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Russian Literary Portraiture in the Twentieth Century: Collecting and Re-Collecting Lichnosti in Criticism and Memoir

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Russian Literary Portraiture in the Twentieth Century: Collecting and Re-Collecting Lichnosti in Criticism and Memoir Russian Literary Portraiture in the Twentieth Century: Collecting and Re-Collecting Lichnosti in Criticism and Memoir by Daniel Aaron Brooks A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Harsha Ram, Chair Professor Olga Matich Professor Irina Paperno Professor Victoria Frede Summer 2015 Russian Literary Portraiture in the Twentieth Century: Collecting and Re-Collecting Lichnosti in Criticism and Memoir © 2015 by Daniel Aaron Brooks Abstract Russian Literary Portraiture in the Twentieth Century: Collecting and Re-Collecting Lichnosti in Criticism and Memoir by Daniel Aaron Brooks Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Harsha Ram, Chair This dissertation offers a select history of the literary portrait genre in Russian culture from its genesis in the 1890s through the 1960s. I define the literary portrait as a succinct account of a particular author's individual or creative personality – in Russian, lichnost' – that readily lends itself to anthologization, in which that literary portrait acquires additional meaning through the comparative or cumulative format in which it participates. In tracing the developments in the genre through a series of representative portrait collections, I focus in particular on two historical moments: 1905-1914, when literary portraiture moved beyond its original Symbolist confines, courted a wider reading audience, and became a key genre for the theorization and explication of Russian modernity; and the post-Revolutionary period, when writers both in emigration and within the Soviet Union repeatedly turned to the genre as a means of shaping narratives about late imperial and early Soviet culture. In the first period, I consider the literary critical portraiture of Iulii Aikhenval'd, Kornei Chukovskii, and Maksimilian Voloshin, and in the second, I consider the memoir-portraits of Vladislav Khodasevich, Kornei Chukovskii, and Iurii Annenkov, as well as Annenkov's work in visual portraiture. I posit that these writers, each in their own way and to their own ends, sought common variables that would unite the heterogeneous literary field of late imperial Russia. In doing so, they created forms of literary historical periodization that focused on cultural continuity rather than aesthetic displacement, and on webs of connections between individual authors rather than distinctions between nominally antithetical movements. These holistic interpretations of late imperial Russian literature demonstrate the pedagogical utility of comparative frameworks that take individuals (lichnostoi) as their units of observation. In constructing such frameworks, these portraitists consistently demonstrate that our understanding of dominant aesthetic movements of the time (the Symbolists and Modernists) and the dominant paradigm of cultural periodization that followed it (the Silver Age) are best calibrated against certain figures (especially Leonid Andreev and Maksim Gor'kii) who are otherwise afforded narrow parts in our inherited literary histories. Thus, I aspire to present literary portraiture as a telling artifact of Russian modernity writ large, and a valuable means of re-examining the literary historical narratives that structure our study of early twentieth-century Russian culture. 1 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, TRANSLATION, AND SOURCES iv LIST OF FIGURES v Part I Chapter 1.1: General Introduction 1 Chapter 1.2: The Prehistory & History of Literary Portraiture 14 in Western European Culture Chapter 1.3: The Genesis & Trajectory of Russian Literary 35 Portraiture Part II Chapter 2.1: The Literary Portrait as Criticism in Late Imperial 49 Russia Chapter 2.2: Iulii Aikhenval'd's Silhouettes of Russian Writers: 55 Overcoming Social Criticism Through Impressionism Chapter 2.3: Kornei Chukovskii's From Chekhov to Our Days: 76 Overcoming Impressionism Through Pinkertonism Chapter 2.4: Maksimilian Voloshin's Faces of Creativity: 100 Overcoming Life-Creation Through Biographism Chapter 2.5: Conclusion 123 Part III Chapter 3.1: The Literary Portrait as Memoir in Post- 126 Revolutionary Russian Culture Chapter 3.2: Vladislav Khodasevich's Necropolis: 130 Writing Myth out of the Symbolist Life Chapter 3.3: Kornei Chukovskii's Memoir-Portraits: 151 (Re)writing the Myths of the Russian Writer Chapter 3.4: Iurii Annenkov's Verbal & Visual Portraits: 172 (De)facing the Russian Writer Chapter 3.5: Conclusion 200 BIBLIOGRAPHY 204 i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful, first and foremost, to my ever-patient and ever-encouraging committee. Harsha Ram, who has graciously served as the chair of my dissertation, was my very first adviser in Berkeley, and championed my work from the outset. I cannot thank him enough for the thorough commentary that he provided on every single chapter of this dissertation, the writerly style and intellectual stakes of which were vastly improved under his mentorship. I have never met someone so capable of guiding others to the best version of their work and ideas. I aspire to his classroom presence, command of material, and grasp of the big picture. Irina Paperno has likewise guided me from the beginning of my time at Berkeley. She talked me through the many early versions of this project, and provided invaluable professionalizing advice up through the very end. Distant though it might be from my period of interest, her course on Russian Realism, with its specific focus in the genealogy of literary forms, is subtly woven into the DNA of this dissertation. Olga Matich is the rare scholar whose interpretative power comes from having her head in the clouds and her feet on the ground simultaneously. That mix of whimsy and responsibility shaped the contours of this project. I owe her a debt of gratitude for initiating my fascination with Symbolism, Modernism, and the phenomena that border it. Finally, Victoria Frede had the onerous task of reading this work in giant gulps rather than tiny sips. Her advice on how I might better connect my various materials and theses has been particularly helpful in the late stages of this project, as has her attention to my vocabulary and statements about Russian history and society. I am also particularly grateful for her assessment of what I might do with all of these materials in the future; it is exciting to have a new road map as this particular journey comes to an end. Nothing that follows would be what it is in the absence of these four individuals, excepting (the scholar's traditional caveat) any remaining mistakes or inaccuracies, which are entirely my own. I also wish to extend my thanks to faculty members not on my committee who have nevertheless shaped it in small but meaningful ways. At the very beginning of my dissertation work, Luba Golburt encouraged me to just go to the library stacks and stare at the shelves until I found something interesting – which, in my case, turned out to be the oddly ubiquitous word portrety on the book spines between PG 2900 and 3020. Bob Hughes provided me with remarkable early guidance on the Khodasevich material, which came to comprise one of my favorite chapters in this dissertation. Anne Nesbet reminded me of the need to maintain a proper teaching-writing-living balance at a crucial moment in my work. Anna Muza has been an tirelessly gracious sounding board for ideas and an unparalleled source of linguistic insight into a language that is not my native one. I am eternally grateful to her, and suspect that her quiet but powerful influence can be found in countless recent dissertations that have emerged from our department. Viktor Zhivov was a source of endless levity and generosity, and is dearly missed. Lisa Little has always reminded me that teaching should be fun for students and instructors alike, and has been an invaluable source of pedagogical insight. I am grateful to the Berkeley Language Center, which awarded me a pedagogical research fellowship in the Spring of 2012 that permitted me to improve my teaching skills while giving me the time to take the first steps towards the initiation of this project. I'd also like to extend my thanks to the ISSA staff – particularly Sandy Jones, Moriah Van Vleet, Elizabeth Lavarge-Baptista, and Kathi Brosnan – who keep the departmental machine running so that we can attend to our own work. ii I would not have made it far without support from my fellow graduate students. Jillian Porter and her wife Hannah Freed-Thall were exactly the friends and mentors that I needed during my first four years here. Alyson Tapp and her cello reminded me of the need to develop both one's professional and private lives. Tom Dyne, Shota Papava, and his wife Danielle Foster provided welcome reprieves from Berkeley, transporting me to Crockett and Catan. Katya Balter, Luke Stratton, and Aglaya Glebova were inspiring, energetic, gracious friends both in and out of academia. Piper Wheeler provided interpretative guidance and translation assistance with the Khodasevich materials. Hannah Lord-Archambault provided some much-needed coffee towards the end. Isobel Palmer and Caroline Brickman helped me work out ideas and last-minute AATSEEL panels during our morning runs around Lake Merritt. Caroline also helped me edit a significant part of this dissertation when the submission deadline was drawing perilously closer; I'll be owing her drinks for awhile. Everyone who has participated in Kruzhok over the years made for a wonderful, attentive, insightful, and invaluable audience. Last but not least, thanks are due to family members: Mom and Dad, for encouragement; Chris, for persistence; Becca, for courage; Uncle Ken, for airplane tickets; the grandparents, for curiosity; Masha, for a reason to come home. iii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, TRANSLATION, AND SOURCES Transliterations throughout this dissertation follow the Library of Congress system, with some exceptions. When I cite a translated work that maintains an alternative transliteration system (e.g.
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