The Eucharist of Boris Pasternak Alexander Schmemann Translated by Inga Leonova

Home , Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (novel), Peredelkino

FROM THE ARCHIVES The Eucharist of Boris Pasternak Alexander Schmemann Translated by Inga Leonova

Note: Originally pub- Pasternak died—and in spite of all passed, people began to argue about lished in Free Thought the clamor of modernity, in spite of Doctor Zhivago. Alongside a chorus No. 3, Munich, September 1961. all the news about global events, the of enthusiasm, there also began to be world became quiet and empty for a heard voices of protest debunking the moment. This din drowned his voice, novel and its author. All this is natu- 1 “The Miracle,” a he took no part in these events. But, as ral, and we can assume that there will poem in Boris Paster- he said in one of his poems, “a mira- be a long debate. Too many issues are nak, Doctor Zhivago, cle is a miracle.”1 And the miracle was intertwined in Zhivago, it touches too trans. Max Hayward and Manya Harari (New that his lone voice was heard even in vividly upon times and affairs that are York: Pantheon Books, his silence, that we felt his presence— still not forgotten, and are still being 1997), 551. in life, in the world, in history being responded to with acute pain. The pro- made before our eyes—as a source of cess of slowly digesting, absorbing, joy and hope . . . . understanding Zhivago has started and will continue for a while . . . . It was good to know that in Peredelkino, a few kilometers from hectic Moscow, Perhaps we will see in Doctor Zhivago there lived a man who not only had not what we do not see now; it is also possi- forgotten the most important thing, but ble that what now seems to us the most who had also become for thousands important and central to it will take and thousands of people a witness to a more modest place as we absorb it. that most important thing . . . . Such is the fate of all great works of art. As Anna Karenina was being printed It is not our purpose here to talk about in one of the large Russian magazines, the place and value of Pasternak in Rus- an influential critic denounced it as an sian literature. But it is a duty of us all to uninteresting “salon drama.” There are try to understand and to remember his still people who believe that, although testimony. And that brings us, of course, [Fyodor] Dostoevsky was a deep to the amazing book that has exploded thinker, he wrote badly. as a bomb over the world and now, after the death of its author, contains his final Literary critics will disassemble the testimony addressed to us. novel into pieces, discover all the possible influences, make all the necessary convergences. Pasternak and Tolstoy, Pasternak and Dostoyevsky, Pasternak When Pasternak’s novel had ceased and Blok—all of these titles can already to be a burning sensation, when ev- be anticipated in the extensive litera- erybody had read it, and the time of ture which, in due course, will acquire the first hasty and acute reactions had the honorable status of “Pasternak

48 bibliography,” and inevitably become the apparatus of “Pasternak studies.” Ideologues, for their part, will prove to us that Pasternak “expressed” the very things they claim. We will cer- tainly read about Pasternak’s place in the “liberation struggle,” of his posi- tion on the idea of the person, democ- racy, and so on. American PhD candi- dates, following Edmund Wilson, will hurriedly begin to collect information about the symbolism of the Orthodox service as the key to Zhivago, while others will apply to it the infallible cat- egories of Freudian psychology or so- ciology . . . and thus well-ordered, de- ciphered, dismembered, and explained in minute detail, Zhivago will take its rightful place in the history of culture, and we will be able to move on.

Without denying the value of any of can die as art or as just a book and be 2 “To the city [of these approaches, but being neither a resurrected as the invisible yet driving Rome] and the literary critic nor an ideologue, I would force of life. world,” a Latin like to approach Zhivago somewhat dif- expression used in the Roman Catholic ferently. I confess that after a second Church. reading of the novel I no longer saw clearly that which seemed clear after So much has already been said about the first, and I could no longer simply the religious nature of Doctor Zhivago and, as they now say, “neatly” answer that to add to it would be akin to forc- the question of what Pasternak wanted ing an already open door. It is of course to say with his novel. And yet read- a religious book, but not in the sense ing the novel—and entering into its that it deals with religion, but rather life and thought—are making it more that everything in it is related to some and more obvious what he said to me. kind of ultimate spiritual depth, to I think that, along with the objective some fundamental, in Pushkin’s sense content of any literary work that is the of the word, essential issue. People and subject of scholarly and ideological events and nature—all is living and study, there exists a certain undeniable moving as if against a background of mystery of personal perception. An au- something else, and it is this some- thor of any true work of art speaks not thing else, not explained but shown, 2 only urbi et orbi, to everyone, but also that gives meaning and significance to addresses everyone individually and everything that takes place, and, by be- personally, and art, just like the reve- ing mysteriously present, points to the lation of faith, comes to life in a new importance of it all. and unique way every time when such a personal meeting takes place. And It is fair to talk about the symbolism only thus, through personal percep- of Doctor Zhivago, but this symbolism tion, can a work of art become trans- is very far from a commonplace, con- formed into something more than art, ventional understanding of symbolism

The Wheel 6 | Summer 2016 49 as actions and situations which are stitutes the movement of faith, which meant to represent something “other” determines all the other “moves” and and only thereby acquiring a symbolic the entire approach to reality. For if I meaning. The symbolism of Zhivago is saw and knew God in a man, Jesus, defined in the novel itself. “Life is sym- then in every person I see and learn bolic,” says Pasternak, “because it is more than meets the eye. meaningful.”3 The concept of symbolism here is contrary to its usual under- Hence the possibility of this strange standing. This or that event—or even identification in the parable of the Last life itself—is not meaningful because Judgment: “I was in prison and you it is symbolic, but rather it is symbolic came to me” (Matt. 25:36). Faith that is because it is meaningful. If one looks at directed to God reveals to us the true 3 Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 42. the life of the world, man, nature, his- nature of the world, life, man. Here lies tory, and every event in a special way, the foundation of Christian symbolism, and if one treats them accordingly, then incomprehensible to all those who op- man and his life, the world in which he pose symbolism to realism as some- lives, acquire a new meaning, are dis- thing that is merely “symbolic,” unreal. closed in new dimensions. This is what Faith makes possible the contemplation symbolism means. that we have just discussed, that new and perfect realism that also becomes One can see and one can contemplate. a perfect symbolism. “Life is symbolic Contemplation is impossible without because it is meaningful.” seeing, but one can see and not truly behold. So it seems to me that the This approach—religious in the deep- symbolism of Doctor Zhivago is a sym- est sense of the word—constitutes, in bolism revealed in contemplation. It my personal experience and percep- is not symbolism opposed to realism, tion of Doctor Zhivago, the most impor- but rather realism pushed to its limit, tant content of the novel. Modern liter- because to know the reality fully is to ature has lost this approach. It has lost know its meaning, its ultimate essence. it completely, one might say sincerely, In literature, “realism” is usually de- not because of ill will and not for triv- fined as a description of the world and ial reasons; but still it has lost it, and, of life “for what they are.” But who will for all of modern literature’s unques- tell us what it is and what it is like? Pas- tionable successes, this loss defines ternak’s response and his method is to its crisis. It offers us a lot of fun, a lot see as much and as fully as possible, of aesthetic pleasure, for people have to expand seeing to contemplating, to learned to write, to make literature in unravel the symbolism of life through ways they may not have known how comprehension of its meaning. to before, but it has ceased to nourish us, that is, to be transformed into us, But this is in fact a religious—and more- into our spiritual experience, to renew over deliberately Christian—approach and expand it from within. to life and to man. The Gospel says, “you shall indeed see but never per- Reading the amazing descriptions of ceive” (Matt. 13:14). In the man Jesus nature in [Ivan] Bunin, one admires from Nazareth of Galilee, one may or their perfection. But this is the perfec- may not see the Son of God. In order to tion of seeing, not contemplating. He see, one needs depth of sight, one needs sees and lets us see, but he does not contemplation in the deepest sense of contemplate and does not lead us into the word. And this contemplation con- contemplation, into spiritual compre-

50 hension of reality. This seeing can turn into a primordial, almost animal joy of life, and it can identify and reflect the So what is this special approach to sadness and absurdity of life; it can, the world and man, which I define as finally, lead us to some kind of mys- contemplation and in which I perceive tery and point it out to us, but without the main theme of Pasternak? I hasten turning into contemplation it remains, to say that I do not consider the ideol- at the end, just literature. ogy—elements of which are scattered throughout the novel in the statements And here a miracle of Doctor Zhivago— of Yuri’s uncle Nikolai Nikolayevich and I deliberately use this word—is Vedenyapin, of Sima, and of Yuri him- that it returns this approach to us. It self—to constitute the primary content 4 Alexander Blok, “I has enlightened art once again, and this of this work. Also the idea of a free yearn to live a life of art has not only begun to reflect the person, the idea of life as a sacrifice, meaning” (1914), in light or the darkness of life, but has be- the “philosophy of history” expressed The Stranger: Selected come in the world and in life a source by Pasternak’s characters, and finally, Poetry of Alexander Blok, tr. Andrey of light and warmth itself. “man thankfully celebrated in all the Kneller (Boston: cradle songs of mothers and in all the Andrey Kneller, How long since we have had a chance picture galleries the world over” — 2011). Actual text: to read a book that we could feel and none of this is especially original and is “A child of goodness and of light, / He’s experience as if it were radiating light part of the common heritage, a common all—a testament to 5 and warmth, in spite of all the horrors spirit of Russian religious thought. freedom!” that filled it! This book came to us from a man who, it would seem more than And if the novel had been written in anyone else, had the right to express order once again to proclaim this “Rus- disappointment and frustration, cyni- sian idea” (or rather, the Russian re- cism and accusatory anger. And in or- fraction of common Christian ideas), it der to write it, to explore that light and would have been a roman à thèse [thesis warmth, he did not depart, as others novel], in which only this thèse would did, into a kind of sweet otherworld- deserve attention. But I think the real liness, into the contemplation of the value of the novel lies not in this ide- past, into the escapism of the intimate, ology, which, incidentally, is expressed personal, lyrical. No—he, a refined quite inconsistently and not without lyricist and singer of “details,” took as contradictions. Its value, literary rather the subject of his book his own terrible than ideological, is in what Paster- time, the terrible Russia of that time, nak—as a writer, not as a thinker—has and the terrible people of that Russia said, expressed, made us feel and ex- and that time. perience.

Doctor Zhivago is the fruit of a spiritual This brings me to what I felt to be feat, the fruit of freedom and respon- the most important thing in Doctor sibility. And looking at the amazing Zhivago. But to explain this most im- face of this amazing man imprinted on portant thing I need to start not with the photos, looking at the whole of his Pasternak, but with Christianity. Two appearance against the background of sensations, or, more precisely, two white birches and snow of his subur- experiences define a fundamental ban seclusion, one cannot help recall- “sense of self” in Christianity, with- ing the words of the poet: “A child of out which its teaching, its life, its call love and of light, / He’s all—a testa- “do not sound.” They are the experi- ment to freedom!”4 ence of thanksgiving and the experience

The Wheel 6 | Summer 2016 51 of death as the enemy. That mystery in the voice of Christianity is heard so which Christianity expresses its en- weakly in the world, it may be first of tire essence and its entire life, which is all because Christians have forgotten, “celebrated” by the Church, is called have lost along the way, this sense of thanksgiving, the Eucharist. Christianity itself, of living our entire life as a sacrifice of praise . . . . Theology teaches that thanksgiving and praise are the highest forms of But it is precisely this sense that de- prayer. All theological doctrines of the fines Pasternak’s novel from the first restoration of man, of his salvation page to the last. If he calls his hero and return to God, can ultimately be “Zhivago”—the living—then life is reduced to the fact that in Christ man preserved, filled, maintained in him 5 Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 43. reclaims pure thanksgiving as the real precisely by this deep sense of thanks- essence of his life. This is not just one giving, of life as a gift.6 6 In Russian, the root of the rituals, one of the prayers. This of Zhivago is zhiv, is the condition in which and for which This is not some kind of animal life “the living”—tr. man was created, a true insight into the force as such, because Zhivago is de- being of and communion with the Di- prived of it, as is evidenced by his vine life. For thanksgiving is simulta- biography. It is not “vitalism,” trium- neously an act of love and of freedom, phant despite all obstacles: Zhivago’s and thus in it is overcome the basic end, his death testify to this quite elo- limitation, the “enslavement” of crea- quently. No, the strength of this very tures, dependency and fear . . . . Christ, human life that, in spite of sins, falls, the perfect man, restores in himself this and confusion, there is always—as a original eucharistic relation of man to cleansing and transforming source—a God and brings us into the eternal Eu- return and true triumph of thanksgiv- charist. To reach it, to partake of it—es- ing, a sense of life as purity and whole- sentially, completely, ontologically— ness. constitutes the intent and the purpose of Christian life. I do not include quotations, because this attitude of thanksgiving is not one All this we know in our mind and con- of the themes of the novel. It is the gen- fess by our mouth. But how weak this eral tone of the book, the light pene- act of thanksgiving is in us and in our trating it from within. From where did © 2016 The Wheel. May be distributed for church life! We can say that it has long it come to Pasternak? We do not know. noncommercial use. ceased to be dominant in our faith, in But the quality of this thanksgiving, its www.wheeljournal.com our Christian life experience. And if tonality, is Christian . . . .

The Rt. Rev. Alexander Schmemann was an Orthodox theologian who played a central role in founding the Orthodox Church in America. He was a graduate of St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. He was Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 to 1983, and also taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Union Theo- logical Seminary.