Kirill Kozlovski Kirill Shostakovich’s ISBN: ISBN 978-952-329-068-6 (PAINETTU) ISBN: 978-952-329-069-3 (SÄHKÖINEN) EST (ISSN 1237-4229) Criticism and Russian Literary Preface Shostakovich’s Preface and Russian UNIGRAFIA HELSINKI 2017 Literary Criticism, or how different forms of chuzhoe slovo such as skaz and polygenetic quotation, as well as some other concepts that were developed by very many distinguished Russian literary scholars – not only by members of Russian formal school and the Bakhtin circle, but also their respected and honourable successors – help to create several peculiar effects, namely contradiction, ambiguity, overloading text with referential connections and – last but not least – verbosity in the Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection apropos this Preface op. 123 for bass voice and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich KIRILL KOZLOVSKI EST 34 DocMus-TOHTORIKOULU TAITEILIJAKOULUTUS DocMus-TOHTORIKOULU EST 34 TAIDEYLIOPISTON SIBELIUS-AKATEMIA 2017 Shostakovich’s Preface and Russian Literary Criticism, Or how different forms of chuzhoe slovo such as skaz and polygenetic quotation, as well as some other concepts that were developed by very many distinguished Russian literary scholars – not only by members of Russian formal school and the Bakhtin circle, but also their respected and honourable successors – help to create several peculiar effects, namely contradiction, ambiguity, overloading text with referential connections and – last but not least – verbosity in the Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflec- tion apropos this Preface op. 123 for bass voice and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich KIRILL KOZLOVSKI Shostakovich’s Preface and Russian Literary Criticism, Or how different forms of chuzhoe slovo such as skaz and polygenetic quota- tion, as well as some other concepts that were developed by very many distinguished Russian literary scholars – not only by members of Russian formal school and the Bakhtin circle, but also their respected and honour- able successors – help to create several peculiar effects, namely contradic- tion, ambiguity, overloading text with referential connections and – last but not least – verbosity in the Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection apropos this Preface op. 123 for bass voice and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich EST 34 Sibelius Academy University of Arts Helsinki Supervisor of the written thesis: Professor, PhD Anne Kauppala, Sibelius Academy Examiners of the written thesis: Professor, PhD Boris Gasparov, Columbia University Professor, PhD Pekka Pesonen, University of Helsinki Custos: Professor, PhD Anne Kauppala, Sibelius Academy University of Arts Sibelius Academy DocMus Doctoral School Arts Study Programme Written thesis EST publishing series 34 © Kirill Kozlovski, 2017 Cover design: Jan Rosström Layout: Paul Forsell Printed by Unigrafia, Helsinki 2017 ISSN: 1237-4229 ISBN 978-952-329-068-6 (printed) ISBN 978-952-329-069-3 (pdf) 5 ABSTRACT Kirill Kozlovski: Shostakovich’s Preface and Russian Literary Criticism, or how different forms of chuzhoe slovo such as skaz and polygenetic quotation, as well as some other concepts that were developed by very many distinguished Russian literary scholars – not only by members of Russian formal school and the Bakhtin cir- cle, but also their respected and honourable successors – help to create several peculiar effects, namely contradiction, ambiguity, overloading text with refer- ential connections and – last but not least – verbosity in the Preface to Com- plete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection apropos this Preface op. 123 for bass voice and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. Written thesis of the artistic doctoral project University of Arts Helsinki, Sibelius-Academy, DocMus Doctoral School. EST 34. The thesis is an analysis of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Predislovie k polnomu so- braniju moih sochinenij I kratkoe razmyshlenie po povodu etogo predislovija op. 123 using a methodological framework taken from writings of Russian literary critics of the early 20th century and their followers. In the first chapter several key notions are introduced and contextualised – namely, polygenetic quotation, skaz and ambiguity. The claim is stated, that Preface could be analysed in the similar way to Boris Eikhenbaum’s analysis of Gogol’s Shinel. The second chapter is dedicated to analysing and contextualising four mu- sical polygenetic quotations (Mints) in Preface. Quotation sources are mostly works by Mussorgsky (Boris Godunov, Seminarist) and Shostakovich himself (Kazn’ Stepana Razina, Satiry, 13th Symphony). In the third chapter parallels are drawn between the skaz technique of Mikhail Zoshchenko and certain aspects of Preface – both verbal and musi- cal. Verbosity, tautology, usage of bureaucratic lexis as well as similarities of syntactic structures are compared in Zoshchenko’s stories and Shostakovich’s Preface. Verbosity is seen as a metaphoric “death of words”, therefore different aspects of death – both artistic or physical – are reflected upon. The fourth chapter concentrates on analysing and characterising the nar- rator of Preface as well as his relationship to the text and its physical author. Notions of plagiarism, graphomania and death of the author are traced in con- nection with narrator’s figure in Preface making use of Shostakovich’s biogra- phy and verbal texts. A special emphasis is made on the metatextual qualities 6 of Preface. The work is seen as a transition piece in Shostakovich’s vocal output – marking a turning point from subjects concerning social to timeless issues of death and artistic creativity. The last chapter presents a personal overview of the problem of artistic research – against the biographical background of the author, aiming at dis- charging the whole dichotomy of artistic research versus artistic practice. Keywords: Shostakovich, intertextuality, Pushkin, skaz, quotation, polygen- esis 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Finally, after seven years of labour, this is the conclusion of my doctoral project. And since one of the central topics of my thesis is verbosity, I would like to at- tempt brevity and concision at least once – even if it is only for the acknowledg- ment part. Firstly, I thank the DocMus department of the Sibelius Academy, in particular Dr. Tuire Kuusi and Dr. Päivi Järviö for all the support I have received during the last seven years, including a two-year period as a Research Associate. I am ever grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Anne Kauppala for her support and patience while guiding me through all the stages of my research. She succeed- ed in being simultaneously strict and inspiring; the the best influence I could possibly have hoped for. I would like to thank the Dmitri Shostakovich Archive in Moscow for their help with obtaining materials for my research. For welcoming me to participate in their seminars and for their constructive criticism pertaining to this project, I remain indebted to Prof. Lauri Suurpää, Prof. Tomi Huttunen, Dr. Gennady Obatnin and Prof. Kirill Postoutenko. Thank you also to Lynne Sunderman for the languistic revision of my thesis, to Paul Forsell for preparing the manuscript for publication and to Jan Rosström for the cover design. To my parents Elena and Alexander who brought me into this world, supported me at every stage of my life and gave constant encouragement to my academic aspirations; I offer you my deepest gratitude. Last but not least I would like to thank my wife Laura for her patience, devo- tion, understanding and love. She truly is, quoting Friedrich Rückert, “mein guter Geist, mein beßres Ich”. 8 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 0. Morphology of a certain artistic research tale ..................11 0.1. Once upon a time ................................................................................11 0.2. A new turn ...........................................................................................14 0.3. Formalism ...........................................................................................16 0.4. A strange preface at a strange time ...................................................16 Chapter 1. How the preface to the complete edition of my works was made ..................................................................................................19 1.1. Objectives ............................................................................................19 1.2. Anecdote and skaz-technique .............................................................20 1.3. Chuzhoe slovo......................................................................................22 1.4. Quotations ...........................................................................................24 1.5. Polygenesis ..........................................................................................27 1.6. Skaz as device .....................................................................................30 1.7. Ambiguity in Shostakovich’s music ...................................................32 Chapter 2. Polygenetic quotation as device ............................................35 2.1. Cornerstones of polygenesis ...............................................................35 2.2. The beginning .....................................................................................36 2.3. Tolstoy(s) and tsar(s) ..........................................................................40 2.4. Anacreontic staccati ............................................................................43