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Imaginary geographies:political fictional country narratives in post-revolutionary Russophone literature

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Imaginary geographies:political fictional country narratives in post-revolutionary Russophone literature

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Content IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHIES:
POLITICAL FICTIONAL COUNTRY NARRATIVES
IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSOPHONE LITERATURE
by Elizaveta Levina
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC DORNSIFE
COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES)
December 2024
Copyright 2024 Elizaveta Levina

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Table of Contents.
List of Figures................................................................................................................................iii
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... iv
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Fictional Countries in Soviet Literature of the 1920s:
Embracing the Revolution in Boris Lavrenev’s Krushenie respubliki Itl’and
Lev Nikulin’s Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ........................................................................................... 26
Introduction. ........................................................................................................................ 26
From a “Margarine” Utopia to Real Deal Socialism:
Promoting and Undermining Socialist Revolution in
Krushenie Respubliki Itl’..................................................................................................... 31
Fictionalizing the Middle East: Soviet Influence and
Non-Involvement in Foreign Politics in Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ. ....................................... 58
Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 81
Chapter 2: Fictional Countries in Russia Abroad: Prince i tantsovshchitsa
(The Prince and The Dancer) by Nikolaĭ Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ and
Podvig (Glory) by Vladimir Nabokov. ......................................................................................... 83
Introduction. ........................................................................................................................ 83
A Fairy Tale for Russian Émigrés: Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s
Prints i tantsovshchitsa. ...................................................................................................... 89
Do-It-Yorself Dystopia: Vladimir Nabokov’s Glory. ....................................................... 111
Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 124
Chapter 3: Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister: a Piecemeal Dystopia. ..................................... 127
Introduction. ...................................................................................................................... 127
Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 153
Chapter 4: A Prince Turned Pioneer and a Pioneer who Saved a Country:
Cold War Era Propaganda in Lev Kassil’s Bud’te gotovy, Vashe vysochestvo!
(Be Prepared, Your Highness!) and Vasiliĭ Aksenov’s Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik
(My Grandfather, The Monument).............................................................................................. 156
Introduction. ...................................................................................................................... 156
The Prince and the Pioneers: Lev Kassil’s novel.............................................................. 159
A Pioneer Abroad: Vasiliĭ Aksenov’s novel. .................................................................... 180
Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 204
Dissertation Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 207
Bibliography. .............................................................................................................................. 210

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List of Figures.
Figure 1. Fictional Geographies...................................................................................................... 3
Figure 2. Results of a Google Search, November 7, 2019.............................................................. 6
Figure 3. A Still from the Movie Kantsler i Slesar’......................................................................... 8
Figure 4. A Still from the Movie Diplomaticheskaia Taĭna. ........................................................ 78
Figure 5. A Film Poster for the Movie Diplomaticheskaia Taĭna. ............................................... 81
Figure 6. Fictional Countries as Facilitators of Triangulation...................................................... 88

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Abstract.
This study explores the motif of fictional countries which was extensively used by
Russophone authors after the Revolution of 1917 and aims to understand the reasons for the
motif’s prevalence, with the focus on realistic fictional countries. It argues that using Political
Fictional Country Narratives helped authors to reflect on the tumultuous events they witnessed,
gain clarity regarding the historical situations, promulgate their political beliefs, and alleviate the
pain of emigration. Using real countries would significantly limit authors, while fictional
countries offered perks such as an opportunity to indulge in world- and language-building.
In Soviet literature, the popularity of Political Fictional Country Narratives manifests the
tension between the two tendencies in Soviet ideology: isolationism and internationalism. In the
early years of the USSR, as well as in the post-Stalinist period, Soviet writers embraced
internationalism and emphasized the altruistic stance of the Soviet Union. When internationalism
was on the rise, fictional country narratives proliferated; when isolationism prevailed, the motif
was not employed. Soviet writers who employed the motif – including those writing for children
-- were more intrigued by the fate of the nation and the world rather than by what happens to
individual humans.
For émigré writers, the situation was the opposite. Authors such as Vladimir Nabokov
and Nikolaĭ Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ expressed no interest in the political developments of the
country they left, which was reflected in how they built their fictional countries. For them, the
political context was important only inasmuch as it interfered with an individual’s life, robbing
them of their country and language and evoking disdain or nostalgia. These authors do not
suggest a political alternative to the Soviet regime – nor is the reader encouraged to find one.

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The study identifies and analyzes a fascinating body of text united by the use of motif of
fictional countries. Many of those works have been overlooked by scholars and long forgotten by
readers. It also offers a framework to analyze more texts that feature fictional countries, of which
politically charged narratives are but a small part.

1
Introduction.
The October Revolution of 1917 split Russian culture into two antagonistic camps: the
proponents of the revolution and the new order, and those opposed to them, often forced to
emigrate from their hostile homeland. Faced with the turmoil, Russian writers needed ways to
articulate their political beliefs, understand the unprecedented cultural shift, and process
traumatic life changes. This dissertation deals with one way of coping with the situation: creating
a fictional country, a strategy used by representatives of both camps and of different generations.
Building a fictional nation with its own history and culture turns out to be an excellent
way to make sense of complex historical situations. Drawing upon a centuries-long tradition of
literary fictional lands, Russian and Soviet writers of the 20th century employ fictional countries
(FC) to carry across political messages, primarily ones related to the way a country (or the
world) should be run. Using a fictional country is thus a critical instrument for propaganda, as
well as for understanding, explaining, and processing the life-changing events.
I call the corpus of texts that employ fictional countries and have a strong political
message “Political Fictional Country Narratives.” Depending on the author’s stance, the
messages in Political Fictional Country Narratives range from praises of the Soviet regime to
bitterness and hatred towards it. As a rule, the author’s interest in large-scale social processes
makes them focus mainly on social processes, whereas the life of an individual is of less
importance.
What is a fictional country? I understand a fictional country as a case of fictional
geographies, the elements of the latter ranging from villages to planets. More specifically, it is a
case of fictional lands, as illustrated in Figure 1. “Fictional lands” refers to fictional places of a

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significant size and “fictional countries” – only to the relatively modern examples of such lands
with clear outlines, government, and culture. “Realistic” fictional countries narrow the body of
the texts even further. This group excludes such genres as science fiction, fantasy, and what can
be called “educational fantasy”: stories for children where a visit to an imaginary country the
protagonist learns more about their own world, as in Alice in Orchestralia or V Strane Dzin’-
Dzin’ (The Din Don Land).
The countries I study are “realistic”, meaning they are populated by ordinary human
beings, who may have strange customs but are not fantastic, like giants or antipodes, and do not
have supernatural powers, which rules out works of Aleksandr Grin and Ursula Le Guin. They
are also small enough so as not to change the world map and world history too much. MarieLaure Ryan’s “principle of minimal departure” (“Possible Worlds”) states that “readers imagine
fictional worlds as the closest possible to [Actual World], and they only make changes that are
mandated by the text.” When introducing a fictional country, most authors follow this principle.
For example, very few fictional countries are located on fictional continents, because creating a
new continent will require modifications of a larger scale than creating an island or putting a
country onto an already existing continent.

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Figure 1. Fictional Geographies.
Introducing a new realistic country is different from introducing a fictional character,
event, or city. Space on earth is limited and, at least in the past hundred years, most adults have a
more or less accurate idea of geography. Thus creating a new country is challenging one of the
essential elements of their worldview: the mental map of the world. Conversely, introducing a
fictional character or event does not challenge one’s worldview.. The same is true for smaller
geographical units – who can say they know every city in the world? And it is precisely the

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readers’ knowledge of what exists outside of the text and what does not that allows them to
perceive the elements of a text as “fictional” or “realistic.” To put it simply, countries are too big
and too few to create new ones without it being glaringly fictional, while cities are not.
Real-world location and possibility of access is crucial for “realistic” fictional countries.
In that respect, they differ from so-called “lost lands” (see Clute and Grant), as they are more
closely related to the real world, and, though at times difficult to access, do not require some
amazing accident or an expedition to be found. Moreover, according to The Encyclopedia of
Fantasy, “the motif [of lost lands] “has gradually fallen into disuse by virtue of increasing
geographical knowledge; these days lost lands have to be very well hidden indeed or displaced
beyond [a] magical or dimensional boundary” (Clute and Grant 594), while realistic fictional
countries do not seem to have become less popular because of the world is too well-explored.
As Fig. 1 demonstrates, fictional lands also include lands of fantasy and science fiction,
but I believe that realistic FC Narratives are cardinally different as far as the issues of
verisimilitude and fiction are concerned. One of the most salient and intriguing features of a
“realistic” fictional country is its ambiguous, evasive character, its scintillation between the
realms of “real” and “fictional.” Such a country does not exist on the world map but could (see
the concept of “possible worlds” explored by Marie-Laure Ryan). Fantasy, on the other hand, is
set in a world that is different from the one we live in, and there can be no ambiguity about it: we
know that it does not and cannot exist. Science fiction works on a similar principle: the reader
accepts things that are, based on the current science and common knowledge, obviously and
unambiguously false: that Mars is peopled with emigrants from the Earth (Ray Bradbury’s The
Martian Chronicles), that humans can look into the future (Kir Bulychiov's stories about the girl
from the future, Alisa Selezniova), that devices such as time machine are not only possible but

5
already developed (H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine). Not noticing that deviation from reality is
impossible for the average reader.
A realistic FC text, on the other hand, uses a setting which could be a part of our reality.
No major leap of faith is required from the reader, which makes the border between truth/fiction
very uncertain and can create a situation where a fictional country is mistaken for a real one.
The Paradoxes of FC. All fictional countries in realistic texts are paradoxical, because
their introduction means that the world map is distorted. That, in turn, jeopardizes the
verisimilitude of the text – which is a prerequisite for realism – since the reader, on noticing the
name of the place, compares it against their mental map and realizes it is absent there.
Consequently, the world where the action is unfolding is not the same world the reader is in.
Thus a paradox, which I call the Map Mismatch Paradox, arises: the setting is realistic, but the
map of the world is not.
Such dissonance can puzzle the reader and reduce their sense of being immersed in the
story, which might work against the author's wishes, and, for texts with a propagandist function,
would diminish the effeciency. Authors often adopt devices to mitigate the effect. It is however
impossible to fully hide it, and some writers embrace the effect, drawing the reader's attention to
the ambivalent nature of the places they create. For example, in Vladimir Nabokov’s Izobretenie
Val’sa (The Invention of Val’s), the nameless fictional country governed by Val’s gets “первый
приз на конкурсе политических мистификаций” (the first prize in a political hoax contest), a
detail that suggests that the country itself is a mystification.
This ambiguity is akin to the quality that Tsvetan Todorov attributed to the fantastic:
“J’en vins presque à croire”: voilà la formule qui résume l’esprit du fantastique.
La foi absolue comme l’incrédulité totale nous mèneraient hors du fantastique; c’est
l’hésitation qui lui donne vie (35).

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“I almost came to believe”: this is the formula that summarizes the spirit of the
fantastic. The absolute faith, as well as complete disbelief, would lead us away from the
fantastic; it is the hesitation that gives it life.
Tiptoeing the line between fiction and reality, the authors of realistic FC texts at times
create an uncanny effect, which is especially striking when the fictional country has no name.
Since the name is absent, the juxtaposition of the mental map and the map of the text becomes
more difficult. Is this country fictional? Is it one of the real countries? This ambiguity might
prompt the reader to doubt the reality of their world.
Two examples prove that setting the action in a realistic fictional country blurs the line between
fiction and truth. The Soviet children’s writer Sof’ia Mogilevskaia recalls how she overheard
people arguing whether the land of Gondelupa that featured in her book Marka strany Gondelupy
Figure 2. Results of a Google Search, November 7, 2019.

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was real or not (quoted in “Kniga o druzhbe i filatelii.”) I also spoke with an American who a
few decades ago took a trip to Europe, and one of his friends asked him if he visited Ruritania
(which only exists in the novels of Anthony Hope). Moreover, it is easy to
come across internet searches that inquire whether this or that country is real or not, proving that
it is often not obvious (see Figure 2.)
Such confusion can be exploited, as in the 2018 case of a fake embassy of the fictional
kingdom of ASPI that issued passports in St. Petersburg (“V Peterburge likvidirovano
konsul’stvo…”), or the 2023 story of a fictional country that managed to sign an agreement with
Paraguay (“Paraguay official resigns…”).
Sometimes the author/narrator of an FC text makes a point that the story shows the true
state of the world. They believe that in order to understand and explain their own world, they
need to create another one. This causes the second paradox, characteristic especially for Political
FC Narratives. I call it Truth Through Lies Paradox: in order to show the reader the truth, the
authors employ geographies that are anything but true, essentially lying. That makes the question
of verisimilitude particularly important: if the reader is too conscious of the fact that they are
reading about a place that is not real, they might by extension doubt the reality of the political
message, which would negate the purpose of the work.
Introducing a new country requires additional devices and explanations and can even
result in awkward language and inconsistencies. A relevant example can be found in the early
Soviet film Slesar’ i kantsler (Figure 3), when the viewer is shown a telegram with the name of
the fictional country’s capital is avoided. The roundabout way of referring to it is unexpected in
the laconic genre of telegram:

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Figure 3. A Still from the Movie Kantsler i Slesar’.
(MINISTRY OF WAR
ORDER
Count Robert von Turau to go to the capital of Nordlandiia
Head of Main Headquarters: [signature]
The 26th Day of August)
An inquisitive movie-goer might wonder what made the Headquarters use two words –
“столица Нордландии” – when just one, the name of the capital, would suffice and be more
economical. For a moment, that question may destroy the illusion of the story happening in real
life and remind the audience that not only the name of the capital, but Nordlandiia itself does not
exist. Similar incongruities happen when names of countries, not cities, are not indicated.

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Introducing a realistic fictional country is, therefore, a risky endeavor. Nevertheless, even
authors of clear-cut propagandist books who seem more concerned with hammering their
message into the heads of the readers than in literary experiment, accept the risks. That suggests
that fictional countries offer some perks that actual countries do not, and that those perks
outweigh the potential dangers. In this dissertation I conduct a study of several of such works to
single out those helpful qualities of fictional countries. Similarities between those functions
demonstrated in works by representatives of opposing political camps suggest the functions were
not contingent to either position.
The body of texts. As will be seen from the brief overview of history of fictional
countries, fictional geographies have been employed for millennia. The body of texts featuring
them is therefore enormous, even if we only take into account literary texts, and if we rule out
“unrealistic” countries. It is then necessary to find a smaller body of texts, and the texts I chose
are post-revolutionary novels written in Russian, both by the USSR and emigre writers.
For the USSR, I am considering two periods: the beginning of the Soviet era, when the
new ideology had to be justified to all citizens (Chapter 1), and the period after the War, when
the ideology was already established and only new citizens (children) had to be educated
(Chapter 4). The literature of Stalinist era is not represented, because fictional countries were
incongruous with the tenets of social realism.
For the émigré literature I study two types of works: first those that focus on the grief
from losing one’s land (Chapter 2) and second – those that revolve around the evils that the postrevolutionary government inflicts upon its citizens (Chapter 3).
All these texts are united by more than language and historical period: all of them are
concerned with a clash of two ways of life. Promoting one of them, they denigrate the other.

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Moreover, the political message in all stories is presented clearly and unfolds as a story,
potentially attracting and persuadingn more people, because it is more enjoyable to read a story
than a sermon.
In the body of Political FC Narratives, a fictional country is introduced when there is a
need to create an “other” space. It can be the enemy, or it can be an estranged version of the
author’s own country. Such texts are, in a sense, laboratory experiments, where the researcher
says: “Let us see what happens if a place is run on such principles, without taking into account
its cultural and historical peculiarities and not worrying about the experiment disrupting your
own way of life.”
This “other” country, or the regime, becomes one of the protagonists. Unlike
utopias/dystopias, which are focused on a static representation and a person's struggle with the
system, Political FC Narratives are concerned with the dynamic, with history of regimes
changing and the situations that occur on the (temporal) edges.
Utopias ask us to imagine and to look into the future. Political FC Narratives want us to
understand. By giving us a glimpse of a different place, they ultimately want us to make sense of
our own world – and, in some cases, to change it.
Scholarship on fictional countries. Fictional countries are a persistent motif throughout
the centuries but especially in the modern era. It is thus puzzling that they have not been studied
extensively. I believe that the reason is that, while enjoyed by popular culture, fictional countries
in modern times seldom appear in major works, thus they draw less scholarly attention.
Very few scholars have studied fictional countries as a motif or regarded texts featuring
them as a separate corpus, even though much has been written on specific texts that feature
fictional countries. Moreover, many simply do not distinguish between non-magical and magical

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fictional countries: for example, The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands (Lewis-Jones)
contains chapters both on magical and non-magical countries; likewise, Literary Wonderlands
(Miller). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy has an entry on imaginary lands and worlds, which is
much wider than what I am studying both in terms of space (the author includes planets) and
time (lands of future are also included, 495—497). Sigizmund Krzhizhanovkiĭ’s essay “Strany,
kotorykh net” (“The Lands that Aren’t”) traces the history of fictional lands – but deals only with
those that have an element of the fantastic or at least unusual – such as the land of giants or the
land of fools.
In his 2020 book, Richard Daly writes that the motif (more specifically, fictional
kingdom motif) “attracted very little in the way of critical attention”, and only lists Raymond P.
Wallace and Vesna Goldsworthy as scholars who tackled the topic (5). In 1987, Wallace coined
the term “Cardboard Kingdoms”. Such is his name for a “group of novels (…) which employ
fictitious countries as significant plot elements”, with the exception of science fiction, fairy tales,
etc (23). More specifically, he deals with “imaginary countries presented as if they occupied an
actual location on a map, reachable by ordinary means of transportation (23). His focus is
different from mine, as can be seen from the word “kingdom”: his interest lies in Ruritanian
romances and similar fiction rather than politically charged works, but he is also concerned with
non-magical, non-fantastic places. Wallace claims that he “[has] researched an analyzed
approximately 300 Cardboard Kingdoms” but, sadly, does not share his list (29).
Scholars writing on fictional geographies note the correlation between human exploration
of the planet and characteristics of fictional lands. For example, Poul Anderson remarks that in
the past, “there used to be remote, unexplored parts of the world, used by such imaginative
writers as H. Rider Haggard [the author of King Solomon’s Mines], but jet aircraft and Earth

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satellites have taken those away from us” (13). As I will demonstrate, this does not mean that the
motif of fictional countries died with the introduction of air travel. The faraway location is thus
not a prerequisite for creating a fictional land.
Outline of FC history. Starting from the late 19th century, fictional countries are very
common, but it seems that for earlier periods there is no point in singling them out of other
fictional lands. As Benedict Anderson points out, “in the older imagining, where states were
defined by centres, borders were porous and indistinct, and sovereignties faded imperceptibly
into one another.” (19) This vagueness of borders is not acceptable for modern countries neither
in real life nor in fiction.
The shift from undetermined borders correlates with the new modes of travel: if in the
past a travel to a different country could take months and landscape, languages, and customs
would change gradually as the traveler progressed, in modern days it is quite common to board a
plane and exit in an entirely different culture in the matter of a few hours, which makes the
distinction between countries more tangible. Anderson’s opposition of the center-oriented
kingdom and the modern country, where all space is equally important, is in line with the
mythological way of thinking as opposed to the non-mythological one. Another way to
distinguish the two approaches would be to imagine two ways of looking at the world: from the
surface of the earth (where what you see is limited by the horizon and where your physical
location is the point of reference) and from space or the world map (where your view is much
less limited and there is no point of reference).
Nonetheless, Political Fictional Country Narratives do not appear as a completely new
genre but continue the long history of fictional lands, so it is worth it to see how fictional lands
were used in world literature and folklore.

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Fairy Tales. Fairy tales – both folk and literary ones – abound with imaginary lands.
Those lands differ from realistic fictional countries in multiple ways.
In Russian folklore, the space of fairy tales is characterized by “indeterminacy”
(“неопределённость”, as in “некоторое царство.”) (Gerasimova 5) The most obvious
difference between “realistic” fictional countries and those of folk fairy tales is that the former
prefers those with names. The unnamed nature of folk fairy countries together with the lack of
details (location, culture, etc.) means that they are virtually indistinguishable from one another. If
one is reading a tale set in a “certain kingdom, certain state”, they have no way to differentiate
the location from another one described in the exact same words. If we consider the whole body
of folk fairy tales, we cannot really say that they feature different fictional countries. This lack of
name is different from what we see in nameless realistic fictional countries, because it is never
emphasized or perceived as a lack.
Since the world of fairy tales is one functioning on magic, obviously they do not fall
under “realistic” lands. Folk fairy tales have no claims of portraying the real world.
Fairy tales never employ fictional countries for propaganda or allegorical purposes for the
simple reason that those are not issues the fairy tales are concerned with. Moreover, fictional
countries, their history and future are never at the forefront of the story. Propp’s model of
Russian magical fairy tale (Propp) helps to explain why such issues as revolution or radical
changes in the way of ruling the country cannot be found in folk fairy tales: traditionally, folk
fairy tales are concerned with restoring the balance. A disruption like a revolution must be
neutralized by the end of the text. For the story to unfold, the country can bounce into a new

14
state, but then it must bounce back. Instead of concentrating on the overall picture, fairy tales are
concerned with the story of the protagonist(s) and their personal happiness.
As far as the real and fictional worlds are concerned, Dmitriĭ Likhachiov believes that the
space of Russian fairy tale has no connection to the space of the narration. He likens it to
“пространство сна” (the space of dreams, 632.) Similarly, Sergeĭ Nekliudov maintains that
“непосредственно [мир фольклорного повествования] не соотносим с реальным (…)
географическим пространством” ([the folklore narrative world] cannot be immediately
correlated with the real (...) geographic space” (183) Moreover, the formulas of the text
emphasize “пространственно-временную «сверхудаленность» описываемых событий или
(...) их вымышленность” (spatial and temporal “ultraremoteness” of the events described or (...)
their fictional character, 183—184.) Meanwhile, realistic fictional countries often – though not
always – integrate the fictional space into that of their readers’ world or compare the two. For
propaganda stories, such connection is crucial, since if the fictional place is not a stand-in for a
real one (whether a specific or generic) the reader will not be able to act according to what the
propagandist wants them to do.
Alfred Messerli also notes that the worlds of the fairy tale and that of the audience are
separate, but he points out the storyteller’s necessity to bridge the gap between their world and
that of the tale: “At the beginning and end of the fairy tale the two worlds [“the space
surrounding the storyteller” and “the world of adventure”] are at variance, and their synthesizing
has to be established by narrative or by formula.” (Messerli) Linking of the world of the story
and the world of the reader is an issue that creators of realistic fictional countries also have to
deal with.

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Ancient tales. Ancient tales and geographies often describe faraway lands. Their authors,
just like creators of realistic fictional countries, have to counter the readers’ disbelief in the
existence of the land or phenomena described. Unlike fictional countries of the modern age,
ancient faraway lands teem with wonderful and surprising creatures. For example, travelers in
Lucian’s A True Story meet creatures who are half-women, half-vines. Occasionally, such stories
also describe blessed lands. For example, Iambulus tells of Islands of the Sun, the inhabitants of
which enjoy abundant nature and disease-free life (Winston).
The curious challenge that ancient tales present is that we cannot simply label fantastic
faraway lands as fictional ones. This ambiguity is reflected in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskiĭ’s
essay on fictional countries:
Собственно, наши предки, и не такие уж очень отдаленные предки, жили в
сrранах, которые есть, окруженные странами, которые, может быть, существуют, а
далее - и краями, которые - а вдруг! - все-таки существуют.
In fact, our ancestors – and not so long ago – used to live in countries that are,
surrounded by countries that may exist, and also further – by the lands that – who knows!
– exist, after all.
While in some cases, as in Lucian’s A True Story, the locations and details thereof are
presented as fiction, in other texts they are presented as being true or reportedly true. For
example, Strabo in his book on India mentions giant gold-digging ants and pygmies who fight
with cranes (Book XV, Chapter 1), but while the tales of the former he does not question, the
latter he dismisses as belonging to “the realm of myth.” Today, both stories seem improbable.
Consequently, we need to bear in mind not only whether the reader of today will believe or
disbelieve the phenomena described, but whether the author and his/her contemporaries would
believe it or not. Moreover, ancient readers could be unable to decide if the land they are reading
about does or does not exist and had to accept this ambiguity, whereas today, if we face this
question, a quick Internet search would resolve the issue.

16
Such tales have long ceased to be popular, but some echoes of them can be found in
modern literature. For example, Sigizmund Krzhytzhanosvkiĭ, a Russian/Soviet writer, employed
the genre as a starting point for his short story “Itanesies” about a tribe of creatures with giant
ears searching for the Land of Itanesies. Similarly, in the story “Strana netov” (“The Land of
Nots,”) the narrator tells about his visit to the world of non-existing “nots”, the story essentially
being a defamiliarized description of the human world.
Allegorical maps. Closely related to fictional countries in literature are visual allegorical
maps of fictional lands. Such maps provide the viewers with information about such locations
“The Isle of Marriage” (Reitinger 115) and “The Ocean of Love” (ibid 123.) Authors of
allegorical maps, just like authors of textual FC narratives, felt the need to create a somewhat
realistic fictional location. The whole appeal of allegorical maps lies in the contradiction between
the fact that we have a visual “proof” of a land’s existence and the obvious fact that the viewer
knows it does not exist. That knowledge accepted, there is no need to explain how allegorical
lands are related to real-world countries, the verisimilar effect being rooted in the believable
manipulation of cartographic elements.
The visual nature of their product enabled authors to pay more attention to the physical
geography of the fictional land than creators of textual fictional lands normally do. Unlike
realistic FC narratives that often could be reimagined in a real location – though with some
meaning lost – those allegorical “stories” are impossible to rewrite in a different setting.
In “Mapping Relationships…”, Franz Reitinger studies the history of lands and maps
representing romantic relationships in Europe from the XVII through the XIX centuries.
Reitinger mentions an impressive amount of such works which suggests that the genre was quite
popular at the time – and he only deals with relationship maps. But why use maps for allegories

17
in the first place? It turns out that cartography was helpful “in attempts at extensive overview and
control, and the map became the modus scribendi for phenomena that were otherwise not readily
comprehensible” (111.) In other words, such allegories were used for didactic, explanatory
purposes, something they share with Political FC Narratives.
Utopias. Thomas More’s Utopia is perhaps the most famous fictional country in Western
culture, a story that spawned the eponymous genre. Utopian societies were often portrayed as
existing in some hard to access areas (Ferns 2.) They are characterized by being explicitly unlike
reality and a penchant for shaping a world as a total opposite of what exists in real life
(Shestakov 36.) However, utopias normally do not involve any fantastic supernatural elements,
which means that the lands of utopias could often be considered realistic fictional countries.
Another quality common for many utopian narratives is their “prescriptive quality, suggesting,
not simply that things might be otherwise, but that they ought to conform to a specific vision,”
(Ferns 4) something that we will see in utopian-inspired children's books analyzed in Chapter 4.
In Russian literature, one of the first fictional countries appears in Mikhail Shcherbatov’s
Puteshestvie v zemliu Ofirskuiu (The Journey to the Land of Ofir), written in 1784. Under the
guise of a utopian Ofir the text shows “Россия, где удалась реализация прогрессивных
реформ” (Russia, where progressive reforms were successful realized.) (Goremykina 142)
Shcherbatov’s text clearly demonstrates the paradoxical nature of the utopian genre. The land of
Ofir is presented as a country that does exist, but the point of writing a utopia is to show
something that does not yet exist so that the reader is inspired to make it real.
It is fascinating that, to encourage real changes in his own culture, to demonstrate his nononsense, practical values, the author chooses to invent a fictional territory. To promote the idea
of a state based on virtue and honesty, the author essentially lies to his reader, going against the

18
principles he wants to implement. This paradoxical strategy would later be employed by Soviet
writers as well, who apparently did not find it problematic.
Shcherbatov’s 1784 utopia is an exhaustive description of an unknown land located by the
South Pole visited by a Swede. After a storm, he and his comrades land in Ofir, a country where
people speak Sanskrit, and the narrator is given an extensive tour of the country, learning about its
history, principles of government, education, etc. The South Pole location is unpopular with
fictional country creators, probably because it is difficult to imagine someone living there
permanently. Shcherbatov, however, describes it as not being different from Northern Europe,
“есть токмо некоторая разность в водяных птицах,” (there are only certain differences in
waterfowls) Thus all the appeal of the Land of Ofir lies exclusively in the way of life of its citizens,
not in nature.
Many utopias feature “bloodless and one-dimensional” characters (Ferns 4,) and this one,
too, lacks details that pertain to the individual. Apart from the rulers’ names and the first letter of
the narrator’s father’s name (S) we have no personal names. It makes sense: Shcherbatov cares
about the general questions, not about concrete lives. This feature gives the story a somewhat
dreamlike quality. The reader can only see patterns, similarities, but not the unique, as if they were
looking at a rough sketch of human figures with no faces.
Ofirians do not value luxury, and the descriptions of the material world are fittingly
meager. Often the reader is told only that the house was simple, or that an outfit was plain, so there
are few physical objects to catch the narrator’s eye or help the reader to visualize the story.
Moreover, Shcherbatov omits details even when they would be welcome, such as when he
witnesses a trial. Who was judged? For what? His account is almost as “impressive” as just citing
the law:

19
Здесь [в присутствии] я увидел, в какую тонкость входили по сему делу, как
раздробляли все обстоятельства, а, наконец, после долгого изъяснения, объявили
своё мнение, с которым и два советника согласились. Оправданный, хотя с
некоторой уступкой, тотчас согласился, а обвинённый согласиться отрёкся...
Here [at the court] I saw into what particulars they went regarding the cause, how they
disintegrated all the circumstances, and finally, after a long deliberation, announced their
opinion, with which the two advisors agreed as well. The person who was justified agreed
immediately, though not unreluctantly, but the accused one refused to agree…
Ruritanian romances. In The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, the genre of Ruritanian romances
is defined as
tales of love and adventure set in imaginary European countries, principalities or duchies,
and usually involving UK or US “commoner” heroes who save the throne, defeat the
villain, marry the princess, and so on.” (“Ruritania” 826)
In her book Inventing Ruritania, Vesna Goldsworthy studies Western stories set in the
Balkan region, in both real and fictional lands. She explains that European writers of popular
literature of the late 19th century chose the region as their setting because of its “exotic appeal,”
something that was no longer present in previously “exotic” Italy and Germany (43); moreover,
they valued it for its “pre-industrial” feel (64). The seminal work of royal romances set in
fictional kingdoms and featuring Britons ascending the throne, Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of
Zenda was not set in the Balkan, but Ruritania “became one of the most widely used symbols of
the archetypal Balkan land.” (46) Goldsworthy compares the way that setting works in different
works of Hope and claims that in The Prisoner and other novels of the cycle, “the setting [was
treated] as almost incidental, and that the cities in the cycle “are no more connected to a
particular region than are the locations in Cinderella.) (49—50) I disagree: true, they are not
connected to a particular real region, but there is enough specificity, including toponyms –
definitely more than in fairy tales.

20
In Ruritania: A Cultural History, Nicholas Daly looks at Ruritanian romances and offers
more hypotheses as to why some stories are set in fictional countries (he deals primarily with
monarchies.) Daly calls such places “pocket kingdoms” and argues that they did not die out with
European monarchies but were used to create “Cold War narratives” (4) and, later on, a popular
movie The Princess Diaries.
For Daly, “pocket kingdoms” are “neither a site for thought experiments nor a faery land”
– which distinguishes them from Polical Fictional Country Narratives that are often experiments
in politics. Ruritania is “only very mildly exotic” and is appealing because “it provided all the
swashbuckling adventure in the more-or-less present” (5) which is also true for most novels
analyzed in this study. Less convincingly, he argues that such countries may serve as mirrors to
the culture that produced them (6—7), which does not ring true for Political Fictional Country
Narratives.
As another reason for Ruritanian Romances’ popularity (and, consequently, that of
Ruritanian kingdoms), he lists “celebrity culture”, more specifically, the West’s interest in royal
families’ lives and morganatic marriages (10—11). Most of the novels discussed in this works,
however, have little interest in the monarchy. Only Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s novel celebrates
monarchy and the monarch, especially the Romanov family. The last reason of the appeal of
Ruritanian Romances suggested by Daly does not work for Political Fictional Country Narratives
either: finally, he proposes that Ruritanian novels are attractive because those lands are still
governed by old-fashioned values and offer an escape from modern life and capitalism (11). For
Soviet writers, who just rid their country of as many “old-fashioned values” as possible, and for
writers from Russia Abroad, who could not dream of resurrecting the old way of life, this reason
is not valid either.

21
Another fictional country prominent at the turn of the XX century was Graustark, created
by George Barr McCutcheon in the novel Graustark: The Story of a Love Behind the Throne and
other novels of the cycle. In a 1907 article titled “Pupils’ Voluntary Reading”, Graustark is
mentioned as one of the most popular children’s books (Franklin Orion Smith, The Pedagogical
Seminary, 14:2, 208-222).
The Graustark cycle was so popular in the first half of the XX century that many novels
dealing with royalties in a fictional country were introduced as new Graustarks. A 1936 article
from New York Times that discusses a satirical novel about a totalitarian state is titled “A Fascist
Graustark” (Kazin) but does not refer to McCutcheon’s book other than in its title, which
suggests every reader would recognize the reference; the same is true for book reviews called
“The Graustark Vein” (1931) and “In a European Landscape This Side of Graustark” (Duffus). A
1954 New York Times article still has “Graustark” in its title, but the reviewer tolls the genre’s
death knell (“Graustark Revisited” by James Kelly).
Curiously, some newspapers referred to Ruritanian romances to describe real world
events. In 1912, when Graustark was still a recent book, New York Tribune compared the
romantic life story of Serbian Prince Alexis to stories by McCutcheon – and even indicated a
chapter which the Prince’s noble speech reminded him/her of (“Real Prince Rekindles the Ashes
of Romance.”) A 1927 Independent article titled “Graustark in Roumania” compares intrigues at
Romanian court to those in Graustark. A 1937 article from News-Week titled “Albania: Graustark
Prince Modernizes Country for Love” compares modern politics to Hollywood movies and
mimics the way that fictional countries are introduced in novels, expressly mentioning disbelief:
In January, 1935, American readers who don’t alway believe what they see in the
papers blinked at a story from Europe to make sure it wasn’t dated Hollywood: one of
those Graustark-country princes sought “an eligible heiress, preferably American, and
capable of supplying a $1,000,000-a-year income.

22
A 1956 article from New York Times is titled “Graustark-on-the-Mediterranean: Here are
some scenes of the improbable land of Monaco”, which means that half a century after the
book’s publication it was still widely known. Thus while many fictional countries’ creators strive
to add to their spaces a feeling of reality, reality, in order to appear more intriguing, is compared
to fictional spaces. The article was issued when Grace Kelly married the Prince of Monaco, a
morganatic romance frequent in Ruritanian novels.
Ruritanian novels were known in pre-revolutionary Russia but never became as popular
as in the West and failed to spawn Russian ones. When, in the 1920s, Soviet writers adopted the
motif of fictional countries, those countries and stories about them looked very different from
that of Anthony Hope. This is natural, since the traditional ending of Ruritanian Romances,
which features restored monarchy, would mean that revolution did not prevail – a conclusion
unthinkable in a pro-Soviet text.
Verisimilitude devices. We call a country “fictional” because we, the readers, know it
does not exist. However, for a text to work, the author has to create an illusion of its existence. If
the book was written to entertain the readers with tales of weird creatures in faraway lands, that
country’s verisimilitude, in its modern sense, is not desired. Arguably the idea of verisimilitude
back then when such texts were popular was different, as to someone who thinks mythologically
it would be unbelievable if the faraway lands did not feature some monsters (see Romm 122.)
I argue that there are a number of verisimilitude-inducing devices that appear throughout
genres and cultures. Curiously, sometimes those devices act against their goal. Moreover, some
authors enjoy scintillating between verisimilitude and pointed fictionality – Nabokov is one of
them. To create a verisimilar country, the author may use one of the following devices.

23
First of all, the author may want to emphasize the fact that the readers are not familiar
with the place. In her discussion of Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, Christine Brooke-Rose
mentions “the classic pretence of ignorance which so often introduces a new character in the
classical realistic novel […] and of course in films” (Brooke-Rose 263—264.) The “pretence of
ignorance” can be used to introduce not only people, but countries as well, both implied readers
and characters capable of expressing this ignorance. Such “ignorance” is demonstrated, for
example, in Lev Kassil’s novel, analyzed in Chapter 4, when a character does not even know
what continent the country is on.
Second, instead of ignorance, the implied readers or character might express disbelief –
and ignoring this disbelief is also a possible device. In Origins of Futuristic Fiction, Paul K.
Alkon claims that the majority of “romances, utopias, and accounts of imaginary voyages over
the surface of this world” deal with the readers’ potential objections “by not specifying […] the
exact geographical location of the countries visited by [the] protagonists.” (24) Some authors go
even further by raising the question and refusing to answer it. Consider how G.K. Chesterton,
creating the fictional country of Pavonia in Four Faultless Felons, refuses to divulge its location,
making us wonder where to find this country and if it can be found at all: “It will be best, both
for the reader and the writer, not to bother about what particular country was the scene of this
extraordinary incident.”
Third, to counter ignorance or disbelief, authors often use documents. Brooke-Rose states
that in science-fiction, when the author wants to share information about the world they created,
the readers “tend to get long chunks of narrator explanation […], or explanations by
knowledgeable characters, […] or, more contrived, characters thinking the information, political
or historical or scientific […], or documents.” (101) The same is true for fictional countries: we

24
can be offered documents with detailed or even redundant information. For example, Lev
Kassil’s characters study an encyclopedia entry about the country of Dzhungakhora, in which
they learn that the area of the country is 194 000 square kilometers. This piece of knowledge
does not matter for the plot and does not make the country easier to imagine. Documents – more
specifically, maps – also work as authenticating devices (Ekman 14). James Romm notes that
one of the ways to deal with the readers’ disbelief is to make someone else responsible for the
information – this technique that he calls “a disclaimer” was a favorite of Herodotus (121—135).
Fourth, to make a fictional world more believable, the author may refer to its history
(Ekman 14–15), anthropology, botany (Winston 222–223,) language, customs, geography, etc. A
combination of those adds dimension and helps the reader to visualize the place. A commonly
used device is insularity: some utopias are isolated geographically and historically from the
reader’s world (Alkon 126—127). Insularity is not necessary for fictional countries – for
example, The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a novel that features a fictional country
involved in WW1, that is, is not separated from our history.
The devices and literary predecessors explain the “how”, but not the “why” of realistic
fictional countries. Why did the author need a country? Could they substitute it with a fictional
city or abandon fictional geography altogether? We seldom have access to the author's
explanation, but it is possible to establish what functions would have been lost with the loss of
fictional countries.
In general, a fictional country gives the author more freedom, since it is an empty stage
which they are free to furnish with history and culture in such a way that it proves their point and
amplifies their message. The following chapters analyze works of six Russian-speaking writers

25
who used a variety of the functions in their fictional worlds and answer how and why each of
them created a fictional country.
Having existed throughout the history of Western literature, works featuring fictional
countries proliferated in the first post-revolutionary years, both in the USSR and in Russia
Abroad. The motif returned to the USSR after the end of the Stalinist era. These works widely
used the literary device of creating a fictional country to advocate certain models of political
government and disparage alternative models. Émigré authors also used this device to assuage
the pain of separation and to grant other emigrants a possibility to reimagine themselves as
historical actors rather than victims. In Chapter 1, I analyze novels by Soviet writers Boris
Lavrenev and Lev Nikulin, who build fictional countries to explain the Russian Revolution to the
general public and to instill in the readers a belief in communism's impending victory. In Chapter
2, I study how Nikolaĭ Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ and Vladimir Nabokov, the writers of Russia
abroad, employed fictional countries to decry the Soviet regime and to address psychological
crises caused by their forced move. Chapter 3 discusses another novel by Vladimir Nabokov,
written several decades later, which thanks to its fictional setting allows the author to indulge in
world- and language-building while chastising both the Soviet and Nazi regimes. Finally,
Chapter 4, dedicated to children’s novels by Lev Kassil’ and Vasiliĭ Aksenov, examines how the
authors’ use of fictional geographies facilitated pro-Soviet and anti-American propaganda to
Soviet youth.

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Chapter 1: Fictional Countries in Soviet Literature of the 1920s:
Embracing the Revolution in Boris Lavrenev’s Krushenie respubliki Itl’
and Lev Nikulin’s Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ.
Introduction.
In this chapter I study two early Soviet novels set in fictional countries, Boris Lavrenev’s
Krushenie respubliki Itl’ (1926) and Lev Nikulin’s Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ (1923, also known as
Diplomaticheskaia taĭna). Both texts feature an engaging plot that abounds with adventure, and
both double as propaganda mouthpieces. They could be united under an umbrella term of
“Revolutionary FC Narratives.” The authors’ usage of fictional countries enhances the effect of
pro-revolutionary propaganda, helping them avoid the dangers inherent to using a real-life
country and providing additional perks that would otherwise be impossible.
When studying these fictional countries created by early Soviet writers, Itl’ and Giulistan,
I propose that we consider them as a case of foreign countries. This suggestion is not as obvious
as it may seem, since they can also be read as mirrors of the USSR, the writer’s/readers’ home
country. However, taking into account their foreign aspect is helpful to situate the texts within
the culture of that time and offers an explanation of the motif of fictional countries subsequently
falling out of favor.
Researchers of Soviet history and culture agree that the early Soviet era was a time when
internationalism was prominent (Tyerman; Brandenberger 2016; Brooks). The trend was
characterized by an interest in establishing relations with other nations, hope for the world

27
revolution, and denunciation of capitalism (Brooks). Setting a novel in a foreign country,
fictional or not, tapped into the trend and allowed the author to showcase how those aspirations
might play out. Consequently, an author’s choosing a fictional locale is not just a curious case of
experimenting with fictional geographies, but a way to exploit and add to one of the most
prominent frameworks at the time.
A society’s interest in and approval of what is happening across the border is one of the
key criteria introduced by Vladimir Paperny in Kultura-2. Paperny studies Soviet culture as an
interaction of two opposing forces, “Kultura-1” and “Kultura-2”, and argues that they took turns
dominating the Soviet discourse. Even though his focus is on architecture, Paperny traces the
features of these two “cultures” in other spheres as well. As for specific sub periods of Soviet
history, “Kultura-1” is at its strongest in before 1932 and after 1954, a time frame that includes
the years when Lavrenev’s and Nikulin’s novels were published.
“Kultura-1”, according to Paperny, is characterized by “horizontality”: it wants to expand
and resists barriers, including geographic barriers that restrict the spread of communism:
«Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!» — эти слова, написанные в
культуре 1 на обложках чуть ли не всех архитектурных изданий (и полностью
исчезнувшие оттуда в культуре 2), показывают, что идея интернационального
единства одного класса явно доминирует в культуре 1 над идеей национального
или государственного единства.
“Proletarians around the world, unite!” – these words, that culture 1 had written
on the cover of almost every book on architecture (and that in culture 2 disappeared
without a trace) show that in culture 1, the idea of one class’s international unity clearly
prevails over the idea of national or state unity.
Paperny’s binary framework helps to explain the uneven distribution of FC texts
throughout the history of Soviet literature. If we assume that foreign countries, including
fictional foreign countries, occur when there is a desire to engage with other cultures, then it can
be argued that when the Soviets were open to promoting international relations the motif of

28
fictional countries became more common, and that it waned when the country gravitated towards
isolationism1
. Thus Paperny’s framework can be expanded by adding another litmus test: to
answer if a period belongs to “Kultura-1” or “Kultura-2”, one may measure its penchant to FC
narratives.
But the presence of fictional countries is more than an effect of an externally oriented
culture. I believe that they were used as essential tools of propaganda.
According to David Hoffman, propaganda and political education were crucial for the
young Soviet Russia (Hoffman 181). As noted by Katerina Clark, Soviet leaders valued literature
“because it could articulate its new belief system in less abstract terms than in Marxist tracts.”
(6) Analyzing Political FC Narratives of the early Soviet era will help us understand what was
the ideological message that the new reader was supposed to get.
Balina and Dobrenko posit that Soviet utopia attempted to ensure that people have the
correct understanding of (collective) happiness (xvii). FC narratives can be regarded as a tool to
reach this goal, as they describe a fictional nation’s struggle to achieve happiness, sanctioned by
the official ideology. Thus the reader gets acquainted with a model that was not widely known in
classical Russian literature but crucial for the new system: the narrative is concerned not so much
with a specific person, but with the nation in general, more specifically in its political
transformation.
1 While a more thorough analysis of Stalinist-era literature would be needed to fully understand
the extent to which FC narratives became unpopular, a good example of the change is Vsevolod
Ivanov’s novel Puteshestvie v stranu, kotoroi eshche net. Like the novels studied in this chapter,
they are concerned with a land that is rich in natural resources; but Ivanov’s land is part of the
USSR. An international struggle for resources thus morphs into an internal one.

29
We will see how Lavrenev and Nikulin successfully create works intertwining
propaganda and entertainment, and how setting the action in fictional countries works for the
propaganda purposes. It would be helpful to compare these two Revolutionary FC novels with
Ruritanian novels. In Revolutionary novels, the political component is very pronounced, and
they are deeply rooted in contemporary history and social thought – unlike Ruritanian novels,
that with a few minor changes could be rewritten as taking place in the 12th or 16th century.
Another difference is that Revolutionary novels treat politics as a central subject, not as an
excuse to embark on an adventure, and that they have a strong political message and a preference
for monarchies being abolished. In Ruritanian novels, the struggle is to get to the throne (or to
retain it), not to dismantle it. Even with political and didactical messages being pronounced,
these novels are not just manifestos sugar-coated in a redundant plot, but contain engaging
stories and vivid, memorable protagonists.
The texts I study here are just a small part of a larger, and largely forgotten, corpus of
early Soviet texts that deal with similar issues, set in fictional countries2
. In Polotsky and
2
In terms of history of literature, Political FC narratives can be regarded as a variant of
adventure novel, a genre popular in the 1920s that often featured world revolution and was
employed for propaganda purposes as an attractive and accessible way to educate the new mass
reader (Cherniak). As Mariia Cherniak writes, “adventure novels” involved “the protagonist’s
adventures with the world revolution as a background,” and were a state-approved genre that
mixed adventure plot and ideology.
In the early 1920s, Nikolai Bukharin “suggested that Soviet writers create their own
brand of detective fiction.” (Draliuk 84) He wanted something that would be engaging to the
young reader, that would resonate with them emotionally, while promoting the new, Marxist,
value system. And such works were created: they were detective novels that satisfied both the
government and the public, and became an important, if short-lived, genre of Soviet popular
culture, called “red Pinkerton.” (84–86) It seems that “red Pinkerton” and “adventure novels”
denote more or less the same body of texts created in the 1920s.
Julia Vaingurt notes that the genre of “red Pinkerton”, unlike the prose dominating
official Soviet literature in the years to come, was characterized by “[a]wareness of the world

30
Shmulian’s Chort v sovete neporochnykh (1928) a secret revolution is burgeoning – and
prevailing – in a nameless Metropolis-like dystopia. In Lunacharskiĭ and Deĭch’s “Prolog k
Esklavii” (1935) the country was initially called “Ispaniia” (Spain), until Lunacharskiĭ
understood that publishing a play under that name is politically unwise, given his being a
diplomat. (Deĭch, Golos pamiati) His other play set in another fictional country, Nordlandiia,
called Kantsler i slesar (1921), was made into a movie Slesar’ i kantsler (1923). Another play by
Lunacharskii, Podzhigateli (1924), is a rare case of a Slavic fictional country, Beloslavia. Staged
in 1924, Rynda-Alekseev’s play Zheleznaia stena follows the story of a revolutionary leaning
heir of the kingdom of Vel’tlandia. In the movie Prezident Samosadkin, based on Nikulin’s script
(1925), a man falls asleep and dreams of becoming the president of Iugo-Panskaia Republic
experiencing an economic crisis that he tries to overcome by selling air (“Prezident
Samosadkin”; Melik-Khaspabov). In Anatolii Shishko’s Komediia masok (1928), set in the
future, USSR, Great Britain, France and Germany appear under false names that are so easy to
decipher one wonders why the author would bother with changing them. (In some footnotes,
when explaining realia from those fictional countries, he slips into saying “English'' instead of
using his fictional toponym.)3
beyond Russia and a yearning for communication with it” (222), which dovetails well with the
trend of setting the story in fictional countries.
3 A fictional country also appears, episodically, in Neobychaĭnye pokhozhdeniia Khulio
Khurenito, where it plays a totally different role: the Republic of Labardan is created by the
characters to achieve their goals.

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From a “Margarine” Utopia to Real Deal Socialism: Promoting and Undermining
Socialist Revolution in Krushenie Respubliki Itl’.
Krushenie Respubliki Itl’ (The Downfall of the Itl’ Republic), Boris Lavrenev’s novel, is
one of the earlier works of the writer, published in 1926. Later Lavrenev was to have a
successful Socialist realist career (Mikhailovich 86), but these days he is not widely known and
seems to have attracted little scholarly attention in recent years.4 Vsevolod Revich notes this
novel as the first one in the tradition of Soviet fantastika that deals with “полусуществующие
[страны], как бы вымышленные, а как бы и нет” (semi-existing [countries], kind of fictional
and kind of non-fictional).
Plot. Lord Orpington, a general from the powerful country of Nautilia, is sent to the
Republic of Itl’, that up until recently was a part of Assor. After the revolution in Assor, the oilrich Itl’ became an independent republic… on paper. De facto, its government reports to
Nautiliia, and people working at oil rigs have no rights and live in inhuman conditions, while the
“republican” government officials only care about their own interests.
Nautilia wants to ensure that Itl’ does not join the revolutionary Assor. With Orpington’s
support, monarchy is restored in Itl’, and a weak-kneed ex-royal becomes the king, or rather a
marionette in Orpington’s hands. The king marries a Nautilian dancer, Gemma, who becomes a
queen, understands the unfairness of monarchies and becomes a zealous revolutionary. A
swindler, Kosta, becomes the Prime Minister, and together with Gemma they plan to overthrow
4
In a 1932 Krasnaya nov’ article, A. Efremin analyzes Lavrenev’s twenty years of writing. The
fact that a major literary journal published a thirteen-page article testifies to Lavrenev’s
popularity at the time.

32
the monarchy. Gemma goes to the oil rigs and passionately speaks in front of workers – only to
learn that they have long been planning a revolt and are ready to begin it. As the novel ends, the
humiliated Nautilian navy is leaving, Assorian soldiers arrive to Itl’, and Itl’ is to break free from
Nautilia and to join Assor.
The political message of the story is clear: imperialists exploit minor countries and do not
want to lose them to a new socialist power, but oppressed people revolt, oust the oppressors and
join their big socialist neighbor – which is exactly what they should do. Despite the title that
might suggest that a republic, a “positive” political regime, failed, this novel shows a country’s
path to a socialist revolution and ends with workers taking the power and monarchists and
capitalists vanquished – an outcome that was desired in a book by a Soviet writer. However, the
title gives one an opportunity to look at the situation differently, as a story about a republic that
loses its independence and becomes part of a large state, something that is not generally regarded
as a positive event from the point of view of a smaller country.
The plot clearly follows the internationalist trend of the early Soviet years. The political
conflict at the heart of the plot is that between powers that support and oppose the revolution,
thus the focus is on international, not domestic affairs. A revolution happening in Itl’ is seen as
just one of a string of revolutions to come, which taps into the then-prevalent hope of world wide
Socialist revolution. Instead of setting the story in one of the countries that the Soviet Union
hoped to see revolutionized in the near future, Lavrenev made a brand-new one, thus somewhat
distancing himself from current political events, but gaining a number of advantages.
Why use a fictional country? Like many other writers, Lavrenev used fictional countries
as stand-ins for real ones. Fiodor Zhits, a reviewer in Novyĭ mir, wittily calls this tactic of
employing fictional stand-ins “быть одновременно одетым и раздетым” (to be at the same

33
time dressed and undressed) and explains it by the author’s wish to “свободнее располагать
историческим материалом и показать типические черты эпохи в период интервенции (...)
на юге России” (handle historical material more freely and to show typical features of the era of
Intervention (...) in the south of Russia) (190–191) This idea of historical freedom is compelling.
Maybe that was not the reason for the author’s adopting the strategy, but in any case that is what
it enabled him to do.
With stand-in names, such a minor transformation as changing a toponym allows the
author to modify real events, places, people, while still maintaining the connection to the
“source” country. If an author writes a historical novel and modifies events in order to stress
their agenda, they might be accused of treating history too freely. Even if no such accusations
occur, there is a chance of the reader noticing the discrepancy which would, at least for a
moment, destroy the illusion of reality and take them from being in the novel to being out of it;
from being an observer to being a critic. Whether that is a welcome occurrence or not, depends
on the function of the book. If the reader is supposed primarily to appreciate the text as such,
those metaliterary moments can make the text more interesting. If, however, the point is to
persuade the reader that something is true, inconsistencies may make the reader doubt that
message and should thus be avoided. With Krushenie, the latter is true, since Krushenie is a
piece of propaganda, designed to convince the reader that capitalism is doomed and the future
belongs to socialism.
So what are the “source” countries for Itl’, Nautilia, and Assor? To find out, it is helpful
to take a look at contemporary reviews.
In Pechat’ i Revolutsiia, A. Lezhnev notes that real names of the countries featured in
the novel are easy to decipher: England, Russia, and a Caucasian territory that he does not

34
specify (208). Similarly, Fiodor Zhits claims that the countries are easily identified, only he is
more specific and mentions Baku as the inspiration for Itl’. Knigonosha, too, attends to the
names transparency, deciphering Itl’ as a “Menshivist Republic of Caucasus.” (A. R.) Much
later, V. Revich thinks that Itl’s is inspired by Crimea and by “Baku oil rigs.” Similarly, a critic
from Komsomoliia sees in the novel “the Crimean republic, Vrangel and paratrooper
[дессантеры]“friends”.” Thus the identity of Itl’ allows for different readings, perhaps because
the country’s exact or even approximate position on the globe does not matter for the plot. Assor
and Nautilia, however, are not given other interpretations apart from the USSR and Britain.
The name “Assor” sounds similar to “USSR”, the name of the country’s real-life twin.
The final victory of Assor is something that the Soviet reader is supposed to rejoice in. Itl’s
joining Assor is presented as a happy, utopian ending, beneficial for both parties. Assor gains
resources; Itl’ gets military support and does not need to build its new, socialist state from
scratch. However, the combination of sounds in “Assor” also suggests a different location:
Assyria, an Ancient empire known for its ruthless wars. If read that way, the name hints that,
under the auspices of their mighty neighbor, Itl’ will not enjoy a peaceful life. Thus the novel,
while glorifying the revolution and promising a happier future for the newly transformed land,
also covertly warns us about the ugly side effects of creating a socialist state. Nothing suggests
that Lavrenev was aware that, while promoting the new regime, he was actually undermining it –
that happens as if against his will. It is not just an isolated occurrence, but an undercurrent,
secretly eroding the triumph of revolutionaries in the novel.
Lavrenev’s novel was published in 1926, when the memory of the revolution and the
civil war was still fresh. At that time not only critics, but readers, too, could connect the dots and
see the USSR behind Assor and Britain behind Nautilia. They were expected to draw parallels

35
between events, described in the novel, and those that happened a few years before. Since the
author did not have to stick too closely to reality, the novel cannot be expected to have a
historical value, in the sense of a text documenting a particular period in time. Useless as it might
be to a historian, it is an engaging adventure novel, and would entertain even someone who does
not know the back story. The charaсters are likable and human, the setting changes often, the
events unfold quickly, and the stakes are high – it could be a script for a musical. But
entertaining the reader was not the only goal of the author.
Such novels, novels that take a past or a future historical event and transform it into a
fictional story set in a fictional country, often have a propagandist value. The story of Itl’ is not
only a remembrance and celebration of how Soviet Russia established control over Baku (or
whatever territory Itl’ is based on)5
, but it also serves as an example of how countries that oppose
socialism will ultimately adopt it.
Even though it is not likely that many people read the novel thinking it described real
countries of Nautilia, Itl’, Assor, and events therein, having read the story might trick their mind
into treating it as a real instance of a socialist power defeating capitalism, and of the oppressed
5
In his preface to the second, 1928, edition of the novel, Lavrenev states that he writes about
something that no longer exists (“мертвецы”, “the dead people”). But there is a reason to doubt
that the novel was only about remembering the past: Together with N.K. Danilevskiĭ Lavrenev
wrote a play based on the novel. In a letter to Aleksandr Tairov, Lavrenev writes how he offered
the play to Aleksandrinka and how they refused to stage it as “irrelevant and not contemporary”.
The authors, conversely, believed that it was “relevant”, since at the time there was a
“чрезвычайное обострение на нефтяном фронте мира” (an extreme escalation on the oil front
of the world). After that they gave the play to Lunacharskiĭ for an “official expertise”, and the
expert, Anatoliĭ Pikel’, wrote that, indeed, “the play is saturated with social relevance”. That
suggests that the readers (and spectators) were supposed to also think about the current political
and economic situation, not just remember the days of the Civil War and “the dead.”
The play differs significantly from the original text. Importantly, Kosta never becomes a
revolutionary, and those who want to leave revolutionary Itl’ are allowed on board of a Nautilian
ship rather than drowned.

36
masses enthusiastically joining the revolutionary world. From the psychological standpoint it is
possible: Yang et al. claim that “memories of fiction are products of the same system” as events
that happened to a person in real life (Yang 1103). In a similar vein, Wolfgang Iser believes that
reading a text is similar to the mechanism of knowledge acquisition (220–221). This
“indoctrination” is even more powerful since the book, especially at the beginning, is lighthearted and entertaining, not preaching. Even anti-heroes are treated with humor, not scorn, and
there are no unambiguously “good” characters the reader is supposed to emulate. And when the
story changes, it is too late. The reader is already on the hook and wants to know how the story
ends, so the necessary dose of propaganda and pathos can be injected, even if the reader’s
original plan was just to be entertained. Creating a fictional revolution in a fictional country,
Lavrenev brings the USSR one country closer to its dream of the whole world being a
communist utopia. It also shows that even major powers can be overthrown, thus encouraging in
the reader hopes that Britain and the like will ultimately lose.
Another function of fictional Itl’ is presenting historical processes in a simplified way,
understandable to those who are not yet fluent in political theory. In that respect, the value of the
novel is not that it tells a story of a specific country winning independence from an empire and
the friendship of the Soviets, but that this story illustrates the main principles that the Soviet
ideology is built on and that Soviet citizens need to learn. Thus it does not matter what specific
country or countries Itl’ is modeled on; it is a composite portrait designed to illustrate, in the
most straightforward manner, a number of axioms. What matters is not the particular story of a
territory winning independence from a particular empire and the friendship of the Soviets, but
explaining and illustrating the axioms that the Soviet ideology is built on.
Those are the axioms that the story of Itl’ is based on:

37
Why do imperialists take control over territories? – To exploit their resources and people,
like Sir Charles wanted to access Itlian oil.
What is the primary concern of capitalist democracies? – Personal profit of those in
power, as seen in the story of the President of Itl’ and his cronies, who tried to sell their
country’s mines.
How do good, hard-working people live in such places? – In inhuman conditions, as
witnessed by Gemma at the oil rigs, but those people still have agency to unite and revolt, as they
did in Itl’.
What is the nature of revolutions? – Grassroots – they do not need a leader, just as
revolutionaries in Itl’ did not wait for Gemma to convert before plotting their revolt.
Another explanation of why the author resorts to creating a new country is the genre of a
comical adventure novel. Setting the same story in a real environment might cause accusations of
making fun of events that are serious and tragic for the sole purpose of entertainment. By opting
for a fictional place and emphasizing the make-believe nature of the country, Lavrenev avoided
that pitfall so that the reader will encounter no events or people for whom they may have strong
feelings. Unfortunately for him, that strategy caused another pitfall. One of the reviewers
complained that the novel failed to provoke “the emotion of wrath”, “ireful criticism” and “class
hatred” (Efremin 183), since contemporary criticism aspired to cultivate strong negative
reactions to solidify the success of the revolution rather than to promote peace. Those
accusations are fair: indeed, it is hard to imagine someone being enraged by transgressions of a
country where the workers’ barracks are sprayed with perfumes to impress the visitors and the
lowest military rank is that of a captain. Thus Lavrenev was still accused of treating the subject
too lightly. But it would be wrong to say that Lavrenev’s work is innocuous: it may not openly

38
preach hatred, but it does encourage hate and indifference to those who support the enemy, and it
is not clear which of the two approaches is more efficient.
Lighthearted to heartless. As a country, Itl’ resembles a toy, and the novel, fittingly,
starts in a very playful, lighthearted manner. It abounds with tricksters, cross-dressing, rags-toriches careers, and sexual innuendos. Gemma sneaks aboard a Nautilian ship, dressed as her
lover’s orderly, and the reader only realizes they have been tricked when she is about to take a
shower. The president’s daughter tells Freddy, the natural son of the Nautilian king, that she
dreams of having royal blood in her veins, and enamored Freddy assures her that it can be easily
arranged. Death or serious misfortune in this world seems as improbable as real blood in Blok’s
“Balaganchik.” This world – and specifically Itl’, since we do not see other countries – is like a
playground, where political enemies can clash and experiment with new regimes without
jeopardizing anyone’s safety. The worst thing that can happen to you is getting imprisoned in a
cell with rococo furniture, your mistress and a canary to cheer you up – which is exactly what
happened to the ex-president of Itl’ after the monarchy was restored.
One of the most characteristic scenes in the novel is when artists and actors are recruited
to create a battlefield a la Potemkin: it looks horrific but is about as dangerous as a movie set. Sir
Charles is convinced the scene is real:
Уходя к северу в песчаные дюны, тянувшиеся вдоль пролива, серыми
тяжелыми силуэтами высилась тройная линия мощных фортов, связанная ходами
сообщений, линиями узкоколеек и переплетенная, как брабантским кружевом,
пышными волнами колючей проволоки.
Форты залегли, как хищные звери, готовые прыгнуть на добычу, на
вершинах золотившихся под солнцем песчаных холмов.
За ними вихрился, клокотал, гудел и взметался гигантский грохочущий бой.
Казалось, обозленный сатана выпустил на эту слоеную пустыню песчаной
парчи весь запас ужасов, грома и треска из своего реквизита.

39
A triple line of mighty fortresses was rolling out to the north, to the sandy dunes
stretching along the strait, with its towering heavy gray silhouettes, interconnected by
communication trenches and narrow-gauge tracks and intertwined, as if with Brabant
lace, by billowing waves of barbed wire.
The fortresses lay on top of sandy hills, golden in the sunshine, and were like
predators, poised to attack the prey.
Behind them a gigantic rumbling battle was whirling, boiling, roaring and
rampaging.
It seemed as if the satan, enraged, had let out all of the horrors, thunders and
crashes from his stock of stage props to that layered desert of sandy brocade.
A bullet grazes his hand, and he exclaims: “Наконец я увидел в вашей
cфальсифицированной насквозь стране хоть одну настоящую вещь – войну! (“I finally saw
at least one real thing in your country, falsified through and through: war!”) The irony, of course,
is that the “real thing” is fake. The author seems anxious to make the reader feel safe and assures
them that the battle is not real: “Но нужно заранее предупредить, что жестокие зрелища
войны будут так же безопасны, как пламя именинного фейерверка, и так же мимолетны.”
(But there should be a warning in advance: the violent spectacles of war will be as harmless, as
the flame of birthday fireworks, and just as fleeting.)
Similarly, instead of killing enemy soldiers, one of the characters gives them sleeping
potion: “Я послал Петриля подсыпать в вино, заготовленное для солдат его милости лорда,
одной такой штуки, которая уложит их всех в мгновение ока.” (“I sent Petril to spike the
wine, prepared for his lordship’s soldiers, with some stuff that will take them all down in a
jiffy.”) Gemma, the new-fangled queen, is shocked, believing that “уложит” refers to killing, but
is reassured: “Они просто уснут и не продрыхнутся до следующего вечера (“They’ll just fall
asleep and won’t wake up till tomorrow night.”) If even featureless enemy soldiers are not to be
murdered, the world of the story is extremely safe. The narrator, explaining why the reader has
have heard no news from the war for several chapters, claims that he does not want to “заливать

40
кровью эти страницы” (to drench these pages in blood) – not an approach that you would
expect in a text promoting revolutionary strife.
But then something changes. As the story progresses, the stakes grow high, and the
narrator no longer cares about victims, human or inhuman. It is as if he too, along with the
“queen” (ex-dancer) and the “minister” (ex-swindler), undergoes a political transformation. Once
kind-hearted Gemma wistfully says she wishes that the enemy ships “со всем их содержимым”
(with all their content) are sunken, and Kosta heartily approves it. Even more striking – and in
line with the theatrical theme of the novel – is her saying that that would be a “неплохое
зрелище” (a great spectacle). People begin to die, but it is not seen as a tragedy, as if they were
just toys. The slightly repulsive but harmless king is shot, and while the protagonists are fleeing
their car kills a dog – a morbid detail that is at odds with the cheerful beginning of the novel.
More shockingly, to be able to leave from a crowded place, they drive right through the crowd.
The narrator notes it but does not reflect on it; it is not even clear if people are killed or not – as
if that did not matter. This action is described in a dehumanizing way: “Люди полетели во все
стороны, как крокетные шары. Автомобиль проложил широкую просеку, устланную
телами.” (People flew in all directions, like croquet balls. The automobile cleared a vast path
strewn with bodies.) Those people are not enemy soldiers but just the crowd enjoying the holiday
in the capital. The callousness is especially striking because the car, an inanimate object, is
described as a living being: “ее опустевшее сердце забилось тревожными перебоями” (its
now empty heart began to beat unevenly and anxiously).
Likewise, on the final pages of the novel, those who do not welcome the revolution try to
flee and the author destroys them ruthlessly on an astonishing scale:
Первым покатился под ноги и был смят в омлет генерал фон Брендель, до
последней минуты не выпустивший из рук маршальского жезла, и тут же

41
испустила дух бывшая супруга президента Аткина. (...) Мостки затрещали,
шатнулись, и сплющенные, сдавленные тысячи посыпались в воду в грохоте
рухнувших свай и досок, огласив рейд последним смертным ревом.
The first one to roll under the feet and be smashed into an omelet was General
von Brendel’, who until the very last minute did not let go of his baton, and the ex-spouse
of President Atkin gave up the ghost at the same time. (...) The boardwalk creaked,
staggered, and flattened, squeezed thousands poured down into the water in the brattle of
collapsed piles and boards, their last mortal roar resounding in the roadstead.
In this scene, thousands are killed in minutes, yet the narrator does not see it as tragic.
When revolution begins to win, human lives cease to have value. It is telling that the last chapter
is called “Галаадские свиньи” (The Swine of Galaad), in a (misremembered) nod to the New
Testament story of the swine of Gadarene. The “swine” unmistakably refers to those who
drowned when trying to leave the sinking ship of Itl’. This callousness and dehumanization is
shocking, which was hardly intended but that can be seen as a parallel of the early Soviet history,
which began under the banner of freedom and equality and ended with mass murders.
How is it possible that the text that glorifies a revolution, the movement to free the
masses, is so ruthless towards them? The answer is that for Lavrenev’s narrator, there are two
kinds of masses. Here is how Kosta explains it to Gemma:
Где вы видели наш народ? В городе? Здесь столько же народа, сколько
волос на коленке. Здесь отбросы человечества, вся накипь высокородной рвани,
согнанная грозой, – пролетевшие банкиры, экспроприированные фабриканты,
выгнанные помещики, зверинец паразитов, севших на шею этому прекрасному и
плодородному уголку.
Where have you seen our people? In the city? There are as many people here as
hairs on my knee. It’s a place of human driftwood, of all that noble scum and rabble,
driven together in the thunderstorm: screwed landowners, expropriated plant owners,
exiled landlords, a menagerie of parasites sponging on this beautiful and plentiful corner.
Meanwhile, the real people, the laborers, are suffering:

42
народ не показывается здесь, да его и не покажут, потому что он нищ, гол и
бос, потому что он живет хуже, чем скот [в Наутилии]. Его гонят плеткой на
работы и плеткой с работ, из него высасывают все соки.
people do not show up here, and indeed won’t be shown, because they are poor,
naked and barefoot, because their life is worse than that of cattle [in Nautilia]. They are
whipped to work and whipped back from work; they are being sucked dry.
This compartmentalization, this black and white vision of human nature as determined by one’s
occupation and domicile, leads to the fact that Kosta – and the narrator – have no compassion
towards one part of the nation while fighting for the other’s wellbeing. Trying to find a peaceful
solution would go against the grain of the Soviet ideology: nothing from the old way of life
could make it into the future, and the best way to ensure it is physical annihilation. As noted by
Eric Naiman, “the process of transition [from present to utopian future] is fraught with danger
and necessarily becomes a period of purging, in which all imperfections of the here and now
must be destroyed (13–14). In this particular case, those “imperfections'' include people.
The hatred towards the city dwellers, ironically, makes Kosta and the narrator similar to
Sir Charles, their adversary. Kosta calls the masses “стадо галаадских свиней, которых нужно
утопить в заливе” (a herd of Galaad swine that should be drowned in the bay). Similarly, Sir
Charles snaps: “эта рвань [делегация правительства] может тонуть, как ей вздумается”
(“this rabble [the government delegation] may drown as they see fit.”) The author pays heed to
the two enemies’ words and mercilessly arranges the drowning, the purge bringing the future one
step closer.
And after the unnamed thousands are killed and the intruders expelled, it is time for a
peaceful sunrise that ends the novel, the sun rising over the sea. Everyone who had opposed the
new order of things is conveniently disposed of in the same waters, making the task of building

43
the new world easier. Itl’ is no longer a friendly playground, but a building site, a dangerous
place where non-builders are not allowed.
How are the fictional countries created? Though the countries created by Lavrenev are
realistic and two of them have obvious real-world prototypes, the geography of the novel is as if
from a different planet. Most FC Narratives modify the world map only slightly, by creating one
or two small countries and either keeping the rest of the world intact or not referring to it
altogether. Conversely, Lavrenev introduces two major powers that did not exist and appears to
ignore the real Britain and Russia. Thus, the world of the story is dominated by two hitherto
unheard-of countries that vie for a minor republic of Itl’. This configuration – the map that
features no familiar names yet depicts our world – encourages the reader to decipher the names
of locations, whereas in many FC Narratives that is not required and sometimes is impossible to
achieve (for example, there is no definite prototype for Ruritania).
One can say that instead of creating a fictional country Lavrenev creates a fictional
planet, different parts of which are equally real. That is not always the case with fictional
geographies. Many FC Narratives use both “real” and “fictional” geography, the places that exist
in our reality and that are created by the author. The Prisoner of Zenda, for example, begins in
Britain, and the protagonist reaches fictional Ruritania by traveling through actual European
countries. This novel, conversely, is homogenous in this respect, since we only deal with
fictional countries, and real countries as Britain and USSR do not appear in the text6
.
6 Real world geography and history does show up, but in passing. For example, Orpington’s ship
features the Trafalgar Battle; his radio operatorт sends an offensive telegram to the French; and
the ex-president of Itl’ is worried he will share the fate of the emperor of Mexico. Moreover,
Orpinngton is said to have defeated the tribe of Danakil (which is a real tribe in the Horn of
Africa, see “Afar”) as a part of his glorious career; but we hear of no conflicts of Nautilia and
the major powers, something that would have undermined the empire’s reality.

44
The fictional geography and history are introduced from the very beginning of the story,
and though obviously not real, are presented as such7
. There is no transition from “our world” to
“their world” – when the first chapter opens, we are already in “великая морская держава
Наутилия” (Nautilia, the great sea power). The country is characterized so in passing, as if the
reader already knows about it and there is no need to explain where it is or its position in the
world – this just serves to remind the reader about its greatness. The brief biography of Sir
Charles Orpington, the archvillain, allows the author to pour out a number of titles and political
details that create an outline of his country and establish parallels between it and Britain. The
names in this biography are English; British titles are used; Orpington leads “colonial troops”,
and Nautilia is a monarchy, but a “moderately constitutional” one – just like Britain. Thus,
paradoxically, as we are reading about a place of which we have never heard, we recognize in it
something that we know rather well from history and literature. Because of that, we do not need
to learn much about Nautilia, since the reader already has some idea of what the country is like –
by transposing their knowledge about the British empire, and by projecting on it their own
7 Though the fictional aspect of countries in Krushenie is not emphasized, Lavrenev emphasizes
the fictional status of one of his characters, using the same techniques as other writers who want
to tease the reader with the ambiguous character of reality they describe. Specifically, the
narrator hints that Sir Charles does not exist while ostensibly giving proof of his existence: “Не
трудитесь рыться в библиотеках и архивах в поисках печатных сведений о биографии и
деятельности генерала Орпингтона, ибо мы сейчас прогуляемся по его славной жизни со
всей доступной в столь важном вопросе научностью и добросовестностью.” (“Do not
bother to rummage in libraries and archives in search of printed information about General
Orpington’s biography and activities, for we will now take a stroll along his glorious life in a
manner as scholarly and thorough as possible in such an important matter.”) He gallantly
eliminates the need to do additional research by giving his own version of Orpington’s biography
– but that gallantry can be read as an attempt to prevent the reader from learning the truth,
namely, that the character is fictional and no archive has any information about him.

45
impressions of the British gained during the foreign intervention in the post-revolutionary Civil
War.
Assor, Nautilia’s adversary, is not shown much, but it is characterized as “величайшая
восточная империя, распавшаяся и охваченная пламенем гражданской войны” (the greatest
Easterm empire, disintegrated and ablaze with the flame of civil war), which, for anyone in the
middle of 1920s, suggests Russia. Moreover, almost everyone from Assor’s royal family has
been murdered, mirroring the fate of the last Romanovs. Judging by the new Itlian monarch,
Maximilian, who was their relative, the royal family of Assor were not very appealing or apt.
We know that Assor is communist, but besides that, there is little information about this
country8
. Omitting a description of the USSR’s doppelganger is an excellent choice: the author is
relieved of the need to describe life in the USSR which, at that time, was no utopia yet. Again,
the reader uses their pre-existing real-world knowledge to augment the country that is not real,
and the author is not responsible if they paint it as something different from a utopia9
.
And what about Itl’? This country, the name of which suggests something from preColumbian America, is first seen through the eyes of the general and looks like a paradise island,
8 One of the very few snippets of knowledge about the country is that it consists of
“коммунистические штаты” (communist states). It is possible that Itl’ becomes another “штат”
(state).
As a geographical term, the word “штат” in modern Russian is only used with the USA,
thus“коммунистические штаты” sounds like a paradox, uniting two incompatible political
systems, that of communist and capitalist state, into one. This incongruence is, most likely,
unintended. What is curious is that real-life Soviet “states” were called “republics.” It is possible
that Lavrenev did not want his model socialist country to use the same term as a fake republic, to
prevent any doubts that socialist “republics” have as little to do with what is generally
understood as a “republic” as the republic of Itl’.
9 Rather confusingly, Assorian revolutionary forces are several times referred to as
“банды” (bands/gangs)– and though it can probably be explained by the fact that it the narration
is filtered through the enemy’s point of view, it is still baffling that such a negative moniker
would appear in a pro-Soviet work in the third-person narration.

46
complete with “blissful valleys,” “spicy and sweet smell of fruits and flowers,” and palaces. It
has a green and purplish-pink flag, which appears in the beginning and the end of the novel. Pink
is very uncommon among national flags, so it hints that the country is not real. The interpretation
of the colors gives it a dreamy character: “цвет надежды и мечтательной меланхолии” (color
of hope and dreamy melancholy). Itl’ is shown as a “blessed subtropical corner, carefree as a
child’s smile.” As the novel ends, the Assorian army entering Itl’ enjoys a fairytale abundance of
food that seems to be easily accessible to the people of the country:
В час, когда ликующее население Порто-Бланко праздновало веселым
карнавалом свое присоединение к величайшей державе мира [Наутилии], обе части
армии соединились на узловой станции, в одном переходе от столицы, и
остановились на отдых. Суровые, овеянные пороховым дымом и славой, солдаты
ассорской армии братались с нефтяниками и с радостным изумлением
набрасывались на фрукты, сладости и жирную мясную пищу.
– Хорошая страна у вас, ребята. Сытная. Полмира прокормить может,
говорили с восхищением они, растягиваясь на траве с полными желудками.
Крестьянки тащили из деревень все новые и новые запасы
продовольствия, и солдаты, похохатывая и любезничая, набивали вещевые мешки
окороками, бараниной, хлебом, салом, всем давно не виданным изобилием.
When the jubilant citizens of Porto Blanco were celebrating their annexation to
the world’s greatest power [Nautilia], both parts of the army united at a juncture station,
one day’s march to the capital, and stopped for rest. Rugged soldiers of the Assor army,
steeped in gun smoke and glory, fraternized with oil workers and with joyful
astonishment attacked fruits, sweets and rich meat food.
– What a good country you folks have. A hearty one. Enough to feed half of the
world, – they marveled while stretched out on the grass, their stomachs full.
Peasant women kept bringing more and more provisions from their villages, and
the soldiers, laughing and flirting, stuffed their rucksacks with ham, mutton, bread and
bacon, with all the long-forgotten abundance.)
Since the soldiers are portrayed lying on the ground, this passage seems to be a quotation
from Pieter Brueghel’s The Land of Cockaign. An Itlian proverb says: “делу час, потехе – все
остальное” (work one hour, have fun for the rest of the day), which adds to the impression that
Itl’ is a land of Cockaign, where work is unnecessary. Another proverb: “В сытом теле бодрый
и честный дух” (A cheerful and honest spirit in a well-fed body) underscores how important

47
material comfort is to Itlians, as well as the unhealthy relationship between riches and power in
the republic: the government is “well-fed” but far from “honest”. Itl’ is thus a sort of a paradise –
if only a hungry man’s one.
Lavrenev uses some details to make the “paradise” more specific, using the same
techniques as other writers creating FC countries. We get some glimpses of Itl’s history, which
allows more verisimilitude, especially so since the facts are said to be taught at the military
school (reference to authority):
Некогда, когда республика входила как составная часть в великую империю
Ассора, (...) покойный император Варсонофий Первый Гвоздила был вовлечен
интригами соседних великих держав в кровопролитную войну из-за восточного
вопроса. Коалиция враждебных государств отправила морем огромные силы, и
высадка их произошла на территории, занимаемой в настоящее время
республикой…
– Разрешите поставить вас в известность, барон, что я проходил расширенный
курс всеобщей истории в военной школе, – язвительно заметил сэр Чарльз.
Once upon a time, when the republic was a part of the great empire of Assor, (...) the late
emperor Varsonofii “Hammer” First was dragged, by the intrigues of the neighboring great
powers, into a violent war regarding the Eastern question. The coalition of enemy states
sent ships with enormous forces, and they landed on a territory currently occupied by the
republic…
– Let me inform you, baron, that I took an advanced course in world history in military
school – remarked Sir Charles tartly.
Note also the omission of the name of a republic, which is similar to omissions in many
FC Narratives, for example in Nabokov’s Izobretenie Val’sa. Here the only purpose of this
omission is that it indicates the novel’s being rooted in FC tradition. We also learn that there are
ethnographical books on Itl’, something that adds to its verisimilitude: it must be a real country
because there are books written on it (although, as it turns out, the books are not accurate, again
undermining our trust in the geography created by Lavrenev).
As in other FC texts, when creating the country, the author introduces customs, but here
they are used not only to make the country look more full-fledged but also to show its comical

48
character. Some Itlian customs do not make sense, which brings the country closer to Nabokov’s
Zoorlandia, with its nonsensical laws. For example, the Itlian parliament convenes in a building
that used to be a “увеселительное заведение'' (place of entertainment) and is decorated with
titillating frescoes. The frescoes remained because, supposedly, such imagery would make the
members more efficient. As the king takes back his throne, the citizens took part in “the
country’s ancient custom”:
По древнему обычаю страны, каждый гражданин подходил к бочкам, черпал
прикрепленными на прочных цепях серебряными ковшами благодатный напиток и
пил за здоровье короля, сколько мог выдержать.”
According to the ancient custom of the country, every citizen approached the
barrels, scooped the blissful drink with silver scoops hanging from strong chains, and
drank to the king’s health as much as he could stand).
The Russian folk tradition of welcoming guests with bread and salt is presented as an old Itlian
custom, which, since it is seen through a puzzled foreigner’s eyes, adds to its exotic character:
“Какая смешная символика!” (Such funny symbolism!) and allows the reader to look at a
Russian custom from a foreign point of view.
However, not everything in Itl’ elicits laughter – otherwise there would be no need for a
revolution. The country has two sides. On the one hand, as we have seen, it is an idyllic and
plentiful land, home to naive and harmless people, whose innocence is sometimes bordering on
the absurd. On the other hand, it is a land where workers are oppressed and starved. Consider this
chilling description:
Под трибуной, облитые мерцающей багровой лавой факелов, колыхались
закопченные мохнатые головы, как странные круглые плоды, устремив на нее
красноватые от огня белки глаз. Под головами болталось море лохмотьев на тощих,
высохших, измазанных черной жижей мазута телах.
Мисс Эльслей повернула голову к своему спутнику. В глазах ее были недоумение,
боль и испуг.
– Это рабочие? – спросила она, – почему они такие несчастные? Почему у них
такие болезненные лица? Почему они такие оборванные, жалкие, измученные?

49
Under the tribune, flooded with the flickering purple lava of torches, there were grimy
disheveled heads, swaying, like strange round fruits, and looking at her with eyes that
seemed reddish in the fire. Under the heads a sea of rags was dangling on bodies that were
skinny, emaciated, smothered with the black goop of oil.
Miss Elsley turned her head to her companion. Her eyes were full of confusion, pain and
fear.
– Are these the workers? – she asked, – why are they so unhappy? Why do they have
suchs sickly faces? Why are they so haggard, wretched, exhausted?
The readers are seldom allowed to see the dark side of the country, but it is that side that
justifies the idea of joining Assor, since Assorians “хотят настоящей жизни для всех, кто
трудится, кто добывает хлеб горбом” (want a real life for all who toil, who work like a dog for
their bread.) Up until Chapter 22 in the 25-chapter novel, the reader sees just one worker. It is
puzzling how little information is given about those who are behind the political transformation in
Itl’. The suffering and poverty is concealed not only from Sir Charles, who visits the oil rigs, but
from the reader as well. That might be explained by the fact that otherwise, the novel would lose
its gaiety. Political satire in Krushenie deals mainly with how those on top abuse their power, not
with the life of the powerless because the latter is no laughing matter.
There are several other oddities related to the way Itl’ is created10. We know, for example,
that Itlians have their own language, but we do not learn a single word of it. It seems that sometimes
the author forgets that it exists, with foreigners and natives communicating sometimes with an
interpreter’s help11, sometimes effortlessly. For example, Gemma, who just came to Itl’ from
Nautilia and is not said to have learned Itlian, is shown passionately speaking in front of Itlian
10 Fedor Zhits, a contemporary critic, notes that “the second half [of the novel] is written as if in
a hurry and sloppily” (191).
11 The interpreter is two times shown changing the tone of the message to soften the blow or
increase the threat, which means the author must have given the language barrier some thought,
especially since interpreters are seldom described as having any agency.

50
workers as if she was fully fluent in their language. Another oddity is related to ethnicity: since Sir
Charles read that Itlians are swarthy, he was perplexed on seeing only light-skinned people in Itl’.
Because of that the Itlian government hired some Romanians to portray Itlians and told their guest
that only the city dwellers are light-skinned. We do not, however, find out if that is true or not,
and, if it is not true, it is unclear what the reasoning was behind the lies. Thus, the reader cannot
get a clear understanding of how Itlians look and talk, an ambiguity that seems to be unplanned.
That means that the country is not a full-fledged one, because for that to happen the reader needs
to have a better understanding of the way people in a given country look and talk or, at the very
least, not be given contradictory information. To be fair, we have no evidence that the author
planned to create something full-fledged.
Artifice, theater and utopia. Though Itl’ is not emphatically fictional, it has some
artificiality, noted by Gemma. On first seeing Itl’, she calls it “artificial”, and dislikes its
“игрушечный розовый берег, кукольные дома” (“toy-like pink shore, doll houses”). The new
prime minister also calls it “игрушка” (toy) and “шантан” (cafe-chantant). But the point of
those details is not so much that the country does not exist, as in Nabokov’s works, or that the
world itself is but a theater set, but that Itl’ is not taken seriously neither by outsiders nor by
Itlians themselves. In order to reach the new historical stage, a country has to treat itself
seriously, even if no one else does.
Theatricality of the country is emphasized, since the novel itself, with its fast-paced action,
has a dramatic or cinematic quality, which allows it to be both an enjoyable adventure story and a
lesson in history. Dramas and films allow for major events to happen within a matter of minutes,
and Itl’ enjoys the same rapidity in its history. Relatedly, changes, both personal and political, are
portrayed as surprisingly easy: a dancer can become a queen and then a revolutionary, a republic

51
can rapidly shift between several regimes without any major disruptions or much effort on the
politicians’ parts. All that enables Lavrenev to freely experiment with revolts, restorations and
revolutions, not worrying about the laws of political development or time frames, and to ensure
the work does not become a cousin of War and Peace.
Sir Orpington notes the theatrical quality of the country and the events and believes himself
to be the director or the playwright of an entertaining spectacle, a representative of a major power
who can modify a minor territory as easily as if it was a theater set. Arranging the coup, he talks
of the situation as if it was not taking place in real life or involving real people12: “Спектакль
начинается. Оперетта переходит в комедию-буфф, разыгрываемую марионетками” (The
play begins. The operetta slips into a comedy-buff, performed by marionettes.) When the coup is
staged and anti-republican supporters enter the parliament, it is said that he “стоял у барьера
ложи, скрестив руки, и спокойно наслаждался спектаклем” (was standing by the barrier of the
lodge, his arms crossed, and calmly enjoyed the play). On two occasions he used the word
“маргариновый” which seems to be an obsolete colloquialism for “fake”. He plans to turn a
“margarine republic” into a “margarine kingdom” and expects it to be an easy job. But even though
Itl’ does look like a toy, running it is no child’s play. A real force, revolution, steps in, and the
“director” finds he has no control over the stage anymore.
12 One of the reasons for the latter is that Orpington thinks of Itlians as uncivilized savages, even
though the country seems to be at the same level of (Western) culture. For example, he refers to
Itlians as “pitekanthroposes” and “черномазые лодыри” [black-faced idlers], while Kosta,
ironically, thinks of Nautilians just as highly, calling them “savages” and “Papuas”. This
unjustified Nautilian snobbishness may be just another negative feature of Orpington and
empires in general, but it could also be a sign of Lavrenev’s not having developed the country
properly and initially imagining it as something more exotic, a place inhabited by nonWesternized black people, and later losing interest in juxtaposing two cultures and two races
without removing the traces of the motif. One of such traces is that Kosta, one of the main
characters, is repeatedly described as dark, but it is unclear if he is non-white or just tanned from
spending days out in the sun.

52
Sir Charles perceives Itl’ as a make-believe, fake country, and this accusation is backed by
many details in the story that can be considered “margarine”, or attempts to distort reality. For
example, some Romanians are hired to portray Itlians, since the formers’ appearance is closer to
Sir Charles’s understanding of how Itlians look. He is fooled by a co-head of a fake company who
wears a fake beard, and the fake battlefield was discussed earlier. More importantly, when a
Nautilian delegation wants to see the oil plant, the latter is beautified, and the workers are sent
away: “Обход рабочих бараков, пропитанных нежнейшими дыханиями благовоний и
блестевших чистотой, поверг [Орпингтона] даже в какое-то размягченное состояние, и он
разрешил себе сказать, что в самой Наутилии (...) он не видел подобного благоустройства.
Он только удивился отсутствию рабочих в жилищах.” (Visiting the workers’ barracks, infused
with the most exquisite smells of perfumes and sparkly clean, even somewhat mollified
[Orpington], and he allowed himself to say that even in Nautilia (...) he had not seen such
beautification. He only was surprised that there were no workers inside) Even an unexpected
meeting with a real worker who does not look as if he is enjoying his life is cleverly transformed
to the republic’s benefit: he is said to be a communist rejected by his fellow workers. Obviously,
there is no need for communism if you have two days off every week and your barrack smells of
incense. In time, this faux utopian facade will fall, the ugliness will emerge, and Itlians will be
ready to build a real utopia. Revolution is thus the enemy of everything fake, even though it does
not make Itl’ any less toy-like.
The paradox of the story is that to transform a “margarine republic” into a country ready
to become a revolutionary utopia, Lavrenev takes it one step back and makes it a monarchy first.
Even the laudable event referred to in the title – “крушение” (the downfall) – is the work not of
revolutionaries from the north, but of an emissary from a Nautilian monarch who used another

53
monarch to his benefit. The newly fledged monarchy is as “margarine” as the republic, since the
king has no power at all, but it is through becoming engaged in a monarchy that the protagonists
are transformed into revolutionaries. A contemporary critic of Krushenie is puzzled by the
transformation of a dancer and a con artist into supporters of the revolution (Zhits 191); but this
is not a very accurate way to describe the change. First, they have to turn into a queen and a
minister, and this first transformation appears to cleanse them of their shady past by instilling in
them a sense of dignity, of being a representative of their people and responsible for their
wellbeing. Here is how Kosta describes it after having reprimanded an officer for not showing
enough respect to the new Itlian king:
Я знаю, что это не королевство, а шантан, что это не король, а швабра, я
ненавижу всех королей в мире, но… Я чувствую сейчас себя представителем
народа… (...) Если я и стал премьер-министром, то только для того, чтобы
покончить с этой игрой в государство, чтобы облегчить путь сюда тем, идущим с
севера, к которым лежит моя душа.
I know that this is a cafe-chantant and not a kingdom, that the king is a mop, I
hate all the kings in the world but… Now I feel I am a representative of the people… (...)
If I became a prime minister, I did so only in order to end this kingdom game, to facilitate
the arrival of those, who come from the North, and who my heart belongs to.
On a smaller, more comical, scale, even the king’s bodyguard-turned-general, Bogdan, who used
to be nothing but a strong-fisted bully, suddenly is transformed into a zealous warrior:
– Мне наскучило болтаться по притонам и спиваться. У меня не было
никакого желания защищать эту вонючую республику, но теперь, когда на троне
законный монарх и мой личный друг – я готов подраться.
I’m sick of dangling around joints and drinking myself to death. I had no wish to
protect this stinky republic, but now, when the lawful monarch and my personal friend is
on the throne, I’m ready to fight.
Thus, сounterintuitively, a monarchy, for Lavrenev, can be closer to the desired political
state and more likely to facilitate its emergence than a republic; while both are “margarine”, the
former, with its appreciation of dignity, allows one to get in the state of mind necessary for

54
conversion. That does not mean that everyone uses the opportunity: the king uses his new
position to indulge in drinking and idling, and Kosta’s mate pines in the restrictive court
environment until one day he throws off his garb, runs away through a hole in the fence and
returns to his favorite pastime, fishing with worms. Still, monarchy, if not the best state of things,
inspires no hatred in the narrator. This odd system of values is inconsistent with the mainstream
Soviet ideology, but since the protagonists do not spend too much time on (or near) the throne,
and since the king is a repulsive caricature, it did not catch the critics’ attention as something
improper.
Ultimately what matters is not so much the mode of ruling the country but whether the
rulers take it seriously or not. A republic where the government cares nothing about democracy
is worse than a monarchy, where those in power treat their country as a real country and take
their job seriously. They know it is not real – neither Gemma nor Kosta see themselves qualified
for their positions – but they work diligently nevertheless. Going back to the theater metaphor,
they know the palace is just a piece of canvas and the crown is made of foil, but they act
earnestly, as if they were real, and see canvas and foil transform into stone and gold13
.
13 The story of a masquerade ruler who, much to his creator’s surprise, takes his job seriously, is
similar to the one described in G.K. Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill, written in 1904.
Almost forgotten today, back in the day Chesterton was popular enough for Tairov to stage a
play based on a novel of his (Harriman). A Russian translation of The Napoleon was published in
1925 as Napoleon iz prigoroda. The question of whether the two works are related is beyond the
scope of my research, but I wanted to point out this similarity. Sir Charles, too, could lament
with Chesterton’s protagonist: “I thought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I
tried to compose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into an epic.” There is
even a scene which resembles Sir Charles’s childish frolicking, so inappropriate for such a
venerable figure, when a grown-up man, dressed as a clerk, suddenly stands on his head, much to
the surprise of the public. Compare:
a) И вдруг… о, что сказали бы депутаты крайней левой?.. представитель
великой морской державы опрокинулся на спину и задрыгал ногами, хохоча, как
резвый школьник во время бесшабашной проделки.

55
This novel takes us from a faux utopia, one that requires stage sets and throngs of artists
to look even remotely plausible, to an opportunity for a real one that is yet to be created. The
final fragment of Itl’, in line with its theatrical theme, is called “Занавес” (The Curtain). As the
novel closes, we see the sun rising:
Туман поднялся. Жизнерадостное солнце выплыло из глубин над молом,
над Итлем, над миром.
The fog rose. A cheerful sun emerged from the deep waters over the pier, over
Itl’, over the whole world.
The sunrise, an obvious representation of the dawn of a new era and the victory of
revolution, establishes a subtle yet efficient link to the reader’s world. Two metaphors: that of a
curtain and of the sun conquering the fog – contradict each other, the first signifying the end and
lack of vision, the second – the beginning and getting rid of visual obstacles. Thus, the end of the
novel is just the beginning of something new, the beginning of a (so to speak) real butter utopia.
What happened in Itl’ is thus not just an anecdotal story from a music hall country, but a part of
world history. As one Itlian revolutionary puts it,
На севере уже два года, как они стали подлинными хозяевами и подняли
землю на плечи. Пройдет еще десять, ну, пусть сто лет, и так будет во всем мире.
In the North, it has already been two years since they became the true masters and
raised the earth upon their shoulders. Another ten years will pass – all right, let’s say one
hundred – and that’s how it’ll be all over the world.
When the readers close the book, the histories of Itl’ and the USSR are synchronized:
both have just dismantled undesirable regimes and are waiting to be transformed into utopia.
And suddenly… oh, what would the extreme left members of Parliament say? –
the representative of the great sea power fell on his back and began to kick the air,
laughing like a frolicking schoolboy during a mischievous escapade.
b) And on the top of the small hill Mr. Alberton Quin stood with considerable
athletic neatness upon his head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air.

56
Kosta is about to build the new Itl’ – and the readers are tacitly invited to do the same with their
country, to leave the old world with its fishing worms, and to join the man who is walking
steadily towards the future.
The driving force of the plot of Krushenie is what Paperny calls “horizontality”, one of
the hallmarks of “Kultura-1.”. According to the novel, revolutions spread horizontally, as if
seeping through the borders from an already revolutionized country to its direct neighbor.
Paperny himself refers to Lavrenev’s works as an instance of “Kultura-1” ( xx).
Assorian non-involvement in organizing the revolution in Itl’ can also be seen as a
manifestation of “horizontality”. The country does not impose their system on their neighbor in a
vertical “leader-follower” relationship, but rather waits for it to take the first step. Conversely,
Nautilian attempts to subjugate Itl’ are an example of “verticality”, and Nautilian defeat shows
that in the new world, this strategy is doomed.
What seems to go unnoticed is that, freeing themselves from the Nautilian yoke, Itlians
cheerfully accept a new one, that of Assor. Yes, it is not imposed on them, Italians join Assor of
their own volition, but there is some “verticality” in the relationship of the two countries
nevertheless. It is telling that Assorian soldiers, on their arrival to Itl’, admire its as a source of
nourishment (“Enough to feed half of the world”) to be exploited, even though Itlians did not
express a desire to “feed half of the world”. That means that Itlian revolution is beneficial for
Assor/USSR, thus the Soviet author does not see anything bad in such potential exploitation.
Another telling detail is that Kosta once refers to Itl’ as a gift to the Northerners – a statement
that, if being said by Sir Charles regarding the Nautilian Empire, would be frowned upon as a
case of imperialist greed. Thus the events are regarded not only from Itlian perspective (our

57
country needs support from its mighty neighbor), but from Assorian as well (our country needs a
rich piece of land, and our soldiers need food).
Itl’ is doomed to be a satellite. Krushenie is not a story of acquiring freedom, but of
changing masters. Just as with inhuman violence showing through the mask of caring for human
welfare, this disturbing fact is visible, just not articulated. Krushenie is a fascinating case of a
propaganda piece that, unbeknownst to the author, undermines its purpose.
Conclusion. Lavrenev’s novel, set in a fictional country on the verge of a revolution, is a
response to the early 1920s interest in establishing international relations and optimism regarding
world revolution. Assor/USSR is portrayed as an inspiration and supporter, but not the instigator
of the revolution in Itl’. Because of that, Assorians/Soviets cannot be accused of interfering with
other countries’ affairs, something that would make them akin to their archenemy, capitalists. In
terms of Paperny, Krushenie is an ode to “horizontality”, a great example of “Kultura-1”.
Setting the action in a fictional country allowed Lavrenev to enjoy more freedom in
world building, creating a compelling framework for his propagandistic message. By narrating
the story of a successful revolution abroad, he plants false memories into his readers’ minds, who
now have a vivid recollection of an event that never happened but that validates the propagandist
message. Using a fictional country also allows the writer to convey the main axioms of
propaganda without lectures in history or theoretical explanations. Finally, a make-believe land
is a fitting choice for comical events, whereas treating the events of Russian revolution as a
comedy performance might have caused disapproval.

58
Fictionalizing the Middle East: Soviet Influence and Non-Involvement in Foreign
Politics in Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ.
The story of the next fictional country begins with a real-life journey. In June 1921, Lev
Nikulin was sent to Afghanistan as a part of the USSR Diplomatic mission, one of manifestations
of the then-prevalent internationalist trend. Many years later, in his memoirs Liudi i stranstviia,
he vividly recalls that journey to a dangerous and exotic land, just entering the modern era. He
remembers being “в состоянии глубокого изумления” (in the state of utter astonishment)
because of the contrast of Russian way of life and landscapes and what they saw “на юге, в
благодатной долине абрикосовых садов и виноградников, среди темно-зеленых чинар и
топких рисовых полей” (in the south, in a beneficent valley of apricot orchards and vineyards,
among dark-green chinaras and quagmires of rice fields). That bewilderment is akin to that
experienced by Assorian troops in Krushenie, who were impressed by the plentiful southern land
of Itl’. Nikulin drew on this chapter of his life to shape his novel Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ (No
Chances), using details of Afghani geography and culture to create an exotic fictional country
named Giulistan14
.
Remembering his journey, Nikulin notes that “[с]отрудники дипломатической миссии
довольно туманно представляли себе страну, куда они держали путь” (the members of the
diplomatic mission had a rather vague notion about the country where they were heading), their
knowledge being limited to a school textbook description of it as “гористая страна, населенная
воинственными племенами” (a mountainous land peopled by bellicose tribes). Such
14 Another novel of Nikulin, Taĭna seĭfa, can also be studied in the context of fictional
geography. It features a host of fictional countries, both easily decipherable as real ones
(Al’bion, Galiia), harder to trace (Eritreia, Imogenia) and created, it seems, just for entertainment
(the kingdom of Vitamin).

59
informational and spatial isolation is a characteristic feature of “lost lands” (see, for example,
“Lost Lands and Continents” in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy.) Using sparse, dry knowledge to
create expectations of the place that will be the setting of the story is a popular feature of FC
narratives. (See, for example, Graustark, where the American protagonist goes to Graustark
having little idea of what sort of country that is, and finds himself in a picturesque location,
much more impressive than the information he could procure from books). Thus a real-life
country shares some qualities with fictional ones, and because of this lends itself easily to
fictionalization.
Soviet readers did not need to wait years for the memoirs to be published to get the flavor
of the country, since it inspired Giulistan, the setting of Nikulin’s “cinematographic novel”
(кинороман.) Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ, published in January 1924 (“Khronika: Petrograd”), where
Nikulin also conveys the atmosphere of a centuries-old, foreign and beautiful region. Here are
two excerpts from the novel and the memoirs that prove the relationship between the two texts.
The way both narrators describe old devout Muslims heading to the battle is strikingly similar.
This excerpt is from Nikulin’s novel:
Потом пошли косматые, с высохшей пергаментной кожей, в зеленых чалмах
старики, которым пора было умереть, и они хотели умереть в бою, чтобы
заслужить рай. Хрипло надрывая голос, они читали нараспев тридцать шестую
сурру корана Ясин, которую называют “сердцем корана” и читают над
умирающими… “Клянусь мудрым кораном, что ты один из посланников…” И
многие увидели рай, не успев докончить первой строфы… “На прямом пути. Это
откровение мудрого и милосердного…”
Then came old men – shaggy, with parchment-dry skin, in green turbans. It was
time for them to die, and they wanted to die in the battle to earn paradise. Straining their
hoarse voices, they sing-songed the thirty-sixth surah of Quran, Ya-Sin, that they call
“the heart of Quran” and read when someone is dying… “I swear upon the wise Quran,
that though art one of the envoys…” And many saw paradise before finishing the first
stanza: “On the straight path. This is a revelation of the wise and merciful…”

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And here is Nikulin remembering an old man’s tale about a battle in an almost word-byword quotation from his own novel:
...за ними шли старики, они давно мечтали умереть в бою. Они нараспев
читали тридцать шестую суру корана – Ясин, которую читают у ложа умирающего.
Многие погибли, не успев произнести слов: “откровение мудрого и
милосердного…”
Then came old men, they have been dreaming of dying in the battle for a long
time. They sing-songed the thirty-sixth surah of Quran, Ya-Sin, that they read at
someone’s deathbed. Many perished before they had time to say “a revelation of the wise
and merciful…”
(Liudi i stranstviia 339).
There is more at stake, however, than glimpses of history and culture, pretty scenery and
amusing anecdotes. In the novel, Afghanistan turns into a country controlled by the British that
ultimately gains freedom, inspired by Soviet revolutionaries. The exotic region becomes a
setting for a fast-paced adventure story, where noble-minded people vie for their own land with
unsсrupulous imperialists. One of the most influential writers of the early Soviet era, Maksim
Gorkiĭ praises the novel as a representative of adventure literature, a genre absent in Russia
(405).
Plot. The government of Giulistan, an Asian monarchy bordering the USSR, signs a
contract with Britain. According to the contract, the Empire gives them a loan, 10% of which
will be deposited into the officials’ accounts. In exchange for that generous offer, Giulistani
officials pledge to hamper Soviet-Giulistani relations and to give Britain access to their mines.
The contract is signed in secret, since it shows the officials as caring about their own interests
above those of their country. The protagonist, Abdu-Rakhim, who supports establishing relations
with Russia, steals the contract, and the British want to get the compromising document back.
Abdu-Rakhim escapes with the contract and even manages to become a leader of a territory, but

61
is later killed in a skirmish orchestrated by Britain in order to get the document. However, the
document slips away. Believing that the document had been sent to Moscow, the British send the
unscrupulous Percy Gift to Soviet Russia in order to get it.
Meanwhile Abdu-Rakhim’s French lover, actress Lucy Enneau, is devastated with his
death and wants revenge, but conceals her feelings. When the British offer her to go to Russia as
a spy, she accepts the mission. In Russia, she serves at a charity foundation and (unsuccessfully)
attempts to capture, as she was instructed, a photo of Vasily Zhukov, a likable fellow who works
for the GPU.
The revolutionaries want the document back, and Vasily is sent to Giulistan to deliver it.
He takes the same train as Percy and Lucy, and Percy steals the document, takes Lucy with him
and is about to return to Giulistan. Lucy still pretends she has no personal interest in the
business, but begins to show her true nature: threatening to kill Percy, she orders him to show her
the secret document. This is when they find out that the cherished envelope contains only
worthless papers.
Meanwhile a revolution happens in Giulistan, prompted by the real document being
published. The spies are captured. Lucy finally throws off the mask and denounces Percy as a
traitor and killer, knowing that would lead to him being executed, and commits suicide, because
her heart is broken.
Nikulin cleverly makes use of concealing facts from the reader while pretending they
know everything, similarly to what Agatha Christie does in The Murder of Roger Ackroyds. The
reader follows Lucy throughout her adventures and is told about her thoughts and feelings but
does not know about her treacherous plan or that the “document” that is changing hands is
actually a bunch of worthless papers. This creates an impression of the reader being in the know

62
while also enabling the author to surprise them with an unpredicted turn of the plot – an
ingenuous combination.
Nikulin spares no effort to make the narrative as visual as possible. Calling it
“кинороман” is not just a ploy to attract the readers: Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ actually is highly
cinematic15
. One critic used this novel as an example of literature being cinematized, claiming
that it is written as an extended screenplay (Erde). To achieve the effect of cinematicity in prose,
Nikulin uses choppy sentences and short chapter-like episodes, each with its own name. That
creates an impression of shots and situations changing rapidly, as in a fast-paced movie. Adding
to that effect, the story seldom takes the reader to the past, preferring the present moment.
The new name, Giulistan, did not prevent the critics from figuring out the country’s
origin. While the allusion is not as obvious today, it must have been at the time of writing,
because a reviewer, E. Stanchinskaia, refers to the country exclusively as “Afghanistan.” But
why would anyone care about that faraway place in Soviet Russia, a country that had its own
share of problems? Is it only for the novelty of it, for forgetting for a moment about dreary life in
a country ravaged by recent civil war, or was there another reason? And why did Nikulin not, if
he wanted to dwell on his Afghani memories, set the story in Afghanistan proper? What
possibilities does introducing a fictional country based on that very specific real region give him
and his readers? Taking a look at what was going on in Afghanistan in the early 20th century and
how the USSR related to it will help answer these questions.
15 Nikulin was not the only author to expressly merge cinematic and literary. Same genre was
used in Nikolaĭ Borisov’s Ukraziia, Dmitriĭ Mukha and Leonid Lukov’s + K.M., Kornei
Chukovskii’s Borodulia. Publishing a “cinematic novel” could be a cheap way to make up for
the lack of uptodate and ideologically correct films by making a movie substitute. Moreover,
unlike movies, a book can be read by multiple people and reread years after publication, sent to
provincial libraries, etc – that is, influence more people than cinema at that period.

63
According to Viktor Korgun (2004), Afghanistan entered the 20th century as a closed,
backward country. Its external politics was controlled by Britain, who encouraged its isolation
and prevented it from establishing political and trade relations with the Russian Empire. In the
spirit of internationalism, Soviet Russia was the first nation to acknowledge Afghanistan’s
independence. In 1920–1921, Afghanistan and Soviet Russia signed a friendship treaty, which
stipulated that Russians would not use their propaganda to attempt to overturn the monarchy in
Afghanistan. Signing a contract with Russia did not prevent Afghanistan from signing, in 1921,
another one with Britain, which finally granted them independence. Thus, Afghanistan was an
economically important territory for Russia, and a potential scene for revolutionary action16
.
I argue that by creating Afghanistan’s double, Nikulin managed to make the USSR’s
foreign politics look more successful than they actually were while entertaining the reader and
educating them regarding the East. The novel thus has both entertaining and
educative/propagandist value. The story was useful for propaganda as attested by the fact that the
film, based on it, was one of those sent to thirty-five Soviet cities in 1924 as part of a
propagandist “кино-экспедиция”, a “cinematic expedition.” (Киногазета 1924, no. 2, p. 2)
Here are, in more detail, the benefits of creating a fictional country based on Afghanistan,
matched with the needs of the propaganda.
When Nikulin was creating his novel, the USSR was still a very young country and was
eager to present the Russian revolution and the new regime in a good light. It had ambitious
plans, but so far had only managed to dismantle the old system. The USSR was hoping to create
16 While the novel ends with a revolution, by the time that the novel was created no revolution
had taken place in Afghanistan. The USSR did orchestrate a revolution in Bukhara, and a shortlived Bukharian People’s Soviet Republic was established, later to be swallowed by Turkmen
and Uzbek Soviet Republics. Thus, the story of the Middle East being revolutionized was not
totally ungrounded.

64
a new one and to exert influence over the neighboring countries, but that was still a project. The
period of New Economic Politics, spanning most of the 1920s, was, in the words of Eric Naiman,
“Utopia Postponed”, “a necessary compromise with reality.” (Naiman 12) It was crucial to
maintain people’s trust in the success, longevity and scope of the Soviet projects, to make sure
that they believed that the Socialist revolution in Russia was not just a historical curiosity, a
marginal event, but one in a chain of revolutions. Nikulin’s novel can be thought of as creating
false memories – of Soviet and pro-Soviet successes and the good the USSR did in other
countries, as well as the immoral acts of the British, that never took place in real life. Future
hopes were described as events that had already happened, and, on a subconscious level, could
serve as a pro-revolutionary argument. The readers were to see how horrible the situation in
Giulistan was and what selfless and noble people Giulistani revolutionaries were. Nikulin makes
it clear who you are supposed to side with in this story and, by extension, in any future
revolution. Setting the story in an imaginary space allowed Nikulin to avoid contradicting real
history when inventing events and characters needed to convey his idea, at the same time giving
him the benefit of writing about a territory that was on everyone’s lips at the time and engaging
with the internationalist trend.
The early Soviet dream of turning other countries into social paradises was a difficult
task, but what cannot be quickly achieved by political methods can easily be achieved by
imagination. Thanks to Nikulin’s use of a fictional country and a fictional history, the Soviet
Union extended the Soviet-influenced territory further south on the symbolic level of literature.
The novel portrays the Soviets as beneficent and powerful people who encourage revolutionaries
in other countries, but do not directly influence the events. Thus, they cannot be accused of

65
meddling in other countries’ business because of monetary interests – something that both
Nikulin and Lavrenev accused Great Britain of doing.
It is telling that out of three protagonists in the story (Percy, Lucy, Abdu-Rakhim) none
are Russian: that means that the Soviets are not involved in Giulistani affairs, and do not
compromise their image by any violence or obtaining access to natural resources. The struggle is
between Giulistan and Britain, and it is the people of Giulistan who save Giulistan, not Soviet
soldiers. The GPU man Zhukov, the only representative of the Soviet government who heads to
Giulistan, disappears on his way there and is never shown crossing the border.
By describing a doppelganger revolution Nikulin can show the positive gist of the event.
It is seen not as a messy, tumultuous period, with victories and losses dependent on chance, and
territories being captured, surrendered, and recaptured, but a straightforward event, where good
people are exceptionally good and bad people are unambiguously evil. In order to successfully
implement their policies, the politicians often resort to portraying the situation as black-andwhite and do not encourage thoughts that it may be more complicated. Nikulin’s audience just
went through several years of political turmoil, and people’s memories of recent revolutions
might not have been as black-and-white and straightforward as the regime wanted. Instead of
being presented as a struggle of abstract classes – a concept that was still new to many – the
revolution could be shown in this fictional country as a conflict of protagonists, inspired not by
abstract theories, but by such relatable impulses as love, greed, curiosity, and the wish to be free.
It also allowed people, who have just witnessed a catastrophic event, to step back and look at the
situation in a defamiliarized way, potentially forgetting their own grievances (such as destroyed
infrastructure) and appreciating the big idea behind it all.

66
Using an Eastern country also allows the author to entertain and educate the reader with
picturesque descriptions of foreign landscapes and customs. His own memories of traveling there
meant the story is rich with specific, documentary-like details, making the reader more involved
in the book and thus making them less likely to abandon it and more susceptible to the message.
While learning about Giulistani geography and its history would not help the reader in learning
about world history and geography, they can get an idea of life in Muslim countries, to say
nothing of their being appalled by the “diplomatic” methods employed by the British empire.
The political premise of Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ is similar to that of Krushenie respubliki
Itl’: Great Britain meddles in a minor country’s affairs, wishing to stop it from fraternizing with
the Soviets and also hoping to exploit its natural resources. As one of the characters says about
the pro-British head of Giulistani government,
он отдает область южных племен королевскому правительству в
долгосрочную аренду, иначе говоря – он отдает двести тысяч наших братьев
королевским аэропланам и пушкам. Область южных племен богата медной рудой и
нефтью. Он продал ее и продался сам.
he gives the area of the Southern tribes to the royal government as a long-term
lease, in other words – he gives away two hundred thousand of our brothers to royal
aeroplanes and cannons. The Southern tribes area is rich with copper ore and oil. He sold
it and sold himself.
As in real-world history, the Middle-Eastern country is struggling for independence and
is of interest to two major powers, the British and the Soviets, but there are important differences
in this fictive account. Nikulin did not rename Britain, as did Lavrenev in Itl’, while changing
“Afghanistan” to “Giulistan”. That suggests that he was not concerned with being politically
correct (unlike Lunacharskii with his “Esklavia”, erstwhile “Spain”). Not renaming Britain
allowed the writer two things. First, he avoided tweaking the world map too much, which would

67
negatively influence verisimilitude17. It is one thing to create a minor Middle-Eastern monarchy
and another – to create a new empire. Second, it helped him create a more obvious illustration of
how Britain intervenes in other countries' business and what unscrupulous people it hires to do
diplomacy. That message is noted by E. Stanchinskaia in her review of the novel: she
“recommends” it as “decently showing diplomatic politics of European powers that impede the
East’s Sovietization.”
Giulistan is a representative of a very limited body of “Eastern” FC texts: realistic Middle
Eastern countries are rare in Russian and Western texts set in fictional countries. Most FC
narratives choose something closer to home, culturally, if not geographically. That especially
makes sense in the context of Ruritanian romance, where the royal lover must be culturally
compatible with the commoner protagonist. Imagine the British hero marrying not a European,
but a Muslim princess – that would require a whole religious storyline, potentially loading the
text with more serious issues than needed for a light reading text. By contrast, Nikakikh
sluchainosteĭ revels in the “foreign” aspects of Giulistan: its faith, mores, and way of life.
Creating Giulistan. Nothing in the novel betrays Giulistan’s fictionality. It is a country
whose existence is just as complete as that of other countries. Curiously, Afghanistan proper is
17 Nikulin also avoided distorting British history too much. Describing achievements of one of
the British characters in the novel, the narrator refers to another two countries, this time not
naming them at all: “удачно скомпонованным снимком он скомпрометировал двух
преданнейших агентов дружественной державы и лишил их доверия военного
министерства”, “сфальсифицированной депешей штаба флота, переданной по радио, он
вызвал к берегам колонии крейсер северного государства, и это дало возможность
королевскому правительству сделать энергичнейшее представление и занять остров Лоси”
(Emphasis added) Both expressions sound awkward, and I cannot think of any other reason of
the author choosing them over names of specific countries than the reluctance to introduce any
more real lands into the fictional plot, lest the reader, well-versed in politics, sees a discrepancy
between real and fictional history, which would diminish verisimilitude.

68
once mentioned in the story, which shows that the two countries are not entirely identical in the
world of the novel; neither are their flags.
“Giulistan” is a real toponym popular in Iran, India, and other countries. There are many
countries whose name ends with -stan in the Middle East, so using that root adds to the place’s
credibility. Interestingly, the name can be interpreted as “flower land” (“Gulistan”). As someone
who spent so much time in the Middle East, Nikulin was likely aware of the meaning and for
him it was not a random combination of sounds. The name suggests the land of the novel is
fertile, which is in line with the British wanting to keep control over its resources and also its
promise for a utopian future. Specificity, when the name is translated, is thus replaced by a fairytale-like, metaphorical quality: this is a tale of the revolution in Flower Land.
The reader can get a good idea of the country’s location, something that does not happen
in all FC texts. We know that it borders Soviet Russia, even that the border lies to the north-east
from the capital, and we know the itinerary of characters on their way from Moscow to Giulistan.
Following Percy and Lucy on their train journey, we also see glimpses of different, increasingly
Asian Soviet cities. Thus, the reader learns more about their own country, and also sees that the
distance between the two countries, both cultural and spatial, is not so large – which potentially
increases their chances of supporting Eastern revolutions. Giulistan is an exotic land, but not as
exotic for the USSR as for Britain. Here is the itinerary of Percy and Lucy as they head south:
Moscow-Samara-Orenburg-Tashkent-Samarkand-Chardzou
Then their journey becomes more difficult to pinpoint. In other FC texts that is often
explained by the author’s wish to blur the geography, so that they do not distort the map. In this
case, however, even those relatively vague details are specific enough. The Basmachi stop the
train forty-seven versts away from Merv (a real city), and then Percy and Lucy ride to the South

69
from the railway, located seventy versts away from the border. Thus, if a meticulous reader
wanted to reconstruct the final leg of their journey to the border, they could do so.
If we presume that Lucy and Percy went directly south, then, indeed, they get right to
Afghanistan. But if we remember a parenthetical remark that Giulistan lies between two seas and
look at the map, we will see that Afghanistan is (and was) a landlocked country. Neighboring
Iran, on the other hand, lies between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Thus, minor details
reveal that the correspondence between Afghanistan and Giulistan is ambiguous. Giulistan is not
just a renamed Afghanistan from a chronicle of parallel history.
A similar problem for anyone trying to detect the real map showing through the fictional
one stems from the author’s use of names of real ethnicities (Kurds, Jamshidi). That adds to
verisimilitude: the names sound Eastern and, if the reader knew them before, ties the events of
the story with the actual world. Additionally, that trick blurs the line between the real and the
fictional. To distinguish the real and imaginary, the reader needs to have solid knowledge of the
Middle East, which, given the genre of a highly readable adventure novel, was hardly the
author’s expectation of his readers.
Some FC authors mix real and fictional details to underscore the fictionality of the
country they create, but this is not the case here. Though there are many references to cinema,
and some scenes are shown as if on a screen, the fictionality of the world is seldom emphasized.
That is especially obvious if we compare it to Krushenie where landscapes and fortresses are
akin to theater decorations. That makes sense if we remember that one of the aims Nikakikh
sluchainosteĭ is to convincingly distort reality, making the USSR look more benevolent and
successful as it actually was. Creating an illusion was thus important, but directing the reader’s
attention to its artificial nature was undesirable, since that would diminish the effect.

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Nikulin’s particularity in describing geography contributes to the country being fullfledged, not just an abstract land somewhere in the East, and to the feeling of a documentary
quality. He makes use of names, traditions, picturesque descriptions, and flowery phrases to
endow the country with reality. The readers see a chain of vivid landscapes and cityscapes and
learn something new, including some words. Here is an example of a spectacular description:
Крытые базары. Льется неисчерпаемый человеческий поток мимо темных,
глубоких ниш, наполненных товарами. Все сожжено солнцем. Только ткани,
которые еще не видели солнца, под осыпающимися сводами базара сохраняют свои
цвета, и луч, изредка падающий сквозь трещину, в один миг превращает их в
золотые, драгоценные вышивки.
Индусы, персы, тюрки, афганцы и в этой пляшущей, кипящей толпе медленные
верблюды с колыхающимися вьюками, ослики, передвигающие стройные, тонкие
ножки под тяжелыми мешками, кони горцев в серебряных, бирюзовых уздечках и
кони горожан в английской упряжи. Монотонно поют нищие, обнажая язвы, визжат
и воют бродячие псы, валяющиеся под ногами, трещит мотоцикл, и рядом, на пороге
мечети, зажимая пальцами уши, надрываясь, кричит полуголый дервиш: “Алла
акбер” – велик аллах. Все пропитано из века в век застоявшимся сладким запахом –
это розовые лепестки, увядающие в корзинах, пряности, синий сладкий дымок
опиума из караван‑сараев.
Indoor bazaars. The inexhaustible human stream flows past dark, deep niches filled
with merchandise. Everything is scorched by the sun. Only the fabrics that have not yet
seen the sun retain their colors under the crumbling vaults of the bazaar, and a ray of
sunlight that now and then falls through a crack, instantly turning them into precious golden
embroideries.
Indians, Persians, Turki, Afghani and, in this dancing, boiling crowd – slow camels
with rocking bundles, little donkeys who move their slender, thin legs under heavy sacks,
horses of mountaineers in silver and turquoise bridles and horses of city dwellers in English
harness. The paupers sing monotonously and bare their sores, street dogs that get in
everyone’s way shrill and howl, a motorcycle rattles, and a half-naked dervish stands at the
doorway of a mosque, his fingers stuffed into his ears, and crying, at the top of his lungs,
Allah akbar – God is great. Everything is steeped in the scent that has been lingering for
centuries: rose petals withering in baskets, spices, sweet blue opium smoke from
caravanserai.
Rose petals, camel caravans, elephants with silver-plated tusks and other accouterments
of the fairy tale East do not feel like a decoration used to add extra interest to the book while the
gist remains European. Not only details of cityscape or clothing, but the events, too, show a

71
culture different from that of the author’s own: for example, the protagonist, Abdu-Rakhim, is
killed by a rival tribe.
Even though Soviet Russia famously waged war on religion, especially in its early years,
Islam in this novel is portrayed in neutral, sometimes even reverent, tones18
. Religion is not
regarded by Nikulin as something that is necessarily foreign to a revolutionized state, which is in
line with the idea that Soviets do not impose their norms onto others. The new government plans
to transform the country but does not ban religion.
Though Nikulin enjoyed describing the exotic country, immersing the reader in a colorful
environment, more important from the point of view of the plot are those events dismantling the
monarchy and, to some extent, the way of life so meticulously described. After the success of the
revolution, people in Giulistan are given new laws. Note that those laws do not imply
westernization – even to the extent of morphing into something like Russia. The punishment for
disobeying the rules are nothing that a modern democratic state would use, but remind one of a
traditional Eastern ruler exacting violence upon those who dared disobey his commands:
– Я говорю! Должно положить конец нашим спорам! Старое правительство
поддерживало пламя вражды, ему было выгодно, когда между джемшиди и курдами
кровь.
Я говорю! Первых, кто обнажит оружие, я сотру с лица земли, я уничтожу ваши
стада огнем из воздуха, я смету ваши становища и разрушу могилы предков.
Я говорю! Мы пришли к вам, чтобы погасить старые распри, дать вам труд,
мир и свободу! Идите с миром!… Помните, что я сказал вам.
18 For example, when Abdu-Rakhim is introduced, he is described as follows:
“Человек крови пророка, стройный и смуглый, с сединой в висках, с
подстриженными усами; розовые губы, а зубы перекусывают проволоку. Одевается
лучше королевского атташе, но на нем нет нитки, сотканной чужестранцами.” (A
man of the Prophet’s blood, dark and slender, with graying temples and trimmed
mustache; pink lips, and teeth that cut wire. He dresses better than the royal attache but
does not wear a single thread woven by foreigners.) His being “of the Prophet’s blood”
is one more reason to admire him, rather than an excuse to criticize religion or even
elitism.

72
– I speak! It behoveth to put an end to our disputes. The old government kept the
flame of feud alive, it benefited from blood between Jamshidi and Kurds.
I speak! I will obliterate the first ones who bare their arms from the face of the earth,
I will destroy your herds with the fire from the air, I will sweep off your encampments and
destroy the graves of your ancestors.
I speak! We came to you to extinguish old arguments, to give you labor, peace and
freedom! Go in peace!... Remember what I told you.
The curious contrast between promising and ordering peace and the threat of ruthless,
disproportionate punishment and destruction does not occur to the speaker – and the narrator
does not dwell on it either. Giulistan remains a traditional, Eastern country, and the Soviets do
not impose their rules. They support the revolution and are eager to build relations, but
Giulistan’s fate is to be decided by Giulistanis.
That is the ultimate difference between the two powers vying over the influence on
Giulistan. The British do not care about the interest of the people. During the monarchy, they
regarded them as something (not someone even) utterly unimportant, existing only in
relationship to those in power and standing in their way:
то, что обязано было уступать дорогу, почтительно приветствовать высоких
гостей из посольства и ловить на лету мелкую серебряную монету, которую
бросали из окна посольских карет в дни праздников.
that which had to make way, respectfully greet high guests from the embassy and,
on holidays, catch silver change thrown from the embassy carriages.
When, after the revolution, the representative of the British meets with the head of the
new government, his main grievance is the destruction of the hierarchy : “ужаснее всего то, что
он говорил со мной как равный с равным” (the most horrible is that he spoke with me as if we
were equals).
And what do the Soviets do after the revolution? They issue a “дружественная нота” (a
friendly diplomatic note), that is, express the same sentiment of equality that the representative
of Britain found so disturbing. However, other than that document, received from an official at

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the border, the reader sees no evidence of the USSR taking any part in the new government’s
dealings. Indeed, the reader is not aware of a single Soviet person in the transformed country.
Such is the extent of the Soviets’ non-involvement in Giulistani politics that even though
the secret document is believed to have been sent to the USSR and then back to Giulistan, it had,
in fact, not left the country at all. Thus, the Soviets do not participate in the revolution and
cannot be accused of pursuing their own interests. The Giulistani revolution is initiated by the
Giulistani themselves and for their own benefit. Rather than annexing Giulistan or trying to gain
access to its natural resources, the Soviets just inspire, with their own example, a revolution and
then gallantly retire. By extension, the reader can conclude that similar independence could be
granted to any other Eastern country that chooses to join the Soviets – something that Britain
would never give them. As with Krushenie, this hope of revolution spreading across the country
borders is an example of 1920s trend of internationalism and Paperny’s “horizontality”.
The contrast between the British and the Soviet principles of foreign politics, between
shameless exploitation of other countries and supportive non-involvement makes Nikakikh
sluchainosteĭ a mighty piece of political propaganda. Since the novel was published in Russian,
it is obvious that it was created for Soviet readers, not for Afghanis, and that it was not designed
to improve the USSR’s image abroad. Nikulin’s goal was to explain the USSR’s foreign politics
to its own citizens, to ensure they understand that their country does not impose their own regime
on their neighbors or plan to benefit from their riches. In case someone realizes that, just like its
Western rivals, the USSR tries to win a minor country’s friendship, they will be assured that the
only reason of such interest is a selfless wish to help other peoples live a better life.
Approaches to History. Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ is an adventure novel, but, unlike most
adventure novels, it has little room for chance. Adventures are normally understood as something

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unexpected and unforeseen, but the title rejects any “chances”, or “accidents.” “No chances” is a
phrase one of the British officials says after the secret document is signed, meaning that no
accident should be allowed to happen that would thwart the plan. That is precisely what happens
soon after that: Abdu-Rakhim steals the document because it was carelessly left on the table,
because he was an excellent gymnast, and because the guard did not notice him. It is thanks to
publishing the document that the revolutionaries gained support of the masses and, ultimately,
won. That could be seen as one of such accidents that the British were trying to avoid.
But that interpretation would be at odds with the Soviet approach to history. Giulistan’s –
or any other country’s – ousting a colonial regime and gaining independence could not be an
accident. The genre of a highly readable adventure novel does not allow for historiosophical
reflections, so there is no explicit explanation why a monarchy had to be demolished and what
forces were at play, but, judging by the plot, chance is not the engine of change. While it is
indeed Abdu-Rakhim who begins the chain of rapidly happening fateful events, neither the
narrator nor characters hail him as the main contributor or “father” of the revolution.
Another proof that chance is not behind major historical events is the abundance of preplanned events that happen smoothly. For example, the reader might not be expecting the
Giulistan-bound train to be stopped by Basmachi – otherwise, they would not enjoy the novel as
much – but the attack is pre-arranged. A deadly conflict happening during the historical
reconciliation of two enemy tribes is explained not by Abdu-Rakhim’s tough luck or the savage
ways of “militant tribes”, but by the British bribing the enemy and by Abdu-Rakhim’s refusing
to believe that the enemy might break their word. Again, the reader might be surprised and even
frustrated, seeing the protagonist killed in the middle of the book – but from the point of view of
the events in the story, it could have been foreseen.

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Unlike his British counterparts, Abdu-Rakhim is attracted to political power because of
his love for his people and justice, not out of a longing for wealth. The territory, the province of
Lar, that for a short time he takes power over, is to become an Eastern utopia. In his speech, he
promises that his rule would be based on “truth, freedom and enlightenment”, that laws that
oppress peasants will be rescinded, and announces the end of tribal and religious feuds. That
could be the end of the story – but this attempt to revolutionize a part of Giulistan falls flat,
because the British cunningly exploit the very feud that Abdu–Rakhim hoped to abolish, and also
because such denouement would have undesired ideological implications. If one can singlehandedly revolutionize the country, then it is a person, not the masses, who is responsible for
major changes in history – which would be at odds with the Soviet professed ideology and its
glorification of masses. It would also mean that it only takes one rebel to overturn a regime and,
consequently, that the same could happen with the pro-Soviet regime.
From the point of view of the plot, the reason this particular hero did not win is because
of his noble nature. Encountering his archenemy Percy Gift passing out in a bout of fever, AbduRakhim offers him water, instead of taking advantage and getting rid of the man, which
eventually could have saved his life. Needless to say, that gallantry is not appreciated: as soon as
Gift regains consciousness, he attempts to shoot his savior. Ultimately, Abdu-Rakhim dies a
heroic, if somewhat foolish, death, trying to pacify two rivaling tribes because he trusts his
enemy’s promise to come to the meeting unarmed, and the promise is not honored. It could be
that, for Nikulin, such a man with his magnanimity and trust in people was not fit to be a real
ruler of a revolutionary country. More importantly, killing Abdu-Rakhim helps Nikulin to
eschew accusations of presenting revolution as a romantic episode, a deed of one man. The lone
hero may be romantic and admirable but making him solely responsible for such a tectonic event

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would go against the grain of Soviet ideology. And, in case anyone was doubting the superiority
of Soviet ideology, Nikulin shows the reader snippets of life in Soviet Russia.
Glimpses of Soviet Russia. Giulistan is described as a foreign, exotic country. But Soviet
Russia is also seen from a foreign point of view as a closed country that you need to be granted a
visa to enter, making it even more enticing, especially for spies engaging in anti-Soviet activities.
Even Russia is not saved from British intrusiveness, and the reader is indirectly encouraged to be
on guard, since it turns out that even a manicurist can be an enemy agent. In Paperny’s
framework, these qualities are harbingers of “Kultura-2”: “В культуре 2 повсюду возникают
непереходимые границы” (In culture 2, uncrossable borders appear everywhere). But overall
the novel still belongs to “Kultura-1”, since internationalism in it is more pronounced than
isolationism.
We see estranged Russia through the eyes of Westerners, Lucy and Percy. Their
impressions have a documentary quality, since it is not “the reader’s” perception, but that of an
independent observer. In that sense, the novel is not only a Middle Eastern travelog, but also an
idealized travelog to Russia of the NEP era.
Soviet Russia is portrayed in optimistic tones: see, for example, the description of a
summer evening in Neskuchny Garden that the GPU man Zhukov enjoys with his fiancee Olga:
“Зазывной” оркестр гремит у ворот, под грибом на круглой эстраде; но
зазывать, в сущности, не надо — аллеи, поляны, склоны, чащи светят сквозь зелень
белыми ситцевыми платьями, защитными гимнастерками, картузами и
остроконечными шлемами.
По серебряно-алой реке стрекочут катера, подвозя из города новых, в небе
над зелеными верхушками углом вереницей перелетных птиц стрекочут восемь
самолетов, летящих от аэродрома. Кружатся, звеня стеклярусом, карусели, ныряют
вверх и вниз лодки качелей и взрывами-всплесками взлетает смех от чертова
колеса в полосатом павильоне.

77
The “beckoning” orchestra rings out by the gate, under the umbrella on a round
stage; but no beckoning is actually needed: in the green of the lanes, lawns, hills, thickets
one can see white cotton dresses, khaki cotton shirts, visored caps and peaked helmets.
Power boars are chattering on the silver and scarlet river, bringing more crowds
from the city; in the sky, above the green angular tops, eight planes on their way from the
airport chatter like migratory birds, The merry-go-rounds spin and jingle the glass beads,
the boats of the swings plunge up and down, and the laughter from the Devil’s wheel in
the striped pavilion shoots up in bursts and splashes.
Perfectly happy crowds are enjoying their leisure time, as if in a utopia that merges
technical advances and urbanity with nature. What could be a better moment to show the joy of
being a Soviet citizen? Of course, the object of propaganda are not “веселые и сытые
иностранцы” (cheerful and well-fed foreigners), who also stroll in the park and approvingly
look at Olga, but the readers, who must have other, less joyous, experiences of life in the country
(for one, they might not be “well-fed”). The Neskuchny Garden episode allows them to take an
estranged view on their own country, to admire the harmonious environment created by the new
government and reassures them that the Soviet project is fine and that being a Soviet is not all
about toil and struggle.
Even though life in Russia is described as peaceful and joyful, and whatever trouble is
there is the doing of imperialists, there are signs of recent turmoil. Arriving to Odessa, Lucy sees
buildings damaged during the war. Another episode takes place at an orphanage. The episode
apparently made it to the movie based on the novel: on a still from Zhizn’ iskusstva (no. 46,
1923, p. 17) we see a young woman, presumably Olga, sitting at the piano, surrounded by a
crowd of children, who, judging by their very short hair, are orphans. Their being orphans, in
turn, suggests that their parents perished during the revolution and civil war. It is not a utopia yet.

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But it will be. Meeting Olga, Lucy, who, in her early thirties, is repeatedly described as
“aging”, becomes jealous of the former’s youth and beauty:
На лестнице они стояли друг против друга — стареющая и еще
пленительная женщина и крепкая, розовая девушка с высокой, вздымающейся от
бега грудью, с кокетливо завязанным узлом золотистых волос. Две женщины,
чужие и никогда не встречавшиеся, но связанные странным чувством — одна
завидовала молодости и доброй прелести другой.
They stood face to face on the staircase: the aging but still seductive woman and
hearty pink girl with high breasts, heaving after running, and golden hair tied in a flirty
knot. Two women, strangers who had never met each other but tied with a strange
feeling: one of them was jealous of the other’s youth and sweet charm.
It is tempting to read Lucy as the old, Western world, unhappy, jaded, and ultimately
perishing, and cheerful Olga as a representative of Soviet Russia, full of vitality, her life just
starting.
Figure 4. A Still from the Movie Diplomaticheskaia Taĭna.

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Screen adaptation. Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ was the basis for a film, Diplomaticheskaia
taĭna (A Diplomatic Mystery).
19 Occasionally, both titles Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ and
Diplomaticheskaia taĭna are used to refer to the novel20
. Unfortunately, the film was lost, but
some information and stills are still available.
Boris Chaikovskiĭ’s Diplomaticheskaia taĭna was shot by Sevzapkino, later known as
Lenfilm, in the summer season of 1923 on the Southern Coast of Crimea (Kino-gazeta 1923 no.
10), an appropriate location for its Eastern plot. It was released in December (Kino-gazeta no.
14), shortly before the novel. This unusual arrangement led to reviewers introducing the book as
the novel on which a film was based, not the other way around. It also meant that someone could
go see the movie and then read the book, which increased their exposure to propaganda. That is
precisely what Sergeĭ Yutkevich, a critic from Zrelishcha, did. Playing on the title of the novel,
he denounces the movie as a “fatal accident”, since it turned a “good novel” into a bad film (6–
7). Other critics also thought the movie was a flop (“Sevzapkino (Leningrad)” 23; L. R.;
Lebedev).
Kinogazeta published a “libretto” (Libretto to Diplomaticheskaia taĭna) that tells the plot
of the movie – at the time, theatrical terms, like “acts”, were often used for talking about cinema.
If the review is accurate – which is not guaranteed – the movie’s main difference from the novel
is its condensed character list and the fact that Giulistan turns into a Soviet Republic in the end:
“восторжествовала советская власть” (the Soviet government prevailed). That ending is
19 In addition, in 1927, Roman-Gazeta published an abridged version of the novel with crude
illustrations. This combination of textual and visual served as an inverted silent movie, with text
taking up most of the space and visuals reduced to a few pictures. One of the admirers of the
novel (in its abridged version) was young Lev Kassil’ (Nikulin, Miortvaia zyb’), who a few years
later published his own tale of adventures in a fictional country, Shvambraniia.
20 For example, in E. Stanchinskaia’s review from Vestnik Knigi.

80
important: it is one thing to be a friend of the Soviets and another to be Soviet too21. The latter
suggests that the USSR directly exerts its influence over Giulistan and wants to incorporate it. In
that case Giulistan does not become independent, but trades one empire for another. Thus Soviets
lose an important propaganda asset of being presented as a selfless benevolent power, who
encourages changes, but lets other countries decide their own fate. However, instead they gain a
new one: the USSR “expands,” thus creating an impression it is more powerful and extensive
than it was at the time.
It is interesting that one commendatory review (V-shteĭn 1923) does not mention the
story being set in a fictional place while describing the film’s political premise at all. Actually,
the reviewer does not use the word “country” either: instead, he says “народ” and “народности”
(“people” and “peoples”). That might mean that for him (and potentially for other critics and
viewers) the fictionality of the place was not important. Location, perhaps, was not very
important either: the director of Sevzapkino referred to the movie as describing “an episode from
a combat with Georgia.” (Zlat. 23) And if the director of the company shooting the movie got it
wrong, probably the identity of the “source” country was not something the creators focused on.
The movie is described as “the first Soviet film with a “detective” plot” (Petr V-shteĭn
1924). One of the stars of the movie, Maksimov, played a detective who was ultimately shot (V.
17) – even though there were no detectives in the original text. A journal page with an ad for the
film shows a well-dressed man smoking his pipe, his head tilted pensively. That photo (sourced
from Kino-Teatr.ru), together with the title of the movie, can indicate an attempt to lure the
21 I presume that “восторжествовала советская власть” (the Soviet rule prevailed) means that
Giulistan became a part of the USSR; however, one of the novel reviewers also writes about
“Soviet power” taking over in Giulistan. That could be a mistake – or a different understanding
of what being Soviet is (Stanchinskaia 117).

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viewers to the movie theater by promising them something akin to Sherlock Holmes stories, but
feeding them a very different message: instead of applauding the superiority of one man’s
acumen over lawlessness the goal now was to promote the superiority of the Soviet regime over
imperialism.
Figure 5. A Film Poster for the Movie Diplomaticheskaia Taĭna.
Conclusion.
The novel Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ was set in a fictional country, closely modeled after
Afghanistan, who had just gained its independence and signed a friendship treaty with the USSR.
The international, or “horizontal” trend of that time encouraged creating stories that explored

82
other countries’ internal and external affairs, with a focus on imminent revolution. Creating
Giulistan, a double of the original country, allowed the author to modify events to better suit the
political agenda, while enjoying the aura of authenticity.
As in Krushenie, the political message is delivered under the guise of an adventure novel,
the genre that normally puts entertainment before more serious goals. The propagandist message
of Nikulin’s novel is more sophisticated, since it does not bluntly divide people into “good” and
“bad” camps, but allows for in-betweeners. However, as in Krushenie, there could be no doubts
in the author’s position: imperialism exploits smaller countries for the benefit of a handful of
immoral people and sets obstacles on a country’s path to socialism, while Soviets selflessly
support the freedom of thousands. This fictional country’s dismantling monarchy is to be seen as
a step to the ultimate dream of the early 1920s, where the whole world is to become socialist.
Krushenie respubliki Itl’ and Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ are examples of the early Soviet
culture’s penchant for internationalism and “horizontality”, with its interest in what is happening
beyond the USSR borders. For that viewpoint, a nation with any history, culture, and even
religion is able and welcome to dismantle an oppressive system and join the Soviets. A
revolution is never imposed but arises organically within the nation itself. With the demise of
“horizontality”, interest in international relationships and the narrative of world revolution, there
seems to be less interest in creating fictional countries, since the reasons fictional countries are
created are directly related to those trends. We see hints of internationalism waning in Nikulin’s
novel, where the borders of USSR are not easily penetrated and where there is a hint of paranoia
of foreigners.

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Chapter 2: Fictional Countries in Russia Abroad: Prince i
tantsovshchitsa (The Prince and The Dancer) by Nikolaĭ BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ and Podvig (Glory) by Vladimir Nabokov.
Introduction.
Lavrenev and Nikulin’s novels treat revolutions as benign forces and employ fictional
countries to show the struggle to dismantle monarchy and promise a bright future ahead, in line
with the official Soviet ideology of the early 1920s. This chapter studies Nikolaĭ BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ ’s Prints i tantsovshchitsa (1927) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Glory (1930), works
that represent the opposite point of view. Both authors are Russian émigré writers of the First
Wave who deal with the issues of exile, nostalgia, and revolution with the help of fictional
countries. Both are unapologetically anti-Soviet, and the countries created by them bear
resemblance to Russia. Revolution changes those countries, stripping them of the culture and
humanity and plunging them into darkness.
By analyzing these two works together I do not suggest that they are of equal artistic
value. Instead, studying a work of Nabokov, a world-recognized author, alongside one of an
author who is long forgotten even in Russia, one can better distinguish qualities that are related
to the peculiarities of fictional geographies in émigré literature rather than to either author’s
preferences and ideas. Fictional countries are not numerous in the literature of Russia abroad, so
I was unable to pair Nabokov with someone of equal “value.” Nor would that be
necessary: one’s analysis of a literary motif would be needlessly skewed and their subject matter
limited were they to focus on the canonized authors. Perhaps it is this tendency to focus on works

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of canonized authors that can explain why the topic of fictional countries is so unexplored: it has
been used extensively, but FC narratives seldom make it to the canon, and, consequently, into
scholarly writings.
According to Mark Raeff, Russia Abroad as a society, rather than a number of
disconnected Russians, existed in 1919–1939, disappearing with WW2 (7), a period including
the years both novels came out. The unique position of émigré writers gave them an advantage:
there was little control as far as their creative life was concerned, and “[f]or the first time in
Russian history the intellectual, the writer, and the artist enjoyed absolute freedom, unhampered
by censorship. (...) Nor did the Russians Abroad abroad have to pay attention to a foreign public
opinion” (197–198).
Specifically, in the case of Nabokov and Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ , that freedom meant that
the authors could lambast the Soviet Union as much as they pleased. Consequently, the reason
they modified their geographies to include fictional countries could not be an attempt to hide the
true object of their criticism by calling it by a false name (one of the reasons Lavrenev used
“Nautilia” and not “Great Britain”): the émigré community would have no reason to object to
anti-Soviet sentiment and would, conversely, have embraced it.
Could it be that the authors were writing with Soviet readers in mind and wanted to fool
the Soviet censorship by camouflaging the anti-Soviet thrust, hoping the book would be read in
the USSR and spark anti-revolutionary sentiment? In the first post-revolutionary years that
would be technically possible, as “the [Soviet ] authorities made no attempt to prevent the
importation of books printed abroad” (Kenez 246-247). So theoretically Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ,
whose novel was published in 1928, might have hoped to reach the Soviet audience. But the fact

85
that he also openly castigates Soviet Russia in Prints i tantsovshchitsa makes clear that obscuring
his anti-Soviet stance was not a concern.
Nabokov’s Glory was written in 1931, at the time when the émigrés were already isolated
from their home country, “thanks to the ruthless and efficient way in which the Soviet police
imposed domestic control and sealed off the borders with the outside world.” (Raeff 9) That
means that Nabokov, too, could not be hoping to have his novel smuggled as anti-Soviet
propaganda. Moreover and more importantly, anyone familiar with Nabokov’s worldview knows
that he distanced himself from politics (Dragunoiu 3, see also Chapter 3 on Bend Sinister), and
writing anything with the goal of changing a political situation or the reader’s political affiliation
would be at odds with his oeuvre.
Consequently, the two writers’ decision to use fictional countries could not be explained
by their wish to circumvent censorship. It follows that there should be other reasons for creating
fictional countries other than denouncing the Soviet regime in a discreet way.
A framework that helps to explain the need of introducing a fictional country in émigré
literature is that of “triangulation.” “Triangulation” is a concept introduced by Greta Slobin, a
scholar of Russian émigré writers. She argues that the émigré authors, who faced the task of
creating “a distinct national legacy” abroad, found themselves in a system of reference points
that was a triangle of three contradicting entities. The three point of the triangle were:
the cultures and literatures of pre-revolutionary Russia,
the culture and literature of Soviet Russia
the cultures and literatures and Western host countries (2013, 14.)
Soviet vs. Émigré: Iconoclastic vs. Traditional. The conflict between the Soviet and
émigré cultures was due to the fact that most of the intellectuals of the First Wave were

86
conservative in terms of culture (Slobin 2013 29–30) and valued “cultural continuity” (35) ,
which was obviously incompatible with the iconoclastic stance of the Soviets. The émigrés were
“conscious of presenting a viable alternative to the Soviet cultural tradition” (22).
Comparing literary scenes in Soviet Russia and Russia abroad, Slobin states that the
Soviet Union (more specifically, the Krasnaya tselina journal) regarded writers who emigrated
as having committed “a form of radical estrangement from Russia and its literary life” (Slobin
2005, 700) Conversely, there was a feeling of “[the émigré community] estrangement from the
language in the homeland, which was undergoing drastic modernization and Sovietization”
(709). She also notes that after 1925, the “dialogue [between the two Russias] became onesided”, because in the USSR talking about émigré writers was, from now on, discouraged
(708), the Soviets essentially refusing to be a part of the triangle.
Émigré vs. European. But being culturally opposite to the Soviets whose identity, as I
have shown in the first chapter, was to a large extent created by juxtaposing themselves to the
capitalist West, did not mean that the diaspora necessarily embraced their new, European
existence. Since the émigrés wanted to “safeguard the classical national tradition (Slobin 2013,
15), the émigré culture by definition imagined itself as being different from European.
Thus émigrés, and more specifically, those involved in culture, were opposed to both
their ex-compatriots and their European neighbors, unable to identify themselves with either. The
lack of a physical space exclusive to Russian émigrés made the process of creating a new,
émigréi dentity a tricky one.
I propose studying the geographies of the two novels as a way to visualize the three
conflicting points of the triangle and facilitate the creation of a new identity. In Slobin’s theory
of triangulation, the three points of the triangle correspond to just two physical locations (Soviet

87
Russia and Europe, the latter coinciding with Russia Abroad). This means that three conflicting
entities, when put on a map, do not form a clear picture – or even a triangle. The Soviets live in
Soviet Russia; the Westerners in the West, and the émigrés, as follows from the term “Russia
Abroad”, are torn between the two geographical entities. In other words, Slobin's ternary system
is impossible to visualize without an introduction of a “third” space, which in the case of
Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ and Nabokov is a fictional country.
This third geographical point, introduced by both Nabokov and Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ,
allows for a spatial differentiation between pre- and post-revolutionary Russia and a clearer
visualization of the conflict. The diagrams below show how the real-life binary geography is
thus transformed into a ternary system, thus offering émigré authors and readers
a moremmediate representation of their situation and a way to process conflicting emotions
about their homeland.
In Nabokov’s Glory, the fictional country of Zoorliandia is obviously modeled after
Soviet Russia, but the two do not fully correspond. Thus Nabokov creates a three-point system:
Europe, where the protagonists live after leaving their homeland; the Russia of their childhood
and youth, and a fictionalized embodiment of Soviet Russia, the nightmare land of Zoorliandia.
By conflating Soviet Russia with an imaginary land, Nabokov questions the former’s reality.
Zoorliandia allows the émigré protagonists to process their painful feelings, gain a sense of
control and power, visualize the new life in their home country, bring them closer together and,
for Martyn, to satisfy a thirst for travels and adventures.

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Figure 6. Fictional Countries as Facilitators of Triangulation.

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Meanwhile, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ uses a different triad: Europe, where the protagonist
lives in exile, Soviet Russia, represented through the unscrupulous secretary of the Soviet
embassy in Paris, and a fictionalized embodiment of pre-revolutionary Russia, the country of
Distria. By equating pre-revolutionary Russia with a fictional country, the writer emphasizes its
now-questionable existential status. Soviet Russia, judged by what little information is given
about it, is a land where the old ethical and aesthetic norms are not valued. The introduction of
Distria helps the author to contain his nostalgia for his lost homeland in a place different from
the space occupied by his enemy. Moreover, it enables him to conduct a political thought
experiment and, by writing an alternative history, to avenge those who destroyed the prerevolutionary way of life.
A Fairy Tale for Russian Émigrés: Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s Prints i tantsovshchitsa.
Published in 1927 in Rīga, the novel Prints i tantsovshchitsa (The Prince and the
Dancer) written by an émigré Russian writer Nikolai Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ tells the story of a
prince of Distria who escaped from the perils of revolution in his home country, emigrated to
Paris, and found a calling quite unorthodox for an ex-royal. Prints i tantsovshchitsa modifies
Ruritanian romance to be relevant in the post-revolutionary world, where Russian nobility and
monarchists flocked to Paris and other European cities to start a new life, often less appealing
than the one they enjoyed before the Revolution. Understandably, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ as a
Russian émigré, did not dream about world revolution; he considered even an isolated one to be
evil. While his Soviet counterparts aspired to change all the world to what they deemed the best
way of life, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ as a writer had so little optimism that in his novel he did not
attempt to restore his preferential way of life to even a single country. Ostensibly extolling

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monarchy and decrying communism, the novel is, at its core, little concerned with determining
the best political regime, the author being interested instead in the personal stories of his
protagonists and in the struggle of aristocracy vs. commoners and the “new money.”
One more forgotten name in the history of Russian literature, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ was
once immensely popular. It is estimated that in the early 1910s, he was the most popular author
in Russia (Lepekhin). Aleksandr Nevachovich fondly describes him as a darling of prerevolutionary children and young adults, “the king of the Russian ‘adventure’ novel.”
In 1930, just a few years after the novel discussed in this chapter was published,
Aleksandr Kuprin characterized Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s writing as having “bright, garish
colors,” without “undertones,” and his protagonists being blessed with all the riches and good
qualities in the world. Yet, even acknowledging that black-and-white approach, Kuprin professed
his love for Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s oeuvre (Kuprin a). Interestingly, in his 1904-1905 reviews,
Kuprin was much less benevolent, lambasting his prose for its “flamboyant and formulaic style”
and bad command of language. He admitted that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ is popular, but among
lower classes. He even went so far as to accuse him of pornography, and he mentioned BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ’s penchant for referring to famous living people in his prose, which set a mauvais
tone (Kuprin b). Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ must have learned his lesson, since all the major
characters in Prints i tantsovshchitsa are fictional; however, judging by the novel, his love for
“bright, garish colors” endured.
Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ is one of those writers whose life story cannot but influence one’s
perception of their art. He emigrated from Russia after the revolution, and his political views
ultimately led to him accepting Nazi ideology. He was more than just a passive Nazi supporter:
he actually worked for German propaganda (Lepekhin). This knowledge colors the reading of

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Prints i tantsovshchitsa, especially due to the fact that the novel features two, perhaps three
rascals who are Jewish, and also because people’s descent is used as an infallible way of
explaining their qualities.
Plot. Jason (Язон) is an ex-prince and heir of Distria, a country recently transformed by
a revolution. He lives in Paris and, as the novel begins, has just spent his last savings on lunch. In
order to earn his livelihood, he applies for a vacant position as an equestrian in Barbassan Circus.
Soon after, he meets his ex-aid-de-campe, Mavros, now a garçon at a restaurant. With Jason’s
newly earned money, he saves Mavros from the disgrace of being a garçon. Things look hopeful
since Mavros has family jewels of the ex-royals, including the famous necklace made of twentythree Egyptian scarabs. They plan to sell it and live happily together, however, they have more
trouble coming.
When Jason was still a prince, he fell in love with a dancer, Medea (Медея). Their
passionate affair was brought to an end by jealous Meksi, a powerful banker. To drive a wedge
between the lovers, he bribed Medea’s servant to suggest that Medea ask him for the scarab
necklace. Meksi correctly calculated that Jason would never give his family heirloom away.
Furious, Medea left the prince and telegraphed Meksi, who became her new lover.
The desire for the necklace Meksi instilled in Medea backfired: now he had to get it. No
money could buy it, so he started a revolution in Distria. He wanted to start a revolution anyway
because he would profit from it. The revolution started, but the necklace slipped away.
Back in Paris, Jason and Mavros are about to take the jewels to the bank but discover
they are gone and correctly attribute it to Meksi’s minions. Medea gets the coveted necklace but
is not satisfied: since it is stolen, there is nowhere she can show it off. Her hatred for the prince
grows stronger and stronger, and she spends her time devising ways of humiliating the prince

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and his new lover, Princess Dubenskaia, also an emigrée and a circus artist. Finally, Jason’s
friends decide that it is time to get rid of Meksi. During a circus performance, Fuego, a cowboy,
“accidentally” throws his lasso around Meksi and drags him around to suffocate him. A happy
ending ensues: the banker is dead, Medea is horrified and returns the necklace, the prince and his
friends gain money, and no one will bother them anymore.
Distria: The Elusive Twin Sister of Russia. Distria is the novel’s stand-in for Russia,
which is obvious both because of the author’s own life story and because Distrian history is
explicitly compared to Russian. However, Distria is not modeled after its real-life parallel, which
supports the idea that it was introduced as a “third” country to help émigré readers make sense
of their situation and help them process their feelings.The author does not offer many details
about Distria, allowing the readers to use their imagination and more easily identify it with their
home country. Distria is just a setting, a necessary one—otherwise, Jason would not be a
prince—but not important enough to warrant much attention. Still, some peculiarities arise.
The actual story is set in Paris, and as it develops, the reader mostly sees Distria filtered
through the prince’s or narrator’s recollections, or through their bitter criticism of those who
seized power in the country. This gives Distria a nostalgic tint. Consider, for example, this
fragment:
Он видел пышные равнины, бегущие к подножию гор, видел эти самые
горы, нежно-синеющие, и тоска тяжелым камнем давила грудь, и туман слез
мутной сеткой застилал зрение.
He saw lush flatlands, stretching to the foothills of the mountains, saw those very
mountains, colored in subtle blue, and yearning weighted down his chest as a heavy
stone, and the fog of tears clouded his vision with a blurred net.
This lush mountainous landscape, seen through the eyes of a tearful exile, is not what is
normally thought of as a Russian landscape. Equally non-Russian is the capital, Veola,

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introduced as “скромная столица Дистрии” (Distria’s modest capital), and defined mainly by
what it does not have (cafe chantants and music halls are absent), thus being the total opposite of
Petrograd. So, to represent a fallen empire, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ, paradoxically, creates a small,
backward country, and uses a mountainous land as a stand-in for the predominantly flat Russian
empire of his reader’s memories.
Reading the novel through the triangular lens suggested by Slobin, I see Distria as not
just a twin of Russia, but as a physical embodiment of its pre-revolutionary self. By giving
Distria such non-Russian features as a mountainous terrain and a provincial-looking capital, the
writer ensures that the country is distinct from its real-world prototype. Its introduction allows
the writer and his fellow émigrés to process the complex emotion of longing infused with hatred.
The longing, via the prince, is directed towards Distria, while the hatred – towards Soviet Russia.
The pain of conflicting emotions is thus alleviated, since each of them was channeled to one
specific place, a division impossible in real life.
Proper names as clues. The name “Distria” might suggest Istria, a region in the Balkans,
and the Balkans is a region that is often featured in stories about fictional kingdoms
(Goldsworthy). It also suggests “district,” which hints at the country’s backwater nature. Both
aspects are important, since the plot is a riff on Ruritanian romances, and Distria’s provincial
nature is related to its old-fashioned values, so foreign to those of the story’s villains.
Apart from the name of the country and its capital, there are few Distrian names. Since
the reader does not hear the language, those names are the only evidence the reader can use to
guess what kind of language Distrians might be using. The names also help us narrow down the
location of the country: it is near Greece or under Greek influence, a region which, again,
connects the story with Ruritanian romances.

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The names of the two protagonists refer to the Greek myth of the Argonauts. The Greek
undertone is especially obvious since Medea’s last name, Fanaret, sounds similar to phanariote,
the term for an influential Greek bureaucrat who lived in Phanar, part of Constantinople, during
the Ottoman reign (Britannica). While not commonly known today, the word was used in Russia
in the 19th century; in 1879 Konstantin. Leontiev, a prominent critic, wrote that it was used as a
pejorative for Greek people. Thus, Medea’s last name has a negative sound, but, ironically, it
also hints at a respectable lineage, something that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ hardly considered when
choosing a name for a “plebeian” protagonist. The Greek overtones in the protagonist’s name
strengthen the impression that the setting is in the Balkans.
Jason is also a name with strong Greek connotations, bringing to mind the story of Jason
and the Argonauts; moreover, the prince is “герцог Родосский” (the Duke of Rhodes). The
“Rhodes” part invokes the Colossus of Rhodes—a comparison both flattering, since it implies
fame and grand scale, and dubious, since the word colossus is often used with “clay legs”—for
example, in Krushenie. In any case, this reference bolsters Jason’s “Greekness.”
Jason’s aide-de-camp is Anill Mavros, his last name sounding Greek (also the name of an
actual Greek island), and the first name vaguely suggestive of Hannibal, with all the heroic
connotations. There is a general Pirapido, whose name also sounds vaguely Greek (compare it to
piramide, pyrotechnics). Jason’s father was called Dogodar, which sounds Slavic, but is not
Russian (compare to Serbian “Božidar”). Another non-Russian Slavic reference appears when,
on the eve of the revolution, Jason meets the king of Serbia, which again suggests that Distria is
either Balkan or has close ties to it. These names — Jason, Anill, Pirapido, Dogodar — add some
exoticism to their characters, as does Jason’s appearance, which combines Eastern and Western
features.

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Extremely vague history, geography, culture, language. When one reads Prints and
tantsovshchitsa, it becomes obvious that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ admired everything with old
heritage, and Distria and its royal dynasty are both described as “древняя” (ancient). The name
of the dynasty, Атланы (the Atlans), refers us to the ancient myths and suggests strength. In
architecture, “atlants” is the term for figures supporting elements of the buildings (Loth), but the
name of the dynasty also hints at its ultimate and turbulent demise (the story of Atlantis). A
persnickety reader might wonder how a kingdom can exist for centuries without being devoured
by its more powerful neighbors or, conversely, gaining power and land. Later in the novel, the
reader finds that, until Jason’s father’s reign, the country was a “княжество” (princedom), which
makes its centuries-old existence even more doubtful. But the narrator does not expect us to
engage in political theories—what matters is that a venerable kingdom was destroyed.
Many centuries of Distrian history are condensed into just a few sentences. In passing,
Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ mentions that Jason fought in three wars, but what wars, the reader never
learns (though, given the year the novel was published, it is safe to assume that WW1 was one of
them). When the Distrian prime minister goes to Serbia, the reader does not learn anything new
about Distria’s international relations. The general’s task is described vaguely as “заключение
какого-то очень важного договора” (signing of some very important agreement). This
awkward “какой-то” [some], said by a general who must be capable of a more specific way of
describing documents, suggests that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ did not see the necessity of adding
details to make his country more vivid. That vagueness is not emphasized by BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ, and the narrative does not tease the reader with a lack of information as other FC
narratives do.

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Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ does not specify Distria’s location. Ruritanian novels, as outlined
by Richard Daly (40), unfold in locations that are exotic, but only mildly so. So does Prints i
tantsovshchitsa. Distria, in passing, is called “экзотическая” (exotic), but the reader learns
nothing that would warrant that adjective. It definitely does not refer to Distrian nature—the
country seems to lie in Europe, though it is not said directly: “в стороне от больших
европейских дорог лежало маленькое, но древнее королевство Дистрия” (the small, but
ancient kingdom of Distria lay far from the major European roads). The location – far from the
center of historical events – is a necessary stipulation for a lost land (Encyclopaedia of Fantasy).
The reader knows that Distria is not isolated from the world but has no idea what countries,
fictional or non-fictional, are its immediate neighbors.
When the revolution is unfolding and Medea arrives at the Distrian border, the bordering
country is referred to, but not named: “Держава, примыкающая к Дистрии, двинула на
всякий случай к границе войска” (The power bordering Distria sent the troops to the border
just in case.) This unwieldy phrase, “the power bordering Distria,” used instead of using just one
word naming the country directly, hints at Distria’s questionable existence, while creating a
feeling that Jason’s homeland is not isolated, but is a part of the political landscape. That is about
as much as Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ reveals about Distrian surroundings, however.
Since one of the driving forces behind the Distrian revolution is Meksi’s wish to exploit
the national resources, one can expect those resources to appear in the story, as oil rigs appeared
in Krushenie. However, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ never tells what those resources are. The only
hint about resources comes at the very end of the novel when the reader learns that among
property that was distributed between Meksi’s relatives after his death, there were “подземные и
наземные богатства” (underground and overground riches), which suggests the country had

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sources of minerals, oil or gas. Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ does not give more specific details,
though. A clever trick that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ uses to avoid giving us any details about how
exactly Meksi was going to benefit from the revolution is to bring up this topic in Meksi’s
conversation with Medea and have Meksi condescendingly say that he will not explain his plans
of growing rich to her because she would not understand it: “[в]се равно ваша прелестная
головка не вместит и не поймет сложных финансовых комбинаций” (anyway your pretty
head will be unable to contain and understand complicated financial combinations).
Distrian geography is barely outlined; its culture is just as schematic. The reader learns
nothing that makes Distria different from other countries. The only thing of an ethnological
nature the reader learns is a proverb: “как знать, чего не знаешь” (how would you know
something you do not know). But even that proverb is not Distrian: the phrase appears in Russian
prose of the 19th century, for example, in Ivan Turgenev’s Dnevnik lishnego cheloveka (The
Diary of the Unwanted Man), and is listed in a dictionary of Russian proverbs (Mokienko 379),
though currently, it is not widely used, if at all.
Language does not receive much attention either. Unlike Nabokov, who turned his Bend
Sinister into a linguistic playground, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ does not use the language as an
opportunity to make the country more tangible. The language, however, does come up: the
reader knows that Mavros speaks in the language of Distria when he recognizes his prince,
something that marks for the first time both as outsiders in the Parisian restaurant:
А затем у него вырвалась фраза на неведомом для всех окружающих языке, не
понятая никем, за исключением того, кому она предназначалась.
And then a phrase escaped him, a phrase in a language unfamiliar to all around him, not
understood by anyone except the person it was intended for.
After the reader has gone through four chapters of the book, this short dialogue finally
demasks the protagonist as the prince. Following that, the Distrian language is not mentioned

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again. It is not that Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ was linguistically deaf: French is mentioned several
times and serves as a marker of class: the villains’ minions speak terrible French, while Jason
“по-французски говорит хорошо” (speaks good French). This reluctance to create a language
shows the novel’s affinity with Krushenie, with its similarly makeshift culture.
Thus, the history of Distria is schematic, its geography vague, the customs unspecified,
the language disregarded. Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ uses none of the basic building blocks for
creating a fictional country. It looks as if Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ simply did not intend to create a
full-fledged country. It could be that he did not want the reader to get sucked into a different
story, to be distracted from the allusions to Russia and the émigrés’ plight. Another possibility is
that the author did not feel the need to give us a tour of the country, since the Distrian revolution,
the doing of a few greedy people, was in no way defined by the country as a whole or by its
historical processes. It also could be that, describing idiosyncrasies of Distrian culture, the
narrator would do what he avoids doing to the prince: making him a “spectacle” from an exotic
country, a subject of people’s vulgar curiosity.
A land left in the past. That utter scarcity of specific details makes Distria vague, which
is a disadvantage, meaning that an opportunity to engross the reader is lost, letting them instead
gloss over empty phrases instead of vividly imagining the country. The lack of imagery related to
Distria does, however, make sense, given that it is not quite a paradise lost. It is not a place
where Jason wants to return. It is a place he wants to forget. Since our main source of
information about Distria is Jason’s recollections that he tries to suppress, there is little the reader
can learn. When told about his homeland, Jason asks Mavros: “раз навсегда прошу тебя, не
напоминай мне о Дистрии. Я хочу забыть, что такое королевство когда-нибудь
существовало” (once and for all I ask you, do not remind me of Distria. I want to forget that

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such a kingdom has ever existed). In his mind, the prince attempts to distort the map of his
world, erasing his country from it. At the same time, in a metatextual twist, he makes the map
closer to the reader’s reality, where Distria, indeed, has never existed.
So Distria is left in the past. Barely described in the beginning, it nearly fades away as the
novel progresses. Since the prince is not interested in Distria’s new life, neither is the narrator,
thus the readers do not learn much about it either. And why should they care about Distria? They
are supposed to side with Jason, and Jason despises his ex-compatriots for betraying their
monarch. If Distria was more detailed the reader might begin to care about it – and would not be
able to side with Jason, who does not. The vagueness ensures the reader is focused on the
protagonists, not the setting.
Unlike the novels discussed in the previous chapter, this text is not looking into the
country’s future, be it optimistically or anxiously. There are no predictions, be they dystopian or
hopeful, regarding what happens next to Distria. The novel ends with a glimpse into the future,
but it is the future of a person (Jason) who has just vanquished his personal enemy, not the
enemy regime. But, since that regime no longer threatens him, he is not concerned about his exsubjects. Jason, too, could say with Sir Charles from Krushenie: “This rabble may drown as they
see fit.”
If the reader perceive Distria as a stand-in for Russia, that lack of interest in one’s land of
origin and focus on one’s personal future as opposed to that of the country can be seen as a
manifesto of an emigrant who gave up on his/her country and is instead focused on his/her
personal trajectory. While their ex-compatriots in the USSR were promoting happiness for the
millions (whether sincerely or not), an emigrant that the reader sees through BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ’s novel was not looking back or experiencing sorrow for those under the “yoke” of

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the Soviets. In the pro-Soviet novels analyzed, the protagonists, though crucial for the plot, are
secondary to the author’s interest in the country’s future. Conversely, this novel is highly
individualistic. From the three points of the triangle, described by Slobin, the protagonist chooses
the non-Russian one. Jason’s refusal to even remember his country is striking if the reader
remembers how, in the fateful dialogue leading to his break-up with Medea, he portrayed himself
as the man of duty, for whom the interest of his people is foremost:
я не вправе от нее [короны] отказаться. Ты знаешь, я – единственный сын. Все
остальные принцы нашего дома – это уже боковые линии. Откажись я исполнить мой
прямой долг, это могло бы вызвать большие потрясения.
I have no right to renounce it [the crown]. You know that I am the only son. All the other
princes of our house are just secondary lines. Should I refuse to perform my immediate duty, that
could provoke a major upheaval.
In a poignant passage, Jason is described as being drawn to his homeland, while knowing
that going there would mean death. What he sees is very much like what Martyn from
Nabokov’s Podvig sees in the imaginary country of Zoorliandia, which also is modeled after
Russia: a dangerous dark land with undistinguishable people:
Рискуя жизнью – его могли застрелить пограничники и той и другой стороны –
Язон пробирался сквозь лесные чащи, средь болот, и сквозь густой хаос кустарников,
чтобы почувствовать под ногами хотя бы одну пядь родной дистрийской земли.
Затаившись, он видел темные контуры новых республиканских пограничников, слышал
их глухо, по-ночному звучащую речь, видел движущиеся огоньки их трубок и папирос.
Risking his life – he could be shot by border guards from both sides – Jason would make
his way through forest thickets amidst quagmires and through the dense chaos of bushes to feel
at least one foot of his native Distrian land under his feet. From his hiding place, he saw dark
contours of new republican border guards, listened to their muffled nighttime speech, and saw
the moving lights of their pipes and cigarettes.
But unlike Martyn, for whom returning to his home country is the fulfillment of his
dream of a life-threatening adventure, Jason is not an adventure-seeker, nor does he enjoy telling
and receiving stories of life in the land that exiled him.

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Two good revolutions and a “satanic” one. Krushenie and Nikakikh sluchainosteĭ have a
strong political message that combines an explanation of how the world works with a call to
action. The gist of the explanation is this: in countries that have not gone through a revolution,
the power is in the hands of a few greedy people who only care about their own interests.
Common folk, who do not collaborate with them, suffer. Revolution and alliance with the USSR
will put things right. The authors are optimistic that history will be working in their favor and are
future-oriented. Both novels end as a new world is being built, so there is a sense of openendedness.
Conversely, Prints i tantsovshchitsa proposes no plan of action or optimistic message.
The story explains the recent past, perhaps as a way to comfort emigré readers by helping them
to direct their hatred towards specific people and then see them suffer. The villains, again, are a
few greedy people who only care about their interests. They use revolutions as a tool to get even
richer and turn previously harmonious monarchies into barbarian anarchies. As Jason puts it,
“революционный переворот совершается не большинством, а ничтожным меньшинством,
часто какой-нибудь кучкой негодяев” (a revolutionary coup is perpetrated not by the majority,
but by a insignificant minority, often by some bunch of rascals). Instead of simply juxtaposing
the majority and the evil minority, he divides the majority into the good and the evil but does not
elaborate on the “good.” Here is how the model is summarized by the narrator recounting Jason’s
thoughts:
На смену [монархии] явился переворот. Что же он дал народу, не народу в
кавычках, а всему населению, честному, трудящемуся, так же не в кавычках, а понастоящему? Ничего, кроме нищеты, горя и слез.
[The monarchy] was replaced by a revolt. What did it give to the people, not the people
in quotation marks, but all the honest population, who worked, again, not in quotation marks, but
for real? Nothing but poverty, grief and tears.

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Therefore, there are two kinds of people in the story: the pseudo-people and the real
hardworking people. And here is where Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s theory shows surprising affinity
with that of Lavrenev, only in the émigré’s novel people, both with and without quotation marks,
are even more schematic and passive. It is unclear how the idea of “real hardworking people'' can
coexist with the narrator's constant denunciation of everything plebeian. The reader does not get
to see a single Distrian commoner—such is Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s predilection for aristocracy
or maybe his disdain for commoners who betrayed their king. The two novels’ storylines are
quite similar, but while one sees the revolution as a way to solve the issue, the other, contrarily,
sees it as the troublemaker. Another crucial difference is who the victim is.
Both stories start as follows:
In a small country, there is a conflict between good people and the greedy few.
In Krushenie, greedy few, in their wish to get wealthy, make good common people suffer,
while the rabble facilitates it. Revolution gets rid of both the greedy few and the rabble, and good
common people can enjoy their life.
Meanwhile, in Prints i tantsovshchitsa greedy few, in their wish to get wealthy, instigate
a revolution and make good aristocrats suffer, while the rabble facilitate it. The greedy few are
gotten rid of, good aristocrats can enjoy their life, but the rabble is not vanquished.
Despite that passing distinction between good commoners and the rabble, Jason and the
narrator regard the people, overall, as a homogeneous, hostile mass. Despising his once subjects
who followed the revolutionaries’ lead, Jason refuses to even consider the restoration of the
monarchy:
То, что я сейчас скажу, невозможно, но если бы весь народ (...) как один человек,
умолял меня надеть корону и править им и Дистрией, клянусь тебе, я не согласился бы!
(...) я глубоко разочаровался в народе. (...) А затем, я потерял всякий вкус и аппетит к
власти.

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What I am about to say is impossible but if all the people (...) as one man begged me to
put on the crown and govern them and Distria, I swear to you, I would not agree to do it! (...) I
am deeply disappointed in the people. (...) And then, I lost any taste and appetite for power.
Restoring the monarchy is not necessary for Jason’s well-being. The exiled prince
psychologically abandons his country, and the author abandons it as well, by giving us only
meager details about it.
It is telling that the thought experiment—what would happen if an heir of a dismantled
monarchy was restored to the throne—is repeated right away. In his wish to persuade Jason not
to abandon the hope of restoration, Mavros talks to Princess Dubenskaia. Using the example of
Russia, she tells him almost the same thing as Jason: that it is impossible to forget the people’s
betrayal. Here is how she puts it:
Допустим (...) чудо: наследнику престола Алексею Николаевичу удалось(...)
спастись, вырасти и возмужать в недосягаемом месте. За это время Россия очнулась,
сбросила иго насильников и палачей и решила вновь вернуться к монархии. Я
монархистка с ног до головы, но уверяю вас: я первая была бы против того, чтобы сын
занял престол, обагренный кровью отца. Это было бы ужасно! (...) Я говорю как женщина,
и чувство двигает мною, а не холодный разум.
Imagine (...) a miracle: Aleksei Nikolaevich, the heir to the throne, managed to (...) save
his life, grow up, and become a man in an inaccessible place. During that time, Russia came to
her senses, threw off the yoke of tyrants and executioners, and decided to return to the monarchy.
I am a monarchist from head to toe, but I assure you: I would be the first one to oppose the son
taking the throne that was stained with the blood of his father. That would be horrible! (...) I
speak like a woman, and it is emotion that moves me, rather than cold reason.
That reiteration—and the fact that it is one of the rare occasions when the Princess
speaks—signals that the thought experiment is crucial. Dubenskaia’s mentioning of Tsarevich
Alexei’s theoretical survival is, I believe, the key to the novel, the “why” of Distria.
Why did Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ need Distria? Even though the main point of Prints i
tantsovshchitsa is entertainment, the novel can be regarded as a political thought experiment.
Jason—the heir, who miraculously escaped the revolution—is the double of the murdered

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Tsarevich Alexei, the son of the last Tsar of Russia. Unlike the authors of the musical Anastasia,
Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ did not take the risk of resurrecting an heir of Nicholas II. Judging by the
reverence with which Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ portrays aristocracy, he would not dare meddle in
the royal family’s history by introducing one more child or saving Tsarevich Aleksei, let alone
portraying a Russian monarch riding a horse in the circus. Using a second country also allowed
the writer to escape accusations of changing commonly known world history, even though he did
slightly change the map of the world.
So here is the question the narrator is asking: if it were possible to resurrect the Russian
Empire, and if the heir were alive (which meant there would be no additional turmoil regarding
who gets to rule)—is such an avenue advisable? The answer is no, and the reason for it is odd. It
has nothing to do with what is better for the people. The issue is the hypothetical monarch’s
distrust and disdain for his people, as seen in Jason’s story (which is in stark contrast with
Jason’s earlier declarations of him doing his duty). In simple terms, the monarchy cannot be
restored because the betrayed royal does not like his subjects. It is personal, not political.
Another oddity is that, while explaining his denial, Jason uses terms “вкус” (taste) and
“аппетит” (appetite), which does not mix well with the image of a noble monarch who rules
because it is his duty, not because he wants power.
Paradoxically, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ believes that monarchies are beneficial for the
people, but, when given a theoretical chance to improve their life by bringing the monarch back
to the throne, he, via his characters, refuses to do so. This monarch-centristic position further
emphasizes how little the narrator and the protagonist actually think about Jason’s ex-subjects:
how, in Lenin’s words, “страшно далеки они от народа” (terribly far are they from the
people). That reluctance to do good to the people suggests that the reason for Breshko-

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Breshkovskiĭ’s hatred for the revolution has little to do with the welfare of the common folk: he
disdains it because it put him and hundreds of other people into Jason’s position, forcing them to
flee, live in squalid conditions, and do jobs that they previously would have considered beneath
them. Using a prince as the protagonist for this story of downshifting serves to exaggerate the
contrast between “before” and “after.”
There is one more way to interpret Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s refusal to resurrect the
monarchy: as an empowerment strategy for both the prince and the readers. Conducting the
mental experiment of giving Jason a chance to reascend the throne, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ thus
adds one more feature to his image as a dignified man, so that his image as a penniless exile with
an uncertain future is less salient. Jason’s rejection of the hypothetical crown puts him in a
position of power; the imaginary scene of all people pleading for him to rule over them echoes
Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, adding grandeur to this story. Additionally, émigré readers, who, just
like Jason, have all gone through the painful experience of leaving their home behind and know
that going back is impossible, are given the opportunity to pretend they are not returning not
because they cannot, but because they do not want to. That mirrors Jason's emphatic refusal to
rule over Distrians should they ever ask him to: his proud dismissal camouflages the fact that
such restoration was hardly a likely event. In Slobin’s model, this story offers the reader to
choose just one of the triangle’s points, crossing out the other two, thus resolving the conflict.
Moreover, creating a fictional country with a fictional history empowers the author to do
something impossible in real life: to avenge those who destroyed his preferred way of life.
Meksi’s murder can be read as an attempt to enact revenge on the enemy regime, the one that
shattered the lives of Jason and the author. By arranging the murder, the author enacts his wish to
strangle everything revolutionary, and the narrator’s vulgar delight in the enemy’s humiliation

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might hint at the feeling of powerlessness: he knows that to disable the real enemy, the Soviets, it
would require too many cowboys. The only history he can modify is the history of a small,
obscure, non-existent country.
Similarly with Lavrenev and Nikulin’s fictional countries, Distria and its story can also
be considered to have an explanatory value. Creating a fictional monarchy allows the author to
simplify real-life history, to reduce complicated political processes to a short string of events and
multiple actors to several simple characters.
Distorted fairy tale and the kingdom lost. While not a fairytale, the novel owes some
elements to the genre, without, however, reflecting on it. This pedigree might be another
explanation of why the reader gets so little information about Distria: geography in European
folk fairy tales is notoriously meager (Messerli, Campagnaro). It could also explain the author’s
neglect of common people: when a fairy tale protagonist is a ruler, their subjects matter so little
that often they are not even mentioned. Even though there is no magic involved in the novel, the
villain, Meksi, is repeatedly often referred to as a “magician,” which hints that the text can be
read as a modern fairy tale, with the action unfolding in Paris instead of a nameless capital of a
nameless fairy tale country.
The plot lends itself to reading through Vladimir Propp’s theory of elements of a magical
Russian fairytale. In such fairytales, the plot focuses on an individual and begins with an ideal,
balanced situation. Then something disrupts the balance and compels the protagonist to begin a
journey in order to restore it, which is bound to happen at the end of the story. Such a disrupting
event or need (“недостача”) can be a loss of a lover or a yearning to get some object.
Normally, protagonists of European fairy tales can move up the social hierarchy, but
downward movement is possible only temporarily, that is, they can go from rags to riches, but

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not from riches to rags. Moreover, it is possible that a former enemy becomes the protagonist’s
lover, but not the other way round.
Consciously or not, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ turns these restrictions upside down. The
“недостача” is, of course, the revolution. The prince loses his kingdom and status and does not
get it back; more than that, he does not even try to do it. His erstwhile lover becomes his worst
enemy. By the end, the balance is restored, but it is different and bitter.
In an actual fairy tale, the prince would regain his power by the end of the story. That
denouement does enter the story, since the prince’s aide dreams of him regaining power, but it
never happens. One can regard the scarab necklace as a stand-in for the lost kingdom. It would
be too much for the monarchy to be restored even in the improbable world of the novel (though
in a different novel, Kogda rushatsia trony, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ did restore the monarchy of
Panduriia), because nothing would restore the prince’s trust in his ex-subjects. Jewels, however,
are easier to reclaim, since they have no agency and thus cannot be accused of betraying their
master, even if he loses them.
Revolution in Ruritania. Apart from the magical folk tale, the novel can also be read in
comparison with Ruritanian romance, and here, too, it is close to the genre but does not follow its
plot rules. Both Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ’s novel and Ruritanian romances involve a small fictional
country. Both feature a royal and a commoner whose union is impossible due to their different
status. In both, the kingdom is in peril.
However, in a Ruritanian romance, the endangered kingdom can and will be saved. There
is no overt political message, and it is not rooted in contemporary reality. A Ruritanian romance
does not attempt to enthuse the reader; it enchants them. The monarch may be kidnapped, but no
one endeavors to change the political regime, just like there can be no revolutions in fairy tales.

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Conversely, the premise and appeal of Prints i tantsovshchitsa are based on
contemporaneity, on the clash between different political regimes, even though the actual
conflict of the story is not quite what it might seem at first. There is a strong political message:
the narrator brands Soviets and revolutionists as barbarians and liars. And the country cannot be
saved, nor is there an attempt or desire to do so.
In Ruritanian romances, the feat of saving the monarch and the kingdom is performed by
an individual; those attempting to overthrow the king are also individuals. You render them
harmless – and there is no impediment to restoration. In Prints i tantsovshchitsa, however, there
is another acting power: the people of the country, even though they act according to someone
else’s plans. The king can have the most fearless and devoted allies, but his enemy is too
numerous. Neutralizing Meksi and Medea, Jason acquires a peace of mind, but he cannot get
back his people.
Distria as an afterthought. The Distrian revolution ruined the prince's life, but neither
the event nor the future of the country is an essential element of the story. That is surprising,
given how much talk and bitterness there is about revolution. Why are both the narrator and the
ex-prince so indifferent towards the fate of Distria?
To understand why that happened, it is necessary to find Jason’s actual provenance, and
the key to it lies in the cinematic history of pre-revolutionary Russia. A few months before WW1
a new Russian film, produced by the Saint Petersburg studio Vita, was announced. The film
seems tot be lost, but luckily for us, in the early decades of cinema it was common to publish
film synopses in periodicals on entertainment, so we know its plot.
Just like Prints i tantsovshchitsa, the movie features two antagonists, a demi-mondess, a
cowboy and a red-haired clown. The plot, set in Saint Petersburg (Morfessi) is surprisingly

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similar to that of the novel just discussed, with an important difference: the protagonist is not a
prince, but a “биржевик” (stockbroker) named Safonov. The film was called “Петля смерти”
(The Loop of Death), and the story was written by Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ himself, who also
played in the movie. We also know that the role of the queen of plastic poses was played by
A.E.Breshko-Breshkovskaia, probably his wife (Morfessi 112).
Here is the abridged synopsis, published in Sine-Fono journal:
Биржевикъ Мервиль радуется разоренію своего конкурента по биржевымъ
операціямъ—Сафонова. Демимонденка Янковская покидает обедневшего
Сафонова и переходит въ руки Мервиля. Отличный ездок Сафоновъ поступаетъ въ
циркъ наездникомъ. Как злой рок преслѣдуетъ Мервиль Сафонова: онъ подкупаетъ
акробата Николаева, который, повредивъ ногу лошади, срываетъ бенефисъ
Сафонова. Съ необычайной мѣткостью бросаетъ ковбой Фонтана свое лассо.
Номеръ его пользуется въ циркѣ большимъ успѣхомъ. (...) [Ж]елая избавить
Сафонова отъ преслѣдованій Мервиля—[ковбой] какъ бы по ошибкѣ набрасываетъ
лассо на шею Мервиля (...)и затягиваетъ петлю..
Mervil’, a trader, rejoices in the bankruptcy of his market operations rival,
Safonov. Yankovskaya, a demi-mondess, leaves impoverished Safonov and fell into
Mervil’s hands. An excellent horse-rider, Safonov is hired as a circus equestrian. Like ill
fate Mervil’ haunts Safonov: he bribes Nikolaev, an acrobat, who damages the horse’s
leg and ruins his special show. Fontana, a cowboy, throws his lasso with unusual
accuracy. His performance enjoys popularity with the circus’ audience. (...) In a wish to
free Safonov from Mervil’s harassment, [the cowboy] as if by accident throws the lasso
around Mervil’s neck (...) and tightens the loop.
Yuriĭ Morfessi, who played the antagonist, recounts in his memoirs how he was hired for
the role—and it is clear that the character looked nothing like bulldog-like Meksi, but more like
Jason turned evil: the actor playing the villain “должен быть светским человеком,
спортсменом, должен безукоризненно одеваться, должен ездить верхом” (had to be a man
of the world, a sportsman, has to dress impeccably, to ride).
Judging by the title, the deadly lasso act was the film’s main highlight. It was filmed with
Morfessi actually being dragged around the stage, and he recollects that, after watching the
episode, he “сам задним числом ужаснулся – до того момент вышел и трагическим, и

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жутким” (himself was belatedly horrified – so tragic and sinister was the moment.) (Morfessi
112)
It is obvious that in the novel Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ recycled his old pre-revolutinary
story, which, understandably, did not have the Russian revolution as one of its elements. Based
on the synopsis, the conflict of aristocracy and wealthy “plebeians” was also absent, the
adversaries being of equal social status, and no royals involved. In Sine-Fono the film was
advertised as having “небывалые трюки” (unheard-of tricks, 63); we also know that the role of
the clown was played by Giacomino, a famous clown. That suggests that the initial story was
created exclusively for the value of entertainment.
After the revolution, the story was rewritten on a larger scale, with the antagonists vying
not only for a demi-mondess, but for a kingdom. Now their feud was based on their different
heritage. Apart from entertaining the reader, the updated version did double duty as an
encouragement to the author’s fellow émigrés and an attempt to explain what really happened in
Russia – but that historical-political topic was an afterthought, a glazing on top of the cake.
Thus the film offers another explanation of why we see so little of Distria, why the author
did not bother with making it a full-fledged country, and why not a single Distrian commoner
made it to the pages of the novel. Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ already had a thrilling story up his
sleeve, and that story did not involve princedoms or revolutionary rabble. As time passed and the
world changed, the conflict of two brokers transformed into the conflict of noble blood and lowly
money with a revolutionary backdrop, but the basic plot stayed the same.
Adding anti-revolutionary invectives and referring to the readers’ personal experience of
exile was an excellent strategy. Even if the reader did not like the story or the protagonist, they
would agree with the anti-Soviet sentiment. They would also be pleased by feeling that they are

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reading a “political” work, rather than just killing time with a thriller – even though, as we have
seen, politics does not matter much in the story. Whether all that was a conscious tactic or not, it
increased the chances that the readers would enjoy the novel.
Conclusion. A bitter postrevolutionary twist on Ruritanian romance, Prince i
tantsovshchitsa features a kingdom in peril that will not and should not be saved. Introducing
Distria, a country modeled after Russia, helps the author conduct a political thought experiment
and to avenge those who destroyed the pre-revolutionary way of life, but even these benefits do
not prompt him to pay much attention to developing the country, as if refusing to dedicate much
time to the place that betrayed his protagonists. Unlike his Soviet counterparts, who used
individual protagonists to better convey the story of revolutionary struggle, BreshkoBreshkovskiĭ did not care about the bigger picture. If the protagonists are all right, the country
may perish, and he will not be sorry. In the “triangle” of West, pre-revolutionary Russia and
post-revolutionary Russia, the writer only chooses the first point as a place for himself and his
fellow émigrés, The other two “points” are used, respectively, for channeling nostalgia and
hatred, allowing for differentiation of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia. Recycling his old story
after emigration, Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ attempted to make it look more relevant and ease the
“triangular” tension.
Do-It-Yorself Dystopia: Vladimir Nabokov’s Glory.
Introduction. One of Nabokov’s earlier, Russian-language novels, Glory is the story of a
young Russian émigré, Martyn, who lives in Europe, and his painful attempts to process
separation from his homeland. It was published in Berlin in 1931–32 under the name V. Sirin—a

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pseudonym that Nabokov used for his early works. A story that has obvious roots in Nabokov’s
own émigré experience – he left Russia in his youth, studied in England, and lived in Berlin
(Zverev) —Glory is a “realistic” novel that, at times, toes the line of fiction, yet never features
anything impossible in our world.
While the narrator recounts Martyn's life in London and Berlin, Martyn and his friend
Sonia narrate life in Zoorliandia, a country as enticing as it is dangerous. Zoorliandia, the
fictional country in this book, is one created by the protagonists and is clearly modeled after
post-revolutionary Russia as they perceive it. Zoorliandia embodies the tension between longing
and hatred that the émigrés of the first wave experienced: their departure was not voluntary, but
staying behind would jeopardize their life. Tales of Zoorliandia have features of dystopias (as
noted by Shrayer 2001), satire, and stories of wonderful faraway lands. Like utopias and
faraway land tales, Zoorliandia is hard to reach, even though, based on its description, travelers
have no reason to wish to go there; like utopias and dystopias, it does not feature distinguishable
characters (with one exception). Its satirical nature is due to the heavy focus on local mores that
are contrary to common sense but are based on elements of real life of which the author
disapproves.
Out of all the stories discussed in this dissertation, the narrative of Zoorliandia is the
closest one to ancient travel tales since it prefers describing the environment to discussing events
and features, with almost no individual characters. It does not seem to belong to modernity, but
rather to the times and societies where people would tell incredible stories about tribes they have
never seen.
Of all the evils of the new Soviet regime, the one showcased in Zoorliandia is the
abolishment of the old culture while building nothing to replace it. Politics per se seems to be of

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little interest to the author in Glory, an affinity with Prints i tantsovshchitsa, Just as in that novel,
Nabokov focuses his attention on the protagonist’s personal journey, not on that of the nation.
Unlike Breshko-Breshkovsky, however, Nabokov (or his protagonist) does not even pretend he is
concerned with the fate of the country.
Nabokov had a fascination with fictional countries, most of them being reflections of
Russia in some way and emphasizing their fictional quality. Zoorlaniia is evoked in his poem
“Ul’daborg”, supposedly translated from “Zoorliandian language.” Pale Fire features Zembla, a
country that has just abolished monarchy, and there are the unnamed countries in Istreblenie
tiranov, Izobretenie Val’sa, Solus Rex, Pnin and Bend Sinister. Pale Fire has been the subject of
many studies (Aleksandrov, Boyd, Meyer); other works, however, have drawn less attention,
both per se and in their capacity as a FC narrative.
Plot. Martyn is born at the turn of the century in a well-to-do Russian family. His mother
loves English culture, so some of Martyn’s earliest experiences are unrelated to the place of his
birth. Since his childhood, Martyn has been a traveler and dreamer. One of his memories is the
lights in the darkness that he sees from a train.
Having grown up, Martyn still dreams of adventures, dangers, and expeditions. During
the turmoil of the revolutionary years, he leaves Russia with his mother, has a brief, but intense
affair with a poetess, and becomes a student in Cambridge. He splits his time between
Cambridge and Switzerland, where his mother lives with her new husband. On one of his visits
to Switzerland, he nearly perishes in a precipice; he challenges himself to repeat the trip but is
afraid. In Cambridge, he has a circle of friends, including the good-humored Darwin; they are
often joined by Sonia, a Russian emigree that Martyn finds both irritating and irresistible. Over
the years, he tries to win her love, but in vain. Equally unlucky is Darwin.

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Sonia’s family moves to Berlin where Martyn visits them. Together with Sonia, he
creates a story of Zoorliandia, an absurd dystopia clearly modeled after post-revolutionary
Russia as they perceive it. Zoorliandia embodies the tension between longing and hatred
experienced by those who left Russia against their will.
Martyn gets on the train and gets off somewhere between Lyon and Marseille. He goes to
the town where (he thought) his childhood lights were; he does manual work, picking berries,
watering crops, etc. In a letter, he asks Sonia to marry him, and she replies that it will never
happen.
Martyn decides to cross the Russian border illegally, spend twenty-four hours there, and
come back. He describes it as a visit to a mysterious perilous land. He does not name it, but it
may be one with Zoorliandia and Russia. The idea is as dangerous as it is absurd: with his
foreign passport he could visit it legally. To his friends’ and family’s horror, he crosses the
border and then disappears.
Political Context. Like Prints i tantsovshchitsa, Glory focuses on a person, not a political
process. Unlike Prints i tantsovshchitsa, however, Glory is deeply rooted in contemporaneity.
The historical period has a direct impact on the events of the story: it could not be set in prerevolutionary Russia. If it were set just ten years earlier, Martyn’s returning home would involve
no jeopardy of his life. Exile from Russia is the cornerstone of Martyn’s personality but does not
make him interested in political processes. One of his acquaintances, however, misinterprets his
final adventure of crossing the border as a deed inspired by his interest in politics: “Я никак не
могу понять, как молодой человек, довольно далекий от русских вопросов, скорее, знаете,
иностранной складки, мог оказаться способен на... на подвиг, если хотите.” (“I still

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can’t understand how a young man who was rather far away from the Russian questions, more
of, you know, a foreign type, proved to be capable of… of a feat, if you will.”)
We know, however, that Martyn did not expect the trip to be of any benefit to “the
Russian questions” or his fellow émigrés. In that case, the word “подвиг” (“feat”) becomes
ironic: yes, he does a brave thing, but ultimately no one, not even he, benefits from it.
Zoorliandia is based on Soviet ideals and events but exaggerated to the point of absurdity.
In that, it is similar to Swift’s Liliput and other satirical lands that mock the way a certain
country or society functions. Specifically, the first years of the USSR are known for the
denunciation of old cultural aristocracy; destruction of artifacts and landmarks; and glorification
of “ordinary” people. Those trends are zealously followed by Zoorliandians. The leading
principle of Zoorliandia is promoting equality by using the lowest standards as the norm, which
suggests that, from the author’s point of view, the same thing happened in postrevolutionary
Russia.
All the changes that happened in post-revolutionary Russia interest Martyn and the
narrator only as far as they concern their own experiences, because the new regime exiles them
and destroys the culture that defines their personalities. The ostensible goal of the Soviets,
building a new, just society—is not refuted for being impossible but is not even touched upon.
Equally nonexistent is the opposition between socialism and capitalism, crucial for the novels
analyzed in the previous chapter.
Rather than consider different modes of ruling a country and choosing a preferential one,
Nabokov and his protagonists are concerned by an émigré’s personal experiences. Those
experiences are, of course, shaped by political events, but that does not make the person

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interested in politics. What matters is one’s being torn away from one’s culture and how a
person’s life unfolds in such conditions.
In Lavrenev’s and Nikulin’s stories, the people of the fictional country are actors or
beneficiaries of the revolution and thus actively involved in the plot, but in Glory they are absent.
However, the commoners appear in the very first paragraph of Glory, portrayed as a power with
a predilection for destruction that goes against its own interests: the peasants destroy whatever is
left of Martyn’s family estate, including photos of his grandfather:
сгорѣлъ альбомъ, сгорѣлъ столъ, гдѣ альбомъ лежалъ, сгорѣла и вся усадьба,
которую, по глупости, спалили цѣликомъ, вмѣсто того, чтобы
поживиться обстановкой, мужички изъ ближней деревни.
the album was burned, the table where it was kept was burned, and the whole estate was
burned as well because the good people from the neighboring village stupidly burned it
en masse instead of marauding.
Their role is destroying the protagonist’s private family history; but their influence on a
bigger scale, as well as the marauders and their fellow peasants' fate, is of no concern.
Why сreate a fictional country? As a “twice-fictional” land, Zoorliandia exists in two
planes. Diegetically, inside the story, it is a private country, serving the protagonists; nondiegetically, it serves the readers. Some functions are unique to its relationship with the
protagonists, while others are shared with the readers.
First, creating Zoorliandia allows Martyn and Sonia to process the painful feelings caused
by their forced emigration: the grief and longing of losing their homeland, and the anxiety of
their native culture being annihilated. Creating a double of Russia, they are as if sequestering
“bad,” revolutionary Russia into a different country so that the Russia they remember is not
tainted by the revolutionaries’ deeds. Zoorliandia becomes that “third” country that is necessary
for the visual embodiment of Slobin’s triangle. The banal metaphor, России больше нет (Russia

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is no more), is taken to a new level. New Russia is so different from what Martyn and Sonia
remember that it can be perceived as a different country bearing a different name. In the
imaginary space of Zoorliandia, they deal with their feelings caused by the political situation
while avoiding politically charged talk that would make them just two out of thousands of
émigrés concerned about the place they left. The readers, when identifying themselves with the
protagonists, are also able to make use of Zoorliandia, as a way of channeling their hatred for the
regime somewhere different from the nostalgic Russia of their memories.
Second, it gives Martyn and Sonia a sense of control and power, which is hard to obtain
in emigration and therefore valuable; they can shape the land, make people act according to their
wishes, and proclaim decrees. Observers and creators, they are distant from their creation,
immune to its dangers. They are capable of transforming it, but they never become its
characters.
Third, the Zoorlandiia game gives both the protagonists and emigre readers a set of visual
images. When talking about émigré literature researchers tend to focus on the land left behind
and the pain of separation, but there is one more cruel circumstance at play: the ignorance about
the new reality of their country. Remember that Martyn, Sonia, and many of Nabokov fellow
emigres had never been to Soviet Russia. They only had access to snippets of information and
rumors. In such circumstances, imagining is unavoidable, as it is the only way to “see” the
transformed country. The scarcity of knowledge about post-revolutionary Russia might also
explain the emptiness and darkness of Zoorliandia as seen by its creators: they simply do not
have enough information to make it more detailed.
Fourth, imagining Zoorliandia is an activity bringing the protagonists closer together and
a secret exclusive to just the two of them, or, as Dana Draginoiu puts it, “an expedient of

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courtship.” (Draginoiu 187) Martyn sees it as an opportunity to “возможность пускать передъ
ней душу налегке” (to set his soul roaming freely in front of her). It is also a rare opportunity
for Martyn to talk to Sonia without bickering.
Finally, exploring Zoorliandia enables Martyn to satisfy, to a certain extent, his dream of
traveling through an unknown, dangerous land. The events of the story, however, suggest that
imaginary travels are not enough. He craves real, not virtual, adventures.
Veracity and vagueness. Zoorlandiia is an example of a fictional country where veracity
is avoided, not pursued. Martyn and Sonia do not need to create a place that can pass for a real
one. As a secret twice-fictional land, existing only in the protagonists’ imagination, Zoorliandia
does not need to persuade the reader of its plausibility because there are not supposed to be any
readers. Instead, by exaggerating nonsensical features of their homeland’s new regime, they
create an impossible place in which no one is supposed to believe. That gives them freedom to
make it as absurd as they wish, up to challenging the laws of nature by hinting that Zoorliandians
might be able to regulate the Sun cycle and propagation. The weirder the newly-proclaimed law,
the more enjoyable the game is for Martyn and Sonia.
The reality of the country gets a boost when the name is used in an essay published in the
“real” world of the novel. We do not get to read the essay, but it is probably a description of
Russia as Zoorliandia. Thus, Zoorliandia expands beyond the minds of Martyn and Sonia. Now it
is known by the writer, Bubnov, and people who read his essay.
The name of the country embodies the tension between plausibility and implausibility
and influences the atmosphere of the country. Martyn claims that the name “Zoorliandia” is a
real word mentioned by Normans, though it was impossible to find any proof (which is not
surprising, because Martyn is prone to making up stories). In any case, referring the reader or

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listener to an ancient source is a common way of making a fictional detail look more realistic.
However, Sonia is just as conscious of the imaginary status of Zoorliandia as Martyn is, so the
effectiveness of the trick is questionable. Referring to a name of a people that has not existed for
centuries also hints that Zoorliandia – and the new Russia – are as if thrown back in history.
The name sounds a bit funny, like something from a children's book, which is fitting for a
country ruled in a comic way. It evokes associations with the word “zoo” (and fictional animal
countries, like in Lukian’s travels, created to entertain and moralize), and also with “орёл”
(eagle). This animal aspect makes the country an anti-Eden: both Eden and Zoorliandia have
nature, animals, and a he and she, but Zoorliandia is a nightmarish version of it. Another
negative connotation might be conveyed by the spelling and sound of the word. The double “oo”
is unusual in Russian and is a hiatus, which can be interpreted as a visual and phonetical
representation of Zoorliandian darkness and emptiness.
The country’s location is one of the few things we learn about Zoorliandia. We know that
Zoorliandia is a northern country—that is decided even before the name. Apart from that,
nothing else indicates its location, neighboring countries, or even that there are any.
In general, the novel has some vagueness that is characteristic of stories of fictional lands.
In one of his travels, Martyn leaves the train without getting to know the name of the station or
whether he has crossed the border, and we never find out the name of the village where he
stayed. Later, when asked where he had been, the narrator says “Мартин сказал” (Martyn said);
that is, he replied, but the reader does not get to learn it. Why such vagueness? Maybe the author
does not want to bother the reader with too much information, but I doubt it. It is more likely a
nod to tales of fictional lands with their withholding of specific details, or to the common
novelistic device of not providing the exact year or toponym, as if in a wish to prevent the event

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of the novel being identified with real-life events. The vagueness can also be thought of as a
parallel to Zoorliandia’s lack of tangible, specific, identifiable objects, places, and people.
A land of absurdity and prohibitions. In Zoorliandia, Soviet ideas are exaggerated to the
point of absurdity. The USSR emphasized the abolition of classes. In Zoorliandia’s, it gets
transformed into “everyone must be like everyone else,” or, to use a disparaging colloquial term,
“уравниловка” (“equalization”). That principle leads to ridiculous laws, since everything in
Zoorliandia has to be equal, from the level of ignorance to people’s hair, with the lowest level
being the reference point:
вышелъ тамъ законъ, что всѣмъ жителямъ надо брить головы, и
потому теперь самые важные, самые такіе вліятельные люди – парикмахеры. (...) И
конечно лучше всего лысымъ.”
they passed a law that all citizens must shave their heads, so now hairdressers
are the most important, the most influential people. (...) And of course the bald ones have
it the best.”
Such details, regulating spheres that the government normally does not control and
restricting people’s private lives to no apparent benefit, demonstrate that the creators of the
country—Nabokov included—believe the country’s principle is insane, and thus, by extension,
Soviet ideology is insane, too, including its obsession over the citizen’s private lives and the
introduction of drastic measures from which no one profits.
The shaving law, though absurd, is at least technically possible to obey; some
Zoorliandian laws, however, defy the way the natural world works:
Иногда среди общей беседы, за столом, например, – Соня вдруг
поворачивалась к нему и быстро шептала: «Ты слышал, вышел закон, запретили
гусеницам окукляться».
Sometimes in the midst of a general conversation, at a table, for example – Sonia
would suddenly turn to him and whisper quickly: “Have you heard, they passed a law, the
caterpillars are prohibited to pupate.”

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This laughable prohibition is probably due to the regime’s hatred towards development,
progress, and beauty; moreover, the decree means there will be no more butterflies in the
country, which would be a nightmare for Nabokov, an avid entomologist (p.206). But such a
decree cannot be followed, for the simple reason that caterpillars would never understand it. The
absurdity of this decree suggests that Zoorliandians, in their delusion, overestimate their own
power.
It is not only that scalp hair and butterflies are outlawed in Zoorliandia: on a more tragic
note, art is persecuted, and violins are burned. Tellingly, one of the leader’s names is Саван-нарыло (Savan-na-rylo, literally Shroud-Upon-Mug), that is, Savanarolla, referencing the
Renaissance destroyer of arts. That is the only name used for creating the country, apart from
the word “Zoorliandia,” which makes the country different from the majority of other fictional
countries. This absence is easy to explain: names are part of culture, and Zoorliandia wages war
on culture.
Not only names and arts are absent, but material culture does not seem to be developed
either. There is no mention of cities, and the most prominent features of the land are not tangible:
smells, wind, and darkness. Zoorliandians are like nomads without permanent settlements,
barbarians who somehow gained leadership of civilized lands and are changing them according
to their taste.
How is Zoorliandia created? First, we witness its creation; we see it growing more and
more detailed as Martyn and Sonia develop their story. That is not a common case: normally,
fictional countries are created by authors, and their thought process is beyond the text. In Glory,
however, Zoorliandia is never a “completed” land—each piece of news from Zoorliandia
contributes to its creation. Here is the very first glimpse into Zoorliandia:

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[Соня] сказала, что это странно, – она тоже объ этомъ часто думаетъ: вотъ
есть на свѣтѣ страна, куда входъ простымъ смертнымъ воспрещенъ: “Какъ мы ее
назовемъ?” – спросилъ Мартынъ (...). “Что-нибудь такое – сѣверное, – отвѣтила
Соня. (...) “Напримѣръ – Зоорландія, – сказалъ Мартынъ. – О ней упоминаютъ
норманы”. “Ну, конечно – Зоорландія”, – подхватила Соня (...) “Тамъ холодныя
зимы и сосулищи съ крышъ, – цѣлая система, какъ, что-ли, органныя трубы, – а
потомъ все таетъ, и все очень водянисто, и на снѣгу – точки вродѣ копоти,
вообще, знаешь, я все могу тебѣ разсказать, вотъ, напримѣръ, вышелъ тамъ
законъ, что всѣмъ жителямъ надо брить головы, и потому теперь самые важные,
самые такіе вліятельные люди – парикмахеры”. “Равенство головъ”, – сказалъ
Мартынъ. “Да. И конечно лучше всего лысымъ.”
[Sonia] said that it was strange, – she also thought about it often: there is a
country in the world where mere mortals are prohibited to enter: “How shall we call it?”
– asked Martyn (...). “Something Northern”, – replied Sonia. (...) “For example –
Zoorliandia, – said Martyn. – The Normans mention it. “Why, of course, – Zoorliandia,”
– joined in Sonia. (...) “There are cold winters and giant icicles hanging from the roofs, –
a real system, something like organ pipes, – and then it all melts and there is water
everywhere, and spots on the snow, like soot, actually I can tell you everything, for
example, they passed a law that all citizens must shave their heads, so now hairdressers
are the most important, the most influential people.” “Head equality”, – said Martyn.
“Yes. And of course the bald ones have it best.”
In this excerpt, the reader sees how the country is named and in what haphazard manner
it is created. From icicles, that is, the country’s climate and landscape, Sonia jumps right to
hairstyles, that is, to customs and laws, a totally unrelated subject. This is a land-in-the-making
that is created without a plan, using very specific details that add to its visuality. It is as if Martyn
and Sonia actually had gone to such a country and were getting information along the way, the
content and order of their narrative contingent on what they had come across and when.
Another notable feature of creating Zoorliandia is that the protagonists integrate the
country into their daily lives. They share news of the country as if it were real news, for example,
as in the aforementioned fragment with gossiping about caterpillar laws. Moreover, they use
events from the real world to develop their fictional country. For example, Irina, Sonia’s cousin,
became mentally ill after being harassed on a train by soldiers. Similar things happen in
Zoorliandia:

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Зоорландская ночь показалась еще темнeе, дебри ея лeсовъ еще глубже, и
Мартынъ уже зналъ, что никто и ничто не можетъ ему помeшать вольнымъ
странникомъ пробраться въ эти лeса, гдe въ сумракe мучатъ толстыхъ
дeтей, и пахнетъ гарью и тлeномъ.
Zoorliandian night seemed even darker, the thickets of its forest even deeper, and
Martyn now knew that nobody and nothing can prevent him from making his way as a
free roamer to those forests, where fat children are being tortured in the twilight and it
smells of burning and decay.
Another case of real life seeping into Zoorliandia occurs when Martyn leaves Berlin. He
wants to say good-bye to Sonia, but she is not home, and he writes a cryptic note: “Въ
Зоорландiи вводится полярная ночь” (Zoorliandia introduces the polar night). Functionally,
this phrase must equal a farewell. Thus, there must be a second meaning to the phrase that relates
to his departure. Conventional parallelism of light/mind, light/education suggests that it does not
refer to anything good. The most optimistic reading is that it is referring to a pause in creating
the country, where “polar night” means that they will not be able to see anything in that world.
Moreover, Martyn himself is no longer visible to Sonia; he is enveloped by metaphorical
darkness—and maybe perishes.
The way that geography, mythology and ideology are described are poetic in both word
choice and syntax, which is in stark contrast with the ugly reality of Zoorliandia. No matter how
horrible the land is, the process of creating it is beautiful:
Они изучали зоорландскiй бытъ и законы, страна была скалистая,
вeтреная, и вeтеръ признанъ былъ благою силой, ибо, ратуя за равенство, не
терпeлъ башенъ и высокихъ деревьевъ, а самъ былъ только выразителемъ
соцiальныхъ стремленiй воздушныхъ слоевъ, прилежно слeдящихъ, чтобы вотъ
тутъ не было жарче, чeмъ вотъ тамъ. И конечно искусства и науки объявлены
были внe закона, ибо слишкомъ обидно и раздражительно для честныхъ невeждъ
видeть задумчивость грамотeя и его слишкомъ толстыя книги. Бритоголовые, въ
бурыхъ рясахъ, зоорландцы грeлись у костровъ, въ которыхъ звучно лопались
струны сжигаемыхъ скрипокъ, а иные поговаривали о томъ, что пора пригладить
гористую страну, взорвать горы, чтобы онe не торчали такъ высокомeрно.
They studied Zoorliandian way of life and laws, the land was cliffed and windy,
and the wind was pronounced a benevolent force, for, fighting for equality, did not

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tolerate towers and tall trees, but was only the voicer of social aspirations of air strata that
diligently monitor that here is not hotter than there. And, of course, arts and sciences
were outlawed, because it was too offending and vexing for honest ignoramuses to see
the pensiveness of the scholar and his too thick books. With shaved heads, clad in brown
robes, Zoorliandians warmed themselves around fires where the strings of burned violins
were snapping loudly, and some talked that it was time to neaten the mountainous
country, to blow up the mountains so that they don’t stick out so haughtily.
Conclusion.
Nabokov’s fictional country, Zoorliandia, is rooted in post-revolutionary
contemporaneity, yet it is not created for propaganda reasons. The novel chooses personal over
political, referring to the latter only as something that influences the life of the former.
Nabokov’s denunciation of both Zoorliandia and Soviet Russia which Zoorliandia is inspired by,
is due to the fact that they persecute arts and culture and cause civilization reversal, but not by
their political peculiarities. The negative traits of the Soviet regime are reflected and inflated to
the point of absurdity in Zoorliandia to show the absurdity of the Soviet project and its
overestimating its own power.
A twice-fictional country, Zoorliandia is created by the émigré protagonists to process
their painful feelings, gain a sense of control and power, visualize the new life in their home
country, bring them closer together, and to satisfy a thirst for travel and adventure. The fictional
country is intertwined with reality: it uses events from real life as its building blocks, and Martyn
uses his creation as a source of metaphors for his real life. Together with the protagonists, the
émigré readers were given a chance to visualize the Russia of their memories and the present day
Russia as two different places, thus alleviating the weight of loving and hating a single entity.
For the game of Zoorliandia, verisimilitude is not a goal. On the contrary, the more
absurd and unlike the events that happen in the country, the better. Moreover, the reader

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witnesses how the country is emerging from Martyn and Sonia’s imagination, which is the
utmost proof of its fictionality. Vagueness, another quality that undermines verisimilitude in FC
narratives, is present here and may be explained by the complete lack of material culture in the
new country.
Perhaps the most striking feature of Zoorliandia, as compared with other fictional
countries, is its ever-evolving, never-quite-finished nature. That makes sense, since one of its
functions is to bring the protagonists closer, which happens exactly in the process of creation and
might be jeopardized if the process were to stop. Every detail in this sparsely furnished “work in
progress” is of importance because its creators do not attempt to build a dystopian world, with all
major spheres of life touched upon for creating a single image of a horrible society, but add little
details here and there, caring more about the atmosphere than about an exhaustive description.
The continuous nature of Zoorliandia, moreover, is at odds with a traditional dystopia’s
static quality, since Sonya and Martyn share not just facts, but news about the country. Thus, the
Zoorliandia’s unfinished nature is twofold: first, it is not fully explored; second, its history is still
evolving. In this, it has an affinity with the country of Bend Sinister, which, as the novel begins,
is still reeling from the recent turmoil.
Both Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ and Nabokov try to resolve the problem that Russian emigres
faced, since their object of longing and nostalgia was one with their object of hatred. Modifying
the map to include an additional country they ensured that the reader could, at least for the time
of reading, split this one object into two. Their fictional countries are clearly separated from the
protagonist’s current place of residence, and crossing the border is fraught with danger, yet has
an irresistible appeal.

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The emotions of émigrés and exiles for both authors are much more important than
political events or the fate of the nation, an approach that would have been branded selfish by
any Soviet critic. Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ makes a half-hearted attempt to denounce the new
regime for causing the nation to suffer, but the interests of the protagonist prevail, as is obvious
from the latter’s decision to have nothing to do with his nation. Meanwhile, Nabokov makes no
pretense whatsoever to care about the future of Russia/Zoorliandia. Unlike novels considered in
Chapter 1, that are concerned with the fate of the whole world, these two novels are concerned
with a specific person’s (or a group of people’s) private struggles, and the fictional countries of
Distria and Zoorliandia work to ease their burden.

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Chapter 3: Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister: a Piecemeal Dystopia.
Introduction.
In Chapters 1 and 2 I explored how the Russian Revolution of 1917 prompted the
creation of an abundance of fictional countries in works that aimed to educate, entertain, and/or
help endure the aftermath of the traumatic event. Whether the Revolution was directly referenced
in a text or it was assumed that the reader will easily establish the parallel between the real and
the fictional worlds, that historical event was a looming presence in the stories of Lavrenev and
Nikulin. Even in Nabokov’s Glory, where the protagonist’s family flees Russia before the
Revolution and does not witness it directly, the story – and the fictional country of Zoorliandia –
would not be possible without it happening. His post-war novel Bend Sinister (published 1947),
however, is, according to the author, not related to contemporary politics.
The paradox of Nabokov is that he is the most prolific FC storyteller among the wellknown Russian writers, and a significant part of his FC stories deals with rulers of a country, be
it kings or dictators, thus by definition engaging with political questions. Despite that, he claimed
to have no interest in politics, the topic that was the impetus for creating fictional countries for
the early Soviet writers. Specifically, in the “Introduction” to Bend Sinister Nabokov famously
states that “[p]olitics and economics, atomic bombs, (...) the Future of Mankind (...) leave [him]
supremely indifferent.”22 The two historical phenomena that Nabokov attempted to distance
himself from in Bend Sinister are obviously the Russian Revolution and the reforms and
repressive practices that followed, as well as the Nazis coming into power and building a
22 Note, however, that the introduction was written much later, in 1963, and, in the words of D.
Barton Johnson, “Nabokov’s perhaps ingenuous assertion [that the novel is focused on Krug’s
love to his family] should be accepted only with reservation.” (188)

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totalitarian state in Europe. That self-professed lack of interest in politics was, according to Dana
Dragunoiu, itself a testament to Nabokov’s political views, namely, his appreciation of liberalism
and its value of tolerance – including tolerance to non-involvement in politics, “the right to be
left alone.” (Dragunoiu 224–225) One thing is certain: Nabokov’s desire was to be perceived as
uninvolved in political thought as possible.
Rather than engaging in psychological analysis, trying to gauge the sincerity of
Nabokov’s statements or combing his oeuvre for traces of authorial anxieties, I suggest instead to
investigate how this paradox of a reportedly apolitical author creating politically charged works
becomes possible with the help of fictional countries. My argument is that for him, creating a
fictional country is a way to evade contemporary politics, at the same time engaging with history
and the eternal questions of the human condition. More specifically, those questions are
preserving or giving up one’s worldview when the environment deems it inappropriate, and
surviving the loss of loved ones. In words of Azar Nafisi, “Nabokov’s criticism [of
totalitarianism] is not dependent on current affairs or daily news cycles, and (...) his work is more
focused on an analysis of the mind-set that propels these regimes.” (114) While I do not believe
that Nabokov has much interest in “the mind-set that propels” dictatorships I agree that Bend
Sinister “is not dependent on (...) daily news cycles.”
In this chapter, I examine Bend Sinister to find out how Nabokov employed the motif of a
fictional country in his more mature years, when the pain of separation from his homeland dulled
and the world had witnessed still more devastating events. I study how his use of world-building
techniques facilitates an emergence of a space that allows to explore the issues of totalitarianism
(above all the intolerance to those have no desire to live according to the state’s decrees) while
claiming to have no interest in the real-world doubles of this fictional land (however dubious

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those claims might be). Moreover, creating a nameless fictional world gives Nabokov a chance
to engage in linguistic games and explore the boundaries of fictionality. The hodge-podge nature
of the land in Bend Sinister and the very fact it has no name can be seen as Nabokov's attempt to
distance himself from any particular nation. That distance allows him to write about the
generalized idea of a totalitarian state and its restrictive environment that can be built on any
soil, be it Russian, German, or Ruritanian.
Nabokov’s Bend Sinister was written in English and published in 194723 (Zverev 449.)
This novel, not one of his famous ones, has that typical Nabokovian mixture of wryness,
unexpected metaphors, acute admiration for the beauty of life and fascination with what lies
beyond, unfolding in a fictional country under the rule of a repulsive dictator.
If Glory contains a fictional land that cannot be reached, Bend Sinister is set in an equally
dreadful fictional country that cannot be left for a different country (most likely the USA). It is
that other unattainable country that takes the role of the promised land24
. Unlike vaguely
outlined, dimly lit Zoorlandia, the nameless country in Bend Sinister teems with culture,
languages, architecture, allowing the reader to transport themselves into the world being created.
As in the case with the novel’s predecessor, the protagonist’s life is significantly transformed by
a hostile regime, yet he has no interest in politics. For Martyn, ignoring politics was surprising,
but it was doable since it did not jeopardize his life – until he crossed the border. Conversely,
Adam, the philosopher in the center of the later novel, ignored something that was aggressively
23 In “Introduction,”Nabokov disavowed the novel’s similarity to George Orwell’s 1984 which
was published two years later than Bend Sinister, but does not explain why. While the
comparison of the novels is beyond the scope of this work, there is an intriguing affinity between
the two: in both, antiquarians pretend to side with the protagonist but are, in fact, supporters of
the regime who betray them.
24 Impossible to flee to in the world of Bend Sinister, the safe transatlantic haven is successfully
reached by an exile from Zembla in Pale Fire.

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trying to invade his space. This oversight led to a tragedy, yet the narrator/author supports this
position as the only one acceptable for a philosopher, scholar, or writer.
Addressing this antipathy to seeing the political side of the world, Will Norman writes
that Bend Sinister is “a dystopian political novel that disclaimed politics as a determining force
in its own world.” (261) I would modify this statement, because almost all the horrible events in
the novel are direct consequences of the political regime. It would be more accurate to call it “a
dystopian political novel, the protagonist of which disclaimed politics as a determining force in
his world against all evidence.”
Nabokov’s famously dismissive attitude to those who disagree with him, as exemplified
in the “Introduction”, may discourage some readers to emphasize the political element in Bend
Sinister. However, apart from Nabokov’s “Introduction”, there is nothing to suggest that those
who, like Penguin Random House, claim that Bend Sinister is “the most overtly political novel
[Nabokov] ever wrote,” are mistaken. As Rachel Trousdale wrote as late as in 2014, “[o]nly
recently have Nabokov scholars begun reading their subject against his own instructions, taking
seriously the possibility that despite his stated distaste for politics or his hatred of Freud, political
context and Freudian analysis may still provide important insights into his work.” (128) Robert
Alter (“Not Reading the Papers”) believes that what could be seen as “a categorical rejection of
the political realm” was in fact “a refusal to contemplate the political realm on the level of
fashionable formulas, with the limited language and the stunted imaginative reach of the daily
press.” (15) In other words, rather than casting aside the political events of his day, Nabokov
processed them but on a deeper level than it was customary.
It should also be noted that, similarly to the works studied in Chapter 2 and in stark
contrast with pro-revolutionary novels of chapter One, Bend Sinister is not concerned with the

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fate of a nation. If one wanted to find a middle ground between Nabokov’s ardent denial of any
political involvement and the novel’s obviously being a response to historical events of the 20th
century while evaluating Nabokov’s relationship with politics, it could be this: Nabokov is
indeed not interested in politics as applied to nations, but he is deeply concerned with how an
individual’s life may be destroyed by a dictatorship.
Whether one reads Bend Sinister as a piece of anti-totalitarian propaganda or not, one
thing is clear: there is no propaganda of a specific political regime. Chastising totalitarian
regimes and their insidious influence on the thinking individual’s life, Nabokov does not offer a
preferred alternative, a stance unimaginable for anyone being truly involved in politics. Nothing
suggests that this absence is due to his being unable to decide on one. Finding or naming such an
alternative just was not Nabokov’s intention.
Thus the difference between early Soviet FC narratives and that of Bend Sinister is
twofold. First, while the former are concerned with the wellbeing of the people as a whole, the
latter is more invested in the wellbeing of a person (and not just any person, but a thinker and an
intellectual). Second, Soviet fictional countries, whether Socialist or Capitalist, are created in
order to show the superiority of one regime over the other, whereas Nabokov does not extoll any
regimes, only noting which ones are detrimental for the individual.
Plot. Adam Krug is a philosopher and the main celebrity of an unnamed country which,
after a recent revolution, is being transformed into a totalitarian state. The state preaches
Ekwilism, a doctrine stating that everyone is equal and interchangeable. The head of the state is
Paduk, Adam’s classmate, whom he used to bully.

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The novel begins with Adam’s beloved wife dying in the capital’s hospital. The same
night, his university colleagues are asked to attend an emergency meeting: the university
president, afraid for the fate of the institution, wants the professors to pledge their loyalty to the
new regime by signing a manifesto, and want Adam Krug to hand the manifesto to the Ruler,
assuming that the later would be more likely to listen to his childhood mate. Krug refuses to do
either: he wants to maintain his right of not belonging to any political group. Unable to face the
fact and the arrangements related to it, he leaves the city with his eight-year-old son David, who
is unaware of his mother’s death, and stays at his friends’, the Maksimovs’, in the countryside.
Maksimov warns him that he should flee, but Krug does not want to take the threat seriously.
When Krug and David leave to take a walk, their hosts are arrested.
Returning to the city, Krug pays a visit to his friend Ember, a translator of Shakespeare,
and witnesses his arrest, followed by the arrest of another friend, Professor Hedron, in Krug’s
apartment. A young girl, Mariette, offers her services as a nanny/servant.
Krug is brought to Paduk’s residence, where the Ruler promises him the post of the
university president if he would publicly support the state, but he does not accept the offer. Krug
considers fleeing the country, and an antiquarian promises to help him. In fact, the antiquarian is
affiliated with the government, and it is only then the state becomes aware that Krug has a child.
While Mariette seduces Krug, the government agents show up in his apartment and arrest him;
Mariette turns out to be a sister of one of them, Linda.
Understanding that David is under threat, Krug immediately changes his mind and is
willing to accept anything the government asks him. He is told that the boy would be brought to
him – but the boy is not David, but someone with the same last name. They mixed them up.
David, it turns out, was taken to an experimental institution and murdered. The state still hopes

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Krug will collaborate and, to encourage it, promises to free his friends and other hostages. The
narrator, pitying Krug, makes him mad. When the mad Krug attempts to attack Paduk, he is shot.
Adam’s Country. What stands behind Nabokov’s choice of setting this particular novel in
a fictional country? It obviously had nothing to do with propaganda, as in the case of Lavrenev
and Nikulin. In the aftermath of WW2, the Western reader had no need in being shown an
example of a totalitarian regime that leads to a catastrophe. The didactic value of such an
approach would be questionable. Besides, Bend Sinister is a deliberately cryptic text that would
never appeal to the larger audience, thus rendering it useless as a political tool.
Nor can the decision to use a fictional country stem from the author’s fear of offending a
particular country or ruler. In late 1940s Nabokov could safely set his story in Nazi Germany,
which, along with its leader, ceased to exist, as well as – considering his residence in the States –
in the USSR (though it was written before the “Red Scare” made such anti-communist stance
desirable.25) Therefore, there must be other reasons for using a fictional country.
First, the sheer number of FC in Nabokov’s oeuvre (as listed in the previous chapter)
suggests that the motif was important for the author both before and after Bend Sinister, thus the
appearance of the country cannot only be explained by the peculiarities of the historical moment
or by the plot of the story but is linked to the essence of his oeuvre. Nabokov stated in an
interview with Alfred Appel that “[a] sad and distant kingdom seems to have haunted [his]
poetry and fiction since the ‘twenties.” (151) Sara Pankenier Weld offers an explanation of this
25 Analyzing Nabokov’s oeuvre in the context of the Cold War that is usually said to had begun
in 1947, Norman notes that the works that Nabokov wrote after arriving in the US and before the
start of the Cold War, including Bend Sinister, he attempted to be “a critical source of historical
experience able to disabuse naive American intellectuals of their faith in a communist state (p.
258). Bend Sinister was thus written on the verge of the Cold War but before the US-Soviet
relations went sour, which makes his anti-communist stance even more poignant.

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abundance of “distant kingdoms.” She singles out a corpus of Nabokov’s texts that deal with
Northern kingdoms which, she argues, are linked to the motif of forgery. She believes they are “a
counter-factual counterfeit that celebrates the creative process, wherein the forger of fictions
struggles to create his own “reality” and surmount separation, loss, exile, and nostalgia.” (186)
Bend Sinister does not quite fit in the group of “distant kingdoms” – it is neither a kingdom nor a
Northern country, yet it also features glorification of creativity and uses loss as an engine of the
plot. The issues of exile and nostalgia, however, are more relevant for Zoorliandia than for
Krug’s country.
Second, introducing a fictional country in Bend Sinister allows Nabokov to enjoy worldand word building, which would be not quite as large-scale were he to set the story in a country
where geography, history, and politics already exist. That also gave him more freedom in
creating the ruler, since he did not not have to resemble any particular dictator and mimic his
biography.
Third, it might be read as an attempt to avoid being called a political writer and to
distance himself from political conversations while still dealing with the issues that were
discussed at the time, namely, the evils of repressive regimes and the desperate moral dilemmas
that people find themselves under dictatorships. Introducing a fictional country is a solution to
this paradox.
Fourth, the nameless country gave Nabokov a playground or laboratory to study a
phenomenon unrelated to its real-world embodiments in specific countries. By combining the
evils of the two totalitarian states, Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, he created and explored a
space beyond the two regimes with their specific history and culture. That space had, with no

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relation to national coloring, bringing out the commonalities in the two totalitarianisms. This is a
novel about being an independent thinker under a totalitarian regime per se.
Finally, as noted by John Burt Foster, Jr., the novel can be read as a “hypothetical
autobiography” (30), which shows the doubles of Nabokov’s wife and son perishing in a
tyrannical regime. Another term for this genre is “counterfactual biography” (John Rodden and
John P. Rossi.) If that reading is accepted, it means that creating a fictional country becomes a
way for the author to detach himself from the specific place he had to flee and his specific life
story and see how the events could have developed. Creating a counterfactual geography is a
logical consequence of writing a counterfactual biography.
Polical system. The Ekwilist dystopia is peculiar in that, unlike most dystopias, parts of it
are charming, not nightmarish. It is as if the country was run by children – just not by very nice
ones, whose games could turn deadly.
The doctrine and politics remind those of Zoorlandiia, but here are more full-fledged.
Adam’s country, too, values equality above all, using the lowest standard possible as its measure.
Same as in Zoorliandia, rather than overwhelm the reader with gruesome details, Nabokov
stresses the laughable in the regime. For example, the regulation that “everyone boarding a motor
bus [must] not only show his or her passport, but also give the conductor a signed and numbered
photograph” is called “an amusing new law”.
As explained in the novel, the philosophy of Ekwilizm was created by one Fradrik
Skotoma. His idea was that we have to re-distribute consciousness among humans, so everyone
gets his or her equal share of it – an idea that would have been an immense success in
Zoorlandia. Scotoma, the name of the fictional philosopher, is a real word: “a spot in the visual
field in which vision is absent or deficient.” (Merriam-Webster). This reference unambiguously

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testifies to the author’s attitude to the theory: Skotoma’s view on life is deformed, and people
have different levels of “consciousness.” I understand “consciousness” as a person’s intellectual,
aesthetic, and emotional capabilities. Equality in consciousness would suggest robbing such
people as Krug of “excesses” – abilities to philosophize, admire beauty, and love with all their
heart. If Zoorliandians wanted to introduce a comical equality of hair length, Paduk’s regime
wants to control the citizen’s souls.
In the beginning of the novel, Krug is crossing a long bridge and is accompanied by a
fiery supporter of the regime who laments excessiveness of knowledge:
The books they print! You know—you will never believe me—but I have been
told by a reliable person that in one bookshop there actually is a book of at least a
hundred pages which is wholly devoted to the anatomy of bedbugs. Or things in foreign
languages which nobody can read. And all the money spent on nonsense.
While condemning knowledge, the same character praises common sense: “Less books
and more commonsense—that’s my motto.” But it turns out that common sense is only done lip
service. As Nabokov notes, ultimately “dim-brained brutality (…) thwarts its own purpose.” By
killing Krug’s son, the dictator loses any way to manipulate the public behavior of the famous
philosopher that he craves.
Simplification is another virtue of the new order: the speech that the government wrote
for Krug to deliver publicly, has him introduce “the era of Dynamic Living” (an attractive name,
but we never learn what dynamics implies), with its “great and beautiful simplification.” In the
same vein is the argument from Hamm’s study of Shakespeare, as quoted in Chapter 7 by
Ember: “the simple words, verbum sine ornatu26, intelligible to man and beast alike, and
accompanied by fit action, must be restored to power.” When Ember is arrested Krug talks to
26 Also note the irony of using Latin when preaching the value of “simple words”; Hamm’s
argument annihilates itself.

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him in English (that is, not the language of the country), and Hustav, the police officer, is
annoyed: ““We are not in a classroom, Professor,” he said, turning to Krug, “so please use
language that everybody can understand.” Using foreign languages is probably frowned upon
because 1) it means you are showing off your education and 2) it gives one an opportunity to
convey a secret message. A eulogy to simplicity and a denunciation of anything not easily
comprehensible: no idea could be more foreign to Nabokov or his intellectual protagonist.
For Ekwilists, danger stems not only from knowledge, but from solitary life as well:
“People are made to live together, to do business with one another, to talk, to sing songs
together, to meet in clubs and stores, and at street corners—and in churches and stadiums on
Sundays—and not sit alone, thinking dangerous thoughts.” This celebration of communal spirit
has strong affinity with such Soviet practices as “the reading huts” and communal apartments,
while the mention of churches shows that the country is not a twin of the USSR, with its militant
post-revolutionary atheism. Needless to say, “sitting alone, thinking dangerous thoughts” is
exactly what a philosopher does, especially after losing his wife and friends.
How is the country created? The most striking quality of Nabokov’s fictional country is
its overabundance of information. In some FC texts, the information is abundant but dry.
Nabokov’s overabundance is different from that found in Kassil’ Bud’te gotovy, Vashe
velichestvo! (to be explored in the next chapter). Some information on the fictional country that
Kassil’ offers has no important meaning other than to indicate that some very specific
information about this country is available. For example, the total area of the country, as
provided in the book the protagonists read, has nothing to do with the plot and does not influence
the readers’ perception of the country.

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Nabokov’s fictional country is completely different. There is no “dry” information; every
little detail can be somehow interpreted, or, at the very least, adds to the visual image. The
overabundance of information performs several functions.
First, it creates a disorienting effect. The story is set in a country where people have equal
chances of being called Anna Petrovna Maksimov and Amalia von Wytwyl with no expressly
stated ethnic differences. Such incongruity cannot be overlooked by the reader, and they might
start guessing what caused it, thus expanding the fictional world of the country in their mind with
potential explanations – or, alternatively, reading the incongruities as the symptom of the world
being fictional.
Second, it enables Nabokov to indulge in his favorite pastime, namely, flaunting his
linguistic mastery. Creating names and language for the fictional country gave Nabokov ample
opportunity to showcase his ingenuity and knowledge.
Third, the overabundance may be an attempt to emphasize the conventionality of the
narrative and the artificiality of the world created. By flooding the reader with unnecessary, yet
colorful details, the author mocks the country-building devices just as he does stylistical ones.
Fourth, it creates a distance between the characters, on the one hand, and the reader and
the author on the other. The details signal that those people are foreign, a subject of research and
observation, rather than someone like the reader and the author.
Finally, the richness of country-building details elevates the status of the author/narrator.
To understand and appreciate every line in the novel, a reader has to understand all of the
multiple languages and cultures referred to. That requirement is impossible even with a most
erudite person, since Nabokov also uses a language of his own making, unknown to anyone else,
and does not always offer a translation. Consequently, only the creator of this world would be

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able to fully grasp what is going on. The ordinary readers will always have blind spots that will
prevent them from seeing the full picture, a feature that adds to the narrator’s divine status.
Geography. The nameless country of Bend Sinister seems to be a European one. Its
capital city, where most of the action takes place, is a typical European city, featuring a river, a
cathedral with “a bronze dome”, statues of Neptune and one of the kings. The city has Roman
roots and medieval history: witches were burnt there and astronomers were persecuted, acts of
intolerance foreshadowing the oppressive regime of Krug’s age. Some of its historical flair has
been obliterated since some streets were renamed after the revolution: “a store on Theod – sorry,
Emrald Avenue” (the former most likely referred one of Theodors, the kings); “Skotoma Place
(ex Liberty Place, ex Imperial Place.)” The citizens use kruns for currency, the name of the
currency reminiscent of “krone”, a once popular name for currency in Europe.
There is, however, no direct mention of the country being a European one. Central
Europe is mentioned as a region where one can flee from the country so that it seems that the
country is not in Central Europe. If we had to put it on the map we could locate it in Eastern
Europe, since German, French and Russian are spoken there, thus presumably it is located close
to all three countries. The European quality of the capital means that out of the two prototypes
of the regime – Soviet and Nazi – the second one is more obvious.
Nabokov is very generous with the names of locations in the fictional country: Omigod
Lane, Prinzin Hospital, Dimmerlamp Street, Lagodan Mountains, Lake Malheur. Apart from
granting the country more verisimilitude by making it more detailed, the names are unusual and,
as such, beg for interpretation, occasionally marked by the narrator himself: For example,
It had grown dark while he had been travelling and the crooked little
[Dimmerlamp] street lived up to its name.

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Or this remark, shortly after the Maksimovs are arrested:
The well-named lake [Malheur] was a featureless expanse of grey water (...)
Such direct correspondences emphasize the literary character of the narrative, reminiscent
of eighteenth-century plays where characters would be given names depending on their moral
characteristics. By reading the name of such a person you would be able to tell if he is a good
person or a villain even without reading the play. Similarly, by telling us that Krug is going to
Dimmerlamp Street, the narrator foreshadows that it will be dark, whereas sending him to the
lake Malheur hints at the tragic outcome of the trip. These “hints” are blunt enough to suspect
that they are used in a parodying way.
In contrast with offering an abundance of toponyms, the narrator does not specify the
name of the country, thus covering the plethora of extremely varied names with an umbrella of
vagueness. An alternative reading is that the name is supplied, but is not unambiguously
deciphered as the name of the country. “Padukgrad” is a toponym that appears in the text and it
could be the name of the country, but, if you know Russian and names of cities like “Leningrad”,
“Volgograd”, this theory is difficult to accept, since the “grad” root too obviously references a
“city”. Reading the “Introduction” we can presume that it is a city since it is mentioned along
with a different location in the country: “The language of the country, as spoken in Padukgrad
and Omigod.” However, in the following sentence “Padukgrad” could be replaced with “my
country”, not “my city”: “He saw the possibility of escaping from Padukgrad into a foreign
country as a kind of return into his own past because his own country had been a free country in
the past.” (One escapes from a country into a different country, not from a city to a different
country.) Settling on one answer is thus impossible.

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It is hard to tell what was the reason behind choosing to omit the name of the country27. It
is not as blatantly obvious as in some other texts, where the name’s absence means that the
language becomes noticeably cumbersome. In this case its function is probably to increase the
atmosphere of darkness, the dream-like quality of the story, since the reader is transported
somewhere but does not know where. Another reason may be that choosing a name would
facilitate, to a certain degree, reading the country as a specific totalitarian country, either
Germany or USSR, according to the reader’s preference. Finally, since the citizens cannot leave
their country, it is, in a sense, not a country, but the country, the one and only, thus requiring no
name because there is nothing to distinguish it from.
Indeterminacy in Nabokov’s oeuvre is the object of study in Priscilla Meyer’s Nabokov
and Indeterminacy. She focuses on The Real Life of Sebastian Knight when she writes that it “is
built on (...) the indeterminacy of reality” (4), but Bend Sinister demonstrates this quality as well.
Meanwhile, Yelizaveta Goldfarb notes a lack of specificity in Invitation to a Beheading, from the
vagueness of Cincinattus’s crimes to the unspecified date of his execution (52).
The map of the country is mentioned, but its quality is akin to that of the country’s name.
The way the reader is shown the map both adds to the verisimilitude and underscores the lack
thereof: in Paduk’s residence, Krug saw “a contour map of the State, made of bronze with towns
and villages represented by precious and semiprecious stones of various colours.”
By showing the reader the map, a document confirming the place’s existence, authors of
FC narratives can make the country look more real. Maps show how the country is related to the
27 In a case of a more conscious omission, one character “subdued his voice as he named the
former President of the State”, preventing the reader from learning the President’s name. This is
a classic example of omitting details related to a fictional country – see, for example, Izobretenie
Val’sa.

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world and suggest its geographical features, such as presence or absence of seas. However, since
no map, visual or verbal, is attached to the novel, the only thing the reader learns from it is that
the country is somehow related to other countries (though even that does not have to be indicated
on a map), has borders, is of a certain size and shape, has villages and towns. That is to say, they
do not learn anything that they would not learn from just being told “Krug lived in a country”.
That lack of information negates the verisimilar effect granted by mentioning the map
Other countries and nationalities are mentioned multiple times which, along with the
peculiar mix of a language, creates a feeling of the country being a melting pot of cultures. We
see a Swiss trinket, a boy of Alsatian descent, an Estonian maid, a Persian merchant, mugs from
German Kurorts, and a Georgian Prince. We learn that in the capital “most of the river people
and washermen” were Chinese. In Paduk’s palace “a classroom was visited: a score of brownskinned Armenian and Sicilian lads were diligently writing at rosewood desks”.
That suggests that, first, the country is not the only country in the world; second, that the
world it is in is geographically similar to our world. The absurd features of Krug’s country thus
look even more absurd when juxtaposed with real countries.
Interactions between Paduk’s state and other countries are alluded to, but those other
countries are never named as contemporary actors, in contrast with the abundance of national
names referred to before. Such omissions are probably due to Nabokov’s reluctance to look
involved in actual politics, an impression unavoidable if such actors as France, UK or USA were
named directly. The absence of most obvious names coupled with the presence of such rare
nationalities as Estonian and Alsatian creates a curious effect of the action actually taking place
in a parallel world – a word where those Ally countries do not necessarily exist.

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References to other countries are enigmatic, a feature that makes translating the story into
the real world more challenging and ambiguous. For example, this passage creates a false sense
of specificity:
The two or three fat nations (the one that is blue on the map and the one that is
fallow) from which my [Paduk] craves recognition, loans, and whatever else a bulletridden country may want to obtain from its sleek neighbour (...)
That information would not help you establish what country is meant, because there
seems to be no universal standards according to coloring specific countries. Using a color instead
of a name is almost a childish thing, something that is in line with the gamelike, not-quite-real
nature of Krug’s world.
Culture. A number of highly specific realia and traditions are mentioned which creates an
impression of the country being a real, full-fledged world, not just some makeshift setting. For
example, there is a note on climate: “The town was curiously bright in the late sunlight: this was
one of the Painted Days peculiar to the region. They came in a row after the first frost (...)” We
are given information on the traditional costume, too: “long boots and a peaked cap” are
attributes of a peasant. These details are specific and believable.
Other details, however, are so strange as to make us doubt their reality – or the narrator’s
seriousness. For example, head-scratching is defamiliarized and referred to as “a quaint method
used in that country because supposed to prompt a richer flow of blood to the cells of thought”
(as if people didn’t do it elsewhere!)28 Another gesture is more curious: Quist, the antiquarian,
28 This reference to the capacity of brain in the citizens of the country is not just a passing
remark. In the “Introduction”, Nabokov notes that in Krug’s country, “a certain dull-wittedness is
a national trait of the people” (and Krug, though a world-famous philosopher, is not an
exception, since he never thinks that the government can use his son to break him). It is not,
however, a Country of Fools; the laws may be absurd, the doctrine naïve, but in day-to-day life

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“gave Krug an old-fashioned kiss on the left shoulder.”29 This kiss, not widely known in Europe
and reminiscent of Judas kiss (since Quist betrayed Krug), is mentioned in passing, as if it was
nothing to comment on – unlike the gesture of scratching your head, familiar to every reader and
requiring no explanation, yet being accompanied by it. Mentioning strange things in passing, as
if they do not deserve more attention than more familiar items, is a strategy for creating a
verisimilar fictional country but also for blurring the lines between possible and impossible,
reality and dreams. Another example of that strategy would be Krug’s interview with a prison
official who asks him about his religion: “Catholic? Vitalist? Protestant?” While Catholicism and
Protestantism are wide-spread, vitalism is not as well-known and, outside of Krug’s world, is not
a religion at all.
Such is the extent of detailing of the fictional country that we even get some
understanding of the local cuisine. The reader’s experience is thus amplified by gustotary
impressions. For example, the natives of the country use miroks, “small pink potatoes”. Krug is
asked whether “he [has] any trouble in getting milk and radishes?”, thus radishes seem to be one
of the food staples. Barbok is “a kind of pie with a hole in the middle for melted butter”. They
also have “wrongly accented piróshki, wrongly spelled schtschi” – which are of course Russian
dishes, one of the many proofs that the country is infused with Russian culture, but refracted
through foreign eyes (or, here, their tongues).
All the wealth of details ensures that the experience is as immersive as possible—that the
reader has all the experiences they would have if they visited the country or witnessed the story
people have enough brainpower to function successfully and, if necessary, to bypass the absurd
regulations imposed by the government.
29 The kiss on the right shoulder is reportedly a real tradition in Abkhazia
(Discoverabkhazia.org).

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with their own eyes. The reader, if they are aware of the country being an artificial one—and
Nabokov keeps reminding them that—can also appreciate the inventiveness of Nabokov in
making up names, places, traditions that are plausible but also unexpected. Just as Sonia and
Martyn enjoyed creating their land of Zoorliandia, Nabokov in this novel seems to find pleasure
in world-building, in covering different facets of the life of a country, finding more and more
ways to immerse the reader in the story while ensuring they notice the author’s ingenuity.
Language(s). One of the most prominent directions in which Nabokov exercises his
country-building skills is the language of the country. Julie Loison-Charles notes several
functions of using fictional and foreign words in Nabokov’s fiction. Among those is “illustrative
function, or effet de réel”, when “a foreign word can be used to ascertain the reality of the
foreign country, be it real or imaginary, and it helps (…) give [the text] “couleur locale.” (132)
The sheer number of words in the fictional language, however, suggests that it was done for
something other than verisimilitude. Were Nabokov only interested in making the country more
plausible, he could have used considerably fewer foreign words and phrases. A more metatextual
explanation belongs to Frank Kermode who links the excessive language with “a farcical
acknowledgement of the need for verisimilitude,” as if Nabokov was impersonating a writer who
knew that in order to create a believable world they should quote its language and was a little too
generous with this device.
The most striking quality of the linguistic landscape of Krug’s country is its
heterogeneity. There are plenty of German and Germanic-looking words, most of them with
translations. The oft-referred to ditty “domusta barbarn kapusta,” translated as “the uglies wives
are the truest,” hints at Germanic, Latin and Russian, and can be read as metaphor for the text
(the story is so ugly it must be true; contrary to our constantly being reminded that it is just a

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book.)30 Some words are originally German, but spelled differently: not capitalized though they
should be, or “ue” standing for “ü.” This means we cannot be certain we are seeing German
words.
Russian phrases are numerous, and many of them sound old-fashioned, as if taken from a
classical 19th century novel: “shto bish”, “pravo”, “sudar”, “pokoĭnoĭ nochi.” Thus the literary
nature of the story is accentuated, but also its being almost too full of adventures, like
kidnappings, hostages, spying, etc. It is also as if Nabokov is showing off his knowledge of
“old”, pre-revolutionary, Russian, in defiance of the Soviet order, challenging the power of
dictators who attempt to destroy culture.
Most Russian phrases are translated, and all are given in transliteration. What is curious is
that 1) sometimes the transliteration follows pronunciation, not spelling and 2) scholarly-looking
symbols are employed which adds some exotics (as if it was a different alphabet). This ensures
that even speakers of Russian would not just gloss over the familiar phrases but will also
perceive them as somewhat foreign.
Very colorful vernacular Russian is translated to a much blander English: “Podi
galonishcha dva vysvistal za-noch [I fancy he must have drunk a couple of gallons during the
night].” ““Yablochko, kuda-zh ty tak kotishsa [little apple, whither are you rolling]?” asked the
soldier and added: “A po zhabram, milaĭ, khochesh [want me to hit you, friend]?” Every reader
will understand what the soldier said, but only those who speak Russian appreciate it fully: the
archaic “podi”, the accented “milaĭ”, and the rude but powerful “po zhabram”.
30 It is also a reference to “la belle infidele”, a famous metaphor for a work of literary translation
that is beautiful but unfaithful. It is relevant, since the theme of translation is so important in the
world of the story.

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Some words seem to be Slavic, but not Russian, for example “kwazinka”, “a slit between
the folding parts of a screen”, probably from “скважина” (slit), but also possibly inspired by the
Latin “quasi”, a word that makes sense in the world that does not really exist. Other words
suggest Italian: “trivesta”, or“details of amorous doings”, velvetina (no translation or italics,
something that David was finishing, probably a breakfast drink or food), begonia (brilliancy).
Latin is used more often than the modern reader is used to, but it is a separate language, not
mixing with the rest.
Nabokov calls the country’s non-German, non-Russian language “a mongrel blend”. It is
not just a sprinkling of a Germanic language in a Slavic one (or vice versa); the language seems
to incorporate both grammars, which is hardly possible in the real world. Here is an example:
““David is also laid up with a cold [ist auk beterkeltet] but that is not why we had
to come back [zueruk]. What [shto bish] were you saying about those rehearsals
[repetitia]?”
The phrases in the first sentence are Germanic by morphology and syntax; the second
begins with Russian and ends with a Latin/Italian looking word.
Finally, sometimes even speakers of German and Russian would be baffled. Occasionally
the reader is offered no translation for words that do not have any cognates in real languages
involved in the story:
“Prakhtata meta!” poor Dr Azureus cried to the very quiet assembly. “Prakhta tuen
vadust, mohen kern! Profsar Krug malarma ne donje … Prakhtata!”
As Nabokov explained in the Introduction, he took a line out of Mallarmés poem and
wrote it down phonetically, so that “sanglot dont j’étais encore ivre” turned into “donje te
zankoriv,” a phrase that appears in the novel with the translation “do please excuse me”. Same
“donje” appears in Dr. Azureus’s speech, but all we can understand is that he is very frustrated;
there is no key to this riddle. The word “tuen” appears in the title of Krug’s The Philosophy of

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Sin (Komparatiwn Stuhdar en Sophistat tuen Pekrekh – probably Comparative studies in the
Philosophy of Sin), so the reader is welcome to pause and try to decipher both, maybe thinking
of devoiced German “bracht”, “mogen”, “gern”, maybe understanding it as a “curse”
(“праклятие”, if spelled phonetically.)
A similar word “donjet” appears in “Ustra mara, donjet domra”, which is “a popular ditty
lauding the intoxicating properties of gooseberry wine and also a folk song”. It is tempting to try
finding a corresponding Russian ditty—and that was perhaps the author’s intention—but I have
had no success. As in case with Azureus, not understanding the phrase does not interfere with
our understanding of the plot.
Entertaining though it may be, this linguistic environment proves deadly. David is taken
to the experimentation center and killed because of a verbal misunderstanding: when Krug is
arrested, those in charge of David shout something which the police agrees to without
understanding the meaning. Not understanding a word and not trying to understand is what leads
to David’s death:
At this moment the nursery window (...) flew open and one of the youths leant
out, bawling something in a questioning tone. Because of the gusty wind, nothing could
be made out of the jumble of words that came forth.
“What?” cried Linda, her nose impatiently puckered.
“Uglowowgloowoo?” called the youth from the window.
“Okay,” said Mac to no one in particular. (...) “We hear you.”
“Okay!” cried Linda upwards, making a megaphone of her hands.
A meaningless sound is treated the same way as human speech; correct interpretation of
the message is of little importance. The starting point of the catastrophe is thus a linguistic
negligence.
The reader does not have a child’s life dependent on their understanding, yet if they
realize that they are doing exactly what the careless police have done—glossing over a word they

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do not understand because they have something more important to do, it might make them stop
and give the deciphering another try.
Bend Sinister thus uses at least five foreign languages with scintillating borders, which is
not a common case in modern literature. One would hardly suppose that Nabokov just did not
care and used any words as long as they were foreign ones. There are fictional languages created
haphazardly (for example, Molvanian in Molvanîa), but here incongruity is too obvious to
presume Nabokov did not notice about it or did not care. There must be a different reason.
Moreover, it is baffling that a country which prefers mediocrity over uniqueness would allow for
such variety and disorder as far as the language is concerned.
The answer, at least according to the author, is that the disorder is actually a hallmark of
Paduk’s regime. As Nabokov notes in the Introduction, “problems of translation, fluid transitions
from one tongue to another, semantic transparencies (…) are as characteristic of [his fictional
place] as are the monetary problems of more habitual tyrannies.”
If this indeed is to be read as a sign of something being rotten in the country, it is a very
convenient one, since it allows Nabokov to engage in the game of showing off his knowledge of
obscure words and mastery of foreign languages. Most likely, the variety of language and
“semantic transparencies” origin, in Nabokov’s predilection for them rather than in an attempt to
add to the totalitarian atmosphere31. Just like Martyn and Sonia in Glory, Nabokov voluntarily
creates a world that is based on principles that appall him, yet finds a way to derive aesthetic
pleasure even in such a setting. The darkness of the totalitarian backdrop makes the beauty of
31
In a different context, when writing about Nazi Germany, Hannah Arendt notes that “the
monolithic quality of [totalitarianism] is a myth,” as opposed to it being fluid. It is precisely this
fluidity that we see in Nabokov’s novel: in language, in toponyms, in power hierarchy.

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complex metaphors, the ingenuity of wordplay and glimpses of joyful memories shine even
brighter.
Another reason I would like to propose is related to the fact that nations are often defined
by a language. Since Nabokov was not interested in studying the effects of dictatorship on a
nation, it made sense for him to make the elements of his fictional country as different and
unrelated as possible. That prevented the reader from forming an idea of people from Krug’s
country as a nation united by a uniform language and ensured that the Krug’s personal
predicament is at the fore.
Moreover, the confusing linguistic environment ensures that the reader appreciates the
guiding hand of the narrator and understands they would be lost otherwise.
Another possible reason for this melee is that it shows the unreal character of the country.
The language is not unlike dream decorations discussed elsewhere in the novel: “[the dream’s]
somewhat meager setting was patched up with odds and ends from other (later) plays.”
The language of the country has been the subject of several studies. Some scholars call it
Kuranian (P. S. Dronov, E. V. Beloglazova), which I believe is not correct. First of all, the word
“Kuranian” related to language appears in the “Introduction” only, which was written almost
twenty years after the novel itself. It is, however, understandable that a scholar would want to be
able to refer to the language in a single word, not in clumsy phrases like “The language of
Krug’s country,” which suggests that without Krug the language has no existence (which, in a
sense, is true, since with death of the protagonist the novel end and the fictional world dissolves.)
Secondly, the outlines of the fictional language are too ambiguous. Filonov Gove
believes that “the boundaries between real and invented language material in the novel are
intentionally fluid.” (85) Trying to analyze all fictional words in the text as belonging to one

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language with certain phonetical and etymological rules, one robs the linguistic landscape of its
fluidity. There is no indication in the text that there is just one fictional language and not two or
three.
Consider, for example, the case of Ember’s translation of Hamlet:
Ubit’ il’ ne ubit’? Vot est oprosen.
Vto bude edler: v razume tzerpieren
Ogneprashchi i strely zlovo roka –
The lines are provided in transliterated Russian, distorted ever so slightly32, something
that might cause a Russian-speaking reader to wonder if they cannot understand their own
language (doubting the reality of their own world). How do we classify it? Is it Russian refracted
through the eyes of a Western reader of the book? Is it the fictional language of the country? It is
impossible to settle on one answer33
.
The casual statement that the language is Kuranian is not just an oversight but, I argue, a
norm in modern scholarship, which treats fictional geographies as a subject not worthy of serious
analysis. While correspondences between the fictional and the real geographies are often
considered, it is the “real” that is treated with more respect. Calling an unnamed language(s) by a
name introduced decades after the book was published would be unthinkable if the object of the
analysis was a real language. Similarly impossible would be calling a country by a name that
could be its name without even noting that it is just an assumption.
As noted in the Introduction, “colloquial Russian and German are (...) used by
representatives of all groups” of citizens. The challenge here is that if you do not speak German
or Russian you might have trouble distinguishing German, Russian, and fictional words. The
32 Ronald Peterson, in his article on the language of Pale Fire, argues that “Nabokov is more
interested in deforming familiar words and grammar than in the formative processes of a
language.” (29)
33 In his “Introduction,” Nabokov classifies it as “the vernacular”.

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choice of German and Russian seems to hint that life in both Russian and Germany is not unlike
of that of people from Krug’s country, something that Nabokov admits in his Introduction,
though claiming this affinity is of no great import: “There can be distinguished, no doubt, certain
reflections in the glass directly caused by the idiotic and despicable regimes that we all know and
that have brushed against me in the course of my life: worlds of tyranny and torture, of Fascists
and Bolshevists”.
The narrator is generous with translations, sometimes even excessive, though his concern
for the reader is questionable. He does not translate Latin and French, as if presuming the reader
knows both. Moreover, some translations are more confusing than helpful. For example,
glockenmetall is translated as bronzo da campane, geschützbronze – as bronzo da cannoni, blasebalgen – as vozdukhoduvnye mekha, and dushka – as animula. That means that the reader has to
perform one more round of translation, but this time on their own, and perhaps feeling their
vocabulary is not rich enough34
.
Translations are also an opportunity for word games. While “nietwippen” are translated
as “lever-dollies”, it can be understood as both a mechanism and as Nabokov’s own words for
rolly-pollys, ironic since it appears in an industrial context, but also hinting at Krug and the title
(a round doll which resists one’s attempts to make it change its stance).
Though most Russian phrases are given with their translations, suggesting its audience
was first and foremost Anglophone, the novel is obviously meant to be read by Russians too—
otherwise some puns would go unnoticed. For example, “krakhmalchiki” is translated as
“starched collars for men and boys”, but only a speaker of Russian will know that it includes the
34 In his article on Zemblan, the language of Pale Fire, Peterson argues that many glosses in that
novel are “intended more for amusement than for clarification.” (30)

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words “starch” (krakhmal),“demise” (krakh) and “boys” (mal’chiki) and will appreciate the word
play. Similarly, a pseudo-Germanic “Yer un dah” is translated as “stuff and nonsense”, which is
a correct translation of Russian “ерунда”. Every reader will understand what “Yer un dah”
means, but only those who speak Russian will understand it is a pun. Sometimes, as in Krug’s
conversation with Maximov, there is too much Russian, and instead of translating Russian words
to English the narrator does the opposite, as if forgetting who his audience is. Not providing the
reader with information necessary for understanding is a device used throughout Nabokov’s
oeuvre; Priscilla Meyer even talks about “mutual incomprehensibility”, where neither
anglophone nor russophone readers will get the full picture when exposed to Nabokov’s
allusions and wordplay (149).
Not only does Nabokov juggle languages – he also uses different varieties of the same
language. For example, Paduk concludes the interview with Shakespearean English: ‘Nay, do not
speak. They cannot hold their fire much longer. Prithee, go.” In contrast, Linda, Hustav and
Mariette use American slang words like “yep” and “you guys.” Although it is hardly surprising
that it is the scholar Krug, and not an illiterate peasant, who uses Latin, the prison guards use for
some reason swear in “old-fashioned French”. Different accents of the language of the land are
used – the nurse at the hospital has a “marshland accent”. All that creates an even stronger sense
of disorder. Language distribution is thus not necessarily equivalent to that of the real world, be
it hierarchically or chronologically, something that heightens the sensation of a “patched up”,
illogical, dream-like world.
Conclusion.
For Nabokov, the motif of a fictional nation under a dictatorial regime is something that
connects his early, Russian works to his American oeuvre. Both Glory and Bend Sinister feature

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a fictional country with borders that can only be crossed if risking one’s life. In obvious parallel
with totalitarian states of the 1920s–1940s, both works feature regimes that are obsessed with
equality and denigrate knowledge.
The difference between the two is in the level of world-building. While Zoorlandia is
vague, the unnamed (presumably) European country in Bend Sinister abounds with details that
immerse the reader in the fictional environment. They highlight the author’s ingenuity and
polyglotism. The excessiveness and incoherence of details confuses the reader and brings their
attention to the made-up nature of the country and to the role of the author/narrator. The
author/narrator’s apparent concern to explain everything to the reader turns out to be not quite
sincere, since explanations are even more confusing than the original.
Bend Sinister seems to differ from other novels in the dissertation, but ultimately its
message—if we, for a moment, try to ignore the authorial voice—can also be seen as a
propagandist one; only this message is that if a society is built on propaganda, the thinking
individual is doomed and their only feasible option is to get outside. Nabokov rather
unsuccessfully attempts to eschew being seen as concerned with the current questions of the
time, namely, the plight of an individual who is caught in a dictatorial regime and faces hard
choices. It is impossible to ignore the parallels between the fictional tyranny and the real ones,
though the author's predilection for the motif of fictional country in other works suggests that the
motif appearing in this particular novel is not to be explained solely by the contemporary
political situation. Bend Sinister is an ode to political non-involvement which, paradoxically,
shows that those avoiding political questions may not end well – just like Krug, who adamantly
professed his non-engagement in politics and, because of this, lost what was most precious for a
father and a philosopher: his son and his sanity.

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Importantly, the regime Nabokov creates is not a stand-in for a specific country, but
totalitarianism per se. While painting a dismal picture of a totalitarian country, he does not offer
any positive alternatives, apart from dream-like images of a free faraway land. He does not try to
find the best way to run a country; the only wellbeing he is interested in is that of an individual,
and the only way for an individual trapped in a totalitarian state to prevail is to flee. Thus there is
not much interest in toppling the regime: such endeavor presupposes concern about a nation
which, in the world of Bend Sinister, is a dehumanizing concept, conceiving of people as being
interchangeable.
Creating the country gives Nabokov ample room to experiment, play with words, and
design his own world. In that sense, he becomes similar to Martyn who took pleasure in creating
his own country, even though his creation was anything but appealing. That world also doubles
as a laboratory for his “hypothetical autobiography”, blurring the lines between Nabokov as the
author, able to build worlds and histories, and Nabokov as a person who has little control over
his own world and what is happening in it.
Since the world created by Nabokov has so many undefined elements, it highlights a
curious feature in scholarship that deals with fictional countries, namely its tendency to treat
fictional geographies, especially toponyms, as a matter that does not merit the preciseness one
deems necessary for real geographies (a vestige of positivist approach in scholarship). This
discrimination is, I believe, among the reasons why fictional countries as a motif have rarely
been the subject of serious scholarly studies. Another extreme is equally undesirable: E. A.
Malysheva’s “Slovar’ kuranianskogo iazyka” (“Kuranian Dictionary”) treats an incompletely
portrayed and pointendly heterogeneous language as a real one, forgetting that its obvious
fictionality is one of its most prominent features.

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Chapter 4: A Prince Turned Pioneer and a Pioneer who Saved a
Country: Cold War Era Propaganda in Lev Kassil’s Bud’te gotovy,
Vashe vysochestvo! (Be Prepared, Your Highness!) and Vasiliĭ
Aksenov’s Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik (My Grandfather, The
Monument).
Introduction.
When one thinks of fictional countries in the context of children’s literature, the first ones
to come to mind are fantasy lands, such as Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, L.
Frank Baum’s Oz. Those lands are created as a magical – and pointedly different – alternative to
our reality. Time spent there might be transformative for the protagonist, but the didactic element
does not have to be salient and, if present, is more concerned with one’s personal qualities, such
as loyalty and persistence, than with the ways to run a country.
The following chapter deals with fictional countries for children of a different kind.
Dzhungakhora from Kassil’s Bud’te gotovy, Vashe vysochestvo! and the Republic of Bol’shie
Empirei from Vasiliĭ Aksenov’s Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik are exotic, but non-magical. Created
in the era of the Cold War, the texts, while entertaining, are unapologetically didactic, and apart
from promoting such virtues as fearlessness and diligence, have a strong political message.
Unlike the first three chapters, which dealt with works heavily influenced by dramatic historical
events, these two books explore the precarious state of postwar peace. At the forefront is not the
revolution and its immediate aftermath, be it benign or devastating, but the confrontation of two
ways of life.

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Using the examples of Bud’te gotovy, Vashe vysochestvo! and Moĭ dedushka –
pamiatnik, I study how employing the motif of a fictional country facilitated pro-Soviet and antiWestern propaganda for children in the Cold War. I argue that one of the central problems of the
Soviet Cold War literature was to preserve the mask of peacefulness and international
cooperation while being pointedly hostile towards foreign political models. Employing a third,
small country offered a solution to that problem, since the USSR’s hostility towards capitalist
countries could be disguised as support for their less powerful protégé, and the two superpowers
were shown to fight only indirectly. The fact that the third country is a fictional one granted
additional propagandist benefits, impossible if the author chose a real one.
It has been argued that the USSR treated children as the main target for propaganda
(Kelly 2009). Moreover, in the Cold War children could be seen as defenders of the USSR, and
as evangelists and ambassadors of peace (Peacock 3–4). Kassil’s and Aksenov’s young
protagonists are not only the target, but the mouthpieces of the official propaganda. They find the
balance between convincingly educating the less fortunate about the benefits of the Soviet
lifestyle and allowing them to make their own choices, thus avoiding the impression that the
Soviets use children as an insidious way to manipulate other nations.
Soviet culture was significantly influenced by “the pursuit of collective happiness.”
(Balina, Dobrenko, p. xv) The happiness of children is a more specific case of “collective
happiness.” In general, the USSR promoted itself as “the international champion of children and
young people”, an attitude at the heart of both novels discussed (Kelly 2008, 713). In the years of
the Cold War, the idea of children’s wellbeing was prominent in both Soviet and American
cultures, since achieving it suggested the political system was a good one (Peacock). Conversely,
showing unhappy children was a way to demonstrate the evil nature of other systems – either

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before the revolution or in a different location. (Kelly 2009) In line with that principle, Kassil’
and Aksenov create a nearly idyllic picture of Soviet childhood which could, by extension,
suggest that the rest of the citizens enjoy similarly trouble-free lives. That happiness is contrasted
with life under the auspices of capitalism, specifically, in the kingdom of Dzhungakhora and the
republic of Bol’shie Empirei, where the benefits granted to all Soviet children are enjoyed only
by the lucky few. The imperialists – first and foremost the USA – are always eager for more
resources and exploit the small countries for their own profit, which leads to political tension.
If in the novels that were studied in the first chapter the socialist state was portrayed as
the ultimate dream, a work in progress, by the 1960s, judging by the attitudes of the two books, it
has already been built. Showing the USSR as close to a utopia as possible was especially crucial
for the narratives that dealt with the outside world, as pointing out areas where the USSR was not
quite matching the standard it created would unnecessarily obscure the clear-cut division
between “us” and “them”.
In his conversations with Mikhail Gorbachev, Zdeněk Mlynář points out a remarkable
feature of the Khrushchev era: its proclivity to comparison. When Stalin was in power,
comparisons between the way of life in the USSR and abroad were not welcome, since the USSR
was “an entirely new world (...) that could not be compared with any preceding system.” After
the denunciation of “the personality cult”, prompted by Khrushchev, the Soviets started to
compare two ways of life. The leader’s intention was to show that the Soviets were to have a life
at least as good as people abroad. In reality, however, the comparison was not flattering for the
USSR “and entire generations of young people became convinced that in fact the standard of
living of Americans was incomparably higher than ours.” (Gorbachev and Mlynář 36) Needless
to say, this disheartening conclusion could not crop up in pro-Soviet narratives for children, but

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the tendency for comparing two ways of life is at the center of the two novels discussed in the
chapter.
Whether consciously or not, both authors found a perfect way to avoid direct comparison
between America and the USSR which would either have to be falsified or would demonstrate
the undesirable truth of Soviet backwardness. Instead of describing capitalism, they describe life
under capitalism, that is, life in places that unwillingly found themselves under the yoke of
capitalist powers who, in their imperialist thirst for more resources, exploit small countries.
Conveniently, those were third-world countries, which meant that the USSR in comparison with
them could appear more civilized than it would if considered alone.
Another prominent feature of the post-Stalinist Soviet culture was its manifested open
and peaceful character. The opening of the USSR to the outside world was marked by the
famous World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Moscow in 1957 (Koivunen 46). In 1960,
the Peoples’ Friendship university was opened, a sign of the internationalist attitude of the
country.(Judge Kret). In general, the concept of “friendship of people” was one of the central
ones for Soviet culture (Simonson 79), and the USSR was presenting itself as a defender of
peace (Kelly 2008, 731), an image that both authors strive to preserve.
The Prince and the Pioneers: Lev Kassil’s novel.
Kassil’ is today known primarily as the author of a humorous children’s book
Shvambrania, written in 1931 (Lekmanov) and featuring an imaginary land created by two
children in the time of Russian revolution. Apart from enabling the children to experience
exciting adventures, Shvambrania gives them an opportunity to do what the grown-ups of the
time did, only on a smaller scale: design a country that is built on rules they believed were fair.

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Over thirty years later, in the early 1960s, the years of the Space Race, Kassil’ wrote
another book for children that featured a fictional country35. The real world around had changed,
and the main difference, if we are to believe the author, was that the USSR had already achieved
socialism. Instead of celebrating the Russian revolution, promising the reader the “bright new
future” and encouraging them to take part in building that future – tasks that Shvambrania and
Soviet novels discussed earlier in this dissertation strived to achieve – Bud’te gotovy glorifies the
Soviet utopia that is already built by showing the happy lives of its children, examines the
country’s conflict with imperialists powers, and demonstrates that the common people abroad
also yearn for their world to be transformed after the Soviet fashion. A typical example of Soviet
literature of the Cold War era, the book offers a sharp black-and-white picture of the world:
while the USSR gives the masses the rein, evil imperialist rulers oppress them and ruthlessly
persecute those who promote communist ideas.
This simplistic environment does not allow for any intermediate characters – with one
important exception: children. Their beliefs are defined by their environment. Change the
environment, and the beliefs will change, too, which can be seen by the transformation of
Kassil’s protagonist. Bud’te gotovy is an ode both to the USSR and to the beneficent power of
the коллектив (collective): the country not only raises “correct’ people on its soil but can
“correct”, in the most delightful way, outsiders by opening their eyes to the abuses and
unfairness of capitalism and the beauty of socialism36
.
35 Moreover, in Dorogie moi mal’chishki Kassil’ creates the country Sinegoriia; in 1970, the
three stories were printed in one book under the title Tri strany, kotorykh net na karte (Three
Countries Not on the Map), thus emphasizing the fictional setting of all three texts.
36 Writing about primers of the Soviet Bloc, Joanna Wojdon introduced the term “socialist
patriotism”, which she defines as “attachment to the homeland with a strictly defined political
system and alliances.” (13) Given that the story is set in Crimea, which geographically is not a
stereotypical Russian-looking land, it could be argued that Kassil’ encouraged children to

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Creating a fictional country of Dzhungakhora offers Kassil’ a persuasive way to convey
his propagandist message, since it opens a space that could be populated by people suffering
under capitalism and resources exploited by those who do not deserve them. Apart from
providing a way of chastising the capitalist way of life, it also acts as a foil to show the readers
their own country in an estranged, idealized light, as the place that other nations can only dream
of. Rooted in contemporary politics and oozing anti-American sentiment, the novel is not based
on any specific Cold War-era event but writes its own historical chapter. By using a fictional
country the author avoids potential accusations of falsifying or distorting history to suit the
propaganda needs, makes the story more attractive for the young reader eager to learn about an
exotic land with strange customs, and ensures it does not grow outdated, since no matter what
happens in other countries dealing with the same problems as Dzhungakhora, Dzhungakhora will
forever be a country on a brink of destroying monarchy.
Plot. Young Delikh’yar (Дэлихьяр) is the prince of the country Dzhungakhora and the
younger brother of its king. The government of the exotic monarchy collaborates with
imperialists, or “Merikhjango,” and opposes communism. The king, however, wants to cooperate
with the Soviets and sends the prince to a Soviet pioneer camp, “Spartak,” in Crimea. The
prince’s worldview is changed drastically thanks to his camp experiences. The spoiled,
sometimes arrogant, but overall good-natured boy learns to make his own bed, pick tomatoes,
polish stones and say the famous pioneer phrase: “Всегда готов” (Always ready) when
prompted “Будь готов” (Be ready). More importantly, spending time with Soviet pioneers,
especially Tonia, a strong-willed and strong-fisted orphan girl, the prince learns and accepts
appreciate, first and foremost, the political and ideological beauty of Soviet Russia rather than its
physical properties.

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Soviet ideology: the value of labor, equality, and friendship37. He meets Tongaor, a
Dzhungakhorian poet and opposition figure, who spent years in prison during the tyrannous reign
of the previous monarch. The confinement ruined the poet’s health that he is now trying to repair
in the salubrious climate of Crimea. The heir and the anti-monarchist become friends, and
Tongaor gifts the prince his book with aphorisms extolling truth, kindness and the people.
When, due to a revolt orchestrated by supporters of imperialism, the king of
Dzhungakhora is forced to abdicate, young Delikh’yar becomes the new king. Excited, he and
his Soviet friends draft new laws for Dzhungakhora based on Soviet values but find out that the
actual power will belong to the prince’s uncle and the prince himself will be just a marionette,
unable to make any changes. The Dzhungakhorian ambassador arrives to take the prince back to
his country, but the prince escapes and with Tonia’s help attempts to reach a Dzhungakhorian
ship to join the revolutionary struggle in Dzhungakhora. The attempt is unsuccessful, and they
nearly perish. Saved by the border guards, the children are returned to the shore, where they
learn that the poet Tongaor, who had recently returned to Dzhungakhora, is condemned to death.
Delikh’yar unsuccessfully attempts to save his friend’s life. The poet is ultimately released due
to the people’s protests. The young king returns home where he pines in the royal palace and is
able to only slightly change the rules – for example, by teaching his ministers to say, “Always
ready.”
37
In her article on songs for Soviet pioneers, E.V. Dushechkina points out the paradox of the
popular Soviet concept of international friendship of children and youth “Если учесть тот факт,
что встречи между народами СССР и народами других (особенно капиталистических)
стран были в то время единичны, а глагол дружить предполагает личное общение людей
(...) то понятие дружба превращалось в некий фантом” (If we consider the fact, that the
meetings between the nations of the USSR and the nations of other countries (especially
capitalist ones) were then few, and the verb to be friends suggests personal interaction of people
(...) the concept of friendship became a kind of a fantom.) The prince’s visit to the summer camp
is one of such rare occasions when a real friendship between nations is actually possible.

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Welcome to Utopia. The main function of having a guest from a foreign country visit the
USSR is to feature an estranged, supposedly unbiased, and positive evaluation of the reader’s
country, its friendliness, the possibilities that it offers and the beneficial influence it has on
anyone under its tutelage. It is the same principle similar to that used by Gogol’ in his The
Government Inspector, a satire of the ways a provincial Russian town – and, by extension, the
whole country – runs on cheating, bribery, and idleness. As the book opens, the camp director
learns about the prince’s future visit and quotes Gogol’s mayor of the city who announces that
they would be visited by a government inspector:
- Ну, поздравляю, - сказал он. - Как это там у Гоголя в "Ревизоре"?..
Должен сообщить пренеприятное известие... К нам едет принц.
(Well, congratulations, – he said. – How did Gogol’ write in The Government
Inspector?.. I have to tell you the most unpleasant news… A prince is coming to us.)
The whole tale of the prince’s visit can be read as a report of one such inspection which,
unlike in Gogol’s play, does not find any flaws or abuses of power in the environment being
examined but, conversely, facilitates growth and brings out the best in people38. The children in
the summer camp are happy and independent. They solidify their system of beliefs and values
while having fun. Outsiders are welcomed and, unwittingly, painlessly converted into pioneers.
Any conflicts are quickly and amicably resolved. The grown-ups keep an eye on the children but
do not handhold them. Such is the level of utopia in the USSR that transforming a monarchist
and even a monarch into a pioneer does not require much adult supervision: most propaganda,
verbal or related to actions, is successfully and inadvertently performed by the young pioneers
themselves. A significant part of the prince’s transformation is moral, not political: he learns to
38 The prince’s visit to the USSR is a miniature version of the real event, the 1957 Festival of
Youth and Students, where young foreigners flocked to the USSR; see Koivunen on the festival
and the hopes it would improve the USSR’s image abroad.

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respect others and to work hard. Political indoctrination does happen but it is inextricably linked
with such apolitical activities as picking tomatoes.
But what is at stake is more than a single summer camp or even Soviet childhood: the
camp can be read as a metaphor for the Soviet Union, a children’s version of the big socialist
project. The Soviet Union is thus portrayed as a utopian country where people are satisfied with
their life and eager to promote the official worldview, where the attitude toward other countries
is friendly and there is not too much government control because citizens wholeheartedly follow
the rules. By choosing an outsider for a protagonist, Bud’te gotovy gives Soviet readers a chance
to look at their country in an estranged way so they do not take its professed benefits for granted.
The novel is an unambiguous ode to the USSR's way of life that promotes socialism and
promises it will conquer the world.
The peculiar challenge for this book is that to successfully promote the Soviet way of life,
it had to convince the reader that life under imperialists is not just unpleasant but horrible, yet do
so in a kid-friendly way, protecting children from gory images. Notwithstanding the serious
political agenda and the fact that those opposing the imperialist rule risk death, the favorite
Dzhungakhorian method of imprisonment looks as if it was devised by children. Indeed, it first
appears in a childish version of “Go to the Devil.” A pioneer sends someone “к лешему
свинячему” (to the piggish leshy), and the prince says that instead, they use a similarly innocent
expression: “уходи в дыру желтых муравьев.” (go to the yellow ants’ hole) It is only later that
we find out that throwing someone into a yellow ant hole is a punishment for anti-governmental
activities.

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As the story draws to its closure and the Dzhungakhorian king abdicates, some disturbing
images do seep in. Even with this “make-believe” yellow ant method of imprisonment/execution,
the news from the country is frightening:
Все слышали страшное сообщение радио об арестах и казнях в Джунгахоре.
Сотни людей были брошены там в зловонные ямы, огороженные колючим
частоколом и кишевшие желтыми муравьями.
Everyone heard the horrifying radio message about arrests and executions in
Dzhungakhora. Hundreds of people there were thrown into fetid holes, fenced by sharp
pale fences and teeming with yellow ants.
The scale of arrests (“hundreds”) seem surprisingly high for a book that for the most part
deals with a handful of children enjoying a peaceful seaside vacation. Even the prompt freeing of
prisoners does not make up for that terrifying picture of suffering hundreds. The horrors of
capitalistic abuse of power serve to emphasize how lucky the USSR citizens are.
Soviet non-involvement and limited influence. The Soviets, as portrayed in the novel,
enjoy the best way of life possible, but do not force it upon other people and do not use indirect
measures to transform other countries. The protagonist, the prince of Dzhungakhora, undergoes
the transformation from someone who expects to be fanned on a hot day to an eager team
worker. That would make him a perfect instrument in the Soviets’ hands – but no one seems to
be using him, nor is he able to make any tangible changes in his home country. Limiting the
prince’s political power is a wise decision on the part of the author: it would be against the grain
of the ideology to portray a king as a benefactor of the nation. However, the prince’s friends, the
humble Soviet pioneers, are also unable to reform Dzhungakhora. The new laws they draft for
the country remain just notebook scribbles.
The pioneers’ helplessness is not just due to their young age: the political power in
Dzhungakhora must belong not to the outsiders, but to the mysterious Dzhungakhorian nation

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that does not make it to the pages of the book until the very end. Dzhungakhorian history has to
be written by Dzhungakhorian people, not by the Soviets, no matter how good-willing they may
be39. The attitude is expressed by one of the pioneers:
Тут посыпались еще всякие предложения и законопроекты, но солидный
Слава Несметнов шикнул на разошедшихся пионеров:
- Полегче вы, поаккуратней, ребята, давай без вмешательства! Как бы нам
тут дров не наломать. Пойдет еще мировая заварушка, втяпаем всех.
(Then there was a shower of various other suggestions and bills, but the serious
Slava Nesmetnov shushed the overexcited pioneers:
– Easy, guys, careful, no meddling please! We don’t want to mess up here. It
could cause world-wide trouble, and everyone would be mixed up in it.)
Thus, the novel is not an encouragement for such action as, for example, leading an
overseas revolution or fighting imperialists, but a statement of values. The only reason for giving
the reader a chance to look beyond the USSR borders is to better show them how wonderful life
is in the USSR as opposed to countries that have to deal with capitalism and monarchism.
Kassil’s use of a fictional country. Bud’te gotovy is an example of a Political FC
Narrative that is aware of the fictional or fictionalized nature of its setting. On the first pages of
the book the narrator explains to his readers that Dzhungakhora, the prince’s country, is not
fictional, but its name is fictionalized and that the story is presented in the guise of “сказка”
(fairy tale) but is actually true:
“Только мне пришлось пока что изменить название страны, которую я
имею в виду, чуточку переместить ее на географической карте и дать
некоторым героям моей правдивой повести другие имена.”
(I only had to change, for now, the name of the country I mean, slightly move it
on the map, and give the heroes of my true story new names.)
39 There is a hint that Soviets can interfere. When the prince learns of Tongaor’s conviction he is
distressed, and a sympathetic nurse says: “И что только капитализм с дитями творит! Неужто
уж наши заступляться не будут?..” (Look what capitalism does to kiddoes! Won’t ours stand
up?..)

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This explanation is offered in Chapter II, titled “Top Secret,” which allegedly is intended
for children only because the narrator does not want grown-ups to find out the story is true.
Therefore Kassil’ creates a curious construction with multiple layers of (non)fictionality:
opening a book of a famous children’s writer, the young reader should expect fiction but is
almost immediately assured that it is true. A naive reader would accept the claim; a discerning
(or older) reader would not be fooled. The adult reader, if they heed the narrator’s prohibition to
read Chapter II, will remain in the dark. They will keep thinking they are reading a work of
fiction dealing with a fictional country, which, according to the narrator, is false but true in our
world. But it is unlikely that someone would skip a chapter with such a promising title. This
complex game of enciphering information, with its references to Dzhungakhora’s undisclosed
prototype, is confined to the beginning and to the very end of the story. Throughout the novel,
the reader is not reminded of the country’s fictional status, something that would raise doubts
about the story’s true character and thus weaken the propaganda effect.
The readers are told that the fictional Dzhungakhora is closely modeled on a real country,
and the narrator aims to spark the readers’ curiosity by promising to reveal Dzhungakhora’s real
name and location:
Я обещаю, как только можно будет, открыть подлинное название страны
Джунгахоры, показать вам ее на карте. И, знаете, я твердо верю, что смогу это все
сделать, до того как вы сами станете взрослыми и, чего доброго, начнете еще
утверждать, будто все удивительное и неизвестное вам на свете - это сказки.
Обещаю вам!
I promise, as soon as it becomes possible, to reveal the true name of the country
of Dzhungakhora, to show it to you on the map. And you know – I firmly believe that I
will be able to do it all before you yourself become grown-ups and – God forbid –start
declaring that everything in the world that is surprising and unknown to you is fairy
talestale. I promise that to you!

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For the prototype of the country to be revealed, its people must take over the
governments and oust foreign imperialists. Promising that the secret will be disclosed before the
young readers grow up suggests that the desired political change will take place soon. It is also
notable that for that to happen, the readers are not encouraged to do anything: they just have to
wait, which confirms the idea that the USSR does not meddle in the business of other countries.
What country, then, did Kassil’ have in mind? Judging by the way it is portrayed, it had
to be a small not-quite-Westernized Asian or African monarchy that would be of interest to the
USSR but that currently was under the auspices of the US. Its nature had to be exotic for the
Soviet reader, something which is emphasized by the name that suggests “jungle.” Vladimir
Berezin notes that the protagonist’s country “reminded [him of] Thailand”.
There are some details that hints that Kassil’s Dzhungakhora could, indeed, be inspired
by Thailand. The Kingdom of Thailand was of moderate interest to the USSR. Though it sided
with the US during the Cold War, banned Soviet publications, and accused the Soviets of
organizing a plot, Thailand did not cut ties with the USSR (Shirk), just like Dzhungakhora was
under Western rule but still had a Soviet ambassador and could send the prince to a Soviet
summer camp. Moreover, the prince’s Russian grandmother, who taught him to speak Russian,
could be inspired by the fact that, at the turn of the 20th century, two Thai princes went to Russia
and married Russian women (Mel’nichenko). As to a specific royal child from an Asian country
who stayed at a Soviet summer camp and could have inspired Kassil’s story, a 1962 “diafilm”
(filmstrip) V Arteke about another pioneer camp shows a princess from Laos happily washing the
floors, a visit mentioned in Kassil’s story: “У них уже там [в Артеке] жили какие-то принцы
и принцессы из Лаоса или из Камбоджи, кажется.” (Some princes and princesses from Laos
or Cambodia have already stayed there [in Artek camp], I think.)

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There is, however, no clear indication that Dzhungakhora was modeled after Thailand or
any other specific country. Attempting to find the country’s provenance, though encouraged by
the author, is fruitless: the purpose of the book is to explain to the young readers the way small
countries suffer under imperialists, not to teach them a lesson in history or geography.
Kassil’s fictional country facilitated the propagandist function of the novel. Firstly, using
a fictional country allowed him to shape the character and history as he wanted. Otherwise, the
narrator notes,
пойдут еще всякие разговоры, начнутся уточнения: где, да что, да кто и откуда. И,
возможно, возникнут еще какие-нибудь дипломатические осложнения и пойдут
международные, так сказать, неприятности.
(…there’ll be all sorts of conversations, they’ll start asking for details: where, and when,
and who and from where. And possibly even some diplomatic complications will occur
and there will be international, so to speak, nuisances.)
Thanks to introducing Dzhungakhora, Kassil’ could arrange the events as needed to
convey the propagandist message as efficiently as possible without worrying about distorting
history. For example, the moon eclipse happens the same night that the prince becomes the king
of his country, which makes the political event look more significant and sinister. And the author
was free to make the country a monarchy, since only that form of governance could give a child
any political power, even if it was nominal.
Second, creating a fictional country also prevented anti-Soviet readers from interpreting
the story as an acknowledgment of sneaky ways of Soviet propaganda abroad. When the reeducated prince is sent home, he starts disseminating pro-Soviet ideas. By sending the prince
back to a fictional country, the author ensured that no country would have a pretext to say that
they are being infiltrated by converted children from the USSR. However, the chances of foreign
politicians reading a children’s book could not have been very high, so that was hardly the main
reason for abstaining from using a real country instead of Dzhungakhora.

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Finally, using a fictional country allows Kassil’ to “future-proof” the book. Imagine he
called the country “Thailand.” His young readers, according to his promises, could then expect
the revolution in Thailand to happen very soon. But if nothing happened in ten or twenty years,
that would mean that the narrator was mistaken or, even worse, lying when he swore that the
country would soon transform into a people-run state. Conversely, if the revolution in “Thailand”
happened within the next few years, the political premise would no longer be relevant. By using
a fictional country, he avoided these pitfalls: there would always be some faraway country under
imperialists that the Soviets hoped to convert.
How is the country created? Dzhungakhora is portrayed in great detail. That ensures,
first, that the reader can vividly imagine it and thus is immersed in the story. Second, some of
those details do double duty as examples of different ways in which socialists and capitalists
interact with the world.
Even though the story seems aware of its fictional character, Kassil’ still uses a typical
device that FC authors employ to convincingly introduce a new country: he makes his character
consult a geography book and a map of the country in question. In this case, these sources are
used in a way that creates a blend of high specificity and vagueness. The reader is overwhelmed
with details, some of which have no significance for the plot and only serve to prove that the
country is real and that the sources are reliable:
Джунгахора... Площадь 194 тысячи квадратных километров. Население
свыше 5 миллионов. Столица - город Хайраджамба, славящийся знаменитым
королевским дворцом Джайгаданг, построенным еще в древности руками
народных зодчих. Джунгахора расположена в обширной плодородной долине,
примыкающей к океанскому побережью и окаймленной с северо-запада
высокими горами, ограждающими страну от северных ветров. Склоны гор
покрыты дремучими лесами с ценными породами деревьев (тиковые, лаковые). В
долине огромные заросли кокосовых пальм. Основа экономики страны - сельское
хозяйство. Производится много риса, а также каучука... Джунгахора -

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конституционная монархия, глава государства - король. Для решения наиболее
важных вопросов король созывает кроме парламента, совещание представителей
племен и других знатных лиц страны - великий Джургай. Партии, профсоюзы
и другие общественные организации отсутствуют. (...) В стране развита широкая
добыча жемчуга, являющегося одной из основных статей экспорта.
Значительные позиции в экономике страны
принадлежат иностранному капиталу...
(Dzhungakhora… Area 194 000 square kilometers. Population over 5 million. The capital
city is Khayrajumba, renowned for its famous royal palace Jaydagang, built back in the
ancient times by common architects. Dzhungakhora is situated in a spacious fertile
valley, bordering the oceanside and fringed in the North-West by tall mountains that
protect the country from northern winds. The mountains are covered with thick forests of
valuable wood species (teak, varnish). There are enormous coconut palm thickets in the
valley. The economy of the country is based on agriculture. It produces lots of rice, as
well as rubber… Dzhungakhora is a constitutional monarchy, the king is the head of the
state. For decisions on most important matters the king assembles, beside the parliament,
a conference of tribe representatives and other nobility, the Great Jurgay. Parties, trade
unions and other public organizations are absent. (...) Pearl-fishing is well represented
and is one of the major exports. Foreign capital has a considerable standing in the
economy of the country….)
At the same time, the country is vague since we do not even learn the continent where it
is located – which is some of the most basic information40:
- Ребята, а где эта самая Джунгахора, между прочим, - в Африке или в
Австралии?
- Заехал, ау! - осадил его Несметнов. - На обратном пути не заблудись.
(– Guys, and where, by the way, is that Dzhungakhora – in Africa or in Australia?
– Hey, look how far you’ve got! – Nesmetnov put him down. – Don’t get lost on
your way back.)
Later, the children get a map and study it, but leave the reader in the dark as to the
country’s location.
40 In a curious parallel, Enid Blyton’s The Mystery of the Vanished Prince, a British detective
story for children, features a prince from an exotic country who arrives at an English summer
camp. The way the authors, through their disinterested characters, avoid locating the country
where the guest is from is strikingly similar. Here’s an excerpt from Blyton’s book:
“Where’s Tetarua State, Pip?”
Pip didn’t know and didn’t care.

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Adding to that mystery, the narrator also hints that the country is unreachable, like a lost
land. Dzhungakhora is bordered by mountains; also, when the prince arrives at the Soviet camp,
his transistor radio cannot receive any Dzhungakhorian stations, which is explained by the vast
distance between the countries.
Even with such aura of mystery, Dzhungakhora is made full-fledged thanks to multiple
details (beyond the dry encyclopedia article) showing different aspects of its culture and
geography. The novel features Dzhungakhorian legends and history, phrases in Dzhungakhorian,
signs of exoticity (such as pearls and the prince’s private elephant), the Dzhungakhorian flag,
Dzhungakhorian goodbye bowing, and even cuisine (frogs with banana sauce). That exotic
atmosphere makes the story more appealing to children.
The elephants, appearing throughout the story in emblems, tales, and dreams, not only
serve as a visual shorthand for the faraway exotic land, but also offer a child-appropriate way to
explain political regimes. When the prince is introduced to the pioneers, he tells them he has a
private elephant, something that greatly impresses his Soviet peers but is contrary to Soviet
values. Later, having realized the downsides of monarchies, the prince adopts the view that
elephants should be accessible to everyone. Collective property thus prevails over private, which
is the only officially approved way to regard property in the USSR. The idea is emphasized in
the often-repeated slogan: “Слоны – всем! В ямы – никого! Мерихьянго – вон!” (Elephants –
to all! Into holes – nobody! Merikhjango – out!) This slogan is an accurate, if childish, reflection
of Soviet ideology, with its ideals of communal property and equality, freedom, and
independence from other countries. Using “elephants” instead of, for example, “land” makes the
slogan more memorable and attractive for children, who might not understand the importance of
having free access to land but would surely appreciate being able to ride an elephant.

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Another signal of exoticism, pearls, have a political, economical and metaphorical
meaning. Firstly, they are one of the main products that Dzhungakhora exports – underscoring
the attractiveness of the land to capitalists. Second, they are used in aphorisms praising
fearlessness, truth, and knowledge. But they also have a negative connotation noted by one of the
pioneers:
И принц привел джунгахорскую пословицу: "Солнце светит с высоты
всем, луна сопутствует бодрствующим, а жемчуг доступен лишь тем, кто не
страшится глубин".
- Крепко завинчено, ловко сказано. Только кто его заиметь-то может,
этот жемчуг? Небось тот, кто и не нырял сроду с головкой, - сурово заметил Несм
етнов.
And the prince quoted a Dzhungakhorian proverb: “The sun above shines for
everybody, the moon is the companion of those who stay awake, and the pearls are
accessible only for those who are not afraid for the deep.”
– Nicely said, smartly done. But who can get those pearls? Surely someone who
has never been underwater, – noted Nesmetnov sternly.
The pearls thus serve as an example of the Marxist principle of labor alienation:
Dzhungakhorians who work cannot enjoy the fruit of their own labor, while those who do do not
work. Again, it is a detail that, apart from creating an exotic atmosphere, is a tangible and
unequivocal example of what Soviet ideology considers unfair, explaining the situation in ways
accessible to children. The motive of diving for pearls is directly related to the setting of the
story, where pioneers swim, dive and collect stones. If Kassil’ chose oil or gas as the resource in
question, it would be harder to find something similar in the pioneers’ lives.
Another geographic detail that is politically charged is the hydroelectric station that the
Soviets are building in Dzhungakhora:
Король-то к нам относится вполне заинтересованно: мы ведь там,
как ты знаешь, строим гидростанцию, каскад Шардабай. Это первая ГЭС будет в
Джунгахоре. Ну, эти самые мерихьянго, разумеется, точат зубы на наши связи,
то и дело всякие подлые заговоры раскрываются.

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As for the king, he is quite interested in us: as you know, we are building a hydroelectric
station there, cascade Shardabai. It would be the first hydroelectric station in
Dzhungakhora. Well, those Merikhjango, naturally, have a grudge against our
connections, mean plots are exposed all the time.
The hydroelectric station here serves as a metaphor of international friendship and
progress, a convincing illustration of how the Soviets share resources (labor, in this case) with
smaller nations and assist them in their development, rather than exploit their riches, and how the
capitalists oppose relationships based on cooperation, not subordination41
.
Imperfect but not wicked; exotic but not primitive. The challenge that Kassil’ faced
when creating Dzhungakhora is that the book of a Soviet author could not approve of monarchy,
but the lovable protagonist is a monarch, so there could not be too much hatred towards that
regime or the country. Thus, he had to find a balance between condemnation and sympathy. To
help with that, the prince is referred to as “гость из страны, борющейся против
империалистов” (a guest from a country fighting against imperialists) – even though the
country’s government collaborates with the imperialists. Moreover, the author brings up the
young monarch's involuntary status and the possibility of abdication to make the title less
offending in a Soviet environment. Here is how one of the children defends him:
– А он, что ли, виноват, если принцем родился? – упрямился Тараска.
– Мог бы отречься, в конце концов, если он сам против монархизма. (...)
– Откуда ты знаешь?! Дай срок, может быть, он отречется,
41 Subordination is, however, present in the very title of the story: the prince is supposed to say
“Always ready” when someone – originally someone from the Soviet Union – says “Be ready.”
In that sense, he, as a representative of his country, is accepting his inferior position in the
USSR-Dzhungakhorian relations. Moreover, you cannot just “be ready”, you are ready for
something. The unabridged slogan, featured, for example, in a 1962 poster by V. Sachkov,
sounds as follows: “Пионеры! К борьбе за дело Коммунистической партии будьте готовы!”
(Pioneers! Be ready to fight for the cause of the Communist Party!) For Kassil’s story, it means
“be ready” for the revolution in Dzhungakhora. Thus the prince of Dzhungakhora is shown to
gladly follow the commands of the Soviets regarding the future of his country. This is, however,
not articulated.

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когда ему заступать надо будет на этот... как его... трон, что ли.
– And is it his fault that he was born a prince? – persisted Taraska.
– He could abdicate, after all, if he himself is anti-monarchist. (...)
– How do you know?! Wait a little, maybe he’ll abdicate when it’s time for him to take
that… what do they call it… throne or what.
The prince is also shown as a healthy, unfussy boy who does not mind living in the tent
as opposed to a summer house, a quality that gives him extra points and that not all pioneers
possess. The camp director says to the mother of a spoiled pioneer Gel’ka:
Вы не обижайтесь, но должен вам сказать, что сынок ваш в тысячу раз
больше принц, чем этот самый Дэлихьяр из Джунгахоры.
Please don’t be offended, but I have to tell you that your sonny is one thousand
times more of a prince than that Delikh’yar from Dzhungakhora.
Thus, one’s reputation in Soviet society has more to do with their habits and qualities
than with their provenance, something that allows a friendly, curious prince to be closer to the
pioneer ideal than a Soviet boy. Monarchies are bad; monarchs – not necessarily.
The next challenge that the author faced when creating the country is that Dzhungakhora
is an exotic country, with some aspects of it being primitive. For example, Dzhungakhorians
believe in “evil midnight spirits.” Such details add to its charm and verisimilitude, but focusing
on them too much or being too condescending would liken the author to his imperialist enemy.
That would go against one of the tenets of the USSR, namely, its considering itself to be the
world’s first anti-imperialist state (Mark and Marung 41).
The theme of the colonialist approach is explored when Gel’ka taunts the prince as a
“savage”42:
– Стану я к нему прилипать, очень мне нужно, подумаешь! К кому
прилипать-то? Кокос-абрикос, желторылый туземец, дикарь!..
42 In her 2008 article, Catriona Kelly tells of a similar story from the 1930s, where a racial slur is
condemned as a bourgeois word.(Kelly 724) In both episodes, defending the dignity of someone
of a different race is done through showing the perpetrator that they belong to the other side of
the socialist/capitalist struggle, in other words, it is they who are the Other.

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Принц было рванулся к нему, но, что-то, видно, вспомнив, сдержался.
Он только тихо сказал:
– Не смей, у-это, так говорить. Так только мерихьянго говорят. Плохой
человек... И ты тоже плохой.
– А ты дикарь, дикарь, дикарь! – не унимался Пафнулин. – Вождишка из
дикого племени!..
(As if I would toad to him, why should I, what a big deal! Who is he to toad to? A
coconut-apricot, a yellow-mugged native, a savage!..
The prince was about to jump at him but constrained himself – apparently having
remembered something.
He only said quietly:
– Don’t you dare, oo-um, say it. Only Merikhjango say it. Bad man… And you
are bad too.
– And you are a savage, a savage, a savage! – [Gel’ka] would not stop. – A threepenny chief from a wild tribe!..)
The tables are turned when Gel’ka’s parents arrive to “camp wild,” and he, in his turn, is
mockingly branded a “дикарь” (savage). The squabble clearly demonstrates that despising other
cultures as less advanced is a trait of imperialists and mean people, contrary to the Soviet
worldview. Thus, there can be no doubt about the author’s stance regarding the hierarchy of
countries: even if the Soviet regime is superior to others, it does not give the Soviets the right to
claim cultural superiority.
Introducing the beautiful culture of Dzhungakhora helps to offset the comic effect of the
prince’s broken Russian and such exotic realia as frogs in banana sauce and show that
Dzhungakhorians value the same principles as the Soviet Union. For example the prince quotes a
proverb: “Солнце светит с высоты всем, луна сопутствует бодрствующим, а жемчуг
доступен лишь тем, кто не страшится глубин” (The Sun shines from high above, the Moon
accompanies those who are awake, and the pearls are only accessible to those who are not afraid
of the depths) that extolls fearlessness, a Soviet virtue, and the Dzhungakhorian coat of arms
demonstrates how “[о]дин могучий слон добра растопчет сотни ядовитых змей зла" ([o]ne
mighty elephant of good shall crush hundreds of venomous snakes of evil), conveying an idea

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that the good will prevail. The poet Tongaor’s aphoristic, humanistic writings, to which a whole
chapter is dedicated, also help elevate Dzhungakhorian culture: if people from Dzhungakhora
can be so wise, their country is definitely not “savage.”
Anti-American propaganda. While there can be no doubt that the author wanted to
convey an anti-American sentiment, there is little explicit anti-American propaganda. It is hard
to say whether that was caused by Kassil’s wish to avoid openly accusing the USA of predatory
politics, but if so, he found a clever way out. He did not create a doppelganger of the enemy
country, like Lavrenev with his Nautilia, or throw caution to the wind and call the enemy by its
name, like Nikulin with Britain. Instead, he employs a “Dzhungakhorian” word, “Merikhjango,”
an umbrella term for American and Belgian imperialists oppressing Dzhungakhora.
The exotic word does not immediately suggest Americans but is, essentially, a corrupted
“American.” Thanks to this trick Kassil’ can multiple times use a slogan urging Americans to go
home (“Merikhjango out!”) without openly expressing anti-American feelings, something that
would suggest that the USSR does not really value “дружба народов” (the friendship of
nations). The word “Merikhjango” is used thirty-four times; the word “American” – just two
times, but Kassil’ creates a powerful image to persuade the reader that America is evil, so that
the actual name of the nation does not need to be repeated.
When the prince is watching the moon eclipse, someone says:
– А говорят, американцы миллионы иголок стальных выпустили со своего
спутника, – произнес кто-то в сгущавшейся темноте, – и они теперь окружают
нашу Землю.
(“They say, Americans launched millions of steel needles from their satellite, –
said someone as the darkness grew thicker, – and now they are surrounding our Earth.”)
What might sound like an urban legend or a cheap propaganda rumor is actually true: the
speaker is referring to NASA’s Project West Ford Experiments aiming to protect US long-range

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communications from solar storms and from the Soviets (NASA; Hanson). Not surprisingly, the
book does not mention the true goal of the program, thus creating an impression of Americans
attacking the Earth, rather than protecting their information from the Soviet ears. The image
conveniently amalgamates with the image of the moon eclipse, an event that frightens the
superstitious prince:
Тьма вокруг заметно сгущалась. Тень жадно надвигалась на лунный диск.
Огромная чернота выгрызала светлое тело луны все глубже.
Ночь вокруг становилась зловещей.
The darkness around was thickening noticeably. The shadow was greedily
encroaching on the disc of the moon. The giant blackness was gnawing deeper and
deeper into the light body of the moon.
The night around was growing sinister.
Seeing it, the prince is horrified:
Вот куда, даже в небо, к луне пробрались мерихьянго. Куда же от них
деться?!
That’s where the Merikhjango got – even into the sky, to the moon. So where can
one hide from them?!
Kassil’ does not need to say that Americans want to rule the world or destroy the moon.
He just lets us see the world through the eyes of a naive child who observes the moon becoming
smaller, hears a scary rumor, and perceives the natural event as the result of American actions.
The conflation of a celestial event and political situation would be a perfect moment for the
narrator’s stating the importance of objective, scientific point of view as opposed to mythological
and superstitious one – as he does elsewhere – yet he chooses not to correct the prince. The
message is obvious: the USA is a powerful, destructive, and greedy force, the enemy of light that
knows no spatial limits.
Conclusion. Kassil’s Dzhungakhora is an example of a country built specifically for
propaganda purposes. It is created to show the difference between life in the USSR and under

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capitalists, more specifically, life as experienced by children. Through the eyes of the foreign
visitor, the young Soviet readers, who themselves must have had first-hand experience of
summer camps, are to discover that things that they consider normal are impossible in other
countries, and vice versa. Kassil essentially created an anti-American novel while preserving the
USSR’s image of a cooperative, friendly nation: the ideological and physical conflict with the
USA is as if outsourced to Dzhungakhorians, while the Soviets seem to have little involvement
with their Western rivals. Children, in line with Peacock’s argument, are portrayed as
ambassadors of peace, but are unable to be political actors even when they are eager to.
The Soviet values are shown to be universal, human values; thus every nation is able to
build its own Soviet-style utopia. In accordance with mainstream political thought of the time,
the power to change Dzhungakhora is shown as belonging to its people – even though we do not
see a single commoner. In that respect the setting is similar to Itl’, where workers are also
supposed to have the upper hand, but are barely shown. Importantly, unlike Itlians,
Dzhungakhorians are not portrayed as naive to the point of stupidity, something that together
with the utmost exoticity of Dzhungakhora would create a condescending outlook, more fit for
“Merikhjango.” Dzhungakhorians are treated as equals – which means they are given the
freedom to choose their country’s future themselves, even though there should be no doubt that
the Soviet way of life is the only one to be aspired for.
Kassil’s focus on propaganda does not mean he does not take time to build a convincing,
fascinating environment, but he ensures that the picturesque details are an extension of politics.
In the opening and closing of the book, the country of Dzhungakhora is admitted to be fictional,
but throughout the story the author aims to convince the reader in its existence, combining
specificity (the actual country-building blocks of geography, literature, culture) with vagueness

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(necessary to avoid being told that such country does not exist). As a result, the reader enjoys a
glimpse of an exotic land, which creates a nice contrast with the familiar environment of the
summer camp.
A Pioneer Abroad: Vasiliĭ Aksenov’s novel.
Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik is a fast-paced, over-the-top, humorous adventure novel for
children, a staple of late Soviet children’s literature written in 1969. The action unfolds in
Leningrad, London, Tokyo and the tiny Republic of Bol’shie (Grand) Empirei and Karbunkl, an
archipelago in Oceania. The citizens of Bol’shie Empirei are naive and harmless, just like people
of Lavrenev’s Itl’, and are just as unprepared to defend their country against Westerners who
want to use the land for their own purposes. The country is thus embroiled in a conflict with the
capitalist West, a conflict that allows the author to demonstrate the benefits of the Soviet regime
and the dangers of capitalist rule.
Before analyzing this unabashedly anti-capitalist text, a few words need to be said about
Aksenov’s political stance. Aksenov was not famous as a propagandist of Soviet ideology. At
best, he believed in the possibility of socialism co-existing and later converging with capitalism
(Matich 642). At “worst”, he is considered one of the major Soviet dissident writers (“Pisatelidissidenty…”). However, if a reader has no knowledge of Aksenov’s books aside from Moĭ
dedushka – pamiatnik, they might decide that he was a zealous supporter of the Soviet regime,
such is the extent of his praise of the Soviet way of life. Though it is tempting to look for traces
of anti-Soviet sentiment undermining the pro-Soviet narrative, very little inside the text suggests
that such reading is valid. In order to solve this paradox, I suggest using the narratological term
of “biographical” and “implied” authors (Schmid). The biographical author, the Aksenov of flesh

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and blood, was a dissident; the implied author, the figure that the reader reconstructs based on
their impressions from the story, was the opposite.
As in other Soviet-times novels discussed here, the main purpose of the fictional land
created in Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik is to create an environment for disenchanting the reader in
the capitalist West and promoting the USSR way of life. Notwithstanding alleged successes of
the USSR lifestyle, there is no suggestion that the tiny Oceanian country should also experience
a revolution and join the Soviet camp. The citizens of that fictional country do not necessarily
need socialism; they just need to oust the enemy who wants to exploit their land. Socialism is
thus praised but not shown as the only desired future for a country.
That “optionality” of socialism is hardly the message the Soviet propaganda wanted to
instill in the young readers. What saves the novel from being accused of not following the
ideology is that people of the country in question are so ignorant, reeking of the “good savage”
stereotypes, that they are clearly yet unable to make big political decisions. Neither are they able
to protect their country from greedy capitalists. Their only hope is to find some brave, unselfish,
and idealistic outsider who would fight for them without asking for any reward. In other words –
a Soviet pioneer.
Plot. Twelve year-old Gennady from Leningrad is an exceptionally gifted boy and a
descendant of admiral Stratophontov, who vanquished a pirate band that was terrorizing the
archipelago of Bol’shie Empirei in Oceania. That made Stratophontov a national Empireian hero,
and the islanders commemorated him with a monument.
Gennady joins the crew of a Soviet research ship that sails to the Republic of Bol’shie
Empirei and Karbunkl. On their way there the crew save passengers of a Dutch ship destroyed by
a pirate submarine. Gennady saves an elderly English lady who is so impressed that she now

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considers him her grandson. In Japan, Gennady and the captain visit the Empireian consulate and
obtain permission to conduct research in their waters.
As any ship arriving to Empirei, they have to play a game of soccer with the locals, a
good-hearted but extremely naive nation. The neighboring island of Karbunkl is home to very
different people, who do not want the match to happen. The discussion of the soccer match takes
place in the Senate building in Oak Port, where Gennady accidentally overhears a conversation
of several men who are against establishing friendship with the Soviets, and, consequently,
against the match as well. He is discovered and taken prisoner to Karbunkl, but escapes and
meets Dollis, the alleged daughter of senator Nakamura-Branchevska. Dollis looks exactly the
same as his Leningrad classmate crush Natashka. He introduces himself as Gene, an Englishman,
the grandson of the English lady.
Gennady finds out that Nakamura-Branchevska is the head of a criminal band of drug
dealers that abducted him. The Dutch ship incident was their work as well. One of the bandits, an
American Mamis (whose nationality is never explicitly mentioned), represents the interests of
the USA, who want to turn the archipelago into an army base. Nakamura-Branchevska would
then be the queen of Empirei. For that to happen, the band need to recruit more fighters.
Gennady wants to save the people of Empirei but pretends that he does not understand
what is going on. He befriends one of mercenaries, John Gray, who believed they are to “free”
Empirei, but soon finds out the truth and joins Gennady’s side. The mercenaries are to pretend
they are an orchestra and hide the weapons in their instrument cases. Meanwhile, a Soviet
delegation, led by Gennady’s grandmother, arrives at Empirei, allegedly to establish relations
between the two countries, but mainly because the grandmother is curious about what is going
on.

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On the day of the “musical” performance the gang seizes the Soviet ship and stuffs it with
arms, in an attempt to show that the Soviets planned not to conduct scientific research, but to
invade the country. Empireians, however, do not fall for the lie. The Westerners’ plan to usurp
the country fails, because Gennady arranges for the weapons to be substituted with actual
musical instruments, thus disarming the mercenaries. Gennady and the Soviet delegation leave
the country together with Dollis, who turns out to be Natashka’s twin sister, abducted when she
was a baby.
Genre peculiarities. Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik is the only book I analyze in my
dissertation that has any magical or science fiction elements. Specifically, Empireians are said to
be descendants of astronauts from Cassiopeia; the list of characters includes a speaking dolphin
and a cat that sings poetry; and Gennady is able to see in the dark. However, I still consider the
novel as a part of the corpus of non-magical FC texts, because the magical elements do not
dominate the plot and could be removed without changing the premise and message of the
novel.43
Why is a fictional country introduced? Empirei is not a stand-in for any specific country
or even a type of country. It is a place where, due to its remoteness and the incapability of its
citizens to be suspicious, the contrast between the two ways of lives becomes exaggerated. It is
created expressly for the novel and is pointedly fictional and collage-like, with its history
including everything from Egyptian slaves to a British pirate. It would be impossible to find a
real country with just such a rich history, at the same time living in a state close to primitive.
However, concealing the country’s identity to avoid trouble was the reason suggested by Soviet
43 As Pavel Matveev notes, the version published in Kostyor magazine did not feature the cat at
all (From email).

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publishers, who suspected it was secretly anti-Soviet and the events in Empirei represented
events in the real world – for example, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia – but could not
find any evidence (Matveev).
Creating Empirei, Aksenov creates a battlefield for the two powers – a battlefield that the
reader has no preconceptions about or associations with. Whatever they learn about the country
and its international relations, they learn through the book – for example, that the American
presence there is due to their military plans. The modern history of the country unfolds so that it
proves that Americans want to seize power no matter the cost, while showing “истинное лицо
советского народа” (the true face of the Soviet people) that is friendly.
Creating a country from scratch allows the author to build a crazy and entertaining world,
where Senate speakers dress up as pirates and where for one veliur you can buy an ice-cream or
the whole store. That secures the young reader’s attention and excitement while ensuring the
author would not be accused of making fun of some real island people or that he wants to rewrite
the history of a nation.
Political message. The implied author wants the readers to see the world as a battle of
powers: communism and capitalism, civilization and barbarity, science and mysticism,
friendship and exploitation, with the USSR representing the former, the capitalist countries
responsible for the later, and the third world countries pining under capitalist power. The USSR,
by this time, is supposedly as close to a utopia as possible without the readers discarding the
book as blunt propaganda – in this Aksenov’s story shows an affinity with that of Kassil’. By
sending his protagonist out in the world, the author gets an opportunity to demonstrate that the
principles of the USSR are morally superior and that encounters with capitalism can be deadly.

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He reminds the readers that things that they take for granted (free education; safe travels;
nationalized parks) are not the default option but conditional on the right political regime.
Importantly, on top of all this, he also aims to entertain the reader. Lots of action and comical
episodes like Gennady being chased by borscht ensure that the young reader keeps reading – and
being exposed to the political message.
Ultimately, Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik it is a story of the USSR surreptitiously freeing a
people from the yoke of America without openly engaging in a conflict. The unarticulated
message that the reader gets from the story is as follows: if not for the Soviets, small nations
would be exploited by the Americans, because they lack resources (including mental ones) to
defend their freedom. Mamis, an American involved in the plot, explicitly states his country’s
predatory nature, albeit in a ambiguous way:
я представитель страны, которая ценит юмор, но не любит шутить. Наша
довольно-таки мощная держава обожает малые страны.
I represent a country that appreciates humor, but does not like to joke. Our rather
powerful nation adores small countries.
Empireians are like children – which is why even a child, Gennady, can be protective of
them: “мне все-таки страшно за них.” (I still worry about them) They do not have a clear
picture of how the world works and are too innocent to spot malignant plots. In order to
withstand, they require external protection. That brings the novel close to Ruritanian novels,
where the kingdom is saved by an outsider44
.
44 In Graustark, after the bandits who were trying to kidnap the princess were caught, they were
executed, because naive Graustarkians did not think they could be interrogated to find the person
behind the plot. It is only when the American protagonist points it out that they understand their
mistake. That blunder, indicating the lack of understanding of basic principles of governing a
country, is similar to that made by Empireians, who let the villains slip away because it did not
occur to them that the villains must be arrested.

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Like Lavrenev and Nikulin, Aksenov had to solve the following issue while creating his
piece of propaganda. Since the narrator, the characters and, presumably, the readers were
interested in the political situation of a different country, and since that country was an object of
equal interest of the Americans, it was imperative that the Soviets have an alibi and cannot be
accused of meddling in the other countries’ business, like the Westerners did.
For Aksenov, the solution was simple: the meddling is done by a child not instructed or
encouraged by the grown-ups (in fact, he faces resistance from the crew). At the same time,
Gennady is an embodiment of the Soviet system of values and acts according to them, thus one
cannot say that he is just a random adventurer or a unique person doing something unlikely. Here
is how he explains his actions to the English lady who gushes over his helping “such a small
people” (Empireians): “советскому пионеру не безразлична судьба как больших, так и
малых наций” (for the Soviet pioneer the fates of both big and small nations matter). Gennady
is, on the one hand, an exceptional boy, but on the other represents all Soviet pioneers and the
spirit of his country, and acts as its unofficial ambassador.
Though Gennady has to leave Empirei, there is still a permanent Russian (if not Soviet)
presence on the island: it is the monument to his ancestor. There cannot be any objections to that
presence either, for admiral Stratophontov was not an invader, settler, ruler or even a Soviet, but
the person who saved the country without encroaching on its freedom. On the symbolic level,
however, the monument means the Soviets do rule over the country.
The small nation successfully ousting Americans, narrated in Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik,
is not the final battle with the USSR’s archenemy. Even the Empireian victory is not certain: as
the novel closes and the narrator asks Gennady for an epilogue, the boy says: “мне кажется, что
там снова неспокойно. Хищники так просто не откажутся от такого лакомого кусочка” (I

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feel like they are in trouble again. Predators won’t so easily give up such a tasty treat.) That
means that small countries that oppose capitalist “predators'' can only get temporary relief and
may face new encroachments on their territories at any time. There is, thus, only one country
which is safe from both the capitalist regime and capitalist threats, and it is Gennady’s home
country. While not following Kassil’s example of terrorizing the reader with an image akin to the
ring of steel needles encircling the moon, Aksenov makes sure that, finishing the story, the
reader remembers that the enemy is still active – though Gennady and his fellow Soviet citizens
are not in danger, because, as one of the villains finds out, “[с] советскими действительно
шутки плохи” (The Soviets, indeed, are not to be trifled with.)
It is thus in the small countries’ best interests to become the USSR’s ally. In keeping with
the idea that the USSR is only interested in cultural relations with small countries, that
conclusion is not explicitly stated or even hinted at in the novel, but, in the world that Aksenov
created, it seems to be the only way to a permanently peaceful life.
Life and ideology in the USSR and abroad. The Soviets follow a straightforward system
of values. It is not all ideal people – for example, Gennady encounters a chess player who cheats
– but even a young boy knows what’s right and wrong and is not afraid to voice it. For example,
when Gennady encounters a cheating chess player, he calls him out.
Like a folktale hero, Gennady does not experience any transformation throughout his
travels. He is excited, but not shocked by the foreign way of life; his worldview does not change.
He already knows the truth; his travel is not so much a research expedition as a “практическая
работа” (practicum). He confirms, not explores, while his foreign mates have their worldviews
brutally shattered. As the islanders and their friends grapple with the capitalists, USSR positive
qualities are highlighted.

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After the Soviet ship saves tourists attacked by a submarine, the first mate uses the
incident to reinforce the crew’s political beliefs:
– Ну вот, товарищи – сказал он, откашлявшись, – сегодня мы лицом к
лицу столкнулись с парадоксом мира чистогана, где каждый мазурик, купив
подводную лодку, может превратить законный отдых в чистый ад. В нашей стране
такого безобразия быть не может, это всем ясно.
– Well, comrades, – he said after clearing his throat, – today we came face to face with
the paradoxical world of money, where by buying a submarine, every swindler can turn
people’s well-earned vacation into a pure hell. Such hideous things cannot happen in our
country, that’s obvious.
Showing absurdities and abuses in Empirei and other foreign countries, Aksenov allows
the reader to appreciate how lucky they are to live in a country where such “hideous things” are
impossible. While the evil capitalists are motivated by money, property and power and have no
qualms about killing to achieve their goals, the Soviets, represented by the ship’s crew, value
human lives and are moved by their love for science and curiosity. People from capitalist
countries are not by definition bad, but the system allows evil people to get too much power. For
example, Nakamura-Branchevska is able to explode the island using a volcano – and only
Gennady stops her from doing that. USSR, on the other hand, values and empowers hardworking, brave individuals, such as Gennady’s grandmother, who faces no obstacles in her plan
to send a delegation of Soviet citizens to Empirei – and even is praised for “хорошая
инициатива.” (“good initiative”)
Since the evil capitalists use ruthless methods, they have to resort to manipulations and
distortions to make their actions less disgusting – for example, presenting themselves as saviors
of Empirei to engage mercenaries and claiming that it is Soviets who are actually invaders. Not
only does the USSR not engage in such frauds, but it raises its youth in such a way that even a
child can easily spot such a lie. A twelve-year old Gennady tells John, the experienced

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mercenary fighter: “Простите меня, Джон, но вы – наивный идеалист” (Forgive me, John, but
you’re a naive idealist) – and Gennady indeed has a clearer picture of the situation.
His Soviet provenance allows Gennady to be superior in his political and moral outlook
to both evil capitalists and to the victims, facilitators, and beneficiaries of the regime. Here is
how Gennady reacts to the stereotypically capitalistic offer of the grateful English lady to
become one of her heirs:
– (...] Я включу вас в свое завещание. Винстон [мопс] получит шестьдесят
процентов, а вы, Джин, сорок процентов.
– Благодарю вас, мэм, но это не требуется, – сдержанно поклонился Геннадий.
(...)
– Инкредэбл! Невероятно! – воскликнула дама. – Почему вы
отказываетесь от денег? Ведь вы же спасли нас с Винстоном?
– Я советский пионер, мэм, и этим все сказано, – суховато сказал Геннадий.
– О Лорд! – воскликнула дама.– Не значит ли это, что вы отказываетесь
от нашей с Винстоном дружбы?
С глаз ее слетели две-три зеленоватые старческие слезинки (...) Геннадий был
тронут искренностью дамы, и он, конечно, учел особенности человека, выросшего
и состарившегося в капиталистическом мире.
– Деньги могут только испортить дружбу, мэм, а от дружбы я не
отказываюсь.
– (...) I will include you into my will. Winston [the pug] will get sixty percent, and you,
Gene, will get forty percent.
– Thank you, ma’am, but that is not needed, – bowed Gennady in a reserved manner.
(....)
– Incredible! Unbelievable! – exclaimed the lady. – Why do you refuse the money?
Didn’t you save me and Winston?
– I’m a Soviet pioneer, ma’am, and that explains everything, – said Gennady rather drily.
– Oh Lord! – exclaimed the lady. – Does that mean that you refuse my and Winston’s
friendship?
Two or three tiny greenish tears dropped from her elderly eyes. (...) Gennady was
touched by the lady’s sincerity, and, of course, he took into account the peculiarities of a
person who grew up and grew old in a capitalistic world.
– Money can only ruin friendship, ma’am, and the friendship I do not refuse.
Gennady not only knows what the best way of life is, but is able to account for his
fortunate circumstances and to be lenient towards those who are mistaken. Even though

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becoming a friend of an impressionable old lady would give him ample opportunity to try and
“convert” her, he does not attempt it.
On a higher level, Gennady’s country sticks to the same approach. Even though their
crew’s helping out an endangered republic of Empirei would facilitate overseas pro-Soviet
propaganda, it does not happen. The respect for another country’s independence is stronger than
the wish to make them happy. Thus, according to the book, the only situation when the USSR
interferes in other countries’ matters is when the latters’ independence is threatened.
Freedom seems to be something that Soviet citizens enjoy as well. USSR is depicted as a
country where everything is possible and where socialism does not mean that individuality can
not blossom.There is no “iron curtain” preventing the citizens from going abroad. When the
protagonist’s family and friends decide to go to Empirei there are no bureaucratic impediments –
though leaving the country even temporarily throughout most of Soviet history was just as
unlikely as catching a ride on the back of a speaking dolphin, as Gennady did. The protagonist’s
perfect English is presented as one of his virtues and allows him to seamlessly integrate into the
Western world. Something that hints at the unlikeliness of such achieving such mastery in an
isolated country is that the author reveals his own less-than-perfect knowledge of English:
“высший свет” (high society) is translated as “high light”, since Russian uses one word for both
“society” and “light”, and the passengers from a Swedish ship, in an attempt to get help, yell
“Sake for Christ.”
Creating Empirei. Creating the country, Aksenov is generous with visual details, from
describing the shape of the country (inverted comma) and its improbable flag (“orange, green
and white circles on aquamarine background”) to absurd outfits and customs. For example, the
Senator speaker has to sit on a barrel of Empireian wine. The abundance of details helps the

191
reader envision the country, their absurd character at the same time hinting at its improbability
and entertaining the reader.
A telling example is the cityscape of the capital, Oak Port:
“Гена стоял на ходовом мостике и завороженными глазами смотрел на
приближающиеся стены древней крепости, на некогда мощные, то круглые, то
острые, как нос корабля, бастионы, на красные черепичные крыши, на купола и
шпили соборов, ракетоподобные башни минаретов, на пагоды, похожие на
гигантские ели
– Невероятный город, Гена, правда?– сказал за его спиной капитан
Рикошетников.
– Он похож на сказку, – прошептал Геннадий.
– Скорее на сновидение, – сказал капитан.”
Gena stood on the flybridge and, spellbound, watched the approaching walls of
the ancient fortress, the once strong bulwarks, now round, now sharp as a ship’s prow,
the red tiled roofs, the domes and spires of cathedrals, the rocket-like minaret towers, the
pagodas which looked like giant fir trees.
– What an incredible city, Gena, right? – said captain Rikoshetnikov behind his back.
– It looks like a fairy tale, – whispered Gennady.
– A dream, rather, – said the captain.)
Even given the long history of the island which involved many cultures, in our world it is
hard to imagine that the capital of a small country could have gotten minarets side-by-side with
pagodas and Western cathedrals. So the visual aspect of the city also underscores the country’s
fictional nature.

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Geography. Bol’shie Empirei is a rare example of a Pacific island-state. A common motif
in European literature, exotic islands normally are not portrayed as states, but as places free from
customary restrictions and cynicism. As Stephanos Stephanides and Susan Bassnet write in their
study of islands in European culture, “[f]rom the discovery of the the Americas to the period of
decolonization, European writers and artists translating insularity – Pierre Loti, Victor Segalen,
Paul Gauguin and others – contributed to the myth of islands in the Caribbean or the South Seas
as new Cytheras, blessed islands, or exotic Edens rich with beautiful flora and fauna.” (17–18)
Here, the islanders also enjoy a paradise-like environment, but have a modern-looking state
system, with a senate and a president. However, details such as the president’s outfit, “чернобело-лиловые трусы” (black, white and lilac-colored shorts), shows that the state is not and
should not be taken too seriously.
The country’s being a faraway island adds to verisimilitude, because few people know
names of all tiny countries in the Pacific. Unlike with continental countries, islands does not
have immediate neighbors, which solves the problem of “inserting” the territory into the map of
the real world. There’s lots of space in the ocean; by creating a small island the author won’t be
encroaching on someone else’s space. Pacific islands are also not very much involved in
international politics, which, up to a point, allows Empirei to develop as they see fit.
In terms of geography, the country’s most important quality is its remoteness and
isolation, both spatial and informational. Only because of that isolation the country can afford
not being involved in politics and not really understand how life works. Another consequence of
that is that the rest of the world has little knowledge about them. As news of Gennady’s
involvement with Empirei reach Leningrad, his friends and family seek information:

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– Но мы должны действовать, мы должны узнать хотя бы, что там
происходит.
– Но как? В газетах совсем ничего не пишут об этой маленькой стране.”
– But we have to act, we have to at least find out what’s going on there.
– But how? There is absolutely nothing about that small country in the
newspapers.
In this respect it is telling how the USSR’s lack of cultural ties with Empirei is explained:
Наши связи с Большими Эмпиреями очень ограниченны. Мы пытаемся наладить
с ними обмен книгами, картинами, просто добрым словом, но увы... страна эта
так далека, а их единственный дипломат Старжен Фиц. проживающий в Токио, не
отвечает на наши письма.
Our connections with Bol’shie Empirei are very limited. We try to [start] exchanging
with them books, paintings, just kind words, but alas… that country is so far away, and
their only diplomat Sturgeon Fitz, who lives in Tokyo, does not reply to our letters.
In other words, the Soviets lack connections with the country not because they are not
interested. They are, albeit in a strictly cultural sense. The reason is that the country itself does
not share information.
Even the consulate of the country is hard to find. There is an mysterious detail that is
never explained: as Gena and his companion are searching for the consulate in Tokyo and ask
people in the streets, “полицейские и прохожие, услышав название “Большие Эмпиреи и
Карбункл”, почему-то начинали безумно хохотать и так слабели от смеха, что толку
добиться было трудно” (police and passers-by, on hearing the name of “Bol’shie Empirei and
Karbunkl”, for some reason began to laugh like crazy and got so weak with laughter that one had
trouble getting any information).

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There are two possible explanations for such a puzzling reaction. First, people might be
thinking it is ridiculous that someone would bother to go there at all. Second – and more in line
with the emphasized fictionality of the country – it could be because the country does not exist.
In that case, indeed, asking how to get to its consulate would be considered absurd.
Remoteness, a prerequisite for the country’s isolation, is the reason Empirei is so
desirable for the USA: its location in the Pacific is perfect to use it as a military base. The
remoteness also prevents prompt reaction of the USSR government in case of adversity towards
Soviet citizens, leaving the crew unprotected, an effect exploited by the enemy when they
capture the Soviet ship:
– Наше правительство этого так не оставит, – спокойно сказал Рикошетников.
Шутите с огнем, мистер.
– Ваше правительство далеко, а наши автоматы близко.”
– Our government won’t let it pass, – said Rikoshetnikov calmly. – You’re playing with
fire, mister.
– Your government is far but our guns are right here.
Showing the USSR citizens vulnerable, Aksenov has to explain that it does not mean
their government is weak or disinterested, only unavailable for geographical reasons. Being far
from the civilized world allows the ship and the crew to get in one-on-one conflict with bandits
with no support or instructions from the government – justifying the unthinkable (in real life)
situation when a Soviet citizen with no government post makes a big political decision (or any
independent political decision) and faces no persecution.
The isolation and remoteness stymied the development of the island, something that
Empireians do not perceive, since they had little opportunity to compare their country to others.
A telling example is that “они были убеждены, что обладают самой мощной [футбольной]
командой мира, но у них никогда не хватало денег, чтобы съездить в Европу или в
Южную Америку проверить свои силы, да они и не знали толком, что такое деньги.”

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(They were convinced that they had the best [soccer] team in the world but they never had
enough money to go to Europe or South America to try their skills – neither had they a good
understanding of what money was). Blissfully ignorant of their ignorance, they are content with
the situation, since all their needs are met.
The diplomat of a country normally would take care of establishing international
connections, but the Empireian diplomat is just as absurd as the republic he is representing, and
is no better in his job than Empireians are in running their country. Suffice it to say that he has
never been to Empirei. Apart from his diplomatic duties, he also works as a cook, a violinist, a
chiromant, a trader of curiosities and a martial art specialist. That multitude of interests is
explained by his dire financial situation, since “[его] правительство не платит [ему]
жалование уже двадцать четыре года” (for the past twenty-four years [his] government
haven’t paid [him] his salary.) On being invited to the USSR his first concern is whether his food
expenses would be reimbursed, and he has no money to reply to telegrams from the USSR
(which probably also explains his not answering their letters). The fact that the state of Empirei
neglects its own diplomat suggests that establishing and maintaining connections with other
countries is not their priority and that the country lacks funds and understanding of politics.
But the islanders are to realize that in the modern world such isolation is impossible. It
makes a country vulnerable for predatory imperial powers hungry for more resources. And, were
the islanders more prone to reflection, they would have realized that in the past, such inaction on
their land had already backfired.
The Blessed Islands: no longer a viable model. The country's name suggests that they
are like paradise, because in ancient Greek and early Christian culture the word “эмпиреи”

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referred to the most sacred part of heaven (Akademik). On seeing the islands, a traveler
exclaimed: “Вот они, блаженные Эмпиреи” (Here it is, the blessed Empireum), and the name
stuck. The climate, the friendliness of natives, and feathers of paradise birds, one of Empirei’s
main export products – all confirm that the name is appropriate. But the Russian expression
“витать в Эмпиреях” (to float in the Empireum) means “to be disconnected from reality”,
meaning the name also suggests that Empireians do not know the real life.
The name thus sums up both the blessing and the curse of the country: its citizens have
all the material resources they need, but do not know how the world works, which ultimately
means they cannot recognize a threat to their independence.
Such an unfortunate combination may lead to degradation. Here is how the first
inhabitants of what would later be called Bol’shie Empirei looked:
Волосатые крепыши скакали на четвереньках (...) и дружелюбно хрюкали.
Hairy and robust little fellows were hopping on all fours [...[ and friendly oinking.
It turns out, however, that the islanders were not always in that primitive state:
далекие, очень далекие предки [древних эмпирейцев] прибыли к нам на землю из
пучин космоса. Впоследствии под влиянием благостного климата и огромных
количеств вкусной дикорастущей еды астронавты обленились и забыли
математику. Борьбы за существование на архипелаге по сути дела не было
никакой, и в течение тысячелетий [они] стали травоядным племенем
хрюкающих волосатых крепышей”.
distant, very distant ancestors of [ancient Empireians] arrived to our Earth from the
profundity of space. Later, under the influence of the salubrious climate and giant
quantities of tasty food growing in the wild, the astronauts became lazy and forgot
mathematics. There wasn’t really any struggle for survival on the islands, and as
centuries went by [they] became a herbivore tribe of hairy, oinking, robust little fellows.

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That means that island dwellers have already had a negative experience related to
inaction: such inaction caused their ancestors to lose their language and civilization. In the old
days, the dehumanized islanders could afford peacefully grazing and oinking for centuries, until
they re-developed; but at the time of the story, such luxury is unimaginable. If they are not
interested in their country’s future, someone else would be – and that “someone else” would not
prioritize the country’s welfare.
Dismissing the dream of a happy place where life is easy – a dream recurring from
Lucian of Samosata’s travelog to Bruegel “The Land of Cockaigne”, – Aksenov’s implied author
shows that if such a place was possible, its inhabitants would devolve and become helpless like
children. Such idea is logical for a representative of a culture where diligent labor was
pronounced a virtue and it was believed that, as the popular saying went, “труд сделал из
обезьяны человека.” (the labor turned the ape into the man) By adding humor and a sci-fi
element to the story, Aksenov ensures that the readers do not get yet another iteration of statesponsored wisdom along the lines of “study diligently and work hard”, something they must
have heard countless times.
A questionable detail of Empirei is that the beneficent nature not only transforms
astronauts to savages, but also invaders and pirates into peaceful people:
Множество отъявленных мерзавцев под влиянием красоты и свободы забывали о
своем преступном прошлом и растворялись среди местного населения.
Many rabid scoundrels, under the influence of beauty and freedom, forgot their criminal
past and dissolved among the local population.
The history of the island shows that bad people do not need prison/education/hard work,
they just need food, palms and pretty island girls to become harmless. Such sentiment could not
be further from the Soviet agenda. In the Soviet worldview, utopia is achieved through struggle
and sacrifice.

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But for the place to become a battleground of villains and heroes of the Cold War era, the
old laws of history had to be left in the past. Modern villains stay villains. A country could no
longer be steeped in ignorance and still enjoy freedom. Otherwise the greedy capitalists, who
arrived in order to exploit the island, would also have “dissolved among the local population.”
For describing events of today – and the story is set between 1965 and 1969 – showing villains
not being inherently wicked would go against the grain of the ideology, to say nothing of
disabling the plot. That would imply that the world could be transformed by “beauty and
freedom” alone, without education or revolutions – and that would be scandalous.
Language. Languages are an essential part of the novel. They interact (the speaking
dolphin mixes Russian and English), enable one to conceal their identity (Gennady’s use of
English allows him to pass for an Englishman), serve as a metaphor (Karbuklian dialect sounds
very unpleasant, in line with the speakers’ unpleasant character), entertain and intrigue.
Similarly with Prince i tantsovshchitsa, this novel introduces an unfamiliar language as a
way to introduce the fictional country. In this case, Gennady talks to his grandma (presumably)
in Empireian on the night he meets the narrator, something that should pique the readers’
curiosity, as no translation is provided. It is after conversation that that the boy recounts his
adventures in Empirei.
The Soviet travelers almost “magically” learn the Empireian language. That ease of
learning confirms the image of a friendly island open to guests (and invaders), because it is easy
for outsiders to blend in.
Some words are recognizable from European languages, creating a mixture as diverse as
the language in Bend Sinister, though Aksenov is not even remotely as involved in languagebuilding as Nabokov:

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Друзья сквозь бамбуковую занавеску вошли в полутемную прохладную
лавчонку. Толстый хозяин в красной майке с цифрой "9" на спине тут же
закрутился возле них.
– Вилькамис, вилькамис, якшито немо!
– Пуззо, гай ле свитохлади, – попросил его Геннадий и тут же получил
брусок мороженого в шоколаде.
– Пуззо, гай ле тубака пюр пипса, – попросил капитан и тут же получил
коробку трубочного табака "Летучий голландец".
The friends entered the cool, semi-dark little shop through a bamboo screen. The fat shop
owner, wearing a red shirt with the number “9” on his bag immediately started fussing
about:
– Vilkamis, vilkamis, iakshito nemo!
– Puzzo, gaĭ le svitokhladi, – asked Gennady and immediately got a slab of ice-cream in
chocolate.
– Puzzo, gaĭ le tubaka piur pipsa, – asked the captain and immediately got a box of “The
Flying Dutchman” pipe tobacco).
As can be seen, the mixture features elements of Germanic languages (“vilkamis”,
“puzzo” as distorted “wilkommen” and “please), French (article “le”, “piur pipsa”), and Slavic
(the composite word “svitohlad”, “ice-cream” is created similarly to Serbian “hladoled”), a
combination just as unlikely in its etymological diversity as the architecture of Oak Port.
History. The history of the island is described in great detail. Normally that would
increase verisimilitude, but here the historical events are too absurd. For example, the native
people of Empirei were astronauts from Cassiopeia, who “forgot math” and degraded into hairy,
four-legged creatures, in a humorous twist on traditional portrayal of aliens as more advanced
creatures and on human evolution as a progression from less to more developed species.
Moreover, the chapter on history begins with a character called Йон, the Russian translation of
“Noah” spelled backwards. Thus, according to the Soviet doctrine, the history of the country is
based on a myth, which further diminishes verisimilitude.
Apart from the historical digression, the world of the story is pointedly contemporary. It
is not just a parable or an allegory. The reader is expected to apply the message to the world and

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events around them. Aksenov freely uses signals of the 1960s, making sure the story is perceived
as a modern one. Reference to “Mietvin’” obviously refers to the Vietnam war; Gena plays chess
with the famous Tal’ (and wins); the disappearance of an American submarine, Thresher, is used
as an example of how the ocean is mysterious and dangerous (see Polmar).
Hints at Fictionality. Some details serve to remind the reader that the world described
and specifically its geography are fictional:
Геннадий был, конечно, вполне здравомыслящим мальчиком, но все-таки
очень долго не покидала его мысль о том, что разные другие страны существуют
только в книгах и в кино, что взрослые все это выдумали для того, чтобы детям не
так скучно было учить географию”
Gennady was, of course, quite a clever boy, but still for a long time he could not
get rid of the thought that different other countries only exist in books and movies, that
the grown ups have invented it all so that the children are not so bored when learning
geography.
This is said when Gennady gets excited about seeing Japan with his own eyes. By
making Gennady stop in Japan at first, the author creates a stepping stone for his venture into the
imaginary country: first the boy sees a real country that is so remote that it feels fictional, and
only after that – a country that actually is fictional. Anticipating his arrival to Empirei, Gennady
cannot believe he is so close to the “fantastical” country: “И неужели же, неужели даже
совершенно фантастические Большие Эмпиреи вот так же реально скоро предстанут
перед ним?” (And will it really, really be that the completely fantastic Grand Empirei will soon
appear before him?) Thus the author emphasizes that Empirei actually are “fantastical”.
Another “stepping stone” from getting to and from Empirei is the city of Zurbagan,
created by Aleksandr Grin45. It is mentioned multiple times, though we never see it. Normally
when a foreign city appears in a FC tale that serves to tie the fictional country to the real world,
45 It is mentioned, for example, in Begushchaia po volnam.

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to the reader’s life experience. In this case, it hints at the country’s fictionality: you can’t get to a
real place from a fictional city46. Moreover, it allows the readers to rejoice at recognizing and
attributing a familiar name. It also ties the novel to other works of literature and it creates a
multi-author fictional universe, Aksenov thus becoming an equal of Grin, which must be
flattering.
A house in Oak Port, the Empireian capital, features a plaque that makes one doubt the
truthfullnes of either the narrator or the person that put it there:
В этом доме часто останавливались русский писатель Александр Грин (по
пути из Зурбагана в Гель-Гью), английский писатель Джонатан Свифт (из
Лилипутии в Лапуту), французский писатель Жюль Верн (из пушки на Луну).
In this house often stayed: Russian writer Aleksandr Grin (on his way from Zurbagan to
Guel-Gew), English writer Jonathan Swift (from Liliputia to Laputa), French author Jules
Verne (from the cannon to the moon.
In a similar vein, as the novel closes, Gennady refers to another fictional toponym: the
team of the research ship is currently in the Maracot Deep, a place from the eponymous novel by
Conan Doyle. And a toponym from Aksenov’s own Zatovarennaia bochkotara, the country
Khaligalia, appears as well47
.
There is a strange discrepancy between the official and personal experience. In his speech
to the crew on reaching Empirei, the captain describes their visit as the first time a Soviet set foot
on the islands – and faces objection from crew member Teleskopov who states that it was he
who was the first Soviet. The captain’s insistence that they are the first and his being displeased
with Teleskopov’s statement are puzzling. Was Teleskopov, that trickster character, lying?
46 Another sign that the geography is not real is that Vikings, who tried to plunder the island in
7th century AD, arrived at the archipelago when they headed to “North-South-East-West”
direction, that is, a direction that does not exist.
47 Zatovarennaia Bochkotara and Moi dedushka – pamiatnik were published almost
simultaneously (Linkova).

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Hardly, since the islanders do recognize him, even though visiting a country to borrow a
carpenter’s plane is an unlikely reason. Most likely this episode attests to the questionable Soviet
preference of official versus unofficial, group versus personal – and thus could be interpreted as
a surreptitious criticism; but the denial also serves to remind the reader that not everything
described in the novel is true – that is, underscores the events’ and the place’s fictionality.
A less obvious sign of the fictional and even fairy-tale quality of the story is Aksenov’s
employing two references to Aleksandr Pushkin’s work. Firstly, as the novel opens, the narrator
observes the landscape and notes that
Гора эта [Сюрюккая] на первый взгляд кажется осколком Луны или какой-нибудь
другой безжизненной планеты, но, приглядевшись, можно заметить, что она
напоминает и тот профиль, который великий Пушкин часто рисовал на полях своих
рукописей.
This mountain [Surukkaya], at first glance, looks like a shard of moon or some other
lifeless planet, but if you look closer you will notice that it also resembles the profile that the
great Pushkin often sketched on the margins of his manuscripts.
Fairy-tales are but a small percent of Pushkin’s oeuvre, but the second reference to the
writer is related specifically to them. The research ship crew has a cat on board, and the cat’s
name is Pusha Shutkin. By removing a few sounds in the middle, we get “Pushkin.” And in a
work of Russian literature, a cat appearing side-by-side with the name of Pushkin can evoke only
one association: the famous passage from Ruslan i Liudmila that every person who grew up in
Russia knows:
There is a green oak by the bay
And a chain of gold on that oak,
And night and day a learned cat
Walks all around the chain.
When he goes right, he begins a song,
When he goes left – he tells a fairy tale.
There are wonders there…

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There is an “oak” and a “bay” in Aksenov’s story, too, since the capital of Empirei is
called Oak Bay, and the country’s famous liquor is called “Горный дубняк” (“The Mountain
Oak Grove”) – even though oaks are normally not associated with Oceania.
Aksenov referring to Pushkin is more than just an homage to him and an attempt to put
himself, even if for a moment, side by side with the great writer. It can be interpreted as a
reminder that everything that is happening in the story is a description of “wonders” akin to those
described in Lukomorie: not only alien astronauts and speaking animals, but also the island of
Empirei and the story of a boy saving a nation.
In some cases, the editors of Moĭ dedushka – pamiatnik changed the text to make the
fictionality of the story more obvious. According to Pavel Matveev, who compares different
versions of Aksenov’s novel, the editors of the book version replaced names of real locations
with fictional ones, while the first, journal, version featured original names:
почти все подлинные названия, присутствовавшие в журнальной публикации, в
книге были заменены вымышленными: Конго превратилось в Буронго, Южный
Йемен — в Южную Фриманну, Нигерия — в Джиалию, Вьетнам — в Мьетвинь.
almost all real names from the journal publication were replaced, in the book, by fictional
ones: Congo turned into Burongo, South Yemen – into South Frimanna, Nigeria – to
Gialia, Vietnam – into Mietvin’.
Matveev thinks those changes are unnecessary; I, however, believe that it was done to
ensure the reader does not forget that they are reading a fictional story – and, perhaps, to avoid
diplomatic trouble. The name “Vietnam” does appear in the book version, but it happens early in
the story, before Gennady gets involved in fictional international politics, thus real history is not
distorted:
Геннадий (...) не видел и множества встречных судов и чудовищной
громадины американского авианосца "Форрестол", что не солоно хлебавши
ковылял домой от берегов Вьетнама.

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Nor (...) did Gennady see a multitude of on-coming vessels and the American
aircraft carrier Forrestal, a monstrous giant of a ship, that was hobbling home, emptyhanded, from the shores of Vietnam.
This detail suggests that the story is set in 196748, when the USS Forrestal suffered a
disastrous fire which led to it leaving Vietnam (Rocket causes…) It also suggests that the editors
did not object to Aksenov explicitly mentioning other countries and real historical events – as
long as the characters of the story were not involved. As for Mietvin’, that name is easily
decipherable, so the reader can still get the idea that the ruthless mercenaries sent to Empirei had
before fought in the Vietnam war – and, consequently, that the American army employed people
of questionable moral qualities.
Conclusion.
Creating Empirei, Aksenov looks to build a space where a struggle between two
antagonistic political systems can unfold in a way that is engaging for young readers, who likely
prefer funny adventure stories to yet another reiteration of the state-approved political views that
Soviet pioneers must have had their fair share of. By constantly underlining the absurdity of his
fictional country, Aksenov shows that this is not a model country, nor any country in the real
world. It is by virtue of introducing a fictional country that the story can develop just as the
author desires, eliminating the need to concern with the readers’ preconceptions, real history, or
diplomatic repercussions.
Opposing the capitalist desire of gaining more control and resources, the Soviets are
portrayed as a peaceful nation that is eager to help but does not impose their way of life onto
48 This is, however, just one possible date. Elsewhere another American naval disaster is
mentioned and based on that detail the year would be to 1966 (Polmar), at least in the samizdat
version quoted by Matveev.

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others. The story of Gennady and his “grandpa”, however, suggests that to protect its freedom, a
small nation should resort to Russian/Soviet succor. The confrontation between the USSR and
the USA unfolds indirectly and, geographically speaking, is far removed from both countries,
which soften the bellicosity of state-approved anti-Americanism of the story and protects the
image of Soviets as an amicable nation.
In contrast to Dzhungakhorians, who, in their yet unsuccessful attempt to oust the
Westerners, rely just on themselves, refusing even the royal contribution, Empireians are shown
as a nation in need of external protection. The vicious, exploitative nature of the Westerner
powers involved in the story ensures that the Soviet stance, even if somewhat condescending, is
by contrast perceived as moral and welcome. Just like Kassil’s novel, that of Aksenov is a
testament to the post-Stalinist declared friendliness towards other nations.
In both novels, the implied authors see the USA as an evil force. They avoid directly
saying so and are cautious with using names, yet any reader who has some basic understanding
of the USSR/USA relationship in the postwar period will have no doubt that it is America that
stands behind the small nations’ trouble. Moreover, both avoid an unambiguously happy ending,
as the political struggle is not quite over yet.
Compared to Kassil’, Aksenov is less concerned with verisimilitude and consistency of
the land he creates and often emphasizes the fictional character of the country and the story
itself. While there is no evidence that Aksenov actually intended his story to be subtly antiSoviet, that pointed fictionality, coupled with the book’s overall humorous tone, allows one to
question the sincerity of the author. No reader, after closing the book, would expect to meet a
singing cat or a speaking dolphin as they did in the story; why then must the idyllic Soviet life
described in the same story be any more real?

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Introducing a fictional country, both authors use it to reiterate the worldview that should
already be familiar to their readers: the struggle of two models of political governance, socialist
and capitalist, is at the center of contemporary politics, and the welfare of small nations depends
on whether they manage to evade the control of capitalist world and obtain the friendship of the
Soviets. Original storylines, suspense, exoticism and humor ensure that the stories are not just a
repetition of propaganda, but an enjoyable, immersive experience. A lot of effort is dedicated to
preserving the friendly, peaceful, non-intrusive image of the USSR that was in line with the postwar foreign politics in the country.

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Dissertation Conclusion.
This project started as a paper for Professor Aleksandr Zholkovskiĭ’s Seminar on
Magic/True Word in Spring 2017. We studied, among others works of literature and cinema,
Aksenov’s“Zatovarennaia bochkotara” which features the country of Khaligalia, briefly
mentioned in My Grandfather the Monument. In line with the seminar’s focus on words and the
special powers they possess, my paper was dedicated to names of fictional countries, their
etymology, meaning, and the writers’ occasional decision to avoid names. I started collecting
cases of FC in literature and cinema for the project and quickly realized that they were much
more abundant than I had thought.
The sheer number of fictional countries coupled with the lack of overarching research on
them fascinated me. I understood that it was far from a few curious cases of imaginary
geographies but rather a persistent and prominent motif, employed throughout the history of
literature and visual arts, an uncharted territory that begged to be studied. I was also attracted by
the liminary qualities of fictional countries which toed the lines between real and imaginary,
often drawing the reader’s attention to that precarious balance. Another aspect that made the
topic exciting was that many of the texts were obscure or, in case of films, even lost, a feature
that echoed the popular feature of fictional countries – their semi-unknown status. The
prevalence of the motif was to be seen only if taking into consideration texts that largely have
not been at the center of scholarly attention as not belonging to “high” literature or authors that
the canon considered to be classics.
Having read and watched a variety of FC works from different eras I needed to narrow
down on a number of Slavic texts and decided to go with the relatively recent ones. After
studying a few promising FC texts I noticed that several of them are largely dedicated to the

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Russian revolution and decided to explore the intersection of imaginary countries and revolutions
in literature. After some analysis, it became apparent to me that fictional countries were not just a
setting for “revolutionary” novels, but a tool. More detailed analysis showed that, depending on
the specific author’s beliefs and circumstances, they used fictional countries to reflect on the
tumultuous events they witnessed, gain clarity regarding the historical situations they found
themselves in, promulgate their political beliefs, and alleviate the pain of forced displacement.
While fictional countries were studied before, this work singles out a subgenre of
Political Fictional Country Narratives, a fascinating body of texts that has not been popular with
scholars. It also offers a framework to analyze FC narratives, including a list of verisimilitude
devices. I had to limit my dissertation to a small part of the corpus of Political Fictional Country
Narratives – twentieth-century Russophone texts –, but other scholars can use my framework for
studying texts of different cultures, as well as other varieties of fictional countries. Not
confining the subject matter to literature, one can also study realistic fictional countries in visual
arts, such as cinema, comic strips, and computer games, as well as cases of “real-world” fictional
countries, used by fraudsters and for military training. One possible avenue of research would be
studying how post-Soviet Russian literature employs fictional countries – or, if it does not, how
it deals with issues of processing traumatic historical events, displacement, and cultural shifts. It
would be particularly interesting to see if any shift occurred after the Russian invasion into
Ukraine in 2022, an event that led to thousands of people fleeing Russia, and if Russian émigré
writers of this new wave use the motif of fictional countries similarly to their predecessors a
century ago.
My hope is that this research inspires others to explore the world of fictional countries, be
it via research of issues suggested above or via reading texts analyzed in this dissertation, and

209
that the diverse body of fictional country narratives becomes a bit less obscure, leaving the realm
of “lost lands” unknown to modern readers and becoming a motif whose prevalence and
importance is recognized in the field of Slavic literary studies.

210
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study explores the motif of fictional countries which was extensively used by Russophone authors after the Revolution of 1917 and aims to understand the reasons for the motif’s prevalence, with the focus on realistic fictional countries. It argues that using Political Fictional Country Narratives helped authors to reflect on the tumultuous events they witnessed, gain clarity regarding the historical situations, promulgate their political beliefs, and alleviate the pain of emigration. Using real countries would significantly limit authors, while fictional countries offered perks such as an opportunity to indulge in world- and language-building.

In Soviet literature, the popularity of Political Fictional Country Narratives manifests the tension between the two tendencies in Soviet ideology: isolationism and internationalism. In the early years of the USSR, as well as in the post-Stalinist period, Soviet writers embraced internationalism and emphasized the altruistic stance of the Soviet Union. When internationalism was on the rise, fictional country narratives proliferated; when isolationism prevailed, the motif was not employed. Soviet writers who employed the motif – including those writing for children -- were more intrigued by the fate of the nation and the world rather than by what happens to individual humans.

For émigré writers, the situation was the opposite. Authors such as Vladimir Nabokov and Nikolaĭ Breshko-Breshkovskiĭ expressed no interest in the political developments of the country they left, which was reflected in how they built their fictional countries. For them, the political context was important only inasmuch as it interfered with an individual’s life, robbing them of their country and language and evoking disdain or nostalgia. These authors do not suggest a political alternative to the Soviet regime – nor is the reader encouraged to find one.

The study identifies and analyzes a fascinating body of text united by the use of motif of fictional countries. Many of those works have been overlooked by scholars and long forgotten by readers. It also offers a framework to analyze more texts that feature fictional countries, of which politically charged narratives are but a small part.

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Creator Levina, Elizaveta (author)

Core Title Imaginary geographies:political fictional country narratives in post-revolutionary Russophone literature

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Slavic Languages and Literatures

Degree Conferral Date 2024-12

Publication Date 10/18/2024

Defense Date 10/17/2024

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

Tag Children's Literature,fictional geographies,imaginary countries,Lev Kassil,Russian emigré literature,Russian Revolution,Soviet literature,Vasilii Aksionov,verisimilitude,Vladimir Nabokov

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