Copyright by Margarita Dimitrova Marinova 2005
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Copyright by Margarita Dimitrova Marinova 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Margarita Dimitrova Marinova certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Visitation Rights (and Wrongs). Americans and Russians Discover Each Other in Narratives of Travel Between 1867 and 1905 Committee: _______________________________ Adam Zachary Newton, Supervisor _______________________________ Shelley Fisher Fishkin _______________________________ Leslie O’Bell _______________________________ Sidney Monas _______________________________ Joan Neuberger _______________________________ Cesar Salgado Visitation Rights (and Wrongs). Americans and Russians Discover Each Other in Narratives of Travel Between 1867 and 1905 by Margarita Dimitrova Marinova, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2005 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is an honor and a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to the inspiring scholars on my dissertation committee. Dr. Adam Newton, my adviser, not only read my work carefully and guided my intellectual meanderings with tact and sympathy, but also provided a constant example of academic rigor, linguistic brilliance, and professional integrity. He pushed me to “own my text” and articulate my arguments with force and commitment. If at the end of this journey I can hope to have become a better--responsive and responsible—writer, I owe that to a great extent to his enormous patience and unfailing encouragement. My profound gratitude goes also to Dr. Shelley Fisher Fishkin, whose continuous interest in this project, and generous willingness to share her enormous knowledge of American literature and culture have been nothing short of extraordinary. Despite the considerable distance between Austin and Stanford, she was always there to provide incisive commentary and suggestions that helped my research (the idea for which germinated in courses I took while she was still a professor at the University of Texas at Austin) progress as smoothly and quickly as possible. Dr. Leslie O’Bell always lent a friendly ear, and cheered me on every step of the way. I greatly enjoyed our talks about Russian literature, music and art, and appreciate the sound advice and attention she has given to me, and my work since the beginning of my graduate student career. For his thoughtful counsel and stimulating conversations, I would also like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Sidney Monas. His valuable insights, quick feedback, and scrupulous attention to detail enriched this project and improved my writing considerably. Still more thanks are due to Dr. Joan Neuberger and Dr. Cesar Salgado who agreed to be on my committee, always showed confidence in my work, and responded to the finished version of my dissertation. I owe much gratitude to the University of Texas at Austin, and in particular to the Program in Comparative Literature and the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies for their financial assistance and the opportunities they provided for my professional and iv academic development. A University Continuing Fellowship allowed for a full year of concentrated research and writing. Several professional development awards and a graduate student excellence grant contributed resources for my travels and research. I would also like to thank all my friends and colleagues who expressed interest in this work and kept telling me to finish: Laura Padilla, Vessela Valjavicharska Marcum, Milena Grozeva Levy, Nirvana Tanoukhi, Marina Alexandrova, Anna Yatsenko, Tatiana Segura, Ruby Jones, Natalie Smith, Mikhail Oshukov, and Linda Mayhew. It is impossible to think of my life and all these years in Austin without you guys! Finally, I extend my eternal gratitude to my husband and best friend, Enrico Rossi. Because of him, I never have to stand alone. v Visitation Rights (and Wrongs). Americans and Russians Discover Each Other in Narratives of Travel Between 1867 and 1905 Publication No. _________ Margarita Dimitrova Marinova, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Adam Zachary Newton Drawing on the early Bakhtin’s understanding of the crucial role of interaction in the aesthetic authoring of selves, my dissertation examines the diverse practices of crossing boundaries, tactics of translation, and experiences of double and multiple political and national attachments evident in texts resulting from Russo-American encounters during the second half of the nineteenth century. Among others, my study addresses the following questions: Is it possible to recapture the moments in which the energy of alternative national myths of subjecthood affected and produced the stable stereotypes of “true” Russian-ness or American-ness? How do the textual representations and constant slippage between such concepts as “home” and “abroad” in the fictional and non-fictional accounts of visitors and immigrants to Russia and America complicate the idea of “national literature”? My critical exploration of what Michael de Certeau has termed individual “pedestrian utterings” brings together published writings, archival materials, and personal vi correspondence of well or less known writers of diverse ethnic backgrounds and artistic predilections: from the quintessential American Mark Twain to the Russian-Jewish ethnographer and revolutionary Vladimir Bogoraz; from masters of realist prose such as the Ukrainian-born Vladimir Korolenko and the Russian-Jewish-American Abraham Cahan, to romantic wanderers like Edna Proctor, Isabel Hapgood or Grigorii Machtet. Ultimately, my analyses of chronologically ordered works by these and other Russian and American voyagers to “the other shore” hope to contribute to our comprehension of the processes involved in the invention of the idea of Russia as the archetypal American rival long before Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. By highlighting the coming into being and subsequent reification of problematic stereotypes of ethnic and racial difference, they also help understand more fully the astonishing success of the Cold War period’s rhetoric of mutual hatred and exclusion, and its continuing legacy today. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….x Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter One. …………………………………….……………………………………..30 Russian Tourists Discover America The Narrators………………………………………………………………….…44 Encounters With the Homo Americus…………………………………………....58 American Minorities……………………………………………………………..69 The Indian………………………………..………..……………..69 The Ex-Slaves…………………………………………..………..75 American Women…………………………………………..……83 White American Men…………………………………………………………….92 Chapter Two...…………………………………………………………………………..97 “Innocent” Encounters with Russia, or Americans at Play Mark Twain……………………………………………………………………..100 The American Claimant and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: The Russian Connection……………………………………..….110 J. Ross Browne………………………………………………………...……….117 The Twin Cities………………………………………………………....125 The Two Faces of Autocracy…………………………………………...133 Russian Types…………………………………………………………..137 Edna Proctor…………………………………………………………………….144 Words/Worlds Old and New……………………………………...…….150 Through a Woman’s Eyes, Darkly………………………………...……154 Chapter Three..…………………………………………………………………..……163 Russian “Marvels” and American “Originals.” The View of Russia and America During the Last Two Decades of the Nineteenth Century Russian Types Revisited…………………………………………………….….169 viii “The Nevsky Prospect”: Isabel Hapgood’s Pedestrian Ode to Russia…………182 Russian Rambles in America…………………………………………………...189 Russian “America” at the End of an Era: Thematic Preoccupations…………...193 Strangers on the Train, or “The Black Student”………………………………..200 Chapter Four………………………………………………………………………..…215 The Gifts of Travel. Tales of Passing of the Ethnic Russian in America. (Korolenko’s Bez Iazyka and Abraham Cahan’s “Theodore and Martha”) Korolenko’s and Cahan’s Russian Peasants in America………………………222 Ethnic Encounters of a Third Type in Korolenko’s Bez iazyka………………...239 A Brief Theoretical Detour……………………………………………………..240 Co-Massing the Ethnic Self in Korolenko’s Immigrant Passage……………….246 Chapter Five……………………………………………………………………..…….271 Under Western Eyes: A Revolutionary View of Russia (and America) in Abraham Cahan’s “Russian” Novel The White Terror and the Red The “Russian” Abraham Cahan at “Home” and “Abroad”…………………….278 Cahan’s “Terrorist” Novel……………………………………………………...292 The Noble Revolutionary Hero………………………………………....295 The Romantic Heroine……………………………………………….…303 A Different Type of Conversion, or the Other Revolutionary Hero……309 The Real (Collective) Hero of the Novel…………………………….....314 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...…………...326 Figures…………………………………………....................………………………….333 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………335 Vita…………………………………………………………………...………………...356 ix List of Figures: Figure 1. “Pigs, Pups and Pans.” The Land of Thor, 1870 333 Figure 2. A Hoosier In Russia, 1888 334 x INTRODUCTION Look around you. Do we not all have one foot in the air? It looks as if we were all traveling. There is no definite sphere of existence for anyone, no good habits, no rule for anything at all; not even a home; nothing which attracts or awakens our endearment or affection, nothing lasting, nothing enduring; everything departs, everything flows away, leaving no traces either without or within ourselves.