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Vsevolod Ivanov’s Satirical Novel Y and the Rooster Metaphor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Valentina G. Brougher
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Extract

It may come as a surprise that the author of the Soviet classic Bronepoezd14-69 (Armored Train 14-69) produced an experimental novel in 1929- 1931, entitled Y, whose satiric spirit, rich texture and philosophical depth suggest a close kinship with such writers as Mikhail Bulgakov and Andrei Platonov. In western criticism, Vsevolod Ivanov has been largely remembered as one of the Serapion Brothers, whose Partizanskie povesti (partisan tales) and short stories (“Dite” [“The Child“] being the best known example) about the civil war in Siberia and central Asia were written in a highly individualistic ornamental style and responded to the call for immediacy and relevance in literature.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , Spring 1994 , pp. 159 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1994

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References

1. VsevoŁód Ivanov, Y: Roman. Dikie liudi: Rasskazy (Moscow: Kniga, 1988). I have chosen to leave the title as Y because textual evidence in the novel suggests that the title refers to both the Russian vowel and exclamation “y” (i.e., “u” in English transliteration) and the letter “y” in the Latin alphabet. Leaving the title as Y instead of rendering it as U/Y (transliterated version) or OO/Y (translated version) does not rob it of the ambiguity and mystery Ivanov intended, and challenges the reader to arrive at a rich variety of interpretations as to its possible meaning. Charles Bourg, in “Y, epopee comique en prose de VsevoŁód Ivanov” (Revue des etudes slaves 53, no. 2 [1981]), also notes the title's ambiguity and confronts the difficulties of translating it properly into French (207). For a simplistic, incomplete explanation, see L. Gladkovskaia, Zhizneliubivyi talant (Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1988), 162. It should be noted that Y appeared first in Switzerland (Lausanne: Editions l'Age d'Homme, 1982). A comparison of the Swiss and Soviet editions indicates a number of differences. The former consists of 54 chapters, indicated in Roman numerals; a number of chapters toward the end of the novel take the form of brief summaries of settings and people, signaling, the reader assumes, the directions in which Ivanov intended to develop the chapters. The Soviet edition does not divide the work into numbered chapters; a line is drawn between paragraphs and serves the same purpose. The summaries have been replaced with pages of new material. A comparison between Swiss and Soviet editions of “Egor Egorych's dream,” as well as of other pages in the novel vital to the discussion in this article, reveals only insignificant differences in punctuation and setting of paragraphs.

2. This is generally understood to include Bronepoezd 14-69 (Armored Train 14-69), Partizany (partisans), Tsvetnye vetra (colored winds) and Golubye peski (azure sands).

3. It should be noted, however, that Ivanov's “infamous” collection, Tainoe tainykh (1927) has evoked some critical interest: V. G. Brougher, “The Question of Motivation in Vs. Ivanov's Tainoe tainykh,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 19 (September 1977): 352-66; Klaus Globig, “Der Platz der Erziihlungen ‘Tainoe tainykh’ im Werk VsevoŁód Ivanovs der 20er Jahre,” Zeitschrift für Slawistik 23, no. 1 (1978): 93-102. In the 1980s critics began to examine “the unknown” Ivanov: Charles Bourg, “Le Kremlin, roman inedit de VsevoŁód Ivanov,” Revue des études slaves 52, no. 3 (1979): 323-56; Bourg, “Y, epopee comique en prose de VsevoŁód Ivanov,” Revue des etudes slaves 53, no. 2 (1981): 207-32; K. Globig, “Der sozialpsychologische Roman ‘Uzhginskii kreml'’ von VsevoŁód Ivanov, “ Zeitschrift fur Slawistik 28, no. 1 (1983): 127-37. See also Gladkovskaia (Zhizneliubivyi talant); and Elena A. Krasnoshchekova, Khudozhestvennyi mir VsevoŁóda Ivanova (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1980).

4. Two chapters from the novel appeared in the early 1930s: “L. L. Cherpakovskii na zavode,” Krasnaia niva, no. 33 (1931); and “Razgovor mezhdu spekuliantom i ‘sekretarem bol'shogo cheloveka, ’ “ Literaturnaia gazeta (17 November 1932). Another excerpt from the novel (pages which constitute Egor Egorych's dream) appeared more recently in Ogonek, no. 26 (June-July 1987): 26-28. Although Tamara Ivanova implies in her introduction to the excerpt that this material is being published for the first time, the very same excerpt, in a heavily censored form, appeared in T. V. Ivanova and K. G. Paustovskii, Perepiska s A. M. Gor'kim. Vs. Ivanov. Iz dnevnikov i zapisnykh knizhek (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1969), 176-84. Excerpts, with an introduction by T. Ivanova, have also appeared in Literaturnaia ucheba, no. 5 (September-October 1987): 90- 113. In 1966 M.V. Minokin courageously suggested (Put1 VsevoŁóda Ivanova k romanu. 20-ye gody [Orel: Orlovskii gos. ped. institut], 3-4) that Y was just one of the works by Ivanov that had yet to be discovered and treated “objectively” by the Soviet world; and in 1980 E. A. Krasnoshchekova emphasized (Khudozhestvennyi mir, 188-91) the artistic complexity but “unfinished” form of Ivanov's “Moscow novel,” as if to suggest some broad reasons for its not being published. She also made some laconic but intriguing comments about the thematic concerns and satirical nature of the work, implying not only that it merited publication but that in a different political climate it might yet be published.

5. See N. Ianovskii, VsevoŁód Ivanov (Novosibirsk: Kn. izdat., 1956); M. V. Minokin, Put1 Vs. Ivanova k romanu; M. Shcheglov, “VsevoŁód Ivanov,” Istoriia russkoi sovetskoi literatury (Moscow, 1967), I: 301-23; VsevoŁód Ivanov. Trudy mezhvuzovskoi konferentsii posviashchennoi 70-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia pisatelia (mart 1965), Uchenye Zapiski 47 (1970), Omskii gos. ped. institut im. A. M. Gor'kogo; L. Gladkovskaia, VsevoŁód Ivanov: Ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1972); and Krasnoshchekova, Khudozhestvennyi mir.

6. VsevoŁód Ivanov, Y: Roman. Dikie liudi: Rasskazy (Moscow: Kniga, 1988), 127. Hereafter, all page references will be to this edition; all translations into English are my own.

7. V. Vs. Ivanov, “Prostranstvom i vremenem polnyi,” VsevoŁód Ivanov—pisatel’ i chelovek: Vospominaniia sovremennikov (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1975), 343.

8. P. A. Florenskii, “Nauka kak simvolicheskoe opisanie” and “Dialektika” (introduction and notes by S. M. Polovinkin), Studia Slavica Hungarica, no. 1 (1987): 77-118.

9. Susan S. Lanser explains the “focalizer” as “the presence—the recorder, the camera, the consciousness—through whose spatial, temporal, and/or psychological position the textual events are perceived” (The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981], 141).

10. Roger Fowler, as quoted in Lanser, The Narrative Act, 119.

11. Monroe C. Beardsley, as quoted in Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 93.

12. Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 273.

13. Robert C. Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929 (New York: Norton, 1973), 438.

14. Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 60.

15. As quoted in Tumarkin, 117.

16. As quoted in Tumarkin, 126.

17. Leon Trotsky, as paraphrased and quoted in Tumarkin, 81.

18. A photograph on the front page of Literaturnaia gazeta (23 December 1929) focuses on Stalin's face and centers the reader's attention on his large dark eyes, eyebrows arched, intensely looking at something on one side and in the distance; a front-page photograph in Pravda (21 December 1929) carries the same suggestions, although the eyebrows are not as prominently arched. Photographs in MoŁódaia guardiia, no. 1 (1930) and Krasnaia nov', no. 12 (1929) capture Stalin gazing intently and directly at the reader from the page; the photograph in the latter suggests a special strength and resolve emanating from the eyes. A photograph in Novyi mir, no. 12 (1929) carries a suggestion of displeasure and quiet malice, registered in the four wrinkles between the dark half-open eyes. And, last but not least, a large (half of what it would be life-size) profile sketch of Stalin's head in Izvestiia (21 December 1929) clearly continues the birthday theme of Stalin as a man of strength and vision pensively gazing into the distance, much in the same way that Lenin did.

19. As quoted in Tumarkin, 89.

20. See “I. V. Stalinu,” Izvestiia (21 December 1929).

21. See “Iz privetstviia IKKI,” Literaturnaia gazeta (23 December 1929).

22. See “Otdaiushchemu vse svoi sily, energiiu i znaniia delu rabochego klassa— t. Stalinu,” Pravda (21 December 1929).

23. According to A. N. Afanas'ev, Poeticheskiia vozzreniia slavian naprirodu (Moscow: 1865 [Slavic Printings and Reprintings, 214/1, ed. H. Van Schooneveld, The Hague: Mouton, 1970], 512-13), the firebird (zhar-ptitsa) in Slavic mythology has glistening gold and silver feathers; it sits in a golden cage. In the middle of the night it comes flying into the garden and illuminates it with its presence. Just one of its feathers is worth a fortune; the bird itself is priceless. In Slavianskie iazykovye modeliruiushchie semioticheskie sistemy. Drevnii period (Moscow: Nauka, 1965, 141), V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov make the point that the firebird (ognennaia ptitsa) in Slavic folklore is connected with the idea of treasure. In Ivanov's text part of the rooster carries that attribute, i.e., its tail is ognennyi.

24. Tumarkin, 166.

25. Ibid., 248.

26. See, for example, “K 50-letiiu so dnia rozhdenia tov. I. V. Stalina,” Pravda (18 December 1929).

27. Krasnaia nov', no. 12 (1929). See the four-paragraph description under Stalin's portrait in the front of the journal. These phrases can also be found on the pages of Pravda and Izvestiia.

28. Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 459.

29. See Istoriia kul'tury drevnei Rusi. Domongol'skii period, eds. N. N. Voronin and M. K. Karger (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSR, 1951), II: 74-78; I. S. Duichev, “K voprosu o iazycheskikh zhertvoprinosheniiakh v drevnei Rusi,” Kul'turnoe nasledie drevnei Rusi. Istoki, stanovlenie, traditsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 31-34; V.V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov, Slavianskie iazykovye modeliruishchie semioticheskye sistemy, 151-52; A. Afanas'ev, Poeticheskaia vozzrenia slavian na prirodu (Moscow, 1865: Slavic Printings and Reprintings, 214/1, ed. H. Van Schooneveld [The Hague: Mouton, 1970]), 518-27, and vol. 2 (Moscow, 1868: Slavic Printings and Reprintings, 214/2, ed. by C. H. Schooneveld [The Hague: Mouton, 1969]), 245-46 and 253.

30. Henri Bergson, Mind-Energy: Lectures and Essays, trans. H. W. Carr (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 114.

31. Ibid.

32. See, for example, “Leninets, organizator, vozhd',” Pravda (21 December 1929). This phrase is frequently encountered in birthday greetings to Stalin.

33. See birthday greetings signed by 21 writers and critics, “Dorogoi t. Stalin, “ Na literaturnom postu, no. 24 (December 1929).

34. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Heart of a Dog, trans. Mirra Ginsburg (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 123.

35. Boris Pil'niak, “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon,” Chinese Story and Other Tales by Boris Pilnyak, trans. Vera T. Reck and Michael Green (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 152-94.

36. Andrei Platonov, “Makar the Doubtful,” trans. A. A. Kiselev, Russian Literature Triquarterly, no. 8 (1974): 143.