The Figured Author: Authorial Cameos in Post-Romantic Russian Literature Anna Dvigubski Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Anna Dvigubski All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Figured Author: Authorial Cameos in Post-Romantic Russian Literature Anna Dvigubski This dissertation examines representations of authorship in Russian literature from a number of perspectives, including the specific Russian cultural context as well as the broader discourses of romanticism, autobiography, and narrative theory. My main focus is a narrative device I call “the figured author,” that is, a background character in whom the reader may recognize the author of the work. I analyze the significance of the figured author in the works of several Russian nineteenth- and twentieth- century authors in an attempt to understand the influence of culture and literary tradition on the way Russian writers view and portray authorship and the self. The four chapters of my dissertation analyze the significance of the figured author in the following works: 1) Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Gogol's Dead Souls; 2) Chekhov's “Ariadna”; 3) Bulgakov's “Morphine”; 4) Nabokov's The Gift. In the Conclusion, I offer brief readings of Kharms’s “The Old Woman” and “A Fairy Tale” and Zoshchenko’s Youth Restored. One feature in particular stands out when examining these works in the Russian context: from Pushkin to Nabokov and Kharms, the “I” of the figured author gradually recedes further into the margins of narrative, until this figure becomes a third-person presence, a “he.” Such a deflation of the authorial “I” can be seen as symptomatic of the heightened self-consciousness of Russian culture, and its literature in particular. By examining figured authors across these works, I explore authorship in Russia as a self-questioning, and potentially self-erasing, practice. I argue that the figured author captures something essential about Russian culture. The author’s cameo is secondary (or completely marginal) in relation to the protagonist, who is the work’s central figure. The tension—between self and other, actor and observer, center and periphery—that lies at the core of the figured author speaks eloquently to Russian culture’s attempts at self-definition in various contexts of influence and oppression (such as, for example, Western thought, Tolstoy’s powerful dogma, or the Soviet regime). The figured author is defined primarily in relation to the hero of the work; similarly, the Russian literary tradition often painfully defines itself in relation to another—particularly the West. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Note on Translations iv Introduction. I-He-Author-Hero: Who is the Figured Author? 1 Chapter 1. Pushkin and Gogol: I, the Interrupter 22 Chapter 2. Chekhov: I, the Listener 80 Chapter 3. Bulgakov: I, the Reader 119 Chapter 4. Nabokov: I the Eye and He the Silent Spectator 166 Conclusion. The Figured Author and the Totalitarian Space 211 Bibliography 226 i Acknowledgements I owe a number of people my sincere gratitude for help in shaping and completing this project. Irina Reyfman guided me with a steady hand over the past four years, and I could not have wished for a more active and caring adviser. I am deeply grateful for her faith in my work. Her kindness, support, and her immense expertise made the writing process a source of pleasure and discovery for me. I am thankful to the members of my dissertation committee for their advice on expanding this dissertation into a book. Rebecca Stanton was truly an amazing and incisive reader of my work. She invariably brought new and exciting perspectives to my ideas and had an overwhelmingly positive influence on my writing style. I am grateful to Cathy Nepomnyashchy for sharing with me her knowledge of Pushkin and Nabokov. Cathy Popkin’s seminar on Chekhov inspired an entire chapter in this study and, in many ways, its principal images and ideas. Nicholas Dames provided particularly fruitful and clear directions for further exploration. Liza Knapp helped formulate this project in its early stages. I appreciate her perceptive and sensitive guidance throughout most of my graduate years, as well as her humor and generosity. Lively discussions of literature at her apartment will remain some of my fondest memories of graduate school. Alla Smyslova’s energy and thoughtful guidance have motivated me immensely; I especially appreciate her advice to “stop reading and start writing,” which came at a critical moment during my research. Frank Miller’s kindness, encouragement, and his storytelling gift have meant a lot to me and helped assuage some doubts and anxieties in the recent years. I am grateful to the Harriman Institute and the Mosley-Backer Foundation for their generous support, which allowed me to concentrate solely on my research in the past year. My ii teaching in the Columbia Core Curriculum in the preceding year unexpectedly gave me a wealth of ideas for this dissertation. I have my students, fellow preceptors, and Christia Mercer to thank for creating the rich intellectual environment, in which these ideas developed. For this project, I have learned a lot from Paco Picon, who shared with me his impressive knowledge of Nabokov and Bakhtin. Over the years, many (current and former) graduate students in the Slavic Department have helped me with advice and encouragement, among them Ani Kokobobo, Erica Siegel, Greta Matzner-Gore, Jason Galie, Margo Rosen, Karin Beck, Bella Grigoryan, Nina Lee, Jessika Aguilar, Rebecca Pyatkevich, Marijeta Bozovic, and Emma Lieber. I want to thank my friends—Natalia, Dina U. and Dina K., Adonis, David, Masha, Zhenya, Milana, Zhanna, Jeff, Olga, Katya, Julia, Venera, and Andy—for their listening, kindness, and for making me laugh. I owe a special thanks to Cal Wright, whose friendship, wisdom, and support have been invaluable. This dissertation benefitted tremendously from his careful reading and from his vast knowledge and original insight into Russian culture and language. My parents, Elena and Alex, have my deepest gratitude for their love and faith in me. iii Note on Translations All translations from Russian are my own, unless otherwise noted. Where it was necessary to transliterate Russian, I have used the Library of Congress system without the diacritical marks; however, the names of well-known Russian writers are given in their more familiar forms (e.g. Dostoevsky rather than Dostoevskii). When discussing Nabokov’s The Gift, I have reproduced the transliteration used in the authorized translation of that novel (e.g., Chernyshevski rather than Chernyshevskii or Chernyshevsky). iv 1 Introduction. I-He-Author-Hero: Who is the Figured Author? L'auteur, dans son œuvre, doit être comme Dieu dans l'univers, présent partout et visible nulle part. The artist should be in his work like God in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one should feel him everywhere, but one should not see him. Gustave Flaubert1 Художник часто изображает себя в картине (с краю её), пишет и свой автопортрет. Но в автопортрете мы не видим автора как такового (его нельзя видеть); …больше всего он раскрывается в лучших картинах данного автора. The artist often paints himself into the picture (on its periphery), paints a self- portrait. But in the self-portrait we don’t see the actual author (he can’t be seen); … he is most clearly revealed in the best paintings of this particular author. Mikhail Bakhtin2 The artist’s self-portrait in the corner of his own painting, described by Bakhtin, is the focus of this dissertation. Examples of this device abound in painting. Jan van Eyck’s 1434 Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, for example, shows a miniature image of the artist’s figure reflected in the convex mirror hanging on the wall behind the two central figures in the painting. In Diego Velazquez’s 1656 Las Meninas, the artist is shown standing in front of his canvas, brush in hand, and facing the viewer; the image of the artist is off center, he stands to the left and behind the painting’s main characters—the young Infanta Margarita of Spain and her maids of honor. Karl Briullov’s The Last Day of Pompeii (1830-1833) shows an epic scene of chaos and destruction, in which Briullov has included his self-portrait in the upper left-hand corner. His body mostly concealed by other figures that are shown fleeing the scene in panic, the artist’s image is not easy to find. While the panic on his face allows him to blend in with the 1 Gustave Flaubert, Correspondance (Paris: Gallimard, coll. “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,” 1980) 2:204. Translation from Eric Gans, Madame Bovary: The End of Romance (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989) xi-xii. 2 M. M. Bakhtin, “K metodologii gumanitarnykh nauk” in Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979) 363. 2 other characters in the painting, he can be identified by the painter’s case he holds above his head. Another Russian work, the 1907 Portrait of Henrietta Girshman by Valentin Serov, shows the title heroine in the center of the canvas while the mirror behind her reflects the artist’s shoulder and part of his face. In all these examples, the artist is recognizable by his instruments (the brushes, the canvas, the painter’s case); at the same time, his image is small and marginal in relation to the painting’s main subject. Another example can be found in cinematography. A cameo, in film terminology, is a brief appearance in a film, usually by a recognizable celebrity. A cameo appearance by a film’s director can be used as his signature: Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo performances in his own films “became so famous that he took care to ‘come on as early as possible – [I] don’t want to hold them in suspense for the wrong reason!’”3 Here, the status of the artist in the world outside of his art imposes on the artistic creation itself, allowing the audience and its expectations to shape some aspects of the work.