CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE LITERATURE OF OLD RUSSIA AND THE MODERN RUSSIAN NOVEL*
Identifieur interne : 001068 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 001067; suivant : 001069CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE LITERATURE OF OLD RUSSIA AND THE MODERN RUSSIAN NOVEL*
Auteurs : George G. WeickhardtSource :
- Canadian-American Slavic Studies [ 0090-8290 ] ; 1997.
English descriptors
- Entity :
- org : American Contributions, International Congress.
- pers : A. Moser, Agnes, Anastasia Verbetskaia, Andrei, Andrew Wachtel, Anna Karenina, Barbara Heldt, Boris Gasparov, Boris Uspenskii, Bovary, Charles A. Moser, Clark, David Copperfield, Doris Bradbury, Dostoevskii, Elliot Mossman, Elliott Mossman, Eve Levin, Fennimore, Gary Saul, George Fedotov, George Siegel, Georges Fedotov, Georges Florovsky, Gregory Freidin, Igor Tale, Indiana Univ, Ivan Bezdomnyi, Ivan Karamazov, Joan Delaney, Julian, Julien Sorel, Katerina Clark, Konstantin Levin, Laura D. Weeks, Leo Toistoi, Leo Tolstoi, Levin, Likhachev, Lotman, M. Lotman, Magic Mountain, Mandarins, Margaret Ziolkowski, Marquis D. Levin, Masha, Mikhail Fedorovich, Myshkin, Olga Matich, Paul Tallemant, Pere Goriot, Pierre Bezhukov, Princess Mary, Princeton Univ, Richard Gustafson, Robert P. Hughes, Rufus W. Mathewson, S. Likhachev, S. Mirsky, Simone de Beauvoir, Spring Torrents, Taras Bulba, Thomas Mann, Tom Jones, Turgenev, Victor Terras, Vorotyntsev, Walter Scott, Western, Zhivago, de Renal.
- place : Albany, America, CA, CT, Cambridge, Canterbury, Chekhov, Chicago, Columbus, Europe, Gogol, Jerusalem, Magadan, Moscow, New Haven, OH, Parma, Poland, Rochester, Russia, Saint Sergius, Smolensk, St. Sergius, Stalingrad, Stanford, Thebes, Tiberias, U.S., Wuthering Heights, York.
- Teeft :
- Anatolii kuragin, Andrew wachtel, Anna karenina, Avvakum, Awakum, Barbara heldt, Basic theme, Brother karamazov, Cambridge history, Cornell univ, Cultural memory, David copperfield, Distinctive theme, Dmitrii likhachev, Dostoevskii, Eighteenth century, Eponymous character, Erotic theme, Family happiness, Fictitious character, Genre, George fedotov, George florovsky, Great flowering, Greatest work, Gregory freidin, Hagiography, Historical character, Historical destiny, Historical event, Historical novel, Historical record straight, Igor, Igor tale, Individual work, Julien sorel, Katerina clark, Levin, Love relationship, Main character, Major theme, Many work, Many year, Medieval literature, Medieval russian literature, Modern period, Modern russia, Modern russian literature, Modern russian novel, Modern western literature, Moral core, National destiny, National struggle, Nineteenth century, Other hand, Overall continuity, Personal salvation, Popular literature, Primary chronicle, Princess mary, Princeton univ, Radical discontinuity, Relative insignificance, Romantic attachment, Romantic love, Russian culture, Russian history, Russian literary history, Russian literature, Russian novel, Russian review, Russian writer, Same period, Same theme, Same time, Sergius, Seventeenth century, Socialist realist novel, Solzhenitsyn, Something other, Spiritual journey, Spiritual quest, Spiritual theme, Stanford univ, Subject matter, Substantial continuity, Substantial trace, Such character, Such episode, Such work, Terrible perfection, Tolstoi, Troubadour poetry, Turgenev, Twentieth century, Univ, Virgin soil, Walter scott, West european novel, Western europe, Western literature, Western medieval literature, Western novel.
Url:
DOI: 10.1163/221023997X00393
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:7809AE1B817B7EDD2E80DD36FC32CCF07D329B3CLe document en format XML
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<p>ARTICLES GEORGE G. WEICKHARDT (San Francisco, U.S.A.) CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE LITERATURE O F OLD RUSSIA AND THE MODERN RUSSIAN NOVEL* T h e d e g r e e of continuity between the literature of Old (pre-Petrine) Russia a n d modern Russia is an oft-noted but surprisingly unexamined is- sue. One cannot gainsay the radical discontinuities between the language and the g e n r e s of Old Russian literature and modern Russian literature. Old Russian literature was dominated by hagiography, chronicles, and military epics or tales, g e n r e s all similar in s o m e r e s p e c t s to g e n r e s of Western medieval literature. Modern Russian literature is, of course, dominated by novels, lyric poetry, narrative poetry a n d drama, a s is modern Western literature. As for language, a modern literary language was not created in Russia until the works of Karamzin and Pushkin. There are, likewise, radical discontinuities in subject matter and focus. Old R u s s i a n literature was largely religious in subject matter, while modern Russian literature is pre- dominantly secular. For their part, many writers of the first half of the nine- teenth century, including Chaadaev, Pushkin, Lermontov a n d Belinskii, lamented that Russia p o s s e s s e d no usable literary traditions t h e y c o u l d exploit or follow. G e o r g e s Florovsky a d v a n c e d s o m e challenging o b s e r v a t i o n s about discontinuity in intellectual content between the cultures of Old Russia and modern Russia.1 He claimed that the civilization of Old Russia was "silent," meaning that there was no logical inquiry and no philosophy and theology a s there had been in the West during the s a m e period. In this respect, he said, there was a marked break b e c a u s e modern Russia is "probably one of the most intellectual nations in Europe, inwardly troubled by all 'damned problems' of religion and metaphysics. Exercise in philosophy, of various * The author thanks Victor Terras and Robert P. Hughes for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1. G e o r g e s Florovsky, "The Problem of Old Russian Culture," Slavic Review, 21, No. 1 (1962), 1-15.</p>
<p>s h a p e s and s h a d e s , and commitment to theory and speculation were the distinctive mark of the Russian mind in the last two centuries." Finally, p e r h a p s the most persuasive evidence of discontinuity is that Old Russian literature had to be "rediscovered" in the modern era. As more fully described below, chronicles, hagiography and the Igor Tale were "re- discovered" and published starting in the late eighteenth century. Most of this literature had b e e n lost from active historical memory for centuries. Notwithstanding the radical discontinuities in language, genre and intel- lectual depth, others s e e important similarities between Old Russian and modern Russian literature. Dmitrii Likhachev believed that Old Russian lit- erature created a tradition of didacticism (uchitel'nost') and s e r i o u s n e s s in literature. ' Old Russian literature was always distinguished by a special seri- o u s n e s s . It s o u g h t to a n s w e r the fundamental q u e s t i o n s of life, urged the transformation of that life, and had various, invariably high ideals. Russian literature was always highly edifying and instructive . . . . All Russian writers, in their own way, hold the writer's vocation in great e s t e e m . Each of them is, to s o m e extent, a prophet and de- nouncer, a n d s o m e are teachers, disseminators of knowledge, inter- preters of reality and participants in the civic life of their c o u n t r y . . . . This s e n s e of the noble calling of the writer was also handed down to the literature of the modern period? Likhachev also s u g g e s t s that seventeenth-century Russia's "democratic lit- erature," focusing on human degradation and preoccupied with death, lays the ground for the unique kind of humanism e x p r e s s e d in the nineteenth- century Russian novel.3 3 Other than to note the persistence of didacticism, the overall continuity or discontinuity of Russian literary history is seldom mentioned in the many available histories of Russian literature. 4 While scholars have long accepted that Russian literature is didactic, recent studies have noted the continuity 2. Dmitrii Likhachev, ed., A History of Russian Literature, i f t h - i 7 t h Centuries (Moscow: Raduga Publishers, 1989), "Introduction," p. 13. 3. Dmitrii S. Likhachev, Chelovek v literature drevnei Rusi (Moscow: Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR, 1958), pp. 138-39. 4. Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literafure (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1991); Dmitri S. Mirsky, A History of Russian literature, from its Beginnings to 1900 (New York: Vintage Books, 1958); Dmitri Chizhevsky, History o f Russian Literature from the Eleventh Century ta the E n d of the Baroque (s'Gravenhae; Mouton, 1980); Charles. A. Moser, ed., The Cambridge History of Russian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992).</p>
<p>of particular t h e m e s and subject. Gregory Freidin h a s argued that Russian authors in the nineteenth century a s s u m e d or expropriated the traditional mantles and symbols of authority: the autocrat, saint, martyr and icon.5 Other studies, s u c h a s Margaret Ziolkowski's Hagiography a n d Modern R u s s i a n Literature,s Marcia Morris' Salnts a n d Revolutionaries,7 and Lyubomira Parp � lova Gribble's study of modern transformations of r h e Life of P e t e r a n d Fevroniia,8 have traced the u s e of certain thematic material from Old Russian literature by modern authors. Similarly, Katerina Clark has demonstrated how the heroes of the Socialist Realist novel and its pre- revolutionary precursors resemble the saints of Old Russian hagiography and the saintly princes of the chronicles, right down to the cliched epithets used to describe them.9 Likewise, Andrew Wachtel has contributed a highly original study of "intergeneric dialogue." He d e s c r i b e s a dialogue about Russia's history between modern historical novels and works of history by the s a m e authors. He t r a c e s this phenomenon, to s o m e extent, back to medieval chronicles, but he fails to further develop the links between mod- e r r Russian historical novels and the literature of Old R u s s i a Speaking of the Europeanization of Russia in a broader cultural context, lurii Lotman observed: Historical t r a d i t i o n . . . was often at work precisely where a break with tradition was subjectively understood, and innovation at times a p p e a r e d a s a fanatical devotion to artificially constructed traditions.. . . The e s s e n c e of culture is such that the past contained in it d o e s not "depart into the past" a s in the natural flow of time; it d o e s not disappear. It b e c o m e s fixed in cultural memory, and acquires a perm- anent, if background, p r e s e n c e . The memory of a culture is con- structed not only a s a store of texts, but a s a certain mechanism for their generation. Culture, united with the p a s t through memory, 5. Gregory Freidin, "By The Walls of Church and State: Literature's Authority in Russia's Modern Tradition," The Russian Review, 52, No. 2 (Apr. 1993), 149-65. 6. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1988). 7. (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1993). 8. "The Life of Peter and Fevroniia: Transformations and Interpretations in Modem Russian Literature and Music," The Russian Review, 52, No. 2 (Apr. 1993), 184-97. 9. Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History a s Ritual (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981). ). 10. Andrew Wachtel, An O b s e s s i o n With History. Russian Writers Confront The Past (Stantord, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1994).</p>
<p>generates not only its future, but also its past, presenting, in this sense, a mechanism that works against natural time.1 1 The present article will posit that several t h e m e s were "fixed" in Russia's "cultural memory," to use Lotman's phrase. O n e approach to a s s e s s i n g the continuity of such t h e m e s would be to trace all allusions to and u s e s of Orct Russian texts or t h e m e s in modern texts. This would clearly be an im- portant and useful project, but o n e obviously beyond the scope of a study of this length. Such a compilation might, moreover, miss the forest for the trees. The approach here will be, instead, to attempt to delineate what was distinctive or unique about the t h e m e s of Old Russian literature, to do the same for modern Russian novels, and then to compare the two. S o m e common patterns, codes and approaches will emerge from this comparison, which are clearly more than accidental. This is, of course, an ambitious agenda, b e c a u s e it involves establishing what has been and is distinctive about Russian literature from 1000 to 2000 1-, .D., from The Primary Chronicle to Aksenov. This agenda, of course, can only be achieved, if at all, by generalization, by omitting many major works a n d trends, and by sacrificing any extended discussion or analysis of individual works o r authors. The discussion will accordingly focus only on major works and, in the modern period, only on major novels. As will be noted, there is much first-rate fiction, second-rate fiction, popular literature and first-rate poetry in modern Russia which d o e s not fit into the sweeping generalizations advanced here. There is thus no pretense here of an all- encompassing genealogy of the t h e m e s of Russian literature. Moreover, b e c a u s e there can be no detailed analysis of individual works, this article can at most s e t forth only a p r o s p e c t u s or program for the genealogy of the t h e m e s with which it deals. This analysis will attempt to establish what is distinctive and unique about Old Russian literature by comparing it, to s o m e extent, with West European literature of the s a m e period. Likewise, modern Russian novels will b e compared, to s o m e extent, with West European novels. T h e s e comparisons will not be a full-blown exercise in comparative literature; they are merely intended to s h e d s o m e light on what is distinctive about Russian literature. The conclusion will be that Old Russia developed, and the mod- ern Russian novel has continued, a literature with three distinctive t h e m e s (in one case, actually the a b s e n c e of a theme). First, it focused on personal salvation, self-enlightenment and self-discovery through experiences of sin 11. lurii M. Lotman and Boris Uspenskii, "Binary Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture (to the End of the Eighteenth Century," in The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, intro. by Boris Gasparov (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1985), p. 65.</p>
<p>and suffering. Second, the theme of historical struggle or national destiny is often p r e s e n t e d in a way which blurs the line between history and fiction. Third, Old Russian literature is almost totally devoid of the theme of ro- mantic love. While modern Russian literature, and especially poetry, has adopted romantic love a s a theme, this t h e m e is not a s significant in mod- ern Russian novels a s it is in Western novels, and it is usually the un- s u c c e s s f u l or destructive relationship which is explored. There is t h e n continuity with Old Russian literature in the s e n s e that this theme is either underdeveloped or p r e s e n t e d negatively in the modern Russian novel. In t h e s e three respects, the literature of Russia was and is quite different from the literature of Western Europe in both the medieval and modern periods. We will take a s e x a m p l e s of t h e s e t h e m e s several works generally considered to be among the g r e a t e s t literary works of Old Russia: T h e Primary Chronicle, The Igor Tale (Slovo o polku Igoreve), The Life of St. Sergius (Zhitie Sergiia Radonozhskogo), The Life of P e t e r a n d Fevroniia (Povest' o Petre Fevronii), The Life of Avvakum (Zhitie protopopa Av- vakuma, im samim napisannoe), The Tale of S a w a Grudtsyn (Povest' zelo p r e c h u d n a i udivleniia dostoina nekogo kuptsa Fomy Grudtsyna i o syne e g o Savve), and The Tale of Misery-Luckless Plight (Povest' o Gore i Zlochastii). A vast critical literature, of course, exists on t h e s e works. The limited discussion of them here is intended only to demonstrate how they exemplify the three t h e m e s noted above. The Primary Chronicle p r e s e n t s the history and destiny of Russia a s part of the drama of the salvation of mankind. The history of Russia is inte- grated into man's destiny from the fall of Adam to the Last Judgment. The baptism of Rus' is the key event in this teleological a n d eschatological version of history. The moral core of t h e story is the s t a t e m e n t of the Greek scholar, under the year 988, who s e e s the conversion of Rus' a s the fulfillment of Old T e s t a m e n t prophecies. The conversion of Rus' is also related back to Biblical history through the purported visit of the Apostle Andrew to Russia. The stories of individual historical characters a r e u s e d to reflect this overall theme, and s o m e of t h e s e stories also take on a life of their own a s literary or religious t a n g e n t s from the primary story line. For example, the p a s s i o n of Christ is reflected in s u c h e p i s o d e s a s the baptism a n d martyrdom of the first Varangian Christians, the murder of Boris and Gleb and the blinding of Vasilko. In such episodes, the genre almost c r o s s e s the line from history to the d r a m a of an individual's suffering. The chronicler depicts Vasilko's suffering with dreadful and gory detail. Vasilko is held down with a slab of rock which c r u s h e s his chest. The first thrust of the knife misses and c a u s e s Vasilko u n n e c e s s a r y pain. But then his assailants</p>
<p>thrust the knife into o n e eye and cut it out, and do the s a m e to his other eye. When Vasilko regains c o n s c i o u s n e s s and realizes that he h a s b e e n blinded, he runs his hands over himself, discovering that his tunic has been removed by a priest's wife trying to help him. He then exclaims that it would have b e e n better if he had died in his blood-soaked shirt and could stand before God in it. The Chronicle, thus, started - - or at least con- tributed to - two important t h e m e s and traditions: personal suffering in imitation of Christ, interwoven with an eschatological interpretation of national history.l2 In The Igor Tale, from t h e late twelfth century, history b e c o m e s a morality play about the hubris of the individual princes and the need for unity among them. In s o m e of its basic themes, The Igor Tale resembles the heroic poetry of the West, such a s 9 e o w u l f and The S o n g of Roland, where the epic hero is a s s e s s e d in terms of two virtues, bravery (fortitudo), which he invariably has, and wisdom (sapientia), which he usually lacks. Among the basic t h e m e s of The Igor Tale are the courage of Igor and his men, the tragedy of their defeat and their suffering a s well a s the suffering of their loved o n e s at home while they are in captivity. While he is brave, Igor, like Roland, lacks wisdom. Igor's defeat is a national catastrophe for which the poet d e e m s Igor to be at fault. In his failure to obtain the ap- proval of his sovereign and to coordinate his advance with the other princes, he recklessly e x p o s e d himself and his men to defeat and the Rus' to ruin. The work is p u n c t u a t e d throughout by laments. While The Igor Tale contains the t h e m e s of fortitudo and sapientia, like The S o n g of Roland, it is unlike the latter epic in its didacticism: it contains a history lesson which, simply stated, is that the Russian princes will be defeated unless they s t a n d a s a unified nation against the Polovtsy. To learn this lesson, Igor a n d his men must suffer defeat and captivity. While The Igor Tale does not contain the theme of personal salvation or self-enlightenment, it does s h a r e with the Chronicles the theme of the personal suffering (of Igor, his men and laroslavna) s e t against a story of national struggle, and its overall didactic approach. The Life of St. Sergius, from the early fifteenth century, is one of the greatest works of hagiography of Old Rus'. It is notable for its account of the privations and sufferings which the Saint endures, and most of all for his almost abject humility with everyone he meets. He c o m e s to self-en- lightenment through his sufferings and asceticism. Sergius's true test be- gins when his brother leaves him in solitude in the wilderness. Sergius suffers from hunger, thirst, a n d exposure to the elements. At one point, 12. For this interpretation, see, e.g., Jostein Bortnes "The Literature of Old Russia, 988-1730," in Moser, ed., The Cambridge History of Russian Literature.</p>
<p>the devil wrestles with the Saint and lays his s n a r e s for him. Successfully emerging from this struggle, Sergius returns to the world, which actually c o m e s to him a s the hermits gather around him. The Saint later s e e s a "great radiance" in the sky at night and, at another time, a multitude of beautiful birds. Such trials and visions are, of course, typical of hagiog- raphy. He, at the s a m e time, b e c o m e s an instrument in Russia's salvation from the Tatars, playing a role in blessing and encouraging Dmitrii Don- skoi's stand against Mamai. While The Life of St. Sergius does not deal in profound ideas and is largely informed by the topoi of hagiography, it gives a very artistic and yet human account of a spiritual struggle. We s e e two versions of kenosis different from t h o s e we s e e in The Chronicles: the saint a s humble and self-effacing and the saint who achieves mystic visions by way of asceticism. Nonetheless, even such a humble and ascetic saint h a s a role in Russia's national destiny, and he indeed b e c a m e Muscovy's patron saint. The Life of P e t e r a n d Fevroniia is o n e of the few works in Old Russian literature where love between a man and a woman plays a key role in the plot. The Life also contains several folkloric and fantastic t h e m e s and c h a r a c t e r s : a dragon transforms himself into a prince and s e d u c e s a woman. P e t e r slays the dragon, whose blood c a u s e s s o r e s to rise on Pe- ter's body. Fevroniia wins over a reluctant Peter only by curing his sores, for which s h e requires marriage a s a quid p r o quo. This bargain is the very antithesis of romantic love. Although Peter subsequently protects his wife from his boyars, who question her humble origins, the theme of romantic love is never developed in the story. Instead, when in death their bodies migrate to adjacent tombs, the love between Peter and Fevroniia b e c o m e s a temporal manifestation of love of Christ and salvation. The Life of Avvakurrj (1682) is again on the t h e m e of suffering a n d kenosis. Avvakum discovers the meaning and purpose of his sufferings a s a reflection of the passion of Christ. He undertakes a journey which s p a n s t h e entire length of Russia from Moscow to Nerchinsk, and through ever greater deprivations and torture. It also b e c o m e s a spiritual journey to a type of conversion. The rapids and mountains present him with signs and symbols which transform his world into a r e e n a c t m e n t of the passion. T h e s e natural barriers r e p r e s e n t spiritual obstacles which Awakum must overcome. Early in his narrative, Awakum recognizes his own sinfulness and his n e e d for inner c h a n g e if he is to b e c o m e the leader and healer of his community. With his exile to Transbaikalia, Avvakum suffers for many y e a r s at the h a n d s of the local commander, Pashkov. He initially looks down upon Pashkov with pride and even arrogance. Pashkov, however, is a s strong-willed a s Avvakum and b e c o m e s his double or mirror (he is one of t h e first "doubles" in a long tradition in Russian literature). Avvakum</p>
<p>e n d u r e s many beatings at Pashkov's hands, but they both endure together the tribulations of the wilderness. Taunting Pashkov throughout his ordeal, Awakum, at one point, a s k s who was torturing whom. He eventually c o m e s to s e e God's justice in his sufferings and no longer rebels against his fate. Pashkov, who h a s suffered many of the s a m e privations a s Awakum, becomes reconciled with the priest.j3 Having come to understand the redemptive nature of suffering, Avvakum returns to Moscow, where the Tsar attempts to convince him to forsake his allegiance to the Old Belief. He eventually faces the Ecumenical Council of 1666-67, which excommunicates him. Awakum thus returns his narrative to its broader political and historical context where he s e e s his own beliefs a s a path to national salvation and those of his enemies a s national ruin. His work is p e r m e a t e d by a very urgent s e n s e of national struggle against the impure religious innovations of Nikon. Avvakum was an entirely different personality from such humble and self-effacing forbearers as Saint Sergius. He was vigorous in his contempt of Nikon and the church hierarchy. His verbal attacks on them are strong and often scatological. Nikon was a wolf and Antichrist. When h a n d e d his excommunication, Awakum exclaimed that he would "wipe his ass" with it. He resisted all official authority. A militant religious dissenter, he later b e c a m e a favorite of the radicals of the nine- teenth century and of the Soviet regime b e c a u s e he was perceived to be a rebel and, to s o m e extent, a moral apostate. The t h e m e s of salvation through sin and suffering were further devel- oped in other seventeenth-century works, such a s Misery-Luckless-Plight and S a w a Grudtsyn. The youth in Misery-Lucktess-Plight a p p e a r s well-in- tentioned, but twice falls victim to drink. Pulling himself together after his first fall, he a c q u i r e s g r e a t wealth, but then is e n s n a r e d by Misery- Luckless-Plight, a demonic figure from whom he struggles to e s c a p e . He s u c c e e d s only when he enters a monastery at the end of the poem. S a v v a Grudtsyn may be divided into three parts. In the first, S a w a e n g a g e s in an adulterous affair with the young wife of his father's friend. He attempts to e s c a p e from this relationship, but s h e slips him a potion which e n s n a r e s him, and then rejects him (here we have not romantic love, but-sexua! at- traction portrayed a s a destructive magical spell). To win her back, Savva makes a pact with the Devil. In the s e c o n d part, he utilizes the Devil's as- sistance to gain glory on the battlefield against the Poles in the siege of Smolensk (1632-34). In t h e third part, Savva e s c a p e s the Devil after a 13. For this interpretation, s e e Priscilla Hunt, "A Penitential Journey: The Life of The Archpriest Awakum and The Kenotic Tradition," Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 25, Nos. 1-4 (1991), 201-24.</p>
<p>struggle in which he receives divine a s s i s t a n c e and, at the end, he takes vows. Both of t h e s e works end in salvation after a life of sin. S a w a Grudtsyn also w e a v e s in historical events and historical characters (such a s boyar g e n e r a l s and Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich himself) from the Smolensk War. S a w a ' s own sin and salvation is s e t against the background of national struggle and victory over the Poles. The foregoing works, and others on the t h e m e s of personal conversion or salvation a n d national destiny, b e q u e a t h e d to modern Russia a literary tradition distinctly different from that of Western Europe. If we look very briefly at the themes, g e n r e s and traditions of medieval literature in West- ern Europe, we will s e e many works which are largely secular in orientation: Beowulf, The S o n g of Roland, various Arthurian tales and romances, The Tale of Sir Gawain a n d the Green N i g h t , and The R o m a n c e of the Rose. In very general terms, medieval literature in the West moved from an early e m p h a s i s on heroic or martial t h e m e s (as in � 3eowulf or The S o n g o f Poland), to romantic or erotic themes, a s in troubadour poetry, Petrarch, The R o m a n c e o f the R o s e and Chaucer's Troilus a n d Cressida, and even scatological and bawdy themes, a s in Cantorbury Tales and Boccaccio's D e c a m e r o n . 1 4 While Western medieal Europe h a d its chroniclers a n d hagiographers, they clearly did not remain at the very core of literature, a s in Russia. Indeed, historical writing and hagiography of the medieval period in Western Europe were clearly s e p a r a t e g e n r e s from literature: Bede, Gregory of Tours, Froissart, and so on. The West also had literature which was clearly s a c r e d and theological in theme, such a s Aquinas's S u m m a T h e o l o g i c a and Dante's C o m m e d i a . The former, however, is a work of philosophy and the latter, a highly intellectualized epic poem containing classical allusions, political references, a veritable cosmology and, indeed, the whole g a m u t of human experience. (The a b s e n c e of such works in Russia would presumably be used by Florovsky to demonstrate his argu- ment about the silence of Old Russia.) While the literature of Old Rus', a s pointed out by Likhachev, generally concerned historical characters and events (Boris and Gleb, Igor, Sergius, Avvakum), the literature of medieval Western Europe largely c o n c e r n e d either legendary characters and t h e m e s like the Trojan War, the Siege of T h e b e s , and t h e Arthurian Round Table or fictitious characters, a s in Chaucer a n d Boccaccio. Unlike Western medieval literature, Old Russian literature blurred the line between history and literature. Not only are its 14. W.:P. Ker, Epic a n d Romance (London: tutacmislan, 1908).,</p>
<p>characters historical persons, but the subject of the narrative is generally a historical event, or the experiences of a historical person. The later evolution of Western medieval literature toward romantic and erotic t h e m e s found almost no parallel in Old Russia, whose literature lacks a tradition of romantic love. The theme of romantic love is simply that one of life's most important and fulfilling experiences is finding a mate with whom one develops a relationship which is at once founded on affection or emotional a t t a c h m e n t a n d sex. Often in Western medieval literature, romantic love b e c o m e s a manifestation or allegory of the quest for wisdom and divine grace, a s in The Romance of the R o s e or Troilus a n d Cressida. But it is frequently dominant a s a theme for its own sake, a s in Troubadour poetry or the various Arthurian romances. The theme of love a s a strong attraction for which an individual will make great sacrifices is developed in such works a s "The Knight's Tale," "The Clerk's Tale," and "The Franklin's Tale" in C a n t e r b u r y Tales. An evolutionary line can be drawn from the romances of medieval literature through Chaucer and S h a k e s p e a r e to the later modern secular literature of the West. In Russia, on the other hand, the theme of romantic love is either missing, a s in The Igor Tale, The Life of St. Sergius, Avvakum and S a w a Grudtsyn (where S a w a ' s affair is purely sensual), or undeveloped, a s in P e t e r a n d Fevronifa. From Chaucer and Boccaccio, Western literature continued on the path to secularization, which was almost complete by the end of the sixteenth century. For example, S h a k e s p e a r e is almost entirely devoid of spiritual or religious t h e m e s . There was s o m e revived interest in spiritual t h e m e s in seventeenth-century English literature (Bunyan and Milton), but the trend was clearly toward the secular. Relatively speaking, Russian literature re- mained largely spiritual and religious in orientation to the end of the seventeenth century. The three t h e m e s under consideration had persisted in Russian literature into the early modern period, while they had iargely disappeared from Western literature much earlier. There are s o m e secular tales in seventeenth-century Russian literature, like Frof Skobeev, but per- h a p s the g r e a t e s t work of Old R u s s i a n literature, Avvakum's Life, a thoroughly spiritual work, was written at the end of the seventeenth century (1682). By that s a m e time, Western literature was almost totally secu- larized, e.g., Restoration drama. Old Russian literature, thus, had many unique and distinctive features which dramatically differentiated it from Western medieval literature: his- torical characters, the blurred line between history and literature, its con- tinuing focus on sacred and spiritual themes, and the a b s e n c e of romantic love. Early modern and modern Western literature, of course, inherited many of the traditions, c o d e s and canons of Western medieval literature. Shakes-</p>
<p>peare, for example, inherited the e m p h a s i s on secular t h e m e s , fictitious c h a r a c t e r s and romantic love. Despite the extraordinary breadth of his interests and subjects, he did not delve into the spiritual realm. The eternal questions of religion were generally neglected by him, and (other than in the s e v e n t e e n t h century) they continued to b e neglected by later English authors. J u s t a s o n e c a n s e e substantial t r a c e s of t h e s e s a m e t h e m e s in Western literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, o n e can also find substantial t r a c e s of the t h e m e s of medieval Russian literature in modern Russian literature. But before we turn to the impact of Old Russian literature on modern Russian literature, we must first dispel any notion that Old Russian litera- ture was too remote in time and mind from the nineteenth century to in- fluence literature in the latter period. While many of the Old Russian works c o n s i d e r e d above, a s well a s n u m e r o u s others, were rediscovered and published only in modern times, this occurred shortly before and during the great flowering of Russian literature in the nineteenth century. Avvakum's autobiography was first published in 1861, a n d Turgenev and Leskov, among others, were intimately familiar with it. Various collections of lives of saints were published throughout the nineteenth century and were familiar to Dostoevskii, Leskov and Tolstoi. 15 The lgor Tale was discovered in 1795 and first published in 1803. It was well known to educated Russians in the nineteenth century and there were frequent allusions to it by nineteenth century Russian writers and poets.16 Various chronicles were first published in the s e c o n d half of the eighteenth century. They were extensively des- cribed and relied upon in Karamzin's History of the Russian Stafe (Istoriia g o s u d a r s t v a rossiiskogo) (1818-1829), an extremely popular work which. almost, by itself, allowed R u s s i a n s to rediscover their pre-Petrine history. The Igor Tale and excerpts from The Chronicles, indeed, b e c a m e part of the school curriculum. The mid- to late-nineteenth century also saw exten- sive publication of folklore, folk songs, byliny, historical documents, and so on. Thus, the great flowering of Russian literature in the nineteenth century was immediately preceded and accompanied by Russia's rediscovery of not only its pre-Petrine literature, but also of its pre-Petrine history and folklore. This created an immediate and direct continuity between nineteenth-century Russian literature and the literature of the distant past. P e r h a p s the best evidence of the influence of the t h e m e s of Old Russian on modern Russian literature, lies in the s h a p e of Russian literature in the eighteenth century, 15. Ziolkowski, Hagiography, p. 201 et seq. 16. Dmitri Likhachev, The Great fleritage, tr. by Doris Bradbury (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981), p. 221.</p>
<p>before Old Russian literature was "rediscovered." In the classical period, the three themes discussed here were not prominent in Russian literature. The three t h e m e s of personal salvation, national destiny/identity/ his- tory, and the relative insignificance of romantic love are, of course, not all found in each work of modern Russian literature. Some, like War a n d P e a c e (Voina i mlr), have all three, some have none. In other words, t h e s e three t h e m e s are not the only t h e m e s in modern Russian literature, but they a p p e a r frequently and they are all important distinguishing features of modern Russian literature, considered a s a whole. The influence of the tradition of personal salvation can be felt particularly in Tolstoi and Dostoevskii. Florovsky to the contrary, the type of philoso- phical and spiritual speculation that we find in Tolstoi and Dostoevskii bears a much closer resemblance to spiritual q u e s t s in the literature of Old Rus' than it d o e s to the theological and philosophical d i s c o u r s e s of Western thinkers like Descartes and Kant. Tolstoi and Dostoevskii are not logicians or rationalists. They are more interested in non-rational or spiritual phe- nomena. Indeed, both Tolstoi and Dostoevskii were suspicious of rational and logical philosophy. As Turgenev remarked in one of the most profound criticisms of War a n d P e a c e of all time, the novel was "based on hostility toward intellect, knowledge and consciousness," in short, all of the ideals of Western rationalism.17 The ideals of Western rationalism and materialism are also rejected by Dostoevskii, through the fate of such characters a s Ivan Karamazov. The problems of spiritual crises - crises of belief or faith or crises of denial - are explored indirectly by fictional devices. Dostoevskii's char- acters commit hideous murders, a s in Crime a n d Punishment (Prestuplenie i nakazanie) or are morally implicated in murder, a s are Mitia and Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov (Brat'ia Karamazovy). Tolstoi subjects his charac- ters to various crises, such a s wars, captivity, physical suffering, unrequited love, unsuccessful marriages, and the death of loved ones. By such ex- periences, Konstantin Levin and Pierre Bezhukov c o m e to harmony with themselves, the universe and history. If we look at four novels which are widely acknowledged to be among the greatest Russian novels of the nineteenth century - War a n d Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime a n d Punishment, and The Brothers K a r a m a z o v - we s e e a s a major t h e m e in e a c h the conversion or successful q u e s t for faith, salvation and self-enlightenment of o n e of the main characters: Pierre, Levin, Raskol'nikov and Alesha/Mitia, respectively. In each, there is also a person who falls or fails in some way, in counterpoint to the salvation of the 17. Quoted in Charles A. Moser, Esthetics a s Nightr»a � e (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989), p. 131.</p>
<p>hero: Napoleon in War a n d Peace, Anna in Anna Karenina, Svidrigailov in Crirrre a n d P u n i s h m e n t and Ivan/Smerdiakov in The Brothers Karamazov. This e m p h a s i s on spiritual enlightenment and spiritual failure or crisis may be s e e n a s a continuation of the canon or code of literature of Old Russia. The overt u s e of hagiography in such characters a s Dostoevskii's Father Zosima and Tolstoi's Father S e r g i u s h a s b e e n well explored in the lit- erature. Less e m p h a s i s , unfortunately, has b e e n placed on the continuity between the medieval literature of personal salvation and the conversion of s u c h characters a s Raskol'nikov and Mitia. At the beginning of Crime a n d P u n i s h m e n t , Raskol'nikov is a radical intellectual. He h a s published an article about certain extraordinary men in history who are above the law and morality, and fancies himself one of t h o s e individuals. He murders an old pawnbroker woman, a s much to prove this to himself a s to steal her money. The moral core of the novel, however, is his revulsion at his own crime. He initially suffers through extreme disorientation and fear of ap- prehension by the police, but is eventually brought to confession and con- version with the help of the saintly prostitute, Sonia. Mitia, in The Brothers lCaramazov, travels on a similar trajectory toward conversion and personal salvation through suffering. While he is not legally the murderer of his father, he is guilty of wanting his father's d e a t h and he is, thus, quite willing to accept the punishment meted out to him for a crime that he did not commit. Alesha experiences a more traditional Christian spiritual crisis of faith when Father Zosima's body d e c o m p o s e s prematurely (a s w e e t fragrance from a saint's body was one of the traditional indicia of saint- hood). There will be no miracles to support Alesha's faith. Indeed, he must face b a d omens. Alesha learns later to find fulfillment not in monasticism, but in active love toward his fellow men in this world. The spiritual journeys of Tolstoi's main characters are not traditional Christian q u e s t s for faith. Rather, the q u e s t s of Pierre, Prince Andrei and Levin are to be at one with "The All," variously defined by critics a s uni- versal human relatedness, c o r p o r a t e n e s s or connectedness. � $ Each indi- vidual being starts a s a separation from "The All," and h a p p i n e s s is found only by a return to it, that is, to a state of universal harmony and love. A man r e a c h e s salvation and fulfillment when he can love everyone without requite - even e n e m i e s or p e r s o n s of lower station. This is the type of love which Andrei feels for Anatolii Kuragin a s they lie wounded on adjacent tables at a field hospital at Borodino or the type of love which Brekhunov feels for Nikita a s he lies on top of him at the end of M a s t e r a n d Man (Khoziain i rabotnik). 18. Richard G u s t a f s o n , Leo Toistoi, President a n d S t r a n g e r (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986).</p>
<p>Tolstoi's characters usually reach this state of being at one with "The All" via a path of suffering, sin or guilt. Andrei initially s e e k s glory and he attains fulfillment only through suffering wounds at Austerlitz and Borodino. Pierre suffers through captivity a n d e x p o s u r e during the retreat from Moscow. Platon Karataev helps him to u n d e r s t a n d the meaning of this suffering. Condemned to serve in the army for stealing wood, Karataev is thankful that he thereby saved his brother from conscription. He tells Pierre the story of a merchant falsely a c c u s e d of murder who, after many years in a prison camp, meets the real murderer, who then c o n f e s s e s to obtain the release of the merchant (in this respect the merchant is not unlike Mitia in assuming the guilt for another's crime). Levin s e c u r e s faith through witnes- sing the sufferings of his brother in death and his wife in childbirth. Other Tolstoi c h a r a c t e r s who reach a state of at o n e n e s s with the universe through sin, guilt, illness or suffering are Ivan ll'ich, Brekhunov and Nekh- liudov in Resurrection (Voskresen'e). In short, Tolstoi and Dostoevskii reflect the theme of salvation in me- dieval Russian literature. Their works are d e n s e with a non-rational version of theology, theodicy and moral redemption. Like their forebears in Old Russia, they continue t h e literary canon of salvation, self-enlightenment and seffocfiscovery-through-expertenceS"of sin and suffering. The West European novel, by contrast, is much more focused on eco- nomic man, social man and romantic man, rather than spiritual man. In most English ar.d French novels of the nineteenth century, we always know how the hero is employed and how much he is earning, e.g., David Copperfield in the wine merchant's shop, Julien Sorel a s a tutor or secre- tary, or Wilhelm Meister a s a theatrical producer. Each of t h e s e characters also finds, through a circuitous route, a woman with whom he enjoys ma- ture romantic intimacy. For women, the preoccupation is usually with mak- ing the right match with a man of appropriate class and income, such a s Elizabeth's match with Darcy in Pride a n d Prejudice. Western novels were, of course, written by a n d for the urban middle class and reflect its con- cerns. Russian novels, on the other hand, were written by the intelligentsia for the intelligentsia and focused on the intelligentsia's preoccupation with the "accursed questions." One prominent exception to this trend (and the other three t h e m e s considered here) in Russian fiction is, of course, Chekhov, who deals with romantic, social and economic man almost a s much a s the typical Western novelist. And, of course, one can find s o m e Western literature where the theme is salvation or enlightenment, such a s Goethe's Faust and H e s s e ' s novels. Another unique feature of the modern Russian novel is the prominence of history, national destiny and national struggle a s a theme. Historical</p>
<p>novels are, of course, not unique to Russia. Prior to War a n d Peace, Walter Scott, J a m e s Fennimore Cooper, Stendhal and even Dickens employed this genre. In the c a s e of Walter Scott and Fennimore Cooper, however, the historical novel b e c a m e a novel of adventure and romance. Only in Sten- dhal, who, of c o u r s e , had a g r e a t influence on Tolstoi, do we s e e a character o b s e s s e d with his own role in history, a s in The Charterhouse of P a r m a . Here we must, of course, distinguish between French, English and G e r m a n novels written before and after Tolstoi and Dostoevskii, who had profound influence on the later development of the novel in the West. The intrusion of history and ideology into Western historical novels c a m e only later: Malraux's M a n ' s Fate, T h o m a s Mann's Doctor F a u s t u s and T h e Magic Mountain and Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins all show traces of Tolstoi's and Dostoevskii's u s e of history and ideology. If we compare Tolstoi and Dostoevskii with the Western novels that came before them, we will s e e several distinctive traits. War a n d P e a c e contains an explicit theory of history, which a s s u m e s a major place in the novel. The e s s e n c e of War a n d P e a c e is not just the story of Pierre, N a t a s h a and Andrei, but also its portrayal and interpreta- tion of history, which is not only s e t forth explicitly in the last forty p a g e s of the novel, but also demonstrated implicitly in the story of Napoleon's inva- sion of Russia and s u b s e q u e n t defeat. Theories of history may also be found in Dr. Zhivago (Doktor Zhivago), w h o s e approach to historical explanation is, according to Elliot Mossman, "biological,"19 and August 1914 (Avgust 1914), which contains an elaborate theory of Russia's fall to Communism. Solzhenitsyn contrasts patriotism, military virtue, and effective leadership, represented by such characters a s Colonel Vorotyntsev, General Martos and Stolypin, with inept tsarist generals, such a s Generals Blagoveshchenskii, Artamanov and Kluiev, and the radical intelligentsia represented by the Bolshevik Lenartovich and the sinister Bogrov. General S a m s o n o v is a special c a s e . In defeat, he as- s u m e s an almost spiritual nobility and humility, and is even likened by Solzhenitsyn, at o n e point, to an oleograph of an ancient Russian hero (Igor, who was also noble in defeat, c o m e s to mind). Solzhenitsyn also mocks Tolstoi's theory of history in his a c c o u n t of the Battle of Tan- nenberg, where it is apparent that battles can be won or lost by bravery and intelligent strategy. In the later books of The R e d Wheel (Krasnoe koleso), a s Wachtel h a s pointed out, the m o d e of narration is strictly chronological, a s in t h e 19. Elliott M o s s m a n , "Metaphors of History in 'War and P e a c e ' and 'Doctor Zhivago'," in Literature a n d History, ed. Gary Saul Morson (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 247-62.</p>
<p>Chronicles. Instead of following one of the many characters through several months of action and development, Solzhenitsyn proceeds by day or week through the actions of each character. Solzhenitsyn, moreover, blurs the line between historical and invented characters by narrating the thoughts and words of both in exactly the s a m e way. In War a n d P e a c e , the action involving the invented character will also stop completely for many p a g e s a s the author gives a straightforward his- torical account, such a s the stories of the Battles of Austerlitz and Borodino and the catalog of strategies to defeat Napoleon. This tradition is continued in Solzhenitsyn's a c c o u n t s of the Battle of Tannenberg, the biography of Stolypin, the story of Bogrov's assassination of Stolypin, and the biographi- cal material on Nikolai II. One could also point to other examples of this tradition, s u c h a s G r o s s m a n ' s account of the Battle of Stalingrad in Life a n d Fate (Zhizn' i sudba) and Sholokhov's account of the Civil War in The Quiet Don (Tikhii Don). In all of t h e s e novels, the account of the invented characters is, to some extent, interrupted by factual historical material and philosophical specu- lation. In fact, Solzhenitsyn h a s b e e n criticized for risking "credibility a s fiction in order to s e t the historical record straight" and overloading his narrative with so much historical materiat that it transcends and determines the development of characters and pilot.20 The historical novel is, indeed, a genre which most of Russia's other great writers a t t e m p t e d : Pushkin's C a p t a i n ' s D a u g h t e r (Kapitanskaia dochka), Gogol's Taras Bulba, Leskov's Cathedral Folk (Soboriane, which narrates Tuberozov's life over a long expanse of historical time), Merezh- kovskii's Antichrist: P e t e r a n d Aleksei (a fine example of nearly all the themes discussed here) and Aksenov's Generations of Winter. Turgenev and Dostoevskii wrote no historical novels, but their novels are, in general, focused very centrally on Russia's national destiny and identity. In particular, their novels deal with what place avant garde Western "isms," such a s utilitarianism, materialism, socialism and atheism are to have on Russia's future. Is the traditional spiritual civilization of Russia to give way to t h e s e alien doctrines? In Crime a n d Punishment, The Devils (Besy) and The Drothers Karamazav, Dostoevskii's answer was a resounding "No." In Fathers a n d S o n s (Ottsy i deti), S m o k e (Dym) and Virgin Soil (Nov'), Tur- genev showed more sympathy to the radicals and revolutionaries, but in each of t h e s e novels they fail in o n e way or another. Bazarov can only thunder at the existing order rhetorically but falls victim to very human failings such a s love, which his own doctrine would find unacceptable. The 20. Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr., The Positive Hero In Russian Literature (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1975), p. 338.</p>
<p>radicals in Virgin Soil fail to influence the p e a s a n t s and meet various unhappy e n d s - suicide, arrest, hiding. It is relatively clear that Turgenev would not entrust Russia's future to the radicals. He and Dostoevskii are a s concerned a s Avvakum about whether alien and heretical beliefs will capture Russia. Although Dostoevskii's and Turgenev's novels have no "theory" of history in the fullest s e n s e of the word, there is sometimes an elaborate argument about the significance for Russia's destiny of an important recent historical event, s u c h a s Dostoevskii's interpretation of the Nechaev affair in T h e Devils or Turgenev's interpretation of the "going to the people" movement in Virgin Soil. The revolutionary intelligentsia in The Devils is capable of the most Machiavellian and sinister crimes. The revolutionaries in Virgin Soil, on the other hand, are inept and unable to communicate with the p e a s a n t s whom they are attempting to recruit for the Revolution. The publication by writers of fiction of historical or autobiographical works is also much more common among Russian than Western novelists. Some of the many e x a m p l e s that can be c h o s e n are Karamzin's History o f the R u s s i a n State, Pushkin's History of P u g a c h e v (Istoriia Pugacheva), Gogol's uncompleted history of Ukraine, Aksakov's Family Chronicle (Semeinaia khronika), Dostoevskii's Notes from the H o u s e off the D e a d (Zapiski iz mertvogo doma), Tolstoi's Childhood, B o y h o o d a n d Youth (Detstvo, Otrochestva and lunost') and C o n f e s s i o n (ispoved'), Solzhenitsyn's Gulag A r c h i p e l a g o (Arkhipelag GULag), Remizov's R u s s i a in Letters (Rossiia v pis'menakh) and s o on. One should also not neglect to mention Dosto- evskii's Diary of a Writer (Dnevnik pisatelia), which, although not a work of history, is o b s e s s e d with Russia's historical destiny. S o m e of the most powerful and evocative visual images that any of t h e s e authors created are in their non-fictional works, such a s the description of the convicts in the bath in Notes from the H o u s e of the D e a d and the many graphic pictures of c a m p life in the Gulag. In the Russian historical novel, history is not just a setting, but a vehicle for s o m e m e s s a g e about national destiny. It is not merely accidental that the line between history and fiction is blurred in the modern Russian novel. Modern Russian literature found a cultural pattern in Old Russian literature, where the characters are generally historical individuals and history is pic- tured either a s an eschatological p r o c e s s or, a s in The Primary Chronicle, or is u s e d for didactic purposes, a s in The Igor Tale. Another unique manifestation of Russian novelists' o b s e s s i o n with na- tional destiny and history is Saltykov-Shchedrin's History of a City (Istoriia odnogo goroda). This is a sui g e n e r i s work, but nonetheless, characteristic a n d distinctive of Russian literature. It is an allegory of Russian history, p r e s e n t e d a s a chronicle of the c a r e e r s of t h e governors of the city of</p>
<p>G l u p o v - roughly translatable a s Stupidville. One recognizes in this gro- t e s q u e parody of follies the invitation to the Varangians to rule the Rus' told in the Chronicles, a Time of Troubles, the reign of the four e m p r e s s e s (1725-1796), wars and depredations waged in the c a u s e of Enlightenment, the attempts of Speranskii to codify the laws, the mystical period of Alexander I's reign, and, prophetically, the disastrous attempt of the last governor - whom we may a s s o c i a t e with Arakcheev, Nicholas I or the socialists - to create a communal phalanstery. In sum, it should be noted that there is substantial continuity of the theme of national destiny in Russian literature. Old Russian literature, how- ever, e x p r e s s e d confidence in Russia's destiny a s an orthodox nation, while modern Russian literature shows less confidence about Russian civilization viz-a-viz the West, and particularly viz-a-viz the radical ideologies and philosophies imported from the West. The lack of a strong romantic tradition in Old Russian literature can also be traced through modern Russian literature.21 The theme of romantic love did enter Russian literature in the modern period, but it was not fully and comfortably absorbed. Romantic novels first appeared in translation in the eighteenth century, p e r h a p s the first being Trediakovskii's translation of Paul Tallemant's Voyage 4 L'isle d A m o u r ou La Clef d e s Coeurs. By the mid-nineteenth century a strong and splendid tradition of love poetry had b e e n established, including Pushkin, Fet and Tiutchev. Romantic t h e m e s were also popular in second-rate and popular literature, including the work of Anastasia Verbetskaia, who was more popular in her own time than Tolstoi and Dostoevskii. O n e might attribute the increasing popularity of the theme of romantic love to the influence of Western literature. It would therefore be entirely incorrect to argue that romantic love is a b s e n t from modern Rus- sian literature to the s a m e extent a s from Old Russian literature. But if one looks at the great novels of the nineteenth and twentieth century one can n o n e t h e l e s s perceive substantial continuity with Old Rus- sian literature. In most of the great modern Russian novels the theme of romantic love is weakly developed, in sharp contrast to modern Western 21. While there is no single monograph, treatise or article devoted to the theme of romantic love in modern Russian literature, there are many works on images of women. See, for example, Barbara Heldt, Terrible Perfection: Women a n d Russian Literature (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987); Olga Matich, "A Typology of Fallen Women in Nineteenth Century Russian Literature," in American Contributions to the IVinth International C o n g r e s s of Stavists (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1983), II: 325-44; G e o r g e Siegel, "The Fallen Woman in Nineteenth-Century Russian literature," Harvard Slavic Studies, 5 (1970), 81-108; J o a n Delaney G r o s s m a n , "Feminine Images in Old Russian literature and Art," California Slavica Studies, 11 1 (1980), 33-70.</p>
<p>novels. Almost every famous English and French novel contains a story of romantic love (Tom J o n e s , Pride a n d Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, J a n e Eyre, The R e d a n d the Black, P e r e Goriot, M a d a m e Bovary, David Cop- perfield, Middlemarch, Far From the Madding Crowd, and so on). Most romantic attachments in modern Russian fiction are stillborn, un- successful, destructive or one-sided, particularly for the superfluous men in Pushkin, Lermontov, Goncharov and Turgenev. Love in the works of t h e s e writers is generally unrequited or interrupted by d e a t h or betrayal. The theme is not romantic love, but rather the incapability of t h e s e superfluous men to feel love. In Onegin and Tatiana, Pechorin and Princess Mary, Rudin and Natalia, Oblomov and Olga, Bazarov and Odintsova, Litvinov and lrina, o n e s e e s unsuccessful or broken romantic attachments a s a dom- inant theme. Romantic love is almost nonexistent in Gogol'. In Turgenev and Dostoevskii, love is often a destructive force, a s in an abnormal at- tachment to a f e m m e fatale (such a s Irina in S m o k e and Maria in S p r i n g T o r r e n t s (Veshnie vody), which often destroys a much more promising romantic attachment. In The Idiot, Prince Myshkin d o e s not and cannot c h o o s e between Aglaia and Nastasia and ends up destroying both of them. In The Brothers Karamazov, Mitia's mad passion for Grushenka fuels his hostility to his father, who is his rival. Parodying nineteenth-century Rus- sian literature, Abram Tertz concludes that it "contains a great multitude of love stories in which a defective man and a lovely woman meet and separ- ate without any result."22 Where one finds s u c c e s s f u l romantic attach- ments, a s b e t w e e n Raskol'nikov and Sonia, t h e woman is much less strongly portrayed t h a n the man and plays essentially t h e role of a touchstone for the resolution of the man's spiritual q u e s t or crisis. It would be plainly and almost farcically incorrect to call Crime a n d P u n i s h m e n t a novel of romantic love. Other romantic relationships reflect misogyny on the part of either the author or the hero of the story. In A Hero of Our Time (Geroi n a s h e g o vremeni), Pechorin victimizes both Bela and Princess Mary. As Barbara ¡ Heldt p h r a s e d it, woman in Lermontov has b e c o m e a metaphor for man's self-entrapment.23 In The Kreutzer S o n a t a (Kreitserova sonata), murder is an intensified sexual act. Pozdnyshev marries b a s e d on sexual attraction, which, to Tolstoi, is no union at all. He believes that women are com- modities in a competitive market. In Anna Karenina, love and sexuality are destructive, leading to Anna's suicide. 22. Fantasticheskii mir Abrama Tertsa (New York: Mezhdunarodnoe literaturnoe so- druzhestvo 1967), p. 426. 23. Heldt, Terrible Perfection, p. 32.</p>
<p>O n e might argue, however, that much of Tolstoi is an exception to this trend. There are successful marriages in Tolstoi: Pierre and Natasha in War a n d P e a c e and Levin and Kitty in Anna Karenina and Masha and Sergei in Family H a p p i n e s s (Semeinoe schast'e). But, a s Gustafson ar- g u e s , t h e s e marriages are successful in Tolstoi's world precisely b e c a u s e they are not b a s e d on romantic love. Romantic love is for him a danger which each of t h e s e heroines successfully avoids or e s c a p e s - Kitty from Vronskii, Natasha from Anatolii Kuragin and Masha from the Marquis D. Levin, Pierre and Sergei are each, by contrast, not flashing, dashing and romantic, but solid, morally serious h u s b a n d s . The state of "family hap- piness" is generally achieved only after the hero has completed his quest to be at o n e with "The All," a q u e s t for which romantic love is, again, a mis- turning. Romantic love is, indeed, for Tolstoi a type of self-love or ego- centric love e n g a g e d in for one's own pleasure. Its dangers are best seen in Anna and Vronskii. As explained above, Tolstoi idealized universal love, which is the path to enlightenment and which h a s no one person a s its object. It can, in fact, be felt between master and servant or between enemies. Family h a p p i n e s s in Tolstoi is b a s e d on something other than romantic love: Masha, for example, loves Sergei a s the father of her children. Kitty and Levin are usually s e e n in moments of disagreement. At the epilogue of War a n d P e a c e , Natasha has lost all the charm that once t e m p t e d Anatolii to elope with her: "[T]he s l e n d e r ebullient Natasha of former days" h a s b e c o m e plump and calm. "Her face had lost the per- petually scintillating animation that had formerly constituted her chief charm." She was seldom s e e n in society, "and those who met her there did not find her very pleasing." (Epilogue, 1.10.) While Natasha and Kitty help Pierre and Levin in their q u e s t s for enlightenment, they, themselves, are not in q u e s t and in this they resemble Karataev, Gerasim and Nikita in revealing to the hero the way to universal love.24 Even if one does not accept Gustafson's interpretation of love in Tolstoi, one must nevertheless concede that, even when Tolstoi deals with love, he places the male charac- ter's q u e s t in the foreground. There are virtually no Toistoi novels where a successful love relationship is the main subject of the plot. Looking at the twentieth century, romantic love is generally absent a s a theme in the novels of Belyi, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn. One can. certainly find many healthy romantic attachments in modern Russian literature: Insarov and Elena in On The Eve (Nakanune, although both subordinate their romance to Insarov's nationalist political goals), Zhivago and Lara (a relationship again doomed by the dislocations of the 24. For the theme of love in Tolstoi, s e e Gustafson, Leo Tolstoi, pp. 53-216.</p>
<p>revolution and civil war) and numerous relationships in Chekhov. And even Dostoevskii could tell a good love story, a s in White Nights (Belie nochi). But while the two main characters in White Nights fall in love with each other, the woman, true to form for Russian p r o s e fiction, n o n e t h e l e s s de- cides to marry s o m e o n e else. In general, however, romantic love is less prominent a s a theme than in Western novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Western litera- ture of the nineteenth century was not devoid of unsuccessful romantic attachments. This is, indeed, the major theme of Flaubert. We s e e , how- ever, nothing in Russian novels like the slowly growing and maturing love relationships of Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride a n d Prejudice, Rochester and J a n e Eyre in the novel of that name, David Copperfield and Agnes or even such star-crossed lovers a s Julien Sorel and Madame d e Renal. Even with all of his Napoleonic ambitions, Julian finds ultimately that what he really n e e d s is an intimate love relationship. In sum, the t h e m e of romantic love is almost totally a b s e n t from Old Russian literature. While the theme of intimate relationships between men and women d o e s a p p e a r in modern Russian novels, one can n o n e t h e l e s s feel the influence of the weak tradition of romantic love inherited from Old Russian literature. Such relationships are generally portrayed a s secondary to the male's q u e s t or else unrequited, exploitative, destructive, or, in Tol- stoi, founded on something other than romantic love. S p a c e allows little to be said about modern Russian poetry and s e c o n d rate literature, which a s noted above usually defy the generalizations offered here. But it should at least b e noted in p a s s i n g that o n e of the most f a m o u s p o e m s of the twentieth century, Blok's The T � relve, inter- weaves the t h e m e s of national destiny, salvation and a destructive romantic attachment. !n a blizzard, the twelve Red Guards march through streets littered with the wreckage of the old civilization: a priest, an intellectual, and a bourgeois. One of the guards, Petia, kills his ex-girlfriend, whom he s e e s with another soldier. The s q u a d marches on and at the end of the poem J e s u s Christ a p p e a r s a h e a d of them. The poem s e e s s e n s e l e s s violence a s a n e c e s s a r y part of the Revolution, but also a messianic goal for it. Likewise, the Socialist Realist novel (and its pre-revolutionary precursors such a s Go'rkii's Mother [Mat']) also typically contains t h e s e three t h e m e s . As Katerina Clark h a s d e m o n s t r a t e d , in the typical plot a young hero c o m e s to "consciousness" in the Marxist Leninist s e n s e . He t r a n s c e n d s his individual self and attains a collective self in a p a s s a g e of sacrifice and martyrdom. This individual q u e s t is usually part of a national struggle: fighting the G e r m a n s , reopening a factory or setting up a knlhkoz. Clark notes that romantic love plays only an auxiliary role - the woman is either</p>
<p>a helpmate for the male's q u e s t or an object of infatuation which must be avoided if the q u e s t is to succeed. One, however, s e e s the s a m e t h e m e s in the "high" literature of the twentieth century. The Master a n d Margarita clearly has a s a main theme the personal salvation of its two e p o n y m o u s characters and Ivan Bez- domnyi. They achieve their salvation through the Master's composition of an elaborately r e s e a r c h e d historical novel about Pilate and Christ. By set- ting forth the text of this novel within his narrative, Bulgakov makes various implicit comparisons between Moscow under Stalin and Jerusalem under Tiberias and Pilate, or between profane history and sacred or redemptive history.z5 The Master and Margarita eventually link up with Pilate through the intervention of a gang of d e m o n s - Voland and c o m p a n y - who des- cend on Moscow and wreak v e n g e a n c e on various bureaucrats from the Soviet state with whom a writer must deal, such a s the head of the union of writers, theatrical m a n a g e m e n t and state-controlled critics. Voland, in fact, s e t s the historical record straight by informing Berlioz and Bezdomnyi at the outset that they are quite wrong in their attempt to deny the historicity and the moral authority of Christ. While there is a love t h e m e - between the Master and Margarita, it is concisely stated. Indeed, Voland's gang and Pilate, rather than the e p o n y m o u s characters, are p e r h a p s the most im- portant figures in the plot. Aksenov's The Burn (Ozhog) shows how the three themes considered here can persist even in a post-modernist novel. The five protagonists, the Apollonarieviches, are e a c h an adult incarnation of Tolia von Shteinbok, whom we s e e in his a d o l e s c e n c e in 1949 in Magadan. Each of the Apol- lonarieviches is an intellectual - respectively a writer, sculptor, jazz musi- cian, doctor and scientist - w h o s e creative q u e s t is crushed by the op- pressive conformity of the Brezhnev period. The novel p o s e s the theme of the future of a Russia where the intellectuals are stifled, not only by the regime, but also by their inability to be at one with Russia people, who are likened to a hugh dinosaur created by the sculptor. The q u e s t of each of the Apollonarieviches for love is equally futile. Women in the novel are gen- erally prostitutes or victims of rape. Even the elusive Alisa cannot save the Victim (a reunification of the five antagonists) from suicide in the end. Christianity is a strong p r e s e n c e throughout the novel through Tolia's step- father, a German priest, and Sanyi, who e s c a p e s to America to become a priest. The novel closes with all of Moscow experiencing a mystical s e n - sation of the n e a r n e s s of God. 25. For this interpretation, s e e Laura D. Weeks "In Defense of the Homeless: On the Uses of History and the Role of Bezdomnyi in The Master and Margarita," The Russian Review, 48, No. ( J a n . 1989), 45.</p>
<p>From the persistence of t h e s e three t h e m e s for almost a millenium - personal salvation through suffering and sin, historical destiny, the relative insignificance of romantic love - one can draw s o m e preliminary conclu- sions about the overall continuity and coherence of Russian literary history. Those who posit a sharp break in Russian literature beginning in the Petrine period will, of course, always be able to point to discontinuities in g e n r e s and language a s well a s to the temporary loss of many works from histori- cal memory. There is, however, a remarkable continuity in themes. The t h e m e s studied here, of course, reflect the persisting values of Russian culture in general. While a study of this length cannot embark on a sociolo- gy of literature, a few general remarks are in order. The t h e m e of personal salvation through suffering, of course, reflects what G e o r g e s Fedotov delineated a s one of the distinguishing features of Russian Orthodoxy - its e m p h a s i s on salvation through suffering a n d charity.26 The prominence of national destiny and history a s a t h e m e in Russian literature is hardly surprising for a nation so o b s e s s e d with its own history. This o b s e s s i o n is reflected in the remarkable vitality and continuity of chronicle writing in Old Russia. Despite the many catastrophes and vicis- situdes of Russian history, the chronicles were preserved and continued. No Western nation can b o a s t of such a massive and continuous narrative a s the Nikonian Chronicle, which covers eight centuries and extends to five volumes in a modern printed edition. In the modern period, likewise, Rus- sia's historians were o n e of its g r e a t national cultural t r e a s u r e s , ap- proaching its writers a s t h e s p o k e s m e n , arbiters a n d p r o p h e t s of t h e nation: Tatishchev, Karamzin, Solov'ev, Kostomarov, Platonov, Presniakov and Kliuchevskii. On the t h e m e of the relative insignificance of romantic love, Eve Levin concluded that the idea and tradition of romantic love was a b s e n t from the culture of the Eastern Slavs in the pre-modern period,.27 That tradition can be o b s e r v e d also in the modern period: Soviet official culture minimized the importance of love relationships in favor of an empha- sis on public duties While e a c h of the t h r e e t h e m e s r e p r e s e n t s a continuing tradition in Russian culture, the strong influence of Old Russian literature on modern Russian literature is b e s t accounted for by the fact that modern Russia discovered Old Russian literature at exactly the s a m e time - 1730 to 1860 - that it discovered modern Western authors and genres: authors such a s Byron, Scott, Stendahl, Flaubert, Balzac, S u e and Dickens and g e n r e s such 26. George Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (Belmont MA: Nordland, 1975), p. 1. 27. Eve Levin, S e x a n d Society in the World of The Orthodox Slavs, 900-1700 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1984), p. 301.</p>
<p>a s the novel, short story, drama, and so on. Great writers of the nineteenth century thus h a d a readily available and recently discovered model for something they nearly all wanted to do, namely, create a unique national literature. Old Russian literature, recently rediscovered, had an immediacy which medieval literature had lacked in the West. Thus, one can find a genealogy for many of the distinctive t h e m e s of modern Russian literature in the literature of Old Russia.</p>
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</istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo><title>CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE LITERATURE OF OLD RUSSIA AND THE MODERN RUSSIAN NOVEL*</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" contentType="CDATA"><title>CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE LITERATURE OF OLD RUSSIA AND THE MODERN RUSSIAN NOVEL*</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">GEORGE G.</namePart><namePart type="family">WEICKHARDT</namePart></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XTP-1JC4F85T-7">research-article</genre><originInfo><publisher>BRILL</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">The Netherlands</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1997</dateIssued><dateCreated encoding="w3cdtf">1997</dateCreated><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1997</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Canadian-American Slavic Studies</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="abbreviated"><title>CSS</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/JMC-0GLKJH51-B">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0090-8290</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">2210-2396</identifier><part><date>1997</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>31</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>2</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>xi</start><end>148</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">7809AE1B817B7EDD2E80DD36FC32CCF07D329B3C</identifier><identifier type="ark">ark:/67375/JKT-L641M7XQ-2</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1163/221023997X00393</identifier><identifier type="href">22102396_031_02_s001_text.pdf</identifier><accessCondition type="use and reproduction" contentType="copyright">© 1997 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands</accessCondition><recordInfo><recordContentSource authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XBH-56W3KPD5-3">brill-journals</recordContentSource><recordOrigin>© 1997 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands</recordOrigin></recordInfo></mods><json:item><extension>json</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>application/json</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/ark:/67375/JKT-L641M7XQ-2/record.json</uri></json:item></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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