Andrei Sinyavsky. The Russian Intelligentsia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. x + 98 pp. $21.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-231-10726-6.

Reviewed by Alan Kimball

Published on H-Russia (March, 1999)

As a contribution to the still ongoing scholarly the strength of character required to index notes debate about the Russian intelligentsia, Andrei as well as text. Three cheers for Columbia Univer‐ Sinyavsky's little booklet might warrant little seri‐ sity Press, despite the fact that some editor made ous attention. It is built from three lectures spon‐ the bad decision to spell "Russian" on the title sored by the W. Averell Harriman family and de‐ page with a reversed capital "R." We have grown livered at Columbia University in New York City used to this cartoon suggestion that Russians don't not long before Sinyavsky's death. The Russian in‐ know how to write very well. Their "R's," like so telligentsia is the subject of endless inquiry, and many other facets of their lives, are backward. we might not expect much gain from three lec‐ Some thoughtful person appended ten pages tures titled "The Intelligentsia and the People," of "Notes" to the text which help defne some but "The Intelligentsia and Bread," and "The Intelli‐ far from all proper nouns and to identify some gentsia and Democracy," running so few pages. but far from all quotes and literary references. Lynn Visson's translation from the Russian Some of the easy identifcations are in the foot‐ seems quite good. I had considerable experience notes--Kaganovich for example. Many readers will with Sinyavsky's Russian during his appointment feel the need to have ID's for Petr Boborykin, An‐ as Lindholm Professor at the University of Oregon drei Chernov, Kornei Chukovskii, Efm Etkind, and in 1994. Sinyavsky's Russian was deceptively Dmitrii Furman, to name a few. clear. His narrative moved along in a familiar col‐ Mark von Hagen, Director of the Harriman loquial pattern, yet glowed with complex and Institute at Columbia University, introduced the striking ideas and images. The glow comes lectures with a solid, brief outline of Sinyavsky's through Visson's Englishing of this great Russian important place in Russian letters. One might writer. fault von Hagen only for not positioning A good "Index" guides readers to key words in Sinyavsky more solidly in the Paris-based Russian the text and in the notes. Not all publishers have emigre community and in the new relationship to H-Net Reviews his homeland that Gorbachev's perestroika al‐ the vermin, the enemies of the people. The letters lowed. His and Mariia Vasil'evna Rosanova's signed collectively and published next to these ar‐ apartment was a destination point for many Rus‐ ticles also included Zoshchenko, Paustovsky, An‐ sians coming abroad for the frst time in the late tokolsky, and Pasternak among the slew of signa‐ Gorbachev and early Yeltsin years. Von Hagen tories" (pp. 7-8). Etkind was shocked as he went paid homage to the bibliography of Sinyavsky's through clippings. He briefy considered leaving fction, but neglected to inform his audience of some out, but most went in. Sinyavsky identifed Sinyavsky's role in the journal Sintaksis: Publitsis‐ one exception: "Jewish poet Perets Markish and tika, kritika, polemika (edited by his wife Rozano‐ his gory verses." Sinyavsky said, "We felt sorry for va and published in Paris) and his participation in his son, Simon Markish, a friend from university the debates on Yeltsin's Russia in the Russian days who is now a professor at the University of press since 1993. Geneva" (p. 9). There is no footnote identifying Readers need also know that Sinyavsky and Markish or son. his wife traveled several times back to Moscow It would be unfortunate if a failure of foot‐ beginning in 1992, visiting friends, arguing, test‐ notes or the editor's introduction caused David ing the old neighborhoods for good pirozhoks and Remnick in New York Review of Books (April 9, signs of change. "During the last few years," he 1998) to ofer the misinformed opinion that said in the lectures, "my wife and I have spent a Sinyavsky's lectures presented "deeply fawed good deal of time in the Lubyanka Prison archives judgments based on surprisingly erratic observa‐ reading through the fles on my case" (p. 78). He tion," judgments "curiously incomplete," and overheard a fellow at a nearby table shout out, "I "analysis based on emotion, conspicuous omis‐ didn't sign that! I didn't sign that!" Ofcials still sion, disorientation, and anecdote." Not everyone would not release key documents to Sinyavsky. understands how connected with the homeland Sinyavsky's lectures cannot be understood this famous exiled writer of fantastic fction had without knowing more about Sintaksis. A good become in his last years. But, of course, he re‐ portion of the citations in the lectures came from mained Sinyavsky/Tertz. He did not become this journal. For several years Sintaksis provided Robert Kaiser or Hedrick Smith. a forum unavailable back home, not unlike the All that said, the book on its own still does not emigre Alexander Herzen's Golosa iz Rossii in the make a very big splash in the sea of intelligentsia previous century. The index to Sinyavsky's Colum‐ studies. But the book should not be taken this way, bia University lectures lists one reference to the for two central reasons. First, the author is Andrei journal, but there are three of some importance Sinyavsky and, second, the book is not really (pp. 9, 55, 70). No footnote identifes the journal. about the Russian intelligentsia. The article "1937" appeared earlier in Sintak‐ Sinyavsky was the author of famous works of sis.[1] Compiled by Sinyavsky with his friend and fantasy, but he was also the author of Soviet Civi‐ partner Efm Etkind, page after page of photo‐ lization.[2] In fact, certain passages in the lectures copied text from Soviet newspapers were devoted (e.g., p. 60) are repeats of passages found in Soviet to this bloody year. Sinyavsky revealed that he Civilization (p. 71). Should we judge Sinyavsky and Etkind "noted with sadness that all our writ‐ among the scholars of Russian cultural history? I ers had disgraced themselves. Literally everyone. think not. What should catch our attention here is Irate articles and articles with artistic twists, by the place of Sinyavsky along that long skein of Olesha, Platonov, Zoshchenko, Iashvili, Babel, Ty‐ Russian thinkers who have agitated themselves nianov, and so forth, called for the destruction of about "the intelligentsia and the people" because

2 H-Net Reviews they lived the problem, not because it was a sub‐ how to govern. The lady cook would have to ject that interested them academically or journal‐ "transform herself into a new-style intellectual ca‐ istically. Sinyavsky's contribution here is not to pable of felding complex political questions" (p. the secondary literature on the intelligentsia but 152). Stalin was happy to encircle himself with to the primary documentation illustrative of the uncouth thugs. tense relationship of the Russian intellectual elite The meaning of Yeltsin's attack on parliament and the great mass of "half-educated" Russians. and the reaction of the "lady cooks" of the post-So‐ These late words of Sinyavsky should be put in viet world pressured Sinyavsky to resolve the ten‐ context, for example, with those of Dostoyevsky at sion lurking in all his thought on these matters. the Pushkin commemoration or of Blok in 1908 He loved the arcana of a highly educated literary and again in the revolutionary year 1918. elite, but he also loved the simplicity of everyday In his lectures as Lindholm Professor at Ore‐ folks. He loved Pushkin, but mainly mainly in that gon, he repeated time and again, often provoking everyday life way of just walking around the lively debate, that he did not like civilization. He block, shooting the breeze. Now he saw that the considered it the enemy of "culture." It became intelligentsia, even the "almost sacred" Dmitrii clear that he was working with something like Likhachev, could support Yeltsin's politics. Was Wladimir Weidle's notion of horizontal (folk) and this because Yeltsin was shooting at the people, vertical (elite) cultures. He felt that Stalin had torn not at the intelligentsia? Was this because Yeltsin down the vertical and unleashed the horizontal was the designated creator of a new and better cultures. In 1994 he repeated his somewhat arch purpose in Russian life? judgments on the working people earlier ex‐ In his frst famous piece, "On Socialist Real‐ pressed in Soviet Civilization, the section titled ism," Sinyavsky wrote about the so-called "super‐ "The role and place of the Intelligentsia" (pp. fuous man" and the threat he posed to power and 134-42). He observed that Party leadership and dominant concepts of "Purpose." "He [the super‐ those writers who supported them in the Stalin fuous man] is neither for the Purpose nor against era were "themselves mostly intellectuals. But in‐ the Purpose--he is outside the Purpose. Now this tellectuals who ... moved over to the camp of the simply cannot be; it is a fction, a blasphemy. victorious class, from where they criticize and de‐ While the whole world, having defned itself with nounce the intelligentsia" (p. 134). Notice how at regard to the Purpose, is divided into two antago‐ this point he referred to "victorious class" rather nistic camps, he feigns not to understand this and than "victorious state." He meant the working keeps mingling his colors in vague and ambigu‐ class, and to nail down his point he wrapped up ous schemes. [I take these last few words to be an this chapter with a section titled "The Man of the example of Sinyavsky's direct but glowing prose.] Masses" (pp. 142-52). He proclaims that there are no Reds and no These passages ring with Ortega y Gasset's Whites but simply people, poor, unfortunate, su‐ disgust for the "revolt of the masses." He charac‐ perfuous people...." [3] terized the simple working person, the "new Sovi‐ If the lectures at Columbia were not really et man" as a half-educated, assertive, complacent, about the intelligentsia, then what? Perhaps they impudent, and arrogant ignoramus or "self-satis‐ represent a movement toward the "poor, unfortu‐ fed slave" (p. 145). The proletariat does not un‐ nate, superfuous people" as he sought to resolve derstand the complexities and subtleties of life. At the tension in the phrase inherited from Aleksan‐ least Lenin understood that if the "lady cook" dr Blok's 1908 essay "Narod i intelligentsia." The were to run the state, she would have to learn lectures were a refection on the impact of a mili‐

3 H-Net Reviews tary attack on an elected parliament. After Yeltsin garlitsky, has been very much in tune with ordered the shelling of the "White House" in Octo‐ Sinyavsky over these years. ber of 1993, a large portion of the intellectual elite Two dramatic trans-personal events stunned of Russia (and for that matter of the U.S. as well) Sinyavsky and shaped his personal life. First, applauded him. (Remnick's newspaper suggested Khrushchev's expose of Stalin in 1956 revealed that Yeltsin attacked parliament to defend democ‐ certain truths that set Sinyavsky on the path of racy.) This served to draw Sinyavsky's attention to thought and action that soon produced his "On So‐ the massive deception and exploitation carried cialist Realism" and led to exile. He had still a full out by Yeltsin and his supporters. This served to life ahead of him. shed light on the pathos of Russian everyday life The second event was Yeltsin's attack on par‐ observable both in the press and on several per‐ liament which revealed certain truths about the sonal visits home. intellectual elite of Russia and the nature of the The authentic subject of the lectures is some‐ emerging post-Soviet "Civilization." Where was thing like this: "A great emigre author returns to Sinyavsky headed after this second dramatic his native land in a time of his erstwhile tor‐ event? We cannot be sure, because he had only menters' comeuppance, but he is saddened by four more years of life as Yeltsin mobilized his what he sees." The fullest articulation of his topic special forces against parliament and famous in‐ comes on page 66: "When I speak about the lust tellectuals cheered him on. for power of today's intelligentsia and of its guilt Notes before the people, I am referring only to the privi‐ leged part of the intelligentsia, what I call the [1]. Sintaksis, no. 19 (1987), pp. 140-86. court and government intelligentsia: people who [2]. Andrei Sinyavsky, Soviet Civilization: A are well known." These have been called "subcon‐ Cultural History (New York: Arcade Publishing, tractors to the authorities" (p. 68). Sinyavsky quot‐ 1988). ed with approval Russian journalist Gleb [3]. Andrei Sinyavsky/Abram Tertz, "The Trial Pavlovskii's assertion that "Yeltsin" is a "collective Begins" and "On Socialist Realism" (Berkeley pseudonym" behind which what might be called Calif.: 1982), p. 190. Russia's true "hard liners," these subcontractors, Copyright 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. hide their mischievous ways, protected by those This work may be copied for non-proft educa‐ great powers that support "Yeltsin" with their own tional use if proper credit is given to the author rather than Russia's interests at heart (p. 77). and the list. For other permission, please contact Pavlovskii is not identifed in a footnote. [email protected]. Many "Western" commentators could beneft from serious further refection along one line of thought suggested in the lectures. Sinyavsky was struck by the profound confusion of democracy and market economics in the Russia of Gaidar, Sachs, and Aslund (pp. 29-31). Sinyavsky's voice, here and elsewhere, harmonizes with the choir of dissent in Yeltsin's Russia, a choir which the U.S. readership does not often hear. The Moscow re‐ former and critic of the intelligentsia, Boris Ka‐

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Citation: Alan Kimball. Review of Sinyavsky, Andrei. The Russian Intelligentsia. H-Russia, H-Net Reviews. March, 1999.

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