Apocalyptic Fiction in the Soviet 1920S a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Resilient Revelations: Apocalyptic Fiction in the Soviet 1920s A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Slavic Languages and Literatures By Clairon C. Palmer EVANSTON, ILLINOIS June 2007 2 ABSTRACT Resilient Revelations: Apocalyptic Fiction in the Soviet 1920s Clairon C. Palmer This dissertation investigates the nature of apocalyptic fiction in the first Soviet decade. In my Introduction, I consider the secondary or underground status that apocalyptic thought assumed during this period vis a vis the prevailing cultural ethos of utopianism. I assert that Russian literary apocalyptic persisted as a genre by assuming highly dialogized, self-critical forms that may be called “meta-apocalyptic.” A meta-apocalyptic fiction works in two directions to (1) unmask the utopian pretensions of the new society and (2) comment on and reconfigure its own, pre-Revolutionary shape. The meta-apocalypticist would restore to eschatological myth its independence from both history and social life by proposing that the most legitimate territory for cataclysmic ends and rebirth is the individual, creative consciousness. The first work from this period that I discuss as an embodiment of the meta-apocalyptic idea is Pil’nyak’s Mahogany. This novella’s subtle apocalyptic figuring contrasts sharply with the exclamatory end-thinking that characterizes the author’s more famous “Scythian” works. The mature Pil’nyak dialogizes apocalyptic myth with byt, rediscovering what he depicts as that myth’s lost ontological function by relocating it in the everyday and redistributing the End across small and innumerable birth-death narratives. The next chapter explores the clash of salvational mythologies that Olesha stages in Envy. Modernist literary incarnations of the apocalypticist-schismatic tradition, Envy’s anti-heroes assail utopian socialism by means of vulgarity and imperfection. Creation and creativity, this novella vigorously proposes, are born of strife. Ultimately, Olesha presents the most viable 3 transcription of the apocalyptic promise of renewal and redemption as an aesthetic phenomenon that is personal and subjective and that invariably registers as failure in the objective world. The topic of “aestheticized apocalypse” is developed further in my final chapter where I examine The Egyptian Stamp by Mandel’stam. Here I look closely at the apocalyptic threshold or limen which the poet translates into bold structural and thematic experiments. Further complicating this work is the idea that the apocalyptic possibility—the possibility in Mandel’stam of the revelatory Word—suffers and languishes in contemporary socio-cultural conditions. In places, the novella’s delirious affirmation of “threshold poetics” more closely resembles a brave examination of poetic collapse. 4 Table of Contents I. Introduction 5 II. Everyday Ends: Meta-apocalypse in Pil’nyak’s Mahogany 28 III. Mythological Duels in Olesha's Envy: Apocalypticism as Challenger and Challenged 77 IV. Mandel’stam’s The Egyptian Stamp: The Warm Breath of Apocalypse and Threshold Creation 123 V. Conclusion 168 Works Cited 173 5 Chapter One Introduction Many, many years ago, our teeth intact, our hair unfallen, our postures still upright, how we used to talk about the end of an age. (Vaginov, Goatsong) Conflagrations and books: that is good. We shall still see, we shall read. (Mandel’stam, The Egyptian Stamp) 1.1 The Fate of Apocalypse After Revolution The apocalyptic idea on Russian cultural soil reached its legendary proportions in the pre- Revolutionary theurgical projects of the Symbolists and held its prominence through the Civil War era before its presence in literature diminished sharply in the early twenties. Most accounts of the earliest Soviet era will explain that the eschatological expression of revolutionary zeal during these years assumed a distinctly utopian form, and apocalypticism as an urgent, informing cultural myth faded from view.1 In the following chapters, I endeavor to draw some conclusions about the underground fate of apocalyptic myth during the post-Revolutionary decade by identifying and exploring examples of apocalyptic fiction from these years. It is my assertion that, far from disappearing, apocalyptic fiction thrived on its secondary status, which actually enabled it to develop and to assume more--and potentially more original--forms than were available when it was a leading genre. Specifically, I examine how Russian literary apocalyptic endured by assuming highly dialogized, self-critical forms that comment not only on the 1 See James H. Billington's account of the apocalyptic fever that raged in Russia during the first two decades of the twentieth century (The Icon and the Axe, 504-518). See Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Visions and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution, for an in-depth treatment of revolutionary utopianism in Russia and the Soviet Union, its historical sources, its many cultural expressions and its demise. See also Anthony Vanchu, "Jurij Olesha's Artistic Prose and Utopian Mythologies of the 1920s," 1-24, for a discussion of early Soviet-era utopian movements and their roots in Fyodorovian thought. 6 decade’s dominant utopianism but, most significantly, on apocalyptic fiction’s own, pre- Revolutionary shape. Opening or Closing Scene? Utopian vs. Apocalyptic Eschatological terminology typically presents a difficulty because it is often subjected to vague or overlapping usage. In the most liberal instances of doomsday speak, the terms, apocalyptic and utopian, are used almost interchangeably to convey a general millenarian concern. However, despite the confusion, some fundamental distinctions between utopia and apocalypse are upheld in most critical usage and are essential to my project. The End that the apocalypticist envisions is divinely wrought and entails the end of history and a restoration or renewal that will occur beyond or outside of historical time. In contrast, the utopian dream typically describes a secular path to a world remade where the New Earth is accomplished or arrived at through human action and within history. On many points, in other words, the relationship between the two phenomena is deeply dichotomous, to include the crucial oppositions of divine intervention versus human volition, and an atemporal versus an historical end. Additionally, while apocalypse anticipates the End that will conclude a flawed present and concentrates on the Terrors that must accompany universal destruction, utopia typically takes shape after history’s cataclysmic juncture and concerns itself with the path to, the nature of, and/or the construction of the New. These distinctions are key to understanding each eschatological strain as discrete from the other, with divergent philosophical and ideological potentials in the days following the Revolution. Again, while the apocalyptic strain has historically comprised one of the most pervasive mythical subtexts in Russian literature, its presence in the post-Revolutionary period diminished 7 abruptly. Meanwhile, the utopian strain experienced a cultural heyday during these years. The primary reasons for this shift from the plot of supernatural destruction to the plot of human achievement and a coming secular paradise are not particularly opaque. The latter was clearly more amenable to the constructive ideals of optimism and human volition that would build a new state and a new post-Revolutionary world. With the Revolution came the seeming completion of the myth of the End and an apparent close to prophecies of the old world's passing. A complete and closed system by definition, utopianism appealed to a nation still rocking from massive semiotic reversals. After the smoke cleared, what remained was the promise of total renewal— of history, society and even human nature—that sufficient exertion and imagination would accomplish. In Anthony Vanchu’s description of this period, one can see the metamorphosis of salvational mythologies: "Death of the old order through revolution (Apocalypse) allowed birth of a new order (Resurrection). Russia experienced a period of cultural and social ‘imitato Christi’--the revolution and its aftermath were viewed as a cultural and social resurrection that allowed a new and fresh beginning" (Vanchu 89, his parentheses). Utopianism arose in the wake of the chaos and violence of revolution and civil war as a popular, spontaneous response that permeated Russian culture and society. Now that the New Time had begun, the dark tenor of pre-war apocalyptic themes did not reflect the prevailing ethos of edenic optimism that much of society was genuinely experiencing. Nor were apocalyptic themes in step with the political needs of a fledgling state trying to make the transition from a revolutionary to a ruling power. The gospel of destruction, historically the beloved myth of the radical intelligentsia, perpetuated revolutionary fantasies and ran counter to the State’s centralist agenda. Historian Richard Stites captures the paradox of the 8 new regime's need to distance itself from the apocalyptic myth that was part and parcel of its revolutionary identity: The Bolsheviks [were] … delighted at the breakup of familiar forms and symbols but frightened at the prospect of unending destruction, preaching freedom and demanding order, shattering power edifices of the old order and designing newer and bigger ones to house the perfect society, applauding

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