UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE TURGENEV AND THE QUESTION OF THE RUSSIAN ARTIST Luis Sundkvist Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2010 Under the supervision of Dr Diane Oenning Thompson Luis Sundkvist “Turgenev and the Question of the Russian Artist” Summary: This thesis is concerned with the thoughts of the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev (1818-83) on the development of the arts in his native country and the specific problems facing the Russian artist. It starts by considering the state of the creative arts in Russia in the early nineteenth century and suggests why even towards the end of his life Turgenev still had some misgivings as to whether painting and music had become a real necessity for Russian society in the same way that literature clearly had. A re-appraisal of On the Eve (1860) then follows, indicating how the young sculptor Shubin in this novel acts as the author’s alter ego in a number of respects, in particular by reflecting Turgenev’s views on heroism and tragedy. The change in Shubin’s attitude towards Insarov, whom the sculptor at first tries to belittle before eventually comparing him to the noble Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, can be said to anticipate Turgenev’s own feelings about Bazarov in Fathers and Children (1862) and the way that this ‘nihilist’ attained the stature of a true tragic hero. In this chapter, too, the clichéd notion of Turgenev’s alleged affinity with Schopenhauer is firmly challenged—an issue that is taken up again later on in the discussion of Phantoms (1864) and Enough! (1865). Other aspects of Turgenev’s portrayal of Shubin are used to introduce the remaining chapters, where the problems of dilettantism, originality, nationalism and Slavophilism—among the most acute problems which Russian artists had to contend with in Turgenev’s eyes—are explored through various works of his, especially the novel Smoke (1867), as well as by reference to his observations of such contemporaries as Glinka, the painter Ivanov, Tolstoi, and the composers of the ‘Mighty Handful’. The springboard for the final chapter on the tragic fate befalling so many Russian artists is once again Shubin, whose voluntary exile in Rome at the end of the novel allows for certain parallels to be drawn with Gogol’. Despite Turgenev’s own ‘absenteeism’ from Russia, for which he was much reproached, it is emphasized in the conclusion that he always remained devoted to the cause of Russia’s civic and cultural development, especially in the realm of the arts, whose national, and at the same time universal, value he upheld so compellingly in his Pushkin speech of 1880. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of plates i Declaration of originality and statement of length ii Acknowledgements iii Note on transliteration, dates, and abbreviations iv CHAPTER I THE PLACE OF THE ARTS IN RUSSIA Introduction 1 I.1 Literature as a vital necessity of Russian society 4 I.2 The fine arts: a foreign commodity 10 I.3 The ‘strangeness’ of music in Russia 14 CHAPTER II НАКАНУНЕ: ART, HEROISM, AND TRAGEDY Introduction 21 II.1 The artist’s role in times of crisis 25 II.2 The value of art questioned—Elena and Bazarov 26 II.3 Turgenev’s reflections on heroism 32 II.4 Shubin’s sculptures of Insarov 39 II.5 Brutus as a paragon for Insarov and Bazarov 43 II.6 Turgenev’s Kantian ‘fatalism’ 49 II.7 Turgenev’s views on tragedy—Elena and Bazarov 54 CHAPTER III THE EDUCATION OF ARTISTS Introduction 63 III.1 The problem of aristocratic dilettantism 68 III.2 Teaching in music and the fine arts 74 III.3 Humanistic education 80 III.4 Schopenhauer refuted 86 III.5 Призраки: the conscious artist 93 CHAPTER IV THE QUEST FOR ORIGINALITY Introduction 99 IV.1 Russia’s complicated sense of inferiority 101 IV.2 The burden of authorities 111 IV.3 National originality 120 CHAPTER V OFFICIAL NATIONALITY AND SLAVOPHILISM Introduction 125 V.1 Russia, a ‘giant with clay feet’ 128 V.2 Slavophile ideas and Russian art 135 V.3 Russian cultural nationalism 141 CHAPTER VI THE RUSSIAN ARTIST’S TRAGIC FATE Introduction 146 VI.1 Far from Russia 150 VI.2 The artist’s milieu 162 VI.3 Repudiation of one’s works 170 VI.4 The value of art reaffirmed 175 CONCLUSION 182 BIBLIOGRAPHY 191 Primary sources 191 Works of fiction 191 Non-fictional works 192 Secondary sources 193 In Russian 193 In other languages 196 i LIST OF PLATES The following illustrations are to be found at the end of Chapter III: 1A A Girl with a Broom (1651) by Rembrandt 1B Молочница (A Milkmaid, 1820s) by Aleksei Venetsianov (1780-1847) 2A Brutus (1540) by Michelangelo 2B Victor Hugo (1842) by David d’Angers (1788-1856) 2C Victor Hugo (1832) by Jean-Pierre Dantan (1800-69) 3A Последний день Помпеи (The Last Day of Pompeii, 1833) by Karl Briullov (1799-1852) 3B Явление Христа народу (The Appearance of Christ to the People, 1855) by Aleksandr Ivánov (1806-58) 4A Бурлаки на Волге (Boat-Haulers on the Volga, 1873) by Il’ia Repin (1844-1930) 4B Забытый (Forgotten, 1874) by Vasilii Vereshchagin (1842-1904) 5 Портрет композитора М.П. Мусоргского (Portrait of Musorgskii, 1881) by Il’ia Repin ii DECLARATION I hereby declare that my thesis entitled: "Turgenev and the Question of the Russian Artist" is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted or will be submitting for a degree or diploma or other qualification at this or any other University, except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text does not exceed the prescribed word limit I have also: resided in Cambridge for at least three terms undertaken the minimum requirement of research terms submitted this thesis by my submission date or requested leave to defer it formally applied for examiners to be appointed I will also keep my contact details up to date using my self-service pages throughout the examination process STATEMENT OF LENGTH I confirm that this thesis is 79,998 words long (excluding the bibliography), and that it does therefore not exceed the limit prescribed by the MML Degree Committee. Date: 27 October 2010 Signature: Print Name: LUIS SUNDKVIST iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my gratefulness to: Dr Diane Thompson, my supervisor, for having carefully read and commented on the various sections of the manuscript, as well as for having recommended a number of very helpful books on Turgenev and Russian literature. Dr Rosalind Blakesley, from the History of Art Department, for advice on the use of illustrations and recommended reading on the painter Aleksei Bogoliubov, who collaborated with Turgenev in Paris during the 1870s. Mr John Cunningham, Librarian at the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies, London, for his generous assistance. Ms Siobhán Carew, the Graduate Studies Administrator at our Faculty, and Prof. Charles Drage at Imperial College, London, for general encouragement. Dr Anne Cobby, Mrs Hélène Fernandes, and other members of staff at the MML and University libraries in Cambridge for their kind help. The Domestic Research Studentship Committee at the University of Cambridge for the award of a generous grant. iv NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, DATES, AND ABBREVIATIONS Transliteration: The transliteration system used is that of the Library of Congress, except for diacritics. In the text and notes titles of Russian works have been left in Cyrillic. Some names (Herzen, Cui, and Laroche) are given in the main text in their more familiar English spellings, but are transliterated consistently in the bibliographical references. The names of Russian tsars are also given in their English spellings. Dates: Dates of letters sent from Russia are given in the ‘old style’. The dates of those sent from other European countries are given in both styles. Abbreviations and other conventions: The author-date system is used for citation, with the volume numbers, in the case of multi-volume editions, given in roman numerals. For references to Turgenev’s writings a modified system is used: only the volume and page numbers are given, and this is assumed to refer to Turgenev (1961-68). Where his letters are cited¸ P comes before the volume number, referring to the Pis’ma section of Turgenev (1961-68). In a few cases, the second Academy edition, Turgenev (1978-), has been cited, and this is indicated by an asterisk superscript (*). Letters not included in the first Academy edition are cited using the following abbreviations: LI = Lettres inédites (Granjard & Zviguilsky 1972) NC = Nouvelle correspondance (Zviguilsky 1971-72) Abbreviations are also used for the two main editions of recollections of Turgenev: VT (1983) = Turgenev v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Fridliand & Petrov 1983) VT (1988) = Turgenev v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Fridliand 1988) Italicized words in the original texts are preserved in italics in the quotations. I have used dotted underlining to emphasize words or phrases in some quotations. 1 CHAPTER I THE PLACE OF THE ARTS IN RUSSIA Introduction All the free arts, in Turgenev‟s view, had come to Russia from Western Europe as part of her gradual evolution into a civilized nation. He was of course aware of Russia‟s native traditions in iconography, folksong and poetry. In fact, he studied the latter with great interest during his exile to his estate at Spasskoe in the 1850s, when in letters to the Aksakov family he often mentioned the byliny he was reading, and later came to appreciate other genres of early Russian literature (such as Archpriest Avvakum‟s writings).