Earlier versions of this essay were presented at Bryn Mawr College, at the Delaware Valley Russian History Seminar, and at the Columbia University Seminar on Slavic History and Culture. I am indebted to those present and particularly to my respective hosts, Elizabeth Cheresh Allen, Robert Weinberg, and Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour. I wish also to express thanks to Diane Koenker and to Slavic Review's anonymous readers for their insights.

1 On the traditional celebration of maslenitsa see Sokolova, V. K., Vesenne-letnie kalendarnyeobriady russkikh, ukraintsev i belorusovXIX-nachaloXXv. (Moscow, 1979), 52–58.Google Scholar On proshchenoe voskresen'e see Wybrew, Hugh, Orthodox Lent, Holy Week and Easter: Liturgical Texts with Commentary (Crestwood, N.Y, 1997), 35–39.Google Scholar

2 Stalin, I., “Golovokruzhenie ot uspekhov (K voprosam kolkhoznogo dvizheniia),“ Pravda, 2 March 1930, 1.Google Scholar Among many useful sources on the background of this article is Tucker, Robert C., Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York, 1990), 181–89.Google Scholar

3 Letter from Babel’ to his mother and sister, 11 February 1931, in Babel, Isaac, The Lonely Years, 1925–1939: Unpublished Stories and Private Correspondence, ed. and introduction, Babel, Nathalie, trans. MacAndrew, Andrew R. and Hayward, Max (Boston, 1995), 161.Google Scholar

4 Ehre, Milton, Isaac Babel (Boston, 1986), 131.Google Scholar The most extended treatment of the two collectivization stories is Smirin, I. A., “I. Babel'v rabote nad knigoi o kollektivizatsii,“ Filologiclieskiisbornik (Alma-Ata), 1967, nos. 6–7: 104–9.Google Scholar Valuable commentary is also to be found in Vadim Kovskii, “Sud'ba tekstov v kontekste sud'by,” presented in a June 1993 round table at the journal Voprosy literatury entitled “Kak izdavali, kak izdaiut i kak nado izdavat’ I. Babelia” and printed in Voprosy literatury, 1995, no. 1:23–78; the collectivization cycle is discussed on 47–51. The following sources also include brief discussions of the stories: Nakhimovsky, Alice Stone, Russian Jewish Literature and Identity: Jabotinsky, Babel, Grossman, Galich, Roziner, Markish (Baltimore, 1992), 87;Google Scholar Sicher, Efraim, Jews in Russian Literature after the October Revolution: Writers and Artists between Hope and Apostasy (Cambridge, Eng., 1995), 108;Google Scholar Carden, Patricia, The Art of Isaac Babel (Ithaca, 1972), 191–94;Google Scholar Markish, Simon, “The Example of Isaac Babel,” Commentary 64, no. 5 (November 1977): 44.Google Scholar

5 “Gapa Guzhva,” subtitled “Pervaia glava iz knigi Velikaia Krinitsa,” was published in Novyi mir, 1931, no. 10:17-20. Listed as forthcoming in the back of this issue are five stories by Babel', of which one unrelated to the collectivization cycle (“Ivan-da-Mar'ia“) was eventually published elsewhere. The others, entitled “U troitsy,” “Med',” “Vesna,” and “Adrian Morinets,” are evidendy those referred to by Babel'in his letter of 13 October 1931 to the journal's editor, Viacheslav Polonskii, proposing terms for four more stories to be submitted no later than March 1932, each to be published in a successive issue of the journal. Stating his desired fee, Babel'writes: “These stories (they are more genuine than the previous ones) have taken up so much of my time, brain, and heart that even this honorarium won't cover the ‘production cost.'” See Babel, Isaak', Sochineniia, ed. Pirozhkova, A. N., introduction, Belaia, G. A., 2 vols. (Moscow, 1991), 1:319.Google Scholar Drafts of diese stories were presumably among the papers confiscated upon Babel“s arrest on 15 May 1939, when all of his manuscripts were seized. For an enumeration of the items confiscated (and apparently later destroyed) see Povartsov, Sergei, Prichina smerti—rasstrel: Khronikaposlednikh dnei Isaaka Babel'ia (Moscow, 1996), 41–43.Google Scholar

6 Sholokhov's novel ran in Novyi mir in nos. 1–9 of 1932. On the novel's publication see Ermolaev, Herman, Mikhail Sholokhov and His Art (Princeton, 1982), 29–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Dosov, Mikhail, “Kak rozhdaetsia kolkhoz,” Novyi mir, 1930, no. 4: 140.Google Scholar

8 Erenburg, Il'ia, “Khleb nash nasushchnyi,” Novyi mir, 1932, no. 9:58–85;Google Scholar the tractor driver is on p. 83. Among other pieces on collectivization in Novyi mir during this period that provide useful context for Babel“s work are the following: Gronskii, I., “Bor'ba za khleb,” Novyi mir, 1930, no. 7:154–62;Google Scholar Williams, Albert Rhys, “Iz nabliudenii inostrantsa,“ Novyi mir, 1931, no. 6:93–103;Google Scholar Glinka, Gleb, “Preobrazovateli zhizni,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 6:103–12;Google Scholar Zelinskii, Kornelii, “Kolkhoznye stranitsy,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 8:81–89.Google Scholar

9 Had the full cycle appeared, posits Vadim Kovskii, it would have been unprecedented for Soviet literature of the 1930's in the “merciless frankness” of its depiction of the state's destruction of the countryside. See Kovskii, “Sud'ba tekstov v kontekste sud'by,” 51.

10 Rakitnikov, A., “Kolkhozniki i poet Tiv'ia,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 4:105–14;Google Scholar the quoted line is on p. 108. A sample of other material aboutjews on the land in the journal that year: Vul'f, E., “V evreiskikh koloniiakh Kryma,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 2:120–27;Google Scholar Sel'vinskii, I., “Ot Palestiny do Birobidzhana,” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 4:42–44.Google Scholar The establishment and settlement of Birobidzhan was of course an important dimension of this subject.

11 Babel“s visit to these collectives under the auspices of OZET (Obshchestvo zemleustroistva evreev trudiashchikhsia) is mentioned in letters to his mother and sister of 11 and 19 February and 15 March 1931. Babel, Lonely Years, 161–62, 164–65.

12 Babel', Isaak, “V podvale (Iz knigi ‘Istoriia moei golubiatnei’),” Novyi mir, 1931, no. 10:21–25.Google Scholar

13 Ulam, Adam B., Stalin: The Man and His Era (Boston, 1989), 329.Google Scholar Among other sources on collectivization consulted and not cited elsewhere: Davies, R. W., The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929–1930 (London, 1980);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Conquest, Robert, The Harvest of Sorroxv: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (New York, 1986);Google Scholar Ivnitskii, N. A., Repressivnaia politika sovetskoi vlasti v derevne (1928-1933 gg'.) (Moscow, 2000).Google Scholar

14 Viola, Lynne, Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization (New York, 1987), 78.Google Scholar

15 Under the banner headline across the front page of Literaturnaia gazeta on that day, “Vkliuchim pisatelei v sotsialisticheskoe stroitel'stvo,” appeared such smaller headlines as “Pisateli v kolkhozakh” and “Novye pisatel'skie brigady.” Also of interest is a followup to this flurry of articles that appeared after the peak of the collectivization campaign: “Chto vy delaete v kolkhoze? Zhdem otvetov pisatelei o kolkhoznoi rabote,” Literaturnaia gazela, 7 April 1930, 1. The anonymous author asks those writers who have returned from the countryside to send their reports and sketches to the newspaper, emphasizing that their “cultural work” must be shared with society without delay.

16 Babel, Lonely Years, 136.

17 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 1559 (Babel’), op. 1, d. 15, no. 35.

18 Letter from Babel'to Livshits, 28 March 1931. RGALI, f. 1559, op. 1, d. 15, no. 36.

19 Postcard addressed to “Komitet vystavki ‘Pisatel’ i kolkhoz,'” 2 September 1930. Institut mirovoi literatury im. A. M. Gor'kogo (IMLI), f. 86 (Babel’), op. 1, no. 9.

20 Tret'iakov, S., “Postroimsia v brigady,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 January 1930, 1.Google Scholar

21 Platonov, Andrei, ‘Vprok (bedniatskaia khronika),” Krasnaia nov 1931, no. 3:4.Google Scholar (Some sources incorrecdy place the story in no. 9.)

22 Babel', “Gapa Guzhva,” 17. My translations of passages from this story and from “Kolyvushka” draw on the two English translations: those by Andrew R. MacAndrew in Babel, Lonely Years, and those by Peter Constantine in Babel, Isaac, The Complete Works of Isaac Babel, ed. Babel, Nathalie, introduction, Ozick, Cynthia (New York, 2002).Google Scholar

23 Kuz'menko, Pavel, ed., Nashi traditsii: Kreshchenie, Venchanie, Pogrebenie, Posty (Moscow, 1998), 115.Google Scholar

24 Babel', “Gapa Guzhva,” 18.

25 Two valuable discussions of the spread of rumors among the peasantry during this period are in Viola, Lynne, Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance (New York, 1996), 45–66;Google Scholar and Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York, 1994), 67–69.Google Scholar

26 Babel', “Gapa Guzhva,” 18. Neither of the two translations gives a precise equivalent for the term proshchenoe voskresen'e, so that readers of the story in English would not be aware of the reference. Constantine uses “next Sunday“; MacAndrew has “Palm Sunday,“ which comes five weeks later.

27 Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin, 58.

28 Babel', “Gapa Guzhva,” 20.

29 Ibid.

30 One may be able to read an element of genuine contrition, notjust manipulation, into the peasant's behavior: we learn earlier in the story that she was the first to apply for membership in the kolkhoz but had second thoughts and withdrew. Having strayed, she now appears ready to return to the fold.

31 Smirin, “I. Babel'v rabote nad knigoi o kollektivizatsii,” 107.

32 Babel', “Gapa Guzhva,” 20. The Hungarian writer Ervin Sinko, who knew Babel' in Moscow in the mid-1930's, recounts that when Babel'described to him the experience of traveling in the countryside during the collectivization campaign, he emphasized the eerily unnatural quality of the nocturnal silence, unbroken by the sound of a single dog or any other creature. See Sinko, Ervin, Roman tines Romanes: Moskauer Tagebuch (Cologne, 1962), 297.Google Scholar

33 Platonov, Andrei, “Kotlovan,” Povesti i rasskazy (Moscow, 1988), 197–98.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 218. The translation is that of Mirra Ginsburg in Platonov, Andrey, TlieFoundationPit (Evanston, 1994), 129.Google Scholar

35 Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin, 138. The statistics cited here show 200 “mass disturbances“ in February and 2,945 in March.

36 Isaak Babel', “Kolyvushka,” Sochineniia, 2:269. The story's first publication was in Vozdushnye puti, 1963, no. 3.

37 Ibid., 270.

38 Sholokhov, Mikhail, Podniataia tselina, in Sobranie sochinenii, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1985–86), 5:101.Google Scholar

39 Dostoevskii, F. M., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 30 vols. (Leningrad, 1972–84), 6:48.Google Scholar

40 V. Kirshon, Khleb (Moscow and Leningrad, 1931; reprint, Letchworth, Engl., 1980).

41 On the ambiguities of Dovzhenko's message in Zemlia and the significance of what is unseen relative to what is shown in the film, see Papazian, Elizabeth A., “Offscreen Dreams and Collective Synthesis in Dovzhenko's Earth,” Russian Review 62, no. 3 (July 2003): 411–28.Google Scholar

42 Babel', “Kolyvushka,” 272.

43 Ibid., 273.

44 Barsov, N. N., “Krestnyi khod,” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', 41 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1890–1904), 16A:648–49.Google Scholar

45 I am indebted to Jane Cosdow's reading of Repin's painting in “Imaginations of Destruction: The ‘Forest Question’ in Nineteenth-Century Russian Culture,” Russian Review 62, no. 1 (January 2003): 91–118.

46 A satirical treatment of the misplaced faith of the peasantry in both religion and in the machine—as well as in self-styled holy wanderers—can be found in Platonov's “For Future Use,” where an old man impersonating God walks from village to village wearing a battery-powered halo. After hooking “God's” battery up to a failing radio loudspeaker, a kolkhoz mechanic asks the assembled peasants, “Now do you believe in radio?” “We do,“ they answer. “We believe in the Lord and in the noise machine.” Platonov, “Vprok,” 17.

47 Babel', “Kolyvushka,” 273. Ellipsis in the original.

48 Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” Neiu York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930, 1. (The following quoted passage is on the same page.) Other parts of the paper on this Sunday provide unexpected connections to Babel“s material in “Kolyvushka” and beyond: the front page announces President Herbert Hoover's proposal to provide seed loans to struggling farmers; the arts section advertises an upcoming Carnegie Hall performance of “The Singing Horsemen of the Steppes,” the Don Cossack Russian Male Chorus (section 9, 9); the Fotogravure section following the Magazine includes a picture of Grant Wood's “American Gothic,” identified as “a portrait of an Iowa farmer and his wife,” which had just been awarded a medal at an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's painting, with its suggestively religious window in the background and trinity of tines on the pitchfork that stands squarely in the foreground between sober farmer and anxious wife, makes a thought-provoking counterpoint to Babel's portrait of Kolyvushka and his family.

49 L'vov, V. E., “Al'bert Einshtein v soiuze s religiei,” Afoiryj mir, 1931, no. 10:197.Google Scholar

50 Lewin, Moshe, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power (Evanston, 1968), 487–90;Google Scholar Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin, 26-29.

51 Babel', “Kolyvushka,” 274.

52 The description of the “silvery scroll of his head” receding into the distance calls to mind some ancient sacred text, imparting to him a religious stature. This image, as well as Babel“s use of the word “unseen” (nevidimaia) to describe the banner above the crowd and his description of snowflakes swirling in the wind, recalls the images at the end of Aleksandr Blok's poem “Dvenadtsat“’ (The twelve), where an “unseen” Christ, surrounded by pearly snowflakes and wreathed in white roses, leads a revolutionary procession.

53 Babel', “Kolyvushka,” 269.

54 Freidin, Gregory, “Isaac Babel,” in Stade, George, ed., European Writers, vol. 11, The Twentieth Century (New York, 1991), 1888.Google Scholar

55 V. P. Polonskii, , “Iz dnevnika 1931 goda,” in A. N. Pirozhkova, and Iurgeneva, N. N., eds., Vospominaniia o Babele (Moscow, 1989), 198–99.Google Scholar

56 I. Babel', “Konets sv. Ipatiia” (dated Kostroma, 20 December 1923), Pravda, 3 August 1924, 4. This story and Babel“s “Perekhod cherez Zbruch” appear here together under the heading “Iz dnevnika. “

57 “Maslenitsa,” Pravda, 2 August 1924, 6.

58 SSSR na slroike, 1936, no. 3. The magazine was published in Russian, French, German, and English.

59 Pirozhkova, A. N., At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel, trans. Frydman, Anne and Busch, Robert L. (South Royalton, Vt., 1996), 55–57.Google Scholar

60 For the story of Eizenshtein's work on the film and the controversy it aroused, see Kenez, Peter, “A History of Bezhin Meadow,” in LaValley, Al and Scherr, Barry P., eds.,Eisenstein at 100: A Reconsideration (New Brunswick, 2001), 193–206.Google Scholar

61 Eizenshtein, Sergei, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1964–71), 6:149.Google Scholar The screenplay is identified here as written jointly with Babel', based on motifs from the screenplay by Rzheshevskii. Rzheshevskii's version can be found in Rzheshevskii, Aleksandr, Bezhin lug: Kinostsenarii (Moscow, 1936).Google Scholar

62 Pirozhkova, At His Side, 78–79. Pirozhkova accompanied Babel’ in the summer of 1936 to lalta, where he and Eizenshtein worked on the screenplay while the shooting of their new version of the film was underway.

63 Isaak Babel', “Giui de Mopassan,” 30 dnei, 1932, no. 6:34-38; Isaak Babel', “Doroga,” 30dnei, 1932, no. 3:41–43.

64 Isaak Babel', “Karl-Iankel',” Zvezda, 1931, no. 7:55-60; Isaak Babel', “Konets bogadel'ni,“ 30 dnei, 1932, no. 1:21–25. On the treatment of religious ritual in these stories see my ‘Jewish Ritual and Soviet Context in Two Stories of Isaac Babel,” in Robert A. Maguire and Alan Timberlake, eds., American Contributions to the Twelfth International Congress of Slavists: Cracow, August-September 1998; Literature, Linguistics, Poetics (Bloomington, 1998), 11–20.

65 Isaak Babel', “O tvorcheskom puti pisatel'ia,” Sochineniia, 2:397.