Northwestern University a Dissertation June 2010
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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY How the Russian Soul is Made: Secular Kenosis in Russian Literature A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Slavic Languages and Literatures By Nina Anatolievna Wieda EVANSTON, ILLINOIS JUNE 2010 UMI Number: 3402730 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3402730 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 2 ABSTRACT How the Russian Soul is Made: Secular Kenosis in Russian Literature Nina Anatolievna Wieda A close look at Russian culture reveals that the aesthetic and ethical preference is characteristic of a Russian Weltanschauung vis-à-vis resources, and not only narrowly-defined economic resources such as money and material possessions, but all of life’s resources including time, effort, health, and prestige. An investigation of Russian literary tropes reveals that a surprisingly large number of Russian fictional characters are depicted as considering it more attractive and ethical to spend, waste, and lose, rather than save, keep, and retain. By tracing the development of these concepts in the long durée, this dissertation shows how willful self-emptying became part of Russian national self-identity. Extrapolating the term kenosis from theology, it introduces the concept of secular kenosis, i.e., ethical predilection for the daily practices of giving and spending rather than receiving and saving. Superimposing the method of close reading onto intellectual history, it explores the genealogy of secular kenosis through the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, post-WWII Socialist Realist writers and Eduard Limonov. It draws an arc of intellectual thought, starting from Dostoevsky’s utopian vision of secular kenosis as a path to harmony and Russia’s ticket to salvation, to Chekhov’s mistrust of kenosis as an all-encompassing ideology, to socialist realist attempts to enlist kenosis for the service to Communist ideology, concluding with Limonov’s twentieth-century flashback to Dostoevskian indiscriminate acceptance. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful for the support and inspiration that my advisor, Andrew Wachtel, provided during my work on this dissertation. His generosity as a mentor is paralleled only by his insighfulness as a scholar. I owe a special debt to Gary Saul Morson for his illuminating input and encouragement. Words of gratitude go to Susan McReynolds Oddo, whose feedback made my Dostoevsky chapter more nuanced. I would also like to thank Ralph Lindheim, whose early recognition of my work inspired me to pursue this project further. Thank you to the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University for creating a rich and nourishing intellectural atmosphere, which proved essential for my growth as a scholar. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Chapter 1: Introduction 5 Chapter 2: Secular Kenosis in Dostoevsky 41 Chapter 3: Secular Kenosis in Chekhov 110 Chapter 4: Secular Kenosis and Socialist Realism 151 Chapter 5: Secular Kenosis in Eduard Limonov 191 Conclusion 252 References 257 5 C h a p t e r 1 INTRODUCTION Let me begin this dissertation by retelling a contemporary Russian student comedy skit. In a KVN1 musical comedy sketch inspired by Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, the old duchess plays cards and wins all the players’ money and possessions. When the game is over, however, the duchess suddenly announces that instead of keeping her winnings, she is going to give everything back. Her bewildered card partners inquire, “But why?!” The duchess responds with a rhetorical question, “Who can understand the Russian soul?”2 The connection between inexplicable giving and the Russian soul is the subject of this dissertation. Before embarking on this journey, it is probably worthwhile to define the terms. What is a Russian soul? The phrase surfaces constantly in film and book reviews, in travelogues, and even in political commentary pertaining to Russia and Russians. A Russian soul is a cliché, which cannot be said about analogous expressions in relation to other nations: a French soul or a Japanese soul sound significantly less idiomatic. It sounds familiar, therefore, it exists; but what exactly is it? Stripping the expression of some of its spiritual mystique leaves the Russian soul as merely one among many stereotypes that exist about various ethnic and national groups. The central 1 KVN, or Klub Vesiolykh i Nakhodchivykh (the Club of the Merry and Quick Witted), is Russia’s beloved nation- wide competition, comparable in popularity to college sports in the United States. KVN teams from different universities meet throughout the year to compete in wit, creativity, and comic talents. Besides regular games for championship in different leagues, the KVN holds two annual events: the Musical KVN competition in Jurmala, Latvia, and new teams meet in Sochi, Russia. Many of Russia’s current entertainment industry celebrities began their careers as members of KVN teams. According to the KVN’s official website, the competition is annually watched by 5 million live spectators, see KVN, the Internet: http://www.amik.ru/?page=movement, Accessed October 21, 2009. For more on KVN, see Maslyakov, A., M. Marfin and A. Chivurin eds. My nachinaem KVN. Moskva: Vostok, 1996; and Marfin, M. and A. Chivurin. Chto takoe KVN? Simferopol’: Blank-Express, 1996. 2 KVN Pikovaja dama. The YouTube. The Internet: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4dhoS00Oql0&feature=related. Accessed October 24, 2009. 6 position of the word soul reflects a significant component of the stereotype: Russian national character is often deemed to be closely connected to spirituality. Thus, the Russian soul is the stereotype about Russian national character, or Russianness, with the concept of spirituality printed in large letters right there on the label. It is not difficult to reveal the concept’s un-unique nature, but does recognizing the Russian soul as one of many national stereotypes make it meaningless? I contend that any stereotype can be useful in an academic context insofar as it can be understood and analyzed as an expression of commonly held beliefs. The social nature of stereotypes is evident in the following definition provided by a social psychologist: stereotypes are generalizations about social groups – characteristics that are attributed to all members of a given group, without regard to variations that must exist among members of that group. Stereotypes are not necessarily based on people’s first-hand experiences with members of stereotypes groups. They may be learned from others or from the mass media.3 The fact that stereotypes can be taught and learned demonstrates that they are viable units of social knowledge, and can be highly useful when studied as such. Moreover, social psychologists also contend that “many stereotypes may have valid grounds and “a kernel of truth” to them”4. In her study of ethnic jokes, which she considers an illuminating expression of ethnic stereotypes, Christie Davies points out the frequent correspondence between popular stereotypes and social reality: 3 Babad, Birnbaum and Benne, 75. 4 Ibid. Armstrong expresses a similar view in his study of national character and national stereotypes: “Stereotyping […] may contain factual observations but more often consists of legend.” See Armstrong, 48. Dundes cites “a kernel of truth” theory as the general scholarly consensus on the question of relationship between ethnic stereotypes and social reality, see Dundes, 102. 7 when ethnic jokes are examined against their social and historical background, it is striking that many of them relate to social “puzzles” that have attracted the attention of sociologists, historians, and other observers who have expended a great deal of time and effort trying to resolve them. […] In each case a substantial proportion of the members of a particular people have visibly behaved or still do behave in ways that are markedly different from those thought reasonable and appropriate by other roughly similar peoples.5 Of course, the study of stereotypes is only valid when preceded by a few clarifications. First, it is important to distinguish between stereotypes and prejudices6. The two are different cognitively and functionally. From the cognitive point of view, prejudice is “a special category of stereotypes, characterized by a negative emotional tone and a hostile and aggressive nature”7. From the point of view of functionality, stereotypes are “universal” and “used by every human being in processing information about the social environment”8, while prejudices are not. Stereotyping is a useful mechanism of human socialization; “[s]tereotypes exist because they are functional for people, and it is hard to imagine any person who does not use stereotypes at all.”9 Prejudice, on the other hand, has a limited useful potential in social interaction (a notable example might include raising fighting spirit during war). The second point deserving of clarification concerns the weaknesses of stereotypes as representations of reality. Stereotypes are often exaggerated, distorted, and imprecise. Exaggeration may not only be a common, but also a necessary feature of stereotyping; Dundes 5 To give just a few examples, Davies draws a parallel between the commonness of jokes about cowardly Italians and “the repeated displays of panic and incompetence by Italian armies”, and between a common stereotype of Irishmen’s tendency to indulge in alcohol and the statistically recorded “hard drinking of Irish-Americans”, see Davies, 318. 6 Babad, Birnbaum and Benne point out that many people deny having stereotypes largely because they confuse stereotypes with prejudices, see Babad, Birnbaum and Benne, 75.