UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title On the Threshold of Eurasia: Intersecting Discourses of Empire and Identity in the Russian Empire Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3053917v Author Feldman, Leah Michele Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles On the Threshold of Eurasia: Intersecting Discourses of Empire and Identity in the Russian Empire A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In Comparative Literature by Leah Michele Feldman 2013 © Copyright by Leah Michele Feldman 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION On the Threshold of Eurasia: Intersecting Discourses of Empire and Identity in the Russian Empire by Leah Michele Feldman Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Aamir Mufti, Co-Chair Professor Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Co-Chair This dissertation considers the foundation of discourses of Orientalism and Postcolonialism in representations of the Caucasus in the literature of Russians and Muslims of the empire from 1828 through 1920. From the mid-nineteenth century through World War I, the Russian empire continued an era of expansion, colonizing the diverse ethnic and cultural territories of the Muslim Caucasus and Central Asia. The oil boom, the creation of an international Turkic language press, the spread of Russian language education and the construction of the Transcaspian Baku-Batumi Railroad during this period all contributed to the development of a cosmopolitan literary and artistic scene in the administrative and industrial capitals of Tbilisi and Baku. While discussions about the destiny of the Russian Empire – its relationship to the European Enlightenment, Byzantium and its own imperial acquisitions percolated in Moscow and Petersburg, debates about the role of Islam and language politics as well as Pan-Turkic, Pan-Islamic and proletarian discourses of identity dominated discussions ii among writers and thinkers in the Caucasus. Russian writers imagined a civic identity amidst an expanding empire, and in so doing, they represented the Caucasus as a space of freedom, heroism and spiritual enlightenment. I trace the ways in which Muslim writers and thinkers of the Caucasus translated and transformed this imaginary, debating the role of Islam and language politics in the construction of supranational discourses of cultural, ethnic and political identity. Building on Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of narrative discourse, I present a portrait of the intellectual milieu between a series of intertextual encounters across Europe, Russia and the Turkic Muslim world. My dissertation is organized into four chapters, each of which addresses intertextual encounters in these diverse literary traditions. My first chapter, “Heterodoxy and Heteroglossia: Axundov on the Threshold of Russian Literature” discusses Mirz! F!t!li Axundov's (Mirza Fatali Akhundov) contribution to the foundation of a modern Azeri literary tradition through his invocation of Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin’s orientalist literary legacy. Drawing upon Pushkin's representation of the Caucasian imaginary as a prophetic legacy of freedom, Axundov generates supranational texts that incorporate diverse Islamic, Russian and European theological, philosophical, cultural and political discourses. My second chapter, “Prisoners of the Caucasian Imaginary: Lermontov and Kazy-Girei’s Heroes in Exile” examines the idea of heroism in Russian Romantic representations of the Caucasus through the Caucasian tales of Mikhail Iur'evich Lermontov and a Russophone story by the Adyghe writer Sultan Kazy-Girei. I illustrate the ways Kazy-Girei contests and expands the ideas of heroism embedded in Russian representations of the Caucasus through his foundational contribution to Muslim Russophone literature. My third chapter, “Textual Deviance in Russian Empire: Gogol' and M!mm!dquluzad!'s Parodic Innovations,” discusses the comedic space of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Comparing the works of Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol' and the Azeri writer C!lil M!mm!dquluzad! (Jalil Mammedquluzadeh) I discuss the role of textual deviance in Russian iii literature. Though Gogol's work entered a supranational Soviet literary space through his appropriation by Formalist literary critics, this chapter highlights the importance of his work in the literature of the Muslims of the Russian empire more broadly, as well the early twentieth century in the Caucasus. My final chapter, “Translating Early Twentieth Century Baku: The Romantic Poetic Futures of the Russian and Azeri Avant-gardes,” examines the role of Romantic poetics in the emergence of revolutionary and early Soviet politics. I compare the works of Russian writers in Baku, including Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Eliseevich Kruchenykh, Viacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Maiakovskii to the works of the Azeri writers Abbas S!hh!t (Abbas Sahhat), M!h!mm!d Hadi (Mehammed Hadi), and Mikayıl R!fili (Mikayil Rafili). In so doing, this chapter illustrates the role of the Baku avant-garde in shaping Soviet hegemony, as well as diverse forms of anti-imperial agency. This moment in the formation of the Soviet Union, envisioned from the vantage point of the Caucasus, frames my discussion of the architecture of a supranational literary tradition informed by Russian Orientalism, anti-imperial Soviet hegemony, and postcolonial politics. iv The dissertation of Leah Michele Feldman is approved. Ali Behdad Anindita Banerjee David MacFadyen Aamir Mufti, Co-Chair Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Note on Translation and Transliteration________________________________________ vii Acknowledgements_________________________________________________________ viii Curriculum Vitae___________________________________________________________ xii 0. Introduction_____________________________________________________________ 1 1. Chapter One: Heterodoxy and Heteroglossia: Axundov on the Threshold of Russian Literature_____________________________ 21 2. Chapter Two: Prisoners of the Caucasian Imaginary: Lermontov and Kazy-Girei’s Heroes in Exile________________________________ 59 3. Chapter Three: Textual Deviance in Russian Empire: Gogol' and M!mm!dquluzad!'s Parodic Innovations__________________________ 93 4. Chapter Four: Translating Early Twentieth Century Baku: The Romantic Poetic Futures of the Russian and Azeri Avant-Gardes_____________ 126 5. Conclusion______________________________________________________________ 165 Bibliography______________________________________________________________ 170 vi NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSLITERATION Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Russian and Azeri are my own. When available, I have used existing translations into English, but made modifications that are indicated in the appropriate footnotes. All Russian names, titles and short quotations have been transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modified system based on the Library of Congress. The diacritic (') indicats a soft sign (ь). All names have been transcribed according to the Library of Congress transliteration of the Russian spelling, not popular Anglophone forms, except in citations. For example, Gogol is written Gogol' and Mayakovsky is written Maiakovskii. All Russian quotations that exceed one line have been preserved in the original cyrillic script. The Azeri texts discussed in this dissertation were originally written in the Arabo-Persian script, the Cyrillic script, and the old Latin script established in 1923. All Azeri names, titles and quotations have been transliterated according to the Latin alphabet adopted by the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991. This revised Latin alphabet, like the Latin Turkish alphabet includes: C [zh], Ç [ch], Ş [sh], Ğ [gh], İ, Ö, and Ü, but also includes the following additional letters: % [æ], X [kh], and Q [k]. Names of the major Azeri authors discussed in this work and their popular forms are included here: Mirz! F!t!li Axundov/Axundzad! (Mirza Fatali Akhundov/Akhundzadeh), C!lil M!mm!dquluzad! (Jalil Mammedquluzadeh), Abbas S!hh!t (Abbas Sahhat), M!h!mm!d Hadi (Mehammed Hadi), and Mikayıl R!fili (Mikayil Rafili). Citations by Azeri authors writing in Russian have been transliterated from Russian. Citations of Persian and Arabic names and terms have been transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modified system based on the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES). All place names have been transliterated according to popular forms. vii ACKNOWEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the contributions of several individuals and institutions. The language training, research and writing of this project were funded by the generous contributions of the Fulbright Program, the UC Humanities Research Institute, The American Councils for Teachers of Russian, as well as UCLA's Center for European and Eurasian Studies (CEES), Graduate Division, and the Department of Comparative Literature. A modified form of Chapter Two was published as “Orientalism on the Threshold: Reorienting Heroism in Late Imperial Russia,” Boundary 2 39.2 (2012): 161-80. I thank Boundary 2 for permission to reprint and the gracious feedback offered by the editors and reviewers. I have also benefited from presenting versions