ha nyxyio 3 e M J H O —h iioraSjiH, cnacaa jKeuesHiie Kopodica? Box xaK, fiyKBamHO, cnymuiocb ras aameecH aaase nonuiHM: uJlm m rafiHyr sa Meraroi”. XBamjio y M a xotm 6 u myM oKraaacaM yftra ox feyMHa. (185) also did not distinguish themselves, bat just gave their best effort. And what can be said, they fulfilled their duty, answered as soldiers to the call o f fete, ta t did they answer for themselves why they were here? Why they came as strangers to someone else’s country—ami dies, saving iron chests? It's true, literally, what happened even seems vulgar: “People perish for metal.” Two tank crews lost Ike this was enough to make a person lose Ms mind. The question o f whether anyone knew why he or she was participating in this war is essential and brings to a head the opposition between necessity and free will, since even Kobrisov, driving fey a village and nostalgically thinking he would have liked to hide there and evade the war, understands that this is impossible, that every man would be found and conscripted. Moreover, in a larger sense, no one in this war was fighting for true freedom, since both sides lived under an oppressive government. It seems for a minute that necessity must fee more powerful than freedom. Nefedorov5 s phrasing, “Mb crapa>iH C & ” [We gave it our best] reflects, to some extent, the contingency of Individual action on hundreds of thousands o f wills, to borrow a refrain from Tolstoi’s narrator and from Kobrisov’s reflections. No individual man would have chosen heroic action o f this nature for himself, but given Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 the circumstances, none was capable o f giving less than Ms fullest potential, even Ms life. Kobrisov knew this earlier, in his talk with Nefedorov before the fatal mission. Oh...3H8JI» mo T3KHM, KBK 3 T O T HetfteSOpOB, HeCTHgTaM H pOMSHTHKBM, BoflHy hc nepe*sx& s h bo t npam jio Bpens O T O M y nozrrBepanTfcc«. “Moacer, otctsbhtb ero? .Qpyroro K O T O HaSHaWTR, noerapnie?” -nOflyMaflOCb Ha M BT, H O O H BO C npO TH BH JICS 3TOl M H CJIH . Botffly H BHTSTHBaJIH 3TH fleBSTHajwanuiexHHe, ara npeKpacHas mojio rpcT&, tax BueaaiiHo % m aero BcraBinaa n a hofh h Tax oxotho noacTaBHBnias xpyiiicne cboh imeuH, u HuxeM, hbkcm 3TH X MajttHmneK 6hjio hc saMeinm*. Jlyume Bcero 3T0 cojW tw noHHM <uiH; copoKajierHHe ©him cmeficiB, oxhocscb k h i m no- oTenecKH aofipoyotynrao, m s s n o p o i m HacMenniHBO, ejiyinajmcB, o^maKO, SecnpeKocnoBHO. Korpa-HH6yn& cxaxyr, HaxiHmyr: my s o ia y He reHepajm BHHTpajIH, a M aJBbHHHIKa-JiefiTeHaHT, BaHHKa-BSBOpHHl. B cs HepapXHB cxpaxa, cocxaBJiaBinas cym ynpanjieHHn boMckbmh, onHpanacB b xom p- K O H U O B H E Hero, e^HHCTBeHHOrO KOMaHflHpa, KOTOpHi Mor Sgjffbcs npoTHBHHKa SojiHHe, HexejiH Ham rttciBa. BepxoBHfciit ^ebhji he KOMaH^iomero ^pohtom , to t-h e KOMannapMa, mmwmWA— he KowtHRa, aajiee ycTpamajiH Bmcecrosmero KOManaupti nom a, feraH&oHa, poua, a he H H *aeI cTyneuHKe a r o i jiecTHHixw ctojwi to t, komj ycTpamarb yace 6 u a o HSKoro. KpoMe cbohx iwTHajmaxH-ABaanaTH cojwar, h kto hhhcm He Mor aacjiyxcHTH n p H B e n e r a l— hc hjph b §ofi bm cctc c hhmh. “Tax w o xce,— cnpocHJi c e 6 a reHepan,— o^Horo BaH&Ky-B3BoflHoro OTCTasnxb a xaxoro x e nocjiaTb? Her, Bonny He oSManem., hto oshomy cyxaeno, to h apyroMy... (153) He.. .had known that a person like this Nefedorov, honest aid romantic, would not live out the war, and the time had come for this to be confirmed. “ Perhaps I should not send Mm? Assign another, someone a bit older?” he thought for a second, but then resisted this thought. Even these nineteen-year- olds could make it through the war, this excellent youthfulness, so suddenly coming to their feet for him and so willingly offering their strong shoulders, and there was no one, no one with whom to replace this boy. Soldiers understood this better than anyone: forty-year-old fathers o f families, relating to Min in a good-natured, fatherly, and at times even joking manner, still served unquestioningly. Sometime it will ire written that it was not the generals who won this war, bat the boy-lieutenant, Joe-platoon commander. The whole Weraxchy o f fear that constitutes the core of army command, rests in the end on him, the only commanding officer who could fear the enemy more than, his superiors. The highest command pressed upon the commander of the front, this commander, on the commander of the army, who pressed upon the commander of the division, who continued by inspiring fear in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill regimental commander below him, then of the battalion, then of the company—and on the lowest step of this ladder stood the one who had no one left below him to threaten besides Ms own 15 or 20 soldiers, and who could in no way earn the privilege of not going into battle with them, “So, what?” the general asked himself “Leave one Joe-platoon commander, and send another in Ms place? No, you can’t cheat the war, the same fete awaits them both.” Yet, within tills framework o f necessity and contingency recognized and made famous by Tolstoi, it is possible for a person to act freely or unfreely. It is not very important to the outcome that Kobrisov, preparing his troops for battle, has misunderstood the role fate would bring him, or for that matter that he has mistakenly looked for signs and attempted to make predictions that are then placed in ironic light by the play of the narrator. What is important is that Kobrisov has acted out of the conviction that, as someone who alone saw the travesty of war going on in Sibezh, he could act and stop at least some lives from being sacrificed vainly to Tereshchenko’s folly. While there is of course an element of ego involved in that he is shown dreaming of the heroism involved in capturing Predslavl’ from the Germans, his operation is executed with complete disregard for his own life. Kobrisov acts in foil knowledge that if he is not successful, he will die—and that if he is successful, he might die anyway. His attitude has its own positive value; the narrator comments: A j c o r s a n e-JioB ex m s c t s b h t specr m co6cmmm% 2 K H 3 H H —cn oiooftH O h npocuo, h h k o f o H e O H O B em as, Kortta o h H e m cjienoro ovzasmM h H e mm TeaipanBHoro acfifieiC T a BcxaBJistex b cboh paenexH codcTseHHyjo B 0 3 M O )K H y K > rufreja, Toryra 3anacTyro cnynaeTca, hto e u j ysaKrres Bpetm pH HTHH , xmmmmecM SesyMHHMsi, b som pue m cMeer uepi-ra Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 n &m&M h H e H a ^ e e rc H B e p a, toryta bo^h p e i® nepea hhm ct3hobhxcs t b © p « s h o » h noKopaiorca ewy H © npH CTyuH 6i6 Kpenocra h niianaapMH. (172) But when a person erect a cross upon Ms own life—calmly and simply, without notifying anyone, when he takes into account, without Mind despair or theatricality,, the possibility that he himself might perish, then it sometimes happens that such a person will succeed in endeavors that had seemed foolish, in which hope itself does not dare believe and faith has relinquished hope, then the waters before him become solid ground, and unassailable fortresses and bridgeheads submit themselves to him. This raises a larger question, that of whether Kobrisov’s return to his army at the end of the novel, cut short, implies an extent of agreement on Vladimov’s part with Tolstoi, since Kobrisov proves despite his intentions impotent to change anything or even participate further in events of history—or whether it implies a subversion of Tolstoi’s views on leadership and the role of individuals in history, because regardless of appearances and outcomes, Kobrisov acts rightly, grows in Ms conviction that people change for the better, morally speaking, as a result of right decisions, and that evil ‘Me ocrasjiser nac npexcH H M H ” [does not leave us the same] (366)7. Of himself he is sure that he would act differently if he is ever again faced with choices similar to those he faced in the recent past, because his decisions, actions, and the course of events have changed him: ‘'passe cam o h ocraHexca tc m ice?” [could he really remain the same person?] (366). Transformation of character leads to changed intentions, and in a world where intentions can be acted upon with a degree of freedom, they have meaning, even if a small one. 7 Barry Lewis notes that this Ike, spoken by Kobrisov, recalls Tolstoy, (p.4). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 Prediction and foreshadowing, as literary means of instantiating existential necessity, nay or may not be fulfilled in Vladimov’s novel Just when the issue seems to be resolved against prediction and therefore necessity (Kobrisov’s prediction that he would die in connection with Myriatin proves false; everyone but him dies in the bombing), it flies again into the reader’s face—the narrator comments that probably he did die there, at least in spirit (Then again, maybe not; could Kobrisov have died spiritually simply because he expected to die, as in a self- fulfilling prophecy?). Indeed, Vladimov maintains a purposeful ambivalence, refusing to answer satisfactorily to the question he has posed: can an individual make a difference? Kobrisov’s dying thoughts encapsulate Vladimov’s ideas: E c jih m u yw epJiH T ax, mk m u ywepiiH, mmm, c name! potmnoH Hunero H e uomnaemb, hh x o p o m e r o , hh nnoxoro,—H 3H am rr, mu H H uero csoei C M ep T b io H e m um wm b Het?—cnpamHBaji spyroi rojioc. Hnnero mh H e H 3 M 6 H H J I H , ho B 3M 6B M . J M . c h c @ M M . A .ztpyrofi r o jio c Boapaacan: M h He H3M6HHJIHCB, M H yMCpJIH. 3TO BC6, HTO MOrJDi M H C % 6 m t h J J flM pO JpIHH . H ycnoKofica aa o to m . - O tp a yMepjia jsm Toro, h t o 6 h HSMejnunict npyrae.— floxanyft, o t o cjiyniKioct. Ohh h sm c h m jih c b . H o H e cjim ih k o m KanHTaji&Ho.A co m h o I , co m h o h h t o nporaouDio?— A t h passe ne 3Haem&? T h —yMep.—Ho a—cnpocm o h,--no Kpaifiei Mepe yMep C U aC T JIH B H M uejioseicoM? Hhkto ewy lie oTBenan, h oh bojisine hh o neM He cnpamnBaji, oh nepecraji mhcjihtb, /? Btmars, 6ht&. (403) If we died the way we did, it means that nothing can be done with our motherland, not good and not bad. —And does this mean that we changed nothing in Iter by our deaths? —asked the other voice. We changed nothing, but we ourselves changed. And the other voice answered: We did not change, we died. This is all that we were able to do for the motherland. And rest peacefully on this count. -Some died so that others could be changed. —If you will, this happened. Did they change? Not terribly much.. .-A nd with me, what happened with me? —But you really don’t know?—You died.— But did I—he asked— -at least die a happy person? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mo one answered him, and be asked about nothing else, he stopped thinking, breathing, being. People must hole! onto the hope that they can change something. To die for one’s country means to die in hopes that one has enabled others to change fondamentally, for their lives to be transformed. Hie way “we died” does not refer to a meaningless death in the sense that Vladimov’s critics have accused Mm—detracting from the loss in fives as a result of the war. He has in mind deaths that have no effect, positive or negative, on others. If tepidity is the regnant spirit, it follows that even death has questionable value for society as a whole. Vladimov’s hesitant affirmation o f the small changes that are really possible places the onus o f change on individuals, who must respond to those deaths before they can change themselves or make something new. But death and perhaps silence are essential to clear away the old and allow for the rebirth of new growth. General Kobrisov’s inner transformation stands opposed to the type of transformation seen in the Soviet war novel; he is not a changed man because of his participation in the tragic events of the Second World War. He was not the old man before the war, and the new man after the war. He does not reject the old completely in favor of the new. Instead, the model of identity that is supported throughout the novel combines who he was as a youth—indecisive and reflective but eager to embrace the ideals of the Revolution for the good o f mankind—with the person, he gradually became over time, beginning with collectivization, the military purges, imprisonment, and rehabilitation following the crisis of war. There is a clear contrast. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 between him and other characters in this respect; for example, Kimos, when he realizes the betrayals of the high levels of command towards the soldiers in this war, advocates for Kobrisov to lead the army in an eye-fcr-eye revenge, a slaughter of those in charge who give away soldiers’ lives too easily. In every situation, Kobrisov sees shades of gray rather than black and white—the choices are often shown to be, overwhelmingly, all bad—and the primary vehicle through which Vladimov supports this characterization is the creation of alternatives, the sideshadows o f past events. These sideshadows are manifested in individual characters’ metabistorical interactions with literary tradition as well as written and spoken (remember the radio shows) history, which function as heuristic devices to create a sense of the presentness o f the past, or the " ’ fullness o f time” [italics Morsorfs], the understanding that alternatives existed and there was not a certain turn events had to take or m outcome they had to lead up to (Morson Narrative 119-20). Because Kobrisov is not bound to a certain predetermined identity (he is not just a Soviet man, he is not just anti-Soviet, he is not just Tolstoyan, etc.), but rather interacts with key moments of the Russian tradition of history in literature in the creation, of his identity, incorporating what he 'believes but rejecting what he doesn’t, he is granted a certain reflective space that is free to the extent that this is possible. Within this space, he sees the alternatives that stand in dialogical relationship to one another, and chooses as freely as is possible, given the circumstances that inevitably place limits on an individual's freedom. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. l m As individuals face choices, so do societies. Perhaps it is partly due to Tolstoy’s postulation, the echo of •which is heard several times in The General and His Army, of the hundreds of thousands of wills bearing down heavily upon individual choices that large groups of people, as a whole, act unfreely; they assume that Tolstoy was right, or that Soviet ideology is right, or that God is right, depending on their utopia. But Vladimov shows that there were alternatives by casting sideshadows on historical events. The Vlasov subplot suggests that a third power might have gained enough strength to oppose Stalin, that Stalin himself Blight have conducted the war differently, and that even the Kronstadt rebellion might have upended Bolshevism early on. The very existence of alternatives to the history that has come to be undermines the utopian thinking that Ms plagued Russia for centuries, and returns a sense of what Morson repeatedly calls “real historical time.” And it is here that Vladimov comments on the collective identity crisis of Russia. Without a utopia to resort to, people have to confront a history open to human agency, one defined by the individuals that make it. How this history goes along depends on the values by which people in society define themselves and on which they act, individually and collectively. It is possible to create another grand vision, a new utopia. But Vladimov suggests that what is truly needed is new individuals who define themselves not in opposition to their past as Kimos and others in the novel, but by realistic assessment of one’s circumstances and resolute actions based on values that consider others. A refrain in the book is that individual should be guided by love and mercy and by acting righteously, not “dining with one’s enemy.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 Just as Kobrisov5 s transformed identify is found in a degree of freedom, in a neutral space for reflection, a new collective identity along these lines is possible if Russian society maintains itself as a free society. If Russia wants to overcome a history of new oppressions replacing old oppressions, it must not use oppression ss a means o f overcoming. Kimos was wrong to suggest returning violence with violence. Furthermore, it did not work for Vlasov to pit one power against another, nor did Tereshchenko and the other generals who maintain their own power at the expense o f thousands or millions o f soldiers have any grounds on which to justify their power-hungry but sheepishly subservient actions. Kobrisov’s indecision about which side to participate in during the Revolution was justified, since neither side had a free society as its goal. This indecision in the face o f alternatives might be compared to Lotman’s “neutral sphere,” Auctioning as a means to pull Russia out of the either/or mentality that prevails when a society defines historical change in negative terms. The new society that is consistent with Kobrisov’s question to himself on his deathbed, that of whether people and society were transformed because of the deaths in the Second World War, would be one in which people were happy, and Kobrisov finds joy only in freedom throughout the novel. This is the reason he reads Voltaire instead of Tolstoy and the basis for all his difficult choices. The question of whether society has been transformed remains unanswered; it is met with the silent response o f death. However, Kobrisov’s dying consciousness suggests that it can only be answered In death; the deaths of the old society might make clear a space for a new, transformed society, and. this is the best hope Vladimov offers. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m The state of being caught between two sides, of existing along a boundary or in boundary situations, is a dominant motif o f this novel. It constitutes the genre of the novel as a work of historiographical metafiction. It is present at every level of the plot, from its intertextuai engagement of traditional Russian historical fiction to the situations and characters in the plot. Existence at the boundary is not resolved in the novel. Every situation has confounding complexities that keep those involved from finding easy choices or solutions. For Vladimov, the answer may be in this refusal to choose sides, often reflected in impossible choices he selects to include in Ms historical sections and in indecision on Kobrisov’s part in the face o f impossible choices. Living with awareness that one has a foot over each side of the boundary has its own value. The past is a part o f who we are, and it cannot be separated from the present. To be on the boundary is to have choices. Complexity is part of the fabric of life, and Vladimov’s approach to metahistorieal fiction acknowledges at a fundamental level the complexity o f Russia’s historical identity. Vladimov does not want to reduce Russia to a nation o f binary, polar oppositions as described by Lotman. To do so would be to prescribe another utopia and forgo the freedom that g jm n m f made possible. Conclusion The General and His Army examines the past at many levels. Moreover, it is to its core both a product of traditional Russian historical fiction, and an innovative contribution to it. As a novel it effectively develops its plot and characters in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 tradition, o f the Realist psychological novel; its literary aspect would even suffice to draw the work into the canon o f so-called serious literature. But it is more. If we recall Andrew WaebteFs thesis, the traditional Russian author o f historical fiction also inevitably perceives a catling to explicate his historical reflection in the manner o f essays on historical theory and historical themes. In keeping with this tradition, Vladimov considers history a vocation; he wants very much to communicate something beyond literary understanding (in addition to this), and he is afraid that lie has not succeeded when a few prominent critics claim they have missed the point. One critic who Initially wrote a favorable review even rescinded it after reading Bogomolov’s article, saying he had been carried away by the literary qualities of the novel, but that now, thanks to Bogomolov, he understands the author’s serious errors and no longer holds a favorably view of the novel This is what prompts Vladimov to write his historical essays, and “stoop” to answering very “illiterary” accusations made against him. History’s essential nature is at stake—not just his novel’s reputation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 Chapter 4. Opening the Past: on Mikhail Kuraev's Kapitan Dikshtein What we need is better and more responsible and more coherent personal stories, not the complete subsumption of all personal stories into the group narrative.1 —Alan Jacobs, “What Narrative Theology Forgot” Mikhail Kuraev’s novella or long tale (noeecntb) Kanumm JJwaumem: (pmmacmmecKoe nmecnmomnue [Captain Dikshtein: A Fantastic Tale] was published m 1987, during the early part ofperestroika, by a previously unknown writer who had made a career in cinematography. Immediately, the work’s merit was recognized, and the author “woke up famous” (Kurbatov 174). As a new writer making Ms debut early In perestroika, Kuraev belonged to a “heterogeneous, unaffiliated group” ofperestroika writers who had little in common with their Soviet predecessors, but according to Goseilo and Lindsey, had “closer parallels to Vladimir Nabokov, Sasha Sokolov, and the writers of the 1920s” (xxxv). Colin Dowsett also credits Kuraev’s work with “resurrect[ing] the tradition of modernist experimental fiction” (114). In any case, Kuraev’s work was generally understood as surpassing the literary quality of many glasm st -era works that relied heavily on the incorporation of historical materials because its purpose did more than just fill in 1 Alan Jacobs. “What Narrative Theology Forgot” First Wings. August/September 2003, No. 135. P. 27. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 information gaps—its objective was not just to poiemicize—and it was immediately obvious that it reverberated deeply with the Russian literary tradition. Indeed, one of the aims of Captain Dikshtein seems to be to inform the perestroika-9m reader of historical events that had been hushed up by the comiminist regime. The main plot of the novela is a historical one dealing with the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921; within a frame narrative about protagonist Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein, who participated in the insurrection, the reader becomes familiar, probably for the first time, with, the events that took place, previously belonging to the category Kuraev’s narrator designates as black holes of history and muses about, echoing Pushkin, ‘Tfre ace eme npmcaxere HCKan. s|aH racm t iecicHX repoen a <j)aHTacTEraecKHe co6 h t h h , xax He b nepH H X fltipax h c t o p h h , norJiOTHBHmx, nano nojiaraTt, ae orporo juofioiMTciByioinero, HepacaexjiHBO sarasiiyBniero 3a xpaft!” (46) [“So where are you to look for fantastic heroes and fantastic events if not in the black holes of history, which, one must assume, swallowed more than one careless, curious man who dared look over the edge!”] (48). Knowledge about the Kronstadt Rebellion, a taboo subject under communism, had 'been limited in Soviet times to those who had some kind o f firsthand knowledge; they had been there, or had heard about it from someone who had. According to Rosalind Marsh, Kuraev’s novella is the first published work in which this event was depicted tnrfhfully (133). In 1921, the Kronstadt naval base, the men of which being mostly officers and navy men previously commended as staunch supporters of the communist regime and [“among the most radical political elements of 1917 and one o f the most reliable aimed forces Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 the Bolsheviks had In the cm! 'war”] (Wade SO), made demands that the unstable government could not meet due to growing anarchy in the wake of the civil war, and then called for the removal of the Bolsheviks (Frank 14). The bloody battle that ensued resulted in the deaths of close to 7,000 insurrectionists and of an even greater number of soldiers defending against the uprising (Wade 190). While some readers commented on the length of its historical passages, which in places may seem to overwhelm the narrative, Goscilo and. Lindsey note that “Kuraev’s Captain Dikshtein splendidly illustrates how artistic complexity can vouchsafe a more nuanced treatment of a subject that seems doomed to simplification in the hands of overt polemicists” (xxxv). What Captain Dikshtein does with history, aside from merely retelling it, has become the focus of the relatively small amount of criticism the work has drawn. Since historical material takes up so much space in the tale, and since some readers have labeled all else in the work a framing device, the problem of exactly how the extensive historical passages are incorporated into this work of fiction becomes central. At the same time, Kuraev gives the readers fragmented glimpses into the past, rather than a coherent historical narrative of past events, thus foregrounding the processes by which a narrative of history comes to be; in doing so, he enters into a metahistorical discussion with contemporary cultural critics, on the one hand, and with Russian writers of the past, on the other. As stated in chapter one of this dissertation, a central concern of scholars of Russian literature in regards to works of perestroika fiction is the question of where Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 the latter fail along the scale of modernism to postmodernism; to a degree, the reason for this is that, in the West, recent fiction that incorporates historical material has been most often interpreted through the lens of postmodernism, and twentieth century works are usually placed along the scale between modem and postmodern. Bowsett, mentioned above, identifies this work as a return to the Russian modernist experiment. Several others have interpreted it as a postmodernist work, or at least as having a kinship with postmodernist literature written in the West. Although this interpretation is typically justified by the interpretation of Dikshtein as a postmodern, fragmented subject and by the narrator’s ironic and playful mode, both o f which will be discussed below, the most fundamental justification is assumed to be the novella’s treatment o f history as fragmented, accidental, and, it is claimed, contingent on its representation in language. In her book Subversive Imaginations: Fantastic Prose and the End o f Soviet Literature, 1970s-1990s, Nadya Peterson claims that in Captain Dikshtein, “historical experience appears as an illusive continuum impossible to transcribe in language” (1); for her, the work is “an example that will illustrate the trend’s increasing concentration on the whims of representation” (147). Arguing that Kuraev’s main concern is the power o f language in history, she claims, M aU depends on how events are represented through the medium of language” (148). Historical reality is mediated, by language, which, in turn, refuses to conform to the will o f the author, because figures of expression are subject to a sort o f ossification resulting from generic forms and elieMct language. Finally, juxtaposition o f many inodes of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194 discourse, or muM-voicedness, claims Peterson, gives Kuraev’s work the appearance of a palimpsest (a kind o f writing superimposed over erasure), which is an ‘ ’ironic undercutting o f‘objective5 historical writing...[thalj demonstrates the submission of writers ofhistory to the needs o f the moment and, consequently, the impossibility o f accurate historical representation in traditional narratives” (150). Rigid narrative forms are inadequate to contain human realty and history is subject to the “inevitable manipulation involved in . the act of writing” (151). Goscilo and Lindsey agree that “for Kuraev, the master narrative o f history has disintegrated.... According to this destabilized view ofhistory, historical ‘facts’ cannot exist independent of their later, constellating representation” (xxxv). They find that one of the differences between Kuraev and other perestroika writers is that wMle the latter write out of their urge to reveal the Truth about past events, Kuraev confronts the inherent impossibility of this quest, which is doomed because the only answers to be found are contextual, contingent on failed attempts at representation in language. WMle Goscilo and Lindsey do not state outright that Captain Dikshtein is a postmodernist work, perhaps due to many scholars’ reservations about the term’s applicability to the Soviet context especially during the earlier period of glasnosi’ , they do compare the tale and other works ofperestroika alternative prose to Western postmodernism (xliv). Moreover, in Dehexing Sex, Helena Goscilo expresses assumptions about Captain Dikshtein’ s view ofhistory that confirm postmodernist presuppositions, commenting that the work “denarrativized ‘history as master plot’ into random components, not only linear but also unknowable (with both fabula. and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 siuzhet eluding ceititede)5 ’ (37), According to Goscilo, Kuraev also replaced “causality with fortuitous sequentiality, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. ...[thereby interrogating] the primacy o f‘big events’ and the unitary concept of history that shaped, the treatment of historical topics in scholarship, journalism, and literature of the period” (37). Vitaly Chemetsky, in Ms article “Travels through Heterotopia: the Textual Realms o f Patrick Modiano’s Rue des Boutiques Obscures and Mikhail Karaev’s Captain Dikshtein,'” makes a similar argument about Kuraev’s text and its “problenmtizfing of] the notion of History as such” (261); he claims that the work is an example o f a postmodernist genre he identifies as the “heterotopic text” (254)," which is preoccupied with “exploration of those topoi—cultural, social, linguistic— that lie on the margins of privileged literary discourses” (257). For Chemetsky, this exploration takes places when a literary work shows existing spaces in society that foreground otherness and plurality (255) and show many fragmentary, possible worlds coexisting in an impossible space (255), mainly by using the strategy of interrogating cultural constructs that focus on the “experiences of the marginal, the minor, [and] the underrepresented” (256). His interpretation of the events at. Kronstadt highlights its erasure from official history and its narration through 2 He claims that this genre is similar to Linda Hutcheon’s concept of “historiographic metafiction,” hat less restrictive; Hutcheon’s model foregrounds the awareness that history and fiction are both human constructs, and that attempts to “repair” history are illusory. Her purpose is to create an understanding that representation has ideological consequences. See Linda Hutcheon A Poetics o f Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 “m u ltip le aid frequently conflicting viewpoints o f its participants and contemporaries, through scraps of documents and hearsay” (264), Chemetsky goes farther in Ms discussion of the postmodern aspects of Captain Dikshtein than the other two works discussed s © tar by raising th e question, of the novel5 s protagonist, Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein, as a postmodern, fragmented subject. He takes at face value the narrator’s [ironic] statement that Dikshtein is ‘MeJioBeK, KOToporo tfiaKJiraecKH Kax 6 m s e 6 h jio ” (i 1) [a person who in feet never existed], and the narrator’s observation that Dikshtein could never become a cog in the Soviet machine (130), interpreting this to mean that the protagonist’s fife after the events at Kronstadt could indeed be characterized as n o n e x iste n c e (262-3). For Chemetsky, the fact that Dikshtein has “lived through multiple, conflicting identities” automatically leads to the conclusion that “through the narrative itself, the heterotopic narrative of mixed, labyrinthine spaces and times. [Ms life is] actually constituted” (265). Citing Kevin Telford on Modiano’s work, he states that “in narratives o f this kind, textuality is what is proposed as "the solution to the crisis of identity5 ” (265).3 He concludes that “heterotopic texts not only rescue ‘minor5 destinies from oblivion; most importantly, they decenter and subvert the claims to singular authorial access to Truth and History (265). One advantage to the postmodernist interpretation is, indeed, that it undermines the Soviet version ofhistory, with its centralization of interpretation, by 3 Telford, Kevin. “Identity is a Verb: Re-writing the Self in the Novels of Patrick ModianoP French Forum 19.3 (1994): 347-56. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 explaining that history is merely a function of narrative, contingent, and devoid of essential meaning or Truth, and this parallels Western postmodernist interpretations o f historical writing and historical fiction, in general.* Just as the official Soviet treatment ofhistory is obviously incorrect and unjust, any other attempts to tell Soviet history as an alternative narrative must be inherently flawed, according to this view. Along these lines o f interpretation, metahistorical references in Kuraev’s work point to the impossibility o f there being an inherent, truth-telling value to historical writing per se, rather than suggesting that there might be found a different value than the one commonly, officially assigned,3 an interpretative possibility raised in this dissertation. At the same time, credit is given to Kuraev, as noted above, for showing history to involve great complexity and for providing a beautifully nuanced treatment of Ms subject matter, when other perestroika writers were reductively simplifying the past, portraying history as Truth that must yet be uncovered and told, if it can be revealed, in order to make things right again, to set the matter straight wielding the new knowledge as a sword against the old, incorrect ideology and doctrine. Yet, it is not necessarily the case that the novella exposes history as a mere construct and value as thoroughly contingent (as in postmodernism), even if Kuraev were to consider himself a postmodernist. It might be noted that, for Kuraev, history is not so much contingent upon the whims o f representation as representation is 4 See Linda Hateheoa A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, New York; Routiedge, 1988. 5 Is fact, this interpretation is accepted as. self-evident; is a discussion about this work with one eminent scholar, she asked me “If it’s not postmodern then what is it?”—showing that another Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 contingent on the whims ofhistory. The history that lie depicts is dominated by uncertainty, fragmentation, and openness into the future, and it may well be that history is contingent—but this does not mean that it is a construct of language with no referents in past events (or that Dikshtein’s identity crisis can in any way be resolved by the vague notion of^textuaKty”). Granted, the telling ofhistory has, in the past [sic], been colored by a good deal of manipulation, and Kuraev is probably questioning whether it is possible to discover the complete truth about what has happened among the fragments of historical knowledge that we have access to today. Moreover, we can recognize that all narrative may contain some form of bias. Yet does this necessarily mean that all claims to truth-finding and at least a partial knowledge ofhistory are subverted? The idea that history depends on the “whims of representation,” in other words, that Kuraev is mainly concerned with the power of language and its precedence over reality, would be alien to this author. To suggest that he believes language would refuse to conform to his authorial will because it is “ossified” and clielied is to refuse to see the richness and indeed power that Kuraev wields as a Russian author writing within a tradition of mtertextuality (use of perhaps cficMci, but more importantly, trope-responsive language to one's own purposes) and generic play. The palimpsest suggested by Chemetsky is thus not an apropos metaphor, unless the layering occurs without erasure, as in superimposition. Interpretation hadn’t occurred to her, evea though she has written, albeit briefly, about toe novella and is very familiar wifi it. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 . The “whims ofhistory” depend on real power structures in society as well as the power of individuals5 decisions, and Kuraev’s tale reveals this clearly. History as Kuraev depicts it is not a function of the power of language, but rather it is contingent on. countless small events that constitute the life of countless individuals. If these events are not traceable to their first causes, it is because of the labyrinthine nature o f cause and effect in history and society. Kuraev’s understanding ofhistory is thus less postmodern than Tolstoyan, which will be discussed at length below. Kapiton Dikshtein is a short novella that investigates the meaning ofhistory at the national, local, and individual levels. The panoramic, national historical picture is examined through the mutiny at Kronstadt and the way this historical event, or series of events, has affected the hero of the narrative, Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein. The mutiny is a significant event for Soviet revisionist history because the official histories attempted to hide that it ever happened, as its very occurrence was perceived as a serious threat the hegemony of Soviet power and to the utopian end of communism, probably as great as that of the Whites (Wade 76). Kronstadt is an important event that is part of Soviet history, even if official History6 omits representation of what happened there. It represents m “almost,” or a “ -what Ifff that is, a potential for something to have happened that could have pushed Soviet history in a completely different direction—regardless of whether it was “accurately” represented in narrative histories. Kurnev makes it exceedingly clear that the very 0 Henceforth, “History” will be used to denote the official Soviet version of past events, and “history” will, denote other and more general narratives of die past. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 failure to tell this story can also be seen as a historical event that had more to do with arbitrary decisions of individuals in the contemporary Soviet government than “the whims of representation.” In tandem, a subplot investigates the history o f the town of Gatchina, where Igor'’ Ivanovich has lived since Ms time in the service, and the history o f which as a result also plays heavily in the development of the main character’s identity. Finally, the personal histories of certain mala characters are told, and the tale makes it clear that the author values these individuals’ histories each as singularly valuable in the lives of those who experienced them as well as in the life of their town and nation. In this work, Kuraev rejects utopian interpretations of history by reaffirming a chronotope of real Mstoricai time; to do this he uses sidesbadows to probe into the potential power events of the Kronstadt uprising had to change the course of Russia in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and civil war, and into the oft-forgotten local or individual histories’ role in eonstituing larger events that affect the nation. He examines the concepts of self-identity with implications for national identity, both o f which are at stake in these histories, through his analysis of one individual who might be someone else— Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein, a person who has one foot on either side of the boundary separating what is from what might have been. Dikshtein, whose very identity is constituted by a boundary that he cannot step back from and at the same time cannot step over completely, functions as a positive instantiation o f overcoming the binary models o f identity described by Lotman. Moreover, his identify is a direct outcome of the historical events that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20! affected. Ms fife, at Kronstadt and in Gatchina, and in this way, he operates as a metonymical argument for a similar model o f collective, Russian identity, Summaiy As the story opens, protagonist Igor" Ivanovich Dikshtein is seen lying in bed; he is an old man who gets up, looks for a net bag, and goes to return 'bottles and buy some beer for dinner. As lie walks home a tew hours and several errands later, lie has a heart attack and dies. Within this fictional frame, the third person, omniscient narrator intervenes to tell the story o f Igor* Ivanovich’s fife, in particular significant events in the formation o f Ms identity as an individual, especially Ms participation as a sailor in the Kronstadt mutiny. While the narrative is not fragmented in such a way as to self-consciously vitiate narrative forms per se is a postmodernist maimer (we can piece together what happened, at least in broad strokes, and the text does not leave the reader feeling confused about what as much as why), it does contain one significant rupture towards i s middle that serves to insert an element of surprise and confusion—when the reader experiences the interrogation and firing squad death of Igor’ Ivanovich, known to the reader to have survived in the wake of Kronstadt and to be currently waiting in lice to cash in Ms bottles. The reader suddenly becomes aware that the childhood described early on in the story as belonging to Dikshtein does not, after all, belong to the non commissioned officer Dikshtein with whom the reader has just become acquainted in the retelling of the story o f the mutiny, since the latter has been shot to death. As it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 turns out, the childhood is that of another sailor, now the oM man, who opportunely assumed the identity of Dikshtein when the latter had the infelicity to be put to death in Ms stead, because a guard liked the NCO’s good boots. With Ms new name, the sailor has gradually taken, on a new identity, one admittedly based on little concrete knowledge, by constantly attempting to meet up to an ethical standard lie imagines the original Dikshtein to have represented. For all Ms self-doubt, moreover, he becomes the most esteemed person in Gatchina, precisely because o f mho he is, rather than who he is not. Reflection m Genre: Boundaries and the Fantastic Just as the other works analyzed in this dissertation, Captain Dikshtein combines historical and fictional material in a metahistorical examination o f past events as a kind of boundary work. As shown above, several critics have pointed to what they consider the postmodern aspects of this work, viewing it along the lines of what Hayden White described as “historical text as literary artifact.”7 It would be more correct to say, however, that this work is primarily a literary text as historical artifact; as a metahistorical novel, it lies at the extreme end of the scale o f aestheticity in the writing ofhistoiy imagined by Ewa Domanska (Domanska 3). Once more, W acfeef s model proves useful; this work operates under the assumption that neither history nor poetry alone can provide a complete understanding of the 7 See Hayden V. White, The Content o f the Form: Narrative Discourse end Historical Representation, Baltimore, John Hopkins University press, 1987. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 past, and to solve this problem, Karaev incorporates dialog between genres to reveal the complexity o f the past as more than just a series of events leading to a utopian, yet bizarre and phantasmagoricai, communist society. Dialog between Genres This work is constructed as a frame narrative that contains a relatively simple plot about Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein and encloses vast tracts of historical reflection that place the protagonist in a broad historical context. Although a fair portion o f the historical sections describes events of the Revolution and civil war through the eyes of a narrator who often coincides with Dikshtein as a young, enthusiastic but not very educated navy man, the coincidence is not complete, and the reader is given far more information than such an individual could have offered. Because memory is often the medium of the reflection, the order o f events is not chronological. However, the work as a whole gives the reader a reasonable version of the Kronstadt uprising in its mom documentary sections, taking particular care to fill in the so- called black holes, the parts o f the story that remained under wraps until the perestroika era. Moreover, Captain Dikshtein was written, before its audience had access to a standard documentary version o f these events, m d as a result was called upon to fill the dual rote of presenting historical information while integrating this information into its subjective literary genre—-a tack taken by Solzhenitsyn, as noted b y Waehtei and b y Vladimov, as discussed in the previous chapter o f this dissertation. Again, the purpose o f intergeneric dialog within a work is to present a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 complex national history without sacrificing any advantages of either the historical mode o f narration or of the novelistic inode, as i is Wachtel’s thesis that neither is Intended to take precedence over the other. Rather, the “dash of their separate mono logic narratives leads to an. intergeneric dialog that emphasizes the Multiplicity o f possible historical interpretations” (W acttel 83-4). Ultimately, “whatever truth can be achieved emerges from the uneasy coexistence o f multiple ways o f seeing and narrating the past. It is constituted not through the authority o f a single genre but instead through the principle o f intergeneric dialog” (Wachtel 12). Thus any historical understanding that can be recovered with regard to Kronstadt, for Kuraev, is located at the point where the historical material is no longer sufficient to finish the story, but where, at the same time, the story relies on knowledge of a documentary narrative of these same events. This point is a type o f a boundary between kinds o f knowledge, and Kuraev invites Ms audience to peer over the edge of this “black hole.” The Fantastic Fpe xe eiite npmaxere hcketb cfsiM TaciiraecicHx repoes m ^asnmccmecme coSwihh, ksk ms b uepatix joHpax HcropiiH, norjiOTHBinHX, nm o nonaraTb, He onuoro jno6onHTCTByK>mero, eepacue-THHBO sarjisH yB m ero sa »pai! So where are you to look for fantastic heroes and fantastic events if not in the Mack holes ofhistory, which, one must assume, swallowed more than one careless, curious man who dared to look over the edge! —Mikhail Kuraev, Captain Dikshtein Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 Kuraev subtitled Ms stow “a fantastic tale,” a self-conscious reference to Ms chosen genre. In doing this, tie is claiming that the concept of the fantastic defines his genre and functions as a key structuring device for the novella. However, upon a closer examination, it is clear that Kuraev uses the word “fantastic” in an ironic way, and is only playfully alluding to the traditional, Romantic genre of Hoffman, Poe, and in Russia, the early Dostoevsky and Gogol in particular. A t the same time, access to a deeper understanding of the work is to a large extent sewn up in the author’s conception o f Ms genre as fantastic. Moreover, several critics have noted the tale’s intertextuality in reference to central works of the Russian literary tradition, and it is impossible to assess this work without analyzing the ways it resonates with genres and themes o f the fantastic in Russian literature that has come before it. Thus, in order to fully understand the work, it is crucial to examine the ways in which Kuraev uses the concept of the “fantastic,” and the ways this tale interacts with tradition, especially with regard to genre. However, I do not claim to present a M l discussion of the literary intertexts in this novel, partly because it does not fell into the limited scope o f this dissertation, and furthermore, other critics have already devoted their attention to this aspect of Kuraev’s work.8 8 Severs1 examples can be noted here; this list is far from comprehensive: Vitaly Chemetsky briefly identifies several echoes of Gogol’, Dostoevsky, Bely, Tynianov, and Zoshchenko in Kuraev's novella; he also notes that Kapitan Dikshtein is indebted to Tolstoy’s War m d Peace in that most of fee sanative is presented in historical material through “numerous authorial asides, digressions and historical excursuses* (263). Valentin Kurbatov identifies m i discusses several specific intertexts with Gogol’ in some depth and also mentions Pushkin and Chekhov in connection with Kuraev’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 Byron Lindsey names the genre of the tale “phantassiagorical realism,” alluding to its echoes of Gogol and Dostoevsky, and quotes Kuraev as saying “I cannot myself determine what in my writing is from Kuraev and what is from the writers I love and the writers I dislike” (460), indicating that the author himself refuses to quantify Ms interactions with the literary tradition. An analysis of Kuraev’s use o f intertextuality in relation to the subject matter o f this dissertation can be begun by discussing two fundamental perspectives: that o f the individual and that ofhistory. One of the central literary themes of Captain Dikshtein is that o f the “little man.” The author views the work as part of an. effort to “save for posterity the memories of some of the countless insignificant people whose lives were crashed by the cruel history o f Ms country” (Thompson 54). This mission resonates with the traditional Romantic theme of the little man and Ms place in the official world of society and history, and the character o f Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein can be traced to a line of predecessors, from Gogol’s Akaky Akakievich, depicted as the ultimate victim of unforgiving bureaucracy and thwarted desires, to Tynianov’s Kizhe, like Dikshtein a “resident” of Gatchina, perhaps the first literary individual to come into being by the slip o f a pen, the epitome of an accidental existence. Furthermore, Kuraev’s philosophy ofhistory as well as its transmission through a literary medium resonate 'with Tolstoy, in particular (Chemetsky 262), work (174-85). Colts Dowsett notes similarity to Tyniaaov's PodpomcMk Kizhe in tie work's title and basic concept. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28? Iii places, fee narrative style and voice also recall those in Andrei Belyi’s novel Peterburg, and their historical plots parallel one another. In Peterburg, the reader witnesses people’s dissatisfaction leading up to the 1905 revolution la Russia, which ultimately led to greater revolutionary activity, two split camps, a failed attempt on the part o f the revolutionaries, and as escape of the leaders of the movement to Finland. At Kronstadt, horrible insufficiency of the living conditions following the Bolshevik Revolution led to widespread dissatisfaction, division, of loyalties into pro-Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik forces, a failed attempt to overthrow those in power, and the escape o f half of the counter-revolutionary forces to Finland. Yet Kuraev echoes Belyi in other ways, too. Dowsett sees a similarity in “Kuraev’s consciously rhythmic and ornate style, which, like Belyi’s, is characterized by long sentences with multiple clauses and parallelisms...” and in their use o f“the architectural metaphor to forge a close link between the individual, locale, and history” (117). Yet the labeling of the genre as fantastic or even “phanlasmagorical realism”, along with the plot in which Dikshtein, by the end, is unsure of the extent to which he is himself, and the extent to which he has become the other man, call to mind another level of mterfextuai play. Robert Belknap describes Dostoevsky’s mastery of Hoffman’s style in his novel The Double, saying that the falters tales “[make] the reader search among the conflicting data with increasing frustration in an effort to decide whether the events are the fantasies of an unbalanced character or the presentation of the supernatural as real” (103 Handbook). In many ways, Dikshtein is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 similar to Double protagonist Golyadkin: at the beginning o f the story, lie is portrayed as a sensitive and somewhat pretentious navy man who Is actually quite low in rank and uneducated; he experiences, albeit unbeknownst to him, a series of encounters with Ms alter ego, before they actually merge; and finally, the novella leaves the reader with an enormous quantity o f irreconcilable facts and data, so that the reader cannot understand the events any better than Dikshtein—best described as as urge to ask the question “Well, why didn’t he.,.?’. Indeed, it is not clear whether we, as readers, are unable to reconcile the events described merely because they were narrated through the eyes of an unreliable (mostly because Ms intellect is limited; he has the simple mind of an uneducated, insignificant, but reasonably intelligent man) character, Dikshtein, or because there was, in fact, something ominous, dark, and supernatural in the Soviet pow er that overshadowed the narrative—a necessary “presentation of the supernatural as real.” The plot of Captain Dikshtein also interacts with that of Tynianov’s tale Podporuchik Kizhe. In both works, the protagonist comes into existence accidentally, Kizhe by the slip of a pen, and Dikshtein (the second man of that name) by the frozen state that rendered Mm unable to obey an order to walk to his death. The caprice of the authoritarian bureaucracy is not merely powerful enough to create an identity where none had existed before; it can also indifferently sentence an innocent individual to death or nonidentity. In Podporuchik Kizhe, Siniukhaev is assigned to nonexistence and oblivion by an order that mistakenly declared Mm dead; in Kuraev’s novella, the petty officer Dikshtein is killed due to the need of those above Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 him in the military to sign a paper stating that they had executed a certain number o f mutineers, regardless of guilt, awl by the caprice of a higher-up who wanted Ms boots. Dikshtein and Sinukhaev are both residents of Gatchina, too, a town which, Kuraev suggests, has historical reasons to explain why it is the perfect setting for a fantastic tale that blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality, After discussing the bizarre circumstances ofEmporer Pavel I, much o f whose imperial existence was played out in Gatchina and whose mother Catherine II usurped Ms throne and tormented his soul and forced him into an identity crisis, Kuraev's narrator laments in what might easily be interpreted as a direct reference to Tynianov’s story: ‘ Tpe ksqc ne sgect. pastirpHBaiiHCb, a 6uth Moxer, h no c ei gem* pasHrp&isaioTCM ffjaB T acT H uecxB e no c io e i h c b o s m o x h o c t h h c t o p h h . , . 7 ’ (38) (“Where, better than here, were played out and maybe are being played out even today fantastically impossible stories...?”] (40). Indeed, there may not be a more appropriate setting for the type o f hero Kuraev has created than the one where Kizhe came into being thanks to the whims o f Russian imperial authority—an authority mirrored by the cruel Soviet government that replaced it. Perhaps most poignant and most telling with regard to metahistorical fiction, is Kuraev’s use o f intertextuality with the genre of the Petersburg myth to establish his perspective on history. While some aspects of this will be addressed in greater depth below, for now it is necessary to point out Kuraev’s in.tertex.tual play with Belyi’s mythic description of the city of Petersburg and his epic address to the city of Petersburg in his novel of that name. It is t&ough this appeal to the epic literary Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 myth surrounding the city o f Petersburg and Ms transmutation of Gatchina to a worthy locos for an epic narration and of Dikshtein into a worthy hero that Kuraev begins his discourse on the making ofhistory. The Paradox of Explanation In Kapitan Dikshtein, the narrator often speaks of the fantastic in conjunction with what is surprising or amazing. The term fantastic is also associated in the work with that which cannot be easily explained, an idea supported in the narrative by the frequent use of the word “inexplicable.” The term “fantastic” contains the sense of something amazing or surprising, but not supernatural or mystical in the true sense (although it has been pointed out that Soviet reality itself was fantastic in this sense). Some examples from the text will support my assertion here. After the subtitle, the word “fantastic” is next used in conjunction with Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein; the first thought the reader encounters of the third person narrator is the latter’s claim that the most fantastic thing about our hero is that he “factually didn’t exist.” (14, cited above in Russian) His nonexistence and the thus counterfaetual, paradoxical story of his life are referred to as “fantastic” throughout the work. After describing a pre-war barbershop where the assistant, who should usually be a boy, was replaced during the war, the narrator states that [b] tv n o p y “b M ajiM H K ax” ok® 6a 6 s a ... # a i c r m s msQpmmom mam acawpa bikm ib s ecrecT B eH H H ft, a , S o jiee x o ro , e c jr a 6 h T aico ro cfmicra m w m b HCTOpHH H e 0K 23SJI0C B , T O CTO C JiepO B S JIO 6 h BWyMftlB H M 6HH0 B Harepecax acaHpa, pm ftontmeft yBjiexaTemnocTH m ^aHxacraHHocTH (16) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 unhurried histories sometimes acquire an amazing tempo”] (20) People ^oym B Jm m ch” (105) [“were amazed”] at Vedernikov Konstantin’s name change for a while, bat after a two or three weeks they got used to it” (105). The word s ' s ytPBjiam/yjiifBJieHKfcii” [surprise/d] and other words that Indicate surprise are repeated throughout the story also. Dikshtein’s friend Shamil is described as having eyebrows that “» 3 M eT H y jiH c& gmsoxsm. ssepx m tbk a ocxajracB, 3aneaaTJieB rpHMacy ymsBJieHna” (123) “shot up one day and remained there, creating a look of surprise” (122). The omniscient narrator falls into a manner o f describing people and events that reflects Ms expectation that the listeners5 natural reaction should be one o f surprise. Perhaps the most pervasive way the narrator lias of describing what is to be considered fantastic in the work is that he attributes inexplicability to events and circumstances. The quality o f inexplicability is, for Kuraev, what defines the fantastic and is related to souk “higher idea” that gives meaning to a person and to history; Igor Ivanovich’s favorite story to tell from his own childhood is one in which he confessed to wrongdoing at the prompting of his conscience, even when there were no witnesses: ...h o rjiaBH HM ©SpasoM 3 t o t cjiynaS BM UJiHBan aapyxy, xorqa mmpmmch B/tpyr o to m H eofrracH H M O M h zsraacFiHOM, m to OKpyxaer Hejioseita h ,n a * e npeCwBaer b h c m c s m o m . TIo b c c I b c p o h t h o c t h , Hropio IfcaaoBHuy npHxoptHJiocB H&x-Her aa h H anoM H H Ti. caM O M y cede, h t o , sn ails., js , cya&6oi © M y yroTosaao 6mm nejioBeieoM, c h o c o 6 h h m Ha seoflMCHHMMe n ocryiiK H . ( 3 1 ) This incident floated to the surface mainly when people started talking about that inexplicable and mysterious something that surrounds man and even Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 [a]t that time an old woman was working as the “boy”... In view of our chosen genre, this feet is completely natural, and what’s more, if such a feet couldn’t be found anywhere in history, then we would have to invent it in . the interests of the genre—in order to achieve a more entertaining and fantastic result. (19) He calls the city o f Kronstadt s s 6jiaroiipH«THHM ,nas pasHrpHBaaia #aHTacTi«ec-ioix HCTopal napsny c 3aropcK O M h ffeTBBBofiT (44) [“a propitious place for the staging o f a fantastic story, along with Zagorsk and Gatchina”] (45). Indeed, these surprising facts can fee found somewhere in history—in Russia— -so they don’t have to be invented, and the basis o f their inexplicability is the irony that historical, post-revolutionary reality is difficult to reconcile with official propaganda and the official versions ofhistory. To establish an aura of the fantastic, Kuraev introduces leitmotifs of amazement, surprise, and inexplicability in association w ith this genre throughout the novella. The narrator repeatedly and with no small degree of irony acknowledges his expectation that people’s reactions to the real, historical events lie describes will tend towards surprise and amazement. He often anticipates his own readers’ sense of surprise and amazement at the details he is disclosing in telling this history of an officially concealed mutiny. He begins fey noting that “CrpaHHO O TpaaajM C B - coShthh w Mapia 1921 roaa b HpoTBsopeniiBHx h yflHBirrejiHiHx CBe^eHHax o hhx” (45) [“The events of February and March 1921 were reflected strangely in the contradictory and surprising reports about them”] (47). Characters’ actions and various circunistances are repeatedly described as amazing: “Ho h HecnemBHe hctophh mimrm npHoflpeTaioT iisyMHmiMHi TeM ii” (17) (“But even Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 exists Inside man him self In ail likelihood Igor’ Ivanovich was sometimes forced to remind himself that fete itself had, so to speak, prepared him to he a man capable of inexplicable deeds. (33) The inexplicable is highlighted along with surprise m d amazement in the little details o f a little man's life. For example, the narrator tries to describe Igor’ Ivanovich’s attitudes towards bis various pieces of outerwear in conjunction with Ms way o f purchasing beer, and he c o n c lu d e s that if he doesn’t focus more on the jacket choice, “hh caM Boxes b npHeMHHft nynicr cjphk CTeraiHnofi nocyjtH, hh noKynxa mma jm e m 6jmyr d o b s t h b b o jih o I Mepe” (22) [“neither his progress to the container return center, nor Ms purchase of beer will be folly understood”] (25). The apartment in which Igor5 aid Nastya live is described at length, and its irrational design only perplexes the stranger who may walk in (27). Inexplicability extends to large-scale h isto r ic a l events, too. “H T en ep i. b paaMHrnjieiniax o fiygymeM HropB H b3Ho b h b b b o b h ji noitpaBKy Ha HerroHSTHyio, neoCM acHHM yio, b o coBepm eHHO peanB H yio, d e p y m y io c s s p o jte x s k 6 w h H H on cyn a cr o iy S o jiM n e sm o B ” (79-80) [“And now Igor’ Ivanovich adjusted Ms thoughts about the fiiture o f the in c o n 5>rehensible, in e x p lic a b le , b u t completely re a l power of th e Bolsheviks, w h ic h s e e m e d to come from n o w h e r e ”] (80). Kuraev emphasizes marginal or boundary locations as places where it is uniquely likely for inexplicable things to occur. The “Mack holes ofhistory” mentioned in the epigraph present one such boundary; they are the border between official and unofficial history, But what is it about these marginal places that connects them to the fantastic, to the inexplicable? According to Caryl Emerson, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 Bakhtin considers boundaries a positive and dynamic concept, where “separation and connection happen simultaneously, in a complementary way” (Emerson 239). Boundaries are a source of creative energy where outsideness and insideness meet The force within a system that reveals the limits of the system, is what Bakhtin calls “novel” (Four Essays xxxi). For Kuraev, the fantastic or the inexplicable operates precisely in these boundary areas, revealing the limits of the system, official History. Things that surprise are things fiat originate outside of what is official, expected, and known to all. They reveal the arbitrary nature of what is included or allowed by the system and apply pressure to the border zones of the system. Boundaries and the concept of the inexplicable are intertwined in Kuraev’s understanding of the fantastic. One of the most revealing metaphors Kuraev uses to reveal boundaries is the suggestion that events taking place along the margins of history—involving small towns and humble people who are located or who lived outside of the boundaries of official History m d yet without whom there would be no History—should be elevated to a status as high as that given to official History. In a reflection on Gatchina a backward little town left behind in the wake of History when the imperial family stopped needing it, the author writes: FM e mm He 3% ecb pmarpmBmmcb;, a 6hti> mokct, h no e e ft p ,e m > p a s e r p H M O T c a fa B T a c T B H c e x iie n o cB o eft h s b o s m o x c h o c th hctophh, c r io c o riu H e HsyM JiTt. j n o s e l , e m e He p asy n H B n iM x e a, n e yxpaTHBmnx cnoeoflHOCTS myMJurrnca go 6ojih b cepane, H ecM O Tpx he MHoroJiermoio npH BH H K y K XB3HH, O & M C IieH U yiO B O B C C X C e U p O X B J ie H H X X H so^ po6hoct«x? (3B-9) Where, tetter than here, were played out and maybe are 'being played out even today fantastically impossible stories which are capable of astounding Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 those people who haven’t yet unlearned or lost the ability o f feeing amazed to the bottom of their hearts, regardless of their having long since become used to a life where every manifestation and detail is explained? (40) For Kuraev, people who have the ability to react to inexplicable or fantastic situations with surprise and amazement are given a positive value; they have something that others have lost. The ability to reflect upon boundaries is opposed to a life where everything is explained, a specific reference to an official, Soviet life. The black holes ofhistory mentioned in the epigraph are capable of swallowing the curious man, the one who questions and wants to know what lies inside—and who refuses to accept the official explanation. Significantly, Gatchina’s existence as a boundary location, a place along the margins, functions as a source of dynamic, creative energy, a source of surprise, amazement, and things inexplicable. Because it is located outside of that which is known universally (on the margins of official life, it is too unimportant for official notice), events and people having their origins here have the capacity to apply pressure to the system and reveal that there are limits to its reach and ability to explain life and society. It is an instance of one o f history’s black holes, and the danger o f being swallowed while looking inside is the danger of acknowledging to officialdom that the Soviet system and its easy clarity that explains everything fails to recognize tree complexity, inexplicability, and the actual, confusing details of real life, glossing over attempts at truth-seeking. Igor* Ivanovich Dikshtein is a man whose very identity is constituted o f a boundary; in him, the outriderness of the archetypal little man and the insiderness (belonging to or being of the system) of a person formed by official experiences Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 meet, a n d lie is a c u te ly aware o f this as be e n d u r e s th e m u n d a n e e v e n ts of Ms life . When h e disco vers that he doesn’t haw enough money for a third bottle of Moskva beer as a result of having to buy cigarettes for Nastya, B o t h 0B3T& s e e M em cHe H e#opa3yM eB H 8, x a x / t o e u s k g t o jim x , b c y m e o c r a , H e^ocTofiH O aaace B O cn o M H H a H H a , sacTasHUH Hropg HBanoaim n o u y sc x B O B a x b pyfiexc, o x fle ju n o n n ifi e r o o x x h s h u , n o w r a e M o I m m sa H acTO fim yio. B toM, Hacrosmei xhsbm n e e n p a& H ja& o c r& io cB o eft, npocroTofi, yao6cT B O M , a raasuHM o 6 p a3 0 M , oT cyrcxB H eM se jiH K o ro MHoxecxsa H eo»axaaH H i>ix h noBceM ecTH O Jto c a a c a a fo n p ix n o ap o feo crei H anoM H H aao C TporyK ) 3JCH0CT6 fiC T C K O i KHfflKKH. M m m f npocraa xhshb, o n a 6 u n a ra e -T O paflOM, w m rm e e m o k h o 6hao msSmomth. ( 1 1 4 ) Once again a l l the petty misunderstandings, each o f which in essence does not even be deserved to be remembered, forced Igor’ Ivanovich to feel the border separating his life from t h e lif e Ik considered to be the r e a l one. In that other, real life everything was reminiscent of the strict clarity o f a children’s b o o k — its correctness, simplicity, convenience, a n d above a ll t h e absence o f numerous unexpected a n d ever-present annoying details. That dear, simple life was somewhere nearby, sometimes he could even o b s e r v e it. ( 1 1 4 ) T h e life at th e b o u n d a r y t h a t c o n s titu te s th e e x is te n c e o f a m a r g in a l p e r s o n , th e insignificant little man who is one o f the m illio n s who wifi never be remembered by o f fic ia l h is to ry ', divides or separates him from t h e clarity o f a life t h a t can be explained a n d ju s t if i e d , the ideal life of the positive Soviet man— -Ironically modeled after the Socialist Realist positive hero.9 Moreover, that simple life is appealing; Igor’ Ivanovich craves the clarity o f life on the other side o f the b o u n d a r y . Yet, lie 9 For a description of the Socialist .Realist positive hero, see Katerina Clark's The Soviet Novel: History As Ritual, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 never doss attain it in the story, and this fact is presented as a positive aspect of Igor5 Ivanovich’s character. Thus the fantastic, a genre and narrative concept located outside o f real events and official history-telling, is equated with that which is inexplicable. Boundary locations play the most important role in this author’s conception as places where “life is compressed into super-dense m atter’ (97), or to borrow Gary Saul Morson’s expression, “the haze o f possibilities is thickened” This is akin to Hawthorn’s concept, mentioned in the second chapter of this dissertation, of the “paradox of explanation.” He advocates for a kind of historical explanation that does not reduce alternatives, ta t rather increases them; the quest to understand history is not about selecting and reducing historical material in the name o f explanation, but instead generating more material to attest to the impossible number of facts and details that existed at the margin, or border zone, of the system. An opposition is established by means of boundaries between that which can be and has been explained in an easy, official manner and that which is complex, inexplicable, and confusing, attributable to first causes that are impossible to trace. On one side o f the boundary, clarity and order reign, and on the other, confusion and the unknown. Kuraev, intuitively or otherwise, understands that the concept of boundaries is essential to an analysis ofhistory as a complex system, and Ms naming o f Ms genre as fantastic is thus not accidental or solely aesthetic. Kuraev’s “ view ofhistory reveals the intrinsic complexity ofhistory itself) under which the picture cannot be reduced into a simple, caese-and-effect. linear narrative of what happened. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 Phenomena are too complex to break down into simple explanations, as much as we may seek them, and as much as the official Soviet approach to history insisted on viewing them that way. An understanding ofhistory is only possible through examination of joint action of ail the processes that create it, including existing circumstances, laws, government, narrative, and individual people. Things are fantastic that exist or can be explained only in relation to other things over which we have no control—the prime example being other free individuals—and this is what it means to be constrained by boundary conditions in the sense described by chaos theory when applied to literary thinking. Life and history are complex entities and are shown, in the novel to have a fantastic quality in that they cannot be completely explained; their existence along the boundaries or margins o f what is official and what is not reflects the creative freedom o f individuals in history and the absence of official control over historical events and individuals. Entering the Discussion on Historiography But what sense is there in picking the bones ofhistory if you can’t find the answer to the simplest question there: why is it that a fantastic fate is given to certain people or, for example, certain towns, and not to others? - — Mikhail Kuraev, Captain Dikshtein Kaplan Dikshtein is a metsMstorieal novella; as it tells history, it also enters into the dialog—a strong tradition for many Russian writers—about how history is and should be told, and what constitutes history. Yet, the simple plot does not serve Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 merely as an opportunity to tell what happened at Kronstadt and in the town of Gatchina —i.e., the novella is not just a pretext for retelling and revising history— thus the perception by critics mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that the tale enters into a more nuanced discussion of history than other perestroika works. Having come into being by the force of a historical event, the new Dikshtein is shown to be organically connected with the events that constituted the Kronstadt mutiny as well as events in Gatchina’s history, and is indeed inseparable from them—even up through his old age. In this work, history is not told so readers can find out the Truth about what happened; history is told so readers can consider who they have come to be—probe into the depths of the personal and group identity that they have acquired in their interaction with historical events. The bond between the individual and the historical event, moreover, is shown to be a social place where culture, or group identity, is also formed. Captain Dikshtein is a metahistorical work because it examines what makes up the history of the Kronstadt uprising and of the town of Gatchina and how their stories came to be told. In his telling of historical events, Kuraev enters into a discussion with Russian writers of the past about the making and writing down of history. Historical discourse, in the traditional sense, comes into question, and the stuff history is made of and how its threads are woven together come under scrutiny. Kuraev rejects the conventional method of transmitting history used by historians— i.e., selecting a few key events and synthesizing them in such a way as to maintain a large-scale, linear, cohesive, and coherent narrative about the past—yet he does not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 at all suggest that history is unattainable or unrepresentable in its essence, In the work, Kuraev enters into this discussion primarily by engaging with the views of Tolstoy; as he does this, the writing ofhistory is problematized, local events are given greater significance than large-scale ones, and the problem of the great man or leader in history is raised. These three themes are the primary vehicle through which the work enters into the discussion ofhistory making that has long been a part of the Russian literary tradition. The individual in history: order and disorder exposed In a passage that seems at face value more preMstoricai than historical, the narrator questions whether Gatchina has a history and why the first man named the lake Khotchino. He continues with the comment “Grunya a o c t e b h ji hem aaragouHoe caosqo cjio b h o ynpeK namefi ropflocm, nameMy yMemfio b c c nomrrfe h ofiM C H H T fc” (36) [“He has rotted and left us the puzzling word as a reproach to our pride, to our ability to understand and explain everything”] (38). There is a first cause here, a reason why the lake is named as it is. The first man decided that ft should be so. But our inclination to felly explain everything is misled. The pride that comes with making things clear carries with it the dangerous satisfaction that allows us to forget the complexity of events. In doing so, we forget the stories of individuals like Nastya and cheat memory out o f deference to history . Throughout the work Kuraev reveals clarity, order, and understanding to be negative values, The primary means by which lie accomplishes this is irony. In a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22! passage where the sailor and the original Dikshtein come into tangential contact, he muses: 3imeh caMoe B p e M sr yga3ara m to, wto xora nyfeTMi 6hh, b OTJnraie o t Hropa IfeaHOBHna, m craraHM a pocjihm n y ea y Hero He b npmiep xuaeHBKoa nopocjiH xpaaHTena Soesaiiaca pocjin rycTO, tcm He Menee cxoflcrsa b h h x 6tmo 6oji&ines hcm mofjio noicaaaTtca Ha n e p s a i b sfjiss, Cxosctbo eocroajio b tom, *rro otdt, c MaHaojiHHoi, hm w o He noHHMaji, x o t« h jsyt&an, wto JioHHMaex ace, h 6 h h nepenojiaeH 3 H T y 3 H H 3 M O M . A HTOpB IfeaHOBiPI H pO C TO HHuero H C n O H H M aJI, X Q T fl h qyBCTBOBasi im aym m E m cm M cbohm jmom, h to sa s a jp a io i cropoHofi C 0 6 hTHS e C T fe K S K O fi-T O CKpMTHi O T Hero M exaHH3M , X O fl aefiCTBHS K O T O p O IO O H H B K 8 I C H6 M O T H H p a C C U H T a V fc, H H B H TO CJfflTb, a H O T O M y H 6hJI, kbk Bceiyp, aanex o t fiypmax smoipiS. H sooSm e b ipeT&ei Kouerapxe p a p ra a nojm as xchocts* oTHocHTeafeHO sajifcH eium x n y x e i H cxopra no,a BorpTemcTBOM tojibko h to oSpasoeaHHoro KpOBMTtyp'CKoro “peBKOMa”, Budpmmero mm npoHHOcm M e c T O M C Boero fiaaapoBaiiM “CeBacTonoa&? ’, Tams Qmsocrh k BJiacra smmam coaaamie c o M H e H H H , a ceppte K O J ie S a u H H . (67-8) TMs is the time to point out that although the scalplock, as opposed to Igor’ Ivanovich, was both stately and tall, and Ms mustache, unlike the scanty beard o f the ammunition custodian, was thick, there was nevertheless more similarity between them than might appear at first glance. The similarity lay in the fact that the one with the mandolin didn’t understand anything, although he thought that he understood everything and was filled to bursting with enthusiasm. And Igor’ Ivanovich simply didn’ t understand anything period, although lie sensed w ith Ms semi-technical mind that behind the visible part o f the events there was some mechanism hidden from him, the fiinction o f which he could neither calculate nor compute, and therefore b e w a s, as always, Jar removed from stonsy emotions. Generally speaking, in the No.3 to iler room complete clarity reigned as far as the fiiture path ofhistory under the leadership o f the recently formed Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, the “Revkom”...(68) The irony here lies in the narrator’s assertion of similarity between the two heroes. and Ms pinpointing o f this similarity in a seemingly nonessential matter, the fact of their both lacking understanding—although the central issue is their altitude and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 reasons behind their inability to understand. The sailor with the mandolin, lacking serious education other than Bolshevik party indoctrination, thinks that he understands everything, and this attitude is prevalent among Ms comrades in ’ H ie No.3 boiler room, all o f whom are either for or against officialdom. The original Dikshtein, with Ms traditional, technical education, is educated enough to acknowledge that he cannot grasp what is going on, and attributes this to complexity concealed from Min, which cannot be calculated or computed. He also has tried to remain neutral towards Soviet power, so when the pendulum swings his comrades in the mutiny into opposition to Soviet power, he tries to Mde and focus on his job. He “aasH B aii cefi* coqyBCTByiomHM, ho ae yroH H aji K O M y ” (53) [“called himself a sympathizer but didn’t specify with whom”] (54), and is biding Ms time in the military, where ft is possible to at least work and be fed during hard times. The narrator describes this first Dikshtein as a hardworking, intelligent, conservative, and somewhat educated individual who tries to think for himself and uphold the code of values he has decided upon for himself He often shows Dikshtein’s interactions with others with some irony, but in these situations, the irony underlines the correctness of Dikshtein’s attitude and the closed-minded, boorish simplicity of those around him. This Dikshtein felt “He no ce6e, Korna oh cjttiinaji, mm noxBamnorca ySaitcTBOM no ySexscHino” (66) [“ill at ease when people bragged about killing out of conviction”] (67). The sailor who assumes DiksMelifs place, on the other hand, accepts the life ordered from above—including, in the passage just quoted, cheering for those who Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 are killing out of conviction. In fact, the plot of the entice novella revokes around Ms changing attitudes towards established order and Ms gradually increasing willingness to accept a degree of uncertainty without explanation as he himself is becoming Ms own person, an individual, and is pushed out o f the system—a process which is shown to somehow parallel the process of developing one's own identity and becoming an individual. In Ms first life, the sailor relies completely on order and explanation. He maintains strong political opinions (albeit not Ms own—they are dictated to Mm by the reigning political order) and attends political meetings that supposedly sort things out for the soldiers and are intended to more firmly establish order among the enlisted men. He accepts orderly clarity imposed from above even when he disagrees with it; that is, he accepts the system in which these things are valued, even when they unjustly threaten his life. At the moment when his name is called in the freezing bam again and again, and he is unable to respond because he is numb with cold, “o h noH H M aa, t o o t o o nocjxe#Hee, t o o o t Hero Tpefiyerca, h aaxe Hcnyraaea, t o o He cyueer t o o nocnesnee b m h o jih h th , aaropofiHjiai, naxaHHe npoBajffiJioc&” (102) “[[he] understood that this was the last thing that would be demanded o f him and he even got frightened that he wouldn’t be able to obey this last command; lie pressed himself, Ms breath failed”] (102). What he fears is Ms inability to comply with the powers that be, and the resulting disorder for Ms fife— even wMle on. the verge o f death. Hie discourse over order and disorder in Kapiton Dikshtein constitutes an important assertion in Kuraev’s discussion with Tolstoy. Tolstoy upholds a model Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 for human participation in history whereby individuals who understand the way the •world operates rightly lack initiative (because they have no Influence over events anyway), events that take place do so regardless of people’s actions, and intentions, plans, and orders are meaningless and irrelevant to what actually takes place in the end. In a bait-and-switch move, Kuraev allows the young scalplock to assert a traditional view of powers in war and history, but it is immediately invalidated by its absurdity; when talking to the fetter of his fianede about the navy and the war, he “rtaBaji ix o H H T b , hto srra paccraHOBica chji oraeuaeT K aK H M -T o ere, sal's, B aatH H M saM H C JiaM 5 ’ (64) [“let it be understood that this distribution, o f forces corresponded to some important design of Ms—the son-in-law’s—own”] (65). This ridiculous statement surprises the future in-laws, who are from a more educated background than the sailor courting their daughter. Here Kuraev is making fun of the little man acting as if he were directing things, and possibly even of the idea that any individual directs history (taking Tolstoy’s ideas to the extreme)—since there are mainly little men, and no great leaders, in the tale. Stalin is mentioned once, not in a discussion of leadership, but in an offhand mentioning o f his death being the only occasion the neighbors remember ever seeing Nastya cry. Even into his old age, the second Dikshtein engages in a constant struggle for order against disorder. He is a meticulous man, assigning reasons to minute details. He is fastidious and clings to method; this can be seen in Ms obsession with his broken grandfather clock, which he needs to tilt to one direction for it. to work at all, and anyway the time is incorrect. The former sailor possesses musical talent as well, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 Blit m spite of Ms deep desire to order Ms life to the utmost, Igor5 Ivanovich is faced with an obstacle when he assumes Ms new identity, S C eeb s w a x . 6h oflOJta»HHoi, se npraajpeacameft easy b nojiHoi Mepe 3 K H 3 H & I O , npefiMBa* b ro T O B H C C T H .name Bepuym ee no H3BecraoMy TpsSomBMm, Ifrop& Hbshobhh 6& ra jntnieH to fo rjiasnoro npemsxcTBHx, KOTopoe 6ojiHii0HCTBy Memaer oh tb oto^&mh uecra, t o cert c te b m tb nonoateHHwe csmhm ce6e n p asraa sam e npaBim, KOTOpwe npefpiHCHBaer eny aecaoTHSM xhsbh. (113) Living something like a borrowed life which didn’t wholly belong to him and being ready to return it under certain conditions, Igor5 Ivanovich was deprived of the main obstacle wMcti prevents the majority from being men of honor, namely placing one’s own roles higher than those prescribed him by the despotism o f life. (113) He cannot live the simple, clear life that those around Mm allow themselves to live, a life that is ordered and controlled, and this is shown to be a good thing. What has brought Mm to this point of ethical truth and kept Mm there is a growing awareness of some unknown and concealed order over which people have no control The “despotism o f life” takes the reins from mankind, but many choose to remain unaware of this. The mature Igor5 Ivanovich loves clarity, order, and explanation but understands a greater truth—that complexity reigns, evident in disorder, and that uncertainty must .inevitably rule over history. This conception ofMstory is evident in Karaev’s depiction o f the central event o f the work, the Kronstadt uprising, as welL Clear explanations and understanding taken, for granted, belie the nature o f history and are doomed. Tolstoyan devices abound in the depiction of the battle’s leadership and in the inability o f intentions, plans, and orders to direct the course o f events. Leadership on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 both sides is weak, if it can fee said to exist at s i; (he mutineers exemplify a chaotic arid disordered picture of the event, while the regime is portrayed as a M M order. Both are inadequate. Gaitsuk, senior artillery' commander on the side of the mutineers, comes to a . bad end during the battle: Ilep B H M BH C TpenoM m y n p o cT p en H JiH Hory, c^ e jia B s a x 6 h n p e a y n p e a c a e ir a e , no, necM O T ps he p a a y , FaiuyR m o c th k e H e noK H H yji w . npoaojixan K O M aH flO B axt, yoeaseHHHfi, m o h ero c y a b 6 a m cygfcfla P o c c h h p e m a e r c a ceinac ram, rae p B y r c s C H a p aa b i “CesacTonojK”. Toraa btophm B H c rp e jio M ero B ee-T m ® y fim ra . K c t u t h , nyjiH nonaua b p o t . (82) The first shot hit him in the leg, which was like a warning, but in spite o f Ms wound Gaitsuk didn’ t leave the bridge but continued to command, convinced that both Ms fate and the M e o f Russia were being decided precisely where the Sevastopol’s shells were bursting. Nevertheless he was then killed by a second shot. The bullet Mt him in the mouth. (82) Gaitsuk’s leadership and indeed Ms death fail to influence the outcome, and the narrator underlines tMs by means o f the contrast between Gaitsuk’s conviction of Ms own importance and the immediacy of Ms bad end in all its grapMc details. Indeed. death is the reward ibr fighting Soviet order, yet Gaitsuk is not depicted as a hero of m y sort, both because in this conception ofhistory, leaders have no influence, and because there is ambiguity over which side one should root tor. The actual danger here is flat Ms death wil! fail, to cany meaning. Leadership on. the regime’s side is no more effective. Parly delegates come to pet down the mutiny, resorting to the approach they are familiar with—they simply declare order and unity: KojiefijHomaaca e im a s KpoimiTaaTCKoro Msr&m s em eu necrpoM M HorajBoaerae Hernia b ce6e m an© onpeaeneHHocTH, h ch o cth m o^opMJieHHOcra. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 E i npoTHBOcroajia cpaBHHT6n&HO M ajiouHCJieHHas, h o M O H O JM T H a a h HecoEpynmMaa: oprauHsamia. Camue c t o I k h s h HecrafiaeMiae 6 o 1 h h , h b c t napTUH. ee w m rap ji m bojkskh, ceitperapii i|K h Ijp K JC , hjichh PeBBoeHcosera, ceKpeTapa ryfiK O M Q B , npeAce^aTejm hchojikomob, jcoMaasapH h K O M H c c a p w jubhshI h d o j ik o b, scypHaxiHciH, imcarejiH psaoBHMi cojigaxaftoi c o h h ih aa lies # H H 3 a jiH B a 5 eras u p o B O ^ H H R a M H e/PHoI h HecraoaeMoi bom. (89-90) The wavering elements in the Kronstadt mutiny carried within their motley mass little certainty, clarity or structure. They were opposed by a comparably small bat monolithic and invincible organization. The staunchest and most inflexible fighters, the flower o f the Party, its vanguard and leaders, secretaries of the Central Committee and the Central Control Committee, members of the revolutionary War Committee, secretaries o f the district committees, chairmen of the executive committees, commanders and commissars of divisions and regiments, journalists and writers all went down onto the ice on the Finnish Gulf as rank and file soldiers, having become the bearers of a united and inflexible will. (89) But words and declarations have little power in this historical event. These forces are nearly wiped out during the battle and are later referred to as the “paaSinyio CBoaayio (92) [“broken United Division”] (92), Most o f them were killed in battle, and even though the Soviets won, “Ilofienjrrejiefi k oxoMy speMeHH na ©expose 6m jk> MenBine, usm nodeapteHHHx” (94) [“there were fewer victors than defeated left on the island”] (94). The 28-year-old commander o f the Western front is satirized because despite Ms youth he “aepxaji b pyxax see h h th fioeBwx aeiCTBBH upoxuB M X xesH H R O B” (88) f'lield in Ms hands all the strings o f military action against 'the mutineers”] (88) when the events depicted reveal that no strings were being held by anyone at all The entire battle is based on a false leader, a false order, a false clarity, a false truth. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 Kuraev writes a history of things not going as they were supposed to, as planned or predicted. His history is comprised almost exclusively o f mistakes and failures of all sorts. His work is complex because it does not attempt to show right and wrong from a simple anti-Soviet perspective, Soviet order is satirized, but those who opposed Soviet order and tried to explain things in a different way—the mutineers—are also satirized for offering clear and simple solutions—which could not be effective, Igor* Ivanovich the artillery custodian, “hoctoshho h s x o « h ji cxo^cxsa b ijpjfeMax h cpegcxBajg k kgiopkm npnberara upoiH BocTO sm M e cropoHH. H m c h h o b 3tom ,ayxe coSbitm pasBmamch mo noejieflHero a m -" (81) [“constantly found similarities between the methods and means employed by the opposing sides. It was precisely in this spirit that events continued to develop up until the very last day5 ’ ] (81). Kuraev makes it clear that any order of the old Mud Involving simple explanations will fail because o f the Tolstoyan principle that events happen due to the unpredictable actions o f hundreds of thousands of individuals rather than as a direct consequence o f orders and plans. Individuals cannot be reduced to simple explanations in terms o f Mack and white categories defined by established powers or they fail to be true individuals. Understanding, enlightenment, rationality and clarity cannot explain the meaningful things in history or interpret meaning. What Is called for is a different kind of measurement, a new order. Gatchina, and other marginal places, along with Dikshtein and other marginalized people and events, are where we must took to find true understanding, negotiation between order and disorder, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 explanation and the unknown. The edges, the frayed areas around tbs outside of the tapestry o f history, are where the threads begin and end. While Kuraev’s accepts Tolstoy’s views on history to some extent, there is no suggestion of moral superiority belonging to those who abandon action because they believe the course of events to 'be inevitable; in fact, the people who believe in fate are shown to be wrong (Gaitsuk, the United Front, etc.) Instead, Dikshtein grows is moral capacity as he comes to realize the importance of his individual actions and words in whatever sphere of influence they exist, however small The implication of this is that as Russia’s new histories are written, the complex being o f the individual must be addressed in order for Russia to enter a new period in cultural identity and history. Repudiating the old, familiar and reductive Soviet value system with a new, equally simplistic and reductive anti-Soviet ideology will not suffice. Closed Time and Open Time: on the Problems o f Utopian Thinking What happened to have happened later was not somehow already present in what was happening then. —Gary Saul Morson, “For the Time Being” Kuraev’s emphasis on the roof structure o f events and people that constitute history has fer-reaching Implications for the use that can be made ofhistory and the way history is understood in Russian culture. As I argue above, one of the author’s intentions seems to be to counter official Soviet approaches to history; moreover, the assumptions he makes cast at feast a specter of doubt on some critics’ tendency to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 associate Mm with postmodernist ways o f thinking as well The underlying problem with both of these approaches can be found—ironically, since they position themselves in opposition to each other-— in their common view ofhistory as a closed system rather than as a temporal process (or endless series of present moments), in relation to which they place themselves at the end. Communism and postmodernism consider themselves to be at a privileged point at the end ofhistory, from which they can. make judgments about the past and be assured that no new events will need to be considered. This perspective is characteristic of utopian thinking. The underlying temporality o f Soviet ideology is highly teieological and deterministic. To the Soviet mind, history is a done deal, and all past events have led inexorably to the present moment, socialism. Outcomes ofMstorical events could not have been different than they came out to be, since they all had to end up at a pre-scripted point, communism. This system privileges the present over the past, assumes that all past moments have led to the extant present, and that things could not have been any other way. Such a temporality closes time and space to influence by free subjective agents, since their wills cannot be truly free. A utopian view o f the past is incorrect because it “forgets” that every given past moment was at one time present, and therefore open to countless forces that determine the course history will take, and especially to the freedom of the individual human will that decides on individual actions. For what shapes the course of events but free human agency, the composite of countless actions and decisions of individuals? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 Literary theorists have noted the typical but incorrect orientation of literature that gives the illusion that the future is foreseen by the past. This easy determinism implies that what exists today has come about as a result of a past that inevitably had to lead to this present. Morson writes that the result “is a spurious sense of a direction to history, as if the seeds of later events were present in earlier ones” ( .Narrative and Freedom 243). Contemporary Russian cultural theorist Mikhail Epstein insightfully discusses the similarities between Soviet ideology and postmodern thinking, arguing that both can be described as utopian, in that they presuppose a positive value to the inevitable outcome o f the end to history—the present. Both locate themselves at the end of time, considering themselves futures attained and not to be overcome. Epstein writes that “Utopianism imposes a certainty on the future and presents it as an obligation and .necessity rather than a possibility” (334). Epstein’s argument is that postmodernism, in its reaction to utopianism, toms itself into a utopian mode of discourse. To the 'utopian mind, The future was...definite, attainable, and realizable; in other words, it was given attributes o f the past. Postmodernism, with its aversion to utopias, inverted the signs and reached for the past, but in doing so, gave it the attributes of the fixture: indeterminateness, incomprehensibility, polysemy, and the ironic play o f possibilities. The phases of time have been castled. But this postmodern replacement of the future by the past is in no way better than the avant-garde replacement of the past by the fixture. In revealing the indeterminateness of meaning in the classical texts of the past, deconstruction reveals itself to be the mirror image of avant-garde constructivism, which posited rigid and absolute meanings in an as yet unconstituted future. (330) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 Epstein comments that perhaps the main difference between postmodernism and other utopianisms is that “previous utopias were more or less oriented toward the future, while postmodernism, in its repulsion o f the future, is a utopia of the eternal present, o f endlessly playful self-repetition” (332). According to him, both postmodernism aid avant-gardism are “winding down without a winner” in Russia because o f their inner limitations and their inability to posit any alternative, something new for the future. Epstein characterizes this something new by the prefix “proto-,” defined as “a beginning thus understood as leading to an open future and manifesting possibilities for continuation and an impossibility o f ending” (331). The main problem with utopian, or closed temporality, is historical inaccuracy, in that it “prescribefs] the past by means of its own future, thereby creating the illusion that the future is foreseen by the past” (Epstein 338). Both Epstein and Morson discuss this problem in connection with the nature of time. Time, they claim, is asymmetrical. It has an inherent direction in that we experience its directedness as going only one way. Epstein illustrates this by pointing out the self-irony of finality in postmodernism’s announcement of the end of time (331), since tilings that have come after this announcement cannot be ignored. Time has passed. He argues that to “conceive o f‘beginning’ and ‘end,’ as necessarily symmetrical and correlative, is to distort the asymmetrical nature o f time. Time belongs to the condition of tincompletedness, the preeminence ofbeginnings over ends” (331). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233 B e g in n in g s show time open into an unknown future. Morson, in a similar vein, writes that Because of this directedness in time, action taken to affect the past is senseless, whereas we feel that action taken to affect the future is, if uncertain in result, at least not absurd in principle. We make the effort. The past is over and las left its traces, but the time to come has not yet had a chance to do so. As a result, we are aware that one consequence of the anisotropy (directedness) of time is am asymmetry in knowledge: we know a lot more about the past than about the future.. .because we know the past is already accomplished, whereas we anticipate a future still being shaped. (Morson 46) Epstein recommends replacing finality with initiation as our primary mode of thinking about culture, designating such a mode “proteism, after his prefix “proto-.” Rather than “impospng] a certainty on the future and present[ing] it as an obligation and necessity,” Epstein wants to view the future as a possibility, and “expectation without determination” (334-5). Interpretation of the past is o f key significance in literature on historical themes. Historical fiction that operates within the temporality described above must take the convictions o f anti-utopian thinking a step further in that it does not simply deny totality, but it attempts to provide a different paradigm for understanding past time. Such a new paradigm will provide a space for a new and different type of literature that reflects on the very openness o f time and history. Edith Clowes, borrowing from Morson, describes one such mode of thinking and its manifestation In recent Russian literature as “meta-Utopian.” Clowes, in her 1993 book Russian Experimental Fiction: Resisting Ideology after Utopia, has cogently argued for the existence of a new genre o f writing and, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234 more importantly, a “social consciousness involving social and cultural pluralism” (4 n) that she calls “ineta-ntopian” fiction, Meta-utopian fiction “is positioned on the borders o f the utopian tradition and yet mediates between a variety of utopian modes” (4), This type of fiction snakes utopia its theme and serves primarily as a cultural means of generating alternatives to existing utopias. In examining the function o f this body of literature in the context o f prevalent ideological frameworks, Clowes comes to the conclusion that meta-Utopian fiction takefs] note of the proliferation o f ...different social attitudes, standing on the interface of dominant utopian ideologies, juxtaposing them, revealing the hidden similarities behind their more obvious, mutually adversarial programs, thus opening a neutral space that permits the emergence of other possible patterns of social practice!.] The term meta-utopian best emphasizes this challenge not just to one kind of utopia but to a whole array of social constructs available in the Russian heritage. [5-6] With some reservation about the potential for such fiction to dissolve into disorganized relativism or mini-totalitarianisms, Clowes asserts that at least meta- utopian thinking tries to achieve pluralist discourse through its “inherent effort to bring about a confrontation of opposing ideologies,” and that ft “promises a broadening of the social horizon” (9). The view ofhistory in Captain Dikshtein,, with its focus on the root structure o f historical events, portrays history as an open temporal process while rejecting utopian and anti-utopian approaches to history, preferring what Edith Clowes refers to as “metar-utopian” thinking. The following passage encapsulates Karaev's ironic negotiation and mediation between the two prevalent theoretical perspectives that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 have been the subject of this section, Soviet socialist realism along with the concom itant field sphere of Soviet academic historiography, and postmodern discourse. Jlojiaraio, m o m m scm oM m m m m m x Hrops l&aHOBiwa /iHKnrreiHa jnraHo jie*HT u p m c M m u u m o Q m m n o c m b coxpaaBTB ot aafiaesH M nepTH aejiOBeica, Koioporo ^aKnmecKH K aK 6h hc 6h jio, h to, coficTBCHHO, if cocrasH iio 6 u HpHBJieKaxejiiH&nl ^ aH T acrm ecicH i aaeMeHT BCJBtoro noB ecT B O B am w o hcm. H c K o a a a o e nycT B n e n j » 3 B y w r y n p e x o M b HopasHTCJifeHOl cjieuoxe ToraauraHM jinrepaTypKHM m x y /p x e c is e in iH M aBTOpHTCTOM, HC COXpaHHBHI»f HH O SSO FO npHXH3HeHB©F0 HOpTpCTa H r o p a MBanoBirxa. % pasyM eerca, o to a e y n p ex b jto m a ir r a e c K o f i npH sepxeH H O C T H k K aH o am ecK O M y rany re p o s , S iiaro aap a K oxopoM y h c y m e c T B y e r ochobhm M a c c a rnmpsxypu h xhbohhcb. H ro p & Hm-hobot: H e c o f i a p a e r c s hmkofo tcchhti* h saH H M axn mbc-to mbcto, sasas ooth- e«HHCTBCHHHi p®3 B JKH3HH nyX O C , CK8X6M TSK, M6CTO, OH JXO H H X O n$. 6ojiMue HHKoro H e t c c h h j i, hm H a m o H e nperew pB an h , crporo r o s o p a , Mecra soofime He saHHMan. CoScTBeuHo, noacMy x e aeiioBei, KOTOporo ew e, moxbt oKaaamca, h H e 6hho bobcc, B^pyr HpetennyeT aa mm-m vm M w m l Huh Mmvh ocjtynena repoaMH?! Mjih aaxop yace cobcom. ., Her, a e h s nocxetnrax Hropt Hbshobm! He a s nooie^HHx!.. .Cyzpne crnei: K p o M © oaHoi-eainiciBeHHoi Taftm, o Eoropol h cam o h k Kosny kmsbm m m w saSua, secb o h 6mh m p m r n m n h s o ompm: bo a c e ! CBoei cipacTHOcra, h c k p c h h o c th h mmomyamocm. H to a s roro, h to cTpacra ero oxBamBajiH, n p «M O cK aateM , EeSommme npocrpaHCTBa, H C K p e H H o c T E Kaeaaac-b nper^eTOB, m s lipaBHJio, M ano 3a#eBaK>nptx apsaie HHxepecH, a nogieynaTb ero h h k to sa bck> xhshb H e r i& r r a jiC H , w m ms m m ? P a s ie H C K p e H H O c r fc , crpacTHOcrB h HenoaKyimocrb o t 3 m m ynam b a c n e , mjih H8M CTaner npome a a lx H nenoBeica, b k o to p o m 6 m em e rax ace cnacTJiH Bo Tpu 3 th x xaaecria 6 h o t 6h coenjiHeHM HMecre? He n o K p H B H B j^ ia o i, Modmmo & o to m j h c c th o c tb , aofipory, npaMo^yniHe h ofiocrpenHoe h y b c tb o cnpaBe^JiHBOcrH. M oiter S m tb , h m m ® m ejio, h t© 6 h m p m s e m B H H M a H H e k repoio H eK aH O H araecK oro Tima? Ho 6ojiee scero nottBHraei k xpyay naM srrfc o mvxux jiemonucifax— rex csmmx, mto Moanax, B'amaaaa, a nocae, yfiexaeHHwe b SecaeaHofi safiHBHHBOcra, uamiHaioT cohhh8Tb cy^bfiy noKolHHKa, coofimaioT o bcm C O M B H T eJJbH H © C H yX B H C B eflgH H * JU K I, XJXC T O l’ O , BM epKHBaiOT C T O H 3 H C T O p H H B O B C C . (11-12) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 I suppose that each, person who knew Igor" Ivanovich Dikshtein personally has a moral obligation to preserve from oblivion the features of this man. who factually didn't exist. This would actually constitute an attractive fantastic element is any narration about him. And this observation isn’t intended as a reproach to the literary and artistic authorities of those days for their remarkable blindness in not preserving a single sketch from the life o f Igor" Ivanovich. And it is, of course, not a reproach to the dogma of a canonical type of hero who provides the bulk of our literature and painting. Igor’ Ivanovich doesn’t intend to push anyone out or assume anyone’s place. Having only once in his life assumed someone else’s place, so to speak, he never again pushed anyone out, never made any claims, and, strictly speaking, didn’t occupy any space at ail. Actually, why should a man who, it might turn out, didn’t even exist suddenly claim everyone’s attention? Or aren’t there any heroes around? Or is the author completely... No, Igor’ Ivanovich wasn’t just anybody, no, not just anybody... Judge for yourself: except for a single secret that he himself had almost forgotten toward the end of his life, he was remarkably open in Ms fervor, sincerity, and integrity. So what if Ms emotions occupied, frankly, a very small space, and his sincerity concerned things that didn’ t excite anyone else’s interest, and no one ever tried to bribe him So what? Do sincerity, fervor, and integrity really lose their value because o f this, or does it make it easier for us to find a man in whom these three qualities were joined together so successfully? I wouldn’t be acting against my conscience if I added to this honesty, goodness, frankness and an acute sense of justice. Perhaps this is still not enough to attract us to a hero who isn’t of the canonical type? But most of all it’s the memory o f the quiet chroniclers that moves me to this labor—those who stay silent and wait, and later, when they are convinced that unconcerned forgetfulness reigns, they begin to compose the fate o f the dead man, report suspicious rumors and information about him, or, worst o f all, erase him altogether from history. (65) To expose the layers of meaning here, it is possible to analyze the means by which the author juxtaposes and negotiates among Soviet literary and historiographical paradigms and practices, and in the end shows them to be suspect. He starts out by claiming a moral obligation to do what m one has done: to preserve the life story, the personal history, o f a humble, honest and sincere, albeit insignificant Russian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 man possessing integrity, He then justifies Ms motivations vis-fovis his ideological opponents. He claims that Ms undertaking is not designed as a reproach to those who were simply ignorant and felted to preserve Ms story for its seeming lack of significance, nor to those who promote the canonical hero, which Dikshtein is not (Soviet socialist realists). Further down, he asserts that Ms most forceful motivation is to preserve Dikshtein from those who believe they can rewrite a person’s history and thereby change its essence or even delete it and make it as if it had never happened. These comments could be directed at anyone who works in a utopian mode: the Soviet writers who wrote literature to create their ideal hero for life, Soviet historians who rewrote history to create and preserve communist hegemony, or the Russian postmodernists who, like their western counterparts, find that reality is mediated by language, and by extension, would find that Dikshtein’s very existence is doubtful because it can only be accessed through language. According to what is written and official, Dikshtein did not exist. In this sense, Kuraev plays in this passage with discourse that some interpret as postmodernist. His language both asserts and questions the existence o f Dikshtein. It also shows a preoccupation with space; Igor’ Ivanovich is said to not occupy any space at all, and his emotions to occupy very little space. Preoccupation with space, margins, and boundaries, forgetfulness, erasure, and even marginal characters with little power, is characteristic of postmodern literary discourse. The author states with irony that Dikshtein didn’t actually exist because Ms existence remained unofficial; Ms Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 existence was at the margins or boundaries ofhistory and official Soviet life and in this sense is fantastic. He also doesn't exist because History chooses to exclude him. That tliis problem is embedded in a fictional, rather than a historical text only adds, somewhat self-ironically, a layer of ambiguity and textual play. Finally, the narrator claims to have a moral obligation, to tel! the history of tWs man, whom he knows to have existed and whose story he feels is indeed worthy of preservation. In juxtaposing these prevailing attitudes towards historical and literary discourse, an outline o f Kuraev’s alternative approach becomes visible. If we return briefly to a section previously discussed, in which Anastasia Petrovna’s personal history is being told, Kuraev’s dialog with both Soviet and post- structuralist MstoriograpMcal discourses can be underscored; He 6yaeM ikwbiiiit& Hcxopaio, ©na y®e upomom m, a e l BBRonta ae cran. hhoI. ckojmcq 5u ee hh nepeimcHBajni, He SyaeM cnennm . xot« 6 h H3 ysaxeHM k reu, y koto He fituio h He Syaex h h o I khshh, KpoMe toS, hto HO CTajiacfe.„[17] We won’t speed up history, it has already happened and it can never become different no matter how many times it is rewritten. We will not hurry, if only out o f respect for those who did not have and will not have any other life than the one they were given. [20] In these few lines, the sketch o f a philosophy ofhistory is drawn, one that enters into a discussion both with the Soviet tradition in Russian literature and historiography and with contemporary postmodernist notions ofhistory making. Tfee narrator expresses a firm belief that what has happened has happened, that it matters, and that it is to some extent accessible through localized retelling and personal histories. History itself does not change, no matter how the story is told, even if what happened Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 is difficult to access because it is mediated by language. To revise history is not necessarily to claim that all attempts to find and interpret historical meaning must 'be deconstructed; thus it would be a stretch to identify this as a postmodernist w o rt Regardless o f a lack o f knowledge on. the part o f those who come later, and despite varying accounts of the course of events, omission and mistakes have no effect on the truth of what happened—and to take history away from individuals who experienced it is to walk off with something o f essentia! value that belongs to someone else. The Warp, and. Weave, of History, or BushuevshcMna vs. Yezfaovsfacfaina As an alternative to traditional narrative and selective methods of accounting for the past criticized by Tolstoy and by postmodernist historiography, by which the most important or cataclysmic historical events are focused on to the exclusion of local events, the author returns to the events o f the past and analyzes them into the smallest and least complex units that comprised them: individuals and the small decisions they made, along with the seemingly insignificant actions they undertook. Here events are not necessarily explicable in terms of cause and effect; it would be more accurate to say that a sense of confusion, the unknown, and the inexplicable seems to prevail over clarity and reason. History is shown, as it were, not as a linear narrative of a . past for which all decisions are inevitably done deeds, but in its presentness, dominated by uncertainty and its mirror image, possibility. In this aspect, Kuraev's views resonate with Tolstoy’s discussion ofhistory in War and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 Peace, where history is depicted in its most chaotic manifestation, with small., individual actions influencing the course of larger historical events and leaders’ actions so powerfully that explanations of what happened in important historical events are impossible. For Tolstoy, nothing in history can be explained by human decisions or actions. Individual historical leaders, especially the most powerful ones, have little or no freedom to make choices that influence the course of events; instead, they are constrained by the choices made available to them as their situation is influenced by the actions of others. The total force of all individual wills moves history, not the actions or decisions o f a so-called great leader. Furthermore, a teleological determinism is in force, whereby divine power and knowledge operate in history and render individual human beings incapable o f knowing or influencing events. Early in the narrative, Kuraev’s take on a Tolstoyan interaction between local and national histories comes into focus. From the first scene, in which Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein wakes up and gets ready to go out, several historical allusions are made that suggest, albeit with a hint of irony and the comical, the scale of historical events the tale is interested in. First, there is the strange confluence that Dikshtein’s own insignificant little man’s head, bald since 35, is in this respect similar to that o f the important historical figure Henry III o f England, “a fact Igor Ivanovich did not even suspect” (62). Important, imperial things are also brought into ‘ the discission but looked, st in their least significant details here; the narrator notes Dikshtein’s sideboard that he asserts once held a cup from Emperor Paul’s court service. Moving Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 to things, events, and persons Soviet, the narrator notes the capitalists and landowners who have been swept out onto the garbage dumps ofhistory, and continues with a summary statement that IIoHffrae “exoBuiHHa”, a s m 3yM%n>, jm c m m m o m m m m m e m HCHepraisaiome oiracaHHoe b cooxseTciByiom eft JiBTepaiype, upoJiHBaer c b ct Ha MHoxeci’ B O ooaceroB, jiexaigHX h s ofiouHne HCTOpiwecKoro n y ra, h ecjiH Tpedyei xaxoro-ro aonojimiTejitHoro HccJiejtonauM, Tax tojibko “6yinyeBmHHa”, to ecr& “eacoBimiHa” b panicax o^Horo OTAejiemia M H J IH U H H - [16] The concept o f Yezhovshchina has, one would think, been sufficiently illuminated and exhaustively described in the relevant literature; this concept sheds light on numerous subjects lying beside the road ofhistory and if anything needs additional research, then it would be only “Bushuevshchina,” that is “Yezhovshchina” within the boundaries o f one separate military district. (69) With this statement, the author transitions from the frame narrative to the beginning of his historical presentation, confirming the reader's suspicions that the tale will delve into historical themes, while at the same time justifying the focus on the smallest unit o f historical agency, the individual. Kuraev’s choice o f the Kronstadt uprising—a historical moment that “started with everyone trying to forget these events” (96)—as the focus o f his short novella lays a foundation for the particular understanding ofhistoiy that is presented in it. Indeed, the author only comes to the narration o f events at Kronstadt in a roundabout way. After the meandering frame narrative in which Igor5 Ivanovich dreams, gets up, washes the bottles, and leaves Ms house, the narrator jumps to third-person historical narration. But the first histories to 'be introduced are not those o f important people and major events in Soviet history and politics. Rattier, the narrator begins. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 immediately upon Igor’ Ivanovich's departure from Ms doorstep, to narrate the histories of Nastya and Gosha, Igor's wife and himself, and then that of the town of Gatchina—all before he tells the readers anything about Kronshtadt The narrator constantly asserts the value of these seemingly insignificant or irrelevant histories. It is said of the neighbor lady, known only as Yermolai Pavlovich’s wife, (“mhmo K O T O p o S ne npoxo^mio h h o^ho HcnopmecKoe c o Sm tm s” (26)) [that she “didn’ t miss a single historic event”] (78). By this it is meant that she is a gossip, on the one hand, but on the other it is implied that the everyday events o f people’s lives are meaningful to those around and constitute an irreducible unit of Mstoiy. After mentioning that Igor’ Ivanovich’s childhood “ moSmoseuio c o Shthsmh npesB&raalHO opmffiapHHMn” (28) (“abounded in extremely ordinary events,”(81)) the narrator proceeds to discuss several of these in depth and detail. By attributing historical value to what are traditionally considered minor events or the everyday, Kuraev presents a bifurcated definition of Mstoiy. First, there Is History, that Is, what would 'be told if someone were asked to tel! the Mstoiy of Russia or o f any other country. On the other hand, there is Mstoiy, the unassuming conglomeration of events and actions that is usually labeled as the ordinary course of things, and that usually fails to make it into the history books. The personal histories of individual people and the local histories of small towns would M l into the latter category. Ira this respect, Kuraev responds to Tolstoy’s views about history writing and history making—especially the tetter’s view that historians describe not how things actually were, but how they were planned, and that history is mediated by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 writers who haw interests and biases/0 - - — by showing that a level o f official History exists, and that ft may indeed be' largely false, but that it exists alongside the other histories, those local events and tellings that carry historical meaning. One of the first instances of personal history-telling in the tale begins with the individual and raises immediately the question o f what constitwt.es history and the problem ofhow history has usually been written, for after announcing his program of Bushuevshchina, the author returns to the garbage dumps ofhistory' to begin a salvage operation of the personal history o f Anastasia Petrovna, Igor’ Ivanovich’s wife. After relating part of the story o f how her family ended up in Gatchina, he writes: Tax BOT i c a K Haora h Hropn Mb3hobhh o K a sa ra c B b FaxnHHe? O Hex, c t o jib nocnenmoe xipetuiojioxeuMe Moxcer B 0 3 H H K H y n > jihihb na npsM OJiHHeiHHx nyrax H C T opE raecK oro cosnaBiw—paa h ot npocro npn oxcyrcTBHH ^aHra3HH—asa. He 6yM em uoffrowm> HCTopmo, ohs yace npoH3oinjia, a efi H H X orqa ae craxB h h o I , ckojibko 6h ee He nepenHCHBajm. He SypeM cneinim . xots 6m m ysaxeHBH k Teat, y m m ae 6hjio h m e 6y$er hhoh xwmu, xpoMe to I, u t o ^ o c T a jia c B . .. ( 1 7 ) So this is how Nastya and Igor Ivanovich ended up in Gatchina? Oh no, such a hasty assumption can arise only once on the rectilinear paths of historical consciousness, or perhaps twice—if imagination is lacking. We won’t speed up history, it has already happened and it can never become different no matter how many times it is rewritten. We will not hurry, if only out o f respect for those who did not have and will not lave any other life than the one they were given, [Kapitan Dikshtein 70] It is simplistic to think that anyone’s story is so simple as to be easily explained in a few sentences. If we lack imagination, we might be able to satisfy ourselves with 1 0 For a feller discussion ofTolstoy’s views, see- Gary Saul Morson’s books, especially Hidden in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 simple explanations, But the “rectilinear paths of historical consciousness” are reductive versions o f cause and effect in history, pallid attempts to explain something that cannot really be explained easily at all To explain someone’s life as a linear, cause-and-effect type narrative would be to cheat that person out of the fuller and more significant aspects of his/her life. In these few lines, the beginning o f a philosophy of history is formulated, one that enters into a discussion both with the Tolstoyan tradition in Russian literature and with contemporary postmodernist notions of history making. The narrator expresses a firm belief that what has happened has happened, that it matters, and that it is to some extent accessible through localized retelling and personal histories. History itself does not change, no matter how the story is told, even if what happened is difficult to access because it is mediated by language. To revise history is not necessarily to claim that all attempts to find and interpret historical meaning must be deconstructed; it is a stretch to identify this as a postmodernist work. Regardless of a lack of knowledge on the part of those who come later, and despite varying accounts of history and, omission and mistakes have no effect on the truth of what happened—and to take history away from individuals who experienced it is to walk off with something of value that belongs to someone else. The telling of the history of Gatchina, which like the history of individuals in the tale precedes the Kronstadt episodes, represents another meeting place of two Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in War and Peace, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 types o f history, local and national, in the novella, because although it is a small town, it has been a regular destination o f the imperial family and thus has become a component part o f Russia’s official History: IlloccelHas Ropora or Cuosgmckbx sopor m lore mo HureSyprcKHX aa eesepe pas/tejraa Ymmmy Ha /p e nepaBHHe uacra, h ccjih n poeipaH C T B O BJieso o t jtopora, Benymefi b cto jih h j, moscho 6mjio 6 h no npasy Ha3Ban> H C T O pH H eC K H M , TRG B C C 3HawreJIBHHe CTpoeHHS H C O fifc lT H B SafcteHCHH H onacaHH HcropHKaMH, a coSm tm MenKHe nyHKTyar&HO BHecemi b Kanep- 4^ypj»epcKHi McypHau, to npocrpaH C TB o BnpaBO o t rtoporn, sausroe C O ficT B C H H O ropOPOM, C T8M M M 5*6 JC H C X O M H IipSBOTOl CiKyfyeT C H H T a T B o6ohhhoh HcxopHH, ryie rocnoflCTByeT no npeHMymecirey crpaaaT enraoe h cosqsnaxejiBHoe OTHomeHue k H cropm ecicoi ^eftcrBurejiBHocTH, bjpccm He oifficaHHoI. (34) The highway from the Smolensk Gate in the south to the Ingeborg Gate in the north divided Gatchina into two unequal parts, and if the area to the left of the road leading to the capital could correctly be called historical, where all the significant buildings and events are noted and described by historians and the minor events were punctually noted in the Kammerfurier ! s journal, then the area to the right of the road, occupied by the town itself, can equally correctly be seen as on the side roads o f history, where for the most part there reigns a passive and contemplative attitude to historical reality, not described by anyone....(36) The state o f a town’s being “not described by anyone” can be compared to the situation o f individual 6 i KW¥namcru h noMemraoa” [“capitalists and landowners”] swept out o f Petrograd-Leningrad “Ha CBarace HcxopHu” (15) [“the garbage dumps o f history,”] (19) among whom could have been found Nastya’s parents. Big, centralized events take place, leaving in their wake ffiiiioxecTB© ctowrc®, iiexamux H a odoiHHe Hcropiwecicoro nyra” (15) [“numerous subjects lying beside the road of history”] (19). At the same time, the big events could not exist without the humble individuals that took part in them or were affected by them. The “side roads o f Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 history” is perhaps the most accurate metaphor because it portrays a roofed effect, whereby the little tendrils feed into ever larger branches, eventually reaching the center. Little roads lead into Gatchina, and bigger roads connect this town to Moscow' and Imperial time and space. The feet that Kuraev writes an entire novel about these “side roads” o f h isto r y forces the question of what rightfully constitutes a worthy historical event. Is something a worthy historical event if few-— or no—people know about it? a H M O H C H O J I H C H B T a T B C oSH T H eM , flOCTOijHHM H C T O p H H , UpeoSpaSOBaHMC G uessed! uacm c KajxaHuofi b Orgeji BHyrpeHHHX sen h nepeHMeHoaaiHie C uesxH H C K oI y m im b P eB om ouH ouH B ih nepeyjiO K ? M a n o KOMy h h t o CKaxeT cewM BM bmjz apxH TCicropa K y siM in ia , B os^ B H ruyB inero c o S o p Ile x p a a IfaBJia na nepeceueuHH MajioraTHHHCKofi h EyjitBapHoft.. .(35) So can we consider the changing of the Constable Department with a watchtower to the Department of the Interior a worthy historical event and the changing of Constable Street to Revolution Alley? Few people nowadays know the name o f Kuzmin, the architect who built the Peter-and-Paul Cathedral at the intersection o f Malogatchinskaya and Boulevard Streets,.. (37) The history of Gatchina is generally described in relation to the role it played in a central history, the history o f the Russian Imperial family who owned this town, and Russia’s military history—not told for its own value. It is also described in connection with famous people who were bom there and who have become famous to all of Russia. Y e t, i f w e c a n o n ly te ll history in r e l a t i o n to big e v e n ts koow n to a ll and thus remembered, t h e n what about the events t h a t h a v e b e e n f o r g o tt e n b y a l l? a 6buia JIH HCTOpHH y raTHHHH?! C B O H H C T O p H H , a H 6 H C T O p H H IipH XO TeS 6 6 H G d& TH B SK Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24? BJia.nejn.i5eB?” (35) [“But d id Gatchina r e a lly have a history?! Its own history, and not t h e history o f the whims o f its innumerable p r o p r ie to r s ? 5 '] (37) K a r a e v mentions events t h a t must h a v e happened, but t h a t n o o n e remembers, in o r d e r to p o s e th is question. “ H r© xoTea exasaT B s a T e p m m i ile x b d e s p a e s p e M e n t o t nepB B ift ^ e ii o s e x —a B ejp. 6hji >se n ep B tifi!— kto n a a s a ji o a e p u o nopeM y-TO Xothhho? ...CriiHyji h ocT aB H Ji hbm a a r a /p u B o e cjxobuo cjiobho y n p e x namefi ropzpcrH, naineMy yM SH H io s e e hohsti. h o6mchht&” (36). [“ W h a t d id h e w a n t to convey, th a t f ir s t m an. lo s t in the a b y s s o f tim e — y e s , th e r e r e a lly w a s a first m a n !— w h o f o r s o m e r e a s o n n a m e d th e la k e Khotchino?.. .H e h a s r o tte d a n d le ft u s th e p u z z lin g w o r d a s a r e p r o a c h to o u r p r id e , to o u r a b ility t o u n d e r s ta n d a n d e x p l a in everything”] (37-8). I n fa c t, what is known o f Gatchina’s h is t o r y is known t h a n k s t o t h e testimony o f t h e c h r o n ic le s , a n o f f ic ia l r e c o r d . A t th e tim e o f t h e e v e n ts in t h e n o v e lla , h o w e v e r, “r o p o n o K y x e pasH H M -paB H O s a f e r o HanpjiaceHHH, cooS m aB iueM C Ji B03M03CH0CT6H) B f c lC O U H f i U J H X HHCIteKipifi, OTOimiH B R W hU eQ h HejraJi&Hee nponuioe BpeMena noT paceH H S.(24) [“the t o w n h a d lo n g f o r g o tt e n a b o u t t h e te n s io n p r o d u c e d b y th e p o s s ib ility o f im p e r ia l inspections, th o s e r e s tle s s tim e s had r e c e d e d in to th e d is ta n t a n d not-so-distant p a s t ”] (36). Gatchina is n o lo n g e r im p o r ta n t a s th e E m p e r o r ’s autumn r e s id e n c e , a n d n o o n e r e c o r d s its e v e n ts . D id t h e teoninaiion of Gatchina’s r o le in c o n n e c t io n w ith o f f ic ia l e v e n ts im p ly a n e n d to its history, o r d o e s it have its own, meaningful history, regardless o f how m a n y or f e w people understand it o r fin d m e a n in g in it? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 Kuraev’s answer to the question of what constitutes history worthy o f being told Is thus also addressed in connection with Gatchina’s history. The weaving together, not just a simple intersection, of two types of history—humMe local history based m i the lives o f individuals, with impressive imperial and official narratives constituting a bigger picture—is shown to contain the essence of historical meaning and cultural Identity: C jiobho K pyT H e, oraecHwe Sepera peiai C n a B S H K H , OTKpuBmne MM Bcex cnpeccoBaHHyio HcxopHio ssmjih,, tm jieKHint npepo bccmb pacnaxHyro! h 3a6urofi he oCotohc Kuaroi, “6e3ye3«Hwfi ropo#” 4BopnoBoro B e^oM C T B a, r$e ropoaHJomM can HM iiepaxop! Fae kek ae saeci. B ejiH K a a H M uepm i ofinapyacHBaer csoe coKpoBeimoe cymeciBO, me k b k ne 3 M ,e c b B H flH H neapHMHe us apyrnx mcct hhth, npsMo coe/mHHBnrae caMyio Bepxaioio xonxy, pacnonoxceHHyio, 6mtb m o x c t , na Bepnirae Kpecxa, Beiiraaiomero Kopoay, c HepasjnwnMoi Tomcofi rae-HH6yju> na npoxymranraxcx no^MeiKax paenooiejraero no##aH H O F O H M n ep H H ? (38) Just like the steep, overhanging shores o f the river Slavyanka wWch revealed the compressed history of the earth, you are lying there thrown open before all, like a forgotten book on the side of the road, “a city without a county” o f the royal ministry, where the mayor is the Emperor himself! Where better than here does the great empire reveal its secret essence, where, but here, can you see the threads, invisible elsewhere, joining the highest point situated, maybe, on the top of the cross adorning the crown, with an indistinguishable point somewhere on the worn-out soles o f the humblest subject of the empire? (40) The secret essence of the great empire is comprised o f invisible threads connecting the major events and persons (the crown and events associated with it) to the humblest subject of the empire. Little events and humble subjects are prerequisites to writing history—without them there would, be nothing to write about— and the irony of ironies is that they are most often left out when history is imagined as a finished product of narration. This could be seen as a Tolstoyan view o f history, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249 except that Kuraev goes on to assert a strong role for the individual in history and reflects on an explanation of first causes, and posits a somewhat different theory than that of the master writer. In its reliance on local, small-scale events and the unpredictable actions of individuals as the primary stuff o f larger historical events, the notion of history- making in Kapiton Dikshtein is Tolstoyan, but the suggestion of epistemological uncertainty and of the role o f great leaders should still be raised with regards to Tolstoy, Kuraev’s narrator depicts a historical panorama that seems fairly chaotic, and in which history is influenced radically by the uncountable and uncontrollable local influences; he also acknowledges the difficulty a writer of history must confront when deterniinmg causes. Yet he does not doubt the influence individuals have on the course of events, and the epistemological uncertainty present in Kapitan Dikshtein is not paralyzing but rather liberating. Chaos, the Butterfly Effect, and History (a response to Tolstoy and others) For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; For want of a shoe, the horse was lost; For want of a horse, the rider was lost; For want of a rider, the battle was lost; For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost! —Barbara Riebling, quoting a folk saying As discussed above, Kuraev clearly rejects clarity, order and explanation as concepts bound to a strict determinism that fails to adequately account for historical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 truth. However, he refuses to accept Tolstoy's explanation of history as a manifestation of total randomness and disorder associated with indeterminacy, either. Moreover, although some critics suggest that a (postmodern) narrative’s emphasis on disorder undermines time and thereby history, allowing fictional works such as Captain Dikshtein “to relegate history to literary artifact” (Lipovetsky 173). I sincerely doubt such a postmodernist explanation of Kuraev’s work, as argued above. Lipovetsky argues that chaos theory can be a useful strategy for interpreting many works of Russian post-Soviet fiction, although for Mm it seems that chaos theory applies primarily to works o f Russian postmodernism. However, to examine a work of literature through the lens of chaos theory does not necessarily lead to a postmodern interpretation, as Lipovetsky implies. This tale is carefully constructed to explain indeterminacy not in postmodern terms; in it history, if deconstructed, is also pieced back together in a new way. While Kuraev’s narrative is rife with examples of randomness, upon closer inspection, he is not satisfied to paint an overall picture of a world in which indeterminacy is the best explanation for discontinuity, confusion, and unpredictability. In Captain Dikshtein, I will argue, complete randomness as a manifestation o f indeterminacy is best comprehended as another false paradigm, just as utopian thinking or ideological detenninacy. Indeed, an explanation based on a theory o f chaos, or ordered disorder and the famous butterfly effect—albeit one that does not imply a necessary connection between chaos theory and postmodernism—can account for Kuraev’s position with regards to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25! history better than any other interpretation suggested thus far, and at least can offer a reasonable visual paradigm. The seemingly random moments in Kapiton Dikshtein do not tarn out to be as random as they appear. When the original Dikshtein reflects upon the reasons why he is standing before the firing squad, there is some irony in the fact that in a direct sense, neither he nor the sailor whose name was called has a good reason to come under interrogation and judgment. Yet lie searches for a reason. In a key paragraph, he rejects the obvious as barking up the wrong tree: that something he wrote in his artillery journal has betrayed him in some way. In the following paragraph, he stumbles upon a more accurate approach, In this passage, quoted on pages 49-50 above, Dikshtein attempts to find the original event, the first mistake. But each time he arrives at an idea, it is preceded by another reason that led up to if, and so on into the past. His mistake was that he hadn’t gone over to the Soviet side, but before this it was a mistake to join the navy at all, and before this to get a technical education. In another passage, the narrator describes Dikshtein’s childhood and the reasons he chose the paths he did. “ O h jwiea npejtBuneTB, yM CJi paccwrau*, ho b c c name 11 m me h m&e bobcc meoymmsmM, a kskoI-to rtnymnft cbohm nyreM crpoft coSwTHt ace ero spo^e 6h npocuHxaHH&ie K OHcxpyiotHH pynrnji” (52) [“He could foresee, he could calculate, but more and more often some not unexpected chain of events already underway somehow destroyed his apparently well-calculated designs...”] (53). Throughout the tale, the failure of prediction is laid bare. In fact, the character Dikshtein is the supreme embodiment of failure o f planning and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 prediction, since all o f Ms fastidious and carefully designed plans are actually what get Mm in trouble— he is probably the only man in the military left with a pair of boots at fMs point in the war, and they draw attention, leading him to his death. The failure of plans and intention is manifested at the political or societal level as well. In many instances, party leaders are also shown to be mistaken, sometimes with irony (suggesting the possibility of a degree of deception), and sometimes without: Ha VIII BcepoccHicKOM chesm Cobctob o rm m sm m sa TpancnopT Tpoiptui sasepuji c r p a n y b to m , h t o H a ciy n a io m a a s h m e “ h c rpoairr h u m rabejiBio, ae rposnx hsm d o jih b im napammoM, K O Toporo m m Moran 6u oK H flanb b cepettH H e s h m m ” . Tpyzrao CKaaaxi., Ha uro o m rp a jica orrruMHSM bqmM s tojibko napajim Hatpioiyiica npexge, hcm 33m& n o tto n u ia k cepegHHe. (54-5) At the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Trotsky, who was responsible for transport, assured the country that the coming winter “doesn’t threaten us with destruction, doesn’t threaten us with the total paralysis that we might have expected by mid-winter.” It’s hard to say what the optimism of the leader was based on, but the paralysis approached before winter reached its mid-point. (56) History is shown as blundering in the novella as planning fails and cause and effect are shown to be highly complex. “ToiuiHBa Ihrrep b SHBape nojiyuHji rpeth o t 3anjiaHHpoBaHHoro, a b Aespajie t o jib k o neTBepxB" (55) [“In January Petrograd received a third as much feel and firewood as planned, and in February only a quarter”] (56), This leads to burning o f buildings for warmth, along with starvation, dissatisfaction, and political unrest. The mutiny itself is shown to have had a possibility of success. The sideshadows mentioned earlier suggest that it was highly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253 unlikely so few attackers couM have taken, over the fortress at Kronstadt, and in the end, the defeated outnumber the victors. The outraged troops in the demonstrations leading up to the mutiny are shown as a seething, unpredictable mass, whose individual actions could have devastating effects for Soviet power. Kuraev often uses turns o f phrase such as “icaic bhschhjioc& Home” (69) [“it later came out that. ..’’or “it turned out that.. ( 6 9 ) to suggest that previous events all combined to cause the major successes and failures that resulted in specific outcomes. Kuraev makes the point in this passage that historical outcomes are completely dependent on a plethora of small details: K to cjiyxiai b apMHM, t o t ma&r neny thkhm, c rpaxcflaHCKoi tohkh speHHJi, MenouaM, saic H y T B -H y r& cyxemiMe hjih pacmHpeHHbie npoTHB HOpMM KJieniH, u y m yK O poneK H B ii h jih o i k o * e yrtnMHeuHMH SyimiaT h u h flOBeneHHe Kpaa SecKoswpKH m SpH TBeH H oii oerpoTH. B arax ipisem m x cBoei bo jih, CBoei H H H ipiaT H B H h BKyca, CTporo orpaHHueHHaa ycxaB O M h raasoM HauajftCTBa, ipenem eT xassym a* cso el oxjtejimoU, ocofiol, hh H a Koro He noxoacei cya&6w jehuhoctb. . .(74) Those who have served in the army know the value o f those details that seem negligible from the civilian point of view—like bell bottoms that are just a little too tight or too wide, a pea jacket fla t is a little short or maybe longish, or the razor sharp edge of a sailor’s hat. In these expressions of one’s personal will, initiative and taste, strictly limited by regulations and the commander’s eye, flickers the personality thirsting for its separate, special fete... (123) Dikshtein has a certain way o f communicating the ready state of the ammunition battery to his commanding officer; once he answers in the normal manner and the battle does not turn out well; all of his turret perform poorly in battle on this day and are convinced that it is Igor’ Ivanovich’s fault. His comrades shun him for a week Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254 (123). Superstition is not suggested or implied here, either; it is just that any local event can potentially change the course of history. The battle is described as page after page of the impossibility of prediction, a history of things not going as planned. However, there are reasons for this; it is not due to the random essence of tilings, human unpredictability or superstition. In a passage that juxtaposes the human side of this failure to the scientific aspect, the reasons for history’s unpredictability become clear. YcTaBiiiHi or TffiKKoi pafiioTH, Hropb HsaHOBOT pa^OBaTbca He cneniHJi w aaace j k j i o h h j i c s o t GnaroAapHocra “peBKOMa”. O h xopomo noM HHJi, hto b K O H pe ji e r a 1919-ro, K o rg a g a s te © M y xaaajiocb, hto y JleHHHa H e o c x a jio c b HHicaKHX m a a c o B y p e p x c a i’b c a , c o S h t h h B ^ p y r nosqjHyjM b c i m t b . H Tenept b pasMbmmeHimx o fiyaymeM Hropb H b s h o b o t bboahji nonpaaicy a a H en o H S T n y io , HeoffeacHHMyio, h o cosepmeHHo p e a jir a y m , S e p y m y io a i s p o ^ e ksk 6m h HHOTKyna c r a y SojibineBHKOB. H o ecjrn CHcreMa Feficjiepa, cymecTByiomaa asm ynparaeHM o ra e M , yH H T H saex h j p H x e m e nejrn aa sp ew s nonera CHapana, h KDJiefiaaais Kopnyca npn Kamce, h serep, h TeMnepaiypy, a crraao 6brn>, h njioTHOcrb ao3#yxa H a p a sa o i bhcotc h nosBonaeT c tohhoctmo H p e rp H a e x b pe3yjibTaT, t o nonpaBica aa HeofrbscHHMoe jiHmana Hropa HsaHOBma x a x o i 6 u t o hh S h jig ysepeBHOCTM b kohchhhx peayjibTaTax aaubHHX pacneros. (79-80) Tired from Ms hard work Igor5 Ivanovich was in no hurry to rejoice and even avoided the gratitude of the Revolutionary Committee. He remembered well that at the end of 1919, when it suddenly seemed to him that Lenin had no chance o f holding out, events suddenly reversed themselves completely. And now Igor’ Ivanovich adjusted Ms thoughts about the future o f the incomprehensible, inexplicable, but completely real power o f the Bolsheviks, which seemed to come from nowhere. But even though the Geisler fire control system can take into account the movement of the target during the trajectory o f the projectile, the movement o f the hull in the sea, the wind and temperature, and therefore, also the density o f the air at different elevations, and allows the exact prediction o f the result, this adjustment for the inexplicable deprived Igor’ Ivanovich of any confidence whatsoever in the final results o f his own calculations. (79-80) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255 I ii the n e x t passage, mechanical f a ilu r e s abound in t h e d e s c r ip tio n o f the b a ttle that e n s u e d , M o r e o v e r . “ M ropfi. H uaiiOBi-ra s u ^ e a , cjiH x n aji a vmmmsA o6pa30M o ip y m a ji, w ro e r p a jih ae m x M m m im a m , eypa jih h c x a x s i a l n p in c a a 1 1 p a c iio p a x e iiH e Him H e BHHOJIMKITCH B O B C e, HJIH B M I O J I H J H O T C a K a K - T O JpyCM HCJieHHO5 5 (82) [“Igor’ I v a n o v ic h s a w a n d h e a r d , but mainly f e lt, t h a t a lm o s t e v e r} ' c o m m a n d , a lm o s t e v e r y o r d e r a n d d is p o s itio n , e ith e r w a s n ’t c a r r ie d o u t a t a ll o r w a s carried o u t s o m e w h a t ambiguously”] (82). T h e “adjustment f o r th e inexplicable” is a n e x p r e s s io n o f th e c o u n tle s s o r e v e n in f in ite n u m b e r o f lo c a l f a c to r s th a t m u s t 'be f ig u r e d in to m a k e a c c u r a t e predictions. T h e r e is a parallel passage in the la te r part of the work. Igor5 Ivanovich is a l m o s t h o m e , a n d th e la s t th in g h e d e c id e s to d o is to s to p b y t h e courthouse a n d c h e c k o n th e c a s e o f M s nephew. T h e n a r r a to r begins to describe the courthouse. E c t b M e c ra , n e n o jn ta io m H e c a o n H c a m io . F o s o p a r , m o e c i t . raK H e, ho c o n ia c H T b c s c o th m x p y jp io . M a o e a e a o , m o c y m e c x B y e r h c c k o jih k o M6CT, H6B03M0»CHWX P I OHHCftHHS, H M03KHO HaCTEHBaTb, HTO K HUM npBBajpsacHT xopmtop rarraHCKoro cyaa b tom bh«hc, b ksucom ero 3acraji H ropt Hbuhobhh. H c b o s m o w h K opim op b CHJiy K p a ita e fi c s o e f i HemnHHHOCTH, m , i i y c x a s c t b p a c c x a i o hcm , J ie r s o Bnacn. b B c x o p m e c R y io o iim fix y , n o c x o .m x y uemau y rB ep x o jaT B , w o uem?Moxao& mo M e c ro h d o c e l jh & eb npebHBaer b h o jib g I cb o ch x « b 0 3 m o x h o cth . (133-4) T h e r e a r e p la c e s which a r e in d e s c r ib a b le . T h a t ’s what p e o p le s a y , b u t i t ’s h a r d to a g r e e . I t ’s a n o th e r thing t o s a y th a t th e r e e x i s t s o m e p la c e s which a r e impossible t o describe, a n d o n e could in s is t t h a t th e c o r r id o r in. the G a tc h in a , court h o u s e a s it lo o k e d when I g o r ’ I v a n o v ic h was th e r e is o n e o f th o s e p la c e s , T h e c o r r id o r Is impossible b e c a u s e o f its extreme untypicality, a n d rendering an account o f it might e a s ily lead on into historical error, since it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 can't be asserted definitely that this impossible place continues on to this day in Its entirely impossible state. (178) The narrator continues by attempting, after all, to describe the ball in the minutest of detail interjecting at many places examples o f things that we cannot know or things that would have to be mentioned in greater detail to accurately describe the place. History as we know it—a coherent narrative of events past that led up to our time and place in the world—Is in Karaev's work a system that exhibits extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, otherwise known as Lorentz’s “butterfly effect.” Such systems are not random or essentially indeterminate, but they are so complex that it is impossible to establish the initial conditions in enough detail to make a good prediction. Moreover, these systems are not linear; as a result, the outcomes are dependent upon feedback derived from the course of events set into motion by the initial conditions, whereby this feedback modifies the outcome. This is known as a feedback loop. In the example above, in order to know the current state of the courthouse, we would have to know whether a decisive hand has eliminated some of the disorder and also what lay in the places that the fight bulb was too weak to illuminate. The relationship between the local and the global that characterizes Kuraev’s understanding o f history as discussed earlier reflects an intuitive understanding on the part of the author of the implications of recent discoveries in the hard sciences for the study of history and literature. Barbara Riehling notes that traditional views in systems theory believed in "the classical deterministic idea that minor individual Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257 actions would, naturally be overwhelmed by the giant system containing them and could not be critical in determining the path a system would follow” (Riebling 183). Edward Lorentz’s 1961 discovery of the butterfly effect has gradually come to give theoretical validity to a revolutionary idea. In a universe that is fundamentally nonlinear, The reason that nonlinear systems remain so intractable to prediction and orderly analysis is that even small variations in a single variable or minor perturbations (disturbances) to any part o f these systems can become magnified by their dynamics and result in wildly unpredictable behavior. (Riebling 183) While it may be possible to predict outcomes in a linear system, human systems and natural systems are not linear. Yet, things still happen by cause and effect, and we can witness natural laws in effect throughout the universe. Ivar EkeJand and Ian Stewart describe deterministic chaos as “randomness flowing from lawful behavior” (Riebling 182). If there is one deterministic system, says Ekeland, it is the whole universe. However, predicting its infinite operations would require infinite information, and its subsystems (about which a finite amount of information could be obtained) become unpredictable when they are studied in artificial isolation from the whole, Tims, like 'the “queen of England, determinism reigns but does not govern. Its power nominally extends over vast territories, where local rulers are in feet independent, and even turn against it” (Riebling 182). Thus the existence o f the butterfly effect implies that the minor variations and details of history are what lead to global events, or History that becomes part of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258 official, widely known national story. But most importantly, the grand implication of Lorentz’s bitterfly effect is that “prediction in complex, dynamic systems is theoretically impossible because o f the iterated nonlinear equations involved” (Riebling 184). Briggs and Peat reassure that “on a philosophical level chaos theory may hold comfort for anyone who feels Ms or her place in the cosmos is inconsequential. Seemingly inconsequential things can have a huge effect in a nonlinear universe (75). Riebling argues that from a social science perspective, “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” necessitates a reevaluation o f the power relations between the global and the local, governors and the governed, society and the individual. Poltieal and social relations are by their very nature complex and dynamic; therefore social systems should display the same nonlinear potentialities as a i other complex systems, especially in times of crisis. Individual words and actions take on a much greater significance in light of the new systems theory than was allotted to them by determinist social pMlosophers. (Riebling 184) Karaev drives this point home in the following passage. The narrator, not Dikshtein, compares the mutiny in progress in Ms narrative with another historical coup attempt, one that ultimately succeeded. The impetus for this juxtaposition seems to be a detail that is disclosed a few pages later, that the Soviets renamed two of the sMps involved in the mutiny to names taken from the French Revolution. After summarizing the positions of the Thermidoreans and the Jacobins and comparing them to those of the Soviets and. the Kronstadt mutineers, he writes BnpoueM, x a i e i i , o to m , to > M ro p io Hsmowmy ne n p in iis o na jm spaB H H B avi. 3tm f ls a coGhwm, H e n p H x o a H T c a , m ja> x e p M B jp p iia B iiH mctMTim mmoTQ ycnexa, pmRmmim m m a m m a oxmmmch HecoKpymHMoft. A .tmxe mmmmpam sepa b nofiesy M «re3C H H K O B Moraa 6 h ysecx H Hropa UsaHO BHua ox sax n a a e K o , cnauajia b # h h im h jp .io 5 a h o to m h eme namme, (83-4) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 However, there is no point in regretting that Igor5 Ivanovich didn’t think of comparing these two events; the Tiierniidoreans were, after ail, completely successful in suppressing the Jacobins, and their coalition turned out to be indestructible. And eves as illusory faith in victory o f the mutineers might have taken Igor’ Ivanovich far, far away, first to Finland, and then even further. (§3) Two similar situations are presented that turned out to have completely opposite results. Even though initial conditions were similar, many details occurred that caused a different outcome. There are also many examples in the novella where Kuraev mentions truly chaotic natural or manmade systems such as the weather, ice-break-up, troop movement, etc., juxtaposing them to historical events, or discussing them as factors in historical events; these seem to function as metaphors for Ms views on history. Complex, non-linear systems that are sensitive to the butterfly effect and feedback are chaotic systems. Is chaotic systems, future states are a function o f past states. At the same time, chaos provides a model that is neither random nor deterministic (Argyros 254). In a chaotic system, there is order and self-organization, hut not predictability or detenninism. Argyros argues that chaos “wrests complexity from the teeth of entropy” (254). Chaotic systems produce novelty and beauty. Chaotic systems transcend tbe opposition between order and randomness; they are systems in which structural randomness is a condition for the possibility o f order (Argyros 245). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 Openness and Sideshadowing: an Alternative Fast in Captain Dikshtein It proved, in truth, to be a new society, but not the one they expected. —Rex Wade, The Bolshevik Revolution Kuraev’s work responds to the dominant modes of artistic production (utopian explanations) and. to the traditional literary-metahistorical discussion (Tolstoy) fey highlighting their historical insufficiency; they do not account for the historical meaning he seeks to convey as they are limited by a utopian understanding of time. A deterministic view of the past (or foture) cannot give an accurate sense of what Bakhtin called “real historical time.” At the time when each past moment was present, the paths the foture would take were not inevitable, and people acted into a foture that was not yet determined. Genuine alternatives existed and people were faced with the freedom and responsibility to make decisions. Literature that presents history as open to possibility by showing the “possibility of possibility” is written in a subjunctive mode, bringing out what Gary Saul Morson has termed the “sideshadows” of history (Narrative 118). This is similar to Epstein’s concept of proteism mentioned above, which, he calls “a new, noncoercive attitude toward the future, in the modality of “maybe,” rather than o f “must be” or “will be” (338). The presence o f sideshadowing in a literary text preserves intact the “sense of many possible fixtures” that each person is aware of at a given moment in time. In an open universe, the illusion is inevitability itself Alternatives always abound, and, more often than not, what exists need not have existed. Something else was possible, and sideshadowing is used to create a sense of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 that “something else,” Instead of casting a foreshadow from the future, it casts a shadow “from the side,” that is, from the other possibilities. Along with an. event., we see its alternatives; with each present, smother possible present. Sideshadows conjure the ghostly presence of might-have-beens or mighf-bes. While we see what did happen, we also see the image of what else could have happened. In tills way, the hypothetical shows through the actual and so achieves its own shadowy kind of existence in the text. In sideshadowing, two or more alternative presents, the actual and the possible, are made simultaneously visible. This Is a simultaneity not in time but o f t imes: we do not see contradictory actualities, but one possibility that was actualized and, at the same moment, another that was n o t In this way, time itself acquires a double and often many doubles, A haze of possibilities surrounds each actuality. {Narrative and Freedom 118) The presence of sideshadows removes the inevitability of the present and, through its subjunctive and counterfactual manifestations, “induces a kind of temporally based humility” (Morson 119). From such a perspective, all offaistory does not lead up to communism; thus sideshadowing detracts from the image of legitimacy the Soviet government tried to construct for itself. Precisely on account of these other possibilities, the Soviet government kept a tight rein on literary and other forms of cultural activity, preferring to establish its own rules for cultural production. In official Soviet literature, this control is manifested in what Katerina Clark refers to as the “master plot” of the Soviet Socialist Realist novel. To permit the depiction of real historical time in creative literature would not necessarily “perform [the] essentially mythological task” required by socialism (Clark 252), —ie., reveal the predetermined end of history that is supposed to be communism; thus the master plot Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262 was necessary to prevent a sense of alternatives from prevailing for the regime5 's self- preservation.1 1 An understanding of real historical time partly toned by history’s sideshadows, in contrast to the sense of time embodied in socialist realist works, is implicit in Kuraev’s Kapiton Dikshtein. From its descriptions of historical progression, where events are shown at their inception and not as inevitably leading to communism, to the development of the hero Igor5 Ivanovich, who is nothing lice the canonical socialist realist protagonist but nonetheless a hero, the novella manifests sideshadows of history at a variety o f levels. While an earlier section of this chapter discussed the work’s conception of historiography as based on local, human agency along with its integration of historical material into literature, the focus o f this section will be the confluence o f the individual’s history with that o f the larger social units of town and nation, mainly through the work’s presentation of Dikshtein and Ms and other individuals’roles in the Kronstadt uprising. Responding to official interpretation of the Kronstadt events, that it was to be interpreted as a mutiny and that it was a story that should be silenced, Kuraev depicts a battle in which confusion and uncertainty are the predominant moods, one tor which, the continuation of communist rule is not the only potential outcome, even though it is 1 1 Clark comments that the Soviet government was the first to use censorship not only to prevent certain things from coming into print, feet to prescribe what should be written. She writes that "instead of doing what we have come to think of as the work ofliterature, Socialist Realism performs an essentially mythological task. It is mythic in (he degree to which it supports and explains the main thrust of the politically dominant forces in its society. The master plot is the thread that stitches together several significant layers of culture, including its theory of history,, its philosophical anthropology, and its literary presuppositions” (Clark 252). Insofar as the dominant culture and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 the outcome that was realized. Wade notes the serious threat that the uprising at Kronstadt posed to the regime’s very survival, which was so great that Lenin changed course abruptly, ending War Communism and instituting the new Economic Policy (76). Kuraev very skillfully crafts his narrative to re-create alternative potential pasts and, most of all, a sense of possibility in regards to future qua historical outcomes. He does this partly through characterization (the entire plot is predicated upon the potential past and present of a character who cannot be said to exist, officially), symbols (for example, clocks always showing different times together), and language (by means of frequent “what if 5 clauses and " ‘ would have” imaginings on the part, of the protagonist and Ms wandering reflections). But furthermore, the meandering structure by wMch history7 is told in tMs work causes the reader to experience the openness and unfmalizability o f the past moments and renders him/her unable to predict the direction that history will take. Although the events surrounding the mutiny at Kronstadt loomed before the early Soviet government in the specter o f one very menacing sideshadow, the history of these events has become victim to official History. Some stories have been preserved, but most were intentionally forgotten or revised so that they no longer reflect the tree course o f events. Yet the import of this looming sideshadow7 is well understood by the author and is asserted in the novella: OrpaHHo oxpaawfflCB coShthji ^& pam a Mapra 1921 m m b npOIHBOpe^HBHX H ygHBlfTCICfcHHX CBe^eHHSX O H E X . A BBMUTiOCb BCG C Ideology of the Soviet Union was utopian, future-oriented, m i deterministic in its impulses, the master plot embodied these qualities and iirtfiered their ideologies! development Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264 Toro, m o 06 3thx co6kethhx nocTapajiHCi 3a6&rn». IlaTHTOMHaa HCiopHH.. .flOToraHO ocsemaiomaJi bck> rpajKjtaHCKyio Bonny no caM H H ee Kpaft b 1922 rojiy, He c o a e p ra r Ha cbohx BejieneBHx erpainmax h ii paccK33a, hh ynoM H H aH H H o M ST eace, npejfcxaBJiaioHieM, no m h c h h io BjiapHMapa MiiHrna JleHHHa, jvw coBercKoft Biiaem onacHocn, 6on&niyio5 “qai J 0 [ e H H K H H , lOaeaare h K o j p k o k , BMecro B3»rae.” (45-6) The events o f February and March 1921 were reflected strangely In the contradictory and surprising reports about them. It all started with everyone trying to forget these events. A five-volume history.. .illuminates at length the entire Civil War all the way until its end in 1922, hut its vellum pages contain neither a narrative nor even a mention o f the mutiny which, In Vladimir Ilych Lenin’s opinion, represented a greater danger for the Soviet power “than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak together.” (96) Writers and historians who want to remember this event in an attempt to correct their society’s self-knowledge and h istorical knowledge o f their own culture must literally rescue the story from “the garbage dumps o fM sto r y .” The premise o f the frame story—that an individual man’s personal h istory is abruptly rewritten into Ms foture as a result o f a circumstance that forces Mm to break off Ms story in the middle and resume it in a slightly different mode—parallels the history o f Kronstadt and of the Soviet Union or Russia. A mutiny took place, and is the process of accounting for it, its core truth is muted due to external circumstances, that is, the government’s need to maintain its image as the legitimate rule over the Soviet people. Just as the scalplocked sailor has to silence his personal history and pretend as if it never existed, the story of Kronstadt must be hidden, and things are made to look as If they stemmed from other roots. Dikshtein, at foe end of the story, is described by the narrator as having become a different person because he tried to meet up to this definition of who he should be—in the form of a personal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 utopia that he did not so much claim for himself as he fell into it as a resalt of circumstances beyond Ms control Kronstadt, too, becomes defined as a mutiny and a nonevent because it does not fit neatly into the ideal the communists set before themselves or into their immediate need for stability. It does not fit into the predetermined, communist story and is not what should happen, Gatchina’s history, too, is subject to an abrupt “end,” to or to its History being muted, when it ceases to possess imperial importance and therefore becomes just another provincial Russian village. Thus each of the major themes of the work presents sideshadows of official History, o f the course that history might have taken, by presenting options and showing that the routes taken weren’t inevitable after all; indeed, they were accidental and typically unexpected. In some instances, the narrator explicitly points to the existence o f various potential paths that history might take or could have taken. Leading up to the narration o f the protagonists’ identity switch with a degree of self-conscious irony, the narrator several times underlines the proximity of the original Igor5 Ivanovich and the scalplock sailor who assumes his place: H r o p t H B aaoB H n cosep m eH H O He © S pam aji B H m ia im s Ha u yfiaxor© M3 x p e T t e l K O Tejttiiofi, a to t x B a x a a c s iiattoHSM H s a n o /p a ep a a io n tH e y m n , CK& JIHEQS, HTO-TO BHKpHKHBajI, CBHCTCJI TEIC, HTO 3BCHeJIO B y m a x J ctohmdhx p jp p M , CxaJiHBiHHxea, cbhctcbiihix h o p y m H x x p y ro M 6hho noHHO... Ila, stiecb 6h hmh iipiirxiaaeTBcx apyr k apyry, M oxcex. h nosHaicoMHTics icax-T O n o jiy m n e , n o ica He no& 93anH erne ofimei o c p g b , n o x a pyraH-TO § h j ih O T K pw m , y u y 6 a x o r o bcs H apacnaniK y, m h y H r o p a M sm o sm a . npiiovxpHTa b fcaH nel cren eH H , uem b spyrse m o m c h t h e r o xopoTKofi XCH3HH; xoTt 6m Ha H o r y a p y r ppyry H acxyim T B , TOjiKByrt, x o t& h aeH ap on oM , b n ia s a j p y r a p y r y B3rjMHyTB, sa n o M H H m ,., T g jih c g H er Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 niynee 3aiwraa, nem 'msmmsbim'th HcropHH Bmuomme nyra ee pasBaxia b aaneK O M nponraoM, ocoSshho b to speM s, s o o a h Ha ceroipxiHHHe ee n yra Benmcoe m h o k ctb o jnoaeft, He tojimco wraioiHHX, ho h nmnynmx, He H M 6 I0 T p O B H B IM C U S T O M H H K a X O rO B J IH g H H ft. (67) Igor’ Ivanovich was paying absolutely no attention to the scaiplock sailor from the Mo. 3 boiler who covered Ms frozen ears with Ms hands, grinned, shouted something, and whistied so that it rang in the ears of those standing near Mm. The place was swarming with people who were grinning, whistling and screaming. Yes, here they should have gotten used to each other, or perhaps have become better acquainted before they were caught up in a common disaster, while their hearts were o pen.if they had only stepped on each other’s feet, pushed e a c h other, even inadvertently, looked each other in the e y e and remembered... But there’s nothing stupider than to s u g g e s t v a r io u s paths along which history could h a v e developed in the distant past, especially at a time when e v e n its c u r r e n t path isn’t influenced in a n y way even b y a great m a n y p e o p le w h o not o n ly r e a d but also write. ( 1 1 6 ) As it tu r n s o u t, the two Igors n e v e r d o b e c o m e acquainted. But had it happened, the narrator insinuates, it m ig h t h a v e changed something in th e way tMngs turned o u t. When the battle is over and the mutineers are in the process of finding out their fates, they a r e left overnight in a freezing c o l d bam. Thanks to a series of accidents, the sailor who is to assume Dikshtein’s place shortly is brought under accusation. This occurs, ironically, because he possesses a coin handed to a few of the sailors by a mutinous general as a reward for good work during the mutiny. The sailor, however, did nothing to earn the commendation: “HytiaTor© H 3 Tper&ei RO iejTM ioft HHKio k aarpage He BpeMcrmiaM, nocmwtcy oHeprerusy jmHKopa b ty nopy oSeca&wsam toji& ko n e p s a a u Heraepraa jconerapKH. Ho 6pas&ifi bu m m aep3K H & Bsraas uytiaxoro BajitKBHy noHpaBHjmcb, m a neoxMMTy® pyxy Kouerapa neon Senas THxeiias MOHem" (SO) “The scaiplock from the No. 3 boiler hadn’t been Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26" proposed f o r a reward by anyone, since the power of the battleship had at that time 'been supplied only by the N o . 1 and t h e No. 4 boilers. But the scaiplock’s dashing and boM look appealed to V ilk e n and be placed a heavy silver coin in the stoker’s grimy hand” (128). No other reason is suggested in the text for his name to be called up for investigation after the mutiny; indeed, only a handful o f participants were shot in the end. Thus, it is quite by accident that the sailor is charged with death. Further, when in the morning the sailor is unable to respond to his name being called, the Red Army officer conies into the bam to get him. Bat seeing the original Dikshtein, probably the only man in the navy with warm footgear at this time thanks to Ms conservative, calculating personality, he takes the latter in the place of the sailor, whom he most likely presumes to be dead o f cold anyway. A short time later, tM s original Dikshtein reflects upon why he is going to Ms death. Ho XH3H&, no KOTOp&lI O H C K O JIB 3H V JI JIHXOpa^OHHHM BHyipeHHHM BSOpOM, r a x ace npe,qcrafia crnioniHoft nepenol pokobhx, u e u o n p a B H M H x oihh6ok. . .OmndKolt fltuio see—h to, hto He nepemeji Ha “IloJiTaBy”, ne jsm cede apecTOBaTB tc m , KoxopHe co6HpajiHC& BspHBaxt jihhkop, omHflKoS xaaajioct h to, hto He yineji b #hhjishseho, a KojiocoBCKHft npetptaraji, ho saMoft SojifciHoI ohihSko! B,npyr eraa caw npHxop, aa $ jio t h jjaace TexHHuecKoe Q&pamnmme, cjiencTBHCM nero erm a. cnyacfla npH oesouace. Rasas 6u noHpoGnocTE. hh Bcxasajia b naMsrra, ona T jr xe oSpexaaa oSjimae cxpaniHofi h HenonpaBHMofi ouih&kh. H o caMHM yacacsMM 6hoio coanamie to to , hto bcs m sh h , bcs, Gnuia, oKasHBaercs, gaaa Hrop® HBaHOBHuy Toro, h to 6 h oh cnenaji Bcero iiMUii ohhh m ar b cropoHy, T O JH .K O ofliiH mar, h He 6mji© 6 h HHnero aroro... (103) But Ms life, over which he slid in a feverish mental glance, seemed a long series of fatal, irreparable mistakes.. .Eveiytbing had been a mistake—the fact that he hadn’t gone over to the Poltava, that he hadn’t let himself be arrested by those who were preparing to Mow up the battleship, it also seemed to have been a mistake not to go to Finland as Kolosovsky h a d suggested, but the biggest mistake suddenly turned o u t to be Ms joining the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268 navy and even Ms technical education, in consequence o f which he had gotten a job with the ammunition. Whatever detail cropped up in Ms memory, it immediately acquired the aspect of a terrible and irreparable mistake. But worst of all was the realization that his whole life-— all of it, as it turned out— had been given to Igor* Ivanovich so that he could take just one step to the side, just one step, and none of this would have happened... (150) The irony here is that no real, linear line of cause and effect has brought this situation about. It is shown to result from accident and mistake, as most all events do during the course of the battle. His final conclusion provides a literal expression of Morson’s concept o f sideshadowing; to have stepped only one step to the side would have been to bring about a completely different life for himself. In some cases, the narrator hints at a potential path events could have taken that we later find out was not to be the case, in the way of a kind o f false foreshadowing. For example, in describing the small degree of liberty the original Dikshtein permitted himself to take in a certain military response, the narrator writes that “Hropi. H b 3 H O b h u yace 6 h j i S jih s o k k t o m j , u t o 6 h cran* j ie r e n ,q o i , easy yxce nouT H nosBO-Jisjiacfc n e to h t o G h BO Bce H e ycT aB H aa, h o C Boa h h t o h b u h x b M o x a m P o roT O B H O cra norpdSa k 6 o s b o I pafxyre” (74) { “Igor' Ivanovich was already on Ms way to becoming a legend; he was almost permitted an intonation that wasn’t quite according to regulation, but was Ms own when giving Ms report on the state o f the battle readiness of the ammunition store”] (123). Yet, the reader shortly thereafter discovers that this Igor’ Ivanovich Is never to become a legend, for he dies. Moreover, the new Igor'' Ivanovich, who assumes Ms place and Ms life. Is lamented throughout the story to be entirely forgettable and shown to have only narrowly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 escaped complete erasure from history—far from becoming a legend. Public figures of legendary status may not have attained this sta te at all, had events turned just a little to the side: ! ! [Hropn HsaHOBau] xoponto homhbji, wro b iconne Jiera 1919-ro, Koiyp js^me easy xaaajiocn, wro y Jlenima tie ocm ioct hhkskhx ihshcob y^epxcaTtcs, co6hths B#pyr noBepHyiiH BcnaTfc" (79) [“Igor5 Ivanovich] remembered well that at the end of 1919, when it seemed even to Mm that Lenin had no chance o f holding out, events suddenly had reversed themselves completely”] (79-80). The distinction between the little man not becoming a legend (Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein) and the great historical figure becoming one (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin) may consist of nothing more than chance. Morson discusses what he terms “pseudo-foreshadowing” as a device that employs the tropes of foreshadowing, but, rather than closing off options for the future and showing necessity and determinism, it remains so vague that there is a sense that “anything might happen” (134). The prediction is vague, so “it does not specify what or how important the connection between the two may turn out to be. Whatever happened subsequently might look in retrospect as if it had been intimated here” (135), Kuraev’s use o f pseudo-fcreshadowing has several valences and, to borrow Morson’s expression, “multiplies possibilities” instead o f closing them down. In fact, it turns out not to be inevitable that the Dikshtein referred to in that passage is to become a legend, so the hint is a false one. Kuraev seems to use this device to highlight that history happens in the present tense, and the only thing that Is inevitable it its essential unknowability from the perspective of the present moment. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270 Sideshadowing Is reflected as well In the language choices the author makes to describe the events of Kronstadt. Certain themes are repeated throughout the novella to convey the openness of events, casting sideshadows upon the stories o f what happened, emphasizing that outcomes were not necessary. The word choice used In the narration conveys a constant sense that confusion, uncertainty and the unknown reign in any given present moment, as “history” comes into being. This is especially true with regards to the scenes In which soldiers and sailors axe waiting to see whether or not there will be a mutiny or uprising o f some sort. The narrator repeatedly notes the “uncertain’5 mood o f the “[aJeycToIuHBHe h n e u m e ’ x s a e Boitcica, saipoHyrHe fipoxemieM” (109) [“[ujnstable and unreliable troops, who were beginning to ferment...”] (109) and implies that the outcome o f the situation would depend on how authorities might choose to address the psychological state of these sailors, who were demoralized and oppressed (60). Moreover, actions are taken precisely to sway outcomes in the face o f this uncertain mood, “HtoOh in a r r K H e HacrpoeHHS M O p a K O B H e noBepnyjra b apyryjo cTopony” (69) [“so that the uncertain mood o f the sailors would not swing to the other side”] (117). During the battle, the same confusion reigns; mutineers "Bcnyrayrafl cjiyuafiHHM b h h to b o h h h m BHCipeiiOM fleMOHcxpanaa mztcxhhkob C M einanacE . a jpuHynacfc oriparao b K 83ap M H ” (48) [“are frightened by an accidental salvo o f rifles, and they became confused and started back toward the barracks”] (99). Even at what people remember as turning points of the battle, uncertainty prevailed and Is reflected in the language o f the novella. The reinforcements sent to fight the mutineers “{njja cxsmrm. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27! K O J IO H H 8 M H , pH C K Jg n e p e .S E r ip O T H B H H K O M H U C p C S (jja iC rO p O M H C H a S C X H O C T H j U M P, ho, yH H TH Bas HeysqjeaHoca b EacTpoeiooi co.wTc«oft Maccii...” (89) [“went onto the ice in columns, taking a risk both in regard to the enemy and in regard to the unreliable state of the ice. but since the command was uncertain of the mood o f the soldiers...”] (136). Thus the language used to describe history as it was being made is not the language o f certain outcomes, but the language of what might happend, the language o f possibility. Uncertainty also reigns with regards to our interpretation of causes in history, but when a cause can be found, it is not usually what was intended. Kuraev portrays a Tolstoyan battle in which most things happen by mistake or by accident; [nJpoTH BHH ica, saraaHHoro b KaMemoie mseumu, % o6w Tb He yaajioci*, P juhhc rpanaiw b 6ojn>m H H C T B e cbocm hc pBajiHcn, apnuuiepM, 3anyraBJ3iHC6 b cnraanHsaitHH ns-sa hcxbetkh paxer hj'xbhx hbctob, HanHHajia 6ht& no y x e saxBanenBHM 4>opT aM ; nnypMOBaBnme cnemHO c noTepBM H otxo^hjih, w o fe i uepes T p H naca Hauaxb see CHanajia. (91) [tjhe enemy, chased into the stone casements, couldn’ t be reached, the majority o f the hand grenades didn’t explode, the artillery, confused because there weren’t enough signal flares o f the right colors, started to hit forts which had already been taken; the attackers quickly retreated with their losses, only to start all over again three hours later. (139) Other things result from people’s refusal to obey plans imposed from above. “lleBHHOJiHeHHe npHxasaHHH na KOpaSae craao nourii oSMtteHHHM,..” (49) [“Refusal to obey orders became almost a commonplace on the ships...”] (99); “MHorae B O H H T icji ‘p e B K O M a ’ oSyasaTfc asapxucTOB a yrojioB H U K O B H e paBaxiB ycnexa, ie oxasnisajiH paste BOopyaceHHoe conpoTHBJieHiie, h b Kpenoera tie pas B 0 3 H H K 8 B H Secnopsupsi” (70) [K [t]he numerous attempts of the Revolutionary Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272 Committee to control the anarchists and criminals were not successful, the latter even offered resistance, and disorder kept breaking oat in the fortress”] (1 IS); “B M apT M iH X B H O ne riopHHHSjiaek npiiicBy SpHraflHaa miceiia Mjiamnero R O M aH flH oro cocrasa.,.. Korna m K O Jia mpmmma. aa doesofi yuacTO K 95-oro nojnca h k n e t BHineji K O M angttH p, KpacHoapMelnH cram bmkphkhbetB): haneM nac ciopa nparaajiH?” (78) [“Is Martyshkino the brigade school of the Junior Commanding Staff.. .didn’t follow orders. When these cadets arrived at the battle zone o f the 95th Regiment and the commander appeared, the Red Army soldiers started to shout: ’Why were we forced to come here?’”] (126-7). In sum, the fettle as Kuraev depicts It is a history of things not going as planned. Events that could be related in the more typical historical mode of narrative are intentionally told in a way that underscores the potential for things to have gone differently. This device is used effectively to convey a sense of the importance of alternatives down to the mundane details of history, even in the way local events are constituted that make up the whole story: Moacno 6 h jio ne na^ara b M O K p w h euer, moxcho Sbuio hc ik w & tb b B ojjy, npocrynasmyio na^o hbhqm, ecaii Q u sheth, bto jp m s a ix t H T H H K O B Kpenoera iqxmeKTopa m M orjni B H C B erira * H H nero aaatnie t p y x c o v —Tpexcoi’ maroB, noxoMy hto ocjieHHTejiiHHi, oxjiHBaiomHfi chhsboh, ksk cTajn. xopomero K J iH H K a , s y n j i m p m c m b Tynan s a x b ereHy. (90-91) It would have been possible to avoid falling in the wet snow, it would have been possible to avoid lulling in the water that had oozed through to the top of the ice, if only they had known that the search lights couldn’t Illuminate anything farther away than 200-300 paces from the defenders of the fortress, because the blinding beam, shining blue like the steel of a good blade, struck the tog like a solid w all (90) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 Other possibilities are preserved and valued by this sense o f “if only”; the preseatness o f past moments is shown to be of paramount importance for Kuraev. The work displays a preoccupation with falsehoods at various levels, o f which the official/unofficial of published/rumored dichotomies are only two instances: “Korara C K asaTn, h h k 3k h x m sccob k ix paccxpejiOB s OpamieHfiayMe, khk xoT C Jiocfc 6w M a reK H H K a M h o h q m o h h coo6majffl b c b o h x “H3BecTH*x”, we 6 h jio ” (73) [“Incidentally, the mass shootings in Oranienbaum that the rebels would have liked and that they reported in their newspaper Izvestiia didn’t take place.”] (73); “HaxaHyHe c o 6 h t h h imanBHHK n o jia r o T a e jia c Jw io T a Barac xejierpacfmpoBaji b neHip:“Oco6oro H etiO B O JibC T sa cpemi soeaKopoB H eT .” (71) [“The day before these events, the head o f the Navy Political Section, Batis, telegraphed to the center: ‘Especial dissatisfaction within the Navy does not exist’”] (71). in these examples, juxtaposition o f official and unofficial versions is also used to transmit alternatives. The problem is not only that the official or published story is not historically accurate, but that it is also the version that seemed at the time least likely to predominate in the end—so that it may have even been reported falsely as a result o f an assumed outcome not coming to fruition. Thus the distinction between what happens and what does not, and thus between falsehood and truth, is not great, and the latter does not always rest on the side of what is official or published, again, a reverberation with Tolstoy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274 Truth, freedom, individual, choice: Identity in Transformation It is only 'by standing on the shoulders of the regularities that constitute our past that genuine free will is possible. —Alex Argyros, A Blessed Rage for Order The later Dikshtein is repeatedly said to have an extreme aversion to all sorts of lying and falsehood thanks to his own secret, and he spends the remainder of his life adhering to a code of integrity that developed out of this secret (113). Yet the truth here is a function of the alternatives that are present, and Igor Ivanovich cannot step outside the shadow of alternative that has been cast; he cannot live just his own life without the other. He also cannot live wholly confined by this shadow of the other, because its shape does not exactly fit him; to endorse only the other in his life would be to forget who he is himself. Nastya, too, tries hard to remember his original identity: “ frasce Hacra noBHJia ce6 s Ha mhcjih j p a paaa, hto He moxcct b c jjo m h b t b . raoe KpecxHoe bmh, b c h o m h u jie , K O H enH O , toh m co He cpaay” (140) [“even Nastya twice caught herself thinking she couldn’t remember your real Christian name—she did remember it, of course, only not immediately”] (138). Anyway, the boundaries are blurry, and by the end of his life, Igor Ivanovich does not know who he would have been without Dikshtein. A theme of transformation can be traces! in the life of Igor’ Ivanovich that is tied in with the haze of possibilities Morson also calls “time's doubles.” This theme is strongly manifested in the novella by the problem of naming. Naming and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 renaming is, incidentally, a constant theme for Russian literature and culture; it is already a commonplace that Russians change the names of every city and street with any shake-ups in their government, a practice that reaches back at least to the beginning of the Bolsheviks’ rale, and thus it should come as no surprise that contemporary literature focuses on this theme. The narrator, in discussing the second Dikshtein’s gradual transformation to a new identity, associates this transformation with Ms assumption of a new name. Ho caM H M ijjaaTacTiMecxifM b onHCHBaeM HX c © 6 htm x 6m u io to, HTO, G T /te jlH B IH H C fc O T C B O C F O B O /P IB H H O rO H O C IIT C jlS , HM« H C fja M H J J M He nepeiiuiH peaojuonHOHH& iM neeB^oHHM OM k hobomy ajiaAen&ny, a, Hanporas, ksk 6h oTOpsajm ero o t cefk. B cocjqehhchhh hobofo jnma c H O B S M BMCHCM B03HHKJIH U C p T H H XapSKTep H O B O T O H C H O B C ia . M a J lO u o x o x e ro h Ha iconerapa h s iperB efi KOTenBHoi, h h e CTapmuHy fioesanaca BTopoft dainiiH raaBHoro xajnifJpa. [107] But the most fantastic feature of the events described above was the fact that after being separated from its original bearer, the name didn’t transfer to its new owner as a revolutionary pseudonym ta t, on the contrary, pulled him away from himself, as it were. In the combination of a new face with a new name, features and characteristics o f a new person resulted, who had nothing in common with either the stoker from the No. 3 boiler or the first sergeant in charge of ammunition from the No. 2 turret o f the main battery. (107) Dikshtein’s transformation is compared, with Saul’s biblical transformation to the new identity o f Paul to establish that this practice is not a new. Reflecting upon sideshadowing, Morson writes that “[Qike a king challenged by a pretender with an equal claim to rule, the actual loses some temporal legitimacy. It can no longer be regarded as inevitable, as so firmly ensconced that it does not make sense to consider alternatives” ( .Narrative 118). The presence of two rightful names representing two Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 personalities, each ‘ with a legitimate claim to a body, presents a strong challenge to inevitability, showing that “there are many potential presents for each one actualized” (118). This is effective in particular due to the ftmdamental and reasonable perception that identity is a permanent entity that is not easily transmuted. As the years pass and Dikshtein grows into his identity, he realizes that the only way to survive under Soviet rule is 6 h T h HeOTJlHHHMO IIO X O M M H a H rO p S HBaHOBHUa Jh iK H IT eiH a. K KOTOpOMy y COBCTCKOH BJiaCTH, K3K H3BCCTHO, n p eX e H 3 H l H6 6&UIO. Ax, Hropi. H BaaoBHHf Ecjih 6h o h Mor aanojtoapHTB, ckojibko m j x h h t k c c t h ffeper o h b cboio x m m b m c c tc c hobhm h m o ic m h o t h c c tb o m , BMecxe c H O B ofi ssyH H O H $aMHjiHeis m o x c t 6 h t b , o h He npjrroei 6h h caMy XH3HB C 3THM B6HH0 flaBSIHHM C ep/W C SOB6CKOM. ( 1 0 9 ) to be exactly like Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein, against whom Soviet power had, as we know, no grievance. O Igor’ Ivanovich! If he had only suspected how much pain and difficulty he was adopting along with Ms new first name and patronymic and sonorous last name, he might have never accepted life itself with this weight eternally lying heavy on Ms heart. (109) To survive he must be the person represented by the name, transform himself to conform with something unknown, for he did not know the original Dikshtein. Dikshtein is acutely aware of the presence of this other self, a challenger to Ms throne, and rests in the shadows of this hypothetical life that parallels Ms own. The essence of this transformation lies in establishing a new order based on the complexity o f human nature in its ideal manifestation that cannot be overlooked. The hero o f our story, the second Dikshtein, fives out a special kind of order. He is sot truly organized and able to explain everything, and does not possess the fastidiousness of the original Dikshtein (which failed the man as a life principle, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277 anyway), or an ability to control details in Ms own life or impose order on others. He tries at times to micromanage Ms life, but cannot He is overly preoccupied, with yearning for order, but fails to find it. In the opening chapters, the reader becomes intimate with Igor’ Ivanovich’s feelings and interactions with Nastya. She “yxce npHBHKinas k o tb m noptmaM HasejjeHHs nopsgjca b j k i o h h ” ( 1 3 ) [“is used to M s fits o f imposing order,”] (17) but at the same time, she spends every morning npocuHTHBaer xroneBHHe k o m 6 h h 3 H H h 5 BHCxpaaBaa hx b o B p e M C H H o fl nocjiettoBaTejn>HocTH, o6o3Hauaa cTenem. BaacnocTH xaxgoro aena m Mepy ycHjmft, HeoSxo/tHMHX mm npeoflojiemifl ocnoKHsnomnx oficTosnrejibCTB (23) [“calculating the combinations of their life, ordering them in a temporal sequence, attributing to each action a degree of importance and an amount of effort needed to overcome the complicating circumstances”] (26). She also holds the purse-strings in their house. Igor5 Ivanovich, on the other hand, has lost the net bag, cannot get the clock to work, and has to ask Nastya for money; “to b kohcuhom cnere n p H H H M a n HacTHny nporpaMMy xax he SjiHxaSniHe uacw, thk h Ha nocjie^yjoume m m »i” (23) [“P]n the end he accepted Nastya’s program for both the corning hours and for the following years”] (26). For him and in Mm, control, order and explanation fail. But at the same time, he possesses an order o f a different kind, a special order that provides boundaries to the disorder of others. The narrator describes a neighbor woman, Yermolai Pavlovich’s wife, as simple, loud, rede and bulky. Ogaaxo 6hji© saMeneao, «no bo BpeM S 6ece,a E pM O Jias fIaB,noBi«a c HropeM Wmmmmsm o npejtMeiax, bobcc He^ocrynnHX ee ocjieiraeHHOM y ropmmm yaty, oaa b §ece,rpi ae Bcipesana, h e ayma se opaamst— Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271 H@npoTHB, K 8 K 6h n p o u y c jc a jia csaaaHiioe mymeu m oSu uep es C B o e c c m a H H e , co ra acH O KHsaria. A b c jib H e 6 h j io h e cB ex e c h j ih , KOTOpaa 6 t i a a cnocoSna nepecHOTiB xeay EpMOJiaa HaBiiOBiraa c ee soarjiacaMH, MaXSHHSM pyi£. H C O K H ^ a B H H M flM T S X O r© KpyUHOFO U B O T D B e x a n p O T J D K H H M noB H 3T H B aH H eM ....H b o t s a r m m : m a b npacyrcTBHH Hrops Hbmobhw 3xa xeHimiHa, i-ie 3naiGipas: b Mape iiperpap, fxm&me eiiyinajia, ucm roBopHJia, xecxoB h oxob b s nosBOJBBia, a h io 6 h He BurrouteTb npn yM H OM pasrosope sypot, yuom sospeMs BcrasH Tb c j i o b c h k o , ofipamasct. H C K jn o H H x e ji& H O k Hropio M naifOBBuy c aoSpoI yjmrfkoi: “H k t o xe th cctb h e neM xe6a CBecTt? (27) However, it was noticeable that during Yermolai Pavlovich’s conversations with Igor’ Ivanovich about things that weren’t accessible to her mind, Minded as it was by pride, she didn’t butt in or hush up her husband— on the contrary, it was as though she received what her husband said into her consciousness, nodding in agreement. And there was no other power in the world that could overwhelm Yermolai Pavlovich’s wife with her exclamations, her waving arms, her drawn-out screeching, so unexpected in such a large person.. .And here is a strange thing: only in the presence of Igor’ Ivanovich did this woman, who recognized no limits, listen more than speak, restrain herself from gestures and sighs, and in order not to seem like a fool during an intelligent conversation, manage to slip in a couple of words... (79-80) Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein also rebukes the amorous advances ofMarseilleise Nikolaevna, another neighbor, who has never understood moral boundaries and has never been turned down by any other mm—and it is implied that she makes herself widely available. Moreover, he also managed to reign in the fetter’s sc®, who was violent towards Ms mother and constantly ended their fights with “Th urns, or Henna oxfijTgnoBajia!” (128) [“You got me from whoring with a German”) (127). Igor’ Ivanovich, is the only one who successfully lays down a line to stop these “German broadcasts”: He tells the youth “Ecjih 6 th 6mh aeMeiy ...th 6 h 6hji yMHHi, a th—flypax” (129) [“If you were a German,.. .you’d be smart—but you’re a fool”] (127). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279 In feci, the climax of the novella occurs in this rather unexpected passage. Igor5 Ivanovich is sitting with Ms friend Shamil shortly before Ms death, drinking beer. They are reflecting on their friendship, the nature of scientific discovery and progress, history, and the meaning of life. Shamil asserts that just the fact that he [Dikshtein] has done only small tilings doesn't mean Ms life .had h o meaning, Although he is, as far as the Soviet regime is concerned, literally a nonperson, Dikshtein is socially the most esteemed person in Gatchina. The narrator inserts that “Box h nomwiach repomsi noBectmsmms, B C T p en a c Koxopoi Shjih ofremaaa aaBHM M -rtaBHo,” (126) [“[hjere the heroine o f the narrative finally enters, the meeting with whom was promised long ago”] (125). It is here that the narrator intervenes to explain Igor5 Ivanovich’s conduct in regards to Marseilleise Nikolaevna. This neighbor has played almost no role in the story, which is nearly over at this point, so the question arises as to why she is considered the heroine. The reason, though it is not stated, Is that she represents the hero’s ascent to great moral heights in the story. Ascent is the applicable term because apparently widely acknowledged Dikshtein’s moral status in Gatchina is the result o f countless encounters he has had over the span o f Ms lifetime with other people—not o f Ms participation, heroic or not, is a single event, even Kronstadt. Ironically, the scalplock sailor’s participation in events at Kronstadt, which might typically be considered heroic, constituted more an expression of conformity than identity, and it is more accurate to say that he was caught up in the tide of mass participation, o f the “Konefijiiomajtcs cth xh s” (89) [“wavering elements”] (89), than that fie made an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280 inform ed choice to participate. Only after Ms assumption of a new identity and thus arrival at self-awareness did Dikshtein become aware of all the choices he would face and “conquer” over the course of his lifetime, Key moments for Kuraev involve moral choices. Choice is only possible if there is identity. “Identity enables choice” (Argyros 200). “Only that which can die can be said to five, and only that which can be wrong can make correct moral choices” (200), Morson, similarly, connects identity with alternative: “There are real alternatives. Therefore choice is not an illusion. Freedom is something more than the consciousness of necessity. We consequently have real responsibility because what we do matters” (“For the Time Being” 217). Kuraev makes clear that life’s meaning is in the concept of identity—acting out of a sense of truth, freedom, and moral responsibility—and it is in choices that identity is formed, through the creation of productive boundaries. The mechanism through which choice is able to construct an identity is freedom. Igor Ivanovich maintains an existence that is freer than most other members o f his community due to the fact that he lived on the margins o f officialdom, and it is precisely his incapacity to become a part o f the “nocTynaxeji&Hoe hbh»c6hh6 rocyaapciBemioro M ex a H H S M a ” (132) [“ progressive motion of the state mechanism9 '] (130) that gives him freedom. 3a bcio cboio 3 K H 3 H B Hropi. EMmoam. se 6wji b jkmhukii, Koropas Moraa 6h no3B O H H i% euy cicaaaxu: “Bac mhofo, a a orpin,.”, “Cerotpg s SojiMiie n p H H H M aT fe (BjagaBaxfe, pa3pexnar&, paccMarpHBaiB, cflyjnar&) He 6y/ty”, “B h BHQHre, y Meat nejioBeic, box icoB ray, xorjia sawteie”, “*fro mo bh mbc 3«ecfc cyere?!”, “C stem— H 6 ico mhc” h tomj iiotpfeoe. see to , uto Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281 O H C JIH H ia JI B C f O S C H 3 H B , EO Fpa H p H X O fllfflO C B C M V B p U m aT b C JJ B ctfjepO X cjtyxefmux,. O h H in c o ra a H e m o f o m y rirris ce6s tc m 3ji@ m6htom, hjih, k s x xoraa roB opH JiH , bhkthkom, orp o M H O H m h o f o c j jo x h o I s npeKpacHoft, p a iy M H o I, oxBaiHBaiomel bcio s k e s h b b o scex ee u o ^ p o o H O C T ax mbidhhm... (132) Never during Ms whole life ted Igor Ivanovich been in a position which might have permittee! him to say, “There are many o f you but only one o f me...”; “I won’t receive (give out, give permission, examine, listen) any more today”; ...’’ You’ve come to the wrong place”—and the things like this he had heard all his life when he had to move in the service spheres. [Emphasis the author’s] He could never feel himself as an element, or as they used to say then, cog, o f that gigantic, highly complex, beautiful and rational machine which embraced life in all its details... (130) He was never a cog and this has enabled him to remain a free man. He has always been free to decide his own duties in life and fulfill them as he saw fit. Freedom, with its distinctions among people and implicit requirement o f moral responsibility and free choice to maintain these distinctions, is what allows identity to form, and Kuraev’s original Dikshtein perceives this sharply. HaSmoaas, K a K no nyra k Mecry Ha3imeHHs pacrepajincB npranaKH, no K O T O p H M pasnm anH C fc jnotm na Kopa6jiax a b Kpenoera, K a K yTparajm c m m c ji s s a is ig h ^pjekhocth, e m e HenaBHO o n p e se jM B n u ie Bee m c a n y x a x n o r o , Hrop& H b 3 H o b h u pemnji, ut o paanwMH m o tte l a e jia e x CBoSojja m 02PH3K0BBIMH— FUST, 6jMb 3T0 tHeT CTpaxa, rOJIOJta, XOJIOna H JIH HaCHJIHH. (109) On the way to their assigned place Igor5 Ivanovich observed how the signs by which people were distinguished on the ships and In Kronstadt forts were lost, how the importance o f rank and duty was lost, although a short time earlier these things had given weight and strength to each man, and he decided that freedom makes people different and oppression makes them alike—whether oppression by fear, hunger, cold or violence.” (109) Oppression precludes the development or sustaining of Identity, and this is true for the iodividual and for the collective, which is made up o f many individuals. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein9 s personality and individuality function as a set of boundaries that allow a true and trancendaat order based upon values of freedom and choice, which allows identity to establish itself in him and hi others. In the same way., the depiction o f events at Kronstadt within the tale establishes a set of cultural boundaries within, which cultural values are developed and societal events can acquire meaning. As events of the past are understood and given .meaning, cultural identity can be sought out and understood. Thus if Kuraev is suggesting that an individual’s identity is created in choices and in actions as a free agent, there is also the implication that a society’s history and thus identity comes about as a function of human agency. The original Dikshtein Is surprised at the lack o f accountability that was allowed in the public reporting and evaluation of war events, as they were happening; two military officials In the Provisional Government’s navy were executed publicly and without trial by revolutionaries, and K B raserax 0 6 a oiyuaa HasnajiH HHiumeirroM, h, w o fiojiee Beero Hopaaioio Hrops U saH O B H H a, hhkomj nm ero sa or© He Shjio” (53) [“[bjoth events were referred to In the newspapers as incidents and no one had to answer for them, which is what struck Igor’ Ivanovich most of all”] (55). He is surprised because tie understands better than most that freedom depends on accountability more thas on power. And the feet that no one was held accountable is seen here as something abnormal, and as a mysterious trend with consequences not just at the individual, but also at the societal level This tension between freedom and power can also be noted in the passage quoted above in which it Is explained that the later Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 Dikshtein never became a cog and never held any position out of which he could act lordly over others—but that this is why he, to a greater extent than most others, remained a free man within Soviet society. Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein’s identity was transformed through the right, free choices lie made, as reflected in the presence of sideshadows cast over the stories that make up Ms life. In the same way, social identity, or “Russianness,” is shown to 'be a function o f society's h is to r ic a l choices, when other possibilities are and always have been present as alternatives to what has come to be. Indeed, the theme o f transformation by virtue of renaming comes into play in the tale at the level of society, too; the author pauses to mention at least two other incidents of renaming that transformed or were attempts to transform people and events. On the side of the Bolsheviks and the revolutionary power, the mutinous ship Sevastopol, after the mutiny is put down, is renamed The Paris Commune, obviously in an official attempt to transform the past and make it into, like the named analogy, a successful and lasting revolution. In another example, the provincial Russian town of Gatchina, for the most part irrelevant to government and unneeded by those in power, has been renamed at least three times in its history (28) (Eng. 30-1), and the town is shown in the tale to undergo several significant transformations in its character as a result. In the end, however, Gatchina is like Igor Ivanovich Dikshtein, a place in which more than one entity is combined to create the special identity il now possesses: M B ce-iaK H FaTUHHa H ecp aB H eraa! I ' m e r n e H a ip e n n . t s k o c M e c ro , *n © 6H BOT-T8K paaOM , BHJlOTHyK), no p a 3 H H e CTOpOHW HemnpoKoro tn o c c e Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284 no-pmuouj m m u s c m , no-pasnoMy uoicasM BajiM spmml Cjiesa pa3M epeHHHM napcTBenHHM maroM crynajia xypaim i Hcxopina, a cnpasa CMum.cs a cmusjicm mcjikiie necos eygefi b SecinvMHHX uaeax bcuhoctji,,. (35) And yet, Gatchina is incomparable! Where else could you find a place where side by side, dose to each other but on opposite sides of the narrow highway, clocks ran differently, showing different time! On the left the bells o f history struck with a measured imperial pace, while to the right the fine sands o f destiny kept right on pouring through the silent clocks of eternity.,,(37) Gatchina, like Dikshtein, has an official identity and an unofficial one, which are divided from one another metaphorically by the low palace windows through which the local, unnamed residents are permitted to watch the Imperial family dine in European luxury (34-5). Yet the town, because it is located on the margins of history, is a propitious place for the question of collective identity to be proposed: Fge xax ne sa ecs bcjibkm HMnepm odHapyxcHBaer cBoe coKpoBeHHoe cymecTBo, rj?e kek He 'mech BHzmw HespHMtie H 3 gpyrax m cct h h t h , npBMo coeflHHHBniHe caMyiO sepxHioio T O H K y, paciroiioxeHHyto, 6 & r r & M 0 3 K 6 T , na BepmuHe Kpecra, BeHnaiomero Kopony, c BepmmmsmoB xoHKoi rfle-mi6y/n> Ha npoxymiBmHxca nogMencax pacnocnesHero noflztaHHoro HMnepra? Fne xax He sgech pa3HrpHBajmcB, a 6 uih m o h c t , b ho c e l fleH & pastirpHBaiOTca (jpaHxaciraraecKHe ho CBoeit hcbosm okhocth HcropHH, chocoShhc H 3 J M H T & m opei, eme ne pasyHHBiHHxca. ae rrpaxHBniHX c h o c o S h o c t b HsyM jisx&cfi m 6 o jih b cepnne, HecMoipa Ha M H O r O J I C T H I O lO IIpH B M H K y K X JJ3H H , O & fe S C H e H H O H B O B C C X 6 C DpGSBJieHH SX H H O ttp ofiH O C T S X ? (38-9) Where better than here does the great empire reveal its secret essence, where, but here, can you see the threads, invisible elsewhere, joining the highest point situated, maybe, on the top o f the cross adorning the crown, with an indistiuguishaHe point somewhere on the worn-out soles of the humblest subject of the empire? Where, 'better than here, were played out and probably are being played out even today fantastically impossible stories which are capable of astounding those people who haven’t unlearned or lost Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 the ability of being amazed to the bottom of their hearts, regardless of their having long since become used to a life where every manifestation and detail is explained? [40] Both the ship and the town undergo something like a search for identity—it is Mated at that for each, the people involved with them were involved hi key historical moments having to due with the identity of the place in wMch they found themselves—and as a result of renaming, and the history of each is transformed. The novel, and Dikshtein’s life, end when Dikshtein has paid visits to two places; the author uses these visits to show the connection between the transformed identity, functioning at the boundaries of the explained and the inexplicable, and the search for cultural meaning. To start with, Igor Ivanovich drops by the courthouse to tell Ms nephew something. The courthouse is shown to be a place that ‘M e norwaioiipieca onHcamno” (133) [“is impossible to describe”] (132); it is full of life, and because of this, chaotic and complex, subject to change. In fact, its description is similar to that of a chaotic system, for which feedback from input is required to analyze current states or outcomes. The narrator informs the reader that “nycsaacb b paccicaj o h c m , jienco anacri. b HcropHueacyio otiiafky, nocxojiwcy h s jim m ytsepsypTi., vro M eBoaM O X H oe arc m oot© b no e e i jm n b iipeCwBaer b m im o M . cBoei H eB03M 03K H 0Cra” (134) [“an account of it might easily lead one into historical (error, since ft can’t be asserted definitely that this impossible place continues on to this day in its entirely impossible state”] (132). He goes on to describe the state of the great corridor as it was when Dikshtein walked through ft, pointing out the unknowable areas and naming what one would have to know to describe ft today. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2S6 But the meaning o f the place is not in its physical description or in the capacity for it to fee completely described or explained simply: Ec t b Mecra, aeBosMoxHHe xpis oiracaHHsi Ho WO C T O B T B O C f c 3T0T F JC T O H HaTJlHl C p a M B C paB H C H H H C O cTHaoM h 6ojii>k>, m w x g o i h crpaxoM , r p « H O h rop socr& io, b cpaBHeHHH c tockoh h B epO H b uyso, c x ta x g o S npaBpji h 6 o ® h w o o io fi x e caM oif npaBpH, c to m , tto npH H O csT aoga jnoflK, HenocsraeMO m psras b ce6e, a eme name h o t cemhx ceSa, bcio 3iy nyraHHiiy ocip&ix XHSHemnax cnjieremft... (135) There are places that axe impossible to describe! But 'what does all this dense, blatant shame matter in comparison with the disgrace and pain, hope and fear, filth and pride, in comparison, with the anguish and faith in miracles, with the thirst for truth and fear of truth which people bring here, inaccessibly hidden within themselves and even more often from themselves, this whole muddle of life’s thorny complications... (132-3) In a discussion with Ms nephew, who is annoyed by the slow pace of people’s proceedings and feels that many of the cases are clear cut and would be resolved more easily “paboTajm 6 w caen&Ho” (136) [“if they did piece work”] (134), Igor Ivanovich is reminded of Ms own case, in the war tribunal. “Y Hropa HBaHOBnua M eJiM C H y jia snpyr Gesymmm a Moxer, t o w cnemno pafioTasiH?” (136) [“A crazy thought suddenly came to Igor Ivanovich’s mind; perhaps they were getting paid by the piece back then?” } (134). Simple explanations and judgments that can be made easily belie the real meaning o f life, in which complex people both search for truth and fear die truth, even hiding it from themselves. Bad Dikshtein5 s proceedings gone differently, had someone bothered to find out the story of why he possessed the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287 coin but had not played a heroic role in the mutiny, he would have actually been a different person. The visit to the indescribable courthouse is juxtaposed to Dikshtein5 s walk by another so-called fantastic place, the Gatchina Cathedral of the Intercession, This boarded up church appears as a prison, and it never functioned in its intended, spiritual, role; born on the eve of the revolution, its fate was sealed in the fate of Christianity and the Orthodox Church in Russia. Yet “Hropn HBanoBira He pas jiobhji c e f k n a m h c jih o t o m , u t o, upoxotp m h m o c o S o p a , npH CJiym H Baexcs.” ( 1 3 7 ) [“Igor Ivanovich sometimes caught himself thinking, as he walked by the cathedral, that he was listening for something”] (135); in a state o f openness of spirit, he unconsciously seeks some kind o f spiritual meaning here. The narrator wonders aloud, after Dikshtein’s visit to the courthouse: H r o p a H sa H O B m a H er, h h h k t o He cxaaceT , neM x e w gm s m s m e r o o t o t y r p io M H f, icpacH oro K H pm iua k o jio c c c u p o S h t h m h H anpocBeT K ynonaM H, c KpyrHMH H enpH cryim w M H crenaM H , c vm ojik ih h m h K O JioK O JiaM H na oTKpHToi BerpaM SBomame, A Moxex 6htb, oto canoe BHyaiHTeji&Hoe spanae Ha rpaaatancKoi TCppHTOpHH raTHHHHE CpejlH HpHSeMHCTHX £PSyX3TaSfHHX flOMHHieK HanoMHHajio reSe- rpoMany JiHHKopa, n ejia B m er o paaoM recHoft mm& n p o cT o p H y io Boemiyio mm ub y c x B -P o r a n c H ? .. A MoaceT 6ht&, b MHHvry pymeBHoI cjiaSocrH, icor/p xotcjiocb, h to 6 h 6hui, 6bw b jto u MHpe Bor, pasyM M i m cnpaBe/pHBHi. t h noMeman ero hmchho rjse-ch, b nyeraHHHx u xomoMfrnx creaax, orpaxpat ero CKOpoHyro Myapocxt o r n ssm m m m cyerw a neBHBTHoro MHorocjiOBba.. .or nonoBCKoil B£Dkhocth h jnoncKoro conepHEraecraa b CM HpeHHOM yHHHHXeHHH?.. ...Ocxaercs junta npe/mojroxHTB, aro co6 op npHrarHBan k cede ^affracTHHecKHM coaeraHHCM m m m c m x uepT h nonpoSHOCTeft, HanoM KHasniHX H io p io H B aaoB H n y bcskjfI pas cm m e pasjinuHHe cro p o H H ero 6 ucxpo HpoMejiHCHyBiiiei xbshm: h spenocx&, h JiM'arop, m ysrnmms,. m Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 c rn ia a , ...O cxaeTca im m h yremmma tcm , w m w c m Hropn M sm owm 6mm cKopee h6 jiob6kom ^aHTaci’ H H e c K H M , h noTony, c K O J ifc K o hh Seicx, immrm ne aorswaenibCK, ueM xe npH T H T H B auo ero x cefie sro Mpa*moe, eocxapH B H ieeex, eme h ae smm jk h tb , mopyxeime, (138-9) Igor Ivanovich is no longer here and no one can say why he was attracted to this gloomy red brick colossus with cupolas broken right through, the steep Inaccessible walls, the silenced bells in a belfiy opened to the winds. Perhaps this most imposing edifice o f the municipality of Gatchina...reminded you of the gigantic battleship which had made even the large naval harbor in Ust-rogatka seem small?.. And perhaps in a moment of spiritual weakness when you wanted a reasonable and just God to exist in this world, you would locate him right here, within the empty and cold wails, protecting Ms sorrowful wisdom from pagan fiiss and incomprehensible verbosity..., from priestly importance and the competition o f people in humble self-disparagement?.. ...All that’s left to conjecture is that the cathedral exerted an attraction because of its fantastic combination of mundane features and details, reminding Igor Ivanovich each time o f quite different aspects of Ms life, which had flashed by so quickly: the fortress, the battleship, the dungeon, the storage room.... One can only console oneself with the feet that Igor Ivanovich himself was a rather fantastic man, and so you can rack your brains all you want, but you will never guess what exactly attracted him to this gloomy edifice wMch had grown old without ever having started to live. (136-7) The courthouse is depicted as alive with people’s desperate need for truth, justice, and faith—but also as a place where people are subjected to arbitrary and self- interested human behavior that attempts to explain everything and in doing so undermines justice. The cathedral, on the other hand, is dead, or at least dead, silent, but seems to contain the echoes of an individual’s past and reverberations of meaning for Russian culture. Like Dikshtein and Gatchina, the church possesses a meaning that Is inexplicable, but that represents the little, individual person’s Integration into culture and history. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289 As such, the church is just one more symbol of an alternative past in which the little man joins in a broader, cultural construction of meaning and significance. In memory, history becomes individual, and is shown to mean something for the little man the Russian worker and peasant Igor’ Ivanovich has fond memories of his family enjoying the holiday services in Moscow, and the narrator describes how they sometimes used to sing the lines from religious songs together: CuoppShbihbcs BBicoKoro npHuacTHa, [© T en Hrops M BaH OM raa] b m h h j t h cepaeuHoro yM H JieH H H , ne raa^g na KajieH^ap&, 3axarHBaJi: “Paa3 6o-oiiHHKa-a 6iiaropa3y-y-yMHoro... ” “Bo etPHOM nace...”—xyr see BC T ynaiia juofrHBmaa h c t b MaiyniKa, asopoM npHSBiaas cHua. “C h o ^ o S h ji ecu Focno-o-o^H...”— apm crpam m m orponecKHfi ajiw, h sea ccmm e ^ H H O neuanoBajiacb cepznreM o u y x o l S o jih , safiMBas o csoei, h HaaejtojirHe MraoseHHa cobccm S jih s k o uepeHOcmiacB H 3 coticTBeHHoro S G M a, pasMepoM ejpa HpeBocxoflHBmero h h v k j pyccieyio SantKy, k no^Hoxiro rpex Kpecros, m e sepHiHJiact acecroKas h oxnacxH HecupaBejpuBaa ksshb. (29) After communion, anytime [Igor’ Ivanovich’s father) felt his heart moved and without regard to the church calendar, he would intone: “The goodthi-I-ief...” “At the first hour...” Ms mother, who loved to sing, would chime in at once and with a glance invite her son to join in. “Glo-o-ory to Go- o-od” the a d o lescen t alto voice found itself a spot in the harmony, and the whole family grieved in their hearts over someone else’s suffering, forgetting their own, and for a short moment the family was carried from their own house, which in size hardly exceeded the smallest Russian bathhouses, to the base of three crosses where a cruel and partly unjust execution was in progress. (31) Christ is depicted here as an individual, suffering and real; the effect is that a historical event carries meaning to the hearts of individuals centuries later. Furthermore, Igor Ivanovich’s father, the protagonist recalls, insisted that the family attend holiday services in Moscow, not in Sergiev, considering himself a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Muscovite—a case of an insignificant individual seeking to identify himself'with the broader culture as a strategy to find significance and meaning. Conclusion Finally,, it can be noted that Captain Dikshtein makes overtures towards the epic genre, despite its insistence that the fundamental building block of meaning is the individual in history, ft is a highly intertextual work, and repeatedly interacts with Pushkin, Gogol, Belyi, and Tynianov, among others, especially in relating the concept of national myth-making to smaller spheres of Russian culture. Thus the ongoing dialog with great Russian literature o f the past, which Kuraev himself claims is intertwined indistinguishabiy into the fabric o f Ms text, creates another level of meaning in the text. In an interview, Kuraev himself stated that he “can never distinguish what is from Kuraev and what is from my favorite authors, or from those I despise.” (Night Patrol, translator's introduction 6) Dialog with epic themes, which tries to treat themes of national significance and give meaning to the whole of the national cultural experience, makes a global claim for the significance of this work and its metahistorical approach. At the same time, Kuraev changes the focus o f epic, as a source of meaning, from the global and great to the local and humble. Elements o f the epic sensibility are preserved and applied to the humble individual in the tale's repeated lament, “Ax, Hropt MBaaoBiru, Hropt Hbehobim! ...” (140) [Oh, Igor Ivanovich, Igor Ivanovich!] And the heart of epic is connection to historical significance and meaning, for the individual permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291 In Captain Dikshtein, Kuraev thus examines the concept of self-identity, which has implications for national identity, through the leas of history that might have been and the sideshadows cast by two individuals who became one in the course o f past events. Through his investigation of one individual who might be someone else— Igor’ Ivanovich Dikshtein, a person who has one foot on either side of the boundary separating what is from what might have been—Kuraev preseats national and local historical knowledge and at the same time reopens the traditional Russian literary dialog on history-making for a perestroika audience. His purpose in entering this historiographical discussion, like that of the other authors examined in thh dissertation, goes beyond disclosure o f new historical information to take a position on how history, which is made by individual agents, has functioned in the construction of a Russian national identity. Dikshtein, whose very identity is constituted by a boundary that he cannot step back from and at the same time cannot step over completely, functions as a positive instantiation of overcoming the binary models of identity described by Lotman. His identity forms unequivocally out of the historical events lis t affected Ms life, at Kronstadt and in Gatchina, and in this way, he operates as a metanymical argument for a similar model of collective, Russian identity. Perhaps for the first time, Russia’s present is straddling the boundary between the past and the future, creating a third, open space for neutral reflection rather than stepping quickly over history’s boundary line and reversing its values. In this way, there is hope for a new identity to be formed, one that will differ fundamentally from a past defined by progression from one repression to the next. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292 Chapter 5. Utopias a/fo ^stories; On Mark Kharitonov's Novel ilnll sud’ by, ill sunduchok Milashevicha And then comes the ultimate in art—the sense of discovered truth; this is how it could have been, this, perhaps, is how it was. —In ti Tynianov, Autobiography When Mark Kharitonov received the First Russian Booker Prize for Ms 1992 novel Linii sud’ by, H i sunduchok Milashevicha [Lines o f Fate, or Milashevich ’ s Trunk], it came as a surprise to Russian literary circles. Kharitonov was a little known writer who had had difficulties finding a publisher for his work. Yet his well- crafted intellectual detective story, despite its complex and intricate narrative structure and self-consciously postmodern style that renders the work largely inaccessible to a mass audience, provoked the imagination of a literary world that has for a decade been steeped in anti-Soviet ideologies of various sorts. Marsh comments that while the novel is deeply preoccupied with Russia’s past aid its implications for the present, the backdrop of this interest is less political and ideological than philosophical and historiosophical (216). Indeed, the novel’s approach to history is indirect; the real events and people of history provide a backdrop for the fictional history (which is also literary history, ie„, the fictionalized history of a presumably fictional minor author) that makes up the story, but they are not usually the focus o f characters5 reflections. Kharitonov elucidates and portrays a conception of history fiat is very similar to Tolstoy’s: countless individual actions Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293 and choices contingent upon variable circumstances combine to produce the memories people have o f the past. What is remembered and preserved in society's narrative of its past is also dependent upon countless individual choices and circumstances, so that 'what is preserved officially as History barely scrapes the surface o f what really happened, and some o f the most important things of the past are at risk of being forgotten or lost. Furthermore, it is crucial for people to seek meaning in history, hut finding meaning there is not so simple; it can only be done by investigating the choices and circumstances o f the past as remembered by many tellers o f the events under scrutiny, and then attempting to find a meaningful synthesis in their juxtaposition. At the same time, however, individuals will fail to find their identity or understand themselves if they do not seek to understand and act upon the memories they have or the history they and others have made. Summary The plot of Lines o f Fate traces the attempts of Anton Andreyevich Lizavin, a literary scholar who is writing Ms doctoral dissertation on provincial writers of the Stolbeaets and Nechaisk region, to search out the details o f writer Semeon Kondratyieh Milashevich’s life and literary works in order to understand his philosophical writings better, which he accidentally discovers while doing some research in a provincial archive. In his frustration over the archivist’s unwillingness to grant him access to some documents for which he has the proper permission, papers, and stamps, Lizavin unwittingly enters the forbidden archive himself. Not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 sure what to do once behind the closed door, he just continues down the corridor and eventually goes through another door and runs into a worker. This employee of the library mistakes him for a fellow worker and asks him to help move stacks of books around, and while doing this, Lizavin sees a small trunk-like suitcase on the pile designated tor the trash receptacle that lie somehow recognizes from one of Milashevich’s stories. Indeed, upon opening the trunk, he finds familiar handwriting; the box is filled with scraps of paper from candy wrappers— written upon by the hand of Simeon Kondratyich Miiashevich himself. He dumps the contents of the trunk into a net bag with the help of the other fellow and quickly takes his leave through the rear exit. What Lizavin finds when he tries to sort through the papers is a mass of brief reflections on a broad variety of subjects. He tries to sort them by topic, but this is difficult, because the meaning of the lines is in most eases fragmented and difficult to decipher. For example, on one of the fantiki is written: 4 ’ /|a * e ae cjiobo, a Bosrsac, MexpoMenie, nonttnca cjiosa. EBaureifflg cocraBJiawr h o to m yuemiKH” (73) [“Not a word, in fact, but an exclamation, an interjection, an attempt at a word. The Gospel scholars later put it together”] (58). On another ‘TTsiot bo/ p j ih j i, mm na Hero B C X O J D 0 B M , H K O pM B H i H 8C 'X M T. OcropOJKHO, T O B O pK ) X, He OCTyflHCJb” (74) [“The raft floated up, we climb onto it, and the helmsman waits for us. Careful, I say, don’t stumble”] (59). The novel is structured loosely as Lizavin’s research and gradual illumination of fine meaning of these philosophical fragments and bits o f real-life wisdom, and it plots the course o f Ms life during the time spanned by this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295 research. Because the plot Is based upon Lizavin’s untangling of historical and literary materials, as well as the numerous occasions o f Ms coincidentally stumbling across useful information in libraries, the unveiling of Miiashevich’s life and philosophy is a recursive process, in which Lizavin first posits an interpretation of a fantik or a set offantifa, and then researches, finds additional information (usually coincidentally), reflects, and then posits another interpretation o f the same event, often several times. There is no obligatory direction to his discoveries, bat by the end o f the novel, he has succeeded in restoring a plausible, but not verifiable, version of the broad strokes of Miiashevich’s life history from oblivion. Moreover, he comes to an epiphany o f understanding Ms own life and calling through Ms discoveries of and interactions with Miiashevich’s work that he was unable to reach, without this kind of reflection and connection with history. The structure o f the novel is that of a detective story; as literary scholar Anton Andreyevich Lizavin investigates the life of early Soviet provincial writer and philosopher Simeon Kondratyich Miiashevich’s life and the events of early Soviet days that coincided with it, he is faced with the task of fitting together the story from a variety (but a sparse one) o f historical documents, memoirs, literary works by Miiashevich and others, contemporary news articles, and fragments of philosophical essays written by the author. He does not discover Milashevich’s life story chronologically, but rather, in bits and pieces as details randomly surface from murky historical and especially archival depths. Moreover, as he discovers relevant details, he must fit the pieces together like an interlocking jigsaw puzzle—but one Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296 whose pieces can interlock with any o f the other pieces, so that it is impossible to judge from the fit whether the correct juxtaposition has been made. Often, he tries a piece in one place, presenting the reader with one version, only to uncover a feet later that changes his perspective, making it clear that the pieces feck contiguity, and so he presents another version. He often dwells on a particular question for a while and later is reminded of it again by new information from another context that may completely alter Ms earlier surmise. Multiple versions of incidents are ubiquitous in the novel, and in the end Lizavin cannot be sure that what he knows about Miiashevich is the historical, accurate truth. Anton Andreyevich manages to fit the pieces and fragments together so that a picture gradually emerges, and the narrator expresses confidence that what needs to be known will be figured out as long as the necessary information has not been lost. However, there is no way to check one’s historical accuracy, as it is deeply connected to the documents and life records that have failed to be preserved, and so it is never possible to establish for certain that any particular version of the past events is what did indeed take place. Reflection on Genre: Boundary Literature I have no religious awe toward the document in general.,. 1 begin where the document leaves off. —I'uri Tynianov Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m As mentioned earlier, this novel has been called a “postmodern academic detective story.”8 Yet. postmodernism does not fiifiy explain its genre, and it is not a traditional detective novel in is construction; the work is structured as a series of short, noneonsecutive and often contusing fragments representing Lizavin’s actions and thoughts as lie does research lor his doctoral dissertation on Miiashevich— fragments of whose writings are themselves interspersed throughout the story of Lizavin, usually in the form of discoveries he makes about Ms topic. To a large extent, Miiashevich’s trunk with its eclectic mix o f documents emblematizes the work’s genre as a boundary work; it includes newspaper scraps, a poster, a calling card, other bits of documents concerning a mass meeting and a housing decree, letters, personal journals, stories and parts of stories, and scraps o f paper with the notes of an author to himself. It is this very multiplicity of materials about the past that allows Lizavin, and the reader with him, to experience the fullness of history in a work of literature that does not really offer historical narrative, allowing the reader a glimpse into the confusion and utter complexity of events—before they are synthesized into a narrative form, as bits of meaning originally heaped together randomly—that constituted the past we often prefer to think o f today simply as history, The intergeueric dialog engendered by the work is similar to Wachfel’s type, but different in that the mixing o f genres occurs within the story and the intergeneric dialog is a fictionalized one. 1 Helena Gosdlo, Dehexing Sex:Russian Womanhood During and After Glasnost, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298 Kharitonov’s novel thus takes shape along the boundary between literature and history, or the life of the past. Throughout the work, the line between these two modes is murky. The confusion begins as Lizavin discovers obscure provincial writer Miiashevich near the beginning of the story and starts to dig around for documents to understand Ms life and work better. At first, Lizavin has access only to a few of the author's stories, along with sparse documents relating to the province during Ms time period, the 1.910s to the 1930s, and he reads the fragements of stories he comes across with an eye for elements that may have historical explanations— only to become frustrated at Ms inability to find any connections. Ironically, the breakthrough comes not when he finds something Mstorical in Milashevich’s literary work, but rather when he recognizes something he thought was literary in a real-life, archival encounter: Miiashevich5 s trunk. From this moment on, Lizavin experiments with various combinations of literary material with historical knowledge. At first, he plays with the apparently poetic material from the trunk, juxtaposing it with bits of history he has gleaned from various sources. B o p n y x s a c i& m n a b h h h h x n a p a x , ox o n a o r o j m x m m KpyxaarrcK rojiosa—Moxei g h t b , b t o t ace Beuep, K oraa ocTaanmecH 6es KOMaHgmpoB e o n z p T H p a36p eJiH d . n o C x o jiS e H ity h cK o p o BMecre c ofiH saxejiH M H e x a m r p O M H T b BHHHHM MaiBHH H CIOBJPJ CoiBM XGBa H & ryfiepH aX O pC K O fi, F j m xpaHHJiocB nsTfc THC5W fion eic BHHa h cn H p ra , He c m n m S y ru jio K . B c io 3Hi%ty s z m x h jip e m sepcr b en cp y re cT ap aiftS M H b o s h h k o b ii c o jip a x c x r a g r r bmjm ms s. Boay. B p ena, K o rp a b R m s h B w x a q p eB H H X 6ym m sy npoaasaflH s a iioJiTHHHiis, a b 6 jih )k h h x h t o x o a e n ie B n e — c m o m B o c m m m u m m s. m o x h o 6 m jio Ham m aTB o x c v e r o n g x h . B e e n e p s y jo h o h b HecxewiMCo uenoB eK c r ie p e f f le ix ir a H M bo r n a s e nwrajracb ocraH O B H ifc norpoM, ohh paafimam Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299 EpuioiaflaMH SyrwJiKH, bhiycKsuiM m ffcraeK b erovif&ie KaaasH TeM Hy® xojioflnyio oaypaiomys) xsfSEocm... He bhaho 6hjk> gamine nym. #oropasH, « hmhjihcb nocjiejcaHe F O JIO B e m K H p e B O JIIO H H O H H O i H O B H , m e K O T E JI F O p J IO K H C J IH H 3anax n o K a p m n a ..{ i 2 7 - 8 ) H e air is extractedfrom winy fumes, ju st breathing makes one ’ s head spin— perhaps it was that same evening when the soldiers, who had been left without a commander, dispersed through Stolbenets and together with the inhabitants soon started an attack on Sotnikov’s wine shop and warehouses on Governor Street, where five thousand casks of wine and spirit, not counting the bottles, were stored. Thanks to the efforts of carters and soldiers, all winter for a radius of thirty-odd miles people drank spirit as if it were water. A time w hen, a bottle soldfor half a ruble in remote villages, even-cheaper in the ones nearby— one could begin an account o f the epoch from this recollection. The first night a few men with PereshelMn at their head tried to stop the pogrom; they broke bottles with their rifle butts, releasing the cold, dark, stupifying liquid from the casks into the waste gutters.... ...Further on, the road wasn't visible. The last smoldering pieces of wood from the night of revolution were burning down and smoking, the sour smell o f charred ruins tickled oar throats... (105-6) Gradually, the road seems to become somewhat dearer, and a kind o f wholeness emerges from the incompleteness of the historical and literary documents Lizavin has available to him. To use a metaphor offered several times in the work, the the line of connection between life, history, and literature can be compared to a thread in a solution, which is dropped in so that crystals of understanding can form around it. Increasingly, and after countless juxtapositions, Lizavin comes to understand that th&fmititi from Miiashevich5 s trunk have a connection to history and to real events, nycTB H e Bee, nycn. HenoHjrrao jeaicoe, b otom eme naao G sxa o paaftMpar&cx, Spec* smemxnm 6ua moco6 jsymxb m BocnpHHHMaxb M H p, bo3mo»cho, cBasaHHuril c npo|)ecciioHajiHHofi uphbmukoI, 3,ne» or rmmMBmic%, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300 seBoiMo npeo6paacaac&, M eiiK H fi cop noscesaeBHoI xchshh, kotopmm M H J ia in eB H H M ep H JI B a n O X S B e H H O C T f c B p C M e H H H K O T O p H i 6hJ 1 C M } / H 3 H y rp H npocTo 6m m e h M O cryn aeS : moxsuoHoM iiojihthkh, nporpmmaux peaei m rp O M a opyzprit. C o e y p o B S H C b , a n o o T cop moi: o*iepnrn» KoarypM npoHcxo^HBHiero c m u mm Boxjyr Hero, xm o^epmsaiot, aonyerifM, upHCxaBome paKyniioa jwinne rapaSiiJK xorpa on craaer, ohh Moran 6m aai'is ripeacraBxieHiie o ero (j)op M e—earn 6 tojdmko ygepxcaiiiiefc., H e p a C C H n a J I H C B C a M H . I I p H X O ^ H J I O C B , K 0 H 6 U H 0 , O H S T f c C K J ie H B 3 T B K pyH H IIH 3 H 9 H H S C J H O H O l 3 0 M H C J I O B , B O B T O M H 3 H a e M g O K O H U .3 , H C B e p IIM B a iO m e aaace b 6j ih 3 K o h , jpcTynuoi aaineMj ssopy xbshh? (132-3) even if not a complete relationship, even if he couldn’t te l what kind o f relationship and still had to figure that out. A way of thinking and perceiving the world, possibly connected with professional habit, was ingrained here; set aside, involuntarily undergoing a transformation, was the trifling litter of everyday life by which Miiashevich measured the fullness of time and which to him was. simply, inherently closer and more accessible than epochal politics, programmed speeches, and the thunder o f guns. When it was connected, this litter could outline the contours of what happened to Mm or around Mm, just as clinging seashells, say, outline the bottom of a ship: when it rots, they can give a sense o f its form—if they themselves survive and don’t disintegrate. It was necessary, of course, to glue together the grains of knowledge with the saliva o f conjecture, but what do we know completely, exhaustively, even in the life that’s close to us, accessible to our gaze? ( 110- 11) TMs idea that historical material gives only a contour of the past persists in the work; Lizavin later notes in a statement with postmodern underpinnings that “{n]aM pociynHM J I H D 3 & §m m m , ocrajitHoe jiopyMbiBafi” (206) [“[wje have access only to thefemtiki; the rest you have to come up with yourself5 ] (ITS). Indeed, there remains in the end considerable confusion about the past. In Lizavin’s final conversation with Miiashevich, it is suggested that 'the line between literature and history may be more obscure than Lizavin had originally imagined; Lizavin. tells the philosopher his conclusions and Miiashevich laughs: “Hy h sskpj/tmjib bh, Ahtob AngpeeBiw! 5 1 see gwiaji: k meuy BHBepnexe? V sac, npaao, xygoxcecTBei-iHHi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301 T m m r” (343) [“That’s some twist you’ve given it, Anton Andreyevich! I kept thinking a l the time: How will you finish the story? You’ve really got literary talent”] (293). It never becomes clear whether these conversations are real or dreamed up out o f Lizavin’s spiritual distress and frustration, but they take on the character o f philosophical debate similar to Ivan Karamazov’s discussions with the devil. Despite the work’s postmodernist Inclination to cast doubt on. the knowability of the past, which will be discussed in greater depth below, the contours that have been preserved p ro v e to be a profound source of meaning for people in connecting with their past. Lizavin reflects on this: % x > , no cyxa, oncpHJi h h m IlianMaH? Passe Tpoio roM eposcK H X reKsaMCipoB? Ho se jp . m He Tpoio x e H ocyzpnax nepenKOB, KaMenuHX creH, norpefieHHOfi y ria p H hjih nyer& jta x e sojiothx yKpameHHH. O h otkphji— h JTBepaHJI B Hac— COSHaHHe H HyBCTBO CBH3H MCXSJ TeKSaMCTpaMH H nepeuKaMH, rayfiHHHoS, H C B H pasH M ofi, kek M y3H K a, cbjbh mexgy humh, nepefinpaiomHMH neperacH, cero,qram H H M H XMiiemmMw, crpaaaionpiMH ox jmxopa^pcH, or pypnoft m jm —h bchhhm jsyxou neHOBenecKoro po^a. (133) What, in essence, did ScMiemann uncover for us? Was it really the Troy o f Homer’s hexameters? ...He uncovered—and firmly established in us—the awareness and the feeling o f a connection, between hexameter and fragments of pottery, of a profound, inexpressible, musiclike connection between us—who sorted out the fragments of pottery, today’s earth diggers suffering from fever and bad water—and the eternal spirit o f the human species. (Ill) Thus Andrew WachteFs theory, discussed in chapter two of this dissertation, that dialog between historical and literary genres conveys a kind of higher, poetic truth beyond history’s “trifling litter” of facts and documents is borne out m lin ii sud’ by as well. As an “essayistic” work (McCarthy’s term) or a “boundary work” (Morson’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302 term), the novel creates within itself a dialog between genres that leads to a complex perception of the past as having been open to different alternatives and outcomes tha.il the ones history has brought us. If it seems that Linii sad’ by, in its postmodernist skepticism, suggests that literary knowledge is somehow more valuable or at least the best available alternative in comparison with historical knowledge, it should be remembered that historical understanding can tramp historical knowledge without undermining the fabric o f the past. At the extreme end of the scale o f aestheticity in historical writing (Domanska’s scale), this work of metahistorical fiction helps Russian readers in their quest for historical understanding; we might recall the Mstorical-pMlosopMcal idea raised in the introduction of this dissertation: if to understand is to consider what might have been possible; if what might causally or practically have been possible is not true of something at some other possible world but at best is only plausible at this; and if what was possible can at best be assessed but, since it did not occur, not be known: then the dialectic of inquiry and reflection by which we come to understand is one which reduces our certainty and in that sense our knowledge as it adds to it. In this way and to this extent, success in History...as perhaps in life itself consists in understanding more and knowing less. (Hawthorn 37) Finally, as a work that unites what Epshtein calls “fragmented portions of culture” (155) in his chapter entitled “Essayism,” it establishes a metahistorical discourse characterized by “boldness o f propositions and meekness of conclusions” (155), Reflection on Genre II: Essayism The very concept of “essay” presupposes m extended present, which draws the past and future into an ongoing stream of becoming. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303 —Mikhail Epstein, After the Future Milashevich’s chosen genre—writing brief reflections on fa n titt—offers another fens through which one can understand the conception of genre in this novel. In turn, this understanding of the fantiki genre is deeply connected to the sense of meaning in. life Anton Andreyevich Lizavin is seeking. Thus the reader’s experience of Lizavin’s fragmented story functions as a kind of a double for the other fragmented story that is gradually being outlined, that o f Miiashevich, and this doubling o f Lizavin’s life against Milashevich’s operates on several levels at once: similar events confront both, certain character types play a role in each o f their stories, and they have similar relationships to other people. As he becomes more deeply involved in the world of Miiashevich through his research, Lizavin catches himself thinking thoughts similar to those o f Miiashevich and beginning to write in Ms style and chosen genre. The narrator makes it dear, as Lizavin grows In Ms awareness o f the connectedness between himself and those around him, and between himself and Miiashevich, that life’s meanings are found at the intersections of one’s life with the lives o f others. These intersections are often manifested in the boundary between fife and writing. The main characters in the novel who write, moreover, write in a genre that consists mostly o f these so-called intersections; that is, in short fragments that take a moment of time, arresting it and enlarging it so that it cannot be understood as a part of a narrative plot in regular time, and its relationship to other fragments develops in juxtaposition. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 384 When he coincidentally discovers the trunk filled with a mass o f fragmented and in some cases pulped together pieces o f paper, Anton is faced with the problem of defining this candy wrapper genre. It Immediately becomes clear to him that Miiashevich has chosen his genre as a matter of preference and did not write on the scraps o f paper simply because larger sheets were not available; rough edges reveal where they have been tom off along a crease from larger sheets. The narrator then invites the reader to rummage through the heap o ffm tiki along with Anton Andreyevich, noting ‘Ato w naxb, 6es ororo m iiohhte aajinHetmeito” (72) [“[w]hat can we do? Without it we can’t understand what follows”] (57). As he researches and reflects on them, he realizes that they are more than the literary fragments awaiting further development. Several fontiki, he observes, seem to refer to themselves by philosophizing about their own genre: “MucJib, 3acmumymm epacmox, emHarmenne, noiwamoe ua m e noimamoe—e nmbtfox ocmmocb nepumxo, a mo u nyutmm, Upu memodmnocmu mookho coBpamt m m u x nodymxy turn daofce nepmy— mpuiUKo k neputuxy, omBopnyio “ Mookho namnumb mepumex u cocmaeumb uynejio, coeceM m x otcmoe, — eapbupoewiacb mm otce Muaib ua coeceM kok oxume.— eapbupoeanacb ma oscs Mucjib ua dpyeou <pmmuKe.—Hem, oicumu-mo e hsm u ue 6ydem. ” 3xo SByuano k« < f> H noco«|> cT B O B aH H e o xaiipe, itocxaxouno yace H 3 B 6 C T H 0 M SC aH pe K O p O T K H X (jjpaTM eH T O B , O C X aB G B JieB H H X 5 1 mepyasmBMX mtbobghbb. (73) A thought caught unawares, an impression captured on the wing...no, not captured, a little feather remained in the fingers, and a down one, at that. If one is methodical, one can collect a whole pillowful o f them or even a feather bed—-a choice one, feather to feather. One can accumulate little feathers and create a scarecrow that looks totally like s o m e th in g live. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305 The same thought underwent variations on another fantik: “ No, there won’ tbe any life in i t ” This sounded like philosophizing about a genre that was already famous enough—the genre o f short fragments, o f arrested and magnified moments.... (57-8) Incidentally, Sven Spieker Identifies this “magnifying glass”' genre with high modernism (74), and tills view of their genre is potentially helpful in understanding the critical distance between Lizavin, whose plot is postmodern as discussed above, mid the subjects o f Ms study. Although Anton Andreyevich realizes that not all of the fantiki can be interpreted in the spirit of a conscious genre, it Is this generic mode of short fragments, and arrested, magnified moments that captures Ms imagination and through which he comes to see connectedness between himself and Miiashevich, and as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that these fragmented thoughts on the fantiki, if they can be pieced together using supplemental information usually gained through research in other genres, are the means through which Lizavin is able to sense the meaning of Miiashevich’s life and his own—not the published works or longer letters of Miiashevich. They are in their essence “enocofi yymmb a B ocn p H H H M a ifc Map” (132) [“a way of thinking and perceiving the world”] (110): Anton later reflects that “ohm cmm 6bim a&eefi h (fmjiocotfwaefi, cnocofioM mmcjihtb H apeaCTSBJIgTI. MKp K 3K BeHHtlfr Hafiop M rH O BeH M l, H 3MCJIMeHHHX, H3BOTHX H3 Bprnem” (181-2) [“they themselves were an idea and a philosophy, a way of thinking and imagining the world as an eternal collection of moments cut very small and taken oat of time”] (154). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306 The genre of 'the fantiki is difficult to define, even for Miiashevich himself. When he tries to put into words in what genre he is writing, in order to explain it to the rare book collector Vasiiii Platonovich Semeka, he cannot. He is unable to identify it, comprehend ft, or control it. Miiashevich says “He m s jo , xax 1 1 exssam 3t© c a M O p a c ie x , xaic ysmoc, a p a 3 n w e cropoH&i. Tojimco c jiejo p a ” (49) [“I don’t know how to put it. It keeps growing by itself, like a living thing, in different directions. I just follow”] (36). Based on several aspects of Miiashevich’s fantiki, 1 would like to suggest that they are in essence an example of essayistic writing in the sense defined by Epstein in Ms chapter “At the Crossroads o f Image and Concept.” Epstein discusses the essentia! undefinability of the essay genre, which defies definition because it is a supergeneric system encompassing most varied compositions, a creative force that continually outgrows its generic boundaries, Essayism is a useful concept for understanding Miiashevich and Lizavin’s attempts to make sense o f Mm because it attempts to describe “an integrative process taking place within culture as a movement toward the synthesis o f life, thought, and image” (247), and as such, it can shed fight on the Lizavin’s explorations o f the past as well as on Miiashevich’s failures. In Epstein’s system, essayistic thought employs the free combination o f a concrete image and a generalizing idea. According to Epstein, the original essayist, Montaigne, originally collected judgments on a similar theme or examples from various sources and copied them down together, and then later added Ms own thoughts, judgments, and comments (232). The resulting genre was an essay, “not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307 the unity of thoughtrimage-being, but...an experiment in their -unification” (230). It can only be an experiment because it is a genre defined by subjectivity, “by the consciousness of one’s own incompleteness and relativity” (230). Lizavin is faced with the task of making sense of a multitude of fragments and judgments or observations that have been in a sense “dug up” (to borrow Epstein’s description of the classical essayist’s work) and handed to Mm all at once. But it is impossible to understand these “arrested and magnified moments’5 if m context is available—if it is impossible to step back and gain perspective. He consequently begins to read them in the context of each other, in their own connectedness, and places the fantiki on similar themes together into separate boxes. It is here that he makes a breakthrough in understanding, realizing that the key to this catalog of statements is not to piece together a narrative (as he was originally attempting to do) by reading the fragments “along the horizontal axis, as a sequence of narrated events” (Crossroads 231). Instead, they must be read paradigmatically, “along a , vertical axis of events as they reveal variations on an invariant meaning” (231). Read this way, the fantiki come to resemble an essay, a genre that is “at heart a catalogue, a listing of various judgments, all relating to a single feet, or it can be various facts, all relating to one judgment” (231), and in which “[tjhe parts of the text are linked neither by temporal connections nor through cause and effect: rather, they are offered as variations on m invariant meaning” (231). Structurally, the fantiki as juxtaposed by Lizavin fit into Epstein’s paradigm for the esseme—the individual unit of essayistic thought that consists o f‘the free Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308 combination o f a concrete image and a generalizing idea” (229), An example of this can be seen on Lizavin5 s grouping of four of Miiashevich5 s fantiki: 3namtqus imsna— ne e u d y M x a maccuumMM. To m u emnrnm u ouu m mpmsuuf, mmopue datomcn eedb m 3pn u zmopxm o ceouamax, 'smqxnmmmcsi e uacjiedcmeemoM eetqeame? To m u o h u eamaom edoeomty, sacmamm onpaedueamb oxudaum ? $03mo3icho, m m m m m m m im u M , m m secm m m noxa uayxe nymeu npomeodum eosdeucmeue u a c o m mejiecuuu cocmas u daofce n a m eepxem m menecnue. Bee Bm nmeeo, da mm neocmopoDtcuo! TIpu maxoM-mo pocmet A u na nowmnyio yosce mama. Bom 6eda, Focnodu! ...Tame i v m ue noMnneiub ecjiyx uayjiutfe, s a M o x m m c h mymoM, da no Mumymm doBaenm. (78-9) Meaningful names are m l an invention o f classicism. Did they derive from nicknames, which are given, after all, fo r a reason and bespeak traits that become consolidated in an inherited manner? Or do they exert an influence afterwards, making one justify one’ s expectations? IDs possible that in some mysterious way hitherto unknown to science a name has an impact on one’ s actual bodily makeup and even on bodily emissions. All that would be fine. but ike name is careless/ And with such a height! But you cam I go back on your word Thai A the trouble, Lord! ...You won’ t mention such a name out loud on the street, brandishing a whip, and swearing io boot. (63) Here, Miiashevich presents a general idea about the meaning of names and how this meaning might work. In the third statement, he is referring to a concrete situation, although the complete reference remains obscure until later in the story.. The person the statement refers to toms out to be Paradizova’s son Karlik, who received Ms nickname, it seems in the period of general renaming after the revolution and who, incidentally, then never grew to his fi.il! height because of a hunchback deformity. The nicknaming process in this specific situation never is revealed to Lizavin, however, and thus the middle comment can be elucidated; did Karlik receive the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309 name as a child, because it was the period -of renaming, or later, when it already had become clear that he alone among the orphans was not “growing up”? Lizavin, moreover, finds several other fantiki on the topic of renaming, but it is nuclear whether they were originally conceived of together. The content o f each of Lizavin’s boxes can be read in this way; moreover, he compulsively moves the fantiki from one box to another, trying to find that magical juxtaposition that will allow the unity of thouglit-image-being. However, one defining element of the essay genre is missing, and that is Miiashevich as experiencing or being subject. The essay genre, with its subjectivity, is an irreducible quantity, and if the experiencing subject or being is factored out, the experiment in unity fails, When Lizavin observes Miiashevich5 s unwillingness to think about connections and causes in the fantiki, it is the author’s own self that is missing from the text. Fragments are the remainder. Until Lizavin realizes that lie cannot recover the missing individual identity or self that was Miiashevich, he is unable to find the thread that will allow the fragmented meaning of the fantiki to crystalize. Lizavin finds the thread in the realization quoted above that “[wje have access only to the fantiki; the rest you have to come up with yourself’ (178). Epstein notes that in essayistic writing, feet and idea “are not connected in an obligatory or exclusive way but rather through the personality of one who unites them in an experiment of self-consciousness” (229). In the final analysis, we might be able to reconstruct some semblance of historical narrative from the fantiki that make up our experience ofhistory today, but meaning Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318 does not reside in narrative alone, or even mostly. Meaning is to be found in our individual and subjective points of connection with history and narratives of it, in actively weighing (the word essay comes from the Latin to weigh) the facts and ideas we encounter, making interpretations and judgments. Standing alone,, the fragment by itself with no context, as seen in al! o f the examples of fragments left by Miiashevich on fantiki, foils to establish an open sense o f time that can facilitate connectedness with history. Essayisxa, then, as Lizavin experiences it, is “an experimental means of existence, a special mode of assimilating reality, ofWgher value than science and poetry, and even...a utopia summoned to encompass the unity of what is and what is possible” (Epstein 242). Essayism grounds thought in being through the individual’s experience o f connectedness with history and present realty and as such functions as a way of approaching the past through genre. Engaging in the Debate on Historiographical Problems Linii sud’ by is a novel about history, ta t it is not a historical novel in the traditional sense; rather, it analyzes the past as the subject matter of a detective story, with the detective-novel structure functioning itself as a statement about the writer’s philosophy of history7 . Although Kharitonov rejects the traditional paradigms o f the historical novel in this self-consciously postmodern text, this metahistorical and metaficticnal work includes many indications, or clues, that the author’s purpose is to engage in the ongoing discourse as described in previous chapters of this dissertation about the writing of history in fiction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311 The novel engages in historiographical discourse at a number of levels. The narrator makes direct references to Tolstoy throughout the novel Several characters. Including Miiashevich, are described as wearing a Tolstoy peasant shirt, and the author is referred to in otter incidental references, such as an allusion to " tojictob ck h m xaHouaM" (130) (“the Tolstoyan canon”] (108) in regards to gossip. When he reflects in Maksim Sivers’ journal and gives Ms advice to Ania, Sivers’ wife, Lizavin considers the type o f truth that is meaningful in life by comparing Ms own perspective with Tolstoy’ s: earn yro^HO, Mory onncaxt QjiesoTHHy, mhmo kotgjxm npomea ceftnac, npastpiBO, He xyace Jfesa Tojicroro, c K ycouftaM H BHHerpexHoi CBCKJIM H aceJITOfi MOpKOBH, T3K UTO H J HHTaTCJIS B OTB6T B B I30B y...H y H h t o ? Eyaer jih b otom upm m x a s m ? A ecm O ynerr—saneM ona? CymeciByer yposeio. xhshh, u to oce^aer b pHcymcax h Haanacjix aa cxeaax ofiipecTBeBHMx yfiopHBix, nycxai. Ho a H e uesy H3-3a csoero ypoB H H b gpaicy, b ox Mexsy hbmh pasHima... (257) If you want, I can describe the vomit I passed by right now— -describe it exactly, no worse than Leo Tolstoy did, with little bits of salad beet and yellow carrot, so that Pd get a reader to also..., So what? Will we find the truth of life in such a description? And if so, what’s it for? There exists a level of life that is the stuff o f drawings and graffiti on the walls o f public toilets; so let it be. ...But Pm not spoiling for a fight on account o f the level of life I belong to, that’s the difference between us. (222) Indirectly, Lizavin is separating himself from Tolstoy because his conception is that the latter locates the meaning of life only in prosaics. Lizavin5 's chance acquaintance Maksim, as can be seen in Ms journal, was concerned with, prosaics to the point of obsession. Miiashevich5 s fantiki, too, suggest a similar way of looking at the world, as discussed above, whereby the minutiae o f life are singled out and examined under Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312 a microscope for the meaning the)? create as single units, Lizavin is skeptical that the vain© that can be gleaned from the type of truth found in the prosaics of life is enough to give an individual''s life meaning—unless one looks first into the microscope and then attempts to view the details in their aggregate, thereby gaining perspective, Many o f the historical themes and the assumptions about the nature of history reflected in the work are clearly Tolstoyan, albeit with a postmodern twist. The central problem of the novel is the protagonist’s attempt to reveal the historical circumstances surrounding the life of the writer Miiashevich, and the author uses Lizavin’s process of historical inquiry and discovery (or, often, lack o f definitive discovery) to reflect on key issues in this literary tradition of Tolstoyan historiographical discourse as defined in the preceding two chapters of this dissertation. These issues include the role of the individual in history, a response to the problem of determinism (via the issue of utopian thinking), problems with the writing of history, and the question of causation in the unfolding of historical events. Finally, the work also engages the fundamental utopian thinking about history present in Soviet historical fiction. On the Individual as Subject o f History: Connectedness and Meaning It was approximately in the way that an essay ...takes a thing from many sides without comprehending it wholly— ...The value of an action or quality ...seemed to him dependent on the circumstances surrounding them, on tbs ends they served, In short;, on the whole complex— Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313 constituted now thus, now otherwise— to which th e y belonged....In this manner a n endless s y s te m of relationships a r o s e in w h i c h th e r e w a s n o lo n g e r a n y such tilin g a s in d e p e n d e n t meanings— —-Robert M usil The Man Without Qualities —H m roxe cySneitr HcropHH, m x e hmchho a. I I o t o m j uro HMerao c o M n o i o n a npoHCxoanT... [—And 1 , too, am a subject of history., I especially. Because it’s happening precisely to me...] —Mark Kharitonov, Lines o f Fate In Linii sud’ by, the role o f the individual in history is approached indirectly. Much of the action of the novel takes place from the 1910s through the 1930s and great pains are taken to fill out a vivid historical picture. Yet in contrast to the traditional historical novel genre, no names of central historical figures or leaders are mentioned—a notable absence; moreover, when one apparently historical figure is mentioned—ie„, Trotsky—it turns out that he is an imposter. (As is typical for historical novels, the many supposedly historical names that are mentioned are fictional—albeit believable, as the people described are generally people front the provinces about whom the typical reader is expected to have little personal knowledge.) Known historical leaders and figures play no greater role than anyone else under this conception of history. Indeed, the approach to history and historical material in the novel assumes that an individual’s relationship to the past is essentially of a post-Tolstoyan nature. Tolstoy posits in Yoina i rnir a conception of history in which the greatest leaders are not men o f genius who direct the course of events, but rather wise men who understand that an individual leader has no real Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. power because historical events and outcomes depend on the multitude of individual wills that make small decisions, ah o f which are contingent upon one another. Kharitonov returns to the chess metaphor noted in other works examined in this dissertation that rely on Tolstoyan assumptions about history* to explain the individual’s relationship to history: O eiaH O B JieH H aa maxMaraas ik b m u b ji M o x e x b o c x h t h t b ja s rp o y M H o i B 3 a H M O C B X 3 i.K > , BHBepeHHoM penecooSpaaHocTbio {ftaryp: laxttaa no/mepMBaer ^pvryro. s a m in ip e T ,, nepejcpMBaer o s h e x q j j u m b h h y x ^ a e i apyrae; napouHo— nonpo6yfi xaxoe cocxaBHTb, aro BHCipaHBanocB as c i te a a e H M x o ^ o b , k o t o p h m h H e t h o /c h h B Jiatten. A y hctophh H e C a s a e r o j p j o r o - j p y x XBOppoB, s t o y & n o a o K cx ih ih k o m m h o ih x p oxp rejiei, c t o h t jih yflHBiiar&ca, wo o h ocKOpSjiijer jn o 6 o i OTflejiwttift b k j c ? (218) A frozen chess position can delight us by its intricate interrelatedness, regulated by the expediency of the pieces: each one supports the other, defends it, blocks some moves and makes others necessary (try to put something like that together on purpose); it’s achieved by a combination o f moves controlled not just by you alone. And history doesn’t have just one or two creators; it’s a mongrel o f too many parents, so should one be surprised that it offends any independent taste? (191) Kharitonov thus arrives at what must be the logical conclusion of this approach to history as far as the individual is concerned: individuals affect the course of history, but their influence can only be understood in connection with others. In fact, the idea of profound connectedness between oneself and others runs through the 2 Cf Tolstoy’s “A good chess player who has lost a game Is genuinely convinced that bis failure resulted from a false move on his part, arid tries to see the mistake he made at the beginning of the game, forgetting that at each stage of play there were similar Wanders, so that no single move was perfect. The mistake on which lie concentrates his attention attracts his notice simply because bis opponent took advantage of it. Ho w much more complex Is the game of war, which must be played within certain limits of time and where it is a question not of one will manipulating inanimate objects but of something resulting from the inevitable collisions of diverse wills. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, tr. Rosemary Edmonds (Penguin 1982), p. 84 ” Vladimov also refers to this chess metaphor in his discussions of alternative history (453). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315 work as a kind of leitmotif and is one of tie major themes o f the novel. Connectedness operates simultaneously on both the horizontal (simultaneous with Lizavm’s life) and vertical (historical) planes. One o f ike fantiki poses the question, “Kbrfla He aano n p o H H K H O B eH H a , ksk b jho6obhom cohthh, «rro saaeM mu ppyr o qpyre?” (224) [“[wjhen we’re not given the penetration of lovemaking, what do we know about each other?’ ] (my translation), Lizavin understands the fantiM on this theme as Miiashevich3 s argument that one is incomplete if one is unable to understand oneself in deep connection with others. A similar metaphor compares people to flies batting at a window, unable to penetrate the depth behind it, but also not “b cHJiax omasaxbcs ox yfiescflemfa, m o Qua ecra> , ora rjiyflmia, uaM aejitsa oncasMBaxMia ox ce6«” (2IK) [“[having] the strength to repudiate the conviction that it exists, this depth; we cannot repudiate ourselves”] (191). To ignore or deny this connectedness is to deny one’s o w e identity and forgo the possibility of finding meaning in one’s life. Anton Lizavin comes to awareness o f connectedness between himself and those around him gradually, and it is in this connectedness that he eventually finds meaning for living, realizing that “[m]h n oH H M aeM ce5a fijiarwppH jjpyrH M 3 ’ (287) [“we understand ourselves thanks to others”] (243). Yet Lizavin does not gain, insight into the doublings and coincidences o f Ms o wn life until lie begins to grasp the meaning o f the connectedness he experiences in regards to history, both personal and societal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316 The m e c h a n is m by which he comes to this awareness is Ms work on MUashevich, as be becomes more and more convinced that the f a n t i k i , which at first seemed to him to be a jumble o f unrelated literary fragments, that “( p c n a n u m see 3 m s m m q m m oTHomeHHe k peanBHHM c o 6 m ih x m — nycri» ne s e e , nyer& Henomrruo xaxoe” (132) [“the f a n t i k i did indeed have a relationship to real events—even if not a complete relationship”] (110). As he succumbs to the idea that Ms life is irrevocably connected with that o f Miiashevich, Lizavin unconsciously begins to pen reflections in Simeon Kondratych’s f a n t i k genre; pondering the ties between the “litter of everyday life,” history, and human creativity, Lizavin writes: H to , no cyra, oxK p su i hum HbniMaH? Passe Tpoio roM epoB C K H x rexsaMerpoB? Ho h m Tpoio ace iiocygBHX nepenKOB, K a M e H H B ix ctch, n o r p e 6 e H i io I yraapn hjim nycxt naace so jio th x yK paineH H H . O h otk p & u i-h yiBepmw b Hac-co3H3HHe h hjbctbo C B S 3 H M eatfly reK 3aM expaM H H uepemcaM H, rjiyfiHHHoft, H e B B ip a 3 H M O H , Km M ysB iK a, c b j b b Meacpy h sm h , n e p e S a p a io m n M H uepemcH, cerojuM nraHM H 3eM jrescon aM H , crpa& aiom H M H o t jmxopamcH, o t gypnoft b o s b i- h b ch h h m gyxow qenoBenecKoro pona. 0 neM 3 ta M ysBiK a? ...Oaa o to m , hto aaciaBJisex nac nenajiHT&ca 06 yxpaxe, cnyuHBmefies mo Hamero p o xM eu m , h BHuerr. b ^asHCM B O S B p am eH H H aepHfcimKO H O B O fi HajteXSH H HOBoro nOHHMaHHa, o TOM, H T O CBS3HBaer uejiQBeuecKyio Jtymy m hocbhct serpa, xocxy s HeacHocn>. (133- 4) What, in essence, did Sehliemann uncover for us? Was it really the Troy of Homer's hexameters? ...He uncovered—arid firmly established In ns—the awareness and the feeling of a connection between hexameter and fragments of pottery, of a profound, inexpressible, musiclike connection between us—who sorted out the fragments o f pottery, today's earth diggers suffering from fever and bad water—and the eternal spirit o f tie human species. What’s this music about?...It’s about what makes m grieve over the loss that occurred before we were born and see in a return of long ago a small grain o f new hope and a new understanding, about what connects the human Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 317 soul with the whistling of the wind, connects melancholy and tenderness. (111-2) For Lizavin, this realisation that the fantiki. are not exclusively a literary genre but are indeed connected to real life, people, and events is what allows him to find meaning in his own connectedness with the past. At the same time, this connectedness implies a certain tension. One farther fantik suggests that Miiashevich is ultimately seeking for people “[b]o3M03chocti> noBHMaxi jtpyr ppyra ciionm, fes ocTaraca h HecoBnazseHHa” (225) [“the possibility of understanding each other completely, -without leftovers and disagreements”] (199). Yet the author also repeatedly laments that such understanding is impossible because as individual subjects of history, who mostly do not maintain an “intercourse of love,” we are living in “[njosepXHOcrbio k o j b p a s n e jie H H m b j) h ” (224) [“worlds...divided according to the skin’s surface”] (198). Moreover, he believes that ” [k]to nepeHec c b o ! raas b flpyryio, H e m o x c t Shu. npaBHM” (224) [“whoever has shifted his glance inside another person cannot be right”] (198). The individual subject of history exists at the boundary connecting the need for understanding others with the impossibility o f doing so “without leftovers.” Lizavin’s intuitive response to this predicament is to embrace in a way the work views as positive the sense that something is missing, or as it is referred to in the work, of incompleteness that results, rather than striving to resolve it; the concept of incompleteness in the work will 'be discussed below. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 IS On the Problem o f Utopian Thinking Utopianism Is suicide o f the imagination: even as it summons masses o f people to remake the world, it turns them into gravediggers of their own future. —Mikhail Epstein, After the future Linii sud’ by is a novel about the impossibility of any utopia’s success when transplanted from the fertile soil o f visions to the hard dirt that is historical reality. While the plot revolves around Anton Andreyevich Lizavin’s scholarly detective work, the structure operates simultaneously at two levels, on each of which utopian visions are revealed as flawed in theory and practice; utopian thinking is shown to be a dangerous mode of interpreting history. For each vision, the work reflects upon the consequences of utopian thinking and the importance of understanding accurately the nature of history’s movement and the individual’s role within it. Communist Utopia Soviet utopian ideology and literary models serve as a backdrop to the plot,, establishing a baseline for false utopian ideology and a historical foil for the other utopias in the novel. The work draws our attention to the communist vision at key moments by juxtaposing the hopeful vision and its historical failure. The life of Miiashevich spans the era immediately prior to communism, the Revolution, and NEP; the exact date of Ms death is not known in the story, but is was presumably in the late twenties or very early thirties. Lizavin, on the other hand, is writing his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319 doctoral dissertation in the late seventies, and celebrates Ms thirtieth birthday in the last chapter of the novel at a time when communism is waning. Although it is unclear whether Milashevich was directly involved in communist revolutionary activity, there are hints that he may have been, and he was briefly associated with people who were involved before he went off to the provinces to seek fulfillment of Ms own, personal utopian vision. The time during which he lived is portrayed in the novel as a very exciting one, fell of revolutionary fervor, concrete hopes, idealism, and visionary thinking and activity. During these times, it is possible for everyone to maintain Ms own, individual utopia and act in such a way as if Ms own, personal utopia were the inevitable fixture outcome of the events one is experiencing. The ubiquitous striving towards communism turns out not to be a single national dream, but rather a collection of many individuals’ plans and visions for separate and what are assumed to be compatible little utopias. On the one hand, there are the communist aspirations of revolutionaries (who include Milashevich’s former friend from student days and the travelling companion of Aleksandrova Flegontovna Paradizova); Semeon Kondratyevich’s close friend Ganshin represents an older generation of Revolutionary idealism and socialism, and he does much to fiather this utopian vision in the local region. He owns a publishing house that produces, among other tilings, revolutionary materials, he runs a factory, zealously promotes industrialization, and propagates ideas of revolution in every way possible, to the extent of allowing illegal meetings to take place on his estate. On the other hand, there are many others who cultivate their own versions of the Meal life that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 revolution will bring: Milashevich seeks Ms utopia of the eternal present in Ms provincial philosophy; Iona Sverbeyev sees Ms vision of innocence and beauty in the purity o f eternal childhood and the construction ofhis orphanage, the Nechaisk Republic (353-6/304-6); Engineer Fige attempts to create an industrial utopia in Ganshin’s sweets factory; and the priest Makarii convinces himself and others that they can achieve paradise on earth by means o f religious herbs and ceremonies. Even in . Anton Andreyevich Lizavin’s lifetime, Ms elderly aunt Vera Emilyanovna is shown to have long believed in the power o f the socialist state to create new lives for the children at state orphanages at wMch she worked. Thus the Revolutionary era and NEP are shown as times when a utopian sense of time prevails and inspires great faith. In the novel, communist utopian thinking does not come under direct fire from contemporaries, including people like Milashevich and Ms student friend, along with old-style revolutionary Ganshin, artist Iona Sverbeyev, engineer Fige, and others—who are like-minded in that their aspirations are utopian. All are equally misguided and, it seems, equally invested in preserving a utopian sense of time, or temporality, to protect their own seductive visions from immanent failure. All take measures to hide from themselves and others the unsuccess of their visions and 'the fact that unpredictability and chance events are impinging upon their dreams of inevitable, impending utopia to the point that they are clearly not viable. The consequences o f this denial are massive. Ganshin’s failure is the very failure of communism, and Milashevich describes this figure, his friend, in literary works as a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321 sick man, degenerating physically and spiritually, “oh rocscyer ox hcbobm omhocth cymecmeHHofi hobhshh h ae naxojwr otwierseHHa...” (38) [‘ lie’s in anguish because there can be nothing fundamentally new and lie is unable to find relief’ ] (my translation). He can be found incessantly fiddling with small matters, making superficial changes to Ms estate in an attempt to change something or at least keep himself occupied trying, and he also suffers a psycMc problem that can be understood as a metaphor for this degeneration (pedophilia, Ms illegitimate fascination with a young boy, which ultimately contributes to the failure o f Ms friend Milashevich’s utopia as well). Engineer Fige, along with Iona Sverbeyev, is indicted on charges o f arson for setting the old Ganshin estate on lire (it 1 m s housed the destruction o f both their dreams, the candy factory and the Nechaisk Republic, respectively). Paradizova lives out the later part of her life in a catatonic mental state, perhaps in some sort of shock; the events leading most directly to this are her participation in the (albeit mistaken) arrest of her husband and the coincidental meeting with and recognition of her son, by this time a youth, in his physical deformity and emotional dependence upon Sverbeyev, factors, which seem to make her aware that her own complicity in the utopian aspirations of socialism has orphaned and destroyed her son. Aunt Vera, senile in her old age, chatters incessantly about her orphaned children, even, though they are all grown now and have turned into a bunch of criminals, misfits, and other maladjusted sorts. Milashevich, as will be shown 'below, goes mad in Ms attempt to live out Ms utopia in the face of the ever more obvious impossibility o f reconciling Ms philosophical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322 views o f time with the reality of Ms aging and sick wife. And the Soviet Union (the story we ail know) becomes known as a place where the reality of things is more difficult to 'believe than fantasy, where, by the time Lizavin is doing Ms research, it is possible to steal a trunk full o f papers from the trash heap o f the archival repository and then not be able to explain front where one was able to obtain them without sounding as if one 'were making up the story—and a place where one can wake up in prison not knowing the circumstances for which one has 'been locked up. Reflecting about this, Anton chides himself, thinking to himself “kok Syzrro no po#y aaHsrmi H e npHxotpuioci. Te6e yt>«,«aTB CM 5 m ro xax HasMsaeMHe m h<J)h S uB aiO T j s j m H C T o p H H h KH3HHpeajiraefttsk HasHBaeMHxtfjaxxoB...” (! 14) [“[a]sif youdidn't know that you need to read n e w s p a p e r s with a special skill, not word for word, as if ■ th e very nature of your studies hadn’t convolved you that, for history and life, so- called myths are often more realistic than so-called tacts5 ’ ] (93)3 . Thus, the undoing of the Soviet utopia is shown to be a fault of an essential premise of its original inception, the view that utopias are possible. In the novel, all utopias fail, all utopias lead to madness of some sort, and all utopias create a reality that is fantastic—a schizophrenia caused by a theoretical view o f life that does not correspond to real circumstances. At every level, irony exposes the failure of the communist vision and implicates a false view of time and history in this massive failure. The vision of an 3 It is a commonplace of the perestroika period that the contemporary Soviet reality possesses a . fantastic quality. Kuraev also alludes to this in the very title ofhis novella (Captain Dikstein: A Fantastic Tale). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 ideal and inevitable future based upon a view that history must lead to communism is powerfully undermined by tbs tyranny o f circumstances that makes prediction impossible in daily life. The failure of prediction and predictability is a main theme throughout the novel Ganshin’s country estate may have been a marvelous place to harbor one’s young orphaned charge—bat for the foiioevacim il nomox, b h b c p t npHpo^w” (214) [“an ill-fated dirty trick, a freak of nature”] (187) that Ganshin turns out to be a homosexual pedophile. Predictability is even shown to be a petrifying force; the one time Lizavin feels confident that some form of success is inevitable while standing in line for an unknown product (and in the bigger picture, as he has just been given the keys of a new apartment), he not only has a gastric attack from the questionable beefsteak he has consumed (or he is knocked off Ms feet—this remains unclear), but he also falls onto a dowel from the steel framework of a construction site; it pierces his abdomen, he nearly dies, and he is thus laid up in the hospital for an extended period of time so that he is unable to occupy the apartment and the squatter Kaif moves in. For Anton, prediction is often undermined as lie surmises about Milashevich5 s life and what happened to Mm. When he first reads through the fontiki after his lucky find at the archive, he predicts how the events referred to will fit together. He bases Ms predictions o h the understanding o f Milashevich’s character that he has developed before encountering ibefantiki, which is incomplete. For example, he assumes that the fragments are In many cases lists of unrealized plans for literary works and at the beginning it does not even occur to him that there is a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324 link to Mikshevich’s real life, much less a very close one. One by one, the surmises made in the early stages of Ms research are shown to be irrelevant and mistakes. Moreover, in the novel, nearly everything, historical (Milashevich) and present (Lizavin), occurs by chance, contrary to intentions; almost nothing is allowed to happen because it should have happened or because it was planned. Milashevich's life is completely changed by the chance occurrence of Ms student friend appearing at Ms doorstep with a suitcase that needed to be delivered. He endured exile as a result, though he was not an enthusiast of the Revolutionary cause. Moreover, this appearance precipitated the chain of events upon wMch Milashevich found it possible to build Ms utopia; the same student is accompanied by the woman who is to become the focus of Milashevich’s vision. A coincidence also sabotages Ms utopia at the end—the grown son of Paradizova enters their room by chance in an official capacity. The present is likewise characterized by chance occurrences and the failure of intentions: Lizavin’s life is irrevocably changed when he stumbles across the trunk full of'fm tiU—he, who alone among scholars would be in a position to recognize their value. He also takes leave to Moscow and happens upon a chance friend’s Name Day celebration precisely at the time when this man’s wife needed to speak with Mm. The coincidences are everywhere and often uncanny; he ends up in a hospital ward with Fyodor Fomych Titko, the former neighbor in Ms communal apartment, who alongside others was contriving to obtain Aunt Vera’s apartment when she died: later the personal five-year plan of this same man wafts to Mm on a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 breath o f wind while he is cautiously roaming around the former Ganshin estate, now an out-of-the-way insane asylum. Kaif, whom Lizavin knows from eating in a restaurant with friends, is given the apartment Anton Andreyevich is entitled to when the latter winds up unexpectedly in the hospital. Several characters meet Zorn fey chance either when they are seeking her (Anton, Maksim, etc.) or when they are not (Ania, the old woman). Anton meets Nikolskii by chance; in fact, everyone Anton meets, he meets by chance. Indeed, anything planned is sore to go awry; Anton’s move to a sew apartment is completely sealed and practically in place when Ms accident sends him to the hospital and Ms absence results in the bizarre transfer of Ms apartment to Kaifr even though he has moved some of Ms belongings in already and has the keys. In the same vein, the life he has planned as a professor is robbed from him when Ms relationship with the daughter of an important civic official unforeseeably sours (actually this is indirectly due to the influence of Milashevich o h his interactions with Zoia) and this man arranges things so that Anton Andreyevich finds himself in jail. Coincidence and characters’ responses to it serve to underline the irony that the characters hold on to their assumptions about utopian time far beyond the point at which it would make more sense to abdicate them, because they do not want to abandon their visions. Many more ironies eat away at the communist dream. The irony of acceptance of unacceptable means to a desired end is present in the theme of a wife’s participation in her husband’s arrest and in the act of a mother leaving her son to be raised by others while she is off fighting for the Revolution. There is an irony of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 mistake when Milashevich misinterprets the signs of Ganshin’s weakness and there is Irony in the wide variance between intentions and outcomes,, and the real from the dream; for example, in Milashevich5 s failure to reunite mother and son; lie fries to protect Ms beloved woman and establish her in paradise but in the process ruins her s o b for this life. There is a wide gap between historical expectations and historical reality, whereby history turns out to tie grossly different front what was expected. The estate location o f Iona’s orphanage and Fige’s candy factory ends up an insane asylum, and children full of potential are ruined and live lives of crime. There is irony in unrealized plans, for example, when the historical debate over the erection of a statue of becomes moot as a result of the changing interests o f history. There is irony in the weak being the stronger (“npesocxoflCTBo” and “cmia” [“superiority” and “strength”]) and in the unhealthy (Karlik, for example) being considered the healthier or the better at least. The embodiment of this Karlik, the province’s “ynojnaoMoneHHHH no 6 opn6 e” (365) [“plenipotentiary in battle”] (315) is a caricature of the new man communism is supposed to create. The narrator reflects that we shouldn’t delude ourselves too much in regards to these utopian visions, which he considers distortions of time—“xoro H e Kopeamr, xorjp, k o p h h t c h speMs? K to HasoueT ceria hhhcm He 3aipoHyTHM?” (357) [“who doesn’t get bent out of shape when time is contorted? Who’ll call himself untouched by anything?”] (307- 8). The boy Karlik is the emblematic distortion of time that he refers to, a symbol of the utopian vision moving from historical abstractness to a concrete embodiment in historical failure—the distortion of time. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327 These ironies and others are shorn to arise on the soil of utopianism, the p r im a r y -m istake of which is a wrong, misconceived notion of time and man's relationship to it, Ganshin’s constant search for something new under the sum is a paradoxical reflection of this problem; his assumption that utopia has been reached and that former time is ended precludes the possibility o f something new, but at the same time Ms soul desires novelty and innovation; he never admits to himself that the vision is what has failed, and that it cannot possibly correspond to reality. As a result, he comes to a bad end, is never reconciled to reality, and commits suicide rather than living out what he sees as madness. Milashevich also succumbs to a kind of madness in the end, going off to a cu t that worships a dead woman, possibly even Ms returned lover who has died, and unsuccessfully participating in their mass suicide. The Provincial Idea, or Utopia as a Problem with Time The principal utopia that is deconstructed in Linii sitd’ by is Milashevich5 s “provincial idea.” Lines o f Fate is structured as the reflections o f Anton .Andreyevich Lizavin, a literary scholar, on Ms discoveries about Ms subject, a little known provincial writer by the name o f Mflasiievidi, To be sure, the central thesis of this novel has at least as much to do with history as it has to do with literature. Milashevich was deeply preoccupied with what he called Ms ^provincial philosophy,” and spent his life, as Lizavin gradually uncovers, developing and trying to live out this philosophy. Schneidmann notes that this philosophy is not clearly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328 defined in this work, which was to be the second part of a trilogy (143), and claims that Miiashevich’s provincial philosophy is close to its author’s own beliefs in that they are both seeking a “new vision of life and a higher meaning of existence” (143). However, it is a mistake in this instance to reduce Kharitonov's own philosophy to that o f Ms protagonist. Actually, the central thesis o f the novel is the author's attempt to reestablish a correct understanding of history and concomitantly, time, in response to philosophies such as Miiashevich’s, or ultimately, communism. As Lizavin discovers, Miiashevich’s “provincial philosophy” is a particular instance o f utopian thinking. R e a d in g th r o u g h th e author’s unpublished s to r ie s after finding the trunk, L iz a v in comes across the one in which, he is convinced, Miiashevich’s pMlosophy is first being formed. He reflects: O u eB H ^H o , x a x p a s k to U n o p e c m m ocfsopMJisTfccx u e p r a v o r o , u r o Jla saB H H n a s H B a n npoBHHUHantHoft cfM JiG cocfM ieii 'Maaammma,. H p e u ee H H Tse h c w s s m m e m i ms'mummiecm, a n p H n n c a u H pasH H M SejuieTpHCTHuecKHM n e p c o H a a ta M . O n a B o o flm e n y x p a b c s k h m c h c t6 M 3 m m H e n y a y t a e r c s b M o m s s T e a b c m a x , E e u p a s t t a — b c u o c o f jH o c r a o 6 e c n e w r i> B a y rp e H H io io rapM O H H io m H ariejnrx& h j b c t b o m mmtbs. uesaB ijcH M O o t B H e u n ie ro y c x p o ftc x B a x h s h h . ...B a a m o c p a s y n o ^u ep K H y T B , u t o n p o B H H im x y M a jia m e B H u a —H e re o rp a tjH iu e c K o e n o H s rm e , a mrnmpnM. jty x o B H aa , c n o c o f i cy m ec x B O B a H M , o n a ico p M H rca b r ty m e u e n o s e K a HCSaBHCHMO OT MeCTa BHTCUBCTBa. ( 3 1 ) Obviously, it was precisely then that the features of what Lizavin called M iia s h e v ic h ’s provincial pMlosophy were feeing formulated. These ideas aren’t expounded systematically anywhere, but are attributed to various characters in Ms fiction. This philosophy is completely alien t o a n y system and r e q u ir e s no proofs. Its truth lies in the complete ability to guarantee inner harmony and vouchsafe a feeling o f happiness independent o f life’s outer structure..,. It’s important to emphasize right away that Milashevich’s province is not a g e o g r a p h ic a l notion but a spiritual one, a way of existence; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329 it lias its roots in the human soul, independent of the place where he lives. (19) Yet as this idea is presented, one eharacter-pliifosopher in Milashevich’s stray already recognizes that philosophies such as this one are problematic because they are created according to the criteria o f individuals who are unwilling to compromise various aspects of their visions to reconcile them with reality and experience. “Bot H asan© HecooraeTCTBHa” (31) [“This is the beginning of an incompatibility”] (19). Lizavin speculates that, as a result of Ms inability to become established as a writer in the capital, (or perhaps he purposefully fails In order to proceed with Ms vision), Milashevich returned to the provincial town ofNechaisk and later Stoibemets “m e M 0 3 K H 0 6hjio 6es oraaflKH H a wyacofi sicyc BHCTpaHsaiB B O K p y r ce6e M H p HenpHT«3axejii.Horo cwacxM h gocxyiiHGi, kuk b sstctbc, reHHajitHocTH” (32) [“where, without taking the tastes of others into account, lie could build around himself a wall of unpretentious happiness and genius, as accessible as in childhood”] (20). In Ms pMlosophy, Milashevich elevates the everyday, uneventful life (in Tolstoyan fashion) In the provinces for its harmonious balance into an ideal History validates Ms views, at feast for a while; the upheaval of revolutionary times proved that a pair of boots and firewood and kerosene and bread were equal to the most sublime things of life: noH CTH He offopaHMBaiie* 6 mth6m” (180) [“everyday life, indeed, was turning out to be Being”] (153). The philosopher spends Ms time developing Ms utopian ideas in Ms stories, but mostly on the fardiki, which embody his philosophy and ideas as a way o f life. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330 Milashevich isolates himself in Ms attempt to live out Ms paradise. The starting point of Ms pMlosophy is a view of time that holds the instant to be an encapsulation, of eternity, in which “see npHcyrciByer osHOBpeM eHHo” (76) [“everything exists simultaneously”] (60). Both Ms stories and Ms physical life attempt to live out this view o f time; for instance, there is a repeated plot o f a man who wears a watch with the hands removed, and it turns out that Milashevich himself has removed the hands from his own watch. He never writes the date on his fantiki musings so it is nearly impossible to place them chronologically—even though their content would be much clearer given a historical context. He believes that the “former time” is truly over. For Miiashevich’s sense of time, the number of years between meetings (with his beloved) isn’t that important—just the sure knowledge that she will eventually return and is thus a part of the paradise he has established (in his mind). Lizavin realizes that (jja H T H K H caM H fe o iB nneeli h (f> H Jio co 4 > H efi, cn o c o o o M M Biexnns m npeacraBjian, map m u Benmafi na6op m fh o b cb iim , H 3M ejn>ueH H H x, h s b s tb ix H 3 apeM C H H , Tyr 6hji Karanor MarepHajia, H 3 soxoporo CTpoHxca jk h sh b B e ilH K H X H M 33IHX, C U H C T J I H B H X H H e C H a C T J IH B W X —T 8 K 03 O flJ IH a K O B H X a X O M O B C T p O H T C B JCOSh U 3flM a3, (IS 1-2) [the fantiki] themselves were an idea and a pMlosophy, a way of thinking and imagining the world as an eternal collection o f moments cut very small and taken out of time. There was a catalog of material here from which the life of the great and sm all the fortunate and the unfortunate is made—that’s how coal and diamonds are formed from identical, atoms, (154) He comes to understand that the fantiki are a "nommca cpejiam nenpexojpiiieiM M HM Oixeraoe cocrosHHe, saKpensmb ero, yaq>*ax&" (182) [“an attempt to make a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 fleeting condition intransient, to strengthen it, hold on to it”] (155). The central problem o f the work becomes his inability to reconcile this pMlosophy with Ms real life. This only becomes clear towards the end of the novel; as Schneidmann notes, Soviet history and fife, which the reader experiences through Lizavin and personally, discredit the author's utopias ideas (144). Lizavin begins to understand that something is not quite right for Milashevich when he writes that B e e sp e M a He ocxaBJiHJio uyBCTBO, u t q cpeflH ycM euieic h joxhmok MsraaineBHH i i p m e r ohchi. HemyTOUHoe; oh aejt& h b pasroBope c CeMCKoft see 6a jia ry p n ji a jip a d e tp M C * , s e e xoro-xo p a a H r p tis a ji—Tax c ic a a o u fiH t XHTpeit M6THT JI03K H H M H KpeCTBMH C O C e^C K H C .gO M E, HTOSh CKpW Tb CpCJW HHX OT VTpOSH ejjpIHCTBeHHHH, CBOH....Oh, M OXCT, H paCCKHSH C B O H B a c r a m o IlnaTO H O B H uy orffm H e npocro H3 imecjiaBM jurrepaxypHoro, a h t o 6 h nycTHTB b m c c to c e S a no CBery BTopocreneHHoro / p o I b h k e . ( 185) The whole time there remained the feeling that amidst the ironic smiles and grimaces Milashevich was hiding something that was far from a joking matter; after all, even in Ms conversation with Semeka he’d constantly been joking and pretending to be poorer than he really was, always playing a role—that’s how a wily character in a fairy tale marks Ms neighbors’ houses with fake crosses, so as to Mde only one among them—Ms own—from threat. Perhaps he’d even given Ms stories to Vasilii Platonovich not just out of literary vanity, hut to release into the ’ world a minor double in Ms stead. (157- 8) But the suspense created is resolved only much later in. the novel. On the one hand, it appears that the plot is about Milashevich waiting for the return o f the woman he loves, which is guaranteed by the fact that he is, in a remote sense, caring for her son as an unarranged pledge o f her return. But precisely when she returns, the plot thickens. He fails to return her son to her or to take any steps necessary for their reunion, and it is not clear why she doesn’t require this o f him—until the fact becomes clear that she fell sick upon meeting this son accidentally and being Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332 shocked by what he has become. The climax of the story is the moment when this reunion finally does take place, Only at this moment does Milashevich realize Ms naive utopian dream for what it is, and it is after this that he goes mad. Miiashevich’s biggest error results precisely from this attempt to live as if tim e were a kind o f eternal present. As mentioned above, Anton sees in Ms writing “ySex/teuHe nejioBeica, KOToptifi OTKasM saeTCs ^yMaTb o npoHcxoapteHHH, c n sm x , H C T O p H H , H C K a T B B H H X H C T O K H H E C T O a m e r O , K3K 0 T K a 3 H B a e T C X ^ y M a T B O C M epT H ...” (77) [“the conviction o f a man who re&ses to think about origins, connections, and Mstory, to look there for the sources of the present, just as he refuses to think about death”] (61). When he contemplates the Mstorical aspect of time, Milashevich denies it has the ability to explain or give meaning to life; “ no tfenmxe nopootcdatouiia npuum do&epeuibCM do ocnoeanm Mupa, a ece pm uo umezo m o&mcmmh ” (77) [“ along the chain o f caused reasons you 1 1 get to the foundation o f the world, but you 1 1 explain nothing anyway”j (61), TWs is Miiashevich’s fatal error, distorting a truthful discovery he has made that the instant, Me smallest unit of time, matters, into a utopian sense o f time. Morson calls this temporal misunderstanding the disease of “the Isolated Present” (Morson Narrative, m d Freedom 201). For Milashevich, only now matters, and he is w iling to sacrifice past and future for Ms idea o f the eternal present. For him, to echo Morson, “the disease is so precious that health seems trivial” (202). Milashevich casts doubt on the possibility of knowing the past throughout the novel; he often presents a challenge to Lizavin, whose very investigative activity and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333 successes in finding facts from the past stand in opposition to Milashevich’s utopia. Morson comments that such a view o f time is morally dangerous: “The “highest” m o m e n t, lies beyond good and evil, inasmuch as good and evil depend on consequences. The infinite present renders all other moments inconsequential (Morson 202). Miiashevich’s utopia of the eternal present may seem harmless, ta t as the story of his life unfolds before Anton’s searching eyes, it becomes clear that Ms utopian ideal can be implicated in the failure of the child, Karl, to lead a thoughtful and reflective life—to gain self-understanding. He is also responsible for Paradizova’s sickness, insofar as it resulted at least in part from the shock at seeing who her son has become. His refusal to actively make decisions is also ultimately responsible for the death of his friend Ganshin, who commits suicide when he realizes the boy he has fallen in love with is the son of Ms friend’s lover (or wife), and under his friend’s protection—and all the while Milashevich could have simply acted to remove the boy from harm’s way. Finally, his attempt to force the present moment to endure into eternity and thus avoid thinking about future and death is bound to result in disillusionment when realization comes—as it does come to Paradizova and Milashevich when the now grown son finally barges into the room in a communist gas mask to forcibly evict the residents from their home—possibly never knowing that the old woman he encounters is his mother. In this respect, lie is guilty of the same fallacy as those who believe in revolutionary emancipation: both adhere to a closed sense of time, sacrificing an accurate view of historical events that are rightfully contingent upon individual Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334 choices and circumstances for a view in which their actions and choices have no meaningful consequences. Lizavin draws this parallel as he connects Milashevich to the other, historically prevailing utopian vision: npoBmmHaraaaa nonea nararejiBHa jm & yi'ouHH—yx oto MiiiiaiiieBira m m . ... Ho raaBHoe, mh, He b npHMep npyraM, He sartepasHBaeMca Ha 6eccHJi&HHX biwchhsx, a oepeMca 6es npoMeryieHHa hx Bonjionrrb. M ccjih, roBopsT h&m, rmfl aroro He oCohthcb 6c3 nepenenKH caMot neiiosenecKofi npHpO^H—H T O xe, K T O -T O y me H H 3 M 3TH M rOTO B a O ^M M T h . y me HOBHe m o/p paHbme nosBxrcx... (187-8) Provincial soil is nourishing for utopia—Milashevich already knew that... Blit the main thing is that we, as distinct from others, don’t stop at powerless visions, but rush to incarnate them without delay. And if people say to us that to do that we need to change human nature itself—well, so what?—someone in our midst is even ready to think of that. New people will appear earlier among us...(160) It is conceivable that Milashevich is not averse to communist revolutionary ideas at early stages in Ms thinking, although they exist separately from Ms own. While it remains unclear whether Milashevich was involved directly in revolutionary activity (he was detained briefly by the police for the alleged possession o f a bomb during Ms student days, but the narrative does not resolve definitively whether the accusation was true), he does accept the philosophy of the new' order that Monas sepa HauanaeTcx c hobhx chob” (187) [“a new faith begins with new words”] (160) and participates as a local writer of communist candy wrapper (fantik) propaganda, where “ynpsMH# $ h h o co $ npo^ojrsaii ocMuaraBaiB, m o 3’ m m T jp® nee oiosa b nopy, m r,m o s s m o h h g em o 6 so sm m cb bmcctc c cSBOBMmmms.es. mhpom” (186) [“the stubborn philosopher continued to interpret what words meant for the provinces at a tin* when they were renewed daily together Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335 with the changing 'world”] (159), He knows the power of words to change people’s taste, so why not expect that they can change reality in more significant ways? Lizavin notes that a certain Finn was mentioned in the newspaper who convinced locals how well off they were compared to their Finnish neighbors, and realizes that Milashevich, too, experimented with this power: Cjiosa ofeeaajni HenyBCTBJireHMttiM BerepKOM ronosy, bxoahjiii b tcjio, m chsjih xjievsy b m o sf j—npGBBHi|Hajn»BMi MHCjnrrejit xipHcnymKBajicg k hx fleitcTBHio. Cjiobs nopoxsajiH c th x h h h h c 6e^cTBH«, cjiosaMH 3aK JiH H a3iaci> x g bh b. Hmh bijohhc m okho Sbdio, aanpHMep, nepeHHawrfc npoinjioe— to , um. new, Kaaanocfc, p m a 6wno BiiacxB ojcpsoMy focnony, m h aejiaeM noBceflHeBHO, m c h ss oxpacicy BocnoMHHaHHft hjih nepenoca b MHHyBmHe BpeMeua no6oji&nie xyaoro, u:tq6 Jiymne uchhtb Bpem HHuemHee,.,.B cjiosax paciperajiH Bajtem a 6ynym ero.” (18?) The words fanned one’s head with an intensive breeze, entered the body, and changed cells in the brain—the provincial thinker listened carefully to their effect. Words gave birth to elemental calamities, life under the spell o f words. With them, for example, one could completely alter the past—that which, it had seemed, power had been given to God alone to do, we do every day, changing the complexion of remembrance or transferring more o f the negative things to the past, so as to better appreciate the present. Visions of the future blossomed in words, (160) His conception and exploitation o f the power of words unfettered to the reality feeds his utopian view o f time and blinds Mm to the truth of historical time. Narrative and History: Deconstruction and Beyond We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed clotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hanimering. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336 As discussed in the two previous chapters,, rnetahistorical writing since Tolstoy has reflected an awareness of the flaws of historical narration,, and Kharitonov’s writing is no exception. Furthermore, Linii sud’ by is a self-consciously postmodern text that employs many of the tropes and devices of postmodernism to deconstruct history as metanarrative and expose the insufficiency o f attempts to reestablish the past through narrative by writing history, or even histories, today. In doing so, it fays bare the assumptions and devices typically used in historical discourse such as chronological narration, reliability of historical knowledge, and cause-and-effect reasoning, emphasizing the margins over the center and history over History. I f Vladimov’s The General and His Army subverts official Soviet versions o f history, and if Kuraev’s Captain Dikshtein insists that local histories are as important as the national story o f the past, Kharitonov’s work does not tether to search for a single, national Mstory in the first place, for no other reason than that it does not suit the provincial nature o f Ms protagonist, Anton Andreyevich Lizavin. Lizavin. is a man who would prefer “MaxeptiH 6 onee copasMepsu e ” (131) (“material that is more in proportion]” (109), that is, he is interested in the past insofar as it is more directly connected with him as an individual from the provinces, if it is possible to find ft. Moreover, even the possibility o f finding local historical truth is brought into doubt, as it proves elusive. Clearly, the narration of Mstory is deconstructed In the novel This is true in regards to an overarching concept of national History as well as of smaller-scale local histories that affect the life o f the individual more directly. As Lizavin Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337 researches, he constantly encounters the impossibility o f completely reconstructing the whole past due to the sparse availability of documents (especially, as Lizavin observes in another allusion to Tolstoy, in a country where everything is built o f wood and can bum easily). Documents have disappeared In fires and “ty r npmniiHCb npyme o n y e m m m m . M BpeM ena-TO epojie 5ot3k h6. ..B nponeM , c hhmh H H oraa fiBmaex xyxce, hcm c saBBHM n” (52) [“here there were other devastations. And in the not so distant past...however those times are sometimes worse than those o f long ago”] (38)— a direct reference to the government’s officially induced forgetfulness during communism. The box offantiki that he amazingly finds just barely escaped the trash receptacle and, anyway, its status, as far of Anton Andreyevich’s possession o f it Is concerned. Is unofficial. Moreover, the archival record of the past, from which the serious researcher is required to reconstruct what happened, is shown to be in a state of rot to begin with: OcrajiMioe npocrpaHCTBo fcrao sarpOMoxmen© ranaMH 5ywar, nanoK, raaer, nepeBssaHHHX SenesKaMH h cBaneHBHX otpa nosepx ppyroi n p flM O he nojiy, icax b nymcre npucMa M aKynarypM . CnpeccoBaHHoe co6ctbchhoh TaacecTHO, o t o cjiO H C T oe semecxBo ejiHiranocB b ojpy HepasaeaiiMyio nepBofimuyno Maccy, Koe-r^e oho onousajto, k h k tccto. np03paHHue M O K p iH JH CJHiSBIBajIH CJIS^Bl BHflaBJieHHHIX UepHHJI, HMena H C 3 H 8 .T H H X XHTeaefi 36mjih, ot Koxop&ix lie ocxasajioci. xenept #a»ce fgjiocob; K onouiH JiH C B BHyrpH xpviiHHe uepBH, npeBpamaa b xpyxy ocraTXH xhshch h 3aratn® cMeprefi, menoTKH . sohocob, aajtynieHHMe sonjni. ofiMCHeHHs b jso6bh—B ee ncuesajio fieccjiejpo, sax ne ueuesaior aaace jnoaciaae xena, a passe w o rpn6, He ocraBJiHfomufr nocne ce6a h TBep^ofi koctohkh. IIoflrHHBniHM B p eM C H eM naxno 3ttecb, sanuecHeBeaoft nopneaofi uaM STM o, M & H H H H B B 4 homctom h O T C H pejiM M bo^ ohhhm neperapoM. (63) The remaining space was crowded with p ies o f papers, files, and ne wspapers, tied together with string and heaped one on top o f another right on the floor. Pressed by its own weight, this layered substance had stuck Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 together into an indivisible primitive mass; in places it sagged like dough. Transparent, wood lice licked off traces of the pressed ink o f names of undistinguished earthly inhabitants, of whom sot eves the voice remained now; corpse worms swarmed inside, turning into the dust o f rotten, wood the remains of lives and the riddles o f deaths, the whispers of denunciations, declarations o f love—all vanished without a trace, as not even people’s bodies vanish, but more like a mushroom, without leaving behind even a little bone. It smelled of putrefied time here, of moldy spoiled memory, of mouse droppings and the soggy residual odor of vodka. (49) Several times, the narrator states that the relationship between troth and documentary evidence about the past is tenuous; it is subject to accidents and to the whims of Mstory. What is preserved in the end is arbitrary, as is seen even by the fact that Milashevich’s stories survived—it was only because they were printed in a special, so-called “candy” edition valued by collectors (43-5). Lizavin becomes less and less surprised to find connections between the fantiki, which he initially assumes to be a fictional genre, and historical evidence in his attempts to reconstruct the past In the end, they prove to be at least as reliable as available documents. The narrator reassures us that “Pa3yMeerca, fiero ierp H C T H K a —H e aoKyMenT' (27) [“it goes without saying that fiction is not a document”] (15), but goes on to show that the evidence that can be gleaned even from documents about history is very little. In many cases, history is shown to become lost or nearly lost, which suggests that other stories have in all likelihood been erased from our memory. Locals of Nechaisk know Fedia Kizifbash as the town drunk, a bit touched in the head, whom one could get rid of with a handout o f a free mug of beer. He wears a padded jacket, a rope for a belt, and as empty civil war sheath. But no one would have believed that he was not simply a tooKHyTtii ... o S 'jio m o k [ c b o h x speMea]” (247) [“crazy leftover Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339 from the old days”'] (217) but rather the last local, active participant in the Revolution who remained in Nechaisk—until a reporter from Leningrad came with a picture of him as a young hero next to a horse. At this point, “Ere micro Bufipnjra, c#oTorpa^npoBajiH ana ncropHH mhobo” (248) [“People had him shaved and photographed again for the sake of Mstory”] (217), and he began to receive a special pension and 'many privileges reserved for the highest administrators. But Ms states as a hero depended folly upon someone's remembering what he had done, and he could have remained in obscurity forever were it not for this twist of fate that restored to Mm his place in Mstory. The reliability o f people’s or even one’s own memory as instrument for knowing the past is degraded in the novel as well. For example, the shady circumstances leading up to Lizavin’s arrest and the hint that drugs were smick into him somehow, as well as Ms loss of memory at the time of his accident, all confirm for him the notion that memory fails us; in one of his conversations with the subject of his research, Milashevich, he comments: “IlonH b o t , cyjp o aasH ei u y x o i XH3HH, Korpa b cofrcvBCHSoi BuepaiHHei oKasHBaeTcx cjienoft npoBan, a ero, m oxct. yate hc 3anojiHHTii c yBepeHHocrMo” (119) [“last go and try to make judgments about someone’s life from the distant past, when, it turns out there’s a gaping hole in your own yesterday, and maybe it can no longer be filled in with certainty”] (97). Moreover, memory even In Its best moments is not a reliable compass. Lizavin gradually becomes aware that the “Jfoa na&orra npoacirroe Bp cm* Boofime erymaercs aepmimmepao, ecr& uycrorar fepasjiiiuMHe i? tiotomj ksk 6m Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349 Bunafgaiongse H 3 mera” (87) [“time one has experienced in genera! thickens unevenly where memory’s concerned; there are voids that are indifferent and therefore seem to fall out of the c a lc u la tio n .(70). In the end, Lizavin surmises that in the search for history, “ B j m .pociyiiHH m am tpoumum, ocTamaoe JSO pyM M B ai (206) [“we have access only to the fantiki; the rest you have to come up with yourself’ ] (178). Lizavin along with the narrator thus call into doubt the very knowability of the past. This stands in stark contrast to both Vladimov, who juxtaposes multiple narratives about the past to create intergeneric dialog of the type described by Wachtel, and Kuraev, whose narrative, though broken in places, seeks out the root structure of historical knowledge by presenting the contingency of the master narrative ofMstory on local historical events—which he suggests are at least somewhat accessible through research. Furthermore, Kharitonov raises the Tolstoyan problem o f the interestedness o f the historian, or any teller o f historical events. Thinking about Milashevich, Lizavin notes that it is difficult to be sure o f details o f his life because “kuk nporoBopnri>cjj B 3arrpaB ,ay, yate He Bceiyta ii ynoBHnn.” (30) [“you can’t always tell when he is speaking the truth”] (18). When researching a story about Trotsky, one of the few historical figures mentioned in the work, Lizavin finally realizes that the reference is false; a pretender had visited the province, “oothm H 3 rex, Snaroaapx K O M y HcropHx rax HjoHHsaHa jiereBflHMM h m h h m g c tx m h ” (172) [“one o f those people thanks to whom Mstory is so rich in legends and falsifications”] (144). Recounting a rivalry between two historical stories about two historical heroes, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34! narrator explains how local historians in Miiashevich’s time were already straggling to distil! the historical truth from the contradictory versions of events, and how it turned out not to matter in the end, anyway; Her, aa xaxoft-TO epos conepH H K c a M saxojiedaaca, c jio b h o b 3h 6 k o m Mapese; 06a noKa3a®acB m e ayatHH M m g6hob31€hh©I ncxopHH, rge cnaceHHe paps yace He cuHTajiocfe sacjiyrofi, qaxe naoSopor, h nouns pacTBopHjraet, pacTajum b aosqyxe, irpmeM KojrryHOB pacxasji. mgxeho cxasavt, HenonpasBMei, ne m&ex aa co & i ycTOSffinierocs npeqaHra, eo cmxaMH h onepaMH, qa BqooaBoic OTaromeffKHi HeyqauKHM KyneuecKHM npoHcxoxqemieM. Tax uro Korqa HcropHS b h o b b aaHHTepecoBanaci qyxoM rocyqapcTBeHHoro naTpHOTHSMa, k S h tm jo sepHyjica jih ih b o h h h H 3 h h x , fionee npHBBiHHMfi. Ero b k d h h c k o h h o b XBaTano. (36) No, for a while the rival himself wavered, as if in a shifting mirage; both Susanin and Koltunov appeared superfluous for the revised story, in which the czar’s salvation was no longer regarded as a positive achievement—even the reverse. The two o f them virtually dissolved, melting into thin air, Koltunov dissolving more irremediably, one might say, without producing any definite legend—with verses or operas—and in addition burdened with unfortunate merchant origins. So when history once again became interested in the spirit of state patriotism, only one of them, to whom Mstory had become more accustomed, came back Into being. After all, he was quite sufficient. (24) There is no guarantee that what is preserved in a society’s historical narratives is in any way the main bequest the people of the past would have intended for us. Any legacy we receive has been lightened or changed by those first sons ofhistory who were able to take something o f it for themselves. The reader is privy to much ofLizavin’s learning process as he reads between the lines in documents about Milashevich and begins to see that even Semeka has certain narrative interests when he wrote about Ms encounter with author Milashevich; Lizavin Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 342 oh Bee acHefi na& sm aji y n a B J iH B a T fc H anpaB jieH H oerb aroro pejprrapoBaHiK. C K O p e i n o co6c r B e H H O M y n o M H H y , H e x e jia n o n h&hm-to h s x h m o m . C eM eica erapajics b h c t p o u t h o f ip a s 60n e e nocjieaoBaieaBHHH b nenbHUu, a m m m , h 6o ,ie e a o c 'r o B e p u H i 5 mcm o h cKJia^BSBajica caM a s p a s p o s u e n H M x a e m ? i e I .. ,. i H a p a s s e s e e m m He peaaiorH pyeM —c o s a a T e m B © h jih C ecco sH a T en & H O —M C K p e s H H X cbohx B o c n o M H H a H H H ? —flaace cr p a H H Q noaaraTB, nr© o h h Moryr h m c i s v m k k o o jc k h B a p a a H r! ( 1 7 3 ) more and more clearly started grasping the direction of this editing. More likely on Ms own initiative than under someone’s pressure, Semeka [the editor] had tried to build an image more consistent, more integrated, and therefore more authentic than he himself had put together from separate details. But don’t we all really edit, consciously or unconsciously, our sincere recollections? It’s even strange to suppose that they could have only one version! (146) The work makes it clear that this tendency is not limited to the authors o f the past, even if the passage o f time and the critical perspective this permits make it easy for today’s reader to make out and judge the lenses through which they were examining the world. Thus interpretation is also questioned as the narrator reminds the reader and Anton Andreyevich that, in any inquiry, we hear what we want to hear and understand what we want to understand (a point stressed in each work this dissertation is examining). The narrator raises this question In regards to Lizavin: H C H O flF O H ® ! J I M O T H & C T H AhT O H AHUpeCBM H O P , COSCTBCHHOe C B O C H O H iiM a B ia e asTopa, k KoropoM y c nepsoro see a n a K O M C T B a omynui aymeBHyro chmikithio, j& x e po/scrBeHHyio 6jsh3ocx&? He c m b s m cpasy B O S M y m e H H O 3to onpoBepram He sauiMaeMcs jm m m see hcm-to no^odsauM, m rm mnwyem KHury bcskuh hs cboh jiait?—sejtB ohh roBopiiT H a M T O , H T O M U H p eH p a C H O J K H K e H H H J I H C K J I O H H H y C J IM lH a T M (32) Didn’t Anton Andreyevich partly try to make the author fit into Ms own understanding, an author for whom from the very outset he felt a kind of spiritual affinity that bordered on the closeness one feels for a relative? We won’t instantly start denying this in indignation. Don’t we all do something Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. similar when we interpret a . book, each according to Ms own point of view? The book, after all, tells as what we are already predisposed or inclined to hear, (20) The narrator also mentions Lizavin’s own tendency to prefer storytelling to the work of the archivist, implying that the version of events he ultimately tells will be affected by this (54/40). The suggestion that history is a function o f various tellers’ interests coexists with imagery of turbid swampiness rotting history and wasting memories and challenges the idea that it is possible to recover anything remotely similar to what was “lost.” In one of the f a n tik i, Milashevich refers to a figure that had been buried in the local swamp for who knows how long: pHippB. b nnaeT H H nam x rpaseBMX jpeitexax h ikmbckom m n c m e , ero ipyzpo 8hjio p a s r m m e r h msasietca ckbosb 3fei£SK ne HCnapeHm, b k o to p h x Bflpyr BOSHurauH a pacTBopjuiacB, sax npH 3paK H , BocnoMHHaHM, arnceM ne ono3HaHHtie;...B03ttyxs HccymaeM&ifi cojihucm, 6uji ana h h x rafiejiea, h , uyn>-uyn> n p o m p x m m m c b b bcm, u o jw k paccHnanca, npeK^e h&u m nero nonpoSoBajiH npfipar&cH. ..(380) a knight in metal plate-like armor made o f mud, with a Polish helmet—it was difficult to distinguish him through the wavering vapors in which memories nobody recognized suddenly emerged and dissolved like phantoms. The air, dried out by the sun, was fatal to them, and after barely enduring it for a second, the Pole disintegrated before thev could even try to reach Mm..,. (310) Many of the connecting lines between us and our past have been broken, and memories that no one recognizes are uncovered as we watch our own memories become overgrown, or buried, knowing that their fate will be to vanish before our eyes. What is preserved by means of story, historical record, or fantiki is arbitrary and comes to us through the subjectivity of the observer; Lizavin knows that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “[T]pyflHO B wnert. to, nero He augeii MiuiaineBHH” (353) [“It’s difficult to see what Milaskevicb didn’t see”] (304), in other words, our collective historical knowledge depends on the subjectivity of memory and the needs of people to preserve certain tilings over others in memory, and so our vision of the past suffers from myopia. Cause and effect “It’s senseless to see a cause and a connection in everything.” —Milashevich, in Linii sud'by Early on in Ms research on Milashevich, when he is first surveying the contents of the trunk, Anton Andreyevich Lizavin comes across a fantik that reads “Ho nenomce nopoxyjaiomHx npauHH #o6epenii>cx m o c h o b u h h x MHpa, a bob pam o HHHero He oSm chhihh” (77) [" ‘ along the chain o f caused reasons you’ll get to the foundation of the world, hut you’ll explain nothing anyway”] (61) and notes to h im self that it represents “yfiexcneHHe uenoBeica, xovopMl OTKasHBaerca jsyumh o npOHCXOXCfleHHH, CBS3HX, HCTOpHH, HCKUTb B HHX HCTOKH HaCTOSmerO, X3K oTKasHsaerca sym ab o cMepra” (77) [“the conviction o f a man who refuses to think about origins, connections, and history, to look there for the sources of the present, just as he refuses to think about death”] (61). Yet the enormous amount o f time he spends in Milashevieh’s atmosphere soon begins to influence him in the direction of the author’s thinking; very soon after this, Lizavin’s own musing begins to question whether events have sensible causes or easy explanations: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345 C T O H T m B C 8 M O M m ile H C K a T B C M M C M , npH H H H y, B H H y, B C B B p am a S C fc B C H S T & n o n e n o n x e Hejieniro, h cosnafteHHH, Koxopas usmshhjiii tboio schshb, mojkct 6 h t b, 3m e T o r jp , KGiyta th n o o m ffe k e cyHyjica He a ry /p e p .6 h n a S p e ji Ha cynayHOK, eryexHBiHHics m JnrrepaxypHoro rasa? (59) Is it really worth looking for the sense, the reason, the blame, retracing your steps along a chain of absurdities and coincidences that changed your life, maybe even then, when you pushed your way in through the wrong door by mistake and came across the trunk, condensed from a literary dream? (45) Lizavin nonetheless proceeds as before. As he does research for Ms dissertation, he is trying to establish basic historical details about Milashevich’s life. Sitting among a sea offantiki, Lizavin tries to make sense o f them by reading them in various combinations, now connecting two of the little papers, now tacking one on somewhere else. He thinks, “SaSaBH O, hto rosopHTb. Moaao 6 hjk> fes KOHita noBopanHBaTb, irpH M epH Baxt neiraemM, BHCTpaH Ban* HHorrta neJEbie nenomcH, ho K aK O ft-T O O C IO pO S C H M it H H C T H H K T H O ,g C X a3 & IB a]I JlH 33BHH y, H T O C JIH IH K O M ycepflCTBOBaTt xyr ace xe He Ha#o—SeccMWcaenHO, Secnojieano w M ajiocTb oxflaer cyMacmecTBHeM” (34) [“Amusing, to be sure. One could keep turning if endlessly, trying out the combinations, sometimes constructing whole chains, but a cautious instinct suggested to Lizavin that nevertheless he shouldn’t be too zealous here—it was senseless, useless, and the trifle already smacked o f insanity”] (63). Lizavin’s mind would prefer to ignore this instinct; the atmosphere concocted by Milashevich’s waiting is compared to a swampy solution saturated with images of h isto ric a l a n d m y th o lo g ic a l refuse w h e re “[OJeciraoTHHe Haorau h , H 3 6aBHBnracb ox crnnu TsxeeTM , o t yMcraeHHUx o f lM C n e m l, jtotobm 6m j® c s o f lo tp o HcnpoSoBau. #pyr apyra, sax mo m stcsi b remam>mie mtbobsbsm cm . He XBaxano sm bh> Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346 hhtohkh, h to 6 h BOKpyr Hee nmsrM BH,ae.®m>ca, BHCTpaHBaTi>cs Kpmcrmmmm” (85) (“incorporeal particles..,from intellectual explanations, were ready to freely try each other, as occurs in the inspired moments of sleep. Only a thread was lacking for tbs little crystals to start forming and arranging themselves around it”] (69). This search tor a thread around which a crystal lattice o f clear explanation might be allowed to form out of the supersaturated solution of historical images is a leitmotif taken up in several passages. While trying to establish certain facts surrounding Paradizova, Lizavin feels that the “CrycTHBmaacH «3 nycxom #orajpca (C B 6 3 K H H K a M3 B O J lS p f c C K O r © B O S P JX a) C 3 M & C O O O H 06paCT3Jia n o a p O & lO C T M M M H obocH O B aH H B M H ” (125) [“guesswork that liad condensed from emptiness (a snowflake from the November air) became overgrown with details and substantiations of its own accord”] (104). When Lizavin has an insight about Iona Sverbeyev, the narrator observes that “Cjiobho hhtb, onymeraaB b pacTBop, oto hm» H anH H ajio oGpacxaxi., odoramaTBca hospgSbocvsmb m xhbhmh u ep T aM H ” (141) [“p]ike a thread dropped into a solution, this name began to get overgrown with items, to be enriched with details and five features”] (117). Even at the moment when Lizavin believes he las reconstructed the basic contour o f events leading to the demise of MilasheviclTs personal utopia, Lizavin thinks, “Boace, bmbto H e pasBejfsaao xenepb otofo ropecraoro bhschim, HanpoiHB, ho M enonaM H pu S aB JM JffiC fc HOHTBepx.aeraM , sax jqpHcrainM, hto oSneiuiwoT H O B y to hhtkv b „gocTnrnieM HacHmeaifa pacruope. Qhh yace cKJia®JBajGTca b yaop, m C O n p H K O C H O B C H H a H X p O X fla C T C S 3 B O H , T H X H ft, H C H H ft, neuajiBHBift” (319-20) (“God, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34? nothing now could dispel this sorrowful sight, on the contrary, little things increasingly confirmed it, like crystals clustering around a new thread In a solution at its saturation point. They’re already forming a design; a soft, clear, mournful ringing is bom o f their touch”] (273). Yet Lizavin’s attempt to drop such a logical thread of narration into the disorganized mass of historical and literary material he is presented with, into the heap of unconnected facts and details, is again and again thwarted.. This desire to see a crystal lattice form is related to the desire mentioned above to be able to understand everything “without leftovers,” or to follow another refrain in the novel, to try to explain things completely by following a snail chain of determining causes to the origin o f the world. Several characters are involved in such searches, including Milashevieh, Lizavin, and the latter s chance acquaintance Maksim Sivers, a dissident with a sickness o f the soul that has resulted from this search. Sivers, having wound up in prison for his ideology, has left a notebook with his wife for Lizavin to read, and Lizavin spends the better part of a night engrossed in its horrible descriptions of unhappiness and hopeless reflections on the source of Sivers’ illness—which the latter interprets as a physical illness with probably a spiritual cause, albeit one he cannot pin down. Each of Sivers’ attempts to reduce his illness to a single and simple cause ends in frustration, Lizavin understands through his reading of this journal that his friend has lost hope and the ability to live. Lizavin himself is pained to find explanations for the “holes in Ms own yesterday,” to explain how he ended up in jail, but cannot reduce the possibilities to any dear explanation. At the one moment when he thinks “S see aaieoHen noHHMaio, see Mory q6£jic h h x& ” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34S (260-1) [“1 understand everything at last, can explain everything”] (225), lie has Ms freak accident and winds up in the hospital unable to explain anything once more. Finally Milashevich, with his elaborate personal utopia based on his provincial philosophy, eventually must realize that even his philosophy is unable to explain things. As a crystal lattice can crack under its own weight, He nonyuanocB, see speus u t o - t o me nonynajiocB. UpoBajnmajiact etpa O T C T poem ias cxeaa b s m h , x o ^ h , nonocm, npopHxae x c m -to no aac, njianu 6hjih yrepxHH—cMenmo, b c a M O M ttene, ao6pax&ca no uenonxe npirasffl m o n e p B O H C T O K O B npoHCxonsmero. B eccM H cneH H O h h€b03M o% ho. 3aMHcex 6hji npexpaceH, BMemajiact ernxm, m b . Marepaaji noflBejp coe;p iH H Jioc& Hexoneo. Ha xperteM xpyce HajpoManocb. Benaaa H C T opiw . O new are? O cTpoHxejibCTBe, Koxopoe hcbosmokho yqecxB? Koxopoe HeyMonHMo BTopraercfl b jiym iiM H samiceii, npespantaa ero b H acM enucy h SeacxBae? (214) It didn’t work out, something always didn’t work out The wails that had just teen built collapsed into holes, passages, cavities, tom open by someone before us, the plans had teen lost—it’s funny, actually, to get to the original sources of "what’s happened along a chain o f reasons. It’s senseless and impossible. The conception was perfect, but the elements interfered, and the material undermined it; it was joined imprecisely. It cracked on the third tier. The eternal story. What’s this about? About the construction of the ancient tower? About a catastrophe in Moscow? About chance, which it wasn’t possible to take into account? Which inexorably invades the best conception, turning it into mockery and disaster? (187) Every time Lizavin starts to think he has found the “utopian” thread of narrative explanation, it toms out he is wrong or else he cannot really know. Lizavin eventually embraces the idea Milashevich introduced to him, that simple explanations somehow do not work, and that life is too complex to make sense of everything in it. However, as discussed above Milashevich’s solution, a hint of which Lizavin apprehended at the beginning, was to reduce the complexity of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349 problem by creating a utopia of the eternal present with the goal of preventing time and reality from encroaching upon, the folfillment o f Ms vision. Lizavin is not satisfied with this solution; his metahistorical awareness o f the dangers of utopian th in k i n g in history causes him to reject this temptation. But the problem of explaining things in history remains. While utopian thinking holds that time leads to an inevitable present and/or future, historical time relies upon cause and effect, and waiting to see what happens when contingencies work themselves out. In the novel, the deconstructing of utopias that rely on a false sense o f time reestablishes a correct view of cause and effect. Yet the concept o f cause and effect in history is not a simple one, but rather one with a high level o f complexity. Inevitability is ultimately destroyed by chance. The conception referred to in the quotation above is the utopian vision, which relies heavily on prediction of an already determined future. However the phenomena of real life, stemming from causes, come into play and undermine utopian thinking. Chance—in the extended meaning employed by Kharitonov throughout the novel— in the form of complicated and unreplicable but for the most part intelligible events plays too significant a role in history and therefore predictability turns out to be very low. TMs is important not only for one’s view of the fixture, but also for one’s understanding o f the past. For if it were possible to understand all of the precise reasons for which every past event came about, then it would be theoretically possible to predict the fixture and thereby realize utopias, What gets in the way of tins Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 350 are the imperfect elements and materials that are used to construct utopian visions— the complexity o f historical e vents and. their interpretations. For Kharitonov, history is Tolstoyan as much as it is postmodern. Aside from the problem that the past is invisible in patches, when the chain of events can be seen, it is hopelessly entangled and infinitely deep and broad. History is compared to a chessboard as it appears in the middle of a game: OcraHOBJieHHaa inaxMaraaa ikwhium m o x s t bocxhtjktb xmpoyMHofi B 3au M 0C B M 3M 0s BBJBepeHHoS Hejiecoo6pa3HOCTtio (jtHryp; Kaxaan HOOTepM Baex a p y ry io , s a n p m a e r , nepeispHBaeT o ^ h h x o sm h BKtByxpaer M p y ra e; H ap oH H O —nonpofeyfr Taxoe cociwwrb, oro BHCTpaHBajioct m cnenjieHBS xoaos, kotophm h He t h o^hh bjimsji. A y hctophh He 6 uBaer ojmoro-ttsyx TBopnoB, oro ydmottoK cjihhikom mhofhx pojpTejiea, ctoht jib y a H B J M T fc C ® . H T O O H O C K O p S jia C T JIIo6oi OTttejttHBlfi B K V C ? (218) A frozen chess position can delight us by its intricate interrelatedness, regulated by the expediency of the pieces: each one supports another, defends it, blocks some moves and makes others necessary7 (try to put something like that together on purpose); it’s achieved by a combination o f moves controlled not just by you alone. And history doesn’t have just one or two creators; it’s a mongrel o f too many parents, so should one be surprised that it offends any independent taste? (190-1) History is based upon cause and effect, but the causes are too deep and numerous to understand in all their fullness. Moreover, they are to a large degree dependent upon the choices made for reasons that we cannot understand by many other people, and thus history is not directed fey an individual’s will. It is the result o f the combination of many little individual controls and is therefore highly unpredictable. To uncover all causes and effects is a hopeless and vain undertaking. The picture shown in the novel of how history coines about is distinctly Tolstoyan. Many passages describe Lizavin’s encounters with unedited archival reminiscences (it is especially Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 351 significant that they are statedly unedited because of the Tolstoyan assumption that preserved history is heavily influenced by the interestedness ofhistorians, whose main purpose is to edit .memories) that retained the “nopjiM HHOCTt nonyrpaMoraoft penu m cseatee omymei«e xaoca, as Koroporo poxtpjiacu Hcropua” (123) [“authenticity o f half-literate speech and the immediate sense of the chaos front which history was bom”] (101). Kharitonov’s narrator revels in descriptions that incorporate weird combinations of everyday events, the details o f which have led to other events and have become enmeshed with other human activities, so that causes and effects in history' do indeed, come about because of hundreds of thousands of wills. A process that functions as a type of butterfly effect connects the individual to history in this novel; this is the logical outcome of a Tolstoyan approach to history. The narrator’s discussion (seemingly through Lizavin’s eyes) of how the Ganshin plot worked Itself out probes the question of why Milashevich made the choice to house his orphan on the old man’s estate and manifests the grave impact of this innocent mistake of Milashevich’s : 5 4 M m m m em h c to 3 ihoct& oSepnynacB fie ^ o l” (309) [“the small inaccuracy proved diasasfrous”] (263). The sphere of influence of this small .m istake increases over the years and eventually leads to Ganshin’s death and the failure of Milashevich’s vision. This has reciprocal implications for the individual considering whether to act or what action, to take. In the final conversation between Milashevich and Lizavin, Milashevich exhorts the latter to action based upon what he has realized about history: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 352 A h t o h A uflpeeBH H , bm .space He npe& cTaBJisexe, ckojibeo 3 8 b h c h t o t .sac, H M eH H o o t sac! Bcjacoe m jb ctb o , sc a x a a k h 3 h b , b c sk e s mmcm, a a x e H e sanenaTJieH H aa, po)K $aeT sap a a , BepHO, h o h m o s h .gepacaTkcs rae-TO u m m m m h u h B est, rta x e iiesaM erao n m w rh m jkhbjthhx, nocreneHHo o eiiafeia® # 0 h c ¥ * 3 h o b b h h h . (349) Anton Andreyevich, you have so Idea how much depends on yon, precisely on you! Every feeling, every life, every thought, even if not ingrained in one’s memory, breeds a charge, that’s a feet, and it also can be sustained somewhere tor an instant or for centuries, unnoticed, and influence even, the living, gradually weakening until It disappears. (298) Lizavin must act and do so consciously, and he comes to understand that failing to act will affect him and others infinitely Into the future. An Alternative Past Historical Time Restored: Alternatives and the Openness of Time Linii sud’ by urges us to seek a better understanding of the role of utopian thinking in history, and at the same time strive towards an approach to the past that relies on historical time, not utopian time. Lizavin, despite Ms empathy for the provincial philosopher, immediately sees that Milashevich ["‘ refuses to think about origins, connections, history, and to look to these places for sources o f the present, just as he refuses to think about death”] (77 my translation). TMs Is the fetter’s biggest mistake; the novel ultimately portrays him as a kind o f foolish wise-man* a naive philosopher—although perhaps he became this way out of personal necessity and the desire to maintain an ambiguous persona-— -arid even though in the novel Lizavin is tempted by certain aspects ofMilashevich’s thinking, he ultimately arrives at a . better model for historical inquiry, stressing the utter necessity for people today Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353 to Inquire into, reflect on. and understand the past as having been open, to borrow Gary Saul Morson’s phrase once more, to possibility, Anton Andreyevich ventures out o f the province, albeit somewhat reluctantly, to Moscow to better understand the past because he feels he will find answers to his questions about the history surrounding Milashevich only if he rejects the power the provinces have over one's soul (131/109). What constitutes this power is the sense that, in the provinces, an individual can remain separate from the " m h p riojiHTHnecKHx cipacrei a m n p H r, napTHHHoI 6op& 6 w, anoxax&HHx aawaxoB, nporpaMM, xepxs, boI h , noTpaceHHl” (131) [“world of political passions and intrigues, party straggles, epochal flourishes, programs, sacrifices, wars, and shocks5 ’ ] (108); in other words, the provincial way o f thinking permits an insular, closed view o f history consistent with (at least) Milashevich’s form of utopian thinking, and probably with other problematic views o f time and history. Lizavin5 s short journey to Moscow thus bridges the distance between the individual and the material that constitutes history, and in undertaking it, he strengthens his resistance to the ease and freedom offered by a false, closed (utopian) view of time. The reflection on utopias that forms the structure o f the novel lays a foundation for a new interpretation of historical events and their relation to the individual and the creation of meaning. It is an expression o f a postutopian view of time that returns to what Mot son calls real historical time. According to Morson, utopian thinking is the product of a closed view o f time or mode of temporality. In utopian thinking, what Morson calls “real historical time5 ’ is yielded to the enticing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 354 perfection of a utopian world. History is predetermined to have a certain outcome, precisely the one that has eome about, and ‘There are no more changes to come that could falsify present judgments” (Morson 255). There can be no legitimate competing 'values or perspectives, values do not differ from one culture to another, and there is a clear standard o f progress, human potential, and values (270). But Morson argues that “[ujtopia conflicts with the essentially dynamic, creative, and processus! nature o f human 'beings” (270) that is evident in the historical process; human experience validates a history that was full of alternatives and possibilities that remained in the mode of potentiality, ie ., did not come about. The profound implication here is that history itself is intricately connected to the utopias we have built and tried to live, and a more historical narrative about the past can thus help us to understand our failures to establish utopias better while restoring a more correct view of them and a richer sense o f vision It is not only the people o f the past who were affected by the powerful draw of utopian thinking, even though Milashevich’s historical era is shown to have been especially conducive to this force. Anton Andreyevich becomes aware of his own spiritual affinity with with the provincial author throughout the course of this work, and the narrator on several occasions uses this feeling o f connection to cast a shadow o f doubt onto Ms reliability. TMs kinship is felt precisely because both are provincials, a concept which Kharitonov ties closely to utopian time and thinking. Other characters who are provincials also fee! a sense o f connection, for example, Maksim and Anna Sivers and former provincial doctor (now patient) Mauin. All of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 355 the novel’s main characters struggle with the power of the provincial, most often manifested in their sense of connectedness or loss thereof and in their ovei*whelming desire for completeness—which prevents them from functioning in the world, and which will be discussed below. Thus, Lizavin mast make a difficult choice when he comes to the point in Ms research at which he must either just quit investigating Milashevich and write the dissertation (any information he would gain, is doubtful regarding its centrality to M s dissertation, anyway) or go to Moscow to pursue Ms subject in further depth. He reflects that ecjni npasHax&ca cobccm jm . uecrao, He ohchb xaic-TO rm y n o b ly CTopoay— b Map noJiHTHnecKHX CTpacxel H HHTpHr, napTHtHoi fiOpBfjH, OHOXaJIBHHX 3 3 M 8 X O B , HpOipaMM, MepTB, B O M B, DOTpSCeUHft. Oh OttHOli K p O B H C H 3 M H , AhTOH Afl#peeBH% M BJM Ot XpOBH IipOBHHIIHatta, & 6 C J I M K T O nocnemuT oraeprayri tekoc OT©3*ytecmneHJie— m o m , p a jp Bora, fiepeM TO Tuac cboh cjiobe ofipaTHo h H e aacxaiiBaeM. Toubko cnepBa Bee xe ctohdio 6h Brasaeribca b ce6a: tsk jih mh b csmom aeue pseMca no# xono#HHe neSeca, he xparmecicae npocxopH HcxopHH? He npesnonuxaeM jih b HcxpeHHei rayflHHe cymecraa M axepHH 6ojiee copa3MepHue?—to sctb b ca M O M jih #ejie aa# aam ei #ymoI cobccm ne BJiacraa npOBHHima? (131) and if he had to be perfectly honest, he somehow wasn’t very drawn in that direction—into a world of political passions and intrigues, party struggle, epochal flourishes, programs, sacrifices, wars, and shocks. He’s o f our blood, is Aston Andreyevich, the peaceful Mood of the provincial, and if someone’s quick to reject such an equation—well then, for God’s sake, we’ll retract our words immediately .and not insist on the point. Only first it would be worthwhile to examine our inner selves: Are we really so eager and impatient to venture forth under the cold skies into the tragic arena of history? In the sineerest depths of our being, don’t we prefer material that is more in porportfon?—that is, is it really true that the provinces have no power at all over our souls? (109) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 356 I n this r e s p e c t he f e e ls a particularly s tr o n g a f f in ity to Milashevich; he d o e s n o t want to le a v e the provinces e v e n f o r a s h o r t tim e f o r life in th e b u s y city. It is, a l t e r all, comforting to be s a tis f ie d with life o n a smaller, local scale, with “more proportional material” (131, my tr a n s la tio n ) . H o w e v e r , th e n a r r a to r im p lie s that A n to n Andreyevich w o u ld n o t b e w is e to succumb to t h e provincial, a lo n g w ith its s o - c a tte d “p r o p o r ti o n a te ” historical m a te r ia l, h o w e v e r r e a s s u rin g it m a y b e — just a s it w a s w r o n g f o r p e o p le to succumb to it in M il a s h e v ic h ’s day. W h e n A n to n A n d r e y e v ic h , 'b a c k in t h e p r o v in c e s a f te r M s tr ip t o M o s c o w , a s k s t h e waitress w h e th e r t h e y h a v e a n y b e e r , a n d s h e r e p lie s “BHsaer” (245) [“Sometimes”] (214), the narrator appreciates this reply as a n indication of a humorous and uniquely Russian sense o f time that is o p e n to th e adventure of life. It indicates the “ n p o sH H ip ia JiM io e n y n c x B o , K O TO poe, ne n y x s a s c f c b necQMHeHHOH HCTOpHH, crymaer m s m b H3 (panm uK oe h u sm sth h k h H3 naea...” (245) [“provincial feeling...that doesn’t need a history without doubts and condenses lif e fromfantiki and monuments, from a n id e a ..,” ] (214-5). But this is the same provincial feeling that signals utopian thinking, precisely because it does not r e q u ir e o n e ’s p a s t to b e tr u e t o o n e ’s p r e s e n t, a way o f th in k i n g t h e novel r e je c ts . T h e provinces are a place where a writer can choose the ‘MeofbrnTejifeHQem..., oShhhjio MM 3noxM c jio b o o x o tjih b o S , H sc T H jp H B o fi” ( 3 0 7 ) [“lack of r e s p o n s ib ility th a t is customary f o r a lo q u a c io u s era la c k in g in m o d e s ty ” ] ( 2 6 0 ) ; t h e c a p ita l in s is ts upon the w r ite r ’s r e s p o n s ib ility and requires him t o answer for w h a t lie h a s written ( 3 0 7 /2 6 0 ) , By posing this o p p o s itio n , the n a r r a to r q u e s tio n s whether Milashevich Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 357 could have made it as a writer in the capital or whether he even wanted to, since lie ultimately embraced the “lack of responsibility” allowed by the provincial way of th in k i n g . Finally, Milashevich sees Ms former acquaintance and Paradizova’s former travelling companion later in life, when he comes to the village to gather up items from the old Ganshin estate for the museum in Moscow. The narrator informs us that Simeon Kondratyich HGHBBaei T6M BpcMeueM mM c uejioBeicoM, ic o T o p e l n p a ex a n ysosHTB COKpOBHUta npOBHHUHH B IICHTp, IIOTOMy UTO BCXKJIO H30mpeHH0CTB nejioBeqecKoft m hcjth upasM uracil 6 h jio c o c p e a o T O w r t b o^hom m cctc, nojtpaBHHB n p o n ee npocrpaHCTBO— see aim T oro me, jsm x o p x e e r B a npOBHHUHH b M acnixaSe, xaicofi Mor m u m . c h h te c h ciqx>MHOMy m ob oM ysp y. B o x h ox® couuiocb: Shjkmh conepHHK, xairofi fijie c m itH i Koraa-To, x e n e p t HaanoMJieHHBifi, pa3ouapoBaHHHH, TacK aiom H i c c o S o fi, kbk cys& 6y, sa n a x y x c y c a hjih m em , mor 6 h t b CBH^eiejieM e r o T O pxecxsa. Ho xoiyp no^eM y ace, d o h c m j C cm cb K onapaxB eB im ae aaxoxeji npeffBSBHTB eMy sc e fi nojiHOTH CBoero xpHyM<f>a? H s SiiaropoflC Tsa? Ox npiiBtraicH k c k p w th o c th H He«OMOJIBK2M? Pa£H KaKO&-TO eUje HTpH? H to G h npOCTO H e BOJlHOBaTBCH 3pH sa Hee h cefix, n e saM yrrarfe nocTHTHyroro noK oa? H jih , m o x c t, o x HeflocraxKa yBepeH H oera— b Heft jih, b c e 6 e ? (318) in the meantime is drinking tea with the m m whocame to take the treasures o f the province to the capital, because it was no more proper to concentrate in one place all the refined products of human thought, having leveled the rest o f the area—all this had one purpose, the triumph o f the province on the scale that a modest sage might only dream about. It all came together: the former rival, so brilliant at one time, now broken, disappointed, dragging with Mm, lice fate, an odor of vinegar or anguish, could now witness Ms triumph. But then why. why did Simeon Kondratyich want to show him the completeness of Ms triumph? Out of nobleness, out o f Ms penchant for seoretiveness and allusions? For the sake o f some other game? lust so as not to worry needlessly about her and himself, not to disturb the peace that has been attained? Or, maybe, out o f a lack o f confidence—in her or in himself? (272) The triumph of the province alluded to here is highly ironic. On the one hand, Moscow is sending for authentic pieces of history to piece in its central museums; on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 351 the other, what can be obtained is the refuse of a former factory owner's estate that has burned down twice—fragments o f a painting that the local peasants have been, using as a doormat, armchairs, the remains of mirrors, and some old furniture. While the idea of the provincial is being elevated by the center for the sake of collective memory via museums, there is irony in that Mikshevich’s utopia, and all o f the others, are exposed as failures that have led to cultural devastation, sickness and madness. They do not work out in reality, and museums are the most appropriate place for these memories of utopias to fee preserved. While the main characters all struggle with utopian thinking, the narrator gently nudges .Anton (and the reader along with Mm) towards a more historical view o f time in line with the paradigm laid out by Morson. He relates and reflects on past events in such a way as to underline multiple explanations for historical events. Rumors and marginal types o f knowledge are considered authentic by people o f the provincial mindset; even Milashevich was influenced by the common assumption that radio waves from Moscow affected the mood of the local people, and perhaps even their physiology, and has worked out an entire alternate conception of history that attributes large and often catastrophic occurrences to simple and seemingly unrelated causes such as the Colorado beetle, Lizavin’s interactions with Milashevich’s fantiki reinforce the awareness of historical possibility by presenting history’s sideshadows. In some reminiscences about the advance of communism in the local district, Lizavin reads Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 359 Bcs noaroTOBica m&ctbmx. ,ne«Tejiefi 0K a3an ac& , oa'aaxo, m m 'sm e w ; &m». y3H3B o npHesge BOOpyxceiraHX JHoaei ro cxojihh&i, K O M aiiS B p nomca c O^HBjepaMH CKpMIOfCB 6e3 BCHKOl HOHHTKH COHpOTHBJieHM— TO JIH HS pa3o6paiiHCB, hto hpmShbihhx B cero Tpoe, npiimnfM 3a BoopyaceHHHf oxpga bck> m any, hto BHsauHJiaeb as noesga aa croaHKe, ho b ropog n e coSapaiiact,—sagsHM hhcjicm h HegopasyMeHHe BHraaam sensSexcHOCTBio, a chjib h cjfaSocn* b M H pe nogoOBMx coSbitmh Mepurrca ne HHCJIOM BHHTOBOK, (123) All the preparation of the local activists proved unnecessary, however; immediately upon learning o f the arrival of the armed men from the capital, the regiment commander and Ms officers hid without any attempt at resistance. Perhaps they didn’t understand that them were only three people arriving, and mistook for the armed detachment the entire crowd that tumbled out of the train at the station but had no plans to go into town. After the fact, even a misunderstanding looks like an inevitability, and in the world of such events strength and weakness aren’t measured by the number o f rifles. (102) TMs passage suggests that even communism, which later appeared to have been an inexorable and overwhelming force, came about as a result of events whose outcomes were by no means certain. How much more uncertainty and, on the flip side, possibility was there inherent in each o f the smaUer-scale visions of the other characters, all o f which relied on unpredictable subjects and turns o f events! At each reading, Lizavin makes new connections between th e fa n tik i and documented events, arriving at new versions of what he thinks happened, and then later again revises what he thinks because he has new information. In one case, after reading a booklet from the trunk on which confusing details about a lost garden are written, the narrator notes that “ocoSbno inrrepeca hhutg b o ral khhtc me npegci'aBjajio, h Jlm m m gosojiuHo f>HCipo o t jio x c h ji ee b crop oH y” (70) { “there was nothing of particular interest in . the book, and Lizavin fairly quickly set it aside”] (55). Later, lie connects this information to the museum collector’s search for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 m fragments of a painting called The Lost Garden. Experiencing this process vicariously, the reader watches first one seemingly viable story take form, only to be rep laced by another when Lizavin stumbles across another document Another time, Lizavin searches out living witnesses to inquire about Milashevich: “ K oH ppaifcH H , w o jih? Tax a ero 3H aji. H y Kan see! E r o koji^hom ssajm.”— “ IIo«ieM y KOJmyHOM ?’— “A oh spope H 3 capeeacKHx, htq-to xaxoe yM eji. SnaeniH C a p e e s o ? T aM p aH M n e K O JipyuoB c w r a j i o c B n m w ep e B H H , m h c e lh m c ....O H TaM y w i a ^ H m a s o w , b S H B uieM jioiiobckom ^ o M e ... .“ IIo c T o S T e , y Kaxoro icjiapfiHiHa?”— c n p a in H B a ji A h to h , yace sapaaee to c k jh ; ^eficTBHTemHO, b h sc h ju io c b , w o X b o p o c th h h h roBopax o HenaicKe, aneo C r o jib e H n e , ohxcbjitbm r o ,n a c jpazwaxB.u eT B e p T o ro , b CTOjifienen nonan y sc e jihhib xiocjie boShh. Ho M r a a m e B H w r o nocne pesojuoHHH b HenaicKe ae a c r a , neaauK ero c k c m - to n y ra J i. “ H o to m ro B o p m iH , c M axapB C B uaM H cansaac®.”—“ C kcm?”—“ M aKap& eBQEi, ceraa M Jia xaxaa b Jiecax.” (53) “Kondratyich, eh? Yeah, I knew him. Sure! They used to call him a sorcerer.” “Why a sorcerer?” “Well, he was from somewhere around Sarajevo, knew how/ to do something like that. You know Sareyevo? A while back, half the village was considered sorcerers—now, too. ...He lived there, near the cemetery, in the old priest’s house....’ ’Wait a minute. Near which cemetery?” asked Anton, already despairing in advance. And, indeed, it became clear that Khvorostinin was talking about Nechaisk and not about Stolbenets. But Milashevich certainly didn’t live in Nechaisk after the revolution; the stovetender was confusing Mm with someone. “Then later they said he was connected with the Makarites.” “With whom?” ‘ ‘ The Makarites. Some sect that lived in the woods.” (39-40) Although he dismisses the possibility that the stovetender is speaking about the same Milashevich, tMs alternative story, preserved as a sideshadow in memory, later turns out to be the version Lizavin judges most probable and is able to fit into Ms reconstruction of the past. The novel values sideshadows as such and is not concerned as much with setting straight the record. In feet, often the tension between Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. various alternative versions of what might have happened is never resolved, and multiple possibilities are thus allowed to cooexist. It should be remembered that the very presence of equally possible alternatives, or sicleshadows, is what Morson understands as necessary to maintaining an. open sense of time when looking at the past. In Lizavin’s personal life, too, the reader is given alternative versions o f what happened or might have happened. For instance, when Zoia works in the hospital and gets “caught” having spent the night with another patient, the athlete, Anton believes what appears to be the case and this may even be a reason that he does not pursue Zoia any further. However, the omniscient narrator makes the reader privy to the events as they actually happened, so that it is clear that she was helping the athlete to prevent the marriage of the girl he loves to another man, fails, and then brings the athlete home to her room for the night, where she falls asleep and he talks to the old woman from whom she is renting the room. They return to the hospital in the morning and are found together having a somewhat haggard appearance, and the events are interpreted falsely by another orderly, Lizavin never discovers the truth, but the reader knows it reliably. Another time Lizavin ends up in jail m d another inmate presents to him the story of what happened to him, not realizing that it was about Mm. Anton also doesn’t quite realize that it was actually about him, although be does see a parallel between the story and his life; this chance incident makes the reader privy to the information about what actually happened. Moreover, as Lizavin struggles to remember the events that led to him waking up in jail, he remembers bits permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 362 and pieces of what happened and tries to fit them together in a way that makes sense, so the reader is able to see several possibilities as to what might have taken place. In a third instance, Anton winds up in the hospital and several scenarios are presented to explain what might have happened. In this case, the fall circumstances cannot be reconstructed, so the reader (and Anton, too) never becomes sure of what happened, exactly. In the end, however, lie overcomes Ms need to know things that are unknowable, finds meaning in connections that life brings between people, and comes to a point of resolve about what these countless human connections mean for how he is to live. In the end, Anton’s choice to go to Moscow, at Ms own expense and at the cost of personal vacation time, ends w ell He finds some information important to Ms research on Milashevich, including Ms first documented evidence o f the name of the woman at tbs center of Milashevich’s utopia, A. F. Paradizova, and information on the Makarite religious sect encrypted into the fantiki. Moreover, he arrives at the household of his friends, the Siverses, when he is needed most, and this visit, which provides him the opportunity to read Maksim Sivers’ journal, has consequences for his developing an understanding o f Ms personal role in history and o f Ms relationship to the provincial. Kharitonov insists and Lizavin intuits that we “ p B e a ic a n m m m m ue. nefieca, na tparanecKHe n p o c r o p H hctopbh” (131) [“strain, under the cold skies, to reach into the tragic arena of history” (my translation)] because history is integrally related to the utopias we have built and tried to five. To venture into the arenas of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 363 histoiy can help us to comprehend them better and restore to us a correct view of time. This view stands in direct opposition to the “npoBmiipajM oe nync-rao, K O T O p o e , He b necoMHeuHoi HCiopM H, erym aer xhshb m . { j b m m u x m h uaM ffmHKH H 3 H#eH...” (245) [“provincial feeling...that doesn’t need a history without doubts and condenses life fromfantiki and monuments, from an idea...”] (214-5). Our visions are likened to our poetry, and the narrator reflects that there is a real connection between poetry and life, the images and stories people create, and what really happened (as Wachtel surmises, neither histoiy nor poetry alone is enough to convey truth). Even though it steins from a mistaken vision, the fantiki project reflected “cnocofl syMaxt m B ocnpH H H M an. M H p ” (132-3) [“a way of thinking and perceiving the world”] (110). That which seems poetic, along with our visions and our dreams, is often deeply enmeshed in histoiy and reality, and in the ways we five out these dreams or try to make them come true. Lizavin does not repeat the same mistakes that Milashevich made, despite the connection he senses between their lives. The plot as it is presented to the reader reveals the gradual deepening o f Lizavin’s perspective on the meaning of the past for his own life through the connections he finds, but they are not essentially mysterious or unmotivated, without cause or connection. Thus an open view of time is essential to understanding the nature and significance o f histoiy. The narrator is more interested in how historical meaning is created and why it is important tor us today than in the deconstruction ofhistory’s metanarrative as an end in itself, and Ms focus on two fundamental issues in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mstoriographical discourse, the question of cause and effect aid the problem of the iuterestedaess in historical creation, serve this end. Lizavin may never find out the foil historical truth about Milashevich. and Ms time—as underlined by the postmodernist question Milashevich poses to Lizavin in their final conversation about how he will finish the story, i.e., the version of history he has pulled together through his research combined with a kind o f authorial editing (343/293)—but the search is an important process through which he experiences the fullness of histoiy in its openness to possibility. As Alexander Demandt recognizes in Ms book Plausible Worlds, it is at least as important to find out what might have been if... because the meaning of history lies more in the process of understanding the past in its openness to individual action, and less in what is usually praised as “knowledge” (Demandt 37). Truth and Fate: Identity in Incompleteness and Resolve What happens to a man explains who he is. If something has happened to you, it means it’s about you. —Milashevich, in Lines o f Fate Milashevich writes in one oft hs fantiki that not. remembering is death, and Anton thinks several times about this fanii'k. Indeed, in the novel when a person is separated from memory, terrible things occur. Twice, Lizavin is unable to remember what happened to him, when he wakes up in jail and after Ms accident when he permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 365 wakes up in the hospital. During the weeks that he spends recovering from the accident, much o f Ms past is removed from him when the officials give his apartment to Kaif. Kaif keeps some of Lizavin’s stuff for himself, some stuff failed to be salvaged before the wreckers came, and at the same time the home he has known since childhood is destroyed and replaced with “a new landscape,” the effects of which on the contemporary psyche remain unforeseeable. His personal memories are devalued by central planning and forcibly disconnected from him. Lizavin laments the feet that he will never be able to reconnect with his own past, the value of which he has only recently begun to understand when he had to tend to his father’s affairs upon the latter’s death—which included dismantling a small local museum his father had maintained. Lizavin reflects on the problem that “[nJeT b c h h o h naMara” (237) [“eternal memory does not exist”] (209) when he visits the graveyard and has to beat a path to his father’s grave, less than a year old. It may even be thanks to Milashevich’s thoughts on memory and death that he entertains thoughts of a connection here himself. Yet in the novel, the insufficiency of memory and of the preservation of history does not lead Lizavin to a state of hopelessness or metaphorical death— although for a time he is immobilized by what seems to be a state of depression, and it seems to be cause at least in part by his forcible separation from memory. Ultimately, Lizavin realizes that what leads to death is precisely what he calls a “ fantiki mentality,” an unwillingness to make connections within the fragmented reality one is confronted with, while at the same time trying to overcome the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 m fragm entation of one’s experience in the world by seeking coherence and meaning in a personal vision of utopia. Lizavin recognizes this “ fantiki mentality” also in his acquaintance Maksim Sivers, who is a political dissident, and understands that Sivers5 inability to make Ms vision for truth a political reality that is what is leading him to his death (at the end of the novel, it seems that he commits suicide). While in Milashevich’s milieu, Lizavin himself imbibes this way of thinking, the fantiki mentality), but when he succumbs to it, he finds himself unable to function; he begins to wonder whether he has schizophrenia and is overcome with a kind of depression, he notices that “paccnafwieHa saaajiact nom ” (373) (“he seemed to have become weak wilted”] (324), and he finds himself lying on the couch reading a fantastic, science-fiction tale of another failed world (373/324). In contrast, the mentality that the work upholds as positive is an ideal o f embracing one’s incompleteness without feeling compelled to create a new reality. Anton is recognized by others as a reliable and helpfiil individual precisely because of Ms ability to embrace Ms own incompleteness. Several times, others say of him that the one thing that sets him apart is his understanding that the self is incomplete along with Ms ability to act meaningfully in spite o f this. Zoia, tor example, when she has become an orderly in a new town, breaks her long-time silence in a conversation with an unknown person. She referes to Lizavin: “O h nejioseK m jm x M h m . O h 3h® st, nrro jkhshb neaosMoxna 6e*3 ycTymaf HenojraoTe, h He xepaer o t aroro yeTofiuBBociH” (288) [“He’s a man. you can rely on. He knows that life is impossible without yielding to incompleteness, and it doesn’t lose stability because Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 367 of that”] (244). Throughout the novel, Lizavin is shown, as a person who does not need complete closure or dearly defined knowledge; this is what attracts him to M ilashevich in the first place: [BjjeKOTopaa neB H SB JieuH O C Tfe ero ofipssa He tojibko He Meuiana, ho o b is nrpH ST H a Boofipaacemno. Moacei, h Hama HcropH* BJieuer tcm ice? K aK -T O Ahtoh AH H peeBH H .—B apyrnx-TO, K aw eH H H X , coxpauHfcix, see cjihhikom ouepneHO, to junto BHimcHBai, k hum jspyroft m xepec; Haina no C H X nop He H 3 5 K H T 3 , B H 6H U p O B E JIM gpaSHST. (56) a certain lack o f clarity is M ilashevich5 s image not only didn’t bother him, but appealed to his imagination....In other stories, petrified and preserved, everything is too clearly defined, all you need to do is copy it out, and your interest in them is different. Our story hasn’t become outdated; its failures are provocative even today. (42). An unwillingness to accept incompleteness typically results in a striving to find something that would make one complete. At a basic level, human intimacy is shown repeatedly in the work to function in this way: "Tmwtcs spyr b apyra jiKgm, aaneacB ofSpeciH yrpaueHHyio ikmihotv, ho pejpco aoraAwsaiOTCM 0 6 o to m , a Somme ^ywaa o nnecjiaaH h. HacjiaxpeHHH, T opS K ecxB e, ycxyiiKe, ropeuH, 60 jih... “(378) [“People burrow into each other in the hope o f recovering a lost completeness, but they rarely realize they’re doing, so, thinking more about vanity, pleasure, compromise, pain”] (328). But this unwillingness to settle with incompleteness extends from the physical to the spiritual Sivers, in the journal he leaves for Lizavin to read, has also commented on this when musing on Ms own fateful Inability “goBOJitcrBOBaxisCH HenojJHOioI” (165) [“to be content with incompleteness’* ] (138) which is at the root o f Ms inability to live. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36-8 I n c o m p le te n e s s is sharpened by a strong d e s ir e f o r truth, Milashevich w r ite s o f th is ( 2 2 1 - 2 /1 9 5 ) a n d S iv e r s ' jo u r n a l e x e m p lif ie s it. S iv e r s has been o b s e s s e d t o r many years w ith . a search for the c a u s e o f his physical illn e s s , which consists o f episodes o f extremely v io le n t a s th m a and allergic itching, a n d much of his focus in th is se a rc h , r e s ts o n s p ir itu a l c a u s e s s u c h a s inauthenticity a n d f a ls e n e s s o f v a r io u s s o r ts , r a t h e r than p h y s ic a l ( th e la tte r p o s s ib ility h e e l im in a te d e a r ly in M s a n a ly s is ) . A lth o u g h t h e d e ta ils a r e n o t c le a r, S iv e r s himself is s o m e k in d o f political dissident a n d is in j a i l d u r in g the tim e o f th e novel, a p e r s o n who h a s d e d i c a te d himself to re establishing t r u t h in s o c ie ty . I n t h e n o v e l, th is s h a r p e n e d d e s ir e f o r tr u th is n o t e s s e n tia lly a p o s itiv e th in g ; it is s h o w n to b e a r e m o te , unattainable, and probably reductive or overly simplistic value, the search for which can have devastating consequences f o r a person unwilling to s e e k truth in complexity. Sivers expresses in his journal a desire to speak to Lizavin because he realizes that To ecxn m m w m , n aB ep H O , o j p n : hcketb h peman> KasytoMy no c a o e i Mepe, noBHM axfe cb o k ) HenojiHory, TSHyrbcs k n p o x H B o n o jio x H O M y , x o T o p o e M o rn o 6 h xeC k nonojmsxb, m t s k 6e3 Komta M eraitca—-ho xcaT6....H y x H a o r a cnocofiHOcxB B O B p e M a c e f is o k o p o t h t b , H e p B a r t c ji m npegen. O h ayM aeT, b c y m H O C T H , o t o m i e , n r o a, h o c n p oT H B on onoK H W M c T p e M J ie H H e M , h n o T O M y 6o jie e cnocofieH BBtaepHan., a m o jk ct, h h t o - t o Bbipaaim. 3 a m,pyrax a p a x t no^epacKy. ( 1 6 6 ) T h e r e 's p r o b a b ly o n e w a y o u t: f o r e v e r y o n e to s e a r c h and d e c id e a s m u c h a s lie c a n to g r a s p h is o w n in c o m p le te n e s s , to b e d r a w n to w a r d th e o p p o s ite , w h ic h m ig h t c o m p le te y o u , a n d s o to t o s s a b o u t n o n - s to p — b u t to liv e . ...One n e e d s th is a b ility t o lim it o n e s e l f in t im e , n o t s tr iv e beyond th e lim its . H e thinks, in e s s e n c e , about the same thing I do, but with opposite a s p ir a tio n s a n d th e r e f o r e is m o r e capable o f seeing th e m t h r o u g h .,. ( 1 3 8 - 9 ) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 369 Sivers n e v e r f in d s the tr u th that h e is lo o k in g f o r , a t t h e p e r s o n a l le v e l in r e g a r d s to M s ill n e s s o r a t th e political le v e l— in j a i l h e e v e n r e f le c ts th a t j u s t gaining f r e e d o m w ill n o t help M m — a n d lie is unable to r e c o n c ile h i m s e l f to this incompleteness. Lizavin, the one person represented otherwise a s h a v in g a n id e a l personality a b le t o h a n d l e incompleteness, fe e ls p o is o n e d b y in c o m p le te n e s s w h e n h e e n te r s in to fmfantiki mentality a s a result o f r e a d in g S iv e r s ’ jo u r n a l : Bnpyr c a e p n y jia n a n p e x n e e m h c jib . Hero o h tto n cK H B ajica, M s k c h m ? H e r o x o x e n o t MeHH? 3aueM mumoGnnoch my, h to 6 a n p o m n a j i T aK ae a m i o i e , t s x h q G o jie sB e a m ie , T a m e R c u o s e ffr n h H u e crpom? A m m r o r m ycnoKOHTB c v m c ji, B noJiH e HCKpeHHe: c o n e p m ra e c T B o eft B c e p te a H e r p o s r a o . H o caM s a n y r a jic s . B e e c r a n o o T p a B jie a o m h c jim o , nyBCTBOM nenojiH O T H , H ex n p e a c n e i p a # o c m . . ( 2 5 7 ) H is th o u g h t s u d d e n ly r e tu r n e d to w h a t h e ’d b e e n f o c u s in g o n e a rlie r. M a k s im — what d id lie lo o k f o r ? W h a t d id h e w a n t f r o m m e ? W h y d id h e h a v e t o h a v e m e r e a d s u c h personal, m o r b id , s u c h c o n f e s s io n a l n o te s ? I m a n a g e d t o c a lm A n ia d o w n th e n a n d d id s o q u ite s in c e r e ly : n o s e r io u s r iv a l r y th r e a te n e d h e r . B u t I g r e w confused m y s e l f Everything became p o is o n e d w ith t h e th o u g h t, th e f e e lin g o f in c o m p le te n e s s ; th e r e was n o n e o f th e p r e v io u s jo y . ( 2 2 2 ) H e r e c o g n iz e s t h a t s u c h a s tr o n g need for tr u th , th e latter b e in g a k in d o f wholeness o r c o m p le te n e s s , is w h a t h a s le d Maksim to M s f a il u r e to be a b le to fiv e , to h is fantiki mentality t h a t functions a s a fe n s o f f r a g m e n ta tio n b e c a u s e it r e f u s e s to a llo w th e p ie c in g to g e th e r n e e d e d t o r c o m p le te n e s s . I t h a s a ls o made h im M in d to M s in a b ility to find the primary c a u s e s to h is illn e s s a n d u n d e r s ta n d the u lti m a t e tr u t h in a deceptive s o c ie ty . Lizavin is d o u b tf u l that if is possible for a person like this to “ s e e BpeM a ycrpaHBaTBcs Mexcpy HecoK*eeraMOcrsMH” (198) [“always settle oneself in b e tw e e n incompatibilities”] (171) (which, a g a in , is seen , a s a b e t te r w a y b y th e Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 378 novel). Finally. Professor Nikolskii, who sees something in Milashevich that stands almost in opposition to what Lizavin sees (Lizavin leaves confused after discussing Milashevich with him; in the book, however, it is repeated several times that a person hears what he wants to hear when reading a book), attributes to Milashevich. this very kind of thinking: tfro, na moI bw n m , M em ei MraameBHH? Ecjih BayMaxtca? Oh ocxaBJiaeT flBycMHCjieHHoe noHsrrae hcxbhh tcm , kto Ses nee noneMy-To He mokct, ho jum MaccH ocxajiBiHx oSmbjisct b cymnocTH ue&6md,remmm. Ee oihiO M b ae sceu Has© 3HaxB, a niaBHoe, He bccm xonercs. KaxmoMy paerc-ii xa npaB^a, K OTOpyio oh cnocoben BKraepKaTb. (198) What, in my view, does Milashevich do? If you really think about it, he leaves the ambiguous understanding of truth to those who for some reason can’t five without it, but for the mass o f others he declares it, in essence, not necessary. By no means everyone has to know it, and the main things is that not everyone wants to, (170) The problem o f incompleteness is connected to one’s approach to fate in history and in individuals’ lives. Sivers feels that Ms striving towards truth and completeness is motivated when “[n]ac fo h h t Kyga-To ciuia HenocraJKHMaa, Bume aac” (165) [“an incomprehensible force higher than us drives us somewhere”] (138). When Lizavin happens upon Sivers’ name-day celebration, he enters into a conversation about whether Russia’s historical fate has come about as predestined, or whether it is a result of historical accident. Sivers, as some of Ms friends understood him, took the first position, although there is some dissent, and it is clear from Ms private notebook (unseen by his friends, except for Lizavin) that Sivers die! not feel he knew the direction this fores was leading—unlike Ms father, the revolutionary. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 371 Sivers5 father, Milashevich and others during revolutionary times built various utopias on their belief in a predetemsined fete for society and that this fate would somehow complete history with an ultimate truth. Milashevich’s undoing came when a manifestation of historical time entered, uncontrolled, into his utopia, and he seems to become mad afterwards. After lie participates in activities of the Makarite sect, he wakes np from Ms attempted participation in group suicide, seemingly because he has unfinished business in this world; cnepsa naao 6hjio nosecm go Komja jujhmh xHsueHHore cioxcera, sanenaTJiert bciihihkh peinaiomHx M M C J ieft mm omyraemrii—He grot ce6a, He fljw ce6s, nag© Cjhjio kofo-to npegynpegHTb o tom CMepTCjimo cep & esH O M , qro on nos m sen, hohhh—h ucmv ycnea yxcacHyrbcx, Hago 6hjio K O M y-xo ocraBHTb kjhou k ockojik8m paaSiiToi mhcjih” (327) first he had to draw the lines of the life plot to an end, to record the flashes of decisive feelings and thoughts—not for himself, certainly not for himself, he had to warn someone about the mortally serious thing he’s finally realized— and which he’d been horrified at—lie had to leave someone a key to the fragments of a shattered idea...(322) Lizavin realizes that a certain notebook without a cover in the trunk contains what Milashevich must have written at this time, and it consists of garbled ramblings. With difficulty, it is possible to understand that this writing is addressed to Karik, the deformed son. of Milashevich’s beloved; it consists of Ms mad, irrational attempt to gently reproach Mm for who he has become and explain what has happened. Milashevich believed in fate, anti it led him to madness and death... Sivers* father also believed in fete in the form of an inexorable communism. In Ms dissidence, Sivers opposes himself to Ms biological and philosophical father in a rejection of the fetter’s values typical in times of cultural reversal as described by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 372 Lotniaa and Uspensky, discussed in the theoretical chapter above. But this reversal of values remains incomplete, because Sivers and those like him are unable to conquer the communism they oppose. And Sivers himself can never see beyond, let alone break fee of, this cycle of rejection and opposition, as lie is entrapped by his overwhelming need for completeness, as discussed above. Lizavin’s deepest struggle is to understand, in Ms embrace of incompleteness, Ms own relationship to fate. It is particularly difficult because Milashevich’s and Sivers5 writings sway him towards the temptation ofb elief in fate. Yet at the same time, they bring him to an awareness of the coincidences and connections o f life through the enmeshing o f one’s experiences with others’ and with those of people in Mstory. He wonders about the discovery o f a pattern in the weaving together o f fates, and notes to himself that “[ftjpyroH Bonpoc, cyntecxByex jih o h BsanpaBay, s to t ysop” (58) [“whether it. really exists, this pattern, is another question”] (44). He speculates that ‘M t o S h yuocTO H TBcx oTH om eBH H c cya&doio, n a ^ o , 6 h te> m o x c v , BepHTB b nee.... H Torqa c Tpeanoi ycMenncoi m h n p raH aeM ca, u r o c m h c ji h ysop B O O dffle J I H J H B U p H B H S ejllIC B H 3 M 3 U H H 0 M HHCHOM, HTO CBiBKtlif C fO X C T X C B 3 H H — yjioBica Msjio^ynmoro yiia, a n& qane can, Hasan ©Sphbxob” (58) [“to be granted a relationship with fate, one perhaps has to believe in it....And then with a sober smile we admit that in general we see the significance and purpose only after the fact, that life’s plot and its connections are but a trick of the cowardly mind, just a collection of scraps, really,..”] (44-5). At the same time, he constantly encounters situations out of Ms control that seem to be influenced by a kind of inevitability or fate, and he is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 373 again tempted by the idea of fete. When approached with a job offer by someone who apparently knew he was about to be relieved of Ms university post, he asks himself) *X ne Ewfiop h rp.e HeH36exHocr&, rpe cnynat s r j m ymssxsiT (121) [“Where was choice operating, and where inevitability?”] (99). Later, In his new position at the library, Lizavin feels Kas Hiocor^a cBo6o/m£JM h 3amHmeHHWM...Bce-TaKH ae nepecraHem t y pjfB JisT B cas~-BHOBH no^yMan o h k sk- to BenepoM, nepefiHpaa sow a cbo h Q y u a x s s i: w a x m m tojimco nyraM H , nepes a iy u a if f io c m , HajpoMOxpeima, n e p e n y iM , cp w B H uenoBeK see xe n p a x o r o r r k t o m j , k neMy ckjiohch aapanee, no n p n p o A e, Mm nero, M o x e r 6&m>, cosp aH — m b o t x e fie HaKOHeu x o p o m o . A , C cm ch K oap p aT M P i? ( 3 3 4 ) free and protected as never before. You continue feeing surprised, he thought once again as he sorted out Ms notes at home in the vening, along what routes, through coincidences, accretions, crossroads, and failures, a man nonetheless arrives at what he was inclined towards from the outset, according to Ms nature, at what he was perhaps created for—and finally you feel good. Well, Simeon Kondratyich?” (286) Lizavin’s understanding of fete is gradually becoming defined in opposition to that of Milashevich and Sivers: it has to do with the force of nature natural inclinations, if one can call this fate—not to some predetermined outcom e. Whenever Lizavin is tempted fey fate or sucked into the fantiki mentality, he is then, confronted with the need for action. After reading Sivers’ journal, he must exit his confusion with resolve; “ JSpoxb xxponuia. Oh anan, m o cmam% yvpcwi Ane” (167) [“the tremor passed. He knew what to say to Ania in the morning’’] (139). At the end of the novel, when he is lounging around in a depressed state, succumbing once more to the negative side of Ms sense of incompleteness, two things occur, and in both situations, his reaction is different from the reaction Milashevich had to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 374 similar circumstances. First, Liusia tells Mm she is expecting their child. Then, Sasha comes in. to talk to him, a little neighbor toy with a curious spirit and an alcoholic fatter, Lizavin suddenly experiences teawienHyxs bjiaropoimocTB k cane, Koropaa mamrmim eM y po^nxBCs h BHpaciH tukhm b otoI ceM Be, b otom M > u e , b stom flB o p e .,.H C H 3 H fc Bonpera B ceM y yM ena, nycrx. #o nopH, orpaauTB cBoe nopoacaeHHe” (378-9) [“an astounding gratitude to the force that had allowed [Sasha] to be bom and grow up the way he was, given this family, this house, and this backyard.... In spite o f everything, life managed, if only for the time being, to protect its creation...”] (329). Unlike Milashevich, who could not talk to the boy under his protection (Professor Nikolsky is also unable to talk to the child who lives with Mm) because children bring a high degree of unpredictability into a person’s life, Lizavin enjoys Sasha’s presence. Furthermore, this conversation is the beginning of his overcoming of Ms depression. He later hears a broadcast on his new radio and through the static overhears words in German that sound like Sivers’ surname. He “knew it from somewhere” at that moment that Sivers had committed suicide (380/330). He comes to a sudden realization of what he must do: S. 3Haji a a B H O . % uyscTBO B aji—h /sonycT H Ji. Tenepfc x p O M e mem H «K O M y....H e a a m m S o m s e H aaexT & cx. Oh xsotcji nepe.3 a .T B Mae oto. Tenepb tojibko h....Ect& em e naaexyga. H aaexna ecx&, noxa k to -to jiBrraercii ee o6hobhib. H h c k o m j, wpome tc6m. Her cMHCJia, xpoMe to id , t o ) t h co33ara& can. Mm oSpmesu mflesrbes, mu jp jb k b m mm> rare, cjiobho o t Hac saBHCHT HanaTi, CHauana. noTOMy to> e a sa h o sb o u h ih b ce6e HyscTBOBaTB H H ane, k to - to npeflan, b o t y x e Jtemx, n « w SesBOSBpaTHO, w h c t P3 Q O M t s6s„ vro6u yaepacaTB, h n e w sG w th b h h u . Moacer, jramB oto Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 375 H y B C I B O CBS3H 30B6TCJI eyH tS G JL T j f a l B 0 J 1 6 H 66 I ip H H S T B , H O K T O - T O B C e p a B H O t© 6» xpeT. OpHor© Te§x,„(3Sl) I’ve known It for a long time, I felt it—and allowed it. Now there’s nobody except me to do it, ...There’s still hope. There’s hope while someone tries to revive it, And there’s nobody except yon. to do it, There’s no meaning except that which yon yourself can create. We’re doomed to hope; we have to live as if everything depended on us from the very beginning. Because as soon, as you let yourself feel otherwise, someone is betrayed—he’s always hurtling, falling irrevocably, and you’re not there at Ms side to hold Mm back and free yourself from blame. Maybe only this feeling of connection is what’s called fate. You’re free to accept it or not, but someone’s waiting for you anvway. (331) Our hope to land completeness in objective truth is doomed. Meaning must be found despite the incompleteness of a fragmented world, in the enmeshings engendered by fragments ofknowledge that we do have access to; to be satisfied with only fragments and to esteem them to highly as having their own worth in isolation is to accept the meaninglessness of fife without connections to the past and to others. Lizavin’s resolve is less to a specific action than to act in general a certain way in regards to fate. He believes that “p en raM O C T t B e tn > napp Jiejiesm.” (332) [“decisiveness should be nurtured”] (285) and wonders whether toe future might not be an ending point, as official ideology calls it, but rather a new beginning in which life is bom in “ h o b m c , H e frH B a jia e $opMH” (117) [“new, unprecedented forms”] (96). This assertion that the future must be viewed as an entity that is completely new and depends on our action, combined with the work’s inherent position that truth cannot be found simply in a reversal of values that retains a fundamentally incorrect view of historical time, suggests that this work does indeed move towards a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 376 metaposftion in regards to historical values that stand in binary opposition, breaking fundamentally from this opposition and moving towards the establishment of a new, neutral cultural space. Lizavin, in particular, embodies a new self-view in his acceptance of incompleteness as a basic mode of feeing. For him to embrace incompleteness, perhaps better described as a willingness to not insist blindly on oik’s rightness in the face of irreducible complexity, is tantamount to giving up Ms right to use history and fate as weapons against Ms philosophical fathers in a new battle for truth. By giving up Ms claim to defining the truths of the past for the present, Lizavin opens a small space for detached reflection, where it is possible to withhold immediate acceptance or rejection for the purpose of analysis and evaluation. This self-view does not insist “We believe differently from oar philosophical predeccessors, so we must reject them wholesale,” but rather allows that “they are a part of who we are and to forget them is to deny a part of our identity.” Conclusion Sven Spieker writes that for postmodernist fiction on historical themes, [tjhe nonWstorical past has already happened and, as such, has become a fact of history. This is why the postmodernist accepts as real and historical any fictitious representation of the past. Conversely, postmodernism considers any attempt to represent history a fiction. The past, in postmodern texts, is frequently depicted as invisible. The reason for such invisibility is not (as is frequently asserted) that postmodernism, as it were, “resacralizes” the past as a transcendent outside in analogy to the modernist worship of the fixture. Rather, the postmodern inability to visualize the past stems from the inability Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 377 to distinguish fiction from tact, image from, reai thing, past from present.,, (19) Certainly, Kharitonov reflects in Lintt m d ’ by a worldview that laments the invisibility of the past, questions the viability of historical narration, and allows a fictitious representation of the past to be considered real and historical. Despite the deconstruction of history, play with tropes of postmodernism such as the emptiness beneath signs (226/200), and the constant reminders of the failures of the past, of memory, of documentation—Anton Andreyevich Lizavin manages to reconstruct a coherent version of the story of Milashevich’s life and the local history surrounding it. The past is not seen as an irretrievable loss here. Remembering and discovery prevails over forgetting and loss at crucial junctures. When Milashevich’s autobiography proves to be nearly useless, and at the same time a dearth of official documents makes the story seem irrecoverable, other documents gradually surface, such as memoirs and newspaper clippings, that contribute, a little at a time, to Anton’s efforts to reestablish connection with the past and to gain insight into the essentials of the story, Moreover, these details work together with all other kinds of evidence to allow the construction of a unified picture that has meaning for the individual of today, Lizavin. Milashevich’s stories, fantttd, and correspondence all present aspects of the lost history, available to a person who understands the need for connection between individuals and history and seeks to understand the past even if ail its troths cannot be completely known. Finally, die novel reveals that understanding of history has the experiential purpose o f fiirfhering Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 378 people's ability to act reasonably In the world and helping them to cope, At the end of the novel, Anton Andreyevich emerges from his psycho logical paralysis and uses Ms historical understanding to make a decision, to cope with and even triumph over Ms spiritual depression. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 379 Chapter 6. Conclusion To read historiographical fiction of the perestroika era is to be drawn into a reflection, on the role of remembering the past in the formation of oar sense of self and nation, and in the construction of meaning for the fofure that, as Morson has reminded us, cannot be known. Such a trend stands in opposition to the longstanding trend towards utopian thinking in literature, under which the inevitable future, not the present moment in the fullness of its possibilities, defines today’s actions. There is a definite penchant for perestroika writers to reflect upon individual and collective identity through analysis of the historical moment. By representing the past at the moment of its inception—the past when it was the present moment—in the literary form of sideshadowing, these writers have infused it with a sense of alternative that had been forgotten or ignored. The presence of alternatives, as I have argued, is essential, for freedom requires choice—not inevitability—and, on the flip side, accountability. Freedom is also a function of identity, and metahistorical fiction dominated the literary world ofperestroika precisely because this new freedom brought to a head a deep-rooted societal identity crisis. Sideshadowing allowed the reductive and oversimplified Soviet past to be infused with a dose of complexity, as something open in its outcomes to human agency rather than completely and Ideologically predetermined. Sideshadowing, which represents the ability to say or to have once said both “yes” and “no,” is at the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 380 same time a way of practicing the new identity characterized by freedom, alternative, and complexity in order to establish it more firmly. Moreover, the Russian writers examined in this dissertation have tapped into the immense potential of the indigenous cultural knowledge that Russia is a nation defined by its location along many boundaries: between East and West, Asia and Europe, uncivilized and civilized, primitive and modem, unenlightened and enlightened. Orthodox and Roman, etc, Lotman described Russia as a nation of binary values and Russian history as a continual struggle to define cultural identity through times of historical change by reversing the value assigned to various cultural phenomena, so that in times of cultural change, Russia always created a new self- image or collective Identity by reversing the signs, with the new being assigned a positive value and the old a negative value. I have argued that metahistorical fiction from the perestroika era, by the establishment of historical alternative through sideshadowing, has the capacity to incapacitate this age-old mechanism of change and carve out a new, neutral space for detached reflection. The tendency towards metapositions in regards to cultural phenomena makes it so that cultural phenomena need not tall absolutely on either side of a boundary, but can sometimes fell into this neutral space, where It is possible to withhold immediate acceptance or rejection for the purpose of analysis and evaluation. Instead, the new space relies on a both/and metaphor, like the one created by a Venn diagram. Rather than insisting, “we belong either here or there,” the new model claims, “we can be both here and there” Thus the boundary becomes positively incorporated into Russia’s self-image, as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 381 metaMstorical, multi-generic works strive to exist on both sides of the boundary at once, defying any attempt to claim that one discourse or ideology is right and imagining a new Russia that is pluralistic, productive, and dynamic. It is precisely this positive definition ofbekmging that gives root to identity.. Instead of a Russia that is defined by Lotmaa’s negative type of “essential polarity” (Lipovetsky 33), metaMstorical works validate a new, positive understanding of Russia’s boundary existence, even in a historical sense. These works strive to change the perception of the past by representing its alternatives, a process that reveals the oversimplification and reductivity of the way Russia has teen represented; it is possible that such works even unconsciously attempt to show or increase the complexity of the past in order to redeem if. This functions as a paradox in regards to Lotman, who reduced Russian culture to a binary interpretation wMle suggesting that complexity is the desirable outcome of an artistic text. In the end, the past itself is not transformed, but rather its complexity is revealed retroactively in and through the artistic text, so that Russian cultural identity may be transformed in the present and for the future. It can only be hoped that such a fundamentally new cultural orientation will permanently “take” in the shallow and fragile political and social soil in which it has taken root, Alexander Yakovlev, widely considered the “architect ofperestroika” recently commented that “with perestroika, for the first time in history we replaced a totalitarian regime with, a democratiee regime without a Woody revolution. ... [WJhatever criticism we would allow today about the situation in the country, after Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 382 all let us not forget that today we live in a different country than what was before” (Murphy), la the wake ofperestroika, such a hope may be a litmus test for the strength of the connection between literature and fife, traditionally strong in Russia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 383 Works Cited Prim ary W mkm Aksenov, Vasilii. Moskovskaia sauga. Trilogit. Moscow: Tekst, 1993-4, Kharitonov, Mark. Linii Sud’ by, H i sunduchok Milashevteha. In: hhrannaia Proza. Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1994, __________ . Lines of Fate. Trans. Helena Goscilo. Mew York: The New Press, 1992. Kuraev, Mikhail Captain Dikshtein: A Fantastic Narrative. In: Night Patrol and Other Stories. Trans, by Margareta Thompson. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994. 9-140. Kuraev, Mikhail, Kapitan Dikshtein: Fantasticheskoe povestvovanie. In: Malenkaia semeinaia tains. 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