THE GENERIC ORIGINALITY OF IURII TYNIANOV’S REPRESENTATION OF PUSHKIN IN THE NOVELS PUSHKIN AND THE GANNIBALS Anna Rush A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2011 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1712 This item is protected by original copyright The Generic Originality of Iurii Tynianov’s Representation of Pushkin in the Novels Pushkin and The Gannibals This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Russian Department, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews by Anna Rush 20 January, 2011 Abstract. This thesis is the first extensive study devoted to the generic originality of Iurii Tynianov’s representation of Pushkin in his two historical novels, Pushkin (1935-1943) and the abandoned The Gannibals (1932). Chapter 1 contextualises Tynianov’s contribution to the current debates on the novel’s demise, ‘large’ form and the worthy protagonist. The conditions giving rise to contemporary interest in the genres of biography and the historical novel are deliniated and the critical issues surrounding these are examined; Tynianov’s concern to secularise the rigid monolith of an all but sanctified ‘state-sponsored Pushkin’ and the difficulties of the task are also reviewed. Chapter 2 shifts the examination of Pushkin as a historical novel to its study within the generic framework of the Bildungs, Erziehungs and Künstlerromane with their particular problematics which allowed Tynianov to grapple with a cluster of moral, philosophical and educational issues, and to explore the formative influences on the protagonist’s identity as a poet. Chapter 3 explores the concept of history underlying Tynianov’s interpretation of the characters and events and the historiographical practices he employed in his analyses of the factors that shaped Pushkin’s own historical thinking. Chapter 4 investigates Tynianov’s scepticism about Abram Gannibal’s and A. Pushkin’s mythopoeia which reveals itself in Tynianov’s subversively ironical and playful use of myth in both novels. The Conclusion assesses Tynianov’s contribution to the 20th century fictional Pushkiniana and reflects on his innovative transgeneric historical novel which broke the normative restrictions of the genre, elevated it to the level of ‘serious’ literature and made it conducive to stylistic experimentation. Declaration: I, Anna Rush, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 88,500 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in September, 2004 and as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2004 and 2009. I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date 20 January 2011 signature of supervisor ……… In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. We have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Access to Printed copy and electronic publication of thesis through the University of St Andrews. 20 January 2011 signature of supervisor ……… Note on the text: The system of transliteration employed in this work is that of the Library of Congress (without diacritics). The only exceptions are names well known to English readers, such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Shklovsky, Merezhkovsky, and others, which have been given in their traditional British Museum transliteration. I have also preserved the German spelling of the names Küchelbecker and Eisenstein. The first two parts of Tynianov’s novel Pushkin were first published in serial form in the Leningrad journal Literaturnyi sovremennik, Part One (‘Detstvo’): nos 1-4, in 1936, and Part Two (‘Litsei’) 10-12 (1936) and 1-2 (1937). Part Three (‘Iunost’) appeared in Znamia, nos 7-8, Moscow, 1943. The text of the first two parts is the last published during the author’s lifetime (the first part within a collected edition of Tynianov’s works from Goslitizdat in Leningrad, 1941, the second in a separate edition from GIKhL, Leningrad in 1938). The third part was written and published when Tynianov was gravely ill, so he could neither revise and prepare his manuscript for publication, nor correct proofs. The first complete book edition of Pushkin, edited and annotated by B. Kostel’ianets, saw the light of day only in 1956. Having conducted archival work and studied Tynianov’s original manuscripts, V. Kaverin and Ie. Toddes arrived at a new reading and drastic re-editing of Part Three of the novel, publishing their version in 1976 in a separate edition of Pushkin (Khudozhestvennaia literatura: Leningrad), which differs considerably from both the first journal publication and the first complete volume editions of 1956 and 1959. When citing from Tynianov’s Pushkin I refer to the widely available ‘canonical’ 1981 edition of the novel Pushkin (Moscow: Pravda). All longer quotations from Tynianov’s novel Pushkin are provided in the original Russian and the shorter ones in my own English translation. Page numbers of the quotations from the text are provided in brackets within the body of the thesis, e.g. (568). The text of The Gannibals is cited as from its first publication: ‘Vstuplenie’ was published in Pomerantseva (ed.) Iurii Tynianov. Pisatel’ i uchenyi (Molodaia gvardiia: Moscow, 1966), pp. 204-211, and the opening chapters from the novel were published in Nauka i zhizn’ (1968:10), pp. 120-126. Although occasionally referred to in publications and unpublished research on Tynianov, until 2006 The Gannibals had not been translated into English or properly analysed. The first translation by L. Trigos of the ‘Introduction’ was published as Appendix B in Nepomnyashchy C. Theimer et al. (eds) Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness (Evanston, 2006), 377-383. All citations from Pushkin’s works are also in Russian, supplied parenthetically (volume and page number), e.g. (V, 37) and refer to the 1977 edition of A. S. Pushkin Sobranie sochinenii v 10 tomakh (Moscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura), unless otherwise specified. All citations from Tynianovskie sborniki are abbreviated as TC, e.g. 1 TC, 7 TC, etc. List of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………..1-4 Chapter One. Contexts. 1. Biographical framework……………………………………………………………….5-11 2. Critical foundations…….…………………………..…………………………………11-16 3. The relation between Tynianov’s scholarship and his imaginative prose………………………………………………………..……………..………..16-26 4. The ‘end of the novel’ debate and the search for a hero: Tynianov’s contribution……………….…………………….……………..…………………26-32 5. Writing Pushkin’s ‘life’: Tynianov’s role in the contemporary controversy……………….……………………………………………………………….32-39 6. Biography and the historical novel: theoretical problems and critical issues relating to Tynianov’s treatment of the genre………..39-49 Chapter Two. In Search of Self and Vocation: Pushkin as Bildungsroman……………………..…………….………………………………50-53 1. Otets semeistva………………………………………………………………………….53-59 2. ‘Uroki mamen’ki svoei’………………………………………………………………59-68 3. ‘Akh! Umolchu l’ o mamushke moei…’………………………………………..68-71 4. ‘Prilezhno ia vnimal urokam…’: The problem of Erziehung..……..71-88 5. The artist-as-hero: Pushkin as a Künstlerroman………….………….88-109 6. Lessons in alienation: the problem of the ‘superfluous man’ in Pushkin…………..………………………………………..………………………..….109-115 Chapter Three. History in Pushkin: Tynianov’s concept of history and his historiographical practices ..…………...…………………………..116-121 1. Emperor Paul’s ‘zheleznyi vek’…………………………………………………121-124 2. Alexander I: ‘pravitel’ prazdnyi i lukavyi’……………………..………….124-128 3. ‘Groza dvenadtsatogo goda’…………………………………………………….128-135 4. Speransky……………………………………………………………………….……….136-145 Chapter Four. Personal Myths and ‘Acceptable’ Ancestry in Pushkin and The Gannibals……………………………………………………………146-149 1. Maternal lineage in Pushkin…………………………………………………..149-152 2. Black ancestry in The Gannibals…………………………………………….152-162 3. Tynianov’s treatment of the Gannibals in Pushkin………………..162-170 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………………171-180 Select Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….181-212 Introduction