Elena Dimov – Page 2 – Contemporary Russian Literature

Russian Literature in XXI Century: New Directions?

In the explosive, unpredictable world of contemporary Russian literature at the beginning of the 21^st century, there appeared a phenomenon of non-commercial literature that became more visible and more attractive to readers then the traditional readings of the 90s – commercial prose. Modern Russian writers are diverse and incredibly talented, and they did the almost impossible: they restored the Russian public’s trust in the written word after decades of government-ruled literature. It started with the appearance of the post-modernist works of the 90s. John Narins observed in his recent essay in “The American Reader” that “the first and perhaps key act of resistance was an attempt to restore the power and authority that had long been attached to literature in the Russian tradition, to re-establish reverence for the Writer as Sage, the Writer as Teacher and for literature as access to Truth.” He noted that this was accomplished to an extent.

The post-modernist works at the end of the 20^th century were one of the outlets of the negative feelings of the society in crisis and explain the withdrawal into the theatre of the absurd and dark irony. Victor Pelevin, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Vladimir Sorokin were on the front lines of the new literary wave at the beginning of the new millennium and their contribution to the renaissance of Russian literature is essential. Pelevin’s Chapaev I pustota is one of the best books of our times, as well as works of Petrushevskaya and Sorokin.

During the last decade, however, the Russian literary process, under the influence of a shift in the socio-cultural and psychological demands of society, entered a new stage. The period of “Post-Soviet mourning” concluded with the 2007 appearance of the Librarian (Bibliotekar) by Mikhail Elizarov – a bright and tragic concept of the “lost post-Soviet generation” in Russian society. The “alternative literature” of Pelevin, Petrushevskaya and others gradually made its way to a return to more traditional literature, to a reflection on the historical and humanistic aspects of the present day, to an everyday reality, as well as to a calmer discussion of the painful past and future direction of Russia.

Contemporary Russian literature, as anything else, indicates the shift in public literary tastes and as a mirror reflects the change in the perception of its future and the need for positive new ideas, or maybe, a return to traditional values. The tradition of expectation from the writers of the words of truth which originated in the time of Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy is still alive, and many Russians are looking for answers in literature.

Recently, the tremendous and unexpected success of the book of stories Everyday Saints and Other Stories by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), which has been the number one bestseller in Russia for nearly a year and won the prestigious Big Book Award for most popular book in 2012, confirms this shift in public expectations.

The author himself explained his success in this way: “In this book I want to tell you about this beautiful new world of mine, where we live by laws completely different from those in “normal” worldly life – a world of light and love, full of wondrous discoveries, hope, happiness, trials and triumphs.”

This also explains the phenomenal influence of writer and public intellectual Dmitrii Bykov on the emergence of interest in an affirmative explanation of Soviet history and the success of his Ostromov, set in revolutionary St. Petersburg.

The world of Russian literature today is immense; it offers to the reader a variety of genres written by many exceptionally talented writers, who are almost completely unknown to the Western public. In addition, the appearance on the literary scene of authors from remote corners of the Russian federation such as the Caucasus region of Dagestan, Siberia, and the Urals, has added their colorful, vibrant works into the mainstream of Russian literature. The voices of today include the writers of the Debut Prize – young and talented, fearless, and free from the limitations of the past.

All of this modified the literary landscape in Russia very quickly; today’s situation contrasts the past view of the Russian literary scene with one of the “thriving of conceptualism and metaphysical realism (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/main- trends-contemporary-russian-literature). It is likely that contemporary literary processes in Russia will lead to the emergence of works equal to the great classical works of the past. It is difficult to predict when this will happen, however, or to speculate on whom we will call the next great Russian writer in the future.

The goal of this essay is to outline trends and bring to the surface questions about the possible directions in which Russian literature might go: will it be the rebirth of the traditional Russian psychological novel, or the growth of absurdist post-modernist writing, using the works of contemporary authors as examples?

There are a number of trends that have the potential to become distinctive characteristics of the Russian literary process in the future. Is it possible to define the options as New Realism vs. Magic Realism? The conventionality of such formula is evident but it does not cover the whole spectrum of today’s Russian literature.

In the “post-Pelevin era” (even if he continues to be a major player in the literary process and one of the most influential writers), the appearance of literature that overcomes conventional conceptual limits is obvious. One cannot characterize, for example, the prose of Olga Slavnikova as pure “magic realism” (or metaphysical writing). In her best works she goes far beyond the limits of any “isms”. Her short novel Bazilevs is reminiscent of Chekhov’s stories and one of the remarkable works that cannot be defined outside terms of the tradition of Russian classic literature where psychology is often intertwined with metaphysical ideas that inform the phenomenon of classical literature.

Slavnikova’s magnum opus, 2017, the winner of the Russian Booker prize in 2006, is one of her most unusual works. Generally speaking, it is an acclamation of Beauty, which overpowers human beings and takes revenge on them through destruction. The meaning of Slavnikova’s novel goes far beyond the fable of the adventurous novel, or love story, or satirical reflection on contemporary Russian society. It appears that all this is subordinated to one general idea that beauty as the quality of spiritual and metaphysical power can become a force in itself and restore the natural balance by destroying the intruders. This acclamation of breathtaking beauty makes her novel an extraordinary happening in the Russian literary landscape. Slavnikova’s descriptions of the natural harmony that confront the intruders are such an astounding hymn to the beauty of the fictional Riphean Mountains that they merit placement among the classics: “Beauty was flowing from all sides. Anfilogov scooped it up when he wanted to make dinner, out of the smiling river; sunlight fell on Anfilogov through this beauty – through the branches, through invisible aerial nets and the sun itself was transformed from the ordinary lamp you don’t look at into the focus of the beauty, the radiant object that irritated his nerves.” Unfortunately, these aspects of her work were not adequately reproduced in recent translation into English.

Another trend is the emergence of the traditional Russian psychological novel that was conventionally called “new realism.” Among many other authors are Zakhar Prilepin, Roman Senchin, Denis Osokin, and Alexander Ilichevsky, whose writing represents the flourishing of the traditions of classical psychological prose.

Ilichevsky’s recent novel Anarhisty is such a splendid continuation of classical literature about Russian provincial life with its long teas and conversations about great ideas from the past, the ways of love, that even the naturalistic scenes regarding drug addiction and humiliation do not spoil the impression of freshness and hopefulness.

Zakhar Prilepin’s talent is already prominent; his writing style combines the classically clear integrity of his language with the ability to reveal the inner universe of his heroes by very simple means. His early novel Sankya about a young rebel was devoted to the theme of the individual’s rights to action against a hostile and unjust society. His novel-in-stories Grekh (The Sin), winner of the National Bestseller of the Decade (2008, 2011), is considered to be one of the best contemporary Russian novels and is a strong testimony of the return to the traditions of Russian psychological prose. It is an incredibly optimistic and bright work even in its brutal openness to life’s problems.

Roman Senchin is one of the most prominent representatives of the “new realism”. His novel Eltyshevy ( The Eltyshevs) is one of the remarkable novels of 2010; it was nominated for Super National Bestseller and for Big Book Award. The story portrays the demise of the ordinary Russian family in the Siberian village where brutality rule lives, and life and death are only happenings without any significance to people. In his novel Senchin shows Russia’s path to a dead end, to life devoid of any spirituality, and at the end the disintegration of society and collapse of humanity. Could it be that his portrait of the disruption of contemporary life in Russia is one of the distinctive features of the new realism? If so, it is in jeopardy of becoming some kind of proletarian realism by Maxim Gorky, who contributed to a de-spiritualisation of Russian literature by some of his books. Roman Senchin’s powerful message might compel the reader to contemplate and even cry. This message, however, is devoid of any hope, the hopelessness is embodied in the essence of the novel and it continues till the end where seemingly the people’s lives “were pointless and stupid”, as were their passion and love, and even their deaths.

The realism of Senchin’s book cries out about the state of contemporary life in Russia, and in doing so conveys the need for bringing back the ideas of the great Russian humanists into ordinary life. The best Russian writers of today are searching for their answers to the eternal Russian question: Chto delat’? (What is to be done?) Their answers are as different as the writers themselves, but their openness to the world and their talents deserve to be recognized; we’ll continue to discuss the recent trends in contemporary Russian literature.

By Elena Dimov. Edited by Margarita Dimova

Excerpt from the Novel-in-Verse “Gnedich” by Maria Rybakova

Contemporary Russian Literature in Translation

We are happy to introduce the novel-in-verse Gnedich by Maria Rybakova. ( Gnedich, Moscow: Vremia, 2011). Maria is one of the winners of the Russian Prize in short fiction for Gnedich.

Maria Rybakova was born in Moscow and studied Greek and Latin. At the age of 20, she moved to Berlin to continue her studies. In 1999, her first novel, Anna Grom and her Ghost was published in Moscow. Several other novels and short stories followed. Rybakova’s books have been translated into German, Spanish, and French.Maria Rybakova earned her Ph.D. in Classics from Yale University and currently is faculty at San Diego University. In 2012, her novel A Sharp Knife for a Tender Heart was nominated for the prestigious international Jan Michalski award. The author, who is currently teaching Classics and Humanities at San Diego State University, is working at her fifth novel.

Gnedich is a novel about the life of Nikolai Gnedich (1784-1833) – a romantic poet, librarian, and first translator of The Iliad into Russian. It is written in verse, and is a fine example of the revival of the poetic tradition masterfully explored by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Like The Iliad itself, the novel consists of twelve Songs or Cantos, and covers the life of Gnedich from his childhood to his death.

The poetic language of Gnedich is refined, it combines the clarity of Rybakova’s syllabic verses and the sophistication of her metaphors with distinct, novelistic depictions of certain landscapes, people, and their interactions. In a review in the Times Literary Supplement, Andrew Kahn noted Rybakova’s gift for “seamlessly layering different registers, such as the vernacular of Pushkin’s generation and the archaic of high-style epic,” which lends a unique texture to this “winningly touching novel.”

Nikolai Gnedich (1784- 1833) was a Russian poet and translator best known for his translation of the Iliad (1807-29).

Excerpt from Sixth Song

“In the hallway he took
a note from the tray and opened it.
It was from Semyonova.
Why is it that he did not recognize her name
despite seeing it many times?
It was the same handwriting:
long delicate lines, uncertain, tilted,
like a teenager’s,
and on the same fine watermarked paper.
But why the name was unknown?
He always unsealed her letters with a shiver
but not this time.
The letter’s magic omens
were only the Russian alphabet.

This was the name of a woman
with whom he had fallen out of love.

He had ceased loving her,
but she called him
to come in the morning to give her
another lesson in recitation.

As a seminarian,
he invented his own method of tragic speech
and became not himself
but the shadow of the fallen heroes in the war
or the step-mother who loved her stepson,
one of the many who’ve died but live
in funeral decorations of the theater
when the curtain rises between
our lives and the life everlasting.

When he was becoming a god or a woman
he knew that the life he was destined to live
was only a chapter
in the big thick book of opportunity.
Rising on tiptoes and turning his face to the sky
he captured the audience with his voice…
* * * *
The beauty
also was rising on her tiptoes
and turning her face to the skies,
and the sky looked at her face
as if at its own reflection.
…………………..

Out of the grey the sky became a purple evening.
The servant brought some coffee in china cups,
and the conversation switched to intrigues at the theater,
then he was given his coat in the hallway
and went out into the Petersburg winter night,
which fell at four in the afternoon.
He left the fairy tale
in which all wishes come true
and entered the Greek epic where the hero
wants only one thing – to be faithful to fate.
And if death was waiting for him,
he would love his defeat.

But how beautiful were years
Semyonova was everything to him:
how she put the big vase with flowers on the floor,
how she threw back her head
exposing her white throat,
and resembled a swan,
He thought:
you could swim in my tears,
princess”.

Translated by Elena Dimov. Edited by Austin Smith

Seventh Song

He wrote his thoughts down
in the small notebook
without hope that someone would read them.

The soul’s breath,
the prayer,

my son’s lovely soul,
your father created you
at my lips by his kiss.

Infinity is in
the forest breeze,
in the man’s voice
but since we went around the globe
it’s no longer here.

the Greek marble,
the poem of Simonides,
contour on a vase,
hard as the justice of ancient times
that punished the smallest of crimes
by death.

aren’t you the amber?
Saadi asked the piece of clay
No, I am simple dirt
that lived with a rose

dying like a flower
that dries without leaving a trace
of August’s fragrance.

It is unlikely that to doubt immortality
means to deny God.
We are so small and the world is so big,
our pretense for eternity
is clearly exaggerated.

Who put gates on the sea?
Who uttered:
Hitherto shalt though come, but no further:
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

In the night between the 18th and the 19th
I had a wonderful dream:
someone with the voice of Batyushkov
told me that Homer and Jesus, son of Sirach,
lived in almost the same times
and not far away from each other.
But Homer had so many words:
hilly, mountainous
powerful, quick, the fastest
and the other had so many thoughts!
Homer was a chatterer
and Sirach’s son was a contemplative.
Annoyed by these words
I woke up.

Gnedich wrote down dreams in the morning, thoughts in the evening.
During the day he worked at the library
where he got a salary
and had a desk near the window.
There were always new books in neat piles,
he cataloged them,
writing in his clear handwriting
the title of every volume on a note card
he put it in a box,
an aide put the book on the proper shelf,
but he always was afraid the youth got it wrong
so Gnedich went to check
to be sure everything was in its place.
This continued into evening.
He forced himself not to look out the window,
not to pay attention to the people going by,
not to count the weeks and months
not to think
that he had already spent years in this hall,
that more years came and went,
and then a few more.
Instead he wished to rejoice in
the titles of the books,
the clarity of his own handwriting,
the fact that the library
had more collections,
that it expanded like the capital
that the aisles between shelves
were similar to streets and canals,
only straighter, and that there
the shadow always reigned,
and there was never any wind; he consoled himself with silence
which was so similar to eternity that between these walls
the shadow always reigned,
and there was never any wind; he consoled himself with silence
which was so similar to eternity that between these walls
you might not to be afraid of time.

He knew that he would never get old, that the illnesses
would beat him before life could make him tired,
and that a life devoted to cataloging
was not so bad: and something (the library cards) was growing
but look at the years – they are contrary.
We have only those which are not inscribed
and they are becoming fewer
with every spring.
We need to look at life philosophically,
he used to say
reaching for the bread with butter wrapped in paper;
then shook crumbs from the table and
took out a little volume of Pascal.
Something childlike in his soul sighed:
ah, why I am not as clever as he is!
What a blessing it would be for a soul
to soar into the pure empyrean space.
and notice neither dust nor bread with butter.
But the voice fell silent and the eyes were reading.

When I am looking at the blindness and misery,
at the silent world, at the darkness, where a man
is abandoned, alone, lost
in this corner of the universe and doesn’t know
who sent him and why,
nor what will be after his death –
I am terrified as though while sleeping
I was blown to a desert island
and, upon waking,
don’t know
how I got there
or how to get out.

And the library suddenly ceases to be
a library
and the straight hallways cease to be straight
and the catalogs disintegrate
and the letters become
just hooks and squiggles
and in the midst of it Gnedich (but is he Gnedich?)
grasps with one hand for the desk
and with another for the chair
so he will not fall into the gulf
that from the left is tearing the floorboards,
and then from the right.

Beyond the walls, it feels like Petersburg,
or some other city
where people walk on the streets,
having not yet managed to die.
A blizzard
rises like a slow snake
over the Finnish swamp
and moves toward the capital, gaining strength.
It sings and, within its song there is
as much meaning as in the aria that
the public will listen to in the evening.

He cannot remain at the service.
He grips his fur coat and throws it over his shoulders,
his hands barely obeying him, as if
they belong to someone else;
he descends down the stairs,
steep as a cliff, –
the one who descended to the bottom is already not the same
as the one who began descending. A snowstorm
hits him in the face:
– This will teach you humility –
but does he need to be taught? He always knew
that he was a nonentity,
and this nothingness under the weight of the fur coat
moves his feet along the street,
and the blizzard again whips at his cheeks,
and, in tears,
he says: – I am still something!
Moisture and wind blind his eyes, but he feels
the warmth and salinity of his tears,
wanders up to his house, inserts the key
into the keyhole.
He shakes the snow off the heels, and his
poodle Malvina, ears waving, hastens to meet him.
In a hurry he starts a fire to warm him up,
but cannot get warm.
When I am looking at your blindness and misery,
at the silent world,
at you in darkness,
as though you were brought to a desert island
and were left there….

He gets up and walks around the room
walking, walking, walking, and trying to reassure himself that
he has a body,
that there is furniture around him and wallpaper on the walls,
his glance falls on the bookshelf
and his cheeks flush with shame:
for some reason he still keeps
the fruit of his youth’s madness –
the novel “Don Corrado de Guerrera;
or the Spirit of Revenge and Treachery of Spaniards”.
He wrote it through long lonely nights
when he was twenty
imagining this would win the hearts of his female readers.
He takes the book with two fingers and
cast it into the garbage.
He thought he was a writer,
but it turned out not to be so.
(We know who we are merely when we are loved,
we are those who are loved, and only that.
Otherwise there is nothing).
He falls into a chair and buries his face in his hands.
Malvina caresses his feet, a cat on a couch
is awakening, stretching paws
and showing the world his fair belly;
the room is getting warmer
and Gnedich is sleepy but he forces himself
to get up and go to the desk
where there is a copy of the “Iliad.”
He should light candles,
otherwise he will go blind
(already a Cyclops), and pour the fresh ink.

A sun then
a sun then touched
the valleys
a sun touched the valley with rays
then again
now the morning sun – which rays – merely struck the meadows….
climbed into the sky
from the ocean, where waters
roll softly, deeply flowing
they (who are they? Two armies or
dead Greeks with the living?)
they met each other
it was so difficult to recognize the dead
the living ones loaded them onto carts
washed off the blood, felt
tears roll down
but Priam forbid them
to cry out in grief
and in silence
they put their dead into the fire
and when it had eaten everything, they left
to go to the sacred city of Troy,
the Achaeans too put their dead in a fire
and when it had eaten everything – departed
to the empty ships.

He falls asleep and he dreams about the empty field.
And in the morning he cannot remember his dream.
He carefully dresses in front of the mirror
and goes to work
where he stays until evening, and in the apartment
Elena enters with a soft smile.
She cleans while he’s not there,
cleans the dust from them plaster heads in the study room,
from a clock, and from many-a ‘book.
Before there were less;
once there was only one sofa, and now there are three,
and the carpet on the floor, belike looks Persian,

The three-foot mirror need be cleaned again
so there are no smudges.
Master is reflected in it.
(She almost forgot his face;
before ’twas the porter as let her in,
and now a valet).
But she reckons there are more books,
more candles burned down.
There is a woman on the wall dressed like a savage-

maybe she is an outlandish queen.-
Elena kneels
to pull out the paper basket from the desk,
and there she finds a small book in the trash
and another one.
What she can do? Carry them to the garbage?
What if he looks for ‘em?

But if she leaves ’em,
They ’ull say she worked badly.
So she hides the books at her bosom
If they ask her, she will bring ’em,
if not, she’ll throw ’em out later herself.
Elena shakes up a bed in his bedroom.

Do the gentries
have noble dreams?
Or do they dream the same filth as everyone else?
Coming back home at night, she hopes to
have some noble dream,
sumthin’ like princess from that pic’ter
or dances as that agoin’on
in them stone manors.
For at the river-sides are such low banks
and beggars a-sittin’ at the bridges,
danglin’ their stumps,
main thing to not look at them for long
so they won’t spook ye at night.

( 2012) Translated by Elena Dimov.

Translations of the excerpts of works by contemporary writers are used for educational purposes only.

Dmitrii Bykov

Dmitrii Bykov

Dmitrii Bykov is maybe one of the most popular and prolific writers in Russia today but is not known to the broad public in the West as much as Pelevin, Ulitskaia or Sorokin. It is not surprising: his works are not translated into English. The epoch of his discovery in the West is coming after the appearance of the first translations of his works: the novel Living Souls was translated in 2011 by Cathy Porter for publishing by Alma Books.

But in Russia Bykov’s status is unique. Nick Harkaway after the conversation with him noted: Bykov is elemental; a huge man with a huge voice and huge passion. In Russia he’s basically a rockstar – radio host, biographer of Pasternak, novelist, poet, TV personality… he’s a kind of cross between Melvyn Bragg and Bob Geldoff; a cultural force who takes delight in causing outrage to enlighten“.

Indeed, the writings and the personal qualities of Bykov put him in the center of public attention in Russia. This is due not only to his unquestionably huge literary talent, but also to the magnetism of his personal appeal which has made him “a cultural force”, or as Rachel Polonsky noted in recent article for “The New York Review of Books ” the citizen poet”.

Dmitrii Lvovich Zilbeltrud (Bykov is his alias) was born in 1967 in Moscow. It was the year of the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution in the Soviet Union celebrated with a big pomp. Paraphrase his words, it could be considered as the sign of his future fate: it influenced his formation as a person and his interest in the history of Russia in some “mystic ways”.

After school Bykov spent two years in military service. Bykov remembered it with his usual irony: “Well, speaking frankly – my most honorable honorarium was a regular double portion of food in the Soviet Army, where I served for two years like most Soviet students. That was my pay for the rhymed letters which I had been writing for our regiment’s cook who was in love with a romantic schoolgirl. . [ http://www.almabooks.com/page.html?id=26]

He graduated from Moscow University in 1991 with the degree in journalism, and started to work in Sobesednik and Vremechkoand also to cooperate with Ogonyok – famous pro-democratic media outlet in Russia at that time.

The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. However, Bykov’s fascination with the processes of the formation of the Soviet state emerged in almost all his novels. Even more, the global changes in Russian culture and the fates of many remarkable people who happened to live during these unfortunate times in Russia became the major focus of his literary works. Bykov started to write prose in the early 90s. On the question what led him into writing, he answered:

“I really don’t know. I understand only that the reasons for this strange choice are mysterious and dramatic. Balanced and self-satisfied people tend to do something else. Maybe I clearly realized from early childhood that I wouldn’t do well in any other sphere of activity. Maybe the only reason for writing is a fear of death. Maybe – and this version sounds preferable – I was too fond of reading and understood even before school that writing was the only serious and powerful way to influence things: all other methods are expensive, traumatic and temporary.[ http://www.almabooks.com/page.html?id=26}

One of the most famous representatives of the so called modern Russian “Magical Historism”, Bykov produced bestsellers with frequency. Among them: Justification («Оправдание», 2001), Orthography ( “Орфография”, 2003), Removal Service («Эвакуатор», 2005) ZhD («ЖД», 2006) Ostromov,(2011) Boris Pasternak («Борис Пастернак», 2005) were all acclaimed by the critics and received broad recognition among the public in Russia. Bykov also published six books of poetry.

Probably one of the major characteristics of some of his novels could be described as the attempt to create the whole new reality in his books, and recreate the history of the Soviet Union through the “magical” (metaphysical) point of view. Modern Russian critics often consider this kind of literature as the departure from the traditional spheres of the literary interest such as “psychology or the social analysis of everyday (meaning contemporary) life” (Mark Lipovetsky and Alexander Etkind. “The Salamander’s Return” in Russian Studies in Literature, vol. 46, no. 4, fall 2010, p.7.) Association with the “Magical Historism” in their eyes is clear departure from the traditional literature: “ Such post-Soviet authors as Pelevin, Sharov, Sorokin, and Dmitrii Bykov are indeed heirs to the “junior branch” of late Soviet and anti-Soviet literature (the Andrei Siniavsky branch). Those authors’ greatest vested interest lies in two spheres of human experience, which they combine in strange and shocking permutations. The spheres are history and religion.”

However the influx of the religious ideas into the writing and the historical approach to the literary work is continuation of the traditions of the great Russian classic writers and as such could be only welcomed. It answered to the demand of Russian society in clear understanding of the processes that led to the disaster of the Soviet period in the history of Russia. Bykov offers his version. Together with his bright literary talent, scholar’s knowledge of Soviet history, it creates the phenomenon of Bykov’s popularity in Russia and makes his novels bestsellers.

Especially it appeared in his recent work Ostromov whichwon the National Bestseller prize in 2011. In his own words “It’s a novel about the 1920s, about the so-called “Case of the Leningrad Freemasons” – their trial, banishment and further adventures. Some more words in addition: being based on real facts, this novel – called The Pupil of the Magician (– is a strange mixture of mystic, picaresque and satiric prose, something between The Master and Margarita and the Twelve Chairs, but more sentimental and surely much worse.”

The opening lines of Ostromov are striking and one immediately becomes enveloped in the narrator’s story:

Part One. Spring:

“There exist houses where nobody has been happy.

Such house is not glad to itself. It stays at the town’s outskirts, at the end of a crooked street, blocking it and by itself meaning a dead end. Behind it is the ravine, burdock, the umbrellas of angelica, goutweed, the rusty carcasses of the beds, overgrown lilac, where sometimes you find something that after you can not even remember the idea of the lilac without a chill. There is the end of the city, the beginning of the chaos. Everyone who walks in there wants to leave.

Such a house stays aside from life, in a wrinkle of time, built by gloom, a grim man, who made the shameful mistake at the moment of his birth and realized that it was not possible to correct it. He builds it for his family to torment his wife and to tyrannize his kids. Or for the office where he intends to do bitter and meaningless business; or it could happen that the priest who doesn’t believe in God moves in…”

[Translated by Oleg Dimov]

This genre is not unusual in Russian literature; Bykov remembered Bulgakov as one of his predecessors and indeed his writing continues the traditions of beloved by Russians Master and Margarita. There are also other writers working in this genre: such as Sorokin.

Not only in the fiction, but also in his biographical works, Bykov understands Russian history as the scene of the powerful and incomprehensible interactions. His books are intriguing and make you to re-think old clichés, as it happens with his acclaimed biography of Boris Pasternak which was published in 2005 in the series Zhizn’ Zamechatel’nikh liudei and became a bestseller. It was the first time that a biography of a writer became a bestseller in Russia. It was written in a wonderful language, and not only his literary skill or the knowledge of the details of Pasternak’s life made the biography a bestseller. The biography was written through the prism of joy of the literary genius of Pasternak: maybe for the first time in history Pasternak’s life was portrayed as the joyful life even in the terrible circumstances of his fate and the fate of his country. As if the gift of Pasternak’s poetry went into the written words of Bykov. His analysis of Doctor Zhivago was outstanding but was not accepted by all critics:

“Doctor Zhivago is a symbolist novel written after symbolism. Pasternak himself called it a tale. The book undoubtedly ‘went through Pasternak ’because he was one of few survivors. It had to appear – because somebody needed to rethink the history of the last fifty years of Russian history from the position of symbolic prose which is paying attention not to the events but to their origins. But this kind of interpretation could be possible only in the second half of the century, with the account of everything that these events brought. The failure of the Hozhdenie po mukam was an indication of it. We have to admit that only one full novel about the Russian revolution exists- written by Pasternak, because his book was written not about people and events, but about the powers which preside over the people, and the events, and the author himself.

Only from this point of view should we look at this book. The novel of Pasternak is a parable full of metaphors and exaggerations. It is unreliable, as life is unreliable at the mystic historic turning point.

The novel’s plot is simple and its symbolic plan is obvious. Laura – Russia – combines unpreparedness to life with the amazing domestic alertness, there are the fatal women and the fatal country attracting the dreamers, adventurers, and poets…

Yuri Zhivago in the impersonation of Russian Christianity of which the main characteristics according to Pasternak were sacrifice and generosity, (Bykov. Pasternak, p.721-723.)

Public activity

Some words should be said about Bykov’s public activities. His many appearances in the media and his public activity create the image of a powerful writer involved in the life of his country and willing to influence the social and political processes in Russia. Bykov has periodically hosted a show on the radio station Echo of Moscow, and he was one of the hosts of an influential TV show Vremechkotill 2008.

In 2005 he published the New Russian Tales’ How Putin became the president of the United States’ – his attempt to renew the genre of satiric prose, invented by Saltykov-Shchedrin: “in 1999 I began without any hope for the fast publication to write the New Russian tales… In Russia this genre was invented by Shchedrin, reinvented by Gorky, and renewed by your servant’.

His personal appeal to mass media could be seen as evidence of Bykov’s motivation to make a statement about the current state of affairs in Russia, and it was accepted by the public. Especially important was his appearance at many public events in the context of the recent mass manifestations in Russia at the end 2011 and – beginning of 2012.

It appears that nowadays you can see Bykov anywhere: at the manifestations waving the flags, in social media where his page is extremely popular with the readers, in video-clips etc. It manifests his credo: writing as a way of influencing modernity and challenging the traditional views of history and the role of the person in history.

By Elena Dimov. Edited by Bud Woodward.

On youtube.com

Bykov is reading his poem “I was not happy in my life for one minute.”..

Scenes from Russia

Excerpt from “Balustrade in Bykovo” by Maria Stepanova

“Russian Gothic,
Domes-lamps.
Girls-sweethearts.
Church and mallows…”

“Русская готика
Купола-лампочки.
Девочки-лапочки.
Церква и мальвы….”

[Maria Stepanova. Stikhi i proza v odnom tome. Moscow: NLO, 2010.p.94]

About the author: born in Moscow in 1972, Maria Stepanova is one of Russia’s leading contemporary poets and the chief editor of the online cultural portal openspace.ru. Among her many awards are the Andrei Bely Prize (2005), the Hubert Burda prize (Germany, 2006), and the Lerici-Mosca Prize (Italy,2011).

Excerpts from works of contemporary writers are used for educational purposes only.

Strelna Elegy by Joseph Brodsky

Translated by Margarita Dimova

Light of the palaces and castles, the palaces and castles’ light,
the flowerbed of brick roses, blooming in the winter,
what native scenery of sudden losses,
what a beautiful whistling from years past.

As if you see someone’s footprints, long familiar,
on the snow in the sleeping land,
as if in front you is not the shore you longed for,
but the former land of clamorous love.

As if I will forget myself and everyone else,
and you have already left, even said goodbye,
as if you have left from here forever,
as if you have already died far away from this beach.

You suddenly came into the train
and saw for a moment the sunset and the roofs,
but I still stand waist-deep in the water,
and listen to the distant and beautiful thundering of wheels.

You are here no more. And will be no longer.
The light of oblivion flies back to the golden funeral feast,
in the land of sorrow and pain,
a beautiful radiance on an unknown life.

The street lamps still glow white in the darkness,
the same ship is freezing in the bay.
The new snow is whirling and the goats bleat,
as if this new life will not pass you.

You are here no more, and will be no longer.
It’s time for me to leave this place for the new path.
There is no oblivion. Nor is there pain or sorrow.
You are here no more, thanks be to God.

They bring me a horse and with my foot in the stirrup
I see in front me the same golden Strelna,
the bay still glowing white in the darkness.
The new snow whirls and the goats are bleating.

In the Tsars’ Village in wintertime
a shadow of vain love appears before me
and life runs again in January’s darkness
like the frozen wave to the beautiful shore.

– Joseph Brodsky (1960)

New Facebook Page

Contemporary Russian literature at UVA has now new Facebook page!

The New Russian Literature

One of our goals is to introduce the new Russian literature to readers in America. Despite the appearance of many talented new authors, only a few of them have had works translated into English and become known to the western public. Even less known in the West is the younger generation of Russian authors, whose talented and fresh voices have begun to change the literary landscape in Russia in recent years.

Since 2000, the Russian Foundation’s Debut Prize has helped to discover and aid a new generation of Russian literary talent by nominating and awarding the Debut Prize to the most outstanding and original works by young authors.

This new generation of writers and poets has the potential and ambition, and most importantly – the talent – to become potential future classics of Russian literature. The works of the finalists of the Debut Prize create a vibrant, colorful image of the new Russian literature, free from the limitations of the past and now more open to the world.

As part of the outreach program, the New York-based non-profit Causa Artium, in partnership with the Debut Prize Foundation, started the New Russian Literature Program and in February 2012 sponsored a tour of the prize-winning young writers from Russia: Alisa Ganieva (2009), Dmitry Biryukov (2005), Irina Bogatyreva (2006), and Igor Savelyev (2004). The thematic and literary styles of these authors are different, as different as their experiences. In all of their works, however, one can see the talent, humor, and optimism which are influencing the phenomenon of the New Russian Literature – genuine, multifaceted, and fearless.

Among the works submitted to American audiences in Washington DC, Boston, and New York were “Salam, Dalgat!” by Alisa Ganieva (2009) and collections of short stories like “Off the Beaten Tracks” and “Squaring the Circle“ (short stories by winners of the Debut Prize), 2010.

Olga Slavnikova

Olga Slavnikova is one of the most renowned contemporary writers in Russia. She was born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Urals to the family of aerospace engineers. After graduating from Yekaterinburg State University, Slavnikova worked as a fiction editor, then managing editor of the literary magazine ‘Urals’. She has lived and worked in Moscow since 2001. Her first novel was published in 1988. Among her acclaimed novels are Стрекоза, увеличенная до размеров собаки (‘Dragonfly the Size of a Dog’), Бессмертный (‘Immortal’).

But her real magnum opus is 2017 – a fascinating love story set in her native Urals Mountains region. The novel is also a philosophical reflection on the dramatic history of Russia and its future, beauty of the nature, and it’s full of references to the mythology of her native Urals. It won the Russian Booker Prize in 2006.

Alisa Ganieva

Alisa Ganieva was born in 1985 in Moscow, but soon moved with her family to their native Dagestan. A graduate of Moscow’s Literary Institute, Ganieva has since won numerous awards for her prose and also a prize for her literary criticism.

She was propelled to true stardom by her work Salam tebe, Dalgat! (2009).

From the first strophes of Salam tebe, Dalgat! one is introduced to the marvelous world of the Caucasian Dagestan village where people are discussing subjects unimaginable from a Western perspective – how to steal a bride and where you need to drink your vodka till the last drop – which are all happening at a party with various colorful personages. And there the party could end in the assassination.

Sometimes the tale is written with an incredible sense of humor, but beneath the exotic facade is an exploration of the problems of humanity written with such talent that it makes the story about Dalgat the true discovery.

It is all the more unusual that this work was a written by a young woman, who was hiding behind the name of a young Dagestani fighter named Gulla Khirachev, and who uncovered her true identity only after the announcement of the award of the Debut Prize. This literary mystification only adds to the charisma of Alisa Ganieva. Salam tebe, Dalgat! has since been translated into English.

Dmitry Biryukov

Dmitry Biryukov was born in 1979 in Siberia and lived in Novosibirsk’s “Academic City.” Novosibirsk holds a special place in Russia; it is situated in the heart of Siberia and is populated by a special kind of people who are called “sibiriak” in Russian – strong and independent people.

Biryukov holds degrees in history and philosophy in addition to his post-graduate work at the Institute of Philosophy and Law and the famous Literary Institute in Moscow. After the success of his short story, Birukov has started work on a long novel.

In America Burykov was reading the excerpts from his story Uritsky Street.

Irina Bogatyreva

Irina Bogatyreva was born in 1982 in Kazan, Tatarstan. She is a graduate of the Literary Institute in Moscow in 2005. Since then she has been recognized by numerous literary awards for her stories published in Russia’s leading literary journals.

Bogatyreva’s autobiographical hitchhiking trip from Moscow to Altai was described in her work Off The Beaten Track. What made this story so fascinating to young people? It is a story about a girl alone on the road having adventures and meeting all kinds of people. It is an everyday story but written with a talented eye to the details and understanding of the psychology of young people.

Igor Saveliev

Igor Savelyev was born in 1983 into a family of writers in Ufa, Bashkiria. He still lives there and works as a crime reporter for the local news agency. In 2005, his short novel Pale City won the Debut Prize. It is a wonderful narrative about his native Ufa and young people. One can see the freshness of his style and association with modern cultural icons which attract the young readers to him.

Contemporary Russian Poetry in Translation

We continue our series of contemporary Russian poetry in translation. One of the early masterpieces of Joseph Brodsky was written in the transit prison after his infamous trial in 1964. The translation of this poem was submitted at the first MPT Poetry Translation Competition 2011.

“Freedom” by Joseph Brodsky

( Gripping my ration of the exile… )

Gripping my ration of the exile
in embrace with the rattling lock,
arriving at the places of dying,
again I turn to my native tongue.
The radiance of the Russian iambic
is more stubborn – and hotter than fire,
like the finest lamp,
in the night it illuminates me.
I can hardly raise my pen,
and my heart is fearfully beating.
But the shadow from behind my back over Russia,
like the bird in the grove, cries,
and the proud scattered echo
caught in my chest in white pallor.
Only hatred from the South to the North
hastens, overtaking the spring.
Burning up with a hacking cough,
bowing still lower in the night,
I am almost ablaze. Thereby
I obstinately keep the likeness of a candle
from dying out, like the very last wall.
And this great flame flickers along with me.

March 25th, 1964
Arkhangelsk Transit Prison

Translated by Elena Dimov

The Librarian by Mikhail Elizarov

Born in 1973 in Ivano-Frankovsk, Ukraine, Mikhail Elizarov could barely remember the Soviet era of his parents’ and grandparents’ generation. In 2007, however, the young writer wrote a book that would come to be associated with the lost generation of Soviet people and won the 2008 Russian Booker Prize. It was the fourth and biggest book of the bright debutant of the 90s and, in essence, the first major post-Soviet novel showing the reaction of the generation of the 30s to the world in which they lived.

The title of the book, Библиотекарь (The Librarian ), deceptively conjures up the expectation of perhaps a quiet evening’s reading. Indeed, The Librarian is a novel about books, about the mystical powers of the written word. At the beginning, one hardly expects the strange upheavals that such books can cause, including the violent refusal of the books’ readers to acknowledge the end of the era by the obscure writer Gromov, and an almost Kafkaesque ending to the book. Gromov’s books had deceptive titles like Fly Happiness or Silver-Flat Waters, but in fact they had the magical power to change the person who read them, and readers began to organize “libraries” or armies to fight for these books. Alexei inherits a The Book of Memory and becomes a “Librarian” without knowing it. Gromov’s books gave different powers to readers; Narva, known as the Book of Joy, has a euphoric effect, and Книга Ярости (The Book of Rage) stimulates anger. But the most important prize in the battle between the libraries is the lost Book of the Meaning. We understand that it is Gromov’s eulogy to Stalin.

The Librarian starts with a quotation from The Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov. And in a way, Elizarov’s book is a continuation of the ideas of Platonov’s great and tragic book about wasted lives:

“The worker must fully understand that baskets and engines can be made as necessary, but it’s not possible to simply make a song or a sense of excitement. The song is more valuable than mere things…”

Andrei Platonov

Gromov

“The writer Dmitry Alexandrovich Gromov (1910-1981) lived his final days in complete obscurity. His books completely disappeared in the debris of Lethe, and when political disasters destroyed the Soviet motherland, it appeared as though there was nobody left to remember Gromov.

Hardly anyone read Gromov. Of course, the editors who determined the political loyalty of the texts and the critics read it. But it was unlikely for somebody to be worried about and interested in titles like “Proletarian” (1951), “Fly, Happiness!” (1954), “Narva” (1965), “On the Roads of Labor” (1968), “The Silver Flat-Water” (1972), or “The Calm Grass” (197).7).

The biography of Gromov went side by side with the development of the socialist fatherland. He finished middle school and pedagogical college and worked as executive secretary in the factory newspaper’s editorial board. The purges and the repression did not touch Gromov; he quietly endured until June of ‘41 before he was mobilized. He came as a military journalist to the front. In the winter of 1943 Gromov ‘s hands were frostbitten; the left wrist was saved but the right was amputated.

Thus, all of Gromov’s books were created by a forced left-handed man. After the victory, Gromov moved his family from the Tashkent evacuation to Donbass and worked in the editorial office of the city newspaper until his retirement.

Gromov started to write late, as a mature forty-year-old man. He often addressed the theme of the formation of the country, glorified the cotton being of the provincial cities, towns and villages, wrote about mines, factories, the boundless Virgin Soil and harvest battles. The heroes of his books were usually the Chairmen of the Kolkhozes, red directors, soldiers returning from the front, the widows keeping their love and civil courage, the pioneers and Komsomol members – strong, cheerful, and ready for heroic labor. Good triumphed with painful regularity: the metallurgic factories were built in record time, the recent student during his sixth month internship at the factory became a skilled specialist, the plant exceeded the plan and accepted the new one, and the grain in the fall flowed by the golden mountains to the Kolkhoz’s granaries. Evil was rehabilitated or went to prison.”

* * * *

“Although Gromov published more than half a million copies of his books, only a few copies survived in club libraries in distant villages, hospitals, ITKs, orphanages, or otherwise rotting in basements among party congress materials and serials of Lenin’s collected works.

And yet Gromov had devoted fans. They scoured the country for surviving books and would do anything for them. In normal life, Gromov’s books had titles about some shallow waters and grasses. However, Gromov’s collectors used significantly different titles – “The Book of Power”, “The Book of Strength”, “The Book of Rage”, “The Book of Patience”, “The Book of Joy”, “The Book of Memory”, “The Book of Meaning”…

By Mikhail Elizarov

Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2010.

Translated by Elena Dimov, edited by Margarita Dimova

Disclaimer

Translations of the excerpts from the works by the contemporary writers are used in educational purposes for students of modern Russian literature or for literary criticism only.

Many Talents of Dmitrii Bykov

Dmitrii Bykov is one of the most prominent contemporary Russian writers but he is still not known in the West. In 2006 Bykov won the National Bestseller Prize for his book “Boris Pasternak . He became the winner of the National Bestseller Prize again in 2011 for his novel “Ostromov, or the Sorcerer’s Apprentice” . Only several of his works were translated to English: his novel Living Souls was translated to English and published by Alma Books in 2010. Dmitri Bykov is also a poet.

Excerpts from Amid the Empty Meadows…

By Dmitri Bykov
Translated by Michael Marsh-Soloway

“Amid the empty meadows,
In the amber brume of the afternoon,
My sweetheart lies
Curled up beside me.

The bay willow is blooming,
Honey thicket and dogrose,
I, her lover,
Dozed off in the thick grass.

She gazes off somewhere,
Above the thick grass,
Above my pileous,
Dozed-off head–

And thinks, which of
The centrifugal forces
Will sweep us away, shattering
The remnants of our wings.

And all the while, I sleep blissfully,
She looks there,
Where hellish Hades
And black water,

Arms stretching out,
Embrace on the stoop,
And separations are long
And eternal– in the end.

For the time being,
The sultry heat of Hades frightens her–
A dream, warlike and playful,
Through and through, comes to me.

But my dreams are not things
In which there is something prophetic.
I dream only of objects,
And scents, and color.

I dream not of separation,
Or a foreign land,
But the curve of brushwood,
And, perhaps, of her.

And this malachite
Rug beneath my head–
With the dispersal of the battlefield
Into its protective color.

I dream of automatons,
Cartridge pouches, boots,
Some squares,
Some circles”.

Translations of excerpts of the works of modern writers are used for educational purposes and literary criticism only.