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

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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. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 41. 8 points out that “the exaggeration may be false, but it may be esthetically necessary to make the

point”10. In his book Stereotyping, Pickering shows that relying on stereotypes is dangerous

because it creates a false “illusion of precision in defining and evaluating other people”11.

Stereotypes are often distorted or inaccurate “because of the way they portray a social group or

category as homogeneous”12. Pickering points out that in “the classical view, stereotypes have

been regarded as necessarily deficient […] Intellectually, they [were considered] poor devices

for engaging in any form of social cartography, and for this reason should be eradicated from the

map of good knowledge”13. This opinion, of course, does not prevent stereotyping from being

“endemic to modernity” as “process and practice”14.

The third point that I would like to bring up renders the first two points less relevant, as it

shifts the emphasis from the stereotyped to the stereotyping. It is probably safe to agree that

stereotypes are illuminating; but what exactly are they illuminating? Often, the stereotypes are

better at illuminating the Weltanschauung of those who hold the stereotypes rather than

providing information on those about whom the stereotypes exist. For example, making

conclusions about light-haired women on the basis of “blond jokes” is, to say the least, naïve; but

the possibility that the teller of “blond jokes” may have male chauvinist features is worth

exploring. Walter Lippmann, who first introduced the term stereotype in 192215, defined

stereotypes as “pictures in our heads”. He argued that people do not react directly to external

reality, but mediate their reactions through representations of their environment, which are, to a

10 Dundes, 103. Allport includes exaggeration in the very definition of a stereotype: “an exaggerated belief associated with a category”, see Allport, 191. 11 Pickering, 4. 12 Ibid. Babad, Birnbaum and Benne point out the same weakness: “the lack of regard for differences within a stereotypes group makes stereotypes into “over-generalizations,” and as such they are always at least somewhat distorted”, see Babad, Birnbaum and Benne, 75. 13 Pickering, 10. 14 Ibid., xii. 15 See Lippmann, 3. 9 lesser or greater degree, made up or adopted by the perceiving individual him- or herself.

Discussing ethnic jokes as an expression of national stereotypes, Davies underlines that

jokes tell us more about what the joke-teller expected and perhaps hopes to see than about the real behavior of the butts of the jokes. […] the perceptions of joke-tellers, like those of everybody else, are not merely selective and partial but are apt to be distorted by hopes, fears, expectations, and beliefs about others rooted in ideology, in dislikes that are not incidental but an integral part of a broad and intensely help view of how the world is and how it ought to be.16

With these clarifications in mind, stereotypes make valuable material for the study of culture.

The stereotype about the Russian soul is especially interesting because of two reasons: it is shared by Russians and non-Russians alike, and has been surprisingly stable over a fairly long period of time. Neither of these features is a universal characteristic of stereotypes17; this implies that the Russian soul is a vital stereotype that successfully transcends geography and time, and probably deserves attention as a cultural phenomenon.

Overall, it is safe to summarize that the stereotype Russian soul18 loosely describes a set of qualities and behavioral patterns that occur in Russians with a more than average frequency. The

16 Davies, 319. Dundes contends that “stereotypes in slurs deal with traditional images of reality rather than reality itself”, see Dundes, 103. 17 In regards to the second point, Pickering points out that stereotypes are “historically contingent”; a stereotype is dependent on particular conceptions of the social and psychological make-up of others, and on particular codes and conventions for representing them in discourse. “These change over time. What is regarded as a satisfactory account in one period will be seen in a succeeding period as artificial, misconceived, skewed in a particular direction, or simply dated...”, see Pickering, xiv. 18 Another ambiguous word in the expression a Russian soul is “Russian”. For most of its history, Russian has been a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious nation. Russian-style diversity has been traditionally different from the usual colonial scheme, in which power belongs to a homogeneous title nation group, while religiously and ethnically diverse populations remain powerless subjects. In Russia, both Russian and non-Russian populations were powerless subjects, and both Russians and non-Russians occupied positions of historical and cultural power. To name just few most celebrated examples, Russia’s most influential empress, Catherine II, was German by blood and birth, and never learned to speak or write Russian without mistakes. The father of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin, had well-known African roots. Considering how, even in the twenty-first century, many Americans passionately deny that a person of African heritage can represent their nation as its President, it is interesting that Russians never hesitated to bestow the title of their beloved Russian Literature’s father to a person with African roots. And, of course, the universal symbol of Russian totalitarianism – Joseph Stalin – was Russian neither by 10 next question is why they occur more frequently – does this happen because Russians are physiologically predisposed to behave in a certain manner, or because they have learned to behave that way? This question echoes the age-old debate between primordialism and social constructionism. Primordialism contends that nations, and national characters, are ancient, natural phenomena with a constant set of features19. Social constructionism maintains that individuals and groups participate in the creation of their perceived social reality, including nations and definitions of national character20.

The primordialist view, which harks back to the ideas of German Romanticism, still holds romantic appeal for many Russians and their external commentators. A good illustration of the primordial view on Russian national character is Nikita Mikhalkov’s epic film The Barber of

Siberia (1998). The film depicts an American young man who displays a puzzling attitude while serving in the United States army: he discards opportunities to improve his situation vis-à-vis a brutal superior and demonstrates a surprising perseverance when dealing with abuse. The mystery is resolved when his American mother explains that although born and raised in the

United States, the young man is half-Russian by blood. The boy has never been exposed to

Russian culture; his genetic Russianness alone is meant to explain his unusual behavior. In the film, even the brutal corporal understands this and summarizes, “He is Russian; this explains a lot”. blood nor by upbringing (see Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.) Apparently, categories like ethnic background and place of birth have not been considered decisive in determining one’s Russianness. The primary criterion appears to have consisted in sharing the culture, both its high and low strata. 19 For representative works of primordialism, see Barth, Fredrik. Models of Social Organization. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1966; Karny, Yo’av. Highlanders. A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. For the philosophical foundations of primordialism, see works by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Gottfried von Herder. 20 For representative works of constructionism in relation to nationalism, see Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London; New York: Verso, 2006; Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. 11 This dissertation strongly leans towards the social constructionism view.21 It takes as a

premise that social phenomena, including nations and “national character”, are created,

institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. It also contends that nations and definitions

of national character, like other aspects of social reality, are dynamic processes shaped by

individual decisions and interpretations. As nations, according to Benedict Anderson, are

“imagined communities”22, thus national character is an imagined and ratified set of qualities.

Although it is impossible to name all the elements that contributed to the delineation of

Russian national character as it exists today, it is possible to single out some important influences in the history of its development. Culture and, in particular, literature played an important role in imagining and reifying the Russian national character through a set of key cultural texts. These valorized texts circulated widely in Russian educated circles, the role of literature in which was traditionally strong23, popularizing the ideas and causing them to reenter the culture through imitations. This model of popularization of ideas through literature has been brilliantly described in Irina Paperno’s book Chernyshevksy and The Age of Realism24.

This dissertation does not endeavor to tackle the question of the entire Russian national character: given Russia’s rich and multifaceted history and culture, such a goal would be utterly unfeasible. Instead, this project focuses on a single aspect of the Russian national character, which can be described as pronounced generosity, predilection for spending, or wastefulness.

21 However, it is important to point out that in many situations, individual innate predilections, often inherited from parents, may affect people’s choices, thus contributing to the construction of their social reality. This statement is close to the premise on which the Primordial theory is based; the main difference between my opinion and that of the classical primordial theory is the degree to which inherited predilections are believed to affect people’s choices. The Primordial theory attributes to inherited predilections significantly more decisive power than I do. 22 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. 23 Thus, Andrew Wachtel defines Eastern Europe as “a place where writers and literature are customarily overestimated”, see Wachtel, Remaining Relevant After Communism, 4. 24 See Irina Paperno, Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: a Study in the Semiotics of Behavior. Other works that address the ways in which literature affected extra-literary life in Russia include Iurii Lotman’s The Decembrist in Daily Life; and Katerina Clark’s The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. 12 The perceived relationship between these qualities and the Russian soul is well illustrated in

the KVN skit cited at the beginning of the chapter. The connection between inexplicable giving

and the Russian soul must be a familiar trope for the KVN’s large and diverse Russian audience,

since the team chose the line “Who can understand the Russian soul?” as the culmination of their

short humorous skit. The discussion section on the YouTube website displaying this skit

abounds in admiring comments; many of them quote the punch line about the Russian soul.

According to the comments, the reference to the Russian soul evoked more than laughter. A

number of viewers report a strong emotional reaction: “As for the Russian soul – I had tears in

my eyes!”25; “My heart sank when she said, "Who will understand the Russian Soul". Loved that a lot. I`m Russian.”26

The choice of the skit’s subject matter is interesting in more than one way. Pushkin’s story appears to invite variations on the theme of connections between unrestrained emptying out and

Russianness. Besides the gambling trope that triggers speculations on the relationship between spending, gaining, and risk-taking27, the story has also inspired a work that is very close in focus to this dissertation: Andrew Wachtel’s article Rereading The Queen of Spades. Wachtel asserts

that the society of Russian aristocrats, to which Hermann desperately sought to belong, accepts

him as an equal only when Hermann loses profoundly28, and concludes that in the Russian

society portrayed in The Queen of Spades, “what counts is not so much having money as having

25 “а про русскую душу - аж слёзы на глаза наворачиваются”. The YouTube. The Internet: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4dhoS00Oql0&feature=related. Accessed October 24, 2009. 26 Ibid. The comment is in English in the original. 27 For an extensive survey of writing about The Queen of Spades, see Chapter 5 in Iam Helfant, The High Stakes of Identity: Gambling and Myths of Aristocratic (Dis)honor in the Life and Literature of Nineteenth-Century Russia. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2002. 28 As long as Hermann was winning during the first two nights of gambling, his aristocratic game partners acted reserved if not contemptuous; when Hermann lost everything on his third night, he heard other players saying, “Splendid punting!” See Wachtel, Rereading The Queen of Spades. 13 – 14. 13 the proper attitude toward it.”29 As the article shows, the “proper attitude” largely consists in the willingness to lose, or to empty out. Wachtel sees Hermann’s Germaneness (clearly indicated by the character’s name and biography) as a component of his socio-economic position, which precludes him from penetrating the Russian aristocratic circles. For the purposes of this dissertation, I would like to shift the emphasis, and address Hermann’s Germaneness as the chief factor with which Hermann struggles in his attempts to become an equal member of the

Russian aristocracy. Wachtel writes,

Everything in [Hermann’s] nature and his background, from his engineering profession to his German blood, and including his desire to grow his already large capital by calculation, moderation, and industry,” are strikes against him in a world that still lives and dies by ancient regime codes relating to money.30

I would only add that the “codes relating to money” and resources, in general, may not be the leftover values of the ancient regime, but significant components of the Russian national character, the absence of which prevents Hermann from entering Russian society as an equal.

In order to demonstrate the longue durée nature of the connection between the outward-related flow of resources and Russianness, let me cite a late twentieth-century portrayal of this connection. In his essay Business is Not a Vice, the Russian émigré author Sergei Dovlatov writes about the Russian traditional distaste for seeking profit, which goes so far as to deem honest trade to be ethically lower than stealing:

The idea of sober calculations is repulsive to us. We feel disgusted even pronouncing the words “debit” and “credit”... From our point of view, it’s better to steal than to trade. A person who stole a roll of linoleum from the factory is almost a hero in our eyes. But an

29 Ibid., 21. 30 Ibid., 16-17. 14 honest Georgian who legally sells bay leaf at the market is the subject of endless contemptuous jokes…31

To illustrate his idea further, Dovlatov cites an anecdote of an unsuccessful complimentary

introduction:

I have a publisher friend who lives in Forrest Hill. He is an absolutely altruistic person devoted to what he does. Once, I was introducing him to a group of Americans. “He is a saint,” I said. “A fanatic. Doesn’t have as much as a cent in his pocket. Wears patched- up pants… All he does is lose money…” I looked at the Americans, and saw their faces growing long. They were looking at my friend without any admiration whatsoever…32

What is the cause of this striking axiological inconsistency? The publisher’s willingness to lose

money in the pursuit of some higher goal makes him a saint in Dovlatov’s eyes, but in the eyes

of the American group he is merely a loser. Why does Dovlatov admire the fact that his friend

loses money?

A closer look at Russian culture reveals that, far from being an isolated incident, Dovlatov’s

sentiment 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. This dissertation is an investigation of this ostensibly counter-intuitive attitude.

31 “Идея трезвого расчёта нам совершенно отвратительна. Слова «дебет», «кредит» нам и выговорить-то противно... По-нашему, уж лучше красть, чем торговать. Человек, укравший в цехе рулон линолиума, считается едва ли не героем. А грузин, законно торгующий лавровым листом, - объект бесконечных презрительных шуток...” Dovlatov, 139. 32 “Есть у меня в Форест-Хиллсе знакомый издатель. Абсолютно бескорысный, преданный своему делу человек. Как-то раз я знакомил его с американцами. - Святой, - говорю, - фанатик, бессребреник, штаны в заплатах... Сплошные убытки терпит... Смотрю, у американцев физиономии вытягиваются. Глядят на моего друга без особого восхищения...” Ibid., 140. 15 Wasteful behaviors would be understandable if they were practiced by an aristocracy with limitless wealth, as this would not make a breach in their resources. In Russian culture, however, one can observe that individuals with very limited resources indulge in analogous behaviors although from a material perspective wastefulness significantly, and sometimes drastically worsens their condition. Numerous Russians with limited resources indulge in behaviors that ostensibly violate the principle of self-interest, if one defines self-interest as bettering one’s financial or social situation. This seemingly economically unsound behavior invites a reevaluation of self-interest principles, and suggests that for Russians, self-emptying must hold a layer of value that is not immediately apparent, and that compensates for the obvious losses.

The first explanation that comes to mind is based on the logic of conspicuous consumption: people may choose to spend or waste resources in order to gain social capital, i.e., the respect and admiration of others33. Yet, there is a significant difference between the practices of conspicuous consumption and those found in Russian culture: the former are performed for the sake of achieving a goal (e.g., heightening one’s social status), while the latter, as we will see, do not appear to be accomplished in pursuit of any goal, but rather satisfaction is derived from the practice itself. Conspicuous consumption is always practiced in public, or otherwise arranged so as to demonstrate its results to the target audience; Russian-style wastefulness, on the other hand, is often practiced in private or in secret. Moreover, those who practice conspicuous consumption can afford it (though they can, of course get carried away and overdo it), which means that their spending or wasting does not lower their quality of life, but in the end is designed to improve it.

This is not the case with Russian-style spenders. Their unalloyed, uncalculated spending often leaves them impoverished, powerless, or otherwise impaired; their self-emptying often inspires

33 The term “conspicuous consumption” was coined by Thorstein Veblen in his seminal book The Theory of the Leisure Class. In the book, first published in 1899, is based on Veblen’s observations of American society. 16 pity. Thus, despite the apparent similarity, conspicuous consumption essentially differs from

the phenomenon addressed in this dissertation.

Another possible explanation involves discarding individual cases of this counter-intuitive

behavior as results of mental instability, or, if the cases are too numerous, explaining them en masse as a national psychological disorder. While offering an interesting point of view on the phenomenon, psychoanalytic criticism does not elucidate the mechanisms that have led an entire nation to have the same psychological problem.34

Inspired by the insufficiency of the existing explanations, this dissertation proposes to view wastefulness as a reflection of an idiosyncratic value system peculiar to Russian culture.

According to this value system, it is moral and beautiful to direct resources away from oneself by giving, spending, wasting, and losing, and amoral and ugly to diminish the outward-directed flow of resources by taking, keeping, saving, and retaining. By resources, I mean everything that human beings have at their disposal: material resources such as money, food, possessions; immaterial resources such as time, opportunity, reputation; psychological resources such as attention, compassion, effort; and bodily resources such as health, body parts and, finally, one’s life.

A number of literary works discussed in this dissertation portray a tendency to spend resources carelessly and freely, in a manner that does not resemble investment - as it promises no return – but rather suggests the spender derives his enjoyment from the very act of spending, from the so-called emptying-out. I am speaking about behaviors like spending limited and much needed monetary resources on useless purchases; about otherwise inexplicable self-humiliation

34 Works of psychoanalytic criticism include those of Lilya Kaganovsky, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, and Igor’ Smirnov, which will be discussed later in the Introduction. 17 and self-destruction, and about the refusal to take even elementary steps to improve one’s

position. Although these behaviors belong to different spheres of life, I view them as multiple

facets of the same phenomenon; literary spenders tend to remain faithful to the chosen behavioral

mode in all spheres. Thus, Chekhov’s heroine Ranevskaya parts with her last golden coin with

the same ease as with her beloved cherry orchard, and with her pride in following a criminal and

abusive lover.

The chapters that follow will present a gallery of literary characters who empty themselves

out and derive a sense of deep satisfaction from such behavior; these characters exist alongside

those who refuse to partake in emptying-out and fail to understand its appeal. The two modes of

existence – one favoring outward-directed flow of resources, and one aimed at moving resources

towards oneself – unavoidably come to a clash, with their respective proponents feeling varying

degrees of animosity towards the other party. Close investigation of the texts reveals that this

animosity stems from a conflict of values.

The phrase that I am using to describe the phenomenon under discussion – emptying-out – is a

direct translation of the Greek word kenosis, which has made frequent, though controversial

appearances in literature on Russian religiosity. The term kenosis is very effective at rendering

the idea: it encompasses various types of emptying-out, and the idea that beliefs play a

significant role in choosing this type of behavior. Since I am less concerned with the theological

sphere, and more interested in broader cultural norms, I suggest the term secular kenosis, by which I mean kenosis practiced by lay persons in non-religious contexts. Let me first address the word kenosis as it is used in literature now, and then explain why I describe the theme of my study as secular kenosis. 18 The original Koine Greek word on which the concept of kenoticism is based (the verb “to

empty”) appears only five times in the New Testament, and only once in the sense that has

become associated with the noun cognate “kenosis”35. In Philippians 2:6-7, St. Paul declares that

“His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself

(ekenosen) to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are,

he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross” (Jerusalem Bible). Since its

appearance in Phil. 2:6-7, the term has been used mainly in theology to describe “the self-

renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the incarnation.”36

In 1892, an Orthodox theologian Mikhail Mikhailovich Tareev introduced the word kenosis

into Russian religious discourse in his book The Temptation of the Godman as the Unique

Redemptive Act of the Whole Earthly Life of Christ, in Connection with the History of Pre-

Christian Religions and of the Christian Church.”37 In his study on Tareev, Paul Valliere suggests that Tareev’s views of Christ’s kenosis were inspired at least in part by Dostoevsky”38.

Tareev’s other Russian source for the notion of kenosis (but without the use of this word) as connected with the temptation narrative is Solov’ev’s Lectures on Godmanhood.

35 See the lexical definitions in William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: U. of Chicago press, 1957. P. 429. 36 Kenosis, The Oxford English Dictionary. Prepared by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner. Second edition. Volume VIII. Interval – Looie. Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1989. P. 387. 37 Cassedy, 11. 38 Tareev takes as the point of departure for his discussion of humility the temptation narrative in the Gospels, but his approach to this narrative is untraditional: Valliere shows that it leaves out such issues as incarnation, passion, and resurrection, focusing instead, like Dostoevsky in “The Grand Inquisitor”, on the earthly ministry of Jesus, see Valliere, p. 63. Tareev’s interest in Dostoevsky is also manifest in the fact Tareev wrote a fairly lengthy article on Dostoevsky, see M. M. Tareev, F. M. Dostoevskii, in Osnovy Khristianstva: Sistema religioznoi mysli, vol. 3, Khristianskoe mirovozzrenie (Moscow: Sergiev Posad, 1908), pp. 258-63, quoted in Cassedy, 12. 19 Kenosis (under this name) subsequently plays an important role in the works of Sergei

Bulgakov39, Nikolai Losskii40, Georges Florovsky, Nadejda Gorodetzky, and George Fedotov.

In his 1933 theological study, Georges Florovsky writes about kenosis as the basis for the

Russian culture of self-offering (darenie sebia)41. Nadejda Gorodetzky’s 1938 study The

Humiliated Christ in Modern Russia Thought delineates kenosis – synonymically described as

“humiliation” – as a Russian national ideal. Let me focus more closely on George Fedotov, whose work became the reference point for the majority of subsequent studies of Russian religious culture.

In his 1946 book The Russian Religious Mind, Fedotov suggests that kenosis is the key to the

Russian religious mind and the great discovery of the first Christian generation in Russia.

Fedotov compares the attitude of the newly-converted Russian people to that of the “ossified”

Christian societies of Byzantium and the Western Dark Ages, who “turned away with fear and

discomfort from the face of the humiliated God”42. Scarcely affected by the Byzantine tradition,

Russian Christian scholars and monks perceived the Gospel afresh, eagerly embraced the idea of

humility and self-offering, and made it central to their approach to Christianity43. Fedotov provides no direct quotations from the Bible that could have affected the newly-converted

39 For the discussion that the notion of kenosis plays in the works of Sergei Bulgakov, see Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology. Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 337 – 44. 40 See Losskii’s The World as an Organic Whole and Kharakter Russkogo Naroda. 41 Florovsky, Georges. Ways of Russian Theology. 42 Fedotov, 131. 43 Margaret Ziolkowski suggest that the newly converted Russians took the kenotic teaching to heart partially because they were not distracted by the theological debates seeking “to define the extent to which Paul’s statement may suggest Christ’s renunciation of his divine nature. In contrast to traditional patristic exegesis, which viewed the text as “a scriptural proof of the divinity of Christ, of his real and complete humanity, and of the unity of His Person”, kenotic theories of the incarnation question the simultaneity of Christ’s divinity and humanity”, see Ziolkowski, 33. 20 Russian people and inspired their kenotic zeal; I will risk being presumptuous by supplementing his argument with a passage from Philippians 2:3 – 5:

There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self- effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

Among those who readily adopted the kenotic ideal and put it into practice, Fedotov lists Boris and Gleb44, “the greatest among the ancient Russian saints and the first canonized by the

Church”. Fedotov claims that the princes belong to a “peculiar national type which can be designated by the name of “kenotic”45. According to Fedotov, the canonization of Boris and

Gleb is a paradox, as the first Russian saints belong to neither category of figures that the Greek

Orthodox Church canonized: they were neither martyrs for faith, nor confessors (ascetic monks), nor bishops. They were laymen, “victims of a political crime in a feudal strife, as many before and after them”. Canonization of such figures is unusual because “the Greek church venerates very few laymen among its saints. […] Laymen qualified as “just men” are extremely rare”46.

Although he has no direct evidence, Fedotov suggests that the paradoxical canonization took place because the Russian people perceived the holiness of the princes and the meaning of their

Christian achievement in the fact that they followed Christ in their kenosis.

From Fedotov’s point of view, the fact that Russia’s first and most beloved saints are canonized on the basis of their suffering alone – a phenomenon unique to Russian Orthodoxy - demonstrates the special role of kenosis in Russian religion: “Through the lives of the holy

44 For the original tale of Boris and Gleb from the Primary Chronicle, see The Martyrdom of Boris and Gleb in Zenkovsky, pp. 101 – 105. 45 Fedotov, 94. 46 Ibid., 95. 21 sufferers as through the Gospels, the image of the meek and suffering Savior entered the heart

of the Russian nation as the most holy of its spiritual treasures.”47 Fedotov shows that the uniquely Russian tradition of canonization based exclusively on suffering continues: “Many a

Russian saint was canonized for the only obvious reason: his violent death. […] The underlying idea, evidently, is that of the redeeming and purifying merit of suffering and death.”48 Fedotov goes on to explain that the popular Russian understanding of suffering and death as purifying does not quite match up to the official Christian doctrine:

In a correct, orthodox form, willing, self-offering nonresistance is needed to bring the victim into conformity with the suffering kenotic Christ. In many cases, however, this condition is simply hypothetical; in the case of infants, quite unreal. Yet the Russian people hold to their favorite idea of sanctifying suffering. They create saints from pity, showing that pity is one of the strongest roots of their religious life.49

Another embodiment of Russian kenoticism is manifest in the Vita of St. Theodosius, the founder of the Pechersk Monastery in Kiev. Fedotov describes St. Theodosius as “the father of

Russian monasticism”50, and shows that Theodosius “draws his main religious inspiration from the contemplation of the human nature of Christ […], of His descent to earth (not His ascension

[…])”51. Fedotov continues to say that

In the light of this Christology, one is fully entitled to term the spirituality of Theodosius as “kenotic”, using the Pauline word of “kenosis” or “emptying” of Christ. […] Theodosius himself quotes the Epistle to the Philippians. His word to his mother about Christ who “became poor for our sake,” is also Pauline (II Corinthians 8:9). […]

47 Ibid., 104. 48 Ibid., 109. 49 Ibid., 109 – 110. 50 Ibid., 111. 51 Ibid., 127. 22 Theodosius found the kenotic idea practically lost in a vast and complicated whole of ecclesiastical doctrine. He made it the pivot of his spiritual life.52

Fedotov also shows how numerous details of the saint’s well-documented life – such as his

“uncouth and patched garb”53, his choice of the humble vocation of wafer-baker in his youth54,

secrecy about his ascetic exercises, his willingness to undertake the hardest labor even when

elected abbot55, – fit the kenotic ideal of likening oneself to the humiliated Christ. While

Theodosius also practiced bodily mortification in a manner shared by other branches of

Christianity - such as wearing iron chains underneath his clothes56 and offering his naked torso to the stings of gnats while spinning wool at night and singing psalms57 - Fedotov argues that these were peripheral, one-time occurrences, undertaken by Theodosius in his youth to struggle against the temptations of the flesh. Fedotov underlines that the Vita’s author stresses the saint’s

“uncouth garb”58 and social humiliation and degradation, which Fedotov describes as “the most national of his characteristics”59. To illustrate the latter concept, Fedotov cites the following story from the Vita: when Theodosius was already an abbot, a visitor saw him at work “helping to build the new church, did not recognize him in his poor clothes and asked him: “Monk, tell me, is your abbot at home?” – “What do you want from him? He is a sinner.”60 Not stopping at

52 Ibid., 127 - 28. 53 Ibid., 116. 54 Ibid., 117. 55 Ibid., 119. 56 Ibid., 117. 57 Ibid., 118-19. The iron chains were proper to the Syrian ascetic circles, and the story of how the blood stains revealed the presence of chains under Theodosius’s clothes reminds the story about the young Simeon the Stylite and the cord that he wore, see Fedotov, 117; offering one’s body to the gnats was probably inspired by the pattern of Macarius of Egypt, see Fedotov, 119. 58 Ibid., 117. 59 Ibid., 121. 60 Ibid., 124 – 25. Another of the numerous stories of the saint’s social unpretentiousness is the following: “The prince of Kiev sent his carriage to bring Theodosius to his palace. The driver, not recognizing the abbot and taking him for “one of the poor,” because of his garb, compelled him to descend from the carriage and to ride on the horse”, see Fedotov, 121. 23 emptying himself of pride, Theodosius continued to empty his image of prestige even

anonymously.

Interestingly, the only area where the generally forgiving Theodosius displayed exemplary

severity was the economic conditions of his monastic community: “The saint was zealous about

the statutory poverty, taking away from the cells everything superfluous in vestments or food to

be burned in a stove as “the devil’s part”. To “have no hope in property” was his principle in

managing the good of the monastery. […] The meek and indulgent abbot became harsh when

facing an act of disobedience which had sprung from economic calculation.”61 Theodosius forbade his community to accumulate wealth or even to save food for hungry times; the common thread throughout his life is the “prohibition to “care about tomorrow”, and his lavish charity which causes him to give the last drop of the cloister’s wine to a poor priest for his church”62.

As was true of his attitude toward those intent on preserving their material resources, Theodosius was also known for his severity with those who assert their social capital: princes and “the higher persons of society”63. Thus, the meek Theodosius accepted any behavior except for one that directly contradicted his chief ideal: self-emptying, or kenosis64.

Fedotov’s work ignited a heated discussion as to whether kenosis is, indeed, uniquely prominent in the Russian Orthodox tradition. This discussion continues until today among

Russian and Western Slavists. A number of scholars accede to the view that kenosis - called by this name or indicated descriptively - is a peculiar feature of Russian religion. An example of

61 Ibid., 123. 62 Ibid., 122. 63 Ibid., 391. 64 While Theodosius is a model of Russian kenoticism and one of its earliest disciples, most of the subsequent Russian saints placed kenosis in the center of their understanding of Christianity. Thus, the Vita of Sergy of Radonezh includes markedly kenotic elements, such as tattered clothing, performing chores others disdain, refusing to accept the position of an abbot, and subordinating all other considerations to a vision of self-humiliation. For the discussion of kenotic elements in the Vita of Sergy of Radonezh, see Ziolkowski, 34. 24 this view is Ellis Sandoz’s chapter on Russian Orthodox Christianity in Political Apocalypse:

A Study of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, where Sandoz renders the Russian brand of

Christianity as marked, first and foremost, by kenoticism:

Revealed in the Christ of the legend [of the Grand Inquisitor] is the Russian Christ as mediated by contemplatives from the time of Boris and Gleb. It is the kenotic Christ of self-humiliation, suffering, love, humility, and voluntary sacrificial death… The picture of Christ, thus, weaves together the principal elements of Russian devotion.65

Another group of scholars, however, contend that kenoticism is a universally Christian

phenomenon, and believe that to discuss it as a uniquely Russian practice is reductionist66. Yet

another group takes a more moderate approach; they point out manifestations of kenoticism in a

number of cultures, yet do not deny that the Russian tradition has its peculiarities67.

Margaret Ziolkowski’s opinion deserves special attention, as it reverses Fedotov’s argument.

Ziolkowski claims that from the earliest period of Russian Christianity, and especially from the

fifteenth century on, the kenotic tradition was secondary to other approaches to Christianity

within the Russian Orthodox community68. Kenosis remained central to the teachings of a few

monks such as Tikhon of Zadonsk69, and the three great elders of the monastery of Optina

65 Ellis Sandoz. Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971, pp. 212-13. Quoted in Cassedy, 24. Viewing capacity for suffering as a Russian “national archetype” became something of a cliché among Slavists; even reference books such as Victor Terras’s Handbook of Russian Literature operate with notions such as the “uniquely Russian capacity for suffering, endurance, and faith”, see Terras, Avvakum, in Handbook of Russian Literature, p. 30. 66 See, for example, Zhivov, Viktor and Aleksandr Moldovan. Verenitsa liter: k 60-letiiu V.M. Zhivova. Moskva: Iazyki slavianskoi kul’tury, 2006 and Steven Cassedy’s Dostoevsky’s Religion. Margaret Ziolkowski argues that the “kenotic model by no means dominated medieval Russian monasticism”, see Ziolkowski, 34. 67 A good example of this approach is the work of Vladimir Toporov, see Toporov, Vladimir. Sviatost’ i sviatye v russkoi dukhovnoi kul’ture. Moskva: "Gnozis", Shkola "Ia zyki russkoi kulʹtury”, 1995. V.1. 68 Namely, the privilege was given to “ascetic demonstrations over idiosyncratic expressions of self-effacement, and ritualistic subordination to commu8nal rule over individualized commitment to humility”, see Ziolkowski, 34. 69 For a thorough study of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk and his adherence to the kenotic understanding of Christianity, see Gorodetzky, Saint Tikhon Zadonsky. 25 Pustyn’70, but for the majority of Russian Orthodox subjects, kenoticism was peripheral to

other aspects of Christianity.

Interesting as this debate may be, its resolution is not required for this study, which is not

concerned with the features of Russian Orthodoxy, but rather with kenotic manifestations in

Russian culture’s secular realm. Even if kenoticism is not unique to the Russian religious

tradition, it undoubtedly appears more dominant in Russian secular writing than in that of other

nations. Whether this unique phenomenon is a continuation of a unique religious tradition - the

ties with which it has largely lost - or a peculiar development that sprouted out of the common

Christian soil, the theme of secular kenosis appears prominent in Russian literature, and less so

in other literatures.

One problem with the notion of secular kenosis is the question whether a behavior that corresponds to a Christian doctrine can ever be considered independently of it. Religion had an indisputably strong impact on Russian culture, and it is possible to argue that no matter how passionately certain Russian thinkers denied experiencing the influence of Christianity, they unavoidably internalized its values, possibly even unknowingly. It is not my intention to prove that secular kenosis is radically separate from Orthodoxy, but rather to show that its manifestations have taken place in the secular realm, which, while connected to everyday

Orthodoxy, is not coterminous with it.

I suggest that secular kenosis is broader than Christianity in three main ways: it may have existed before, beyond, and after Christianity. Given that we know very little of what Russian culture was like before Christianity, this dissertation focuses on the “beyond” and “after”

70 Ziolkowski, 34. The elder Amvrosy is known for his contention that “we must humble ourselves before everyone considering ourselves the worst of all”, see Ziolkowski, 35. 26 arguments: it explores kenotic manifestations that temporally co-existed with the prevalence of Christianity in the Russian society, and kenotic manifestations found in Russian society after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution uprooted and well-nigh annihilated Christianity.

While the period before Christianity lies outside the scope of this work, let me cite one debate that illuminates some scholars’ willingness to assert the existence of kenotic tendencies in

Russian culture before the Christianization of Rus’. As Fedotov pointed out, for Russians, the best illustration of the Russian kenotic tradition is the cult of Boris and Gleb, who were sanctified and became Russia’s patron saints after their kenotic feat. The medievalist Gail

Lenhoff’s book-length study devoted to the cult of Boris and Gleb offers an interesting perspective on “Boris and Gleb” legend. In her study, which examines the various versions of the legends and their sources, Lenhoff shows that the motive for the princes’ voluntary surrender

(in those versions that include an acknowledgement of the voluntary nature of the surrender) is not necessarily imitation of Christ. She cites other possible motives, such as “Boris’s […] desire to obey God’s commandment to love and obey his brother”; “willingness to give up his life for the sake of the common good”; and “abdication of his princely responsibilities”.71 Steven

Cassedy joins the debate and adds that “a number of sources support their moral point of view on the two princes with scriptural citations drawn largely from the Hebrew Bible, […] what did the common Russian people know of the Hebrew Bible?”72 If Boris and Gleb did not imitate Christ in their kenosis, and if theological reasons for their sanctification came from the Hebrew Bible that common Russians did not know, why did the latter accept the martyr princes as their heroes?

71 Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb: A Socio-Cultural Study of the Cult and the Texts. Columbia, OH: Slavica, 1989. P. 99. Cited in Cassedy 151-52. 72 Cassedy, 152. 27 Lenhoff’s study demonstrates the scope of popularity that Boris and Gleb enjoyed among the

newly converted Slavs; Fedotov also points out that

their cult began soon after their death in 1015, before the ecclesiastical canonization. Moreover, this canonization was enacted, undoubtedy, not on the initiative of the supreme prelate, the Greek Metropolitan […] The firm belief of the Russian people in their new saints was needed to overcome the canonical scruples and resistance of the Greeks.73

If the directive to venerate Boris and Gleb did not come from the ecclesiastical leaders, then the

brothers’ behavior must have resonated with the Russian people for one reason or another. If not

inspired by the Christian doctrine – which was still weak and a privilege of the few – the notions

of “willingness to give up” one’s life and ostensibly inglorious “abdication of […] princely

responsibilities” must have held some other, possibly a-Christian appeal for the newly converted

Slavs.

The chief scholars of kenosis in Russian culture, Fedotov and Gorodetzky concur that Russian

kenoticism exceeds and possibly precedes the corresponding intellectual doctrine. Gorodetzky

writes that “…in the case of Russia the “kenotic” type of life, thought and character, far from

being a result of intellectual investigation, precedes it.” She describes her study as “an account

of a devotional attitude, of life lived in a “kenotic” frame of mind”74 rather than an account of the

doctrine itself. Gorodetzky explains her choice of emphasis by saying that “long before Russian

thought was mature enough to face the doctrine of kenosis, the attention of the Russian people

was struck by the evangelical call to meekness, poverty, humility and obedience.”75 Fedotov agrees by underlining that although Russians received their religion from foreign teachers, their

73 Fedotov, 95. 74 Gorodetzky, viii. 75 Ibid., vii. 28 enthusiasm for kenosis as a central part of the Christian doctrine is not calqued off the Western models.

Thus, the debate about the chicken-or-egg relationship between Russian culture’s kenotic predisposition and introduction of Christianity to Russia is still living. This reveals that some scholars feel dissatisfied by explaining Russian culture’s kenotic tendencies by the Christian influence alone. For the purposes of this study, it is possible to say that some evidence points at the possibility of a Russian pre-Christian cultural tendency to revere the outward-directed flow of resources. Upon the introduction of Christianity, this tendency could have merged with the

Christian notion of kenosis, as many pre-Christian beliefs, rituals and deities merged with their

Christian counterparts once Christianity was established in pagan lands.

The “beyond and after Christianity” arguments lie more within the scope of this dissertation, however. “Kenosis beyond Christianity” describes kenotic acts perpetrated without conscious reference to the Christian doctrine; situations when individuals act kenotically because they find such behavior to be ethical, or aesthetically valuable, and not because they are imitating the action of Christ. Moreover, my examples of kenosis beyond Christianity often include situations where other aspects of behavior are markedly un-Christian, for example, carousing or adultery.

Some literary critics have observed that in Russian literature, portrayals of kenosis sometimes exist where no direct link to Christianity is visible. For instance, Gorodetzky notes the prevalence of kenotic types in Turgenev’s prose, although neither the writer himself, nor many of his upper-class characters were religious76.

76 Gorodetzky lists a number of kenotic types among Turgenev’s peasant characters, as well as among noblemen and, especially, noblewomen, see Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ, pp. 35 – 40; 40 - 43. 29 Of course, the lack of ostensibly demonstrated religious fervor is not necessarily the same

thing as the fervor’s objective absence. Moreover, one may argue that religion and its values

saturated Russian daily life to such an extent that Christian influence was omnipresent,

regardless of whether individuals acknowledged the religious foundation of their actions or

judgments. I would agree, but I would also argue that religion offers many guidelines, and

people adopt some of them with more vigor than others. Even if we accept the axiom that

reverence for emptying-out in Russian culture comes from Christianity, it is still crucial that this

reverence outlived Christianity, and remained potent when other religious dogmata yielded their

hold on Russian society.

The subject of my first chapter, Dostoevsky, is most closely linked to religion, and to the

theme of Christian kenosis, in particular. Defining kenosis as a “host of human traits having to

do with humility”, Cassedy writes that “[n]o Russian author in the nineteenth century

popularized these traits more than Dostoevsky”77. In fact, Dostoevsky might be responsible for the very appearance of the term kenosis in Russian theological writing. As noted earlier, Paul

Valliere suggests that Tareev - the scholar who first introduced the term kenosis into Russian discourse – is likely to have been influenced by Dostoevsky78.

Moreover, Dostoevsky was undoubtedly responsible for refocusing public attention on the notion of kenosis, which, according to some scholars79, had been a peripheral feature of Russian culture prior to Dostoevsky’s engagement. In her study Dostoevsky and the Kenotic Tradition,

77 Cassedy 60. 78 Valliere writes, “there is every likelihood that Tareev’s views of Christ’s kenosis were inspired at least in part by Dostoevsky”. Tareev takes as the point of departure for his discussion of humility the temptation narrative in the Gospels, but his approach to this narrative is untraditional: Valliere shows that it leaves out such issues as incarnation, passion, and resurrection, focusing instead, like Dostoevsky in “The Grand Inquisitor”, on the earthly ministry of Jesus, see Valliere, p. 63. 79 See above for the discussion of Margaret Ziolkowski’s opinion. 30 Margaret Ziolkowski shows that Dostoevsky demonstrated a heightened interest in the

Russian Orthodox sources that focused on the kenotic tradition, i.e., St. Theodosius, St. Tikhon

of Zadonsk, and Dostoevsky’s contemporary Amvrosy – the last of Optina Pustyn’s elders80.

Dostoevsky brought this interest into his fiction. Cassedy observes that St. Theodosius “figures

in Dostoevsky’s writings, above all in his plans for The Devils”81. Tikhon of Zadonsk “is said to

be a prototype for Father Zossima and for Bishop Tikhon in the Devils”82; Dostoevsky “read extensively in a five-volume edition of Tikhon’s works that was published in the early 1960s.”83

Finally, Dostoevsky’s meeting with the Optina Pustyn’ elder Amvrosy during the writer’s visit to the monastery became, together with the example of Tikhon of Zadonsk, crucial to the genesis of

Father Zosima’s character84. Ziolkowski shows that in his portraits of Bishop Tikhon and Father

Zosima, Dostoevsky exploited a number of conventional qualities that have come, in the course of several centuries, to be associated with the kenotic model85. Dostoevsky’s other memorable characters with strikingly kenotic features are Alyosha Karamazov of The Brothers Karamazov

and Prince Myshkin of The Idiot86.

In her brilliant book-length study Redemption and the Merchant God, Susan McReynolds

explores Dostoevsky’s obsession with self-sacrifice. McReynolds argues that one of the central

factors for Dostoevsky’s divergence from conventionally understood Christianity consists in the

writer’s acute sensitivity to the difference between self-sacrifice and sacrificing others:

80 Ziolkowski, 34-35. 81 Cassedy, 60. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ziolkowski, 34. 85 Examples include avoidance of ecclesiastical honors and a reluctance to flaunt one’s spiritual authority, see Ibid., 35. 86 For a discussion of Prince Myshkin as a kenotic character, see Chapter 2. 31 Locating the essence of Russia and Christianity in the concept of self-sacrifice is something that can be found during various periods of Dostoevsky’s work. He frequently insists that Christianity and the Russian idea permit only the shedding of one’s own blood, not that of others.87

McReynolds shows that thoughts about the redemptive power of self-sacrifice, and doubts about the way this idea has been interpreted by others, are ubiquitous in Dostoevsky’s journalism, notebooks, and fiction.

While Dostoevsky’s literary engagement with Christian kenosis is well-researched, this dissertation focuses on how Dostoevsky’s writing allows kenosis to spill out of the religious sphere into secular life. The broadening of the kenotic realm can even be seen in Zosima, who is atypical for an Orthodox monk in his manifest interest in secular national questions. Noting this divergence from the Orthodox canon, Ziolkowski writes about Dostoevsky, “in Zosima he embodies, but then transcends, the kenotic tradition, with its numerous adherents who fled secular involvement as if it were the devil’s own handiwork”88. Tellingly, Zosima’s advice for his best disciple – Alyosha Karamazov – is to leave the monastery walls and bring his kenotic devotion into the secular world:

My thoughts on you are as follows: you shall leave these walls, and in the secular world (v miru), you shall live like a monk. You shall have many adversaries, but even your most ardent adversaries will love you. Life will bring you a lot of suffering, but you shall derive happiness from that very suffering, and you shall bless life, and make others bless life, which is the most important thing.89

87 McReynolds 12. 88 Ziolkowski 40. 89 “Мыслю о тебе так: изыдешь из стен сих, а в миру пребудешь как инок. Много будешь иметь противников, но и самые враги, твои будут любить тебя. Много несчастий принесет тебе жизнь, но имито ты и счастлив будешь и жизнь благословишь, и других благословить заставишь, что важнее всего.” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Book 6, Russkii Inok. I. Starets Zosima I gosti ego. 32 Zosima recognizes Alyosha’s kenotic capacity, but, contrary to the conventional Orthodox model, does not encourage his disciple to cultivate his devotional capability within a religious institution. Zosima wants Alyosha to bring his kenosis into the world, use it to generate harmony there, and infect others with his kenotic spirit.

While the character of Alyosha is still closely linked to religion, Dostoevsky’s other kenotic characters are not connected to religion at all. In relation to one kenotic manifestation, Cassedy points out, “In Dostoevsky’s universe, voluntary suffering sometimes is and sometimes is not linked with religious fervor”90. This dissertation explores the cases when kenotic behavior is not linked to religious fervor. Dostoevsky “transcends” the kenotic tradition by having his unreligious characters – drunkards, carousers, sinners – act kenotically in their customary contexts. This dissertation takes off where these behaviors begin, and attempts to explain them as manifestations of secular kenosis.

The four chapters of this dissertation illuminate various contexts in which Russian literature dealt with the notion of secular kenosis. Each chapter focuses on a different period and a different author. Chapter 2 explores Dostoevsky’s journalistic writings on kenosis, and his fictional portrayals of kenosis as practiced by lay persons in secular contexts. The special focus is Diary of a Writer and two celebrated novels: The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.

While Dostoevsky’s personal ties to Christianity are indisputable, the dissertation’s subsequent chapters deal with authors whose connection to Christianity is questionable, at best.

The subject of Chapter 3 – Anton Chekhov – intimately knew Orthodox Christian dogma, but rejected it, as did many of his educated characters. In the Weltanschauung of Chekhov’s characters, religion is not an axiom; yet, kenoticism still is. It is possible to explain this paradox

90 Cassedy 154. 33 by observing that, like their creator, Chekhov’s characters probably came to maturity in

religious families that succeeded in instilling Christian values before the young people learned to

rebel. This early familiarity with the Christian teachings could have been decisive for the

formation of their worldviews. Although they rejected the external regalia of the doctrine later in

life, their axiological development took place within the Christian value system that honored

kenosis.

It would make for a purer experiment to observe a generation that was raised without religion,

and therefore did not go through the process of internalizing Christian values, then rejecting

them, but retaining their core as their private value systems. A grand experiment in itself,

Russian history provides us with the opportunity to observe several generations that fit this

requirement. Chapter 4 explores the role of kenosis in the lives of Post-WWII Soviet people,

who grew up knowing no Christianity whatsoever: neither Sunday schools nor religion classes,

neither the Bible nor Vitae, neither baptisms nor church weddings. In their world, old church

buildings served as vegetable storage depots, dance halls, or movie theaters; priests existed

mostly in caricature paintings, and the first association triggered by the word “religion” was

“opium for the masses”91. Yet, a lack of religious background did not translate into the

disappearance of kenotic behaviors or respect for them. Chapter 4 shows how Soviet ideologists

attempted to integrate kenosis into the new religion – that of Marxism-Leninism, and how their

audiences tolerated the Marxism-Leninism and savored the kenosis.

91 Coined by Marx, this phrase became a hackneyed cliché for Soviet people. The following quote from Il’f and Petrov’s The Twelve Chairs illustrates how common and familiar the phrase was for Soviet readers; so familiar that it could be used as a self-explanatory joke by a fictional character: “Удовлетворенный Остап, хлопая шнурками по ковру, медленно пошел назад. Когда его массивная фигура отдалилась достаточно далеко, отец Федор быстро высунул голову за дверь и с долго сдерживаемым негодованием пискнул: — Сам ты дурак! — Что? — крикнул Остап, бросаясь обратно, но дверь была уже заперта, и только щелкнул замок. Остап наклонился к замочной скважине, приставил ко рту ладонь трубой и внятно сказал: — Почем опиум для народа?” See Il’f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs. 34 What about those who knew no Christianity and tolerated no Marxism-Leninism, and fled

the Soviet Union muttering curses towards its leaders – is it possible that they, too, bought into

the secular kenotic doctrine? Chapter 5 shows that it is indeed possible, to judge by the case of a

Russian émigré writer Eduard Limonov and his celebrated character Eddie. Like his creator,

Eddie rebels against every institution and ideology, but considers kenosis an unquestionable

value and defines the worth of himself and others through their kenotic capacity. Eddie

passionately subscribes to Dostoevsky’s premise that kenosis is the essence of Russianness;

however, Eddie’s beliefs take him to places very far from what Dostoevsky predicted when he

preached kenosis to his countrymen. Discounting the notion of humility, Eddie has his kenosis

take histrionic and extravagant forms; forgoing Dostoevsky’s emphasis on harmony, Eddie wants

his self-emptying to culminate in violent self-annihilation.

While the term secular kenosis has been coined for this research project, the analysis of

kenotic manifestations in Russian literature has been done before. Kenosis in Dostoevsky’s

works has been the subject of research by Steven Cassedy, George Fedotov, Nadejda

Gorodetzky92, Murray Krieger, George Panichas, Lylas Dayton Rommel, Edward Wasiolek,

Alexander Webster, and Margaret Ziolkowski. All these scholars focus on openly religious kenosis in Dostoevsky’s works: that of Father Zosima of The Brothers Karamazov, Bishop

Tikhon of the Devils; or Prince Myshkin of The Idiot. I include Prince Myshkin in the list of

religious characters because, although an ostensibly secular personage, Myshkin is widely

known to be Dostoevsky’s attempt to portray Christ93. This dissertation builds on the foundation

created by these works, but it moves beyond the religious kenosis in Dostoevsky’s works to its

secular manifestations.

92 Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ, pp. 57 – 69. 93 For a further discussion of Prince Myshkin as a Christ-like figure, see Chapter 2. 35 Few scholars address kenosis in the works of other Russian writers. A notable exception is

Nadejda Gorodetzky, who writes about kenotic manifestations in the poetry of Fyodor Tiutchev94 and Nikolai Ogarev95, and in the fiction of Nikolai Gogol’96, Ivan Turgenev97, Lev Tolstoy98 and

Nikolai Leskov99. Gorodetzky focuses on kenosis practiced by “religious people”: priests, hermits, monks, or characters who do not associate with church by occupation, but express a pronounced personal interest in religion. Gorodetzky describes the latter category as “seekers of

God”100. When writing about characters with no articulated interest in religion, such as Gogol’s clerk from The Overcoat, Gorodetzky analyzes them as symbolic representations of their creators’ religious beliefs. When analyzing works by the a-religious Turgenev, Gorodetzky suggests that “his artistic intuition was richer than his conscious programme”101, and insists that

Turgenev’s “portraits of obedience, forbearance and humility” are true to life, although “such lives were for the artist himself no more than a “strange story”102.

Another group of scholars address the question of kenosis in Russian literature without using the actual term, or using the word kenosis occasionally, as a synonym to the main term with which they describe the phenomenon. Thus, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere has written a book- length study about the “moral masochism and the cult of suffering” in Russian culture. In support of his argument, Rancour-Laferriere cites works by Fyodor Dostoevsky103, Alexander

94 Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ, 6 - 7. 95 Ibid., 21 - 22. 96 Ibid., 28 - 34. 97 Ibid., 35 – 43. 98 Ibid., 43 – 57. Stephen Graham also mentions Tolstoy in his study of the Russian national character, but focuses on Tolstoy’s biography, not writing. See chapter Tolstoy’s Flight From Home, Graham 131 – 136. 99 Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ, 69 – 74. 100 Ibid., 72. 101 Ibid., 36. 102 Ibid., 43. 103 Rancour-Laferriere, 84 – 86, 234 – 244. 36 Pushkin, Vasilii Grossman104 and Alexander Blok105. Rancour-Laferriere also provides a six- page-long annotated list of “masochistic characters” in Russian literature106. The list includes characters from works by Turgenev, Tolstoy107, Dostoevsky108, Saltykov-Shchedrin,

Mayakovsky, Zamiatin, Pasternak, Ostrovsky, and Solzhenitsyn. Impressive in scope, Rancour-

Laferriere’s work portrays Russian “masochism” as a stable, unchanging phenomenon, and devotes little attention to tracing its development over time, or to determining its role in the larger picture. Indeed, it appears that Rancour-Laferriere considers “moral masochism” to be some sort of psycho-genetic characteristic of Russians. This dissertation operates in a different mode. By focusing on fewer works, it can afford to investigate literary portrayals of emptying- out in context, which includes the authors’ broader oeuvre and extra-literary life, as well as the influence of literary tradition. In the end, this study seeks to create an in-depth genealogy of the concept within the chosen time frame.

Other scholars of the psychoanalytic school, such as Igor’ Smirnov and Lilya Kaganovsky, focus on the Soviet period. They conceptualize self-emptying in Soviet culture as “masochism” and “castration anxiety”, and analyze its manifestations in Gladkov’s Cement, Nikolai

Ostrovskii’s How the Steel Was Tempered, Boris Polevoi’s A Story About a Real Man, Mikhail

Chiaureli’s The Fall of Berlin, and a number of other literary works and films dating from the

second quarter of the twentieth century.109 While sharply focused, these works suffer a

weakness opposite from that of Rancour-Laferriere’s: they treat the “masochism” and “castration

104 Ibid., 86 – 92. 105 Ibid., 230 – 234. 106 Ibid., 78 – 84. 107 The list includes Tolstoy’s characters such as Father Sergius, Platon Karataev, the rich merchant from God Seeks the Truth but Waits, Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, and Anna Karenina. 108 The list includes Dostoevsky’s characters such as Raskolnikov, Aleksei Ivanovich of The Gambler, the underground man, Prince Myshkin, Nastasia Filippovna, Stavrogin, and Father Tikhon. 109 The manner is which these two scholars conceptualize Soviet-period kenosis receives more attention in Chapter 4. 37 anxiety” observed in Stalinist art as isolated phenomena unrelated to anything that happened in Russian culture before or after the period and therefore ascribe a causal relationship between

Stalinism and a cultural phenomenon that both pre and post-dates it.

My predecessors’ scholarship has affected the scope of this dissertation and the choice of works analyzed here. I start from Dostoevsky, because his writing appears to be the point at which the cult of kenosis left the physical and metaphorical walls of church and started its sojourn in the secular world. Since representations of religious kenosis in the works of

Dostoevsky have attracted a significant amount of quality research, I do not address them, focusing instead on examples of secular kenosis.

To investigate literary portrayals of a society where kenosis is no longer a religious doctrine, but a cultural value, I turn to works by Anton Chekhov, whose works have never been mentioned in relation to kenosis. I find Chekhov’s insights especially valuable due to his rare gift of axiological impartiality, with which he witnesses and documents the prevalence of secular kenotic tendencies in the Russian culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The second half of my dissertation deals with the fate of secular kenosis in Russia’s twentieth century. The presence of kenotic trope in the twentieth-century culture is highly significant, because it elucidates the nature of the bond between kenosis and Christianity. Whether the

Christian influence conceived kenotic predisposition in the Russian culture, or strengthened and codified the pre-existing tendency, the prominence of the kenotic theme in the twentieth-century

Russian culture demonstrates that adherence to the Christian teachings, or even familiarity with them, is not a prerequisite for the existence of a kenotic tendency. My only predecessors in this field - Rancour-Laferriere, Kaganovsky, and Smirnov - come from the psychoanalytic school, and their scholarly orientation distinctly seasons their observations. My analysis of Socialist 38 Realist and émigré literature differs from theirs in method and in focus. In regard to method, I look at self-emptying in the twentieth century from the point of view of cultural history rather than psychoanalysis. As for the choice of focus, I analyze Post-WWII Socialist Realism rather than that of 1930s and 1940s, and Eduard Limonov’s secular oeuvre rather than on

Solzhenitsyn’s Orthodoxy-influenced writings.

In pursuing the topic of secular kenosis in Russian culture, I do not claim to create a realistic portrayal of Russian character, though there is no doubt that many Russians (as well as outside observers) believe emptying out to be a strong marker of Russianness. Cultural reverence for kenosis is only one strand of the highly complex Russian culture, and it is far from my intention to present it as the sole inspiration of Russian people. Finally, I mean to portray secular kenotic bias neither as universally applicable to all Russians, nor as applicable to Russians only.

This dissertation is a series of observations on a recurrent trope in Russian literature analyzed in a diachronic context. Tracing the development of the secular kenosis trope through one hundred and thirty years of Russian literature will allow me to analyze the role of the trope in

Russian cultural self-definition. By investigating some of the key texts of Russian literature, I hope to show how self-emptying relates to Russianness, and why the stereotype about the giving, spending, and wasteful Russian soul lives on. 39 C h a p t e r 2

SECULAR KENOSIS IN DOSTOEVSKY

In Dostoevsky’s oeuvre, secular kenosis is ubiquitously associated with Russianness.

Dostoevsky the journalist promotes secular kenosis as a potent foundation for Russian national identity and a path to harmony; Dostoevsky the writer dramatizes these ideas in his fiction. His private notebooks provide illuminating insights into why kenosis is so important to the writer, and why he believes it to hold so much significance for Russians in general. This chapter will also investigate how secular kenosis became an essential part of the Dostoevskian current of thinking about Russian national identity.

According to Dostoevsky, the Russian national idea ought to find its foundation in what can be summarized as active secular kenosis. The writer insists that a strong national idea is vital for a nation’s successful development. Drawing parallels between the collective self of a nation and an individual, Dostoevsky argues that the lack of a strong national idea dooms a nation to fragmentation and eventual self-destruction, as the lack of a higher idea may drive an individual to suicide. The writer is speaking of an idea capable of uniting all members of a nation across the dividing lines of estates and education levels; contemporary scholarship refers to this concept as “national identity”. Although Dostoevsky does not use this term, it appears to capture his idea most adequately. The writer insists that kenosis is characteristic of the Russian national character and already common among the Russian people, in the form of ideas if not always as a prevailing behavioral mode.

In many situations, Dostoevsky’s position on the role of kenosis in Russian national identity is closer to willingness to believe than to a whole-hearted conviction. His fiction and journalism 40 are ridden with contradictions vis-à-vis the subject. Dostoevsky wants to see kenosis as the

unifying glue that holds Russian society together, but he cannot always sincerely state that this is

already the case. As Steven Cassedy points out in Dostoevsky’s Religion, one of the most

profound problems with analyzing Dostoevsky’s views is the writer’s tendency to defend,

passionately and convincingly, different views at different points of time: “Since […] he’s made

it impossible for us to state what his personal religious beliefs are […]. Then all we can talk

about is what he does when the topic of religion comes up in his writing”110. This dissertation applies the same strategy to Dostoevsky’s views on Russian national identity.

In his periodical publications such as Time and The Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky strives to prove that kenosis comes naturally to all Russians regardless of their social status or educational level. In her study of Dostoevsky’s journalism, notebooks, and fiction, McReynolds convincingly shows that the idea of self-sacrifice always played a central role in Dostoevsky’s understanding of Russianness. Towards the end of his life, McReynolds argues, Dostoevsky begins to marginalize Christ and “to associate free, voluntary self-giving with the Russian people even more than with Christ.”111

In his journalism, Dostoevsky argues that in the deeply segregated Russian society, kenotic sentiment is probably the main connecting point between the different social strata. Dostoevsky asserts that acknowledging and celebrating the role of kenosis in Russian culture is a way of strengthening the national idea. However, since kenosis is only genuine when spontaneous rather than rationally motivated, Dostoevsky sees promoting it on the intellectual level as futile.

110 Cassedy X. 111 McReynolds 13. 41 He suggests literature as an effective and subtle way of advancing kenosis as a behavioral

model, and puts his suggestion into practice by creating a gallery of kenoticists in his fiction.

I will begin by analyzing Dostoevsky’s journalism, where he addresses the question of the

Russian national idea and its connection to kenosis. The second part of the chapter will deal with

Dostoevsky’s treatment of the theme in his fiction. First, it will investigate the novel The Idiot,

where the writer features kenotic ability as a measure of human worth and creates unforgettable

portraits of two kenoticists: Prince Myshkin and Nastasia Filippovna. Second, it will analyze the

novel The Brothers Karamazov, in which Dostoevsky reveals the potential of kenosis to generate

universal harmony.

I: Secular Kenosis in Dostoevsky’s Journalism

In the absence of the handy term “national identity”, Dostoevsky has to feel around for an

effective phrase to express his idea. He tries out a variety of combinations, including “dukh

russkii”112, “ideal narodnyi”113, “glavnaia ideia Rossii”114, “russkaia istina”115, and “russkii kharakter i ego napravlenie”116. In his search for the right expression to describe the phenomenon, Dostoevsky occasionally defines it as abstractly as “something important and deep-rooted” that makes Russians unique and incomprehensible for foreigners117. Rather than contrasting the Russian national idea with that of a particular foreign nation, Dostoevsky offers

112 Pss. Vol. 18. 41, 50. 113 Ibid., 50. 114 Ibid., 42. 115 Ibid., 41. 116 Ibid. 117 «…и вдруг на чем-нибудь самом важном, коренном, без чего никакие познания о России, никакие факты, приобретенные трудом самым добросовестным, не дадут никакого о ней понятия или дадут самое сбивчивое, чтоб не сказать бестолковое, - вдруг наш [иностранный] ученый становится в тупик, обрывается, теряет нитку и заключает такою нелепостью, что книга сама вырывается из рук ваших и падает, иногда даже под стол.” Ibid., 43. 42 the “European idea”118 as a point of reference119. Thus, the writer suggests that the discussed

idea is not merely a cultural choice open to any nation, but something unique and exclusive to

Russians, at least in the European context. Using a variety of terms, Dostoevsky seems to be

discussing the same essence: the basis for Russian national identity.

Seeking a National Idea

Preoccupation with the national idea permeates Dostoevsky’s The Diary of a Writer to such an extent that this work could be subtitled “a study in Russianness”120. In Dostoevsky’s hierarchy, the national idea holds more value than objective reality: “No, don’t judge our people for what they are, but for what they want to become. And the people’s ideals are deep and holy…”121. He explains grim reality by corrupting external influences: “all this is artificial and temporary”122, and claims that the existence of a solid and positive national idea guarantees “that the darkness will end and that the eternal light will, at some point, definitely shine.”123

Conversely, the absence of a solid national idea is dangerous for an individual and a nation alike; in both cases, it leads to self-destruction. In the Diary from 1876, Dostoevsky discusses an epidemic of mysterious, seemingly unprovoked suicides among the Russian youth124. The epidemic intrigues Dostoevsky because it seems to affect people who suffer from no obvious

118 Ibid., 68. 119 For Dostoevsky, “the European idea” often functions as a conceptual Other against whom he defines his views on Russianness. While the notion of a generalized and undefined “European idea” appears clearly oversimplified, nationalism theorist Benedict Anderson offers an insight into why such a simplified idea may be necessary. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson articulates the idea that the existence of a generalized and contrasting “other” is necessary for an effective definition of one’s own group. 120 Sarah Hudspith calls Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer “a study in Russianness”, see Hudspith, 64. 121 “Нет, судите наш народ не по тому, чем он есть, а по тому, чем желал бы стать. А идеалы его сильны и святы…”, Pss. Vol. 22. 43. 122 “всё это – лишь наносное и временное,” Ibid. 123 “что кончится тьма и что непременно воссияет когда-нибудь вечный свет”, Ibid. 124 “Мы действительно видим очень много (а обилие это опять-таки своего рода загадка) самоубийств, странных и загадочных, сделанных вовсе не по нужде, не по обиде, без всяких видимых к тому причин, вовсе не вследствие материальных недостатков, оскорбленной любви, ревности, болезни, ипохондрии или сумасшествия, а так, бог знает из-за чего совершившихся.” Pss. Vol. 24. 50. 43 lacks; he identifies their unfulfilled need as that of a higher idea125. As an individual is driven to suicide by the lack of a higher idea, absence of a unifying national idea leads a nation to fragmentation. Dostoevsky uses the word «razroznennost»126, which, formed of the root –raz/- roz (different) with the help of a prefix “raz–“ (apart), has a distinctively negative connotation and conveys the idea of a nation drifting apart, towards its ultimate disintegration.

In his conviction that Russia’s national idea must be based on bridging the gaps and unifying the fragmented elements, Dostoevsky owes much to pochvennichestvo (the Native Soil movement), and to A. A. Grigoriev, in particular. In his study of Dostoevsky’s intellectual relationship with the Native Soil movement, Wayne Dowler writes,

[Dostoevsky’s] notion, which he held until his death, that Russian was destined to reconcile the thought of East and West turned out to be a jingoistic parody of Grigor’ev’s original, more modest conception that in the new Russian nationality the ancient tradition of Russian fraternity would be reconciled with the new, Western elements of Russian life […] The triumphant culmination of Dostoevsky’s nationalistic literary criticism, the Pushkin speech, was little more than an oversimplified and heated summary of Grigoriev’s major critical articles of the late 1850s.127

Dowler shows that it was the pochvenniki who “transformed the idea of Russian nationality from a static entity that has to be retrieved by a quasi-religious act of contrition, as the Slavophiles understood it, into a dynamic and evolutionary principle of organic change.”128 In these views, the pochvenniki were largely influenced by the Slavophiles and by Russian literary critic

125 “Все эти самоубийства я, конечно, объяснять не возьмусь, да и, разумеется, не могу …, но зато я несомненно убежден, что в большинстве, в целом, прямо или косвенно, эти самоубийцы покончили с собой из-за одной и той же духовной болезни - от отсутствия высшей идеи существования в душе их.” Ibid. 126 Pss. Vol. 22. 95. 127 Dowler 180-81. 128 Dowler 181. 44 Vissarion Belinsky129. Grigor’ev and other pochvenniki, in their turn, furnished Dostoevsky with a framework into which to fit his thoughts about Russianness.130

Within that framework, Dostoevsky develops his original ideas vis-à-vis the Russian national idea. One of the centers of gravity of Dostoevsky’s contribution consists in his belief in secular kenosis as a national, and, eventually, a universal panacea. The idea of annihilating one’s ego en route to the kenotic ideal directly links Dostoevsky’s thought to that of the Slavophile Konstantin

Aksakov. Aksakov addresses this aspect of kenosis – subordination of one’s individuality to a group as a path to harmony - in his article On Contemporary Man: “Personality is not suppressed in society and does not disappear (as some perhaps may think); on the contrary, it is here that it finds its highest meaning, for only when personality denies itself, its I, as the center, does it reach a harmony of personalities, a new phenomenon, where each personality appears in a loving unity of personalities.”131 The ensuing sections demonstrate how this thought developed in

Dostoevsky’s oeuvre.

Kenosis: a Panacea?

Before turning to Dostoevsky’s arguments in support of the kenotic predilection in Russians, let us analyze why he sees kenosis as a desirable basis for national identity.

129 For a discussion of Belinsky’s influence on the Native Soil movement, see Dowler. 130 Thus, the Slavophil influence on Dostoevsky was largely mediated by the Native Soil Movement. The impact of Slavophilism on Dostoevsky’s thought has been a subject of several studies, including A. B. Gibson, The Religion of Dostoevsky, London: SCM Press, 1973; A. Gleason, European and Muscovite: Ivan Kireevsky and the Origins of Slavophilism, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972; Sarah Hudspith, Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness. A New Perspective on Unity and Brotherhood, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004; N. V. Riazanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles: a Study of Romantic Ideology, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965; N. Zernov, Three Russian Prophets: Khomiakov, Dostoevsky, Solovev, London: SCM Press, 1994, p. 11, p. 152, p. 97; Т. И. Благова, Алексей Степанович Хомяков и Иван Васильевич Киреевский: Жизнь и философское мировоззрение, Москва: Tetra, 1994, pp. 184-95; Викторович, Славянофильство Достоевского: Три обращения, Волга, № 8-9, 1996, стр. 113-31. 131 Aksakov 437. 45 First, kenosis appears as a necessary condition for the successful existence of a society

characterized by organic unity. Since Dostoevsky believes that the recipe for harmony consists

in the willful unification of a nation, all individuals comprising the nation must be willing to part

with their individual possessions, resources, and even distinct personalities, and pour them all out

into the common reservoir that is their nation. Those reluctant to part with their individual

resources halt the process of unification, and, therefore, harmonization. For those who

understand a nation as a collective body, emptying oneself out is not really losing one’s

resources, but simply relocating them. If every individual is but a cell in the body of a nation,

the resources that he or she gives away contribute to the well-being of the whole, and,

consequently, to the well-being of the very individual who ostensibly suffered a loss.

The second aspect of kenosis as a harmonizing force is illuminated by an entry in

Dostoevsky’s private notebook from April 16, 1864. Reflecting on his wife’s death the previous

day, Dostoevsky contemplates the relationship between human ego and love for the other:

To love a man as one loves oneself, according to Christ’s commandment, is impossible. The earthly law of personality binds one. One’s “self” stands in the way. Only Christ could do that, but Christ was the eternal ideal, for which every man aspires, and must aspire, by the law of nature. Meanwhile, after Christ had appeared as the human ideal in the flesh, it became perfectly clear that the highest, the final development of personality has to reach (at the very end of development, at the very point of achieving the goal) the stage of a man learning, understanding, and becoming convinced, with all the might of his nature, that the highest use to which a man can put his personality, out of the completeness of the development of his self, - is to annihilate that self, to give it away entirely to each and everyone, completely and whole-heartedly.132

132 “Возлюбить человека, как самого себя, по заповеди Христовой, - невозможно. Закон личности на земле связывает. Я препятствует. Один Христос мог, но Христос был вековечный от века идеал, к которому стремится и по закону природы должен стремиться человек. Между тем после появления Христа, как 46 Here, Dostoevsky articulates the principle of self-renunciation as the acme of spiritual growth:

only through relinquishing one’s ego can an individual reach the state of unalloyed love for the

other, which is not only the path to societal harmony, but also the greatest happiness for the

individual: “and this is the greatest happiness”133. Later in the same notebook entry, Dostoevsky

refers to self-sacrifice as the “heavenly joy of fulfilling the law”134. Thus, kenosis brings about

harmony on the intra-personal as well as the extra-personal level: an individual achieves true,

“heavenly” joy through emptying himself out and simultaneously benefits the organic body of

his society.

This sentiment expressed in this notebook entry echoes a central idea of Winter Notes on

Summer Impressions published the year before. Dostoevsky wrote Winter Notes after traveling

in Germany, France, England, Switzerland, and Italy for two and a half months in 1862; the

essay first appeared in the literary journal Time in February - March 1863. A crucial text for

understanding Dostoevsky’s position on kenosis, Winter Notes portrays kenosis as a natural feature of highly-developed personalities:

The willing, absolutely conscious self-sacrifice, not forced by anyone, the sacrifice of self for the benefit of all is, in my opinion, a sign of its [personality’s] highest power, the highest self-possession, the highest freedom of will. To give up, willingly, one’s life for all, to go to the cross, into the fire – it is possible to do so only out of the highest development of one’s personality.135

идеала человека во плоти, стало ясно как день, что высочайшее, последнее развитие личности именно и должно дойти до того (в самом конце развития, в самом пункте достижения цели), чтоб человек нашёл, сознал и всей силой своей природы убедился, что высочайшее употребление, которое может сделать человек из своей личности, из полноты развития своего я, - это как бы уничтожить это я, отдать его целиком всем и каждому безраздельно и беззаветно.” Dostoevsky. Zapisnye knizhki 33. 133 “И это величайшее счастье”, Ibid. 134 Ibid., 39. 135 “самовольное, совершенно сознательное и никем не принужденное самопожертвование всего себя в пользу всех есть, по-моему, признак высочайшего ее [личности] могущества, высочайшего самообладания, высочайшей свободы собственной воли. Добровольно положить свой живот за всех, пойти за всех на крест, 47 In this passage, Dostoevsky weaves theological imagery into his discussion of contemporary

social life. He allows religious and secular ideas to reinforce each other, helping to update

theological notions to the realities of the contemporary life, and to back up his contemporary

sociological ideas with theological notions. In Winter Notes, the digression on kenosis is

prompted by anthropological observations of the French bourgeois, further generalized as simply

“bourgeois”, and, finally, as “the Westerner” (“zapadnyi chelovek”). Analyzing anecdotes from

Western life in juxtaposition with the rhetoric of liberté, égalité, fraternité, Dostoevsky argues

for the meaninglessness of the rhetoric, and offers willful and spontaneous self-emptying out as a

genuine alternative to the artificial rationale of fraternité. He claims that kenotic behavior is a

natural human inclination:

A well-developed personality, thoroughly confident in its right to be a personality, having no more fears for itself, can make nothing other of its personality – that is, it cannot apply it in any way other than to give it away to all, so that all others were equally independent and happy personalities. This is the law of nature; a man has a normal inclination for that.136

Dostoevsky further elaborates on his definition of self-emptying by insisting that it has to be not

only uninterested, but also not entirely intentional. Intention implies motivation, and motivation,

according to Dostoevsky, ruins the essence of kenosis:

на костер, можно только сделать при самом сильном развитии личности.” Dostoevsky. Winter Notes. Chapter VI. Here, Dostoevsky’s thought bears significant similarity to that of another prominent Slavophil: Konstantin Aksakov. Aksakov has addressed this aspect of kenosis – the idea of denunciation of one’s individuality to a group as a path to harmony - in his article On Contemporary Man: “Personality is not suppressed in society and does not disappear (as some perhaps may think); on the contrary, it is here that it finds its highest meaning, for only when personality denies itself, its I, as the center, does it reach a harmony of personalities, a new phenomenon, where each personality appears in a loving unity of personalities”, see K. S. Aksakov, O sovremennom cheloveke, Estetika i literaturnaua kritika, ed. By V. A. Koshelev, Moskva: Istusstvo, 1995, pp. 418-69: p. 437. Quoted in Hudspith, 56. 136 “Сильно развитая личность, вполне уверенная в своем праве быть личностью, уже не имеющая за себя никакого страха, ничего не может сделать другого из своей личности, то есть никакого более употребления, как отдать ее всю всем, чтоб и другие все были точно такими же самоправными и счастливыми личностями. Это закон природы; к этому тянет нормально человека.” Dostoevsky. Winter Notes. Chapter VI. 48 Here, however, there is a hair, one very, very thin hair but, if it gets into the machine, all will immediately crack and collapse. It is the following: there must not be in this case the slightest motive of personal gain. For example: I offer myself as a total sacrifice for all; and this is as it should be – I should sacrifice myself wholly and irrevocably, without consideration of gain, not thinking in the least that here I am, sacrificing my entire self to society and in exchange society will offer the whole of itself to me. One must, in fact, make one’s sacrifice with the intention of giving away everything, make and even wish that nothing be given to you in exchange and that no one should spend anything on you. Now, how is this to be done? Surely, this is rather like trying not to think of a polar bear. Try and set yourself the problem of not thinking about a polar bear and you will see that the damned animal will be constantly in your thoughts. What can we do then? We can do nothing; it must be done of itself…137

The subject of this passage is not a social policy or a conscious rational decision on the part of an

individual, but a cultural imperative that determines spontaneous actions. Dostoevsky wants to

see an individual emptying himself out not because the latter sees such behavior as moral, and

therefore predicts benefit for society, including himself, but because it is his instinctive reaction.

This claim, although made in the context of a sociological discussion, transcends sociology, and

delves into human psychology and the psychology of culture in particular:

it must be done of itself, the solution must exist in nature; must form an unconscious part of the nature of the whole race, what is needed, in short, is the principle of brotherhood and love – we must love. Man must instinctively and of his own accord be drawn towards brotherhood, fellowship and concord […]. The need for brotherly fellowship

137 Translation by Kyril FitzLyon. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes, 61-62. “Но тут есть один волосок, один самый тоненький волосок, но который если попадется под машину, то все разом треснет и разрушится. Именно: беда иметь при этом случае хоть какой-нибудь самый малейший расчет в пользу собственной выгоды. Например; я приношу и жертвую всего себя для всех; ну, вот и надобно, чтоб я жертвовал себя совсем, окончательно, без мысли о выгоде, отнюдь не думая, что вот я пожертвую обществу всего себя и за это само общество отдаст мне всего себя. Надо жертвовать именно так, чтоб отдавать все и даже желать, чтоб тебе ничего не было выдано за это обратно, чтоб на тебя никто ни в чем не изубыточился. Как же это сделать? Ведь это все равно, что не вспоминать о белом медведе. Попробуйте задать себе задачу: не вспоминать о белом медведе, и увидите, что он, проклятый, будет поминутно припоминаться. Как же сделать? Сделать никак нельзя, а надо, чтоб оно само собой сделалось…”Ibid. 49 must, in fact, have its being in the nature of man, he must be born with it or else have acquired the habit of it from time immemorial.138

In Dostoevsky’s opinion, a tendency towards kenosis cannot be imposed artificially, from

without; it has to come naturally, from within. To Dostoevsky’s disappointment gradually

turning into scorn, the generalized Westerner has no natural tendency towards kenosis.

Dostoevsky writes about Westerners with skeptical sympathy towards their ideas of fraternité, doomed to fail where individualism, rather than kenoticism, reigns:

It [brotherhood] was, however, found to be absent in French and in Western nature generally; what was found to exist instead was the principle fo individuality, the principle of isolation, of intensified self-preservation, of self-seeking, of self-determination within one’s own personality or self, of contrast between this self, the whole of nature and the rest of humanity; and this contrast was considered as an independent and separate principle completely equal and equivalent in value to all that existed apart from itself. [...] the Western individual […] demands by force, he demands rights, he wants to go shares. And, naturally, no brotherhood results.139

Dostoevsky finds this behavioral model140 detestable. In the writer’s eyes, emphasis on the individual undermines brotherhood, which renders amalgamation of the nation and,

138 Translation by Kyril FitzLyon. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes, 62. “…надо, чтоб оно само собой сделалось, чтоб оно было в натуре, бессознательно в природе всего племени заключалось, одним словом: чтоб было братское, любящее начало - надо любить. Надо, чтоб самого инстинктивно тянуло на братство, общину, на согласие, […] одним словом, чтоб потребность братской общины была в натуре человека, чтоб он с тем и родился или усвоил себе такую привычку искони веков.” Ibid. 139 Translation by Kyril FitzLyon. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes, 60-61. “А в природе французской, да и вообще западной, его [братства] в наличности не оказалось, а оказалось начало личное, начало особняка, усиленного самосохранения, самопромышления, самоопределения в своем собственном Я, сопоставления этого Я всей природе и всем остальным людям, как самоправного отдельного начала, совершенно равного и равноценного всему тому, что есть кроме него. … западная личность … требует с бою, она требует права, она хочет делиться - ну и не выходит братства.” Ibid. 140 Nine years after the publication of Зимние заметки, Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals described a societal model similar to the one addressed here as Apollonian. While the Apollonian model seems to describe the Western European culture as Dostoevsky understands it, the Dionysian model, based on societal amalgamation rather than dissociation, echoes Dostoevsky’s understanding of the Russian culture. See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1956. 50 consequently, harmony impossible. To intensify his message about individualism,

Dostoevsky employs a familiar linguistic technique: the copious use of the root “samo-” (“self”)

and its synonyms: “self-preservation, self-seeking, self-determination within one’s own [… ]

self”.

When writing about Russians, Dostoevsky employs the strategy of showering his reader with

the same morphological unit once again. In this context, however, the semantic unit of choice is

antonymous to “self”; in his discussion of Russian national character, Dostoevsky coins

numerous words with the root “all” (vse-).

Kenosis as a Russian Strength in Dostoevsky’s Early Journalism

Dostoevsky’s writings indicate that from the time of his return from Siberia in 1859, and until the end of his life, Dostoevsky believed that kenoticism is an inherent feature of the Russian people. In his earlier publications Time and Epoch, Dostoevsky expresses a more simplistic and

more optimistic view that kenoticism is equally pronounced in all layers of the Russian society.

Writing in a rhapsodic, assertive mode, Dostoevsky asserts that a natural predisposition for

kenosis creates powerful linkage between the Russian people and the elite.

Between 1861 and 1863, Fyodor Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail published a literary and

political journal Time. In the announcement and call for subscriptions, which appeared in many

Russian newspapers, the Dostoevskies formulated the goal of their publication as finding a

“point of contiguity with the people”141. In their opinion, the initial step on this path is education, and literature, in particular.

141 “точка соприкосновения с народом.” Pss. Vol. 18. 37. 51 Thus, in the first issue of Time, Dostoevsky began publishing A Series of Articles on

Russian Literature, in which he emphasized the non-individualistic aspects of the Russian

character: “in the Russian character, one can observe a clear difference from the European one, a

clear distinction that consists in an all-synthesizing ability, an all-reconciling ability, ability for

suprahumaneness.”142 To emphasize the concept of the all-encompassing unity, Dostoevsky

coins two new words with the prefix «vse-»: “vseprimirimost’” and “vsechelovechnost’”. The

resulting words – definitions of the Russian character - underscore the unalloyed inclusiveness of

Russians: it is not simply an ability to reconcile (“primirit’”), but the ability to reconcile all

(“vseprimirimost’”); not simply humaneness (“chelovechnost’”), but suprahumaneness

(“vsechelovechnost’”).

He is compassionate to everything human regardless of nationality, blood and soil. … He has an instinct of suprahumaneness. He divines, instinctively, the suprahumane feature even in the most striking extremities of other peoples; he immediately agrees them with one another, reconciles them in his idea, finds a place for them in his reasoning, and often discovers a connecting and reconciling point in completely opposite, competing ideas of two different European nations.143

Written in 1861, these words will echo powerfully in Winter Notes, published in Time two years later. In Winter Notes, Dostoevsky links the capacity for self-annihilation in pursuit of societal harmony to Russianness. He considers the Russian people capable of founding their society on genuinely kenotic principles, which he contrasts to the meaninglessly official Western rhetoric of

142 “в русском характере замечается резкое отличие от европейского, резкая особенность, что в нем по преимуществу выступает способность высокосинтетическая, способность всепримиримости, всечеловечности.” Pss. Vol. 18. 55. 143 “Он сочувствует всему человеческому вне различия национальности, крови и почвы. … У него инстинкт общечеловечности. Он инстинктом угадывает общечеловеческую черту даже в самых резких исключительностях других народов; тотчас же соглашает, примиряет их в своей идее, находит им место в своем умозаключении и нередко открывает точку соединения и примирения в совершенно противоположных, сопернических идеях двух различных европейских наций.” Pss. Vol. 18. 55. 52 fraternité. While Westerners may attempt to arrive at a harmonious society through rationality, Dostoevsky is skeptical of this path exactly because rationality rests on self-interest, however broadly understood. The writer believes that only a spontaneous and natural preference for self-emptying can make true brotherhood possible, and insists that Russians possess this capacity, while other peoples do not.

Dostoevsky realizes that his appeal to the irrational is likely to disturb many of his educated readers, who look up to the liberal intelligentsia and their rationalistic aspirations. In Winter

Notes on Summer Impressions, having described a society based on kenosis, Dostoevsky addresses his reader: “In truth, what a utopia, gentlemen! Everything based on feeling, on nature, instead of reason. It is even as if it’s a humiliation for reason. What do you think? Is this a utopia or not?”144 This passage could be interpreted as an expression of the writer’s doubts. However, the wording of the rhetorical question provides a clue to Dostoevsky’s own stance on the issue: “humiliation for reason” is a kenotic act in itself, since while “humiliating one’s intellect”, one empties himself of pride. On many occasions, Dostoevsky appealed to his readers to empty themselves of their intellectual pride. Therefore, Dostoevsky’s ostensible hesitation about the validity of his views on rationality is in fact a tongue-in-cheek way of poking at the reader’s pride that prevents the latter from seeing the genuine path to harmony.

While in the passage cited above, Dostoevsky uses pseudo-doubt as a rhetorical device, his writing occasionally reveals moments of true uncertainty vis-à-vis the kenotic doctrine. When writing about kenosis, Dostoevsky fluctuates between a tone of celebratory description and that

144 “Эка ведь в самом деле утопия, господа! Все основано на чувстве, на натуре, а не на разуме. Ведь это даже как будто унижение для разума. Как вы думаете? Утопия это или нет?” Dostoevsky. Winter Notes. Chapter VI. 53 of formulating a moral imperative, as indicated by the recurring verb “dolzhny”145. Already in his Time articles, Dostoevsky at times admits that the Russian people need help articulating and

establishing their national idea, since their national character is so intricate that it puzzles even

the Russians themselves: “…even for ourselves, we are a riddle.”146

For the most part, however, Dostoevsky treats kenosis and its revered role in Russian society as an axiom. In his early journalism, Dostoevsky often appears convinced that his readers have no doubts about the value of kenosis, either, and are only looking for better ways to give themselves away. In his Articles on Russian Literature, the writer urges his readers not to scorn small-scale, unspectacular self-sacrifice:

You want grand-scale action; do you want us to offer action that will exceed all your expectations? … Here it is: sacrifice your grandeur for the common good… Sacrifice all – your grand nature and your grand ideas, knowing that all this is for the common good; descend, descend to a boy. This will be a colossal sacrifice! Moreover: you are clever, talented people, and if you sacrifice yourself and descend to the ordinary, to the small, then, maybe, right there and then, from the very first step, you will find some other action, more powerful, and then, more and more. … Although, we are sorry; this, maybe, is beyond your power. You, probably, are capable of sacrificing even your life; but such efforts are beyond your capacities.147

In this passage, Dostoevsky appears trying to convince his readers that teaching an illiterate boy to read (“descend to a boy”) is enough of a sacrifice. The underlying assumption is that many

145 Thus, Dostoevsky generously uses the word “have to” (должны) in A Series of Articles on Russian Literature, see Pss. Vol 18. 146 “мы и сами-то для себя загадка,” Pss. Vol. 19. 63. 147 “Вы желаете исполинской деятельности; хотите ли, мы вам дадим такую, которая выше всех ожиданий ваших? … Вот она: пожертвуйте для всеобщего блага всем вашим великанством… Пожертвуйте всем - и великой природой вашей и великими идеями, помня, что все это для всеобщего блага; снизойдите, снизойдите до мальчика. Это будет колоссальнейшая жертва! Мало того: вы люди умные, талантливые, и если пожертвуете собой, снизойдете до обыденного, до маленького, то, может быть, тут же, с первого же шага отыщете еще какую-нибудь деятельность, более сильную, а потом еще и еще. … Но виноваты, может быть, это не по вашим силам. Вы, пожалуй, можете пожертвовать и жизнию; но на такие усилия вы не способны.” Pss. Vol. 18. 68. 54 Russians are willing to sacrifice themselves, while activities not involving sacrifice (e.g., work) are less desirable. In order to market mundane activity, Dostoevsky portrays it as a super- human sacrifice, which involves not only giving time and effort, but also emptying oneself of one’s pride, in the true kenotic spirit. Portrayed as a great sacrifice rather than a modest contribution, and seasoned with the words “pozhertvovat’” (to sacrifice) or “zhertva” (a sacrifice) in every sentence, the idea of teaching the illiterate is supposed to sound more attractive to the kenotically-inclined Russian reader.

As valuable as “descending to a little boy” may be, in Dostoevsky’s eyes, it is only the beginning. Kenosis on the level of individuals is a step towards building a kenotic society, which, in its turn, will act as a kenotic agent in the world. Since, in Dostoevsky’s vision, a nation is a collective organism, the kenotic ability can characterize the Russian nation as a whole as well as its individual representatives. Dostoevsky describes Russia as willing and capable of relinquishing its individuality, and as acting as a cell in the organic indivisible body of the world, thus contributing to the world’s harmonization. In his famed Pushkin speech, Dostoevsky points to the ability to understand and encompass all nations (thus renouncing its own individuality) as

Russia’s national feature.

While kenotic behavior is crucial on the level of individuals and nations alike, Dostoevsky does not expect the two levels of kenosis to be achieved simultaneously. For him, individual kenosis appears to be a prerequisite for nation-level kenosis, since only a highly developed nation, amalgamated through the kenotic acts of its individual members, can be morally strong enough to empty itself out into the world.

When the tsarist censorship shut down Time journal in 1863, Dostoevsky felt discouraged.

His disappointment and a sense of being misunderstood alerted him to the fact that the Russian 55 elite might not have been as passionate about finding contiguity with the people as he had

expected them to be. When the Dostoevsky brothers started to publish a new journal Epoch in

1864, Fyodor was significantly less active in this publication than he had been in Time. Soon

after Mikhail Dostoevsky died, the journal ceased to exist.

During the decade between the closing down of Time and the first issue of The Diary of a

Writer, Dostoevsky’s views underwent a change. He remains a believer in kenosis as a strong point of the Russian people, but grows less certain that the Russian elite have retained the kenotic gift after their active engagement with the West. Dostoevsky realizes that his task consists not so much in finding contiguity between Russian peasants and the elite as in reinstating this contiguity, as it had been largely lost in the process of the elite’s Westernization.

His decision to publish The Diary of a Writer is motivated, in part, by his desire to remedy the rift in continuity, and to bring the elite and the people back together: “One of the reasons I have started A Diary is in order to speak about these cures as much as I can.”148

Kenosis as a National Idea in Dostoevsky’s The Diary of a Writer

The Diary of a Writer began as a series of feuilletons in the Citizen, a politically conservative

journal that Dostoevsky edited in 1873-1874. The column appeared under the title F.M.

Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer in the first four issues of the Citizen, then in every other number,

and progressively less frequently after that. After a two-year pause, the Diary resumed in 1876

as an independent journal under the title The Diary of a Writer: A Monthly Publication. After twenty one issues published in 1876 and 1877, Dostoevsky interrupted his publication of the

Diary to write The Brothers Karamazov, after which he managed to publish two more issues

148 “Я и "Дневник" предпринимал отчасти для того, чтоб об этих лекарствах говорить, насколько сил достанет.” Pss. Vol. 24. 52. 56 before his death in 1881. The most distinguishing feature of the Diary is its heterogeneity in

content, form, and tone. Morson describes the work as “encyclopedic”149 in theme and observes, in regards to tone:

[In the Diary, i]rony alternates with contempt for irony, humorless polemics with satires on humorless polemicists, dogmatic ideology with metaliterary play. Rapid shifts, often many times in a few pages, make it hard to determine what is satiric and what is the object of satire, or where – if anywhere – “Dostoevsky” is speaking directly.150

Yet, in spite of this formal and tonal heterogeneity, the Diary is surprisingly consistent on one topic: the possibility and desirability of the cohesion of the Russian nation through kenosis. In contrast to his earlier journalism, Dostoevsky vacillates on the subject of how close the Russian nation is to achieving its kenotic ideal. He hesitates in his certainty that kenotic tendencies are ubiquitous among all Russian people. He expresses more skepticism of, and even hatred towards, the Russian elite, who have gone too far in their westernization, and uprooted themselves from the kenotic tradition. Doubtful about the practical implications, Dostoevsky nevertheless never doubts the kenotic potential of Russia and Russians. He believes that the kenotic ideal is achievable, and perceives the Diary as a tool that will facilitate its achievement.

Investing his hope into education, Dostoevsky sees the Diary as a forum where the educated elite and the Russian people can come together and learn from each other. In the first issue of the Diary, Dostoevsky describes a moment of reunification between writers and the Russian

peasantry as he imagines it. He envisions peasants agreeing to accept what the writers have to

teach them, but also offering their own riches to the writers: “Teach me now the things that you

149 Morson, The Boundaries of Genre, 7. 150 Morson, The Boundaries of Genre, 6. 57 learned across the sea, […] And I will teach you the things of your own that you have

forgotten.”151

Dostoevsky expects peasants to benefit from this exchange by receiving the more conventionally-understood education, which starts with literacy and the ability to learn by reading. In his articles Book-Learning and Literacy152, Dostoevsky discusses, at length, literature as the only way of bridging the gap between educated and uneducated Russians. He heatedly argues for increased literacy in Russia, and devotes a lot of thought to practicalities for realizing this goal153. Dostoevsky considers achieving universal literacy a task of primary importance because he believes that only when every Russian can read, thus participating in the national intellectual exchange, can the educated Russians connect with the masses and their wisdom154. This was the central idea of his Series of Articles on Russian Literature, and the same idea – now seasoned by more skepticism towards the Russian elite – lies at the foundation of his idea for The Diary of a Writer.

Once literacy, as the technical means of allowing peasants to participate in intellectual exchange, has been achieved, Dostoevsky expects the peasants to join the elite on the path of mutual education in pursuit of an effective national idea. He hopes that Russian peasants will help awaken the Westernized elite to the intuitive kenotic quality that is present in all Russians, but hidden under layers of artificial and harmful ideas that plague the Russian intelligentsia. In

151 “Научите ж вы меня теперь тому, что вы за морем узнали, [...] Я же вас научу тому, что вы своего позабыли.” Pss. Vol. 21. 27. 152 Pss. Vol. 19. 20. 153 In his article “Книжность и грамотность”, Dostoevsky goes into details of such practical matters as what books should be offered to peasants to read, what works should be included in the compilations, how the books should be distributed so as not to compromise their appeal to the people, etc. See Ibid. 154 “Мы обещались особенно стоять за грамотность, потому что в распространении ее заключается единственное возможное соединение наше с нашей родной почвой, с народным началом”, see Pss. Vol. 18. 49. 58 his Diary, Dostoevsky hesitates between passionate faith into Russian people’s ability to

overcome their differences and unite behind a common idea, and skepticism about the elite’s

intention to do so.

Dostoevsky uses his Diary as a platform from which to inform readers about the Russian

people’s natural kenotic capacity. Along with direct statements expressing his opinion on the

subject, he uses concrete examples to illustrate the phenomenon. Thus, in The Diary of a Writer

from April 1876, he narrates the story of his old nurse, who impulsively offered her modest

savings to her employers after a fire destroyed their estate. Crucially, Dostoevsky approaches

this incident not as an isolated case resulting from his nurse’s private psychology, but as an

action representative of a natural Russian type:

But here, I have a question: to what type does this modest woman belong, the woman who died a long time ago, and who died in an alms house, where she really needed her money. ... Some would answer, with contempt, that it is a single occurrence; but even I, alone, during my lifetime, have managed to note many hundreds of such occurrences among our simple people, and meanwhile, I know for certain that we have other observers who can also look at people without spitting at them.155

Dostoevsky equates recognition of the simple people’s ability to give selflessly with looking at

them “without spitting”, i.e., with respect. The poor nurse’s ability to empty herself out of her

scarce savings - which she knows to be crucial to her survival in old age - is a testament to her

sharing in the kenotic tradition, which Dostoevsky believes to be characteristic of the Russian

people in general.

155 “Но вот вопрос: к какому типу принадлежала эта скромная женщина, давно уже теперь умершая, и умершая в богадельне, где ей очень ее деньги понадобились. …. Мне с презрением ответят, что это единичный случай; но я и один успел вот заметить в жизни моей таких случаев многие сотни в нашем простонародье, а между тем я твердо знаю, что есть и другие наблюдатели, тоже умеющие смотреть на народ без плевка.” Pss. Vol. 22. 113. 59 Later in the same entry, the writer recalls an episode from Aksakov’s Family Chronicle,

where peasants agree to take a woman across the Volga to see her ill child when the ice is

already too thin and the risk of falling through into the river is apparent to everyone. The ice

starts to drift a few hours after the crossing, and the peasants refuse to accept payment for their

help. Dostoevsky sees this passage by Aksakov as buttressing the his own view of the Russian

people as kenotic by nature:

What now, are all these single occurrences? … Really? Are these really single, accidental facts? An action of risking one’s own life, undertaken out of compassion for a mother’s sorrow – can this be considered nothing but passivity? On the contrary, is it not the people’s truth, is it not compassion and all-forgiveness and broadness of views of our people that this came from, mind you, in the midst of the most barbaric time of serfdom?156

Dostoevsky emphasizes that even in the cruel environment marked by serfdom, where no high sentiment could be expected of those so brutally oppressed, the Russian people instinctively opted for kenotic actions, because kenoticism came to them naturally.

While deeming kenoticism among the Russian peasantry an axiom, Dostoevsky appears less certain as to the position of kenoticism among Russia’s educated circles. On some occasions, he expresses confidence that kenosis is as prominent among the intelligentsia as among the peasants. Thus, in The Diary of a Writer from February 1876, Dostoevsky writes about his contemporaries, “In this sense, our society is similar to the people, who also value their faith and their ideals higher than anything secular and transient; this is even their main point of

156 “Что же, всё это единичные факты? … Да так ли? единичные ли, случайные ли это только факты? Деятельный риск собственною жизнию из сострадания к горю матери - можно ли считать лишь пассивностью? Не из правды ли, напротив, народной, не из милосердия ли и всепрощения и широкости взгляда народного произошло это, да еще в самое варварское время крепостного права?” Ibid. 60 convergence with the people.”157 Further in the same issue, he elaborates on the “ideal” as an

essentially kenotic urge: “Our youth seeks exploit and self-sacrifice.”158 With great respect,

Dostoevsky talks about the Decembrists’ wives and their exploit of self-emptying: “We saw these great sufferers, who willingly followed their husbands to Siberia. They left everything: nobility, wealth, connections and relatives, they sacrificed everything for the highest moral duty, the freest duty that can be.”159

Although the writer uses the word “dolg” (“duty”) to describe the motivation behind the women’s actions, he also underlines, twice, that the Decembrists’ wives were free to choose this duty (“willingly” and “the freest duty”). Thus, Dostoevsky argues that the actions reveal the women’s character, rather than serving as an illustration of a set custom. Almost a century later,

Yury Lotman would echo Dostoevsky’s interpretation of the incident and further elucidate it.

According to Lotman, the main motivation behind the women’s decision was not personal attachment, since some of them hardly knew their husbands, while others did not like them very much. Lotman argues that the women chose to sacrifice their lives because they saw this action as beautiful and moral. Moreover, Lotman shows that the women conceived the idea to sacrifice themselves in this way from Russian folk songs160. Thus, in Lotman’s interpretation, the

Decembrists’ wives appear to validate Dostoevsky’s arguments about the moral imperative of kenosis and its origins in Russian folk culture.

157 “В этом смысле наше общество сходно с народом, тоже ценящим свою веру и свой идеал выше всего мирского и текущего, и в этом даже его главный пункт соединения с народом.” Pss. Vol. 22. 41. 158 “Юношество наше ищет подвигов и жертв.” Ibid. 159 Мы увидели этих великих страдалиц, добровольно последовавших за своими мужьями в Сибирь. Они бросили всё: знатность, богатство, связи и родных, всем пожертвовали для высочайшего нравственного долга, самого свободного долга, какой только может быть.” Pss. Vol. 21. 12. 160 See Iurii Lotman, The Decembrist in Daily Life (Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psychological Category). The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History: Essays. By Iurii M. Lotman, Lidiia Ia. Ginsburg, Boris A. Uspenskii ; translated from the Russian ; introduction by Boris Gasparov ; edited by Alexander D. Nakhimovsky and Alice Stone Nakhimovsky. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. 61 Despite underscoring examples of kenosis among his fellow countrymen, Dostoevsky

acknowledges that not all Russians live according to kenotic principles. In contrast to the

celebratory mood of his earlier journalism, Dostoevsky’s writing in the Diary reveals doubt. The

writer acknowledges that self-interest is not a foreign sentiment to some Russians. However,

Dostoevsky elaborates, what continues to make them Russian is the absence of the sense of

righteousness, á la the French bourgeoisie161, with which they approach their self-interest.

According to Dostoevsky, un-kenotic Russians either recognize their own wrongfulness, or, at

least, hide their lack of kenotic sentiment as something shameful. This is crucial to Dostoevsky,

since the necessity of hiding a behavior, or masking it as something different, reveals its

illaudable or aberrational nature:

Oh, wicked, petty people manage to take care of their private business among us, as well, even in the very opposite sense, and, it seems, it happens incomparably more in our time than ever before. But on the other hand, these wicked, petty people never dictate the public opinion and never lead; on the contrary, even while in complete respect, these people have been forced – and not once - to imitate, slavishly, the tone of the people who are idealistic, young, metaphysically-minded, laughable, for them, and poor.162

It is revealing that people who “manage to take care of their private business” are defined, from

the very start, as “wicked, petty people” (“durnye liudishki”). The writer does not even use the

standard word “люди”, but the contemptuously diminutive “liudishki”. As for “taking care of business”, only the diminutive verbal prefix “ob-” and the imperfective aspect of the verb differentiate the expression from the standard “delat’ delo”, which is the neutral phrase denoting

161 For discussion of the French bourgeois and self-interest as the admitted driving force of their existence, see Dostoevsky, Winter Notes. 162 “О, дурные людишки успевают и у нас обделывать свои дела, даже в самом противоположном смысле, и, кажется, в наше время даже несравненно больше, чем когда-либо прежде; но зато эти дрянные людишки никогда у нас не владеют мнением и не предводительствуют, а, напротив, даже будучи наверху честей, бывали не раз принуждаемы рабски подлаживаться под тон людей идеальных, молодых, отвлеченных, смешных для них и бедных.” Pss. Vol. 22. 41. 62 purposeful activity. Yet, the small morphological alteration renders the activity

unambiguously despicable: “durnye liudishki […] obdelyvat’ svoi dela”. The main negative

charge of the verbal phrase comes from the possessive pronoun “svoi” (“their own”). The

pronoun turns the unspecified general “dela” (business), which may be referring to the work for

the common good, into unmistakably private business. As before, when Dostoevsky was

copiously using the root “samo-” while talking about the self-interested Westerner, the notion of

“one’s own” (as opposed to “everyone’s”) makes an action negative.

The self-interested people described above have to conceal their despicable orientation

towards themselves and feign ideological beliefs different from their own. They pretend to be

the type of person who does not “take care of private business” and is, predictably, poor and

“laughable”, but also “oriented towards ideals.” Such people are laughable from the rational

point of view but, according to Dostoevsky, they set the tone in Russian society: “Take a closer

look and you shall see that for us, faith in the idea, in the ideal, comes first, and personal, earthly

benefits come only later.”163 The ideal that drives Russian society is divorced from personal,

earthly benefits (“lichnye, zemnye blaga”), and it is this ideal that Dostoevsky cherishes in the

Russian people and tirelessly emphasizes as a national feature:

we have a ubiquitous honest and fair expectation of the good (say what you will, but it is so), a desire for the common action and common good, and this comes before any selfishness. This desire is the most naïve one, full of faith, and lacking in anything private, caste-based, and even if the latter is found in some petty and rare phenomena, then only as something inconspicuous and despised by all.164

163 “Вглядитесь и увидите, что у нас прежде всего вера в идею, в идеал, а личные, земные блага лишь потом.” Ibid. 164 “есть у нас повсеместное честное и светлое ожидание добра (это уж как хотите, а это так), желание общего дела и общего блага и это прежде всякого эгоизма, желание самое наивное и полное веры и при этом 63 Dostoevsky believes that even those who seek self-profit, even in the most brutal manner, are

doing so contrary, rather than according to, their principles:

I am blindly convinced that there is no scoundrel or rascal among the Russian people who does not know that he is base and vile, while with others, it happens that one acts vilely while praising himself for it, developing his baseness into a principle, claiming that l'Ordre and the light of civilization consist in it.165

Judging by the Diary, the subject of the Russian people’s capacity for selfless giving was not

Dostoevsky’s intellectual monopoly, but also attracted the attention of other educated commentators. The 1876 issue of the Diary reflects a heated discussion on this topic between

Dostoevsky and Avseenko. The stumbling-block of the argument is not the kenotic capacity of the Russian people, but its implications. While Avseenko agrees as to the existence of the capacity, he interprets it as a passive feature. Before tearing this view to shreds, Dostoevsky cites the following extract from Avseenko’s article:

The thing is, our people have not given us an ideal of an active personality. Everything beautiful that we see in them, and what our literature - to its great honor - has taught us to love in them, appears only on the level of spontaneous existence, on the level of the secluded, idyllic (?)166 everyday being or passive life. As soon as an active, energetic personality distinguishes itself from the people, the charm largely disappears, and most often, the selfhood presents itself in the unattractive form of a blood-sucker, a petty businessman, or a despot. Until today, there are no active ideals among the people, and

ничего обособленного, кастового, а если и встречается в маленьких и редких явлениях, то как нечто неприметное и всеми презираемое.” Ibid. 165 “Я как-то слепо убежден, что нет такого подлеца и мерзавца в русском народе, который бы не знал, что он подл и мерзок, тогда как у других бывает так, что делает мерзость, да еще сам себя за нее похваливает, в принцип свою мерзость возводит, утверждает, что в ней-то и заключается l'Ordre и свет цивилизации.” Ibid., 43. Dostoevsky’s approach of basing his conclusions on ideas rather than actions proves a valuable device in combating the criticism of those who challenge his notion of the Russian idea. On occasion, the writer articulates his principle openly and in the second person, addressing his advice to the implied opponent: “Нет, судите наш народ не по тому, чем он есть, а по тому, чем желал бы стать. А идеалы его сильны и святы…”, see Ibid. 166 The question mark is inserted by Dostoevsky. 64 hoping for them means departing from an unknown and, possibly, imaginary starting point.167

Revealingly, the “unattractive forms” are specified as those seeking self-interest: “miroed” – blood-sucker, or (literally) “one that consumes the world”, “kulak” – a petty businessman, or

(literally) “one that clasps his possessions in his fist”, and “samodur” – a despot, or (literally)

“one that imposes his own will”. Even the very word “individual’nost’” (selfhood) is described as most often appearing in an unattractive form.

In essence, Avseenko shares Dostoevsky’s views, but fails to see kenotic capacity as an object of pride. Instead he defines it as an absence rather than a presence: the absence of individualism rather than the presence of kenosis. Since for Dostoevsky, kenoticism is the basis for the

Russian national identity, and, ultimately, the cornerstone to the success of the Russian nation, the writer passionately challenges Avseenko’s view of kenosis as a passive phenomenon, and argues that kenotic behaviors are active manifestations of strength. For Dostoevsky, kenotic tendencies are precious sentiments that need to be cherished: “This [kenotic] idealism, after all, is all around pleasant: if you lose it, you won’t buy it with any money afterwards.”168 The writer is quick to defend what he believes to be the basis for the Russian people’s impending greatness.

Once again, Dostoevsky underscores the irrational basis of the kenotic sentiment. Willingness and desire to empty oneself out has to come instinctively, free of rational calculations, even if the latter are oriented towards the benefit of others. Dostoevsky is not asking for an intellectually-

167 “Дело в том, что народ наш не дал нам идеала деятельной личности. Всё прекрасное, что мы замечаем в нем и что наша литература, к ее великой чести, приучила нас любить в нем, является только на степени стихийного существования, замкнутого, идиллического (?) быта или пассивной жизни. Как скоро выделяется из народа деятельная, энергическая личность, очарование по большей части исчезает, и чаще всего индивидуальность является в непривлекательной форме мироеда, кулака, самодура. Активных идеалов в народе до сих пор нет, и надеяться на них - значит отправляться от неизвестной и, может быть, мнимой величины.” Pss. Vol. 22. 104. 168 “Идеализм-то этот [кенотический] приятен и там и тут: утрать его, ведь никакими деньгами потом не купишь.” Pss. Vol. 22. 41. 65 motivated readiness to make an effort for others, or to share a resource with someone in need;

he is asking for an instinctive need to empty all of oneself out, without considering the

circumstances or dangers of doing so. Here, his views closely correspond to apophaticism, a

peculiarly Orthodox notion according to which the knowledge of truth transcends rational

expression169. Dostoevsky’s attitude towards rationality is best expressed by a phrase with which he describes Don Quixote’s adversary Samson Carrasco: “despicable and rational.” 170

One of the characteristics of irrational kenosis is the absence of boundaries. Setting and observing limits would eliminate the spontaneity which Dostoevsky believes to be a necessary condition of genuine kenosis. An abridged kenosis loses its meaning, since it becomes a calculated arrangement rather than an instinctive reaction171. Neglecting the distinction between the sufficient and the excessive, between good and dangerous kenosis, Dostoevsky expresses rather controversial opinions. For example, in the Diary from 1876, the writer publishes an

imaginary interview with a person who believes war to be a positive experience for the human

condition:

…first of all, it is a lie that people go there to kill each other: it is never in the foreground; on the contrary, people go to sacrifice their own lives – that is what should be in the foreground. This is entirely different, after all. There is no higher idea than sacrificing one’s life while defending your brethren and your fatherland, or even while simply defending the interests of your fatherland. Humanity cannot live without magnanimous ideas, and I even suspect that humanity loves war precisely because it allows for participation in a magnanimous idea. It is a need here.

169 For the discussion of the role of apophaticism in the history of Western thought, see Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, and Deirdre Carabine, The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena. Louvain: Peeters, 1995. 170 “презренный и здравомыслящий.” Pss. Vol. 22. 92. 171 On the distinction between instinctive and spontaneous kenosis and rationally motivated attempts at such, see the discussion of Dostoevsky’s Winter Notes above. 66 - But does the humanity really love war?

- Sure enough! Who is ever down during a war? On the contrary, everybody is immediately energized, everybody is in high spirits, and no one hears about the usual apathy or boredom, like in the times of peace.172

The passage is saturated with the rhetoric of sacrifice; it portrays war as a kenotic feast with a

harmonizing and exhilarating effect. Dostoevsky’s imaginary opponent goes on to argue that

war is good for the development of the arts and sciences, because war is based on emptying

oneself out, while peace is about moving resources towards oneself: “During the times of

prolonged peace, social balance is distorted in favor of everything that is lowly and callous in

humanity; mainly, wealth and the capital.”173 The opponent, whom Dostoevsky dubs “the

Dreamer”, claims that a shared sacrifice is the best way to unify a nation:

War equalizes all during battle and reconciles the master and the slave in the highest manifestation of human dignity: sacrificing life for the common good, for all, for the fatherland. Do you really think that the masses, even the darkest masses of peasants and the destitute, do not have a want of an active manifestation of magnanimous feelings?... Spilt blood is an important thing. A mutual exploit of magnanimity begets the tightest bond that connects inequalities and classes.174

172 “…во-первых, ложь, что люди идут убивать друг друга: никогда этого не бывает на первом плане, а, напротив, идут жертвовать собственною жизнью - вот что должно стоять на первом плане. Это же совсем другое. Нет выше идеи, как пожертвовать собственною жизнию, отстаивая своих братьев и свое отечество или даже просто отстаивая интересы своего отечества. Без великодушных идей человечество жить не может, и я даже подозреваю, что человечество именно потому и любит войну, чтоб участвовать в великодушной идее. Тут потребность. - Да разве человечество любит войну? - А как же? Кто унывает во время войны? Напротив, все тотчас же ободряются, у всех поднят дух, и не слышно об обыкновенной апатии или скуке, как в мирное время.” Pss. Vol. 22. 122. 173 “В долгий мир социальный перевес всегда переходит на сторону всего, что есть дурного и грубого в человечестве, - главное к богатству и капиталу.” Ibid. 174 “Война равняет всех во время боя и мирит господина и раба в самом высшем проявлении человеческого достоинства - в жертве жизнию за общее дело, за всех, за отечество. Неужели вы думаете, что масса, самая даже темная масса мужиков и нищих, не нуждается в потребности деятельного проявления великодушных чувств?... Пролитая кровь важная вещь. Взаимный подвиг великодушия порождает самую твердую связь неравенств и сословий.” Ibid. 67 In this discussion, war appears as a condensed kenotic experience, fraught with all the

consequences which Dostoevsky claims kenosis is able to bring. War appears more effective

than other kenotic actions because it is based on the biggest possible donation, that of one’s life.

The image of spilled blood is also a direct reference to the original kenosis, that of Jesus

Christ. Throughout the interview, the Dreamer evokes imagery of spilt blood as positive and

healthy, free of the sense of loss associated with death. When a nation is seen as a collective

body, the loss of an individual life is irrelevant, since it is just a cell cleansed out for the sake of

the entire body’s health. Even if a society flourishes as a result of a war, this prosperity is,

objectively, of little comfort to those who are no longer living. Nevertheless, Dostoevsky’s

Dreamer speaks of their willful death as a happy, inspired act. He must be seeing the kenotic

instinct as powerful enough to overbalance the desire to live175.

The different journalistic forms in which Dostoevsky propounds his ideas about kenosis

demonstrate the degree of his dedication to popularizing the issue. However, in spite of his

extensive effort in the field, Dostoevsky is aware of a fundamental flaw in using journalism as a

vehicle for advancing kenoticism: journalism often appeals to reason, and Dostoevsky does not

see reason as the point where kenotic behavior should start. He repeatedly states that kenosis

should occur spontaneously, without intellectual justification. In his early journalism, he

chastised the Slavophiles for expressing their ideas in a dry theoretical manner: “Ну и покажите

175 The interview with the Dreamer is a fictional account, and it can be debated how much the implied author agrees with the statements made by the war proponent. The interviewer appears to question the Dreamer’s values rather than to approve them. However, the fact that the writer dubs his character the Dreamer, and the title of the chapter (“Парадоксалист”) suggest Dostoevsky’s somewhat warm feelings towards the interviewed. The writer has spoken of young people’s devotion to paradoxes as linked to their desire for sacrifices and exploits, which Dostoevsky admires: “Юношество наше ищет подвигов и жертв. Современный юноша, о котором так много говорят в разном смысле, часто обожает самый простодушный парадокс и жертвует для него всем на свете, судьбою и жизнью”. See Pss. Vol. 22. 41-2. 68 нам то, что у вас есть, не скрывайте сокровище; да не в наставлениях, не в надгробных

над нами речах покажите его.”176

Despite his hope in the power of journalistic writing, and The Diary of a Writer in particular,

Dostoevsky invests his main hope in literature as a better way of advancing the kenotic

behavioral model. Articulating his program as an appeal to fellow-intellectuals, Dostoevsky

expresses his conviction that literature is simultaneously less offensively didactic and more

didactically effective: “show it [the insight] in real action, - if nothing else, in art, as it is the most

innocent and … convenient vehicle.”177 Dostoevsky clearly states that he considers it to be more

“innocent and … effective” to promote one’s ideas through literature. The remaining part of the

chapter demonstrates how Dostoevsky puts this suggestion to practice.

II. Secular Kenosis in The Idiot

In fiction, the theme of secular kenosis and its relation to the Russian idea permeates, to a greater or lesser extent, virtually all of Dostoevsky’s works. The remainder of this chapter will address the most salient examples of the writer’s engagement with the theme, found in his novels

The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.

In The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, the trial of Russianness takes the form of kenotic

feasts, which become the climatic scenes of the novels, radically alter the course of the plot, and

serve as spontaneous ethical judgments for all participants. In the course of the scene, characters

are subjected to a de facto test of their kenotic abilities, the outcome of which determines their

inclusion in the trusted and unconditionally accepted category of ‘us’. Participation in a kenotic

176 Pss. Vol. 19. 63. 177 “покажите его [… the insight] в настоящем деле, - ну хоть в искусстве, так как это всего невиннее и... сподручнее.” Ibid. 69 trial often changes the characters’ self-perception, and their vision of their place in the world.

The impulsive and unabridged kenotic celebration frequently resolves pre-existing tensions and

harmonizes the participants’ lives. I will analyze scenes of kenotic feast in both novels, and

show how they illuminate the connection between kenosis and Russianness from different

angles.

The theme of kenosis in The Idiot has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. Many

scholars interpret Prince Myshkin as a Christ-like figure who exercised his kenosis in the

contemporary world. Thus, Mgr. Romano Guardini argues that Myshkin generates “the image of

an existence which is more than human, the existence of the Redeemer”178; Krieger writes about

Myshkin’s “irrational Christlike transcendence”179, George Panichas names Myshkin the most

Christ-like of Dostoevsky’s many symbols180; Edward Wasiolek recognizes and acknowledges

Myshkin’s Christ-like qualities as central to his character181; and Alexander Webster argues “that

Myshkin represents an apotheosis of exemplary kenotic holiness firmly rooted both in Russian

Orthodox spirituality and in Dostoevsky’s own Orthodox-inspired antinomical worldview”182.

Boyce Gibson offers a different, although also religious interpretation of Myshkin’s character; he suggests that Myshkin is not so much a Christ figure as an “angelic” nature183. On the other hand, Krieger offers an interesting and unusual interpretation of Prince Myshkin’s kenosis by arguing that Myshkin is demonic rather than angelic because of his “psychosis of humility”.

Krieger believes that Myshkin’s “irrational Christlike transcendence of mere ethical judgment”

178 Guardini 368. 179 Krieger 42. 180 Panichas 55. 181 Wasiolek 15. 182 Webster 189-90. 183 Gibson 122. 70 pushes others “to ever more desperate crime” because they feel “that they are being

judged”184. Whether deeming him Christ-like, angelic, or demonic, most scholars recognize and acknowledge kenotic elements in Prince Myshkin’s character.

Few scholars, however, have addressed kenotic elements in the character of Nastasia

Filippovna. A notable exception is Nina Pelikan Straus, who argues that in The Idiot, Nastasia

Filippovna functions like a Christ-figure who goes through voluntary crucifixion. The majority

of scholars, however, read the character differently. In a representative interpretation, Edward

Wasiolek cites Nastasia Filippovna’s thirst for vengeance as the main motivation for her

actions185, while Joseph Frank explains the character’s behavior by her insatiable desire to

humiliate others.186 Nastasia Filippovna is a doubtlessly complex character, who can benefit from being illuminated by a discussion of her kenotic dimension.

There are three interdependent aspects to Nastasia Filippovna’s character: she is kenotic, she is not merely Russian, but “extremely Russian”, and she is ethically admirable. Let us discuss these three character components separately, and then see how they interlink.

The first scene that probably comes to mind in relation to Nastasia Filippovna’s self-emptying is the burning bundle of money. A favorite among film makers, this scene is indeed memorable and intriguing. A woman in destitute conditions burning a hundred thousand rubles – the scene begs for an explanation. Yet, if one views the episode in the context of the kenotic tradition, there appears to be nothing unexpected about it, and that burning hundred thousand roubles is not

by any means Nastasia Filippovna’s most radical action.

184 Krieger 42, 47, 48, 50. Few scholars divert from the tradition of discussing Myshkin as a Christ-like character. Among the latter is Ronald Hingley, who offers a different interpretation of Myshkin as a comic figure that by no means represents an ethical ideal, see Hingley 112. 185 Wasiolek 91. 186 Frank 581. 71 Nastasia Filippovna acts kenotically throughout the novel. One of the most striking manifestations of this behavior is Nastasia Filippovna’s consistent emptying herself of dignity.

In the first scene where the reader encounters her, at Ganya’s, she puts on a show, acting like a loose woman in front of her fiancé and his parents. She encourages suitors to place bids for her affection, and hides her shock at the insulting behavior behind laughter and bravado. Her behavior is not a matter of habit; Nastasia Filippovna has never traded in love. On the contrary, circumstances have revealed that Nastasia Filippovna possesses a larger than average moral strength. An orphan, she was violated, kept captive and abused by her late father’s friend. As soon as she matured enough to understand her position, she applied all her power to change the situation, and succeeded. For the five years prior to the time of the novel, Nastasia Filippovna has lived a modest, dignified life devoted to education in a society that ostracized her for the crimes of which she was a victim.

This woman has many reasons to find pride in her moral strength, bravery and intelligence.

Yet, when facing those who despise her, Nastasia Filippovna intentionally negates all her accomplishments and acts like a prostitute:

- All right! Nastasia Filippovna, - he [Rogozhin] added, […] - Here are eighteen thousand roubles, - He threw a packet of bank-notes tied up in white paper on the table before her. – And - and you shall have more. […]

- Eighteen thousand roubles, for me? I can see at once you’re a peasant, she said, with impudent familiarity, as she rose from the sofa, as if preparing to leave. […]

- But it’s forty thousand, forty, not eighteen! – Rogozhin cried out. – […] Forty thousand roubles—paid down on the nail!

The scene was growing more and more disgraceful; but Nastasia Philipovna continued to laugh and did not go away, as if really prolonging the scene intentionally. […] 72 - Very well then, a hundred thousand! A hundred thousand paid this very day. Ptitsin! find it for me. A good share shall stick to your fingers - come! […]

- He’s just lying because he is drunk, said Nastasia Filippovna, as though goading him.187

In this scene, Nastasia Filippovna behaves like a prostitute encouraging her potential client to

raise the price. The readers know that this is not the case, but other characters take her behavior

at face value. The readers pity her for her irrational self-humiliation; the characters are horrified

by her ostensibly wicked nature. By acting this way, Nastasia Filippovna deprives herself of the

respect she might have earned if Ganya’s family had learned of her real self, and empties herself

of the dignity she could have found in his family. For Nastasia Filippovna, clinging on to her

pride is despicable. As St, Theodosius who, according to his Vita, anonymously described

himself in harsh terms to an unknowing interlocutor, Nastasia Filippovna calumniates herself in

front of people who do not know her well enough to refute the slander.

As extreme as it is during her visit to Ganya’s, Nastasia Filippovna’s self-emptying reaches its

acme in the kenotic culmination of the novel - the birthday reception scene. Here, Nastasia

Filippovna empties herself of a precious and highly desirable opportunity, a variety of valuable

possessions, and the remains of her pride. The decision she makes during the scene – to leave

with Rogozhin - is the first step towards her eventual emptying herself of her life. In this chain

of events, Nastasia Filippovna’s infamous act of tossing a hundred thousand rubles into the fire is

187 “- Эх, куда ни шло. Настасья Филипповна! - вскричал [Рогожин], […] - вот восемнадцать тысяч! - и он шаркнул пред ней на столик пачку в белой бумаге, обернутую накрест шнурками. - вот! И... и еще будет! […] - Восемнадцать тысяч, мне? Вот сейчас мужик и скажется! - прибавила она вдруг с наглою фамильярностью и привстала с дивана, как бы собираясь ехать. […] - Так сорок же тысяч, сорок, а не восемнадцать, - закричал Рогожин; - […] Сорок тысяч! Все на стол. Сцена выходила чрезвычайно безобразная, но Настаcья Филипповна продолжала смеяться и не уходила, точно и в самом деле с намерением протягивала ее. […] - А коли так - сто! Сегодня же сто тысяч представлю! Птицын, выручай, руки нагреешь! […] - Спьяна врет, - проговорила Настасья Филипповна, как бы поддразнивая его.” Dostoevsky, The Idiot. Part 1, Chapter X. 73 not a shocking aberration, but rather an expected next step. Often remembered because of its ostentation, the episode, in fact, causes incomparably less damage to Nastasia Filippovna than do other instances of her self-emptying.

Nastasia Filippovna’s most striking act of self-emptying is probably her refusal to marry

Myshkin, who appears to be the perfect embodiment of her dreams. Marriage to Myshkin would provide a textbook case of a happy end. On the superficial and most obvious level, it would provide Nastasia Filippovna with financial security and the social position of which she was so unfairly deprived. Nastasia Filippovna understands that the marriage would remedy the injustice, and place her at the very top of society:

- I, myself, am the princess now, have you heard? The prince won't let you insult me. Afanasy Ivanovich, congratulate me; now, I shall be able to sit next to your wife everywhere. What do you think, isn’t it profitable to have a husband like that? A million and a half, and a prince, and an idiot into the bargain, they say. What can be better? Real life is only just about to commence! You are late, Rogozhin! Away with your paper parcel; I'm marrying the prince; I'm richer than you are now.188

More importantly for Nastasia Filippovna, marriage to Myshkin would also provide her with understanding for which she has been pining so painfully:

Haven’t I, myself, dreamt about you? You are right, I have, for a long time, even back in the country, at his place, I spent five years there all alone; I would think and think, dream and dream, and would always imagine one like you, a kind, honest, good one, and naïve,

188 “- …Я теперь и сама княгиня, слышали, - князь меня в обиду не даст! Афанасий Иванович, поздравьте вы-то меня; я теперь с вашею женой везде рядом сяду; как вы думаете, выгодно такого мужа иметь? Полтора миллиона, да еще князь, да еще, говорят, идиот в придачу, чего лучше? Только теперь и начнется настоящая жизнь! Опоздал, Рогожин! Убирай свою пачку, я за князя замуж выхожу и сама богаче тебя!” Dostoevsky, The Idiot. Part 1, Chapter XVI. 74 just like you, who would come and say, “It is not your fault, Nastasia Filippovna, and I adore you!” I’d get so deep into dreaming, at times, I would go insane…189

Prince Myshkin is unique in Nastasia Filippovna’s life in his desire to give rather than consume her beauty or her money:

Настасья Филипповна, - сказал князь, тихо и как бы с состраданием, - я вам давеча говорил, что за честь приму ваше согласие, и что вы мне честь делаете, а не я вам. […] мне все казалось, что я... понимаю в чем честь и уверен, что я правду сказал. За вами нужно много ходить, Настасья Филипповна. Я буду ходить за вами. Я давеча ваш портрет увидал, и точно я знакомое лицо узнал. Мне тотчас показалось, что вы как будто уже звали меня... Я... я вас буду всю жизнь уважать, Настасья Филипповна, - заключил вдруг князь…190

Myshkin’s intentions are genuine, and he offers the embodiment of Nastasia Filippovna’s wishes. Regardless, she rejects the offer.

Nastasia Filippovna refuses Myshkin’s proposal since accepting it would violate the rules of kenosis: it would entail taking rather than giving. The proposed marriage promises nothing but benefits; it leaves no room for sacrifice. Nastasia Filippovna repudiates the path which would suggest self-interest; moreover, she chooses the most obvious course towards self-destruction: leaving with Rogozhin. As she announces her decision, Nastasia Filippovna capitalizes on the humiliation and the degrading shamefulness of her choice:

Я, может быть, и сама гордая, нужды нет, что бесстыдница! Ты меня совершенством давеча называл; хорошо совершенство, что из одной похвальбы,

189 “- Разве я сама о тебе не мечтала? Это ты прав, давно мечтала, еще в деревне у него, пять лет прожила одна-одинехонька; думаешь-думаешь, бывало-то, мечтаешь-мечтаешь, - и вот все такого, как ты воображала, доброго, честного, хорошего и такого же глупенького, что вдруг придет да и скажет: "Вы не виноваты, Настасья Филипповна, а я вас обожаю!" Да так бывало размечтаешься, что с ума сойдешь....” Ibid. 190 Ibid. 75 что миллион и княжество растоптала, в трущобу идет! Ну, какая я тебе жена после этого? […] А теперь я гулять хочу, я ведь уличная!191

Although her previous actions convincingly demonstrated that what she wants is not debauchery at all, and that by no standards can she be described as a “loose woman”, Nastasia Filippovna persistently describes herself as such immediately after receiving the proposal to become a

Princess. Myshkin’s offer provides Nastasia Filippovna with more resources to renounce, and she willingly takes up the opportunity.

In Nastasia Filippovna’s escalating feast of emptying herself of material resources, pride, and opportunity, accepting Rogozhin’s money and then burning it is the only logical next step. For

Nastasia Filippovna, taking the money offered as an unambiguous price for her favors is the most self-humiliating action she has yet committed: “...давай их сюда, всю пачку! Это в этой-то

пачке сто тысяч? Фу, какая мерзость!”192 After she turned down the money offered by

Totskii, and refused to marry the millionaire Myshkin, it is obvious that Nastasia Filippovna is not accepting Rogozhin’s thousands for the sake of profit. It is a purely symbolic gesture of self- diminishing: “Смотри, князь, твоя невеста деньги взяла, потому что она распутная, а ты её

брать хотел!”193 Accepted symbolically or not, the money still holds its material value.

Nastasia Filippovna completes its reposition from the realm of the practical into the realm of the symbolic by stripping the money of its practical potential, i.e., by burning it. At this point, she has already emptied herself of Princedom, respect, and a million rubles. In comparison, burning a hundred thousand rubles is hardly the most radical action she has committed.

191 Ibid. 192 Ibid. 193 Ibid. 76 Later in the novel, Nastasia Filippovna brings her kenosis to its logical conclusion by

emptying herself of her life: her decision to marry Rogozhin is a masked suicide. An insightful

person, she understands the only possible outcome of the marriage, and so do Prince Myshkin

and even Rogozhin. On the eve of Nastasia Filippovna and Rogozhin’s wedding, Myshkin

muses at her decision:

The most puzzling thing to me is how can she marry you? […] She has renounced you and run away from the altar two times already; that means that she does have the premonition! What is it she seeks from you now? Can it really be your money? It’s nonsense. You must have spent a lot of your money already, anyway. Can it really be that her only goal is to find a husband? She could have found one other than you. Anyone but you is better, because you really will, probably, slaughter her, and she understands this all too clearly now.194

Nastasia Filippovna understands that Rogozhin will murder her, and yet chooses to marry him rather than Myshkin, who has dedicated himself to her protection and support. Her decision seems too irrational even for the kenotic Myshkin, who strives to find an alternative explanation for her action. In his conversation to Rogozhin, he offers: “Of course, she doesn’t think of you as lowly as you are saying. Otherwise, it would mean that she is consciously going to her death by marrying you. Can it really be? Who would go to one’s death consciously?”195 Rogozhin’s response reiterates Myshkin’s suspicion: “That’s exactly why she is marrying me, because she is

194 “Для меня всего чуднее то, как она может опять идти за тебя? […] Ведь уж два раза она от тебя отрекалась и из-под венца убегала, значит, есть же предчувствие!.. Что же ей в тебе-то теперь? Неужели твои деньги? Вздор это. Да и деньги-то, небось, сильно уж порастратил. Неужто чтобы только мужа найти? Так ведь она могла бы и кроме тебя найти. Всякого, кроме тебя, лучше, потому что ты и впрямь, пожалуй, зарежешь, и она уж это слишком, может быть, теперь понимает.” Ibid., Part 2, Chapter III. 195 “Уж конечно, она не так дурно думает о тебе, как ты говоришь. Ведь иначе значило бы, что она сознательно в воду или под нож идет, за тебя выходя. Разве может быть это? Кто сознательно в воду или под нож идёт?” Ibid. 77 certain that it will take to her death!”196 Thus, Nastasia Filippovna’s eventual death can be

interpreted as a willful completion of her escalating kenosis.

Nastasia Filippovna’s striking self-destructiveness is hardly a result of thoughtlessness.

Dostoevsky portrays her as a reflective woman with ideals, who realizes the immensity of her

loss. In the midst of self-destruction, when Nastasia Filippovna refuses to marry Myshkin and

burns the money, Dostoevsky describes her as having tears in her eyes: “But why are you

crying? Does it pain you? I think, you should be laughing, - Nastsia Filippovna continued,

while two large tears sparkled on her cheeks.”197 Simultaneously, the grandness of her kenosis brings Nastasia Filippovna emotional elevation. In an ecstatic frenzy, she celebrates emptying herself of various sums of money: “…it’s true, I have thrown a million out of the window! How could you have thought that I would consider Ganechka and your seventy five thousand a great happiness? You keep the seventy five thousand…”198 She marvels at her kenotic sensation, gaining satisfaction from the sense of losing rather than the benefits of possession.

Intense at times, Nastasia Filippovna’s kenosis is not as consistent as Myshkin’s. Passions control her actions as often as the kenotic sentiment does: she enjoys mocking people, and threatens to take Totskii’s life with such conviction that the shrewd egoist grows seriously fearful. During her visit to Ganya’s family, she cruelly ridicules Ganya’s father199, whom vices render helpless. Nastasia Filippovna’s intense mockery drives Rogozhin to murder, thus ending not only her own, but also Rogozhin’s life. One can offer a stipulation that Nastasia Filippovna is only cruel to people who have directly or indirectly hurt her: Ganya’s family despise her and

196 “Да потому-то и идет за меня, что наверно за мной нож ожидает!” Ibid. 197 “Да что ты плачешь-то? Горько, что ли? А ты смейся, по-моему, - продолжала Настасья Филипповна, у которой у самой засверкали две крупные слезы на щеках.” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter XVI. 198 “…а ведь миллион-то я и в самом деле в окно выбросила! Как же вы думали, что я за Ганечку, да за ваши семьдесят пять тысяч за счастье и сочту? Семьдесят пять тысяч ты возьми себе…” Ibid. 199 Ibid., Part 1, Chapter IX. 78 openly express the sentiment, while Rogozhin, unknowingly, humiliates her by his crude

passion. Deserved or not, her actions are frequently far from being giving or even moral

according to mainstream views.

Kenotic by nature but inconsistent in her kenosis, Nastasia Filippovna is portrayed as

stereotypically Russian. Early in the novel, a character describes Nastasia Filippovna as a

“chrezvychaino russkaia zhenshchina”200 - an “extremely Russian woman”, or a woman marked by an extreme degree of Russianness. Analyzed in the context of Dostoevsky’s ratiocinations on

Russian national character, Nastasia Filippovna appears as an embodiment of such: fragmented, self-contradicting, inconsistent, but endowed with a redeeming kenotic tendency that wins her the love of the Christ figure – Prince Myshkin.

The extent to which each character in the novel recognizes Nastasia Filippovna’s implicit beauty attests to that character’s moral worth. While the cruel, indifferent majority scorns and despises her, some personages, and Christ-like Myshkin first of all, see beyond the surface and appreciate the abused woman’s genuine value. While others become obsessed with Nastasia Filippovna’s appearance, Myshkin sees the external only as a reflection of her beautiful core. When asked why he appreciates Nastasia Filippovna’s beauty, Myshkin answers, “This face has a lot of … suffering in it.”201 The Prince recognizes her potential for kenosis, and defines her beauty by it.

While confessing love and proposing marriage, Myshkin cites Nastasia Filippovna’s kenoticism and her suffering as the reasons he considers it an honor to devote his life to her:

I don’t know anything, Nastasia Filippovna, I have not seen anything, you are right, but I ... I will consider this an honor to me, not to you. I am nothing, while you suffered, and out of such a hell, you walked out pure; this means a lot. […] You gave seventy

200 Ibid., Part 1, Chapter XI. 201 “В этом лице...страдания много.” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter VII. 79 thousand back to Mr. Totskii, and you say that you will abandon everything you have here; no one here is capable of doing that. I… love you, Nastas’ia Filippovna. I will die for you, Nastas’ia Filippovna.202

When Nastasia Filippovna causes upheaval by her mockery and bargaining at Ganya’s, Myshkin is the only character who does not allow the performance to deceive him, and acknowledges

Nastasia Filippovna’s pain beneath her bravado: “Are you really who you are pretending to be now? Can this really be?”203

Other characters in the novel - those blessed with at least a small degree of internal beauty - understand the value of Nastasia Filippovna’s kenosis as well. Rogozhin, although having objectively little reason to celebrate the burning of the money that belonged to him so recently, admires Nastasia Filippovna for throwing it in the fire:

The whole of Rogozhin turned into a fixed glance. He could not tear himself away from Nastasia Filippovna, he reveled in her, he felt in the seventh heaven.

- Yes, this is the Queen! - he kept repeating every minute, addressing whoever was around him. – This is our way! - he was exclaiming, quite beside himself. – Which of you, you petty scoundrels, can do such a thing – tell me!204

The ability to “do such a thing” (empty oneself of a hundred thousand rubles) is what makes

Nastasia Filippovna a queen and distinguishes her from a crowd of mazuriki (petty scoundrels)205.

202 “Я ничего не знаю, Настасья Филипповна, я ничего не видел, вы правы, но я... я сочту, что вы мне, а не я сделаю честь. Я ничто, а вы страдали и из такого ада чистая вышли, а это много. […] Вы господину Тоцкому семьдесят тысяч отдали и говорите, что все, что здесь есть, все бросите, этого никто здесь не сделает. Я вас... Настасья Филипповна... люблю. Я умру за вас, Настасья Филипповна.” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter XV. 203 “Разве вы такая, какою теперь представлялись. Да может ли это быть!” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter X. 204 “Сам Рогожин весь обратился в один неподвижный взгляд. Он оторваться не мог от Настасьи Филипповны, он упивался, он был на седьмом небе. - Вот это так королева! - повторял он поминутно, обращаясь кругом к кому ни попало: - вот это так по- нашему! - вскрикивал он, не помня себя. - Ну кто из вас, мазурики, такую штуку сделает - а?” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter XVI. 80 Rogozhin’s choice of a term is interesting: the word mazurik - a nineteenth-century slang

term for a petty thief - is identical to a diminutive form of mazur, defined by Dal’s dictionary as

a Mazovets Pole206. Thus, mazurik is not merely a petty criminal; in the nineteenth-century

Russian, the word appears to have had a connotation of foreignness. Thus, Rogozhin contrasts the “extremely Russian woman” Nastasia Filippovna, who does things “our way”, to a crowd of petty profit-seekers, who do things the foreign way. Although a merchant, i.e., member of a trade based on the principles of rationality and gain, Rogozhin is a Russian merchant (not a

French bourgeois from Dostoevsky’s Winter Notes on Summer Impressions), which means he

appreciates the value of self-emptying. The appreciation contributes to his expulsion from the

family, marriage to Nastasia Filippovna, and eventual conviction to hard labor in Siberia.

While Nastasia Filippovna and Myshkin are central to the scene of kenotic celebration, other

characters also reveal their true nature in its course. Eagerness to partake in kenosis serves as a

measure of each participant’s human worth. Their kenotic capacity is made more palpable by the

presence of a highly desirable material object: a bundle of money. For characters with moral

standards – however rudimentary – it becomes obvious that after Nastasia Filippovna’s gesture,

the bundle of money acquires symbolic meaning as a generalized desirable resource, and the

choice between accepting it or turning away from it in the spirit of kenosis becomes a test.

Trial by kenosis is only offered to those whose moral standards are arguable. There is no

point in trying those who openly demonstrate their tendency to seek profit and calculate for gain.

The venal Lebedev, the jester Ferdyshchenko, and the nameless bodyguard from Rogozhin’s

205 Dal’ defines the word «мазурик» as “pickpocket, or petty thief”, see Dal’, Mazurik, Bol’shoi illiustrirovannyi tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka. Moskva: AST, Astrel’, Tranzitkniga, 2005. In this context, the word is used figuratively, to denote dishonest and petty individuals seeking easy profit. 206 According to Dal’, mazury, or Mazovets Poles, are an ethnic group known for their folk dance mazurka, which became widely popular in modified form. See Dal’, Mazurka, Bol’shoi illiustrirovannyi tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka. Moskva: AST, Astrel’, Tranzitkniga, 2005. 81 retinue all volunteer to pull the money out of the fire, adding on an extra trick for the society’s entertainment (Lebedev offers to climb into the fireplace, and Ferdyshchenko volunteers to pull the bundle out with his teeth). Lebedev also tries the need-based approach, bringing up his ill wife and thirteen hungry children as a reason to give the money to him. All in vain; rational distribution plays no role in the kenotic trial, and the willingness to take the money leaves no doubts about the contestant’s moral statute vis-à-vis kenosis.

The person who passes the trial is Ganya. The birthday reception is the turning point for him.

Until this moment, the reader has had few reasons to sympathize with a character willing to connect his life to a woman for money, and then torment her for the rest of their lives. Ganya proved eager to do a lot for his ambitions: tyrannize his family, pretend to love a woman he despises, and appear willing to prostitute his wife to his boss. It seems that there is little that

Ganya would not do to achieve his goal: the seventy five thousand rubles of Nastasia

Filippovna’s dowry. Yet, when offered an opportunity to gain possession of a larger sum through an incomparably less demanding act – pulling the money out of the fire – Ganya refuses.

The sacrifice may seem disproportionate to what Ganya has been agreeing to; it is a short moment of physical pain in comparison to a lifetime of misery. Thus, it is not the task itself that frightens Ganya, but its symbolic meaning. Nastasia Filippovna makes it very clear that her challenge is not a mere attempt to humiliate, but a test of Ganya’s human qualities:

Well, listen now, Ganya, I want to take a look at your soul one last time. […] Do you see this bundle? There’s one hundred thousand in there. Now, I will throw it into the fireplace, into the fire. […] If you pull it out – it’s your; all hundred thousand are yours. You’ll just burn your fingers a tiny bit; but it’s a hundred thousand, think of it! Would it 82 really take that long to pull it out? And I will admire your soul, how you’ll crawl into fire for my money.207

Nastasia Filippovna’s comment suggests that Ganya’s behavior in relation to the symbolically

charged bundle of money will literally bare his soul and make it visible to others.

The unkenotic act of taking the money, although providing Ganya with an opportunity to

fulfill his ambitious dreams, would deny his worth as a human being. This moral imperative is

so strong that he faints, overwhelmed by the tension between the temptation and his suddenly

revealed moral code. Dostoevsky describes the moment as one of transformation:

Ganya […] could not take his eyes off the fire, off the smoldering bundle; but, it seemed, something new entered his soul; as if he had vowed to the withstand torture. He did not move from the spot; in a few seconds, everyone understood that he would not go for the bundle; that he does not want to go.208

“Something new” that entered Ganya’s soul and urged him to empty himself of a hundred

thousand rubles is the revelation that Ganya has kenotic potential, and, therefore, can be included

in the category of “us”. This discovery provides Ganya with strength to remain in the kenotic

mode in spite of the pressure to do otherwise. After his refusal to take the hundred thousand,

Nastasia Filippovna offers the money to him again, this time, without the condition of public

humiliation. Ganya refuses; moreover, when the bundle of money turns up in his possession

after his fainting spell, he seeks means to give it back to Nastasia Filippovna209.

207 “Ну, так слушай же, Ганя, я хочу на твою душу в последний раз посмотреть; […] Видишь ты эту пачку, в ней сто тысяч! Вот я ее сейчас брошу в камин, в огонь, […] Вытащишь - твоя, все сто тысяч твои! Капельку только пальчики обожжешь, - да ведь сто тысяч, подумай! Долго ли выхватить! А я на душу твою полюбуюсь, как ты за моими деньгами в огонь полезешь.” Dostoevsky, The Idiot. Part 1, Chapter XVI. 208 “Ганя […] не мог отвести глаз от огня, от затлевшейся пачки; но, казалось, что-то новое взошло ему в душу; как будто он поклялся выдержать пытку; он не двигался с места; через несколько мгновений всем стало ясно, что он не пойдет за пачкой, не хочет идти.” Ibid. Emphasis added by Nina Wieda. 209 Ibid., Part 2, Chapter I. 83 Ganya’s successful passage of the trial means that he deserves a place “among us”, since he

is capable of acting “in our way” “po-nashemu”210. Ganya’s kenosis gains him no respect among those who do not belong to the kenotic community; the venal jester Ferdyshchenko calls Ganya

“a petty fanfaron” (“fanfaronishka”) and “the damned”211 for his refusal to take the money. The contemptuous “fanfaronishka”, intensified by its diminutive form, implies that Ferdyshchenko explains Ganya’s refusal by meaningless, small-scale pride; yet “the damned” shows that

Ganya’s refusal to act as Ferdyshchenko would enrages the latter.

While the morally bankrupt Ferdyshchenko’s opinion holds little value, the opinion of

Ganya’s brother Kolya does matter. He is a child, which, in Dostoevsky’s fiction, usually means that his views bear the proximity to truth often clouded in adults. After the incident with the money, Kolya foregoes his negative attitude towards Ganya and becomes his friend: “He was deeply struck by the fact that Ganya returned the money; for that, he was ready to forgive a lot.”212

The successful completion of the rite of passage transforms Ganya’s life on all planes. He abandons his ambitions to the extent of quitting his job, moving in with his married sister, and allowing his brother-in-law to support him213. He supposedly realizes the futility and wrongfulness of his individualistic attempts, loses interest in them, and joins the kenotic community. He stops tyrannizing his family, and learns a lesson of humility. Thus, the kenotic feast has a harmonizing effect on Ganya.

210 See Rogozhin’s remark on Nastasia Filippovna’s behavior above. 211 “фанфаронишка” and “проклятый.” Ibid., Part 1, Chapter XVI. 212 “Его очень поразило, что Ганя возвратил тогда назад деньги; за это он многое был готов простить ему.” Ibid., Part 2, Chapter I. 213 Ibid. 84 While the scenes of kenotic feast are structurally similar in the The Idiot and The Brothers

Karamazov, their impact on the novels’ plots and character development differ. In The Idiot, the culminating scene of the kenotic feast comes rather early in the novel. This structural particularity partially explains the striking difference in tempo between the fast-paced first part and the fairly slow remainder. Most of what matters about the characters is revealed in this peak scene. After that, much of the tension is gone, and what ensues is a slightly altered repetition of the plot lines already present: Nastasia Filippovna wavers between Rogozhin and Myshkin;

Nastasia Filippovna makes decisions and then flees; Rogozhin attempts to kill Myshkin;

Rogozhin kills Nastasia Filippovna. In The Brothers Karamazov, the culmination kenotic scene occurs later in the novel, thus providing tensions with an opportunity to ripen. As a result, the kenotic scene in the latter novel has a more fundamentally harmonizing effect.

The second difference is the depth of kenotic transformation in the two novels. Except for

Ganya, the characters of The Idiot enter and exit the scene with the same degree of kenoticism.

During the scene, they partake in a kenotic feast (or refrain from doing so), but the ensuing transformation remains on the external level; it does not affect the characters’ internal worlds. In

The Brothers Karamazov, not only the circumstances, but the characters change in the process of the kenotic feast. In fact, the circumstantial changes are far less significant than the moral transformation of the characters.214

214 Before proceeding to Dosteovsky’s final novel, it is insightful to compare the meaning of the key image of The Idiot – the burning bundle of money – to the meaning of an almost identical image in Anglophone popular culture. While in Dostoevsky’s novel, burning a large sum of money is meant as an illustration of internal beauty and high morality, it is hardly possible to find analogous scenes in Anglophone culture. In fact, flaunting one’s flagrant disregard for money has quite different associations. The difference can be illustrated by an episode from a broadly popular 2008 film The Dark Knight. In the film, featuring a battle between a noble hero and a murderous insane joker, the latter publically burns an enormous pile of cash. The episode inspires horror, because it reveals the Joker’s irrationality. It takes the character to the next level of evil: his cruelty can no longer be explained by an understandable, although excessive, pursuit of money. The burning pile of cash becomes the terrifying symbol of the irrational evil, which is especially striking in contrast to Dostoevsky’s novel, where a burning pile of cash is a 85 III. Secular Kenosis in The Brothers Karamazov

The culmination of Dostoevsky’s work, The Brothers Karamazov is a novel extraordinarily rich

in potentials. Although kenosis is only one among many of the work’s thought-provoking

themes, the role it plays in the novel is highly effective in elucidating Dostoevsky’s

understanding of the phenomenon and its connection to Russianness. Dostoevsky’s final oeuvre

portrays kenosis as having a deeper and more essential affect on its adepts; it shows the process

of individual conversion to kenoticism rather than introducing individuals who are already highly

kenotic; it also tightens the link between kenosis and Russianness. Thus, The Brothers

Karamazov presents a more mature and nuanced take on kenosis, which also happens to be more

optimistic.

The novel makes a strong case for both Christian and secular kenosis. One of the central

characters of the novel, Father Zosima, singles out kenoticism, or giving oneself to the world, as

the central concept of Russian Orthodoxy. A number of scholars have observed that kenotic

sentiment tinctures Father Zosima’s teachings and deeds215, as well as those of his disciple

Alesha216. However, for the purposes of this study, it is more enlightening to investigate the

symbol of human beauty, purity and dignity. The film’s character also parallels Nastasia Filippovna and Myshkin on the plane of insanity; the contrasting evaluation of the two insanities, however, is equally striking. In the American film, insanity is unambiguously terrifying and evil. In the Russian novel, Myshkin’s and Nastasia Filippovna’s insanity is a sign of their access to higher truths, unavailable to those plagued with mundane rationality. 215 See Sarah Hudspith, Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness. A New Perspective on Unity and Brotherhood. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, Taylor & Francis Group, 2004, 57; Gary L. Browning, Zosima's "Secret of Renewal" in The Brothers Karamazov, The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Winter, 1989), pp. 516-529; George Pattison and Diane Oenning Thompson, Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition. Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2001, esp. Chapter 2, “Dostoevsky and the Kenotic Tradition”. 216 Jostein Bortnes identifies Alesha with the original kenoticist – Christ. See Jostein Bortnes, The Function of Hagiography in Dostoevskij’s novels in Robin Feuer Miller, ed., Critical Essays on Dostoevsky (Boston, 1986). Margaret Ziolkowski discusses the vitae and the holy fool archetype in relation to Alesha’s character in Hagiography and Modern Russian Literature (Princeton, 1988), 163-70. Harriet Murav discusses Alesha’s story as that of conversion in Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky’s Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Critique (Stanford, 1992) 153-60. One illuminating article points out similarities between Father Zosima and another Karamazov brother: 86 behavior of lay persons, whose kenosis is inspired not by Christian teaching, but by their

cultural instinct.

Secular kenosis becomes manifest most vibrantly in the scene at Mokroe, when Mitya joins

Grushenka and her Polish fiancé for a night of drinking and discovery. This scene is structurally

analogous to Nastasia Filippovna’s birthday reception in The Idiot: in its course, the central

kenoticist empties himself of all his resources, while others either become infected by his kenotic

spirit or display their human worthlessness. As was the case in The Idiot, each character’s

capacity to engage in kenosis determines his or her inclusion in the category of “we”. The

central characters of the scenes - Nastasia Filippovna and Mitya – bear striking resemblance to

each other. Both are passionate individuals misunderstood by the world. Both reveal their

innate beauty to devote kenoticists (Prince Myshkin and Father Zosima, respectively), who

articulate their insight in similar ways: Myshkin says he admires Nastasia Filippovna’s beauty

because “There is a lot of … suffering in this face”217, and Father Zosima kneels and bows to

Mitya at the moment of the latter’s utmost turmoil218.

The structural similarities between the two scenes serve as a convenient background to highlight the essential differences. The link between Russianness and kenoticism significantly gains in transparency in The Brothers Karamazov in comparison to The Idiot. In fact, the

kenotic nature of Russians - in contrast to other peoples - is one of the scene’s salient themes.

The second distinction between the two novels’ analogous scenes is that the one in The Brothers

Mitya. In her insightful article, Carol Flath shows that Dmitry’s and Zosima’s plots are closely linked throughout the novel. Their similarities are not only those of character (“passionate, wild, military officers in their youth”), but also in their kenotic function: “What is more significant […] is that Dmitry and Zosima perform the same function in the novel: they take on the sins of people around them, and they are condemned for it.” See Carol A. Flath. “The Passion of Dmitrii Karamazov”. Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999). 598. 217 “В этом лице...страдания много.” Dostoevsky, The Idiot. Part 1, Chapter VII. See citation above. 218 The Brothers Karamazov. Book 2, chapter VI. 87 Karamazov reveals a much larger transformative power: it resolves pre-existing tensions,

purifies its participants, and harmonizes their lives. Let us first address the harmonizing role of

kenosis in The Brothers Karamazov, and then return to the novel’s portrayal of the connection

between kenoticism and Russianness.

Although a sequence of painful events – Mitya’s arrest, trial, and conviction – follow the

kenotic scene, these external calamities do not subtract from the essential harmony achieved in

the course of the night at Mokroe. Mitya, who had been tormented by his passions, steps out of

the night in concord with himself, rewarded with the love of the woman for whom he has pined.

He experiences an epiphany in his dream of the babe and makes peace with the world.

Grushenka is transformed from a ruthless and immoral businesswoman into a devoted life

partner; she shakes off the burdens of her past, and embarks on a journey of simple life and

work. Participants of the feast reveal their true nature; friends and enemies clearly identify

themselves as such. Carol Flath compares the scene to a sacrament219 and a miracle220. Let us

analyze the transformative role of the scene in the lives of the novel’s main characters.

219 Carol A. Flath. The Passion of Dmitrii Karamazov. Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999). 593. As the scholar points out, her point of view on the scene is uncharacteristic of Slavic studies: typically, since Mikhail Bakhtin, “carousing at Mokroe” has been discussed as an example of a carnivalesque spectacle. See Roger B. Anderson, “The Meaning of Carnival in The Brothers Karamazov”. The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Winter, 1979), pp. 458-478. 220Carol Flath points out the following aspects of the scene that liken it to a miracle: in the course of the night, the money that Mitya considered to be “bad” provides merriment and happiness, Grushenka is purified of her past and emerges out of the night as an innocent bride, and both Mitya and Grushenka are cleared of their guilt. See Carol A. Flath. The Passion of Dmitrii Karamazov. Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999). 597. While Flath does not elaborate on the miracle’s origin or nature, Donna Orwin provides an illuminating analysis of the miracles in the novel. Orwin suggests that while Dostoevsky in general “limits “spiritual phenomena” to psychology and ethics”, in The Brothers Karamazov, “subjective reality intrudes upon the objective world so powerfully as to transform it into various hybrids that mix the two. “Spiritual phenomena” enter the world through the human psyche, through dreams, fantasies, and visions. They have no physical, natural existence that can be validated by a scientific commission […] but they are nonetheless real.” See Donna Orwin, Did Dostoevsky or Tolstoy Believe in Miracles? A New Word on The Brothers Karamazov, edited by Robert Louis Jackson. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 2004. 88 Up to the scene in Mokroe, Mitya’s economic behavior has consisted in his struggle for resources. He has been striving to maintain possession of fifteen thousand rubles; squeezing his share of his inheritance out of his father, competing with him for Grushenka’s favor, and attempting dubiously legal machinations in search of financial gain. His attempts to assert possession have caused Mitya a great amount of busy work, forcing him to traverse the town and travel the area time and again to appeal to various people221 and design various plans of attack.

Simultaneously with his efforts to initiate an inward-directed flow of recourses, Mitya has been clasping on to his officer’s pride, initiating violent fights whenever he feels that his honor has been endangered. This behavior did not inspire people’s love, but it did bring fear-induced respect among some. Suddenly, in the face of two devastating life events: the ostensible murder of Grigory and Grushenka’s flight with a man whom Mitya believes to be a rightful winner,

Mitya abandons his attempts to rationalize his life by seeking gain. Overcome by a desire to empty himself out, Mitya starts off by deciding to yield the two things he loves most: his life222

(by committing suicide) and Grushenka (by “stepping aside” and not contesting her marriage).

Moreover, Mitya starts empting himself out of all the other resources he has. Only one principle seems to drive his irrational, chaotic actions: resources have to flow outwards. Throughout the night at Mokroe, Mitya persistently empties himself of money, pride, and opportunity, waiting for the moment when he can empty himself of his life.

The most obvious manifestation of Mitya’s self-emptying is his squandering of money. After spending a long time and a great deal of effort in preserving the fifteen thousand that he deemed a token of his honesty, Mitya is strikingly indifferent to the way this money is spent. A chance

221 Father Zosima, Mm. Khokhlakova, the old merchant Kusma Samsonov, and peasant Liagavyi. 222 Mitya’s love of life is best illustrated by the passage about the green leaves. 89 observer223 notes that Mitya holds the stack of bills as an unneeded, superfluous object, and repeatedly leaves it in odd places. He gives out ridiculously unreasonable tips224, and volunteers to throw an unexpected and uninvited party in Mokroe. This party in itself is a strikingly irrational idea: Mitya wants to celebrate his loss with those who got the prize he desired (the

Poles leaving with Grushenka) and those for whom he cares very little (local peasants). Thus, the main objective of the party appears to be emptying oneself out. Mitya’s list of purchases for the party is long and confused:

tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovich […] will be there directly. … But listen, listen, tell them to have champagne, three dozen bottles ready before I come, and packed as it was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then […] tell them to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviar, and everything, everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty as before…. But wait: don’t let them forget dessert, sweets, pears, watermelons, two or three or four – no, one water melon’s enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants; in fact, everything I took to Mokroe before, three hundred roubles’ worth with the champagne…225

This is neither a carefully planned attempt to impress, nor the elegant spending of an aristocrat

(“no, one water melon’s enough”). When told that a gypsy band is not available, Mitya does not hesitate to replace it with a Jewish orchestra, which strikingly lacks the large-scale carousing aura that a gypsy band could provide. Apparently, effect is not of primary importance to Mitya; he yearns to spend, and he does not care for what he is paying.

223 Piotr Ilyich. 224 Mitya offers Piotr Ilyich’s boy ten rubles for delivering a message to a store; earlier that night, Mitya sold his only valuable possession – a pair of pistols – for the same sum of money. Later, Mitya offers fifty rubles to the cab driver Andrey for a hasty ride. 225 “…скажи, что Дмитрий Федорович […] сейчас сам будет... чтобы к его приходу приготовили шампанского, этак дюжинки три, да уложили как тогда, когда в Мокрое ездил... Я тогда четыре дюжины у них взял […] сыру там, пирогов страсбургских, сыров копченых, ветчины, икры, ну и всего, всего, что только есть у них, рублей этак на сто или на сто двадцать, как прежде было... Да слушай: гостинцев чтобы не забыли, конфет, груш, арбуза два или три, аль четыре, - ну нет, арбуза-то одного довольно, а шоколаду, леденцов, монпансье, тягушек - ну всего, чтó тогда со мной в Мокрое уложили, с шампанским рублей на триста чтобы было...” Pps. Vol. 14. 360. 90 Mitya’s squandering is unlikely to bring him any recognition or respect; the reader learns

that Mitya’s previous spending spree made him a figure of ridicule in the town, and only the fear

of his bad temper prevented people from laughing in his face. Mitya is aware that his spending

feat will not impress Grushenka, either: after his last extravaganza, the only reward was that

Grushenka "let him kiss her foot, but nothing else."226 Mitya seems confused and delusional as

to why he is buying all the food and champagne; “put as much as possible toffee and fondants;

girls there like them, - Mitya insisted, passionately.”227 Mitya probably wouldn’t be able to

explain why peasant girls’ preferences matter to him at this moment; his urge to spend is free

from self-interest and almost compulsive.

Once in Mokroe, Mitya continues the intensive emptying himself of money. He offers two

hundred rubles for a peasant girl chorus. The sum is so incommensurate to the service that even

the inn-keeper protests: “But for this kind of money, I’ll wake up the entire village for you, even

though they are all sleeping now. […] Fancy that; allocating such a sum to this baseness and

crudity!”228 Throughout the evening, Mitya constantly gets up from the table to remind the inn- keeper to give out his supplies to peasants, choir girls, and the cab driver. When Maksimov asks him for five rubles, Mitya appears happy for another opportunity to give and offers twice the sum: “Great! Splendid! Take ten, here! – He took out all the bills from his pocket and found a ten-rouble note. – And if you lose that, come again, come again…”229 While gambling with the

Polish guests, Mitya explicitly articulates his intention to lose rather than win: “I want to lose a

226 “позволила ему свою ножку поцеловать, а более ничего не позволила.” Pps. Vol. 14. 357. 227 “как можно больше монпансье и тягушек положите; это там девки любят, - с жаром настаивал Митя.” Ibid., 365. 228 “Да за этакие деньги я все село тебе подыму, хоть и полегли теперь дрыхнуть. […] Этакой подлости да грубости такую сумму определять!” Ibid., 374. 229 “Прекрасно, великолепно! Берите десять, вот! - Он вытащил опять все кредитки из кармана и отыскал десять рублей. - А проиграешь, еще приходи, еще приходи...” Ibid., 384. 91 lot to you, Pan.”230 Thus, the kenotic spirit transforms even the interest-inspired activity of gambling into its opposite; Mitya’s goal consists in losing rather than winning. Mitya insists on large stakes, and refuses to take his money back when the Pole’s victory is revealed as dishonest.

Along with emptying himself out of material resources, Mitya engages in another type of self- emptying: he completely relinquishes his pride. Infamous for his willfulness and bad temper,

Mitya not only neglects to harm Grushenka’s lover – the cause of his disaster – but embraces him, treats him to delicacies and champagne, and even offers (non-ironically) to drink to Poland, the rival’s fatherland. Known for his stubbornness and inflexibility, Mitya seems to give up all his will, and eagerly yield his personality to the group: “He seemed to have become suddenly gentle and subdued. He looked shyly and happily at every one, with a continuous nervous little laugh, and the blissful expression of a dog who had done wrong…”231 One who nearly murdered his father in his struggle for his inheritance and Grushenka’s love, Mitya gives up all pretensions of self-interest: “All feeling of rivalry had died away in this little puppy.”232 Usually angry and irritable, Mitya is suddenly the first to laugh at silly jokes, give out signs of affection, and sincerely to admire somebody’s ridiculous dance:

Maximov danced his dance. But it roused no great admiration in any one but Mitya. It consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping, kicking up the feet, and at every skip Maximov slapped the upturned sole of his foot. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya even kissed the dancer.

230 “- Я тебе много, пан, хочу проиграть.” This phrase, of course, refers to more than the material loss: Mitya is also willing to lose Grushenka and his dignity to the Polish competitor. 231 Translation by Constance Garnett. 475. “Он вдруг как бы весь смирился и принизился. Он смотрел на всех робко и радостно, часто и нервно хихикая, с благодарным видом виноватой собачонки…” Pps. Vol. 14. 378. 232 “В маленькой собачке замерло всякое соперничество.” Ibid. 92 - Thank you! You’re tired perhaps? What are you looking for here? Would you like some sweets? A cigar, perhaps?233

Overall, Mitya seems to be doing just what Dostoevsky described in Winter Notes: he relinquishes his ego and willingly dissolves his personality in a group, asking for nothing in return.

Kenotic behavior comes to Mitya naturally. Usually awkward in social situations, Mitya flourishes in the midst of a kenotic feast, which the narrator describes as Mitya’s native element:

“It’s as if Mitya was in his natural element […] If any peasant asked him for money at that moment, he would have immediately pulled out his entire bundle, and started handing the money out right and left, without counting.”234 Mitya seemed clumsy and uncomfortable as long as he was trying to act against his kenotic spirit and direct resources towards himself. His struggle to acquire Grushenka, inheritance, money and rights caused Mitya’s internal turmoil and external awkwardness. Yielding to his kenotic instinct places Mitya in his natural element and brings him ease of manner and lightness of mind.

Mitya’s wastefulness does not heighten his status in society in the way that conspicuous consumption can. Rather than recognizing his superiority, others ridicule Mitya’s carelessness with money while crudely using him for their benefit. For example, the inn-keeper reproaches

Mitya for being wasteful, while gathering up the bills Mitya drops235. Yet others are so uncomfortable with Mitya’s disproportionate spending that they refuse to benefit from it: the cab

233 “Максимов действительно свой танец протанцовал, но кроме Мити почти ни в ком не произвел особенного восхищения. Весь танец состоял в каких-то подпрыгиваниях с вывертыванием в стороны ног, подошвами кверху, и с каждым прыжком Максимов ударял ладонью по подошве. Калганову совсем не понравилось, а Митя даже облобызал танцора. - Ну, спасибо, устал может, что глядишь сюда: конфетку хочешь, а? Цыгарочку может хочешь?” Ibid., 393. 234 “Митя был как бы в своем родном элементе […] Попроси у него какой-нибудь мужик в те минуты денег, он тотчас же вытащил бы всю свою пачку и стал бы раздавать направо и налево без счету.” Ibid., 395. 235 Ibid., 374. 93 driver refuses the fifty rubles that Mitya offers him as a tip, and only agrees to accept one

tenth of the sum236.

While laughable for the majority, Mitya’s behavior has a profound effect on Grushenka,

whose status in the novel changes significantly after the fateful night. Affected by Mitya’s

kenotic behavior and infected by the spirit of kenosis, Grushenka transforms from a profit-

seeking business-woman into a devoted bride. It is Mitya’s willingness to give her up that

impresses Grushenka and causes her to change her opinion:

At last she suddenly gripped his hand and drew him vigorously to her. [...]

- How was it you cam just now, eh? How you walked in! ... I was frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, did you? Did you really want to?237

Grushenka admires Mitya’s resolution to give her up; according to the same logic, she appreciates his readiness to give up his life. She is especially touched by Mitya’s

“bezrassudnost’”, which can be translated as irrationality and failure or refusal to calculate: “So you meant to shoot yourself tomorrow! What a silly boy! What for? I like such reckless fellows as you, - she lisped, with a rather halting toungue. So you would go any length for me, eh?”238

It is Mitya’s irrationality that makes him dear to Grushenka; his refusal to calculate renders

Mitya a proud, worthy, desirable person, a “sokol” (falcon): “A falcon flew in, and my heart sank. Fool! That’s the man you love!”239

236 Ibid., 375. 237 Translation by Constance Garnett. 491. “Наконец она вдруг схватила его крепко за руку и силой притянула к себе. […] - Как это ты давеча вошел-то, а? Как ты вошел-то!.. я так испугалась. Как же ты меня ему уступить-то хотел, а? Неужто хотел?” Ibid., 391. 238 “Так неужто ты хотел завтра застрелить себя, экой глупый, да из за чего? Я вот этаких как ты безрассудных люблю, - лепетала она ему немного отяжелевшим языком. - Так ты для меня на всё пойдешь? А?” Ibid. 239 Translation by Constance Garnett. 497. “Вошел давеча один сокол, так сердце и упало во мне. "Дура ты, вот ведь кого ты любишь!" Ibid., 396. 94 Before the kenotic feast at Mokroe, Grushenka seemed an unlikely disciple of kenoticism.

An old merchant’s concubine, also said to bargain with the old Karamazov about the price of her

favors, Grushenka practiced two jobs embodying the antithesis to kenosis: accounting240 and

money-lending241. The incarnation of calculated profit-seeking, Grushenka also fervently

protected her pride, as the episode with Katerina Ivanovna demonstrates. In that episode,

Grushenka manipulated Katerina Ivanovna into kissing her hand, but, contrary to the latter’s

expectations, did not reciprocate the sign of humility. Self-interested, calculating, and proud,

Grushenka shows as little potential as anyone to relinquish her ego to the world.

Participation in a kenotic feast cracks Grushenka’s hard shell and frees her kenotic spirit. As

if infected by Mitya’s kenotic behavior, she abandons her venality, mockery, and pride and

plunges into kenosis: “If you love, well then love! I’ll be your slave now, your slave for the rest

of my life. It’s sweet to be a slave. Kiss me! Beat me, ill-treat me, do what you will with

me…”242 Emptied of her pride, she becomes simple and accessible, passing out uncalculated

signs of affection right and left: “She became exceedingly gregarious, was summoning

everybody, waving in some peasant girl from the chorus; the girl would come, and Grushenka

would either kiss her and let her go, or, sometimes, would make a sign of the cross over her with

her hand.”243 While before the transformation, Grushenka intentionally hurt Katerina Ivanovna

240 Accounting, as the embodiment of anti-kenotic spirit, has a conspicuous presence in another work discussed in this dissertation: Chekhov’s Uncle Vania. In the play, the irony of the situation and the tragedy of the eponymous character and his niece consist in having to realize their kenosis, day after day, through the mundane work of accounting. 241 In her book Redemption and the Merchant God, Susan McReynolds shows that in Dostoevsky’s time, money landing was considered one of the lowliest trades incompatible with the very principles of Christianity, see Susan McReynolds, Redemption and the Merchant God: Dostoevsky’s Economy of Salvation and Anti-Semitism. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2008. 242 Translation by Constance Garnett. 497. “Любить, так уж любить! Раба твоя теперь буду, раба на всю жизнь! Сладко рабой быть!.. Целуй! Прибей меня, мучай меня, сделай что надо мной...” Pps. Vol. 14. 396. 243 “Она же стала ужасно как словоохотлива, всех к себе подзывала, манила вдруг к себе какую-нибудь девку из хора, та подходила, а она или целовала ее и отпускала, или иногда крестила ее рукой.” Ibid., 390. 95 by withholding a kiss, now, she spontaneously gives kisses out. Having let go of her ego,

Grushenka finds joy in experiencing her wholeness with the world.

In a gesture uncharacteristic of a money-lender and accountant, Grushenka renounces money

and insists that Mitya use her savings to pay off debt to Katerina Ivanovna: “Give it back to her,

take my money... Why are you protesting? Now, everything mine is yours. What is money to

us?”244 She wants to give something to Maksimov, to “gift him” (“podari emu”), merely because he is poor, and then laments the fate of, seemingly, all the people: “Oh, the poor, the destitute!”245 She wishes she were God so that she could extend her love and forgiveness to everybody: “If I were God, I would forgive all the people: “My dear little sinners, starting today,

I forgive you all.”246

Overflowing with kenotic sentiment, Grushenka runs through different scenarios of giving herself to the world more fully. She announces that she wants to join a monastery. Then, she declares her desire to go into the world humbling herself: “And I will go beg for forgiveness:

“Forgive me, the kind people, a foolish woman, that’s what I am.” A brute I am, that’s what it is.”247 Then, she wants to unite with the world in a Dionysian spectacle of dancing, and invites everybody to join in248. Then, she actually bows to the world and humbles herself again: “She bowed down to the chorus, then started bowing down to all four sides, in turn: “Guilty I am…

244 “Отдай ей, у меня возьми... Что кричишь? Теперь все мое - твое. Что нам деньги?” Ibid., 399. 245 “Ах, бедные, обиженные!” Ibid. 246 “Кабы богом была, всех бы людей простила: "милые мои грешнички, с этого дня прощаю всех." Ibid., 397. 247 “А я пойду прощения просить: "Простите, добрые люди, бабу глупую, вот что". Зверь я, вот что.” Ibid., 397. 248 Ibid., 387-8. 96 Forgive me…”249 Finally, she asks Mitya to take her (“voz’mi menia”) as a devoted wife, a hard-working slave, according to the principles of Domostroi:

You and I will go plow the soil. I want to scrape the soil with these very hands. We have to work, you hear me? Alyosha told us so. I will not be a mistress to you. I will be faithful to you, will be a slave to you, will work for you. We’ll go to the lady and bow to her, both of us, to have her forgive us…250

When Mitya mentions that his path may lead to Siberia, Grushenka is ready for this sacrifice, as well: “Why not, and to Siberia, if you want, it doesn’t matter… We’ll work…”251 When Mitya is accused of murder, Grushenka insists on being tried and even executed together with him:

“Prosecute us together! – Grushenka continued to exclaim, in frenzy, still on her knees. – Punish us together, now I’ll go with him even to execution!”252 She even volunteers completely to take over the burden of punishment and guilt:

- It’s me, damned me, I am to blame! - she wailed in a heart-breaking voice, all covered in tears, stretching her arms out to everyone, - It’s because of me that he killed! It was I who tormented him and led him to that! And that late old man, I tormented him, too, out of spite, and led him to that! I am to blame, I am the first to blame, the main one to blame; I am guilty!253

249 “Она поклонилась хору, затем принялась кланяться на все четыре стороны поочередно: - Виновата... Простите...” Ibid., 398. 250 “А мы пойдем с тобою лучше землю пахать. Я землю вот этими руками скрести хочу. Трудиться надо, слышишь? Алеша приказал. Я не любовница тебе буду. Я тебе верная буду, раба твоя буду, работать на тебя буду. Мы к барышне сходим и поклонимся оба, чтобы простила…” Ibid., 399 251 “А что ж, и в Сибирь, коли хочешь, все равно... работать будем...” Ibid., 399 252 “- Вместе судите нас! - продолжала исступленно восклицать Грушенька, все еще на коленях. - Вместе казните нас, пойду с ним теперь хоть на смертную казнь!” Ibid., 412. 253 “Это я, я окаянная, я виновата! - прокричала она раздирающим душу воплем, вся в слезах, простирая ко всем руки, - это из-за меня он убил!.. Это я его измучила и до того довела! Я и того старичка-покойничка бедного измучила, со злобы моей, и до того довела! Я виноватая, я первая, я главная, я виноватая!” Ibid. 97 In the end, Grushenka does end up going to Siberia with Mitya, repeating the celebrated

exploit of Sonya Marmeladova254 and the Decembrists’ wives, whom Dostoevsky revered so

highly255.

Grushenka’s transformation carries a two-fold effect: first, it harmonizes her own relationship

with the world, and second, it contributes to bringing peace to Mitya. Mitya’s newly-found

harmony, however, is only partially based on Grushenka’s acceptance. The very act of kenosis

brings Mitya’s spirit back to life: “Mitya was in his natural element, and the more bizarre it

became, the livelier he got in spirit.”256 It is revealing that Mitya gains in the liveliness of his

spirit (“ozhivliaetsia dukhom”) as the situation turns more bizarre and irrational. It is the kenotic

environment that brings Mitya’s spirit back to life, just as, in an obvious Christian analogy,

people acquired a chance for eternal life after Christ’s kenotic act.

After a night of emptying himself out, Mitya experiences an epiphany in his dream about the

babe. In the dream, upon seeing poor, hungry, suffering people, he asks seemingly unexpected

questions: “…why don’t they embrace and kiss each other, why don’t they sing joyful songs?”257

In his questioning of the people’s misery, Mitya wonders why they fail to do what he just did:

partake in a kenotic feast, which could relieve their suffering, as it did for him. Mitya feels that

he can change the situation if he directs his limitless Karamazov energy into a kenotic route, as

he did during the preceding night:

254 In Crime and Punishment, the consistent kenoticist Sonya willfully follows the murderer Raskolnikov to Siberia. Raskolnikov is an un-kenotic figure, tormented by desire to assert his individualistic right (“Тварь я дрожащая, или право имею?”) In conclusion of the novel, in consequence to and as a result of Sonya’s extensive self-emptying, Raskolnikov begins to make peace with the world. 255 See citation above. 256 “Митя был как бы в своем родном элементе, и чем нелепее все становилось, тем больше он оживлялся духом.” Ibid., 395. 257 “почему они не обнимаются, не целуются, почему не поют песен радостных…” Pps. Vol. 14. 456. 98 And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before, was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one should shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the Karamazovs.258

This salvation through kenosis fills Mitya with harmony and joy: “And his heart glowed, and he struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once!”259 He wakes up from his dream with a “fair smile”, and in spite of the grim circumstances, faces life “with a new light, as of joy, in his face.” 260

In an ingenious structural arrangement, Dostoevsky follows the scene of genuine trial by kenosis with a prolonged report on the superficial and wrongful official investigation and trial.

The pretentiousness and eventual failure of the official trial stands in sharp contrast to the spontaneous effectiveness of the trial by kenosis. Here, Dostoevsky demonstrates the failure of rationality to reveal the truth, according to the principles of apophaticism, which, according to

Carol Flath, Mitya exemplifies261. It appears that Dostoevsky also illustrates this concept by juxtaposing the kenotic night at Mokroe, which successfully reveals the true nature of its participants, and the official investigation and trial that fail to do so.

258 Translation by Constance Garnett. 576. “И чувствует он еще, что подымается в сердце его какое-то никогда еще небывалое в нем умиление, что плакать ему хочется, что хочет он всем сделать что-то такое, чтобы не плакало больше дите, не плакала бы и черная иссохшая мать дити, чтоб не было вовсе слез от сей минуты ни у кого, и чтобы сейчас же, сейчас же это сделать, не отлагая и несмотря ни на что, со всем безудержем Карамазовским.” Ibid., 456-7. 259 Translation by Constance Garnett. 576. “И вот загорелось все сердце его и устремилось к какому-то свету, и хочется ему жить и жить, идти и идти в какой-то путь, к новому зовущему свету, и скорее, скорее, теперь же, сейчас!” Ibid., 457. 260 Translation by Constance Garnett. 577. “с каким-то новым, словно радостью озаренным лицом.” Ibid., 457. 261 Carol A. Flath. The Passion of Dmitrii Karamazov. Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999). 586. 99 While Russianness and kenoticism go hand in hand throughout all of Dostoevsky’s fiction, the scene at Mokroe presents an especially lucid manifestation of this link: the episode with the

Poles. At the beginning of the scene, the foreignness of the two Polish characters is marginal; what matters is their ostensible right to Grushenka. In the course of the scene, however, the foreignness of the men gains in transparency at the same time as they reveal their un-kenotic spirit: they flaunt and exaggerate their importance, emphasize their separateness from the party, reveal venality, and finally, expose themselves as card-sharpers. Let us analyze the process of this simultaneous disclosure more closely, comparing the behavior of the Poles to that of Mitya.

Mitya enters the scene with a box of gifts and a self-renunciation: “Gentlemen,” he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering at every word, “I... I... I’m nothing! Don’t be afraid!” he exclaimed, “I – I’m nothing, […] I … I’m coming, too.”262 Three times, Mitya announces himself to be “nothing”. The little Pole’s263 first words are his stern refusal to accept

Mitya as a part of the group: “The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and observed severely: “Panie, we’re here in private (privatno). There are other rooms.”264 By the

Polish word “privatno” (which, characteristically, has no exact contextual equivalent in

Russian265), the character emphasizes his intention to remain separate from others and assert his individuality instead of dissolving it in the group. Mitya is overcome by a contrasting emotion:

262 “Господа, - начал он громко, почти крича, но заикаясь на каждом слове, - я... я ничего! Не бойтесь, - воскликнул он, - я ведь ничего, ничего,… […] Я... Я тоже еду.” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book VIII: Mitya, Chapter 6: “I am Coming, Too!” 263 The little Pole’s name - Pan Mussialovich - is only reveled in Part VIII of Book 9, during the following morning’s official investigation. Throughout the night, the narrator refers to Pan Mussialovich as “маленький пан” (the little Pole). The secondary Polish character’s name – Pan Vrublevskii – is revealed earlier in the novel, at the very beginning of the Mokroe night scene. This name provides an early clue into the characters’ nature: “Vrublevskii” contains a monetary unit – “рубль” – embedded into it. It suggests not only the characters’ venality, but also their low worth: «в рубль» is not a very high price. 264 Translation by Constance Garnett. 472. “Тот важно отнял от губ своих трубку и строго произнес: - Пане, мы здесь приватно. Имеются иные покои.” Ibid. 265 The Russian «частно» or «частным образом» conveys the meaning of an event being organized by a private person or group rather than an official organization; it does not convey the meaning of intention to remain separate from those not included in the group, as the English “private” does. 100 he ardently welcomes Maximov, whom he hardly knows: “Good evening. You’re here, too!

How glad I am to find you here, too! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I…”266 Mitya speaks with a lot of passion (“isstuplionno»); he willingly renounces himself, recognizing the Polish competitor as the person in charge (“prinimaia ego za glavnogo zdes’ cheloveka”). Mitya invites everyone to feast and drink to peace; he offers up his stack of money, calls himself a worm, and promises to remove that worm by the morning. His Polish interlocutor does not welcome Mitya’s kenotic outburst. His un-kenotic response is worded in an un-Russian way: “If my soverin lady is permitting… (ezheli pozvolit moia kruleva…)”267 The response irritates Grushenka both by its un-kenoticism and un-Russianness: “What does ‘suverin’ mean? ‘Sovereign,’ I suppose?” interrupted Grushenka. “I can’t help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what are you talking about?”268 Grushenka’s welcoming response reasserts Russian as the language of the scene, and kenoticism as its mode.

From this point on, the tension between kenotic Russianness and unkenotic foreignness rapidly escalates: Mitya empties himself out, while the Polish gentlemen act in a reserved manner, speak in a foreign tongue, and give out non-verbal clues of their separateness from the company. In the middle of a story that obviously fascinates all the present company, they inquire each other about time with a bored expression. While all are sitting down together, one of the

Polish guests gets up and paces the room “with a contemptuous air of a person bored in the company with which he does not associate.”269 They make comments that Grushenka finds to be in disagreement with the general spirit of the party: “What next! Let him talk! People talk, why

266 Translation by Constance Garnett. 473. “Здравствуйте, и вы тут, как я рад, что и вы тут! Господа, господа, я...” Ibid. 267 Garnett 473. 268 Garnett 473. “- Да что крулева, это королева, что ли? - перебила вдруг Грушенька. – И смешно мне на вас, как вы все говорите. Садись, Митя, и что это ты говоришь?” Ibid. 269 “с высокомерным видом скучающего не в своей компании человека.” Ibid. 101 hinder them? It makes it cheerful,” Grushenka said crossly.”270 Repeatedly and with irritation, Grushenka demands translation of Polish phrases into Russian.

The language preference of the Polish gentlemen is laden with meaning that goes beyond the sphere of linguistics. The fact that Poles speak Polish can hardly be considered unusual, unless they are fluent in several languages, and make a conscious preference in favor of one.

Dostoevsky emphasizes that for the Polish characters, using Polish is a choice rather than a default option. Early in the scene, the narrator clarifies linguistic options of the Polish guests:

“He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he was pretending. If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form.”271 Thus, speaking a tongue that few present people can understand is a conscious choice rather than a necessity. Moreover, Grushenka’s comment reveals that her fiancé used to be more inclined to Russian before than he is now: “He used to speak Russian, has he really forgotten it in five years!”272 This shift away from Russian coincides, in Grushenka’s eyes, with a drastic increase in age, and a change from the state of

“falcon” (a proud bird, a desirable man) to the state of “drake” (a clumsy bird, an undesirable partner): “And it’s not even him at all! Was he really like that? This is some kind of father of his! […] That one was a falcon, and this one is a drake!”273

In the scene, the choice of a language reflects the choice of mentality, which directly affects the degree of a man’s worth and, therefore, his desirability in Grushenka’s eyes. The Polish gentlemen do not merely choose to speak a foreign language; they choose to act in a foreign way,

270 Garnett 477. “Вот еще! Дайте ему говорить-то! Люди говорят, чего мешать? С ними весело, - огрызнулась Грушенька.” Ibid. 271 Garnett 477. “Пан с трубкой говорил по-русски порядочно, по крайней мере гораздо лучше, чем представлялся. Русские слова, если и употреблял их, коверкал на польский лад.” Ibid. 272 “Говорил же прежде по-русски, неужели забыл в пять лет!” Ibid. 273 “Да и не он это вовсе! Разве он был такой? Это отец его какой-то! […] Тот был сокол, а это селезень.” Ibid. 102 which, in the context of the scene, means acting un-kenotically. Thus, Grushenka’s anger, which seems disproportionate if applied to a linguistic preference, makes more sense if understood as her disapproval of the un-kenotic, and, therefore, repulsive mentality of her fiancé:

“Russian, speak Russian, I don’t want to hear even one Polish word from you!” she cried at him.

[…] She grew all red with anger.”274 In this context, her phrase “Russian” can be understood as a request to act Russian (read: kenotically) rather than simply speak Russian275.

The Polish guests further disclose their refusal to join others in a kenotic union in the episode with the toast. Mitya proposes a toast to Poland, and the two Poles drink with him enthusiastically. Immediately after that, Mitya suggests a toast to Russia, and while everybody joins in, the Poles refuse to drink:

“Now to Russia, panovie, and let us be brothers!”

“Pour out some for us,” said Grushenka; “I’ll drink to Russia, too!”

“So will I,” said Kalganov.

“And I would, too… to Russia, the old grandmother!” tittered Maximov.

“All! All!” cried Mitya. “Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!”

The other three bottles Mitya has brought with him were put on the table. Mitya filled the glasses.

“To Russia! Hurrah!” he shouted again. All drank the toast except the Poles, and Grushenka tossed her whole glass at once. The Poles did not touch theirs.276

274 “По-русски, говори по-русски, чтобы ни одного слова польского не было! - закричала она на него. […] Она вся покраснела от гнева.” Ibid. 275 Grushenka reacts as strongly when her fiancé pronounces her name in a Polish manner: “- Пани Агриппина.../ - Я Аграфена, я Грушенька, говори по-русски или слушать не хочу!” Her otherwise inexplicable anger makes sense if one understands the act of Europeanizing her name as an attempt to take her out of the Russian, kenotic sphere into the foreign, un-kenotic one. 276 Garnett 481. “- Теперь за Россию, панове, и побратаемся! - Налей и нам, - сказала Грушенька, - за Россию и я хочу пить. - И я, - сказал Калганов. - Да и я бы тоже-с... за Россеюшку, старую бабусеньку, подхихикнул Максимов. 103 The moment is more than merely a toast: it is an invitation to take their unity to another level,

to become brothers (“pobratat’sia”). For everybody present, it becomes a moment of perfect

concord. Mitya’s exclamation “All! All!” summarizes the spirit of all-encompassing unity that

often resurfaces in Dostoevsky’s writing277. The irritable Grushenka, the skeptical Kalganov,

even the buffoon Maksimov join in. Mitya reinforces the moment by offering up the last

remaining champagne bottles. The Poles, however, choose to dissociate themselves from the

moment of unity:

Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it, and said with a resonant voice:

“To Russia as she was before 1772.”

“Come, that’s better!” cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their glasses at once.278

The Polish guests have an objectively logical reason to insist on this stipulation: the year 1772 marks the first of Poland’s partitions, as a result of which large chunks of Polish land became the territory of other states, including Russia. Expressing this type of reservation, however, does not fit the spirit of unabridged and wholesale kenosis that drives the group at the moment. First of all, the Poles decline an invitation to become brothers, or, rather, they accept it with a numerically-phrased reservation (“as she was before 1772”), which negates the very meaning of uncalculated kenosis. The second issue with the Poles’ comment is that they recall and protest a moment when Poland lost land, thus emphasizing their respect for borders, sovereignty, and the

- Все, все! - восклицал Митя. - Хозяин, еще бутылок! Принесли все три оставшиеся бутылки из привезенных Митей. Митя разлил. - За Россию, ура! - провозгласил он снова. Все, кроме панов, выпили, а Грушенька выпила разом весь свой стакан. Панове же и не дотронулись до своих.” Ibid. 277 See the beginning of the chapter for the discussion of Dostoevsky’s use of prefix “все-” to coin words describing Russia’s all-inclusiveness. 278 Garnett 481. “Пан Врублевский взял стакан, поднял его и зычным голосом проговорил: - За Россию в пределах до семьсот семьдесят второго года! - Ото бардзо пенкне! (Вот так хорошо!) - крикнул другой пан, и оба разом осушили свои стаканы.” Ibid. Translations from Polish into Russian are Dostoevsky’s, and are present in the text of the novel. 104 spirit of separateness. Suggesting an amendment to the invitation to brotherhood is so

incongruous with the spirit of the party that Mitya, for the first time, slips into uttering a negative

comment in relation to the Poles: “You’re fools, you panovie,” broke suddenly from Mitya.”279

Apparently, the Poles’ refusal to renounce their separateness and join in the spirit of brotherhood affects Mitya more strongly than their intention to take away his beloved Grushenka.

After this, the portrayal of the Poles’ morals quickly goes down hill. They turn out to be venal enough to accept a bribe in exchange for Grushenka; the deal only fails due to their insistence on receiving all the money upfront. Soon thereafter, they are revealed as card- sharpers. Already at moral bottom, the men continue their un-kenotic assertion of their pride and self-worth:

The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompously delivered himself in broken Russian:

“Pani Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, to forget all that has happened till to-day…”

“Forgive? Came here to forgive me?” Grushenka cut him short, jumping up from her seat.

“Just so, pani, I’m not pusillanimous, I’m magnanimous.”280

Mitya and Kalganov reassert their kenotic spirit by refusing to take back the money they lost in a dishonest game, and Grushenka passionately approves their action: “Bravo, Mitya! You’re a trump, Mitya!” cried Grushenka.”281 In the end, the spiritual isolation of the Poles in the kenotic community meets its material embodiment: they go into a separate room and lock the door. It is

279 Garnett 481. “- Дурачье же вы, панове! - сорвалось вдруг у Мити.” Ibid. 280 Garnett 487. “Пан запыхтел от гонора и, ломая русскую речь, быстро и напыщенно произнес: - Пани Аграфена, я пшиехал забыть старое и простить его, забыть, что было допрежь сегодня... - Как простить? Это меня-то ты приехал простить? - перебила Грушенька и вскочила с места. - Так есть, пани (точно так, пани), я не малодушны, я великодушны…” Ibid. 281 Garnett 489. “Славно, Митя! Молодец, Митя! - крикнула Грушенька.” Ibid. 105 revealing that in spite of the Poles’ obvious hostility and even criminality, the kenotic

company still welcomes them, and even invites them to join in the dancing later on. It is the un-

kenotic foreigners who renounce the unification: they lock the door, and refuse to come out and

dance, thus accentuating their separateness once again.

The Polish fiancé exits the scene literally and symbolically with yet another, already

humorous due to its obvious inappropriateness, assertion of his ego:

The little pan, crimson with fury, but still m,indful fo his dignity, was making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressing Grushenka:

“Pani, if you want to come with me, come. If not, good-bye.”

And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. This was a man of character: he had so good an opinion of himself that after all that had passed, eh still expected that she would marry him.282

Not surprisingly, this final expression of the strikingly un-kenotic spirit is phrased in a

conspicuously foreign way.

The bilingualism of the scene echoes the simultaneous presence of two contrasting modes of

existence: the kenotic and the self-interested, egotistical, individualistic one. Kenoticists speak

Russian; those incapable of kenosis speak a foreign tongue. While completely avoiding the

resulting association of kenoticism with Russianness is hardly possible, one should also note the

disclaimers that the author includes to prevent both too narrow and too broad understandings of

his metaphor. When the Poles refuse to come out and dance, choosing to stay in a locked room

to participating in a kenotic feast, Grushenka exclaims, “Ach, what fellows! As though they

282 Garnett 489. “Маленький пан, багровый от ярости, но нисколько не потерявший своей сановитости, направился было к двери, но остановился и вдруг проговорил, обращаясь ко Грушеньке: - Пани, ежели хцешь исьць за мною, идзьмы, если не - бывай здрова! (Пани, если хочешь идти за мной - пойдем, а если нет - то прощай!) И важно, пыхтя от негодования и амбиции, прошел в дверь. Человек был с характером: он еще после всего происшедшего не терял надежды, что пани пойдет за ним, - до того ценил себя.” Ibid. 106 were not men. Why won’t they make friends?”283 Thus, the kenotic ability is generalized as a quality of being a human. This recalls the thought expressed by Dostoevsky’s in his Winter

Notes: that kenotic instinct is natural to humans.

Mitya articulates the second disclaimer. In response to Kalganov’s request to stop mocking

Poland, Mitya bursts into an uncharacteristically didactic speech: “Keep quiet, boy! If I called

him a scoundrel, it doesn’t mean that I called the entire Poland a scoundrel. One scoundrel

doesn’t make Poland!”284 The tone of the utterance is rather incongruous with that of the rest of

the scene. Throughout the night, Mitya has been treating Kalganov with delicate respect. Rather

than at Kalganov, Mitya’s haughty “Keep quiet, boy!” seems to be directed at Dostoevsky’s

critics, who could interpret the scene as a caricature of the Polish nation instead of an allegory of

Russia and the broadly understood foreign world. The fact that the two Polish characters act un-

kenotically (and, according to the first disclaimer, even inhumanly) does not mean that all Poles

are incapable of kenosis285. Dostoevsky believes that every human has the potential to act kenotically, but not everybody uses this potential. The scene at Mokroe leaves readers with the impression that Russians are more inclined to act kenotically than foreigners; Dostoevsky’s nonfiction, analyzed earlier in the chapter, reinforces the impression.

Thus, the scene at Mokroe elucidates the connection between kenosis and Russianness and the harmonizing potential of kenosis. The scene of kenotic feast resolves the characters’ internal

283 Garnett 500. “- Ах какие! Точно они не люди. Чего они не хотят мириться?” Ibid., Chapter 8: Delirium. 284 “Молчи, мальчик! Если я ему сказал подлеца, не значит, что я всей Польше сказал подлеца. Не составляет один лайдак Польши.” Ibid. 285 Dostoevsky probably believes the Polish to have more capacity for kenoticism than peoples located further West. In his Winter Notes, the writer expresses his skepticism as to kenotic capabilities of the Westerners: “А в природе французской, да и вообще западной, его [братства] в наличности не оказалось, а оказалось начало личное, начало особняка, усиленного самосохранения, самопромышления, самоопределения в своем собственном Я, сопоставления этого Я всей природе и всем остальным людям, как самоправного отдельного начала, совершенно равного и равноценного всему тому, что есть кроме него. … западная личность … требует с бою, она требует права, она хочет делиться - ну и не выходит братства”. See footnote above. 107 tensions and brings them epiphanies. Both troubled characters – Mitya and Grushenka – walk out of the kenotic night as reformed people with a clear path of mutual love, morality and honest work ahead of them. Since this transformation is private, the outside world remains ignorant of it: the uninitiated others continue treating Grushenka as a loose woman, and convict

Mitya of venality-induced patricide. These impediments, however, do not matter to the main characters: they find internal harmony in kenosis, which makes the external inconveniences irrelevant.

While the scenes of kenotic feast in The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov are very similar structurally, their outcomes and their messages about Russianness differ. In the earlier work,

Prince Myshkin’s degree of kenoticism remains high throughout the novel, while Nastasia

Filippovna’s reaches its acme during the scene, but fluctuates before and after. In the latter work, the reader encounters highly troubled characters that enter into the kenotic state of mind and, having found harmony, remain there. It appears that in The Brothers Karamazov,

Dostoevsky approaches the issue of kenosis on a more nuanced level, equipped with another decade of thinking about the role of kenosis in Russian self-identity. While in The Idiot, kenoticism appeared to be the Russian doom, in The Brothers Karamazov, it emerges as the

Russian blessing, capable of transforming reality for kenoticists and those around them. 108 C h a p t e r 3

SECULAR KENOSIS IN CHEKHOV

In a letter of October 4, 1888 to Pleshcheev, Chekhov writes, «My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom, freedom from force and falseness in whatever form they express themselves»286. This chapter explores the way in which

Chekhov’s writing challenges the supremacy of kenotic dogma in Russian culture.

An astute observer, Chekhov provides illuminating insight into the way in which kenotic

dogma impedes and misguides the Russian intelligentsia. Although benevolent and selfless,

many of Chekhov’s characters ruin themselves by blindly following the kenotic ideal, which

clashes humorously and tragically with the realities of everyday life. With his trademark

impartiality, Chekhov creates multi-dimensional characters capable of evoking readers’

affection, and yet hopelessly plagued by a futile and often destructive devotion to kenosis, which

twists their lives into unnatural and often unattractive forms. In his analysis of Uncle Vania,

Gary Saul Morson points out Chekhov’s strength in showing how literary models affect people’s

lives:

It may be said that the fundamental theme of Chekhov’s plays is theatricality itself, our tendency to live our lives “dramatically.” In Chekhov’s view, life as we actually live it does not generally conform to staged plots, except when people try to endow their lives with a spurious meaningfulness by imitating literary characters and scenes. Traditional plays imitate life only to the extent that people imitate plays, which is unfortunately all too common. There are Hamlets in life primarily because people have read Hamlet or

286 Gromov 1996: 485. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise noted. 109 works like it. […] His [Chekhov’s] plays center on histrionic people who imitate theatrical performances and model themselves on other melodramatic genres.287

Writing about The Seagull, Andrew Wachtel shows how the play critiques and parodies the

Russian Symbolist practice of life-creation (zhiznetvorchestvo), and reads this as an expression

of Chekhov’s own misgivings about the practice: “…Chekhov’s hostility to Treplev’s way of

being is directly connected to the symbolist desire to fuse life and art. Such an attempt must

have struck him as nothing more than the latest irresponsible phase of the Russian

intelligentsia…”288 In particular, Wachtel points out Chekhov’s warning about the practice of confusing life and art as fraught with dangerous consequences: “Treplev’s suicide […] was particularly motivated by his tendency to read his life as if it were an artistic text”289. One of the influential ideals that shape Russian intelligentsia’s behavior in things big and small, histrionic kenosis continuously resurfaces in Chekhov’s writing, portrayed as comedy, tragedy, or a mixture of the two depending on its scope and intensity.

Chekhov’s insight into the role of kenosis in Russian culture is especially valuable because of his unusual ability to step outside of his native culture’s prejudice and view kenotic dogma as a neutral observer. Sherbinin writes:

…a “morally neutral” positioning on “middle ground” equips Chekhov with what might be called an ethnographic perspective on his own culture. By “ethnographic”, I mean a concern for observing the ways in which people construct meaning through their

287 Morson 1999. Uncle Vanya as Prosaic Metadrama. 219-20. 288 See Wachtel, The Seagull as Parody: Symbol and Expectation in Plays of Expectations, pp. 44-45. To this perceptive observation, I would add that a tendency to fuse, in a variety of ways, life and art has characterized Russian intelligentsia before and after Symbolism, although Symbolism marks the high point of the trend. For the discussion of the ways in which the tendency expressed itself before Symbolism captured center stage, see Irina Paperno’s study Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism; and Socialist Realism’s attempts to bridge the gap between life and art are well-known. 289 Wachtel, Plays of Expectations, p. 45. 110 language and from their surroundings, a concern Chekhov shares with the anthropologist.290

A combination of an insider’s depth of exposure with a rare degree of impartiality allows

Chekhov to illuminate the theme of kenotic dogma in Russian culture with poignant intensity and scientific objectivity.

Chekhov’s fiction problematizes kenotic dogma in two main ways: first, it reveals the artificiality of art-inspired kenotic beliefs and the resulting hypocrisy of kenotic behaviors, and second, it shows the ruinous impact that histrionic kenosis may have on people’s lives. An unchallengeable ethical and aesthetic imperative, kenosis becomes the basis of histrionic behavior, which Chekhov deeply detests; Morson writes, “Histrionics for Chekhov was a particularly loathsome form of lying, which truly cultured people avoid ‘even in small matters’.”291

In Chekhov’s writing, kenotic dogma appears not merely distasteful, but dangerous. Due to its tendency to celebrate the outward-directed movement of resources, the dogma has the potential to generate a broadly-defined waste of various resources, including human lives. One of Chekhov’s best-spoken characters, Dr. Astrov, pronounces a passionate monologue against environmental waste – while destroying his own life through drinking. Morson writes,

What bothers Astrov, what bothers Chekhov, is waste. And waste results from the lack not of great ideals but of daily care. The forests disappear for the same reasons that the hay rots […] What destroys the forests, and what destroys lives, is not some malevolent force, not some lack of great ideas, and not some social or political evil. Trees fall, and

290 Sherbinin 4. 291 Morson 1999. Uncle Vanya as Prosaic Metadrama. 220. 111 lives are ruined, because of thoughtless behavior, everyday laziness, and bad habits, or, more accurately, the lack of good ones292.

I suggest that Chekhov’s writing exposes secular kenosis as one of the key “bad habits” that generate painful waste in the lives of his characters. Morson goes on to say, “[…] Chekhov had utter contempt for the intelligentsia’s (and aristocracy’s) disdain of efficiency, profitability, and the sort of deliberate calculation needed to avoid waste.”293 It is worth adding that Chekhov probably understood that for the two mentioned groups, this disdain originates from different sources. The aristocracy despised efficiency and calculation because this contempt certified the illimitability of their resources, thus underlining their privileged position in a classic case of conspicuous consumption: no matter how much they emptied themselves out, they would never become empty. By the time Chekhov was writing, this had turned, at least in part, into a kind of nostalgic kenosis. That is, although by this time many gentry families had in fact wasted all of their financial resources, acting as if they had not still set them apart from other classes in

Russian society. The intelligentsia – deeply antagonistic to the aristocracy - should in principle have had the opposite attitude towards resources, since they realized that resources are, in fact, limited, and strikingly insufficient for many. Yet, they indulged in emptying-out with an equal fervor inspired, I suggest, by the kenotic dogma. Thus, I suggest rephrasing Morson’s articulation of another culprit responsible for the waste of lives - “thoughtlessness” – as “faulty thinking”. Inspired by the wrong ideals, such “faulty thinking” encourages self-destructive behaviors in the form of ruinous grand gestures or defeatist routines such as drinking.

In this chapter, I will explore the ways in which Chekhov’s short stories and plays expose the hypocritical and the dangerous aspects of the Russian intelligentsia’s kenotic dogmatism. The

292 Ibid., 231. 293 Ibid., 229. 112 theme occupies a central position in both genres, albeit in different ways. Fiction offers an

introspective view into the world of those whose value system includes kenosis as one of its

primary values. It shows how this world functions, and how kenotic dogma affects people’s

decisions, feelings, and Weltanschauung in general. Dramatic works, on the other hand, expose the manner in which kenotic dogma dictates people’s choice of behaviors in matters big and small, from trivialities to concerns of life and death; how kenosis-inspired actions affect perpetrators and those around them, and how they impact people’s lives in the longue durée.

Chekhov and Religion: Between God Exists and There Is No God294

As was discussed in the previous chapter, it was Orthodox Christianity that largely determined

Dostoevsky’s opinion vis-à-vis kenosis and its value; what role did religion play in forming

Chekhov’s views? In spite of his self-proclaimed a-religiosity, Chekhov intimately knew and understood Christianity, which was an essential part of his education. McSweeney points out that “his prose fiction gives ample evidence of Chekhov’s deep knowledge of the rituals, liturgy, and customs of Russian Orthodox Christianity”295. Extensive exposure to Orthodox Christianity and its practices unavoidably affected Chekhov’s Weltanschauung and artistic imagination;

Jackson shows that when Chekhov “left the Church, he did not step out of the Judeo-Christian world or divest himself of the culture and traditions of Russian Orthodoxy that he imbibed as a child and lived with all his life […] biblical and liturgical vision, imagery, and allusion permeate his art”296.

294 The expression comes from Anatolii Sobennikov, who named his book on religious and philosophical traditions in Chekhov’s art Mezhdu "est’ Bog" i "net Boga". 295 McSweeney 28. 296 Jackson 8-9. 113 Over the years, Chekhov’s fiction has received a spate of Christian exegetical attention.

Scholars have approached Chekhov’s stories with the intention of extracting meaning by

interpretative acts involving subtexts, decoding, and conceptual transference. Robert Louis

Jackson pioneered work on the symbolic ramifications of Chekhov’s allusions to Christian texts.

Jackson suggests that “the serious study of this religious subtext in Chekhov’s work […]

certainly is one of the major tasks of Chekhov criticism”297. Julie W. de Sherbinin points out that “Chekhov has left us a body of texts saturated with allusions to Christian scripture, liturgy, iconography, holidays and saints that serve as signposts pointing to layers of meaning not immediately accessible on the surface […] [These] represent unturned stones that may potentially yield interpretations of great interest”298.

A number of scholars have recently turned these unturned stones and directed their Christian exegetical attention at Chekhov’s work299. The abundance of Christian interpretations has also evoked a contrary current: thus, McSweeney resists the tendency to treat Chekhov’s stories “as if they were icons”300, and points out that in many of these readings, “a religious subtext becomes a

297 Ibid. 298 Sherbinin. Chekhov and Christianity. 286, 294. 299 Thus, Robert Louis Jackson put together a collection Reading Chekhov’s Text, where each essay provides a Christian exegetical reading of one of Chekhov’s stories. To give a short but representative example, Willa Chamberlain Axelrod offers a decoding reading of Easter Night, which lays bare the symbolic religious meaning of the story. Axelrod decodes the initial crossing of the river as a representation of “the Church’s liturgical passage from lent to Easter” and thus considers it “a metaphor for spiritual transition”. From a different perspective, Savely Senderovich’s work on the Christian context in Chekhov focuses on the manifestations of the religious mind in Russian popular culture. Senderovich approaches Christian motifs in Chekhov’s work as mythemes, which appear in a variety of transposed forms, subject to reversals, inversions, and displacements. A good illustration of such approach is Savely Senderovich’s study of the mytheme of Saint George the Dragonslayer in Chekhov’s life and work, see Senderovich 1994. Julie W. de Sherbinin’s book Chekhov and Russian Religious Culture: the Poetics of the Marian Paradigm explores the symbolic nexus between the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint Mary of Egypt in Chekhov’s prose, representative of the familiar paradigm characteristic of Christian thinking about female identity. Among the most recent works is Mark Stanley Swift’s work Biblical Subtexts and Religious Themes in Works of Anton Chekhov, where Swift illuminates the biblical parallels of some Chekhovian themes and considers psychological portrayals of religious experiences. For a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly studies offering religious interpretations of Chekhov’s work, see Sherbinin, Chekhov and Russian Religious Culture. 300 McSweeney 21. 114 platform from which an ethical-religious message is promulgated”301. McSweeney dismisses

the decoding readings as acts of “interpretative totalitarianism in which every particular of the

surface of Chekhov’s story becomes grist to a symbolic mill”302. Thus, opinions diverge as to

the extent to which Orthodox Christianity informed and determined Chekhov’s views303.

For the purposes of this dissertation, I suggest that Chekhov’s attitude towards religion was

analogous to his attitude towards all “orthodoxies”304: he respected the cultural legacy associated

with the belief system, but distrusted its dogmatism and challenged its axioms. Sherbinin writes,

“For Chekhov, conscious or unconscious allegiance to any textual system of fixed meaning, be it

Scripture or icon, operates as an impediment to self-awareness, a force most often destructive to

self and others”305. Thus, in relation to religion, Chekhov reveals his exemplary and rare - in the

Russian context - neutrality; Simon Karlinsky writes, “in a literature that had produced Gogol,

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Leskov, the view that Christianity and religion in general are morally

neutral is startling enough.”306

Equipped with scientific neutrality307, Chekhov was able to observe how Orthodox

Christianity penetrated Russia’s ostensibly secular intellectual discourse. Sherbinin writes,

Chekhov appreciated the extent to which the symbolic forms of Russian Orthodoxy permeated Russia’s cultural mindset. He shares with his contemporary, Max Weber, who

301 Ibid., 39. 302 Ibid., 35. 303 For an overview of Chekhov’s complex relationship with religion, see Sherbinin, Chekhov and Christianity; Sherbinin, Chekhov and Russian Religious Culture, in particular, Introduction; Sobennikov, Mezhdu "est’ Bog" i "net Boga”; Swift, in particular Chapter One, Introduction: Competing Views of a “Religious” and “Nonreligious” Chekhov. 304 Sherbinin speaks of “Chekhov’s skeptical view of orthodoxies in Russian life”, see Sherbinin, 3. 305 Ibid. 306 Karlinsky 14. 307 For those familiar with Russian infamous intellectual maximalism, it is easy to predict that not everyone viewed Chekhov’s neutrality as a positive feature. Pre-revolutionary literary criticism condemned Chekhov as idealess and pessimistic (see Kuzicheva, Chekhov v russkoi dooktiabr’skoi kritike), while Soviet literary criticism “corrected” Chekhov’s views by intensifying his moderate statements and discussing his quotes out of context. 115 linked Calvinist doctrine to the flourishing of capitalism, the insight that the precepts of a religious culture can serve as a defining factor in the secular activity and thinking of a people. In fact, Chekhov himself defines religious identity as a cultural construct.308

Free of emotional attachment to the notion of kenosis, Chekhov was well outfitted to notice how this spiritual concept had transformed into a cultural dogma for the Russian intelligentsia.

Chekhov’s investigation of the role that kenosis plays in his characters’ Weltanschauung varies from nuanced analyses of their internal world to parodic representations of kenotic behavioral clichés. An example of the former is Chekhov’s short story The Wife.

Prosaic Kenosis: Two Modes of Living in The Wife

The story’s plot is as follows: a wealthy and educated landowner, hopelessly in love with his estranged wife, can find no peace of mind on his country estate. He wants to help his peasants who are suffering a hungry year, but does not know how to go about this endeavor. He understands the futility of ill-organized charity, and realizes the pitfalls of chaotic giving: “…in your haste you might give twice as much to one who was well-fed or to one who was making money out of his fellows as to the hungry”309; and entertains well-founded suspicions about the trustworthiness of local political structures310. When he invites a neighbor to collaborate on a charity project, the neighbor resents his suggestion to monitor resource distribution and pronounces the protagonist a difficult person. The protagonist attempts to join his wife’s charity efforts by providing accounting help, but his efforts lead to a heated conflict. Both his wife and the neighbor are annoyed by his help, and advise him to leave not only their company, but also

308 Sherbinin 4-5. 309 “…второпях рискуешь дать сытому или кулаку вдвое больше, чем голодному”. Chekhov, VI, 149. 310 “Земская управа, волостные правления и все вообще уездные канцелярии тоже не внушали мне ни малейшего желания обратиться к их помощи. Я знал, что эти учреждения, присосавшиеся к земскому и казенному пирогу, каждый день держали свои рты наготове, чтобы присосаться к какому-нибудь еще третьему пирогу.” 116 their town and the country: “Force yourself to do one kind action in your life. I beg you, go

away from here! That's the only thing you can do for the starving peasants.”311 Eventually, after

a sequence of soul-searching, the protagonist goes through a conversion and embarks on a

journey of unabridged, chaotic emptying out that brings him his wife’s acceptance and internal

peace:

In my house and far around it there is in full swing the work which Dr. Sobol calls "an orgy of philanthropy." My wife often comes into my quarters and looks about my rooms restlessly, as though looking for what more she can give to the starving peasants "to justify her existence," and I see that, thanks to her, there will soon be nothing of our property left and we shall be poor; but that does not trouble me, and I smile at her gaily. What will happen in the future I don't know.312

Thus, the protagonist finds his long-sought-for satisfaction in kenosis, which objectively

endangers his (and his wife’s) future.

The clash between two individuals functioning in conflicting economic modes is a common trope in Russian literature. In Chapter 2, I discussed The Brothers Karamazov scene at Mokroe,

where a different attitude towards resources underscores and intensifies the otherness of already

foreign characters – Grushenka’s Polish guests. Along with the Dostoevskian binary model,

there exists a tradition of a more complex trope in Russian literature: a discord between two

related, or otherwise close, persons who function in conflicting modes vis-à-vis resources. Let

me take a step back from Chekhov and reflect on the trope’s memorable appearances in Ivan

Goncharov’s novels A Common Story (1847) and Oblomov (1859).

311 «Принудьте себя, сделайте хоть раз в жизни доброе дело. Я прошу вас, уезжайте отсюда! Это единственное, что вы можете сделать для голодающих.” Chekhov, VI, 165. 312 “У меня в доме, во дворе и далеко кругом кипит работа, которую доктор Соболь называет «благотворительною оргией»; жена часто входит ко мне и беспокойно обводит глазами мои комнаты, как бы ища, что еще можно отдать голодающим, чтобы «найти оправдание своей жизни», и я вижу, что, благодаря ей, скоро от нашего состояния не останется ничего, и мы будем бедны, но это не волнует меня, и я весело улыбаюсь ей. Что будет дальше, не знаю.” Ibid., 185. 117 In A Common Story, a tension develops between a young provincial nephew and a successful Saint Petersburg uncle. The novel’s conflict is not between good and evil, but rather between the uncle’s down-to-earth practicality and the nephew’s idealistic maximalism. A product of Russia’s Westernized capital, the uncle appreciates the value of mundane work and gradual progress, of preserving one’s strength and saving one’s resources. His nephew, whom

Goncharov portrays as a more traditional Russian type, starts off despising saving, preservation, and routine; he seeks a grand exploit and rejects his uncle’s un-Russian ways. The novel’s conclusion reveals that the nephew’s opinion of his uncle as a heartless career machine is unfounded: when his wife’s health is at stake, the uncle abandons a profitable job to accompany her to Italy. In agreement with his life’s philosophy, he takes action to preserve what is dear to him, thus revealing a fundamental dimension of his un-kenotic behavior previously invisible to a biased observer.

While A Common Story introduced into Russian literature the trope of two contrasting behavioral modes vis-à-vis resources; Goncharov’s later and most celebrated novel, Oblomov, crystallized the two modes as respectively Russian and Western. Apathetic and inert, Oblomov spends his life lying on the couch, while his close friend Shtol’ts educates himself, improves his financial, social, and romantic situation, and contributes to bettering Russian society. In contrast to the self-made success of Shtol’ts, Oblomov wastes his considerable estate through laziness and neglect, squanders his chance to marry an all-around admirable woman who returns his love, fails to achieve socially, professionally, or intellectually, and finally, loses his manner of an educated aristocrat, marries his servant, and descends into a nearly-animalistic, unconscious existence. Shtol’ts perceives Oblomov’s final descent as a virtual death: 118 …As for Shtol’ts, his face fell, and he gazed around the room with bewildered, almost vacant eyes. A “gulf” had suddenly opened before him, a “stone wall” had suddenly shot up, and Oblomov seemed to have ceased to exist – he seemed to have vanished from his friend’s sight. The only feeling in Shtol’ts’s mind was an aching sorrow of the kind which a man experiences when, hastening to visit a friend after a long parting, he finds that for many a day past that friend has been dead. “He is lost!” he whispered mechanically.313

Eventually, Oblomov brings his virtual death to its physical completion through excess in food

and a stagnant lifestyle.

As was the case in A Common Story, but here articulated with more clarity, the contrast

between Oblomov and Shtol’ts is that between a life of spending and a life of saving. While

Oblomov flagrantly wastes his time, money, and capacities, Shtol’ts centers his philosophy

around preservation: «He used to say that “a man’s normal destiny is to live through all the four

seasons, i.e., the four ages, without leaps, and carry the jug full of life till the last day, having

spilled not a drop in vain.”314 While Oblomov shuns ambition and pursuit of any type of

achievements, Shtol’ts is not afraid to admit his desire to achieve and to invest his resources in

the pursuit of his goals: “More than anything, he admired perseverance in achieving one’s goals:

in his eyes, it was a sign of strong character.”315 Thus, Shtol’ts and Oblomov function in the

diametrically opposite modes in relation to their life resources.

313 “Штольц изменился в лице и ворочал изумлёнными, почти бессмысленными глазами вокруг себя. Перед ним вдруг «отверзлась бездна», воздвиглась «каменная стена», и Обломова как будто не стало, как будто он пропал из глаз его, провалился, и он только почувствовал ту жгучую тоску, которую испытывает человек, когда спешит с волнением после разлуки увидеть друга и узнаёт, что его давно уже нет, что он умер... - Погиб! – машинально, шёпотом сказал он.” Goncharov, Oblomov, 484 - 85. 314 “Он говорил, что «нормальное назначение человека – прожить четыре времени года, то есть четыре возраста, без скачков, и донести сосуд жизни до последнего дня, не пролив ни одной капли напрасно.” Ibid., 162. 315 “Выше всего он ставил настойчивость в достижении целей: это было признаком характера в его глазах.” Ibid., 163. 119 Not very interested in subtlety, Goncharov gives Shtol’ts a German-sounding name, thus

suggesting that the way of Shtol’ts is not characteristic of Russian culture. While Goncharov

refused to propagate his personal views through his fiction316, the novel’s narrator

unambiguously favors the way of Shtol’ts over the way of Oblomov, and advocates rehabilitation

of the Western style of living on the Russian soil:

Since long ago, our social figures […] have applied their hands to the societal apparatus lazily, with their eyes half-shut, and sleepily moved it in its usual path, stepping exclusively in their predecessor’s footprint. […] Many a Shtol’ts have to emerge, with Russian names!317

The novel Oblomov leaves its reader with the impression that the problem behind Russia’s

backwardness is not only its convoluted history, or unfortunate geography, or other external

circumstances, but its culture that discourages people from improving their conditions. When

the terrified Shtol’ts leaves Oblomov’s dilapidated home after the latter refuses his offer to help,

Shtol’ts does not blame his friend’s degeneration on the environment, or bad influences, or

unjust society. Shtol’ts recognizes that only Oblomov and his ways are to blame for his decline,

and summarizes the culprit in one word: “Oblomovshchina”318 (Oblomovism). Russian literary

criticism eagerly understood and supported this view; in his celebrated article What is

Oblomovism?, Dobroliubov applauds Goncharov for the precision of his observation and

316 In his April 1869 letter to E. P. Maikova, Goncharov writes, “A work of art is not a speech for the prosecution, not a speech for the defense, and not a mathematical proof either. It does not condemn, justify, or prove anything, but depicts”, see Letter to E. P. Maikova of April 1869: 8:401, 401 – 2, quoted in Moser, P. 243. 317 “Деятели издавна […] у нас […], лениво, вполглаза глядя вокруг, прикладывали руку к общественной машине и с дремотой двигали её по обычной колее, ставя ногу в оставленный предшественником след. […] Сколько Штольцев должно явиться под русскими именами!” Goncharov, Oblomov, 163. 318 Ibid., 486. 120 summarizes Oblomov as a “live, contemporary, Russian type, conveyed with unrelenting

strictness and veracity.”319

Goncharov’s avid admirer320, Chekhov recasts the conflict between two types of economic behavior in The Wife; this time, between spouses. In Chekhov, the implied author is even more impartial than in Goncharov, but the story’s characters are noticeably more opinionated: they leave no doubts as to which mode of existence they consider to be right, and express no tolerance for those who do not share their conviction. Moreover, the conflict in Chekhov’s story is more nuanced; it moves beyond the binary distinction between spending and saving, and differentiates between two types of giving: one that is calculated and structured (the Western type) and one lacking in calculation and structure (the Russian type).

The story’s characters deem only the Russian type genuine, and manifestly detest and despise the Western type. The protagonist’s concern about the efficiency of his giving devalues his charitable impulse in the eyes of others and, eventually, even in his own eyes; it seems that conscious attempts to have giving produce value annihilate its intrinsic value. When he first attempts to join his wife’s charitable campaign, the protagonist volunteers to organize the accounts of donations and spending; he argues that good accounting is important to ensure fair distribution and to prevent accusations of misuse321. However, contrary to his expectations, his attempts to systematize his wife’s chaotic accounting profoundly wound her:

319 «живой, современный, русский тип, отчеканенный с беспощадной строгостью и правильностью”, Dobroliubov. 320 Chekhov admired Goncharov’s talent and listed the latter among his literary influences; thus, Gayla Diment quotes Chekhov as writing that Goncharov is "...ten heads above” him in talent, see Gayla Diment's Introduction to Stephen Pearl's translation of Oblomov. New York: Bunim & Brown, 2006. 321 “Во-первых, наш уезд останется совершенно без помощи, и во-вторых, за свои ошибки и за ошибки ваших помощников вам придется расплачиваться не только собственными карманами, но и своею репутацией.” 121 I was very much pleased with myself. Attracted by this living interesting work, by the little table, the naïve exercise books and the charm of doing this work in my wife's society, I was afraid that my wife would suddenly hinder me and upset everything by some sudden whim, and so I was in haste and made an effort to attach no consequence to the fact that her lips were quivering, and that she was looking about her with a helpless and frightened air like a wild creature in a trap.

[...]

"Take them, take them all!" said my wife, helping me to arrange the papers, and big tears ran down her cheeks. "Take it all! That's all that was left me in life. . . Take away the last."322

The wife interprets the protagonist’s attempts to participate in giving as their opposite: robbery.

Her unprofessionally-organized, spontaneous giving holds great value for her; in the wife’s eyes,

the protagonist’s attempts to systemize her giving equal ruining it. She responds to his unkenotic

behavior with exaggerated, affected self-emptying:

Chaotically (besporiadochno), she opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out of it on the table, poking me in the chest with her elbow and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept dropping upon my knees and on the floor.

"Take everything…" she kept saying in a husky voice.323

322 «Я был очень доволен собой. Увлекшись живым, интересным делом, маленьким столом, наивными тетрадками и прелестью, какую обещала мне эта работа в обществе жены, я боялся, что жена вдруг помешает мне и всё расстроит какою-нибудь неожиданною выходкой, и потому я торопился и делал над собою усилия, чтобы не придавать никакого значения тому, что у нее трясутся губы и что она пугливо и растерянно, как пойманный зверек, смотрит по сторонам. […] — Берите, всё берите! — сказала жена, помогая мне складывать бумаги в пачки, и крупные слезы текли у нее по лицу. — Берите всё! Это всё, что оставалось у меня в жизни... Отнимайте последнее.” Chekhov, VI, 167. 323 “Она как-то беспорядочно, толкая меня в грудь локтем и касаясь моего лица волосами, выдвинула из стола ящик и стала оттуда выбрасывать мне на стол бумаги; при этом мелкие деньги сыпались мне на колени и на пол. — Всё берите... — говорила она осипшим голосом.” Ibid. 122 Through tears, the woman is urging her husband/opponent to empty her out: “Vse berite!”,

although his ostensible goal is to participate in her giving. Apparently, structured giving is

closer to taking than it is to genuine kenosis.

The imagery of disorderly falling coins will return in the portrayal of another devout spender:

Ranevskaia in The Cherry Orchard. The word used – besporiadochno – directly contrasts with what the protagonist is guilty of: attempting to introduce order, or navesti poriadok. His orderly

behavior sharply contrasts with that of his wife: “I picked up the money, put it back in the

drawer, and locked it up so as not to lead the servants to dishonesty; then I gathered up all the

papers and went to my quarters.”324 His kenotic wife opens (vydvinula), throws out

(vybrasyvat’), lets fall freely (sypalis’), and urges to take; he collects (podobral), locks up

(zaper), and takes (vzial v okhapku). The two characters function in the opposite modes vis-à-vis

resources; no wonder their cooperation leads to explosion.

The wife’s Russian-style giving makes her a “good woman, a woman of ideas," and

everything she does is “intelligent and fine”325 (even according to her estranged husband). The protagonist, on the other hand, is disapproved of by everyone, including his own internal voice:

“Are you a nobleman?" a voice whispered in my ear. "Nice to meet you. And yet, you are a vile loathsome creature.”326 His rational, objectively useful activity brings him anxiety instead of satisfaction:

Everything seemed to be going in accordance with my desires and intentions; but why did my feeling of uneasiness persist? I spent four hours over my wife's papers, making out

324 «Я подобрал деньги, положил их обратно в ящик и запер, чтобы не вводить в грех прислугу; потом взял в охапку все бумаги и пошел к себе.” Ibid. 325 “— Natalie, вы хорошая, идейная женщина, — сказал я, восторженно глядя на жену, — и всё, что вы делаете и говорите, прекрасно и умно.” Ibid., 172. 326 “Вы камер-юнкер? — спросил меня кто-то на ухо. — Очень приятно. Но всё-таки вы гадина.” Ibid., 168. 123 their meaning and correcting her mistakes, but instead of feeling soothed, I felt as though some one were standing behind me and rubbing my back with a rough hand. What was it I wanted? The organization of the relief fund had come into trustworthy hands, the hungry would be fed - what more was wanted?327

The problem appears to stem from the fact that his actions are too rational and self-conscious to

qualify as genuine kenosis; instead of admiration, his actions inspire resentment and

embarrassment. When the protagonist donates five thousand rubles to the campaign – nearly as

much as the entire campaign had collected before he joined it – he registers his donation under

the name “anonymous”. This seemingly insignificant detail immediately annihilates the value of

his donation: “In this "anonymous", there was something wrong, false, conceited, but I only

realized that when I noticed that my wife flushed very red and hurriedly thrust the list into the

heap of papers. We both felt ashamed”328. According to kenotic standards, it is not enough to

give; it is essential to do so openly, with complete genuineness and self-abandon.

Along with the eponymous wife, the protagonist’s neighbor is a model of kenotic giving. He

feeds and provides for a house-full of people: former serfs who do not want to leave, former

servants too old to work329, orphans, and even those who continue living there by force and

327 “Все, кажется, идет согласно с моими намерениями и желаниями, но почему же меня не оставляет мое беспокойство! Я в продолжение четырех часов рассматривал бумаги жены, уясняя их смысл и исправляя ошибки, но вместо успокоения я испытывал такое чувство, как будто кто-то чужой стоял сзади меня и водил по моей спине шершавою ладонью. Чего мне недоставало? Организация помощи попала в надежные руки, голодающие будут сыты — что же еще нужно?” Ibid. 328 «В этом «неизвестный» было что-то нехорошее, фальшивое, самолюбивое, но я понял это только, когда заметил, что жена сильно покраснела и торопливо сунула лист в кучу бумаг. Нам обоим стало стыдно.” Ibid., 172. 329 In Chekhov’s work, willingness to support servants who are too old to work – essentially, a manifestation of one’s eagerness to overlook household efficiency for humaneness – often serves as an indication of human worth. Thus, in Three Sisters, the narrow-minded and callous Natasha horrifies the three sisters most effectively by insisting on firing an old nurse; Olga, on the contrary, invites the old nurse to live with her at school, although she is pressed for space and resources. 124 refuse to be kicked out330. This model of charity is less efficient and even less fair than the one the protagonist propagates, yet everybody loves his neighbor and hates him. According to kenotic standards, one should forgive and accept not only beneficiaries who forcefully demand favors, but even outright criminals. The protagonist reports the theft of twenty sacks of grain from his barn, and this seemingly ordinary action comes to haunt him throughout the story: his neighbor retells the episode as a repulsive anecdote; and a fellow dinner guest reproaches him:

“…your having set our magistrate the task of hunting day and night for your thieves - excuse me, that's also petty on your part. I am a little drunk, so that's why I say this now, but you know, it is petty!”331 Although reporting crime is an essential aspect of maintaining legal order in society,

the speaker considers it unfitting and worthy of a reprimand. In this case, “petty” appears to be a

commentary not on the crime’s scope, but on the protagonist’s character: he took action aimed at

preserving rather than spending, and the fact that his behavior is legally justified does not save

him from the disapproval of others. It seems that for the protagonist’s peers, kenotic ethics go

beyond justice, and his failure to appreciate this fact separates him from them.

As a contrast to the protagonist’s contesting the loss of twenty sacks of grain, the story

includes a narrated account of two men who wholeheartedly forgave attempts to take their lives.

Attacked on the road by three peasants with rifles, they disarmed and arrested the robbers, but

quickly let them go, and even gave them some of what the robbers were hoping to gain through robbery: “I said to Fedya: 'Don't bear them a grudge; let them go, the rascals!' He fed them, gave

330 «— Откуда у него столько народу? — спросил я, когда моя тройка и докторская пара шагом выезжали со двора. — Это всё его крепостные, — сказал Соболь. — До него еще не дошло положение. Кое-кто из старой прислуги свой век доживает, ну, сиротки разные, которым деваться некуда; есть и такие, что насильно живут, не выгонишь. Чудной старик!” Chekhov, VI, 182. 331 “…то, что вы задали нашему следователю работу, что он ваших воров день и ночь ищет, извините, это тоже мелко с вашей стороны. Я выпивши, потому и говорю это сейчас, но понимаете ли, мелко!” Ibid., 180. 125 them a sack of flour each, and let them go…”332 The two men in the story did not go as far as Boris and Gleb to allow for their unrestrained slaughter, but they did not attempt to punish those who tried to take their lives away, or to isolate them from society to prevent future attacks.

Instead, they responded to their criminal act with a kenotic one: they fed their attackers and gave them the valuable flour, although, according to justice understood legalistically, the criminals deserved punishment, not gifts. According to this inadvertent lesson in kenoticism, not just property, but even one’s life is insufficiently valuable to justify preservation.

Chekhov’s story ends with the protagonist drastically changing his ways; a neighbor describes his new life as a “charity orgy”. His transformation takes place in the process of a chaotic, disorderly day full of excessive eating, drinking, and speedy troika rides:

Again the flying horses, the unusual voice of drunken Nikanor, the wind and the persistent snow, which got into one's eyes, one's mouth, and every fold of one's fur coat…

"Eh, I am all over the place today," I thought, while my bells chimed in with the doctor's, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and while this frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the details of that strange wild day, unique in my life, and it seemed to me that I really had gone out of my mind or become a different man. It was as though the man I had been till that day were already a stranger to me.333

This day, uncharacteristic for the orderly, reserved protagonist, ushers in an evening during which he addresses his wife with a manifestly kenotic speech. He empties himself of his pride:

332 “Я и говорю Феде: не обижайся, отпусти ты их, подлецов! Он накормил их, дал по пуду муки и отпустил…” Ibid., 155. 333 “Опять быстрая езда, необыкновенный голос пьяного Никанора, ветер и неотвязчивый снег, лезущий в глаза, в рот, во все складки шубы... «Эка меня носит!» — думаю я, а мои колокольчики заливаются вместе с докторскими, ветер свистит, кучера гикают, и под этот неистовый шум я вспоминаю все подробности этого странного, дикого, единственного в моей жизни дня, и мне кажется, что я в самом деле с ума сошел или же стал другим человеком. Как будто тот, кем я был до сегодняшнего дня, мне уже чужд.” Ibid., 182. 126 I've shaken off my old self with horror, with horror; I despise him and am ashamed of him […] I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for one minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity prevented me from admitting it.334

The speech – very Dostoevskian in its tone of self-humiliating confession – is strikingly different

from the protagonist’s usual manner of reserved condescension. He follows his self-flagellation

with a kenotic appeal: “make me your servant, take all my property, and give it away to any one

you like.”335 In compliance with kenotic rules, the narrator makes it clear that his outburst is disinterested: “The past, when we lived as husband and wife, cannot be brought back, and there's no need …”336 In an impressive turn of events, the wife – who was resistant and hostile to her husband’s reasoning throughout the story - responds favorably to his kenotic outbreak. The episode becomes the turning point in their relationship. The single paragraph in which the narrator summarizes their life after the incident suggests that the wife finally returned her husband’s love: having not been to his quarters for years, now she “chasto vkhodit ko mne”

(often comes into my quarters)337.

A life-transforming feast that results in winning a woman’s heart is structurally reminiscent of

Dostoevsky’s scene at Mokroe discussed in the first chapter, but with a few significant differences. In Dostoevsky, those incapable of kenosis are clearly marked as “others”; the Polish characters continuously alienate themselves as they reveal their anti-kenotic spirit. In Chekhov, it is the narrator who is lacking in kenotic spirit; thus, the reader sees the situation through the eyes of one not sharing the kenotic dogma and feeling ostracized because of that. In Dostoevsky,

334 «От прежнего самого себя я отшатнулся с ужасом, с ужасом, презираю и стыжусь его […] Я говорю вам: кроме вас, у меня никого нет близких. Я ни на одну минуту не переставал скучать по вас, и только упрямое самолюбие мешало мне сознаваться в этом.” Ibid., 184. 335 «сделайте меня вашим слугой, возьмите всё мое состояние и раздайте его, кому хотите”, Ibid. 336 «Того прошлого, когда мы жили как муж и жена, не вернешь, и не нужно…” Ibid. 337 Ibid., 185. 127 the characters’ transformation is a type of epiphany; it includes a purifying kenotic ritual and

a resultant prophetic dream. In Chekhov, the protagonist gradually learns the reasons why

people reject him, and alters his behavior to fit the kenotic standard, but it is ambiguous whether

he does so out of genuine conviction or because he wants to gain recognition from others, his

wife in particular. It is not clear whether the protagonist is “calm” and “satisfied” because he has

discovered something he was lacking before, or because his wife loves him again.338

The story leaves its protagonist at the peak of his emptying-out. The reader never learns

whether the pacifying effects of his kenosis prove long-lasting, or usher in new types of turmoil.

The narrator foresees that he is going to become poor soon, but the reader sees neither the

circumstances nor the consequences of the forthcoming bankruptcy. The long durée effects of

kenotic living are a subject of other Chekhov’s works, in particular, his short story Neighbors.

Kenosis as Parody: Neighbors.

In his only epistolary reference to Dostoevsky, Chekhov writes, “I bought Dostoevsky in your store and am reading him now. It’s good, but too long and immodest. Too pretentious”339.

Chekhov might have felt skepticism about Russia’s arguably most distinguished writer, but he

338 Numerous bits of circumstantial evidence found throughout the text suggest that for the protagonist, kenosis is instrumental in gaining his wife’s affection rather than valuable in its own right. Evidence of this interpretation is the doctor’s speech, in which he admits to the inadvertent hypocrisy of unstructured charity; according to the doctor, it makes people feel good about themselves, but does little in terms of actual usefulness. Quotation marks in the last paragraph suggest that the narrator does not share his wife’s belief that giving helps “find a redeeming quality in one’s life” (“найти оправдание своей жизни”); and it is not clear whether the internal voice that was calling the protagonist “гадина” reveals the true way he feels about himself or merely formulates the opinion he repeatedly perceives in others. Finally, the story’s title suggests that it is the wife, and not the protagonist’s epiphany, that is central to the story. The reader may decide for himself whether the wife is central as the vehicle of the narrator’s genuine transformation or as the inspiration for his hypocritical change in behavior. 339 “Купил я в Вашем магазине Достоевского и теперь читаю. Хорошо, но очень уж длинно и нескромно. Много претензий”. From a letter to A. S. Suvorin from March 5, 1889. Chekhov also allegedly told his biographer once that he had not read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, that he was saving that pleasure for his fortieth anniversary. When he turned forty, his biographer asked him whether he had read the novel, and Chekhov replied, “Да, прочёл, но большого впечатления не получил”. See Nemirovich-Danchenko, 404. 128 was well aware that for many of his contemporaries, Dostoevsky and his teachings presented

an overwhelming influence that shaped their Weltanschauung and affected their life choices.

Chekhov’s fiction effectively reflects his insight into Dostoevsky’s essential impact on his fellow countrymen. As Gromov notes in his article Hidden Citations: Chekhov and Dostoevsky, for many of Chekhov’s characters, a Dostoevsky novel is a bed-side book340. They often mention Dostoevsky and his characters or make general references that begin with “somewhere in Dostoevsky…” These references often come from characters who commit seemingly irrational or puzzling acts; literary references point to the possible origins of their ideas, and hint at their artificial inappropriateness in real life contexts341.

Chekhov’s short story Neighbors features two characters who bear the stamp of Dostoevskian influence. A 22-year-old girl Zina leaves her family to live with Vlasich, an unhappily married man. Zina is “good-looking, elegant, gay; she is fond of laughing, chatter, argument, a passionate musician; she has good taste in dress, in books, in home design…”342 The 41-year- old Vlasich seems ill-fitted for the seducer’s role:

lean and lanky, narrow-chested, with a long nose, and grey hairs in his beard. He talks in a droning voice, has a sickly smile, and waves his hands awkwardly as he talks. He has neither health, nor pleasant, manly manners, nor savoir-faire, nor gaiety, and in all his exterior there is something dim and indefinite. He dresses without taste, his home looks depressing, he does not care for poetry or painting […]; music does not touch him. He runs his estate poorly.343

340 Gromov, 52. 341 While Gromov’s work offers a catalogue of explicit and implicit citations from Dostoevsky found in Chekhov’s works, the following discussion of Chekhov’s story Neighbors illustrates how the citations’ transposition into the world of Chekhov’s writing helps illuminate them from a new angle. 342 “хороша собой, изящна, весела; она хохотушка, болтунья, спорщица, страстная музыкантша; она знает толк в нарядах, в книгах и в хорошей обстановке”. Chekhov, VI, 240. 343 “тощий, сухопарый, узкогрудый, с длинным носом, с проседью в бороде. Говорит он — точно гудёт, улыбается болезненно и, разговаривая, некрасиво взмахивает руками. Ни здоровья, ни красивых 129 Zina’s brother, Ivashin, is torn between the sorrow of his mother, who cannot understand or

accept her daughter’s decision, and the friendship he feels for Vlasich. In an attempt to resolve

the torturous tension, Ivashin impulsively rides to Vlasich’s estate intending to insult him and

challenge him to a duel, but instead has a conversation with Vlasich and Zina, that leaves him

feeling deeply sorry for both.

At first glance, Vlasich appears to be a rather obvious parody of a character from Dostoevsky.

The narrator actually describes Vlasich’s marriage – motivated by “high ideals” (he married a

woman seduced and abandoned by his battalion commander) as “an odd marriage a-la

Dostoevsky”344. A closer look, however, reveals that Vlasich is not so much a jab at Dostoevsky as a blood-cooling portrayal of someone who took Dostoevsky’s teachings very seriously and whole-heartedly applied them to his life. His rhetoric reeks of literariness: “It reminds one of something old, something that one read long ago, when slowly and with an air of profundity he begins discoursing of his noble, lofty moments”345. Although his self-sacrificial marriage failed to produce any positive results – his wife despised and ridiculed him for marrying her, led a life of debauchery, and bankrupted him by gambling and continuous demands for money – Vlasich refuses to admit that his marriage was a mistake, though he does not deny that the marriage stemmed solely from his pursuit of an exploit: “The situation seemed to me too suitable for an exploit”346; yet, even years later, he refuses to see the artificiality of his fatal decision and recalls

мужественных манер, ни светскости, ни веселости, а так, с внешней стороны, что-то тусклое и неопределенное. Одевается он безвкусно, обстановка у него унылая, поэзии и живописи он не признает, […] музыка его не трогает. Хозяин он плохой.” Ibid., 238. 344 “странный брак во вкусе Достоевского”. Ibid., 239. 345 “Вспоминается что-то старое, давно читанное, когда он медленно, с глубокомысленным видом, начинает толковать про честные, светлые минуты”. Ibid. 346 “Обстановка показалась мне слишком подходящею для подвига”. Ibid., 237. 130 it as “noble, lofty moments”. Ivashin feels embarrassed by Vlasich’s grand rhetoric; he sees

it as naïve and even sick, and deems his friend’s marriage mere foolishness347.

The narrator – although sympathetic to Vlasich – cannot help but see his actions as

unnecessarily wasteful: “His self-sacrifice and all that Vlassitch himself called heroic actions or

noble impulses seemed to him a useless waste of effort, useless blank shots which consumed a

great deal of powder.”348 Unrestricted waste of material and immaterial resources is the central theme of Vlasich’s life: due to poor management, his land brings only debts instead of profits; he borrows from everyone only to pay interest on his previous debts; and his estate is a picture of devastation resulting from a lack of elementary planning:

he sells the whole of his winter store of fuel for five roubles and a stack of straw for three roubles, and then heats his stoves with his old garden fence or old green-house frames. His meadows are ruined by pigs, the peasants' cattle strays in the undergrowth in his woods, and every year the old trees are fewer and fewer.349

In an analogously inefficient manner, Vlasich wastes his time by writing long, copious letters expressing his high ideals and participating in “endless misunderstandings, explanations, disappointments”350. Having already wasted his chance for a happy life through a disastrous and unnecessary marriage, he continuous to seek self-sacrifice: “And in the present, as in the past, he

347 “он глупо женился и считал это подвигом”. Ibid., 240. 348 “Его самоотвержение и всё то, что Власич называл подвигом или честным порывом, представлялись ему бесполезною тратой сил, ненужными холостыми выстрелами, на которые шло очень много пороху”. Ibid. 349 “продает он весь свой зимний запас хвороста за пять рублей, скирду соломы за три рубля и потом велит топить свои печи садовою решеткой или старыми парниковыми рамами. Луга у него потравлены свиньями, в лесу по молодняку ходит мужицкий скот, а старых деревьев с каждой зимой становится всё меньше и меньше” 350 “длинные письма и копии, писанные плохим, неразборчивым почерком, по с большим чувством, бесконечные недоразумения, объяснения, разочарования…” Ibid., 239. 131 is still in a nervous flurry, on the lookout for exploit, and poking his nose into other people's

affairs...”351 Emaciated352 and lifeless353, Vlasich is the living picture of willful emptying-out.

Most interestingly, the text does not portray the story’s kenoticist as eccentric; on the contrary, it describes Vlasich and his views as gallingly common. Ivashin muses at the triteness of Vlasich’s “wearisome, stereotyped conversations about the village community (obshchina), or the revival of handicrafts […] - conversations as like one another as though he had prepared them, not in his living brain, but by some mechanical process.”354 Thus, Vlasich’s ideas and behaviors are far from being idiosyncratic quirks; they are common in their appeal to the contemporary intelligentsia and in their origin: Russian literature, and, namely, Dostoevsky355.

Even Ivashin – who fully realizes that Vlasich is ridiculous and useless - cannot help admiring the intensity of his convictions: “Nevertheless, Piotr Mikhailych was fond of Vlasich; he was conscious of a sort of power in him, and for some reason he never had the heart to contradict him”356. Moreover, Vlasich’s appeal proves powerful enough to captivate the educated, refined

Zina and to inspire her to change her life in a drastic and irrevocable way.

The nature of Zina and Vlasich’s relationship deserves a closer look. Before Ivashin visits

Vlasich and Zina and observes their life together, he tries to fit their relationship into the familiar and easily-assessed category of “debauchery”357: “He pictured Vlasich and Zina, both of them

351 “И в настоящем, как прежде, всё он топорщится, ищет подвига и суется в чужие дела…” Ibid. 352 “тощий, сухопарый”. Ibid., 238. 353 “возмущается, негодует и радуется он как-то всё в одну ноту, не эффектно и вяло. Даже в минуты сильного воодушевления он не поднимает головы и остается сутулым.” Ibid., 239. 354 “утомительные, шаблонные разговоры об общине или о поднятии кустарной промышленности, […] — разговоры, похожие один на другой, точно он приготовляет их не в живом мозгу, а машинным способом”. Ibid., 239-40. 355 The mention of obshchina is another indirect reference to Dostoevsky – obshchina’s most prominent advocate. 356 “Но все-таки Петр Михайлыч любил Власича, чувствовал присутствие в нем какой-то силы, и почему-то у него никогда не хватало духа противоречить ему.” Chekhov, VI, 240. 357 “У них разврат, а не свобода!” Ibid., 234. 132 progressive and self-satisfied, kissing each other somewhere under a maple tree...”358

Although the vision of his sister’s corruption pains Ivashin, he continues to summon it in his

imagination. Labeling their relationship as debauchery is a relief for him because it eases the

maddening complexity of the situation and allows Ivashin to pick a side. This illusion of

simplicity shatters when he sees Zina and Vlasich together; it becomes obvious that the homely,

pathetic, narrow-minded and boring Vlasich could not have possibly attracted the refined and

fun-loving Zina romantically. Moreover, their interests seem to diverge on nearly every subject:

Zina is a passionate musician, while Vlasich does not understand music; Zina loves literature,

while Vlasich is indifferent to arts; Zina appreciates beauty in home decoration and clothes,

while Vlasich dresses poorly and his home “smells like boots and cheap vodka”359.

It seems that Zina’s love for Vlasich is intellectual: she respects and admires the intensity of his convictions, and perceives his ideological strength sufficiently valuable as to countervail all his shortcomings. To his despair, Ivashin realizes that he understands his sister’s choice, and, moreover, feels the same way about Vlasich: “He is a Quixote, an obstinate fanatic, a maniac,"

thought Piotr Mikhailych, "[…] She loves him; but, don’t I, too, love him, in spite of

everything…”360 For Ivashin, his admiration of Vlasich translates into friendly affection; Zina takes her admiration one step further and puts it at the basis of her romantic love.

To complicate matters further, it transpires that Vlasich’s love for the young, attractive Zina is not corporeal, either. Vlasich, too, appears to admire Zina predominantly for the intensity of her convictions:

358 “Он вообразил Власича и Зину, как они оба, либеральные и довольные собой, целуются теперь где- нибудь под кленом…” Ibid., 233. 359 “пахнет сапогами и дешевою водкой”. Ibid., 240. 360 “Он — Дон-Кихот, упрямый фанатик, маньяк, — думал Петр Михайлыч […] Она полюбила его; но разве я сам не люблю его, несмотря ни на что...” Ibid. 133 He sat down beside Pyotr Mihalitch and began saying what was an utterly wrong thing. "I have such a reverence for your sister, Petrusha," he said. "When I used to come and see you, I felt as though I were going to a holy shrine, and I really did worship Zina. Now my reverence for her grows every day. For me she is something higher than a wife - yes, higher! " Vlasich waved his hands. "She is my holy of holies. Since she is living with me, I enter my house as though it were a temple.”361

Although the vision of his sister enjoying a passionate corporeal affair was hurtful to Ivashin,

this ode to Zina as an object of sacred veneration irritates him: «Well, he's off now!" thought

Piotr Mikhailych”362. The markedly spiritual speech is “the wrong thing” (ne to, chto nuzhno)

because Vlasich pronounces it not about a sacred elder à-la Father Zossima, but about an

attractive, healthy woman who joined him as his mistress. With frustration, Ivashin notices no

signs of simple, understandable affection in Vlasich; his union with Zina is a part of his

contribution to a kenotic cult. As the reader learns more about Vlasich, the latter’s unsuitability

for the role of a normal, earthly lover becomes more and more obvious. His utter divorce from

practicality and the realities of life foreground the symbolic meaning of his name: “Vlasich”

reminds the Slavic word vlasenitsa – a token of humility and mortification of the body worn by

Orthodox monks363.

Vlasich describes Zina as a saint; the intensity of her kenosis is, in fact, comparable to that

depicted in hagiographies of Orthodox saints. The moral supremacy of kenosis in the

361 “Он сел рядом с Петром Михайлычем и заговорил совсем не то, что нужно. — Я, Петруша, благоговею перед твоею сестрой, — сказал он. — Когда я ездил к тебе, то всякий раз у меня бывало такое чувство, как будто я шел на богомолье, и я в самом деле молился на Зину. Теперь мое благоговение растет с каждым днем. Она для меня выше, чем жена! Выше! (Власич взмахнул руками.) Она моя святыня. С тех пор, как она живет у меня, я вхожу в свой дом как в храм.” Ibid., 237. 362 “Ну, завел свою шарманку!» — подумал Петр Михайлыч”. Ibid. 363 See Власеница, Kakvo.org. The Internet: http://www.kakvo.org/tword/%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0 %B0. Accessed June 28, 2009. 134 Weltanschauung of the story’s characters creates a vicious circle: Vlasich willingly wastes his life; Zina admires his behavior and volunteers to waste her life in an analogous manner (by connecting herself to a married, ridiculous, bankrupt man who cannot even take care of himself); and Vlasich returns Zina’s feelings because he admires her willingness to empty herself out. As

Dostoevsky predicted, kenotic behavior in one generates a kenotic impulse in others; unfortunately, the results are not as inspiring as Dostoevsky had promised. Instead of bringing about universal harmony, the unalloyed kenosis produces universal waste; the narrator comments on it, with perplexity and disappointment: “and all this for no benefit to any one, either himself or others”364.

An intertextual reference embedded in the story provides an illuminating clue to what is fundamentally wrong with Zina and Vlasich’s relationship. Ivashin recalls that several days prior to Zina’s fatal decision to leave home, he had walked together with Vlasich singing a song:

«Failing to love – it means wasting one’s young life…»365 On the surface, this piece of popular wisdom supports Zina’s decision: she dared to step over conventions and join the man she loved, thus, supposedly, preventing her young life from being wasted. In reality, however, the redeeming romantic love that the song implies is hardly present. It is a shared self-destructive dogma that unites Zina and Vlasich. In the past, the latter sacrificed his life by marrying a woman he did not love because he considered it a moral exploit; now, Zina enters into an adulterous relationship out of the same sentiment. In the name of principle, both gave up their chances for a fulfilled romantic love, thus wasting their “young lives”.

364 “и всё это никому не в пользу, ни себе, ни людям”. Chekhov, VI, 239. 365 “Не любить — погубить значит жизнь молодую...” Ibid., 235. 135 According to the kenotic dogma, the ethical and aesthetic value of kenosis is supposed to compensate for this tremendous loss. Russian cultural habit holds that acting kenotically is not only right, but also beautiful. Yet, in spite of his natural tendency to sympathize with others and his attempts to sooth his anxiety, Ivashin cannot help seeing that the young couple’s kenosis is futile. To his despair, Ivashin suspects that just as Vlasich’s sacrifice did not bring happiness to anyone, Zina’s enormous sacrifice will not generate harmony, either. Down-to-earth and practical, Ivashin foresees the sad, joyless facts of the future, which will smear and eventually annihilate the moral satisfaction that Zina gained from her kenosis:

Piotr Mikhailych looked steadily at the water and imagined his sister's despair, her martyr-like pallor, the tearless eyes with which she will conceal her humiliation from others. He imagined her pregnancy, imagined the death of their mother, her funeral, Zina's horror. . . 366

Moreover, he realizes, with horror, that Zina, too, is beginning to understand that practice does not match up to theory, that kenosis in real life is different from the kenosis she imagined, and questions the rightfulness of her irrevocable choice.

The story’s final paragraph recounts Ivashin’s musings on hypocrisy; not the self-interested, socially manipulative kind, but the type that compels people to accept someone else’s views and act in accordance to them, instead of listening to their own judgment:

Piotr Mikhailych rode along the bank of the pond and looked mournfully into the water. Thinking back about his life, he was seeing that he never said or acted upon what he really thought, and other people had repaid him in the same way. And so the whole of life

366 “Петр Михайлыч не мигая смотрел на воду и воображал отчаяние сестры, ее страдальческую бледность и сухие глаза, с какими она будет скрывать от людей свое унижение. Он вообразил себе ее беременность, смерть матери, ее похороны, ужас Зины...” Ibid., 245 – 46. 136 seemed to him as dark as this water in which the night sky was reflected and where the pondweed tangled-up.367

Just as the image of tangled-up pondweed is a metaphor for complex life situations that reject simple categorizations, the dark water that only reflects - but does not contain - the sky mirrors the reality of Zina’s kenosis, which was expected to generate heavenly harmony, but instead, has only caused darkness.

Kenosis as Comedy: The Seagull

At the beginning of my discussion of Neighbors, I suggested the existence of an intertextual

connection between Vlasich and Dostoevskian characters. In his article Hidden Citations,

Gromov points out another reference to Dostoevsky concealed in Neighbors. In his conversation with Ivashin – Zina’s suffering brother – Vlasich says, “If you ever need my life, come and take it.”368 Gromov identifies this phrase as a stylistic echo of Dostoevsky’s line from Crime and

Punishment: «…if…you ever need…all of my life…call for me, and I will come”369.

Transposed into the skeptical world of Chekhov’s fiction and assigned to a ridiculous character

characterized by pompous, meaningless rhetoric, Dostoevsky’s line acquires parodic character.

Vlasich’s sentiment is genuine – he has already thoughtlessly given his life away when he

married his superior’s dismissed mistress; however, the genuineness does not change the fact that

his sacrifice was useless and even detrimental, and resulted in his life merely going to waste.

Illustrated by such an example, the articulation of ultimate giving loses its inspiring potential.

367 “Петр Михайлыч ехал по берегу пруда и печально глядел на воду и, вспоминая свою жизнь, убеждался, что до сих пор говорил он и делал не то, что думал, и люди платили ему тем же, и оттого вся жизнь представлялась ему теперь такою же темной, как эта вода, в которой отражалось ночное небо и перепутались водоросли.” Ibid., 246. 368 “Если тебе когда-нибудь понадобится моя жизнь, то приди и возьми ее.” Ibid., 236. 369 “...если...понадобится тебе... вся моя жизнь... то кликни меня, я приду”, see Gromov 43. 137 By ascribing the Dostoevskian kenotic line to Vlasich, Chekhov seems to suggest that practice often falls strikingly short of theory and that kenosis can cause effects quite opposite to harmony.

Vlasich’s kenotic statement and its connection to Dostoevsky is especially interesting because

Chekhov’s rendition of the line re-emerges and becomes central to one of his most renowned works: The Seagull370. In the play, Nina Zarechnaya engraves a medallion with a reference to this citation, thus announcing her decision to commit to a ruinous affair with an attached man.

Her choice of communication means – inscribing directions to a literary quotation on a piece of jewelry – already emphasizes the artificial origin of her sentiment; she mediates her life-altering decision through literature. Entranced with Trigorin’s writing and seeking ways to associate with it more closely, Zarechnaya wants to bring a literary model into her life. The model she chooses is a kenotic one: “If you ever need my life, come and take it.”371

At first glance, there appears to be little similarity between Vlasich and Zarechnaya - the two characters who express their resolution to give their lives away. Zarechnaya is charming and full of hope; Vlasich is withered and ridiculous. The difference between the two characters diminishes, however, when we recall that we encounter the two at different points in their lives.

Vlasich appears before the reader past his prime, years after his ruinous self-sacrifice whose consequences have become painfully obvious. Vlasich’s recollections of the “bright moments” of kenosis that he experienced in his youth are nothing but irritating rhetoric, rendered meaningless by his pathetic current state.

370 The story Neighbors was first published 1892; The Seagull was written three years later, in 1895. 371 “Если тебе когда-нибудь понадобится моя жизнь, то приди и возьми ее.” Chekhov, VIII, 277. 138 Zarechnaya, on the other hand, lives through her “bright moments” before the reader’s and

viewer’s eyes: she makes her life-altering decision during the course of the play. Her experience

is immediate; it is neither marred by the preexisting knowledge of its possible unsightly future

consequences, nor presented through the eyes of a skeptical narrator. Zarechnaya’s sentiment

resonates powerfully with the hopefulness of the young and with the nostalgia of the

experienced. Zarechnaya’s dreams are poetic and romantic, and productions of The Seagull

frequently capitalize on its poeticism and romanticism372. Zarechnaya’s suffering is real – ruined

personal life, failed career, deceased child; and as a result many directors focus on the play’s

drama and present Nina as “an inspired talent forged by suffering”373. Another factor that contributes to solidifying Nina’s image as a suffering genius is the fact that the role is usually played by lead actresses, who invest their entire dramatic talent into their interpretations of

Zarechnaya374. It is hard to deny that Zarechnaya’s story possesses, in the words of Thomas

Kilroy, “an almost unendurable pathos” of reaching “out toward a future, to what might be, as if it were already in place, while we know that it may never actually materialize”375.

However, if one shifts attention from Zarechnaya’s suffering as such to the reasons that brought it about, it becomes painfully obvious that her woes stem from her own histrionic and rather superficial chase after an ostensibly beautiful model. Zarechnaya has ruined herself because she thinks that self-emptying is beautiful. Like Vlasich, who describes his ridiculous

372 To name just few, Tatiana Shakh-Azizova describes Boris Livanov’s 1968 MAT production as a “romantic and elevated version”; Yefremov’s 1980 MAT production – “an attempt to reconstruct the play’s poetry”; Gennadi Oporkov’s 1982 Lenkom Theater (Leningrad) production – “a poetic and mysterious environment”, see Shakh- Azizova, Pp. 171-72. 373 The quotation is taken from Laurence Senelick’s summary of the history of The Seagull’s productions: “The consensus shares Stanislavsky’s opinion that […] Nina [is] an inspired talent forged by suffering”, see Senelick, 180. 374 The tradition started with The Seagull’s first performance at the Alexandrinsky Theater in 1896, when Nina was played by the great dramatic genius Vera Komissarzhevskaya, later named “the Seagull of the Russian stage”, see Shakh-Azizova, 164. 375 Kilroy, 89. 139 and self-destructive marriage as “noble, lofty moments”, Zarechnaya sees giving herself

away as the culmination of human existence: “If I were a writer like you I would give my entire

life away to the crowd, but I would know that their only happiness is to elevate themselves to my

level…”376 Not a very original young dreamer, Zarechnaya seeks glory and admiration – a

fantasy with universal appeal. It is peculiar, though, that an integral part of Zarechnaya’s fantasy

and a prerequisite for her imagined greatness is giving herself away: “I would give my entire life

away to the crowd”. Her beautiful dream is not complete without kenosis.

Convinced of the elevating power of self-empting, Zarechnaya welcomes a scenario that

would guarantee her self-ruin. A decisive moment in her relationship with Trigorin seems to

come when the latter offers a plot that casts Zarechnaya as a meaninglessly sacrificed victim:

TRIGORIN. Nothing much… Just a little plot that came to my mind… [He puts the notebook back in his pocket] An idea for a short story. A young girl, like you, grows up on the shores of a lake. She loves the lake like a seagull, and is happy and free like a seagull. But a man happens to come that way, sees her, and, out of idleness, destroys her, as this seagull here has been destroyed. 377

Instead of alarming Zarechnaya, this lucidly destructive scenario inspires her to take action and

ensures her participation. Her reaction to Trigorin’s sharing his plot is excessive dreaminess:

“NINA (comes forward; stands lost in thought). It is a dream!”378 The next time we encounter

Zarechnaya, she presents Trigorin with the medallion that urges him to come and take her life379.

376 “Если бы я была таким писателем, как вы, то я отдала бы толпе всю свою жизнь, но сознавала бы, что счастье ее только в том, чтобы возвышаться до меня…” Chekhov, VIII, 269. 377 “Т р и г о р и н . Так, записываю... Сюжет мелькнул... (Пряча книжку.) Сюжет для небольшого рассказа: на берегу озера с детства живет молодая девушка, такая, как вы; любит озеро, как чайка, и счастлива, и свободна, как чайка. Но случайно пришел человек, увидел и от нечего делать погубил ее, как вот эту чайку.” Ibid., 270. 378 “Н и н а (подходит к рампе; после некоторого раздумья). Сон!” Ibid. 379 Ibid., 272-73, 277. 140 Apparently, the prospect of being ruined by a careless hand (“destroys” “out of idleness”) is

too seductive an opportunity to pass up.

Later in the play, the mature Zarechnaya sheds her fascination with fame and admiration and

expresses an intensified commitment to kenosis. Alluring in the past, fame no longer fascinates

Zarechnaya; but kenotic suffering retains its appeal:

NINA. Why do you say that you have kissed the ground I walked on? I should be killed. […] I know now, I understand at last, Kostia, that for us, whether we write or act, the important thing is not the glory, not the glamour, not all that of which I dreamed, but the capacity to endure. One needs to know how to bear one’s cross and have faith. I have faith, and it does not hurt as much, and when I think of my calling I do not fear life.380

Her dreams of greatness have not survived the test of hardships, but her kenotic convictions have

only become stronger. This shift in her axiological priorities suggests that her fascination with

fame was a shallow, transient infatuation, while her commitment to kenosis is a deep-rooted

ethical axiom.

As Andrew Wachtel ingeniously showed in his study Plays of Expectations381, The Seagull is

a contest between several characters competing for the role of the central symbol: a shot seagull.

In an attempt to win back Zarechnaya’s affection, Konstantin promises to kill himself, presenting

the dead bird as visual reinforcement for his claim382. In spite of the promise’s kenotic appeal,

380 “Н и н а . Зачем вы говорите, что целовали землю, по которой я ходила? Меня надо убить. […] Я теперь знаю, понимаю, Костя, что в нашем деле — все равно, играем мы на сцене или пишем — главное не слава, не блеск, не то, о чем я мечтала, а уменье терпеть. Умей нести свой крест и веруй. Я верую и мне не так больно, и когда я думаю о своем призвании, то не боюсь жизни.” Ibid., 292-93. 381 Wachtel, Plays of Expectations. 382 “TREPLIOV. I was vile enough to kill this seagull today. I rest it at your feet. NINA. What’s wrong with you? (Picks up the seagull and looks at it) TREPLIOV. (after a pause) Soon, I will kill myself in the same manner. N I N A . I don’t recognize you. T R E P L I O V . Yes, but first, I stopped recognizing you. You changed towards me, your glance is cold, my presence is uncomfortable to you.” (“ Т р е п л е в . Я имел подлость убить сегодня эту чайку. Кладу у ваших ног. 141 Zarechnaya remains unaffected; we later learn that she wants the lead role of the victim for

herself. As Wachtel shows, the play toys with the viewer, who remains uncertain with whom he

is supposed to identify the sacrificial seagull; I would like to add that the characters’ enthusiasm

for associating themselves with the dead bird creates a comic, almost parodic effect. Instead of

addressing their real life problems, the characters occupy themselves competing in their kenotic

eagerness.

The comic nature of The Seagull is often lost in theatrical productions. The tradition of

melancholy, “tragic foreboding”, and the “clichés of gloom and doom” dates back to

Stanislavsky’s first seminal interpretation during Chekhov’s lifetime. The vitality of this

interpretation is especially ironic since Stanislavsky himself confessed “that he had no idea of

what the play meant”383. Lawrence Senelick writes that “For Western spectators, Chekhov was a

man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; whenever a director attempted to bring out the comic

strain, critics and audience became confused.”384 Directors who acknowledged Chekhov’s intention to see The Seagull as a comedy regarded it as “a very special one in which the key

‘comedian’ is fate – and the audience is allowed to laugh at the characters, but only until the last

act”385 – a description that suits Greek tragedy more than conventionally understood comedy.

Senelick points out that the play’s subtitle “A Comedy” was only exploited by only a handful of

Н и н а . Что с вами? (Поднимает чайку и глядит на нее.) Т р е п л е в (после паузя). Скоро таким же образом я убью самого себя. Н и н а . Я вас не узнаю. Т р е п л е в . Да, после того, как я перестал узнавать вас. Вы изменились ко мне, ваш взгляд холоден, мое присутствие стесняет вас.”) Chekhov, VIII, 266. 383 Senelick, 180. 384 Ibid. 385 Shakh-Azizova, 174. 142 directors386, who “relished the farce of Arkadina’s histrionic behavior but could not

encompass the whole work within a comic vision”387.

A notable exception to the rule is the 1970 Sovremennik production directed by Oleg

Yefremov, who “turned the author of The Seagull into a lampoonist, bored rigid by intellectual

conversation and critical of writers and actors who talk a lot and do nothing”388. Atypical of

usual interpretations, Yefremov’s production failed. Ten years later, Yefremov directed a

different Seagull that met with a noticeably more favorable reception. With dramatic giants

Anastasiya Vertinskaya (Zarechnaya) and Innokenty Smoktunovsky (Dorn) - who were given

ample “opportunities to act” - the play sacrificed its humor for pathos. Yefremov’s new

interpretation presented “the basic reality of life as an insoluble drama”. Nina Zarechnaya

became “an ‘actress’ with a capital ‘A’ who had walked her path of suffering”, remarkable in her

ability to “carry one’s cross and keep the faith”.389

The story of Yefremov’s two productions is characteristic of the play’s fate: audiences and

directors have traditionally preferred to view The Seagull as a heartrending drama, and

overlooked its potential as a comedy of manners. To those who associate no ethical or aesthetic

value with self-emptying, The Seagull’s characters may appear mysterious and singular; and to those who share the kenotic bias, they appear exceedingly beautiful. Chekhov chose the unpopular position of revealing the banality of kenotic behavior, which does not easily translate into a fascinating performance. One stage interpretation of The Seagull evokes imagery of

suffering Zarechnaya as the crucified Christ; in the production, Nina appears “dressed as Pierrot

386 In particular, Lawrence Senelick mentions Lindsay Anderson, Jonathan Miller and Ellis Rabb, see Senelick, 181. 387 Ibid. 388 Smeliansky, 29, 33. 389 Ibid., 35 – 36. 143 tied to a stake”390. For kenoticists, it is an image of utmost beauty; for non-kenoticists, it is an image of utmost pain; but most interestingly, there is nothing Chekhov’s Nina would have liked more than being portrayed in this way.

While most of The Seagull’s characters compete in their kenotic zeal, one personage calmly

progresses towards her private goals, indifferent to the shattered illusions and broken lives of

those around her. Arkadina is the play’s only character unaffected by the kenotic bias. Arkadina

refuses to give in all of her life’s spheres. In spite of her son’s and her brother’s obvious and

urgent need for money, she declines to help them although she has considerable savings391.

After her son’s attempted suicide, she learns that a small sum of money could considerably

improve his situation, but flatly refuses to provide it:

SORIN. [Whistles, then speaks with hesitation] It seems to me that the best thing for him would be if you … gave him a little money. For one thing, he needs to be dressed decently, and all that. See how he looks! Wearing the same old jacket that he has had for three years, and he doesn't even have an overcoat! [Laughing] And it wouldn't hurt the youngster to live a little… Go abroad, maybe… It doesn’t cost much, after all.

ARKADINA. Well, but… I suppose, I might manage about his clothes, but traveling abroad… No, I don't think I can spare anything for his clothes, either. [Decidedly] I don’t have any money! […] None!392

390 The description refers to Roberto Ciulli’s 1984 production, see Senelick, 182. 391 “TREPLIOV. […] She has seventy thousand in a bank in Odessa; I know that for sure. But if one asks her to lend some money, she’ll start weeping.” (“Т р е п л е в . […] У нее в Одессе в банке семьдесят тысяч — это я знаю наверное. А попроси у нее взаймы, она станет плакать.”) Chekhov, VIII, 249. 392 “С о р и н (насвистывает, потом нерешительно). Мне кажется, было бы самое лучшее, если бы ты... дала ему немного денег. Прежде всего ему нужно одеться по-человечески и все. Посмотри, один и тот же сюртучишко он таскает три года, ходит без пальто... (Смеется.) Да и погулять малому не мешало бы... Поехать за границу, что ли... Это ведь не дорого стоит. А р к а д и н а . Все-таки... Пожалуй, на костюм я еще могу, но чтоб за границу... Нет, в настоящее время и на костюм не могу. (Решительно.) Нет у меня денег! […] Нет!” Ibid., 173-74. 144 In a similar manner, she refuses to improve the fate of her ailing brother by sharing a small portion of her savings. When Sorin almost faints, she acts concerned about his health, but flatly rejects a plea for help:

ARKADINA. He scared me so much!

TREPLIOV. It is not healthy for him to live in the country. He is depressed. Mom, if you would only get generous all of a sudden and lent him a thousand or two! He could then spend a whole year in town.

ARKADINA. I have no money. I am an actress, not a banker.393

One might suggest that Arkadina fails to help her closest relatives financially not because of her aversion to giving, but because of her rampant individualism, which leads her to believe that everyone is responsible for his own fate. However, she also demonstrates difficulty with giving in daily situations when one can hardly find a philosophical explanation for her stinginess. Thus, when playing bingo at her family estate, she saves ten kopeks by asking the doctor to place a bid for her394. And when leaving the estate, although apparently happy with her staff’s service, she leaves a conspicuously small tip, and repeatedly insists that it be split between all the servants395.

393 “А р к а д и н а . Как он меня напугал! Т р е п л е в . Ему нездорово жить в деревне. Тоскует. Вот если бы ты, мама, вдруг расщедрилась и дала ему взаймы тысячи полторы-две, то он мог бы прожить в городе целый год. А р к а д и н а . У меня нет денег. Я актриса, а не банкирша.” Ibid., 274-75. 394 “ARKADINA. The bid is ten kopeks. Place a bid for me, doctor.” (“ А р к а д и н а . Ставка — гривенник. Поставьте за меня, доктор.”) Ibid., 288. 395 “Good-bye, my dear ones… If we are well, we’ll see each other again next summer… The maid servant, Iakov and the cook kiss her hand. Don’t forget me. (Gives a rouble to the cook). Here’s a rouble for the three of you. THE COOK. Thank you very much, madam. Have a safe journey! We are very happy with you! […] ARKADINA. Where’s Konstantin? Tell him that I am leaving. We have to say farewell. Well, wish us well. (To Iakov) I gave a rouble to the cook. It’s for the three of you.” (“А р к а д и н а . До свиданья, мои дорогие... Если будем живы и здоровы, летом опять увидимся... Горничная, Яков и повар целуют у нее руку. Не забывайте меня. (Подает повару рубль.) Вот вам рубль на троих. П о в а р . Покорнейше благодарим, барыня. Счастливой вам дороги! Много вами довольны! [ … ] А р к а д и н а . Где Константин? Скажите ему, что я уезжаю. Надо проститься. Ну, не поминайте лихом. (Якову.) Я дала рубль повару. Это на троих.”) Ibid., 279 - 80. 145 With other resources, Arkadina is as careful as she is with money. She expresses strong

distaste for the wasteful way in which her family treats time396; she prefers to utilize her time so

as to make it useful397. When discussing appearance and attitude to one’s physical resources, she

boasts about her ability to preserve herself: “The reason I am well-preserved is because…”398

Finally, in a genuine feat of preservation, she goes to impressive lengths to keep Trigorin when

she feels the danger of losing him. Calmly and effectively, she sets aside her celebrity pride, gets

down on her knees, and acts out a scenario of “retaining a writer” borrowed from Maupassant’s

Sur l’eau that she read aloud in the previous act399:

ARKADINA. My splendid, my glorious one… You are the last chapter of my life! [She gets down on her knees] You are my joy, my pride, my bliss. [She embraces his knees] I you desert me, even for an hour, I will not survive it, I will go insane, oh my wonderful, my marvelous one, oh my master…

TRIGORIN. Someone might come in. [He helps her to rise.]

ARKADINA. Let them come, I am not ashamed of my love for you. [She kisses his hands] […] You are so talented, so clever, the best of all contemporary writers, Russia’s only hope… You have so much sincerity, simplicity, originality, so much healthy humor... In one detail, you can convey the main characteristics of a personage or a landscape; your characters live and breathe. Oh, one can’t read your work without admiration! Do you think this is flattery? You think I am merely saying this? Then,

396 Except for Arkadina, the play’s characters seem to treat time as an inexhaustible resource that can be wasted mercilessly. Sorin describes his day as follows, “Yesterday, I went to bed at 10, and woke up today at 9 with a feeling as if my brain got glues to my skull from long sleeping, and stuff like that. (laughing) And after lunch, I accidentally fell asleep again…” («Вчера лёг в десять и сегодня утром проснулся в девять с таким чувством, как будто от долгого спанья у меня мозг прилип к черепу и всё такое. (Смеётся.) А после обеда нечаянно опять уснул…») Ibid., 248. 397 “А р к а д и н а . Ах, что может быть скучнее этой вот милой деревенской скуки! Жарко, тихо, никто ничего не делает, все философствуют... Хорошо с вами, друзья, приятно вас слушать, но... сидеть у себя в номере и учить роль — куда лучше!” Ibid., 263. 398 “Оттого я и сохранилась, что…” Ibid., 261. 399 «ARKADINA. […] (reading) And so, when a woman has chosen a writer whom she wishes to make her own, she lays siege to him by means of compliments, flattery and indulgencies." (А р к а д и н а . [...] (Читает.) Итак, когда женщина избрала писателя, которого она желает заполонить, она осаждает его посредством комплиментов, любезностей и угождений...» Ibid., 261 - 62. 146 look into my eyes… Look… Do I look like a liar? You see now, I alone know how to treasure you; I alone tell you the truth, oh, my darling, my wonderful one… Will you come with me? You will? You will not forsake me?

TRIGORIN. […] Take me, take me away with you, but do not let me stir a step from your side.

ARKADINA. [To herself] Now, he is mine. [Carelessly, as if nothing unusual had happened] Actually, if you want to, you can stay.400

Arkadina’s aside remark reveals that her self-humiliating outburst is far from being sincere.

Encouraged by Maupassant’s advice, she realizes that the most effective way of regaining

control of the writer is excessive flattery and unabridged admiration, and produces a generous

dose of both. To adjust the French model to Trigorin’s Russian taste, she beautifies it with some

skillfully falsified self-effacement.

Beyond her actions, Arkadina’s speech is saturated with expressions of possession and

preservation: «hold myself », «preserved», «did not let myself go»401, «… will not let you go…

You are mine… You are mine… And this forehead is mine, and these eyes are mine, and this

wonderful silky hair is also mine… you are all mine»402. It is interesting that these semantic

tendencies spill out of the character’s own utterances and color what Bakhtin would call her

400 “А р к а д и н а . […] Мой прекрасный, дивный... Ты, последняя страница моей жизни! (Становится на колени.) Моя радость, моя гордость, мое блаженство... (Обнимает его колени.) Если ты покинешь меня, хотя на один час, то я не переживу, сойду с ума, мой изумительный, великолепный, мой повелитель... Т р и г о р и н . Сюда могут войти. (Помогает ей встать.) А р к а д и н а . Пусть, я не стыжусь моей любви к тебе. (Целует ему руки.) […] Ты такой талантливый, умный, лучший из всех теперешних писателей, ты единственная надежда России... У тебя столько искренности, простоты, свежести, здорового юмора... Ты можешь одним штрихом передать главное, что характерно для лица или пейзажа, люди у тебя, как живые. О, тебя нельзя читать без восторга! Ты думаешь, это фимиам? Я льщу? Ну, посмотри мне в глаза... посмотри... Похожа я на лгунью? Вот и видишь, я одна умею ценить тебя; одна говорю тебе правду, мой милый, чудный... Поедешь? Да? Ты меня не покинешь?.. Т р и г о р и н . […] Бери меня, увози, но только не отпускай от себя ни на шаг... А р к а д и н а (про себя). Теперь он мой. (Развязно, как ни в чем не бывало.) Впрочем, если хочешь, можешь остаться.” Ibid., 278. 401 “держу себя”; “сохранилась”; “не распускала себя”. Ibid., 261. 402 “…не пущу… Ты мой… ты мой… и этот лоб мой, и глаза мои, и эти прекрасные шелковистые волосы тоже мои… ты весь мой.” Ibid., 278. 147 character zone403. Thus, in an utterance addressed to Arkadina, Shamraev describes her condition as that of a well preserved youth, contrasting it to the tendency of other humans to

“spend themselves”: «We all get older, we wither under the influence of elements, while you, my lady, still remain young…»404

Arkadina is the anti-kenotic spirit reincarnate. Unsurprisingly, she is also the one who

succeeds in retaining all the resources that she considers valuable: her time, money, health,

appearance, glory, and her lover. She fails to retain her son, but a number of hints scattered

around the play suggest that Konstantin ranks low on her list of priorities. To name just one

indication, Arkadina does not bother to read anything that her son has written405, although she

knows how much value Konstantin places on his art and how much he seeks his mother’s

approval.

While the other characters go through turmoil, suffer, waste their lives and chances for

happiness, the unkenotic Arkadina calmly progresses along her path. The Seagull is a demonstration of the destructive potential of kenotic bias, an illustration of how kenotic dogma pays a tremendous disservice to its disciples in real life situations. The play’s characters are not divided into kenotic villains and unkenotic heroes; Arkadina and her parental neglect play a significant role in Konstantin’s suicide, and her indifferent stinginess shocks her brother to the extent of making him ill (although he is too kenotically forgiving to admit it).406 Without

403 Morson, Gary Saul and Caryl Emerson. Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990. P. 329. 404 “Мы все стареем, выветриваемся под влиянием стихий, а вы, многоуважаемая, всё ещё молоды…” Chekhov, VIII, 286. 405 Over the game of bingo, Dorn asks Arkadina whether she is happy that her son is a writer. She responds, “You know, I haven’t read it yet. Have no time to spare” (“Представьте, я еще не читала. Все некогда.”) Ibid., 289. The timing of the dialog is crucial to understanding the extent of Arkadina’s indifference: if she even remotely cared for her son, she could have read some of his work instead of playing bingo. 406 After Arkadina refuses to spare even a small sum of her money for betterign her son’s condition after his suicide, the following dialog ensues: 148 dividing the world into black and white, Chekhov shows how his countrymen’s kenotic bias

fails to bring about harmony, and how the kenotic behaviors of some allow for the flourishing of

those who are not afraid to grab and hold on to their possessions.

In his usual “non-judgmental, detached and reserved”407 tone, Chekhov demonstrates the real-

life implications of kenotic living, and the resulting picture is far from the harmony than

kenoticists have hoped to generate. Neither teaching nor preaching, unlike his celebrated

predecessors, Chekhov draws ample pictures of prosaic kenosis, inviting his readers to judge for

themselves.

“SORIN. [Whistles] Very well. Forgive me, darling; don't be angry. I believe you. You are a noble, generous woman. ARKADINA. [through tears] I really have no money! SORIN. If I had any money, of course, I would give him some myself, but I have nothing, not even five kopeks. […] ARKADINA. Yes, I have some money, but I am an actress; my outfits alone have driven me bankrupt. SORIN. You are kind and sweet… I respect you… Yes… But again, I don’t feel well… [He staggers] I am dizzy. [He leans against the table] I feel faint, and all.” (“ С о р и н (насвистывает). Так-с. Прости, милая, не сердись. Я тебе верю... Ты великодушная, благородная женщина. А р к а д и н а (сквозь слезы). Нет у меня денег! С о р и н . Будь у меня деньги, понятная вещь, я бы сам дал ему, но у меня ничего нет, ни пятачка. […] А р к а д и н а . Да, у меня есть деньги, но ведь я артистка; одни туалеты разорили совсем. С о р и н . Ты добрая, милая... Я тебя уважаю... Да... Но опять со мною что-то того... (Пошатывается.) Голова кружится. (Держится за стол.) Мне дурно и все.”) Ibid., 274. 407 Gottlieb, Preface, xxxii. 149 C h a p t e r 4

SECULAR KENOSIS AND SOCIALIST REALISM

It is tempting to perceive Soviet literature as the epitome of literary kenoticism: it is saturated with descriptions of self-emptying and rhetoric that glorifies such activity. A number of authors who have noted Soviet literature’s preoccupation with self-emptying come from the psychoanalytical school of literary criticism, and therefore tend to explain the phenomenon is psychoanalytical terms. Thus, Lilya Kaganovsky, who writes about the literature and film of the

Stalinist era and focuses on self-emptying in the bodily realm, describes the phenomenon as the

“masochistic relationship of the Soviet subject to the state”408. Kaganovsky concentrates on the outcome of physical self-emptying and conceptualizes it as the state of castration, which Soviet literary tropes venerate as the preferable mode of masculinity409. Igor’ Smirnov410 and Daniel

Rancour-Laferriere411 also describe Soviet culture as masochistic or, occasionally, “kenotic”, using the two words as synonymic412.

408 Lilya Kaganovsky. How the Soviet Man was Un-Made. 18. 409 Kaganovsky writes, “in its attempts to articulate the “coming-into-being” of the new Soviet man, socialist realism (governed by the ideological fantasy of which it is the discursive expression) produces a mangled or mutilated (male) body as frequently as it produces the hyperbolically healthy and strong Stalinist man”, see Kaganovsky, 38. Stalinist art, she continues, “calls upon the male subject to see himself, and the female subject to recognize and desire him, not through the mediation of images of unimpaired masculinity, but through images of “castration”, see Kaganovsky, 21. 410 In his book Psychodiachronology, Igor’ Smirnov divides the history of Russian culture into six great paradigms, and relates each of the six paradigms to a specific type of neurosis. Smirnov assigns the following neuroses to the following literary movements: Romanticism (Pushkin and Gogol) - castration anxiety (interesting – Kaganovsky ascribes this neurosis to Socialist realism); Realism (Dostoevsky) - Oedipus complex; Symbolism - hysteria; avant- garde – sadism; totalitarian culture – masochism; postmodernism - narcissism and schizophrenia combined. 411 Daniel Rancour-Laferriere. The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering. New York, 1995. 412 While Rancour-Laferriere discusses masochism in Soviet literature in the context of Russia’s masochistic culture in the longue durée, Smirnov singles out the Soviet period as characteristically masochistic. In his review of Smirnov’s Psychodiachronology, Mikhail Yampolsky points out an important flaw in Smirnov’s argument: “The attempts to describe certain types of culture in terms of psychological predisposition […] contradict the principle of rather rapid substation of one type of “fixation” by another. Why do masochists suddenly come en masse to replace 150 Whether emptying out always equates suffering - thus rendering kenoticism and

masochism synonymic - is a separate question and a subject for another study. Yet, even if one

accepts the terms’ synonymy, another inconsistency poses a problem in applying the terms to

Soviet literature: kenoticism and masochism describe the phenomena of finding satisfaction in

the process (of emptying out and suffering, respectively), while Soviet literature heavily

emphasized the goal.

The purposefulness of Socialist Realist literature existed on two planes: first, this literary

mode articulated the goal-oriented Soviet ideology, and second, the literature itself had a goal: it

served as a tool for engineering human souls. Therefore, although Socialist Realist ideologists

tirelessly emphasized the importance of evoking the Russian cultural predilection for secular

kenosis and incorporating it into Soviet literature (and Soviet writers followed their counsel), a

tension persevered between the uninterested essence of kenosis and the idea of purpose which

Socialist Realism imposed on it.

The Soviet state, disadvantaged in terms of material wealth and burdened by grandiose goals,

sought to utilize the kenotic potential of its people as a resource for strengthening its position413.

Socialist Realism, created as a purposeful tool for affecting the consciousness of Soviet

population, glorified emptying out in all planes of existence. The Socialist Realism canonical

novel – Nikolai Ostrovskii’s How the Steel Was Tempered – portrays Pavel Korchagin, a

protagonist who tirelessly empties himself of his effort, health and, eventually, life. In How the

Soviet Man was Un-Made, Kaganovsky summarizes “the New Soviet Man” of Socialist realist

sadists? Smirnov does not answer this question”, see Mikhail Yampolsky. Igor’ Smirnov’s Psychodiachronology. Review. Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 223-224. 413 Soviet ideologists learned their lesson from Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who said, “Важнейший капитал нации – нравственные качества народа”; a 1987 Soviet collection of quotations under the title Wisdom of the Centuries - to Youth includes this quote in its introductory article, see Gavrikov and Gavrikov, 18. 151 literature as “a heroic invalid, always ready to give a “little more of himself” to the party.”414

Smirnov shows how many heroes of the genre, including the archetype of the Soviet man - Pavel

Korchagin, efface themselves totally in order to carry out instructions from on high or to fulfill

“the plan” dictated by revolutionary authority.

Soviet literary criticism singled out the kenotic potential of the Soviet people as a valuable

resource that set Soviets apart from other nations. Writing about a Soviet writer Vasil’ Bykov, a

Soviet critic Dedkov claims that the very essence of his highly popular war fiction consists in his

ability to portray the Soviet man’s spiritual readiness for self-emptying: “[Bykov writes] …

about the spirituality of the Soviet man, who does not hesitate to sacrifice himself in the name of

liberating the peaceful people.”415 According to Dedkov, Bykov sees beyond the universal

clichés - the supposed physical strength of Slavs, the proverbial breadth of the Russian soul –

and foregrounds Soviet people’s real basis for superiority: their moral capacity for self-sacrifice.

Along with popularizing self-emptying through art, Socialist realism worked on creating a cult

of real life heroes who did not simply commit admirable feats, but who sacrificed their lives in

the process. This league of secular martyrs, ubiquitously popularized and venerated by Soviet

culture, includes Nikolai Gastello, the first Soviet pilot to conduct a "fire taran" - a suicide attack

by an aircraft on a ground target. In an article dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory in WWII, a Russian website Smi.ru published an article about Gastello, which opens with the following statement of the hero’s (possibly former) omnipresent fame:

About twenty years ago, any Soviet school pupil, woken up in the middle of the night, would answer the question “Who is Gastello?” without thinking twice: “It’s a pilot who

414 Kaganovsky, 18. 415 “[Быков пишет] …не о физической стойкости и многотерпении славянина, не о ратной удали его и широте души, не о фанатической ярости, упорстве, но об одухотворённости советского человека, не жалеющего себя во имя освобождения мирного человека.” Dedkov, 181. 152 directed his burning plane into the midst of the Fascist invaders, thus applying a decisive blow to the forces of the enemy.”416

Further in this chapter, I will show that the image of a fighter pilot who refuses to save his life by

jumping out of a burning plane, and chooses, instead, to die in a kamikaze-like attack, has

become one of the beloved images of Russian war art. Even in the twenty-first century, Russians

still opt to spend their spare time dwelling on this image, and select it to embody their

understanding of moral beauty for their children.

Another name as renowned as that of Nikolai Gastello is Zoia Kosmodemianskaia, the first

woman to become a Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. In 1941, a month

after eighteen-year-old Zoia joined the guerilla movement and before she had an opportunity to

contribute anything significant to it, she was captured by the Nazi, tortured, and hanged417.

According to Kosmodemianskaia’s biography and a newspaper article published shortly after her

death, during the last minutes of her life, Zoia urged the crowd of villagers to join in the fight

against fascism; in particular, she is documented as saying, “This death of mine – it is my

achievement.”418 Her story inspired literary and visual works of art; at least thirteen cities

erected monuments to Zoia Kosmodemianskaia; and many Soviet towns and cities named streets

after her. Sociologist Kara-Murza offers the following explanation for why Zoia became the

most important one among numerous Soviet female heroes:

The thing is, she was a martyr, who had no satisfaction from military achievement at the time of death […]. And public consciousness, independently of the official propaganda,

416 “Лет двадцать пять назад любой советский школьник, разбуженный среди ночи, на вопрос "Кто такой Гастелло?" мог без запинки ответить: "Это летчик, который направил свой объятый пламенем самолет в самую гущу фашистских захватчиков, нанеся тем самым существенный урон противнику". ”See Легенды Великой Отечественной. Николай Гастелло. Smi.ru. 21 февраля 2005. The Internet: http://www.smi.ru/05/02/21/3321925.html. Accessed May 8, 2009. 417 Горинов М.М. Зоя Космодемьянская (1923-1941). Отечественная история, 2003. 418 “Эта моя смерть — это моё достижение.” 153 selected no one else but her, and included her in the Pantheon of holy martyrs. And her image, having separated itself from the actual biography, started serving as one of the foundation stones of our people’s self-identity.419

Kara-Murza recognizes the story of Kosmodemianskaia’s as one of the cornerstones of Russian national consciousness, and underscores martyrdom as the factor that made the story especially appealing to people.

While celebrating and glorifying self-emptying, Soviet ideology only deemed it acceptable if it satisfied the condition of pursuing an ideologically correct purpose. If someone appreciated a behavior as valuable in its own right - independently of its goal – Soviet ideology disapproved this attitude and deemed it ideologically alien. Soviet ideology declared it to be reactionary to act in a certain way simply because acting so satisfied one’s moral feeling; the very notion of morality came under attack. In its overview of the role of ethics in the twentieth-century literary debate, Kuzmichev writes,

The numerous declarations and literary manifestoes of those years declare what you will, except for the attitude towards the ethics. Ethics and morals are never mentioned. [...] And in those cases when morals are mentioned, this concept usually has negative connotations; ethics are seen as a stipulation on the way to new life.420

A Soviet writer and pedagogue Ognev announced morality to be the chief cause of suffering of the masses:

419 “дело в том, что она была мученицей, не имевшей в момент смерти утешения от воинского успеха […]. И народное сознание, независимо от официальной пропаганды, именно ее выбрало и включило в пантеон святых мучеников. И ее образ, отделившись от реальной биографии, стал служить одной из опор самосознания нашего народа.” Kara-Murza, S. G. Manipuliatsiia soznaniem. Moskva: Algoritm, 2000. 158. 420 “Многочисленные декларации и литературные манифесты тех лет декларируют что угодно, только не отношение к морали. О морали и нравственности не упоминается. […] В тех же случаях, когда упоминалось о морали, с этим понятием, как правило, связывали отрицательное содержание, на мораль смотрели как на препятствие на пути к новой жизни.” Kuzmichev, 27. 154 ...the main suffering of the masses, the largest obstacle on the way to new life, is these outdated-template ethics. It is impossible to step over this obstacle; it has to be taken by assault. … So, to these ethics, to their origin, to their foundation, to all this I, as a writer and as a socialist, declare a relentless war.421

It is probably possible to explain the extreme tonality of this statement by the radical spirit of

1920s, when it was written; however, documents of the later Soviet period reveal a comparably peculiar view vis-à-vis morality. A 1986 textbook for school teachers and university professors,

Moral Foundations of Soviet Literature, raves against the “deeply alien” bourgeois understanding of socialism as based on moral values, or as a system where “a human being has to treat other human beings as a goal, and never as a means.”422 The textbook condemns such “bourgeois” view of socialism as foreign, and points out that the correct way of looking at self-sacrifice is to focus on its overarching goal: the liberation of other nations from the bonds of capitalism and the construction of the unified Communist world for future generations. Focusing on the individual or on present-day humanity, in contrast, brought one dangerously close to individualism, which, in the Soviet rhetoric, was a curse word to the same extent to which communism was a curse

word in the United States. Therefore, from the point of view of Soviet ideology, kenotic actions

– seemingly contrary to the very idea of individual benefit – lost their validity if committed for

their own value and not for the advancement of the officially sanctioned goals.

What if acting kenotically simply made Soviet citizens happy? Soviet ideology deemed this

justification inappropriate. Even highly private aspects of one’s life, such as individual

happiness, had to be sanctified by social goals. In the introduction to a Soviet collection of

421 “…главное страдание массы, самая высокая цитадель на пути к новой жизни, это – пра-пратрафаретная мораль. Эту цитадель не перешагнёшь, её надо брать штурмом... Так вот, этой морали, её родине, её фундаменту, - я как писатель и социалист объявляю беспощадную войну.” The quote from N. Ognev’s artistic statement is quoted in Kuzmichev, 27. 422 “человек должен относиться к человеку и человечеству как к цели и никогда как к средству.” Kuzmichev, 11. 155 quotations Wisdom of the Centuries - to Youth, the authors remind their readers how to understand happiness correctly:

There are many paths to happiness, but all of them have to be located within the limits of public morals. Under any conditions, personal happiness outside of the society is impossible. Only realizing one’s usefulness for other people makes the feeling of happiness a stable condition.423

In a typical Socialist realist manner, this descriptively-phrased idea is prescriptive in its function: rather than reflecting the multiplicity of ways in which people understand happiness, it takes the officially sanctioned definition and poses it as the only one.

This idea of approving a psychologically rewarding behavior only if it is coupled with the correct intellectually-conceived justification relates to the second stipulation that Soviet ideologists encountered while incorporating kenosis into Soviet ideology: the Communist doctrine of the primacy of consciousness. The question of consciousness permeated Soviet philosophical writing to the extent that it trickled down into daily rhetoric. For example, a harmless alcoholic or adulterer could find himself in a public hearing facing charges for the lack of proper consciousness424. The Communist Party urged educators to impart the right consciousness to Soviet children; thus, the Soviet Union Communist Party Central Committee’s decree On the general direction of school reforms states:

All the efforts […] have to focus on raising convinced fighters for Communism, patriots and internationalists, on instilling in students high civic and ethical qualities,

423 “Пути достижения счастья многообразны, но все они должны находиться в пределах общественной нравственности. И при любых условиях счастье личности вне общества невозможно. Лишь сознание своей полезности другим людям делает ощущение счастья устойчивым состоянием.” K Chitateliu, Gavrikov and Gavrikov, 5. 424 A good example of the extent to which the “consciousness” rhetoric infiltrated the daily Soviet culture is a scene from a popular musical comedy Diamond Hand (1969), in which a building manager (paled by Nonna Mordiukova) berates the protagonist suspected of adultery (Yuri Nikulin) for lacking the right consciousness. 156 collectivism, […] and implacability towards views and tastes which are alien to our way of life.425

The decree urges educators to concentrate their efforts on instilling ideologically correct views

and tastes into Soviet children and youth, and on equipping them with a repertoire of

ideologically correct rhetoric to explain their actions and check them against the main Party

line.426

Soviet ideology shifted emphasis from the moral value of kenosis (typical for 19th-century

Russian views) and placed it on the anticipation of reward: the eventual reign of Communism.

However, this shift contradicted the very essence of kenosis as Russian culture understood it.

Dostoevsky emphasized that only unconscious, spontaneous kenosis is genuine; not only awareness of a goal, but even consciousness of acting kenotically ruins the value of kenosis.

Since purposefulness ruins the value of kenosis, it is impossible to orchestrate it:

Surely, this is rather like trying not to think of a polar bear. Try and set yourself the problem of not thinking about a polar bear and you will see that the damned animal will

425 “Все усилия [...] должны быть сосредоточены на том, чтобы воспитывать убеждённых борцов за коммунизм, патриотов и интернационалистов, прививать учащимся высокие гражданские и нравственные качества, коллективизм, [...] непримиримость к чуждым нашему образу жизни взглядам и вкусам.” Quoted in Kuzmichev, 3. 426 In an ironic twist of misinterpretation, the author of a teacher’s manual supports his advice to instill the right consciousness into children by citing Lenin, who wrote about the “ability to generate Communist views independently” (“Уменье вырабатывать самим коммунистические взгляды”), see Lenin, V.I. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Volume 41. 313. Quoted in Kuzmichev, 3. Quoting Lenin, of course, was a staple of Soviet writing, but in this case, Lenin’s comment undermines the Soviet rhetoric, since the former focuses on developing the views from within and not on receiving them from without. Lenin emphasized the independent formation of communist views: a pattern that led nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia to revolutionary beliefs. By learning about life, independently analyzing the facts and scrutinizing the findings through the prism of their ethical principles, the Russian nineteenth-century intelligentsia arrived at deeply felt conclusions that deemed their contemporary societal structure ethically unacceptable and sought revolution as a path to justice. Convinced in the truthfulness and universality of his views, Lenin seems to believe that a thoroughly educated person unavoidably arrives at Socialist views. He trusts education to prepare people for making the right conclusions by themselves. The Soviet teachers’ manual, on the other hand, urges teachers to force-feed ready-made conclusions to their students. What was a deeply felt moral question for Lenin becomes an artificially learned ideology for Soviet teachers and their students. Teachers are invited to take a shortcut and, instead of teaching children to think for themselves, provide them with ready-made conclusions which could not be discussed, let alone challenged. 157 be constantly in your thoughts. What can we do then? We can do nothing; it must be done of itself…427

Thus, Socialist realism was seeking what Dostoevsky warned was impossible to achieve: supplementing the Russian cultural predilection for kenosis with a useful purpose and turning it into a philosophical position.

The Party’s decrees could affect the direction of people’s thinking, but they could not completely erase a phenomenon that had existed in the culture for over a century. As a result,

Socialist Realist literature and film featured both types of self-emptying: those carried out for a goal, and those motivated by their own value. Often, authors would evoke people’s taste for kenosis, describe a kenotic act, revel on it, and then quickly ascribe a goal to it. To avoid charges for “ideological alienation”, they would make sure not to leave the goal’s formulation too far off from the description of the act. Occasionally, however, unsanctioned, purposeless kenosis would break through and make a piece of art spike in popularity despite the lack of rational justification for the depicted self-emptying.

Soviet War Art: a Sacred Cult

While the theme of self-emptying permeates Soviet art of all movements and genres, Soviet war fiction and film, in particular, abound in portrayals of self-sacrificial behavior. This is not surprising, since war fiction is a naturally favorable environment for the theme: war provides ample opportunities for emptying out and couples these opportunities with a noble purpose. War fiction of many cultures focuses on examples of “heroic conduct, especially as exhibited in fulfilling a high purpose or attaining a noble end” - the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition

427 “Ведь это все равно, что не вспоминать о белом медведе. Попробуйте задать себе задачу: не вспоминать о белом медведе, и увидите, что он, проклятый, будет поминутно припоминаться. Как же сделать? Сделать никак нельзя, а надо, чтоб оно само собой сделалось…” Ibid., 86. 158 of heroism428. Against the background of universally present art dealing with heroism,

Soviet war fiction and film are idiosyncratic in two main ways: they often foreground the sacrifice rather than its result, and they continue to attract an unusually large amount of lasting interest among the Soviet populace.

In his 1983 study The Russians and Their Favorite Books, a German scholar Klaus Mehnert

comments on the surprising popularity of war fiction among Russians:

Only a minority of today’s Russians have personal memories of the Second World War. […] soon four decades will have passed since the war ended in Europe and in the Pacific. Yet the World War II novel still holds a surprisingly powerful attraction for Russian readers. This […] surprise is especially striking in view of the rapid disappearance of this literary genre in the West. […] What is surprising is the extraordinary fascination war novels have for readers, including the [sic] young ones. Nobody forces people to read them; moreover, the books are very hard to find, and the endless repetition of the war theme in poetry, novels, and sketches published in the vast array of Soviet periodicals might have, one could think, rather the effect of overfeeding than of appetizing.429

Mehnert goes on to note that “[a]mong the most popular Soviet authors, five have made their names with war stories […]. Eight others gave the war much space in their works…”430.

According to Mehnert, fascination with the war theme was so ubiquitous, “even among women”431, that his respondents found it difficult to understand his question when he asked them why they liked reading about war.

It is understandable why the four-year-long Great Patriotic War, which affected nearly every family in the Soviet Union, inspired a great amount of literary reflections immediately following

428 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heroism 429 Mehnert, 220-21. 430 Ibid., 221. 431 Ibid., 222. 159 the event. Mehnert points out that many writers who wrote about war had fought in it. Yet, most amazingly, the influx of war fiction did not subside decades after the war was over, even as generations of WWII veterans died out. The theme still held enough emotional charge to inspire new original work and strong audience response to it.

One possible interpretation could explain the prominent role of the war theme in Soviet culture by the effort that the state invested in popularizing and glorifying the theme. Soviet leaders rightly understood the enormous nation-building potential of the Great Patriotic War and exploited it to its maximum. An impoverished nation burdened by the grief of having lost millions of its citizens, returning to ruins in the place of its cities432, needed an elevating idea to help build the morale. The morale was necessary to survive in the Soviet Union’s nearly solitary battle for Communism. One solution would have been to concentrate on the future and try to forget the horrors of the past; but since the war was almost unarguably a battle against evil which ended in victory, Soviet leadership chose to remember it, and, furthermore, to turn this memory into a cult. War monuments, some of them truly colossal, were erected in every Soviet city and town; the Eternal Flame commemorating WWII victims became an inevitable attribute of every town or village; ubiquitously, streets were renamed after war heroes, and Victory Day became one of the nation’s favorite holidays.433

While few would argue that the Soviet government stoked the Great Patriotic War cult, it is less unambiguous whether the cult’s usefulness for the regime was its only reason d’être. If

432 The Fascist army destroyed as much as 97% of buildings in some Soviet cities; in some towns that experienced severe fighting, for example, the Hero City Novorossiisk (with a current population of half a million), fewer than ten building survived the war intact. 433 Utilization of war’s nation-building potential is not unique to the Soviet Union. Sociologist Appadurai shows that not only defensive war, but even organized violence against minorities is an effective means of strengthening the nation by mobilizing “full attachment” among its members. Appadurai summarizes his argument in a sad aphorism, “genocide, after all, is an exercise in community-building”, see Appadurai, 7. 160 organized efforts towards the cult’s popularization were required for its maintenance, then one would expect a backlash in public opinion once the state eased its ideological pressure.

Writing in 1983, Mehnert predicted that the Soviet Public’s interest in war themes would soon recede. One would expect his prediction to have become even truer due to the drastic social changes that took place in the former Soviet Union several years later: the state that was immediately interested in fostering its image collapsed, ideology lost its basis, and pressing economic concerns absorbed the attention of political structures and individuals alike.

Yet, the WWII theme has retained its position as the nation’s cherished subject well into twenty-first century. A popular website YouTube – whose count of views, system of ratings, and comments sections are convenient tools for the study of reception - abounds in Russian WWII films, painstakingly uploaded by enthusiasts in short fragments as recently as 2009. Some episodes have attracted as many as 104,442 views434; comment sections are filled with fan messages. For instance, an episode from Leonid Bykov’s 1973 film about WWII fighter pilots,

Only Veterans Go to Battle435, posted in March 2008, earned an average of five full stars from eighty nine ratings and thirty three positive comments, some of them posted as recently as May

2009.

The Great Patriotic War theme seems one of the last spheres where many contemporary

Russians – generally cynical and jaded - still feel comfortable using a solemn rhetoric appropriate for an unambiguously venerated subject. On the eve of the 2009 Victory Day, a

Russian-language e-greetings website Otkritka.com emailed its users reminding them to send

Victory Day e-cards. The email described the holiday that celebrated the memory of the Great

434 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epm6FP54Cec 435 В бой идут одни старики. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTQFxu4Wcxo 161 World War as sacred: “May 9th – Victory Day – is a holiday that is sacred to each of us, and we, our state’s citizens of today, must pass on the memory of the Victory and the traditions of celebrating Victory Day into the future.”436 Since the email aims at increasing the website’s traffic, its authors probably sought a wording most likely to resonate with the broad public and inspire people to take their time and commemorate the holiday. Apparently, Otkrytka.com’s marketing specialist considered the perception of Victory Day as “sacred” to be prevalent among the site’s users.

It is possible to ascribe some of the war theme’s persistent popularity in the former Soviet

Union to cultural inertia: Soviet ideology invested so much effort into the WWII cult that even after the efforts ceased, the theme remained active in popular consciousness. Yet, cultural inertia did not have the same effect on other themes actively popularized in the Soviet Union and abandoned upon its dissolution.

Two Soviet Popularization Campaigns: a Comparison

Just one example of a Soviet popularization campaign not followed by post-Soviet cultural inertia is the attempted cult of the three communism forefathers: Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Once the cult of Stalin no longer appeared appropriate in the face of Khrushchev’s 1956 repudiation of the Personality Cult, Soviet authorities doubled their efforts to instill Marx, Engels, and Lenin as the main objects of public veneration, admiration, and love. Their names and images became pervasive; work spaces, schools, universities, building facades and flower beds displayed numerous quotes from Marx, Engels, and Lenin along with their three aligned profiles.

436 “9 Мая - День Победы - святой для каждого из нас праздник и мы, сегодняшние граждане страны, обязаны передать память о Победе, сами традиции празднования Дня Победы в будущее.” Email to the author from Otkritka.com , May 9, 2009. 162 Throughout the Soviet period, their writings remained a required reading and citing material for all Soviets aspiring for as much as a minimal career. Authorities expected Soviet citizens to purchase each classic’s numerous volumes of complete works, display the volumes in a conspicuous place in their homes, read them regularly, and quote from them in ideological debates (which mostly consisted of a competition in ardency of agreeing with the authors). At work, people attended daily or weekly politminutki – short activist-led meetings that reviewed the teachings of the three and explained current world events through their lens. The History of

Communism - a subject devoted to the study of the trio’s teachings - was a required course for all university majors; a grade below “A” in History of Communism was a death sentence to anyone’s career437. To summarize, Soviet authorities invested a great amount of time and effort into popularizing the figures of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Yet, the impact was neither deep nor lasting.

Once the generation that conceived and carried out the revolution died out, many Soviet people’s attitude towards Marx, Engels, and Lenin became one of hypocritical consumerism.

Soviet citizens performed the expected show of devotion in order to get a good grade, a diploma, a job, and a promotion. In the meanwhile, thousands of underground writers and artists ridiculed

Marx, Engels, and Lenin in unofficial art, and millions more eagerly read, copied, and distributed what the thousands created. An even more ubiquitous genre was that of a political joke - a staple of every dinner party and elevator chat. I remember my mother coming home from work and light-heartedly sharing the new jokes that ridiculed the new General Secretary Mikhail

437 See Moskalenko. 163 Gorbachev; the jokes played on the new leader’s name (a derivative of “hump”) and

portrayed Marx, Engels, and Lenin in a highly disrespectful light.438

The state’s failure to instill the cult of Marx, Engels, and Lenin into popular consciousness

was probably not thorough; it is likely that the attempts produced a certain percentage of

individuals who genuinely venerated the Communist forefathers. However, there is a marked

difference in the degree to which the broad Soviet public internalized each of the two cults

(Marx-Engels-Lenin cult and the Great Patriotic War cult), although the function of the two cults

in the Soviet state and the efforts made by Soviet ideologists to promote them were comparable.

Once the state eased its efforts to popularize Marx, Engels, and Lenin, a tremendous backlash

followed: collected works immediately migrated from living rooms to recycling centers439 and most monuments came down. Today, even Marx’s universally recognized contribution to philosophy and political economy fails to compel many educated Russians to stop dismissing him as clearly irrelevant, and read some of his work. The Great Patriotic War cult, on the other hand, remains alive and well today.

The difference in the post-Soviet fate of the two cults suggests that propaganda was not the only factor that sustained the Great Patriotic War’s cult in the Soviet Union. The theme itself - regardless of its usefulness for Soviet leadership - must have held a certain appeal for the broad

438 Russian jokes – anekdoty – are a potent tool for the study of public opinion unmediated by the official structures. In her study of popular jokes, Christie Davies writes, “we should collect jokes extensively and examine them intensively, for they can provide us with insights about the societies in which we live that we could not gain in any other way”, see Davies, 9. Interestingly, among a great variety of topics covered in anekdoty, none involve the Great Patriotic War (the only exception is jokes about Shtirlits – a character of a popular Soviet series 17 Moments of Spring about a Soviet spy in Fascist Germany). Another subject conspicuously absent from Russian humor is Mother; its absence is especially noticeable in contrast to the American “Your Mother” series. As Joanna Hubbs points out in Mother Russia: the Feminine Myth in Russian Culture, Mother is a sacred subject in Russian culture; the sacred status makes it taboo for ridiculing. It is interesting that the Great Patriotic War, which is, I argue, another sacred subject for Russians, is also exempt from the realm of popular humor. 439 As a means of fighting paper shortages, the government invented a system where one could receive a deficit volume by a desirable writer, like Fenimore Cooper, or Francoise Sagan, in exchange for every ten volumes submitted to a recycling center. 164 Soviet public; it is the type of appeal that remains relevant even as the public is becoming gradually less Soviet. An obvious explanation is that war is simply more exciting of a topic for public imagination than the faded Marx-Engels-Lenin. The exciting nature of the topic, however, is significantly undermined by the fact that the Great Patriotic War is a subject of great sadness. Its memory involves enormous and unprecedented losses, leveled cities, tortures, mass executions of women and children, starvation and cannibalism in blockaded Leningrad.

Compared to this emotionally draining subject, the Soviet rendition of Marx-Engels-Lenin - with their confidence-boosting message that Soviet Russia is progressive and superior - is incomparably more uplifting. Nevertheless, Russians choose to remember the Great Patriotic

War, and not Marx-Engels-Lenin. While reasons that contribute to this state of affairs are doubtlessly numerous and diverse, the comparison between the two Soviet campaigns shows that the state’s efforts at popularization are not sufficient to create a lasting cult. Thus, the Great

Patriotic War cult cannot be explained by the state’s popularizing efforts alone.

The Russian-Style Heroism: It Is All About Losing

Russians’ persistent affection for the Great Patriotic War would be more understandable to outsiders if in their recollections of the event – literary and otherwise – they focused on the victorious moments. However, this is not the case. Mehnert notes the unusual emphasis of

Soviet war literature: “There is heroism, of course, for without it there can be no war, but more of the heartbreaking than of the grand opera type.”440 I argue that the “heartbreaking” emphasis of popular Soviet war art – in other words, its concentration on loss rather than gain – is a result of popular choice rather than ideological push. Soviet authorities were naturally interested in

440 Mehnert, 222. 165 focusing on the state’s achievement rather than the tremendous price that the people paid for

it. The latter issue was, in fact, potentially problematic as it raised the question of whether the

enormous losses were unavoidable, and whether the Soviet government had done enough to

protect its people. The Soviet public, however, persistently chose the painful portrayals of loss

over the celebratory panegyrics.

This tendency to emphasize loss rather than gain harks back to the traditional Russian

understanding of podvig. The contemporary Russian word podvig is usually translated as exploit

or feat, but Stephan Graham’s 1915 study defines Russian podvig as “an act of denial”441. In his book The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary (a cross breed between a travelogue and an early

attempt at cultural anthropology), Graham claims that “Russian Christianity is sharply in contrast

with Western Christianity in the characteristic idea of denial of “the world,” as opposed to our

Western idea of accepting the world and “making the best of it.”442 Graham illustrates the notion

of podvig with the following examples:

The act of Jesus on the mountain denying the road that led to the empire of the world in favour of the road that led to an ignoble death is a podvig – denial of the world. “Turning the other cheek” is a podvig – denial of material power. Going two miles with the man who forces you to go one is a podvig. Mary, breaking the precious box of alabaster which might have been sold in aid of the poor, accomplished a podvig. Simon Stylites, standing on the pillar when he might have been doing “useful work in the world,” was a podvizhnik.443

Apparently, what Graham describes as “denial” can be also articulated as “self-emptying”: the

archetypical self-emptying of Jesus; self-emptying of pride and self-interest by turning the other

cheek and walking an extra mile; emptying oneself of material resources (the precious box of

441 Graham, 111. 442 Ibid., 111. 443 Ibid., 111-12. Graham defines a podvizhnik as “a man who does some great act of denial”, Ibid., 111. 166 alabaster) and physical resources (Simon Stylites’s not doing “useful work in the world”).

None of the examples chosen by Graham to illustrate the notion of podvig convey achievement; each example conveys loss.

Graham claims that in Russia, the idea of podvig is “so pervasive, so characteristic, that I would call it an extra letter in the alphabet of Russian philosophy”444. To illustrate the idea’s pervasiveness, Graham cites a Russian saying, “blessed is he who can escape and yet chooses to take the punishment the world would give him”445. This sentiment, which has apparently driven many of Graham’s contemporaries to dub Russian culture “the culture of suffering”446, has a different meaning in the context of Russian traditional understanding of podvig. Graham clarifies the meaning of suffering by referring to Russian religion: “‘The religion of suffering’ does not mean ‘suffering for its own sake’, but rather the religion of not avoiding suffering, not avoiding or trying to avoid destiny. The religion of the podvig.”447 This statement evokes considerations about Russia’s patron saints, Boris and Gleb, and their controversial canonization, sanctified by nothing - other than their self-emptying. In the light of Graham’s observations,

Boris and Gleb’s act is an easily understood podvig.

Graham’s observations on Russia’s idiosyncratic understanding of podvig elucidates the unusual emphasis on loss and suffering in Soviet WWII literature. It is unlikely that Soviet writers consciously connected their renderings of WWII events with the religious connotations of podvig, but the conscious correlation is irrelevant. While writing about the WWII heroism,

Soviet writers automatically turned to their understanding of what heroism is, and thus became

444 Ibid., 115. 445 Ibid., 112. 446 Worded in more fashionable psychoanalytical terms, such as “masochism”, the idea remains popular in today’s Slavic scholarship; see The Introduction. 447 Graham, 114. 167 influenced by the notion of podvig as denial of the world, or self-emptying. Occasionally, in response to the official ideology’s demands, Soviet writers tried to portray a different, happy, achievement-based exploit, but their readers ignored these attempts, and sought and savored the heart-breaking portrayals of self-emptying podvig.

A Crying Soldier and His Futile Exploit

An example of a work that gained popularity despite the fact that it lacked a celebratory attitude and official reinforcement, and expressed painful futility instead of noble purposefulness is

Mikhail Isakovskii’s poem The Enemy Burned His Native Hut448. The 1945 poem, which became one of the best-loved war songs, narrates the story of a soldier who comes back from the war to find his house burned down and his family murdered. After fantasizing about the celebratory feast he had hoped to find upon his return home, the soldier sits down at his wife’s grave and drinks alone the wine with which he had hoped to celebrate his victory. The last stanza offers the image of the victorious Soviet soldier crying in the face of his disappointed hopes, alone, with the symbol of unneeded sacrifice on his chest:

Khmelel soldat, sleza katilas’

Sleza nesbyvshikhsia nadezhd,

I na grudi ego svetilas’

Zvezda za gorod Budapesht.

(The soldier was getting drunk, a tear was rolling / A tear of unrealized hopes, / And a medal for the liberation of Budapest / Was shining on his chest.)449

448 Vragi sozhgli rodnuiu khatu. 449 The full text of the poem: Враги сожгли родную хату, Сгубили всю его семью. 168 The medal for the liberation of Budapest on the crying soldier’s chest became the poem’s death sentence in the eyes of Soviet propaganda. It created an image of a futile exploit: while the soldier was fighting for a foreign city in a far-away land, his loved ones had already been

Куда ж теперь идти солдату, Кому нести печаль свою?

Пошел солдат в глубоком горе На перекресток двух дорог, Нашел солдат в широком поле Травой заросший бугорок.

Стоит солдат — и словно комья Застряли в горле у него. Сказал солдат: «Встречай, Прасковья, Героя — мужа своего.

Готовь для гостя угощенье, Накрой в избе широкий стол, — Свой день, свой праздник возвращенья К тебе я праздновать пришел...»

Никто солдату не ответил, Никто его не повстречал, И только теплый летний ветер Траву могильную качал.

Вздохнул солдат, ремень поправил, Раскрыл мешок походный свой, Бутылку горькую поставил На серый камень гробовой.

«Не осуждай меня, Прасковья, Что я пришел к тебе такой: Хотел я выпить за здоровье, А должен пить за упокой.

Сойдутся вновь друзья, подружки, Но не сойтись вовеки нам...» И пил солдат из медной кружки Вино с печалью пополам.

Он пил — солдат, слуга народа, И с болью в сердце говорил: «Я шел к тебе четыре года, Я три державы покорил...»

Хмелел солдат, слеза катилась, Слеза несбывшихся надежд, И на груди его светилась Медаль за город Будапешт. 169 murdered in his homeland. Moreover, the battle of Budapest was in itself a symbol of an

enormous sacrifice. It was the longest450 and the third most costly WWII operation for the

Soviet Union in terms of human resources: according to official resources, the Soviet army lost

320,000 people – almost as many as the number of people who survived the battle and received

commemorative medals451. Furthermore, historians suggest that the enormous losses were not unavoidable:

The losses could have been significantly smaller, but the night before October 29, Stalin ordered Malinovsky over the phone to start the offensive on Budapest immediately and liberate it by November 7. The Marshall asked for five days of rest for the exhausted army, but Stalin slammed the phone received. As the Marshall predicted, it proved impossible to liberate the city at once; the operation took longer than planned.452

Isakovskii’s character did not fit the image of a victorious Soviet soldier that Soviet propaganda wanted the Soviet people to internalize. Immediately after the poem’s publication in a 1946 issue of a journal Znamia, the Communist Party Central Committee’s newspaper Kul’tura i

Zhizn’ attacked Isakovskii for spreading pessimistic attitudes; the poem was blacklisted:

The crying soldier in no way coincided with the image of a triumphant winner, which was the only image known in the Soviet lyrical poetry of 1945 […]. In this context, mentioning Budapest - liberating which came at a cost of great losses – meant violating the ideological iconostasis. The poem started to get expelled from collections, anthologies, reviews.453

450 the operation continued from December 27, 1944 until February 13, 1945, see Minakov. 451 350,000 Soviet soldiers received the medal for the conquest of Budapest, see Minakov. 452 “Потери могли быть намного меньшими, но Сталин накануне 29 октября отдал по телефону приказ Малиновскому немедленно начать наступление на Будапешт и взять его к 7 ноября. Маршал попросил на отдых измотанной армии 5 дней, но генералиссимус швырнул трубку. Как и предполагал командующий фронтом, с ходу взять город не удалось, операция затянулась.” Minakov. 453 “плачущий солдат никак не совпадал с образом торжествующего победителя, которого только и знала в 1945 году советская лирика […], но помянуть в таком контексте Будапешт, взятие которого, как известно, стоило больших потерь, — значило еще и задеть идеологический иконостас. Стихотворение стало вылетать из сборников, антологий, обзоров.” Ibid. 170 Soviet ideologists lifted the ban against the song only after Stalin’s death.

Yet, in spite of the poem’s heartbreaking portrayal of pain and futility, and the official measures that the state took against the text (or perhaps because of them), it gained enormous popularity with the Soviet public. Matvei Blanter put the poem to music, and The Enemy Burned

His Native Hut became one of the most popular WWII songs, performed with a guitar accompaniment at unofficial social gatherings throughout the Soviet Union. Fourteen years after the original publication, the text reentered the official sphere when the Soviet Union’s most beloved singer Mark Bernes performed it:

In 1960, at a Moscow music-hall show “When Stars Light Up”, the singer performed the song in front of a large audience that filled the Green Theater of Gorky Park in the mood for an entertaining spectacle. After the very first lines, the audience grew absolutely quiet; at the end of the song, a long ovation followed.454

It is interesting that the audience received the song warmly despite the ostensibly inappropriate setting: a music-hall performance promised light entertainment, not a heartbreaking portrayal of irrevocable loss that still held personal implications for most of the listeners. One would expect the painful message of the text to clash with the joyous atmosphere of a music-hall, but it did not happen. In spite of its “pessimism”, the central theme of the song – that of a tremendous loss - had aesthetic properties that made it appealing to the broad Soviet public, thus granting it a place in a popular entertainment program. The song retains its popularity until today; a 2005 Russian article describes it as a vsenarodno chtimyi shedevr (“a universally revered masterpiece”)455.

454 “В 1960 году на представлении Московского мюзик-холла «Когда зажигаются звезды» артист исполнил ее перед многочисленными зрителями, заполнившими Зеленый театр ЦПКиО им. М.Горького, настроенными на развлекательное зрелище. После первых же строк в зале установилась абсолютная тишина, закончившаяся затем овацией.” Ibid. 455 Ibid. 171 Everyone Dies Young: Russian-Style Musical Comedy

The Enemy Burned His Native Hut is a breach in Soviet propaganda: it created an image of

purposeless sacrifice and became popular in spite of the state’s efforts. On most occasions, the

state was more successful in securing a correctly defined goal for every portrayed sacrifice. The

study of popular reception, however, reveals that the broad public has often overlooked the goal

and appreciated sacrifice for its own sake. Let us look at an immensely popular Soviet film Only

Veterans Go to Battle, repeatedly described in the comments section of YouTube as the “best

WWII movie”. If not for the fact that all the main characters die at the end, the film would

qualify as a musical comedy: the characters make jokes and play pranks on each other, flirt and

fall in love, play musical instruments and sing. One of their fighter planes is decorated with a

treble clef and note signs. The discrepancy between the uplifting, entertaining mood of the film

and its tragic ending would be illustrated for American readers if one imagined a version of the

1958 musical South Pacific where all the protagonists, including the female lover and her mother, die.

The tragic message of the film does not appear to subtract from its popularity among the

Russian audience: not one comment accompanying the movie’s episodes on YouTube addresses

the subject of the unnecessarily huge losses that Russians suffered in WWII and the

irresponsibility of a government that failed to protect millions of its citizens. The authors of all

comments seem comfortable with the idea of sacrifice; moreover, it appears necessary. Out of

33 comments to just one episode of Only Veterans Go to Battle, 11 describe the film as the best

or their favorite one; and 4 address the importance of remembering the war and passing on that

memory to younger generations: “we have to remember”; “This is the best, the favorite film

about the war. Everything interlaced: sorrow and humor, love, music, courage and cowardice… 172 I know it by heart, and still, on May 9, I watch it on TV (although I owe a DVD, as well). I

seat my daughter next to myself, too: let her know…”456

Unless people who have posted these comments are in their eighties (which is highly unlikely), they have not experienced the Great Patriotic War personally. Yet, they demonstrate a strong and lasting emotional connection to the film: one respondent owns a DVD and commits to watching the film on TV when it comes on. They choose the tragic portrayals of a long-gone war as the focus of their remembrance, and the essence of their culture that they want to pass on to their children.

For the sake of provoking an illuminating response, I posted a comment to Only Veterans Go

to Battle on the YouTube site with a pseudo-naïve question: “But they all die! It’s so terrible!

Wasn’t it possible to keep them alive?” Although nothing seems insulting about this question,

other users quickly gave the comment two negative ratings, and another posted a response:

“What for? To create a fairy-tale? No… We have to remember… The war… And the price of

victory!”457 This response from a 28-year-old Russian user articulates the idea that becomes obvious after analyzing Soviet WWII art: Russians prefer remembering what they gave away

(the price) rather than what they gained (the victory).

I would argue that Russians choose works of art that dwell on loss because they see emptying- out as not only ethical, but also aesthetically valuable. One of the most popular episodes of Only

Veterans Go to Battle458, uploaded separately by several users, involves a fighter pilot, who

456 ““мы должны помнить”; “Лучший, любимый фильм о войне. Всё сплелось воедино: горе и юмор, любовь, музыка, мужество и трусость... Знаю наизусть, и все равно 9 мая смотрю по ТВ (хотя диск есть) . И дочку рядом сажаю - пусть знает...” Comments to V boi idut odni stariki. The YouTube.com. The Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTQFxu4Wcxo. Accessed May 8, 2010. 457 Comments to V boi idut odni stariki. The YouTube.com. The Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTQFxu4Wcxo&feature=related. Accessed May 8, 2010. 458 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE8Z56YjgLE&feature=related 173 dreams of becoming a professional soloist, performing a love song in front of his friends at the frontline. Half way through the song, the peaceful images of the handsome man singing, or walking under blossoming trees with a young woman, give way to those of the same man going down in a burning plane. The song is drowned out by his commanding officer’s order transmitted over the radio: “Jump, jump!”, the singer’s refusal to save himself, and the image of his plane making a kamikaze-like attack on a German train. The song is cut short; the singer dies in a podvig.

This episode is probably inspired by the real-life story of Nikolai Gastello, who was discussed at the beginning of the chapter as a cult figure of Soviet culture. The film, however, goes beyond the factual representation of the pilot’s heroic death; it frames the self-sacrificial death as an ethical and aesthetic culmination. The demonstration of the man’s promise – he is talented, he dreams of becoming a soloist, he is happy in love – makes the loss of his life even acuter. He had a lot to lose, and he chose to lose it all. The beautiful moment of music, blossoming trees, and romance ends in an apotheosis of beauty: a self-sacrificial death.

The Same War through a Different Lens: the WWII in Popular Anglophone Literature

The specificity of the Russian cultural attitude to war becomes especially apparent when contrasted with the role that the subject plays in other cultures. Visibility of the WWII theme in

American and British art is significantly smaller than in Soviet art; it is proportionate to the degree of the respective nations’ involvement and the impact the war had on them. The two

American WWII novels that still attract readers – Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s

Slaughterhouse-5 – emphasize the absurdity and foulness of war rather than celebrate its 174 heroism. While Soviet people apparently felt and continue to feel that war illuminated people’s souls and crystallized moral norms459, once the first-blush of patriotism had passed

American writers treated the war as “a world of the darkest unreality”460.

Thus, the American WWII classic, Catch-22 treats the war with “bitter and grotesque humour”461; most critics call it an “absurd or absurdist work”, where “the absurdity was not simply an anarchic comic effect but a fact of contemporary history, to which novelists were increasingly offering a response”462. The plot of the novel revolves around the protagonist trying to escape death in battle, while the entire military universe resists his attempts. The novel’s title refers to a military code stipulation that recognizes desire to avoid death as a sign of sanity, thus making honorary discharge based on mental incapacity impossible for the protagonist.

According to this regulation, most of the Soviet WWII fighters would have had to be discharged as insane, since they routinely neglected to avoid death even when it was possible to do so (for example, by jumping out of a burning plane with a parachute) and often actively sought it, even when their death contributed little to their mission’s success.

Analogous heroic clichés exist in war art of all nations; yet, marketing heroic self-annihilation in societies that do not value self-emptying runs into a fundamental contradiction. For those raised without the belief in kenosis’s aesthetic and ethical superiority, the rhetoric of war’s noble goals has a flavor of the absurd: no matter how appealing the goals may be, the prospect of individual death annihilates their value. In a society indifferent to kenosis, seeing war as absurd

459 Mehnert cites these two aspects as most common reasons that his Soviet respondents provided in explanation of their fascination with war novels. Other reasons include personal or family involvement in the war events, the exciting nature of historically authentic subject matter; or intertextual links with the beloved literary models such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, see Mehnert, 222. 460 Bradbury, XII. 461 Ibid. 462 Ibid., XV. 175 is a sign of sanity; a British scholar Bradbury describes Catch-22 as “the story of a zanily

sane man in a zanily insane military society, [which] took the conflict not as a battle with a

wicked enemy but as a struggle of individualism against conformity, and life against death.”463

The British scholar associates individualism with life, and conformity - with death; this statement

interestingly contrasts with Dostoevsky’s assertion that emptying oneself of one’s individuality

is “the greatest happiness”464 and a “heavenly joy”465. Cultural traces of this attitude – understanding kenotic death as the most intense form of life - may explain why Russians keep returning to the tragic theme of the Great Patriotic War, savoring its most painful moments.

I am going to analyze two fictional works about the Great Patriotic War that equally rely on representations of self-emptying, but differ in the degree to which they tie the self-emptying to an ideologically correct purpose. The first novel, Ivan Shamiakin’s A Market Woman and a

Poet, is a formulaic work of Socialist Realism, careful in keeping the articulation of purpose not

too far off from the description of self-emptying. In the second work, Boris Vasilev’s And

Dawns Are Quiet Here, the aesthetic and ethical value of self-emptying overshadows its purpose.

Written and turned into films within the same decade, both featuring female protagonists, the

novels enjoyed a very different reception: A Market Woman and a Poet received little attention

when first published and can be considered largely forgotten today; And Dawns Are Quiet Here,

on the other hand, is still listed as Russians’ favorite WWII novel. While various artistic

differences doubtlessly help to account for the novels’ respective fates, it is interesting to observe

that the more popular work appeals to the Russian cultural predilection for kenosis, while the less

463 Ibid. 464 Фёдор Достоевский. Записные книжки. Составление, предисловие и примечания П. Фокина. Москва: Вагриус, 2000. 33. 465 Ibid., 39. 176 popular one retains self-emptying within the ideologically-prescribed framework of purposefulness.

A Market Woman and a Poet: An Initiation Story

Written in 1977 in Belarusian and self-translated into Russian the same year466, Ivan

Shamiakin’s A Market Woman and a Poet takes place in 1941 in Minsk. One of the title characters, a young woman named Olga, makes her living selling vegetables at the market.

Scarcely educated, Olga is practical and street-smart; she is always looking for ways to make profit and accumulate more wealth for herself and her family. When Germany invades the

Soviet Union, Olga’s husband goes to war, leaving her with a young daughter. As Soviet authorities flee from advancing Nazi troops, Olga actively participates in looting; she even commits an act of marauding by taking a gun from a dead Soviet soldier. Olga becomes a ring leader in the looting business; she tirelessly goes around town collecting whatever she can find, rationalizing that she must do so to provide for her daughter. When the Fascists establish themselves in town, Olga is among the first ones to return to trading at the market.

In spite of her reluctance to get involved in a risky operation, Olga honors a friend’s request to rescue a prisoner of war from a nearby concentration camp, hoping that the presence of a man in her house will protect her from the Germans’ unwelcome advances. Claiming to be his wife,

Olga bribes out a man named Oles’; puts him back on his feet after a long illness; and falls in love with him. Oles’ – a poet and an avid patriot - deliberately works on raising Olga’s social consciousness; as Olga becomes more socially conscious, she gains sympathy for the anti-fascist

466 A Market Woman and a Poet is a good example of Socialist realist art that is national in form and Soviet in content. Although the original language of the novel was Belarusian, the novel became available to the broad Soviet readership in its Russian translation, published as a separate book edition and also as a volume of Newspaper-Novel (Роман-газета): a thick Soviet journal that published one long literary work in each issue. 177 guerilla movement, starts taking up simple tasks helping them, and gradually becomes their indispensable messenger and scout. Finally, Olga independently designs a highly perilous operation: to convince a Belarusian Fascist policeman to travel into a guerilla zone, secretly use his cart to transport dozens of grenades, and turn him in to the guerillas for execution. Poorly planned and excessively risky, the plan stumbles when a fascist convoy stops the cart to check its cargo. Having realized that her traveling companion had participated in murdering Jewish children, Olga loses her composure and blows up the cart, the policeman, the convoy, and herself.

A Market Woman and a Poet relies on what Katerina Clark describes as the Socialist Realist master plot of initiation: a symbolic elder Oles’ initiates a novice - Olga, who demonstrates her advancement by passing a series of tests, and eventually authenticates her accomplishment of a new status in the final ritual of initiation. The process of initiation consists in awakening Olga’s social consciousness, the central element of which appears to consist in the disposition to direct resources away from instead of toward herself. Reforming Olga with this goal in mind presents a challenge: her profession centers on accumulating wealth, and her chief mode of behavior involves protecting herself and her loved ones. At the beginning of their relationship, Olga’s attitude vis-à-vis resource flows compels Oles’ to dismiss her as unambiguously inferior: “he knew, that she is not the best Soviet citizen, but a market woman, a petty bourgeois.”467 Since

Oles’ perceives Soviet ideals as universal, Olga’s failure to live up to them does not only undermine her position as a good Soviet citizen, but also challenges her status as a human being:

“What is she? Who is she? A Market woman? A petty bourgeois? Or a Human Being and a

467 “знал, что не лучшая она советская гражданка – торговка, мещанка.” Shamiakin, 79. 178 Mother?”468 Oles’ resolves to reform Olga, and puts the emphasis of his soul-engineering on

changing her attitude toward accumulation of wealth: “to re-educate her, to make her different, to

break her of the habit of trading, of accumulating wealth.”469

Although Oles’ is younger than Olga, his superior social consciousness grants him the status

of symbolic elder. Even Oles’s most private thoughts fit within the strictly Communist

framework; even in the most personal and emotionally intense situations, he phrases his internal

monologues in terms of Communist rhetoric. For example, when fascists break into Olga’s

home in the middle of the night, seemingly intent on arresting Oles’ and harming the child, but

instead turn the house upside down, rob it, and leave, Olga descends to the floor, still clenching

her child, sobs from relief, then confesses her love for Oles’. Oles’, on the other hand, uses the

occasion to quote Stalin and reproach Olga for trading at the market. Even his eventual pity is

intellectually-conceived: “he started to feel pity for her: after all, he could not overlook the fact

that she is a simple woman with a poorly developed consciousness, and it would be unwise not to

try to develop the best in her personality.”470 A seasoned elder, Oles’ has internalized the

Communist consciousness so successfully that it remains his default mode of thinking even in the most private and disturbing situations.

An exemplary Communist from every angle, Oles’ excels in the field of kenotic sentiment, as well. His willingness to empty himself of his life is unwavering; when thinking about his future,

Oles’ emphasizes his readiness for death rather than dedication to accomplishment: “there is only one destiny for him: to get burned in struggle; there can be no other.”471 When reflecting on the

468 “Что же она такое? Кто она? Торговка? Мещанка? Или Человек и Мать?” Ibid., 82. 469 “перевоспитать её, сделать иной, отвадить от торговли, накопления богатства.” Ibid., 89. 470 “ему стало жаль её: в конце концов, он не может не считаться с тем, что она простая, малосознательная женщина, и было бы неумно не попробовать развить лучшее в её характере.” Ibid., 80. 471 “у него одна судьба – сгореть в борьбе, другой быть не может.” Ibid., 82. 179 circumstances that led him to the concentration camp, he does not regret his failure to defend himself or escape; instead, he laments not having committed suicide like his colleagues. When

Olga encounters the ill, dying Oles’ at the concentration camp, he – in spite of his extreme weakness – finds strength to resist his chance for salvation by urging Olga not to rescue him. In these and analogous scenes, Oles’ demonstrates a superior kenotic sentiment combined with the ideologically-correct goal: an irresistible recipe for a Socialist Realist protagonist.

Oles’s unfaltering Soviet consciousness provides a constant against which Olga’s transformation is measured. At the beginning of the novel, the two protagonists find themselves on the opposite poles of social consciousness: the heroic Soviet patriot Oles’ is contrasted to the greedy and indifferent Olga, who accumulates, trades, loots, and cares equally little for Soviet or

Fascist authorities. The novel’s title essentializes the two protagonists in their contrasting roles:

“a market woman” and “a poet”. While the laden meaning of a poet’s status in Russian culture hardly requires commentary, it is interesting that Olga is summarized in terms related to her economic activity. Apparently, her attitude toward the flow of resources – best illustrated by her profession – epitomizes her ideological backwardness.

Olga’s performance at the height of her ideological development confirms the axiological importance of self-emptying abilities. At the end of the novel, Olga arrives at the acme of her social development in the scene of her heroic exploit and resulting death. The former “market woman” independently and secretly plans a highly perilous anti-fascist operation, musters up even more self-abandon in the process of carrying it out, and completes it with what is essentially a suicide attack. The novel’s culmination marks Olga’s rite of passage into the ranks of good Soviet citizens. The reasons why Olga’s deed is effective as a status-altering event deserve further elaboration. 180 The results of Olga’s heroic deed hardly justify its perceived significance: besides Olga,

the explosion killed one German and two Belarusian fascists, none of them of particular

importance. If Olga – who had become an irreplaceable messenger for the anti-fascist movement

- had not wasted herself in a one-time act of suicide execution, her contribution to the movement

could have been incomparably greater. In terms of her input to the guerilla movement, Olga’s

life was worth more than the lives of three insignificant enemies, and even Olga understood that:

that is why she planned and carried out her plan in secret, in order to prevent her fellow-guerillas

from stopping her.

The significance of Olga’s exploit, however, has less to do with what it accomplished, and

more to do with what it reveals about Olga: worlds away from her former bourgeois self, she has

graduated into the ranks of the exemplary Soviet citizens who are willing to go above and

beyond everyone’s expectations in sacrificing themselves for the right cause. Thus, The Market

Woman is, in a way, a bildungsroman that chronicles one woman’s ascent in Soviet

consciousness, where her kenotic ability plays an essential role.472

Ivan Shamiakin’s novel A Market Woman and a Poet is more formulaic and, as a result, less

affective artistically than Vasilev’s And Dawns Are Quiet Here. However, its very reliance on

472 In Shamiakin’s novel, the axiological weight of one’s position vis-à-vis daily life economics is great enough to matter even in those cases where value judgment seems to require no further evidence. Thus, the fascists, whose monstrosity hardly requires proving, reveal their baseness to Olga through an act of greed. When rescuing Oles’ from the concentration camp, Olga attempts to bribe guards with food items that she takes out of her basket. The guards seem disinterested in food; they demand gold, receive it, and start putting the food back in the basket. Olga is elated, thinking that she can keep the food – a valuable resource in war-torn Minsk; instead, the guards take away her basket as well. This avariciousness finally makes Olga realize the fascists’ moral inferiority: “Нет, немец не вернул ей продукты. Он забрал всё – и корзину, и рушник, спрятал за шкаф. Ольге даже весело сделалось от такой алчности толстого паразита. Она вдруг почувствовала, насколько она лучше их, этих пришельцев, кричавших во всё горло о своём превосходстве над другими народами”, see Shamiakin, 48. The greedy “fat bastard” in this passage is a concentration camp guard; he is among those responsible for the fact that the camp’s territory is covered in corpses. In comparison to his capacity for mass murder, one would expect the guard’s greediness to appear a minor negative trait. Yet, it is the episode with the basket that finally allows Olga to make a value judgment about the fascists, which eluded her before. 181 the socialist realist formula makes it an effective vehicle for investigating the place of self- emptying in the value system propagated by Socialist Realism. The novel elucidates the close link between social consciousness characteristic of a good Soviet citizen and kenotic tendencies, and portrays the development of the two as inseparable.

And Dawns Are Quite Here: a Modern Hagiography

One of the most popular Russian fictional works about the Great Patriotic War, Boris Vasilev’s

And Dawns Are Quiet Here, portrays the purposeful type of self-emptying as well as the purposeless, kenotic kind. While most of the novel agrees with Soviet ideology in portraying self-emptying as functioning in the service of the state, it also presents events so as to reveal appreciation for self-emptying itself, regardless of its purpose. In particular, the novel’s two most striking episodes are little concerned with the rational goal; they savor the beauty of the act itself.

The novel tells the story of five female anti-aircraft gunners and their male sergeant Vaskov, who encounter and stop sixteen German soldiers in distant Russian forests in 1942. The five women are aged twenty and younger; they are unfit, inexperienced, and equipped with nothing but rifles which most of them have never shot; each of the sixteen Germans, on the other hand, has a machine-gun and a supply of grenades. In spite of the striking inequality of forces, sergeant Vaskov decides to try and stop the enemy. In the process, all five women die; the heavily wounded Vaskov takes the remaining Germans prisoner.

The short novel became immensely popular. In his book Russians and Their Favorite Books,

Mehnert describes the book’s reception as follows: 182 Yunost published it in 1969, printing 1.8 million copies. With its descriptions of the fighting and suffering of a sergeant and his women-soldiers, it became an overnight success. One edition after the other was printed; a film was made that is still shown; seventeen different dramatized versions were staged at countless theaters including some abroad (even one in Japan); and it was made into an opera.473

The 1972 film version became a favorite Soviet WWII movie. It retains its popularity even in

the twenty-first century: on the YouTube video site, there are numerous copies of the film

uploaded in short episodes by various users as late as 2009. The comments section is full of

grateful and nostalgic tributes; one user writes that her parents almost named her after one of the

film’s characters474. A long excerpt from the film opens a nostalgic video montage called The

475 USSR That We’ve Lost, which attracted 97,740 YouTube viewers .

And Dawns Are Quiet Here was Boris Vasilev’s first work of fiction; it made him an instant

celebrity. In 1975, he received the highest Soviet literary award: the State Prize of the USSR for

literature476. Mehnert describes the immense fame that Vasilev enjoyed: when Vasilev meets

Mehnert for an interview at one of the most prestigious Moscow restaurants, the restaurant’s chief of staff (a demi-god according to Soviet hierarchy) personally steps out to show Vasiliev to his table. The writer owed his reputation largely to his first and most loved novel; his subsequent works, including the esteemed His Name Was Not Listed, never quite achieved the immense

popularity of And Dawns Are Quiet Here.477

473 Mehnert, 56-7. 474 Comments to A Zori Zdes’ Tikhie. The YouTube.com. The Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSP8q0QKDxE&feature=related. Accessed May 10, 2010. 475 SSSR, kotoryi my poteriali. The YouTube.com. The Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzxRCbCXlz0. Accessed May 10, 2010. 476 Mehnert, 239. 477 Ibid., 57. 183 I suggest that the novel became so popular because it went beyond the formulaic

utilization of self-sacrifice as a service to the state, and appealed to the Russian cultural

appreciation of kenosis as an aesthetic and ethical value. First of all, Vasilev’s choice to cast

women as the novel’s main characters moves the depicted events from the sphere of duty to that

of voluntary martyrdom: the Soviet state did not draft women, and even put obstacles in the path

of those who wanted to volunteer. During the first months of the war, the state turned away

thousands of female volunteers, and agreed to change its policy only after sufficient persistence

on the women’s part478. And Dawns Are Quiet Here includes a flashback describing how each

of the five women joined the army, emphasizing their willingness and determination. Thus, the

heroine Galya Chetvertak was turned down as a volunteer because she did not meet the age and

height requirements, but continued storming the military enlistment office and lying about her

age until they made an exception and enlisted her.

Voluntarily offering themselves as victims, the women soldiers are martyrs rather than

fighters. Three of the girls die before firing a single shot. Galya’s death results from her

cowardice: she loses her nerve while hiding from the passing Germans, runs and screams like the

frightened child she was, and the fascists shoot her like a moving target479. Galya’s death is the result of her own mistake, just as her enlistment is the state’s mistake; she has contributed nothing to the military operation. Yet, Vasilev has found her story deserving of inclusion, and readers have appreciated Galya’s martyrdom.

The two women who actually fight in the novel take self-emptying to an active level and die through self-destruction: Komelkova turns herself into bait to distract the enemy from her

478 Sakaida. 479 Vasilev, 91. 184 comrades, and Osianina shoots herself after being wounded. The scenes depicting these women’s deaths are the novel’s centers of gravity. The narration dwells on the details of each death; in preparation, the reader learns every woman’s life story and her thoughts, dreams, and emotions on the eve of her death. Far from impersonal numbers on the lists of the Soviet army’s losses, Vasilev’s characters are unique and precious individuals: an introverted forester’s daughter who dreamed of nothing but love in the solitude of her father’s cabin; a Jewish university student who brought a volume of Blok to the front line and wrote letters to a shy boy she met at the library; an obnoxious beauty with an extra-marital affair in her past. Learning the women’s personal stories intensifies the acuteness of each loss; the writer brings his characters alive only to make their deaths more meaningfully tragic for the reader.

As evidenced by the novel’s immense popularity, the sadness that the losses evoke has its redeeming qualities. Unnecessary and untimely, the women’s deaths appear kenotic and therefore aesthetically and ethically valuable. Minutes before her suicide, the last remaining woman soldier, Osianina, dismisses Vaskov’s lament that the women’s deaths were neither unavoidable nor indispensable. Vaskov questions the justification of their sacrifice:

“I let you in for it, all five of you – and what for? For a handful of Fritzes? […] Was I thinking more about the Kirov Railway and the White Sea Canal? There must have been troops guarding them, more than just five girls and a sergeant-major with a revolver!”

“Don’t,” she said softly. “It is not with the canals that one’s country begins, not with them at all. It was our country we were defending. First and foremost our country, and only after that the canal.”480

480 Translation by Robert Daglish. 289. “- Положил ведь я вас, всех пятерых положил, а за что? За десяток фрицев? […] Дорогу Кировскую берегли да Беломорский канал? Да там ведь тоже, поди, охрана, - там ведь людишек куда больше, чем пятеро девчат да старшина с наганом! - Не надо, - тихо сказала она. - Родина ведь не с каналов начинается. Совсем не оттуда. А мы ее защищали. Сначала ее, а уж потом канал.” Ibid., 107. 185 Although the operation’s practical usefulness is doubtful, Osianina does not believe that this

matters; she is satisfied with the symbolic value of her sacrifice. In her worldview, practical

concerns such as the defense of a particular canal are inferior to the theoretical concept of

devotion to Motherland, which justifies the loss of five lives. A good disciple to Soviet

ideology, Osianina values the right consciousness as high as deeds, or even higher.

Subsequently, Osianina moves beyond the right Soviet consciousness and takes her life481: a step

that adds nothing to the operation’s success, and appears particularly tragic because she is

leaving behind a three-year-old son. Osianina’s suicide seems to be aesthetically-motivated: the

group’s kenosis is more complete and satisfying – both for the readers and for the participants -

if all five women die.

An episode with the group’s beauty – the marble-skinned redhead Komelkova –underscores

the link between kenotic potential and aesthetics. The text introduces Komelkova as

breathtakingly beautiful; her female comrades tirelessly revel in her classical perfection:

“Zhania, one should make a sculpture of you! [...] Wow, Zhenia, they should put you in a

museum! Under glass, onto black velvet...”482 Her behavior in combat reveals that Komelkova’s inner beauty matches her physical attractiveness: twice, she volunteers her body – her most precious resource - as live bait for the enemy. First, she ignores her superior’s order to hide and frolics in the water just a few feet away from the Germans, in a strategic move aimed at deceiving the enemy regarding the size of the Soviet forces. Having survived, surprisingly, the first incident, she offers up her body as a resource again: when another soldier is wounded,

Komelkova makes herself conspicuous to the enemy and leads them away:

481 Ibid., 108. 482 “Женька, с тебя скульптуру лепить! […] Ой, Женька, тебя в музей нужно! Под стекло на чёрном бархате...”. Ibid., 106. 186 The Germans had hit her accidentally, firing blindly through ther foliage. By keeping still and biding her time, she might have had a chance of escaping. But she went on firing until she ran out of ammunition. She was firing from a prone position, no longer attempting to get away because her strength was ebbing away with her life blood. The Germans finished her off at point-blanck range, and then stood for a long time gazing at her face, proud and beautiful even in death.483

Even having accomplished her mission – distracting the Germans from her wounded comrade –

Komelkova continues her sacrifice to completion: she literally empties herself of her blood and her life: “her strength was ebbing away with her life blood.” Komelkova’s kenotic potential magnifies her physical perfection; her death is yet another testament to her beauty.

Vasilev expects his tragic novel to have an elevating and inspiring effect on its readers (and judging by the novel’s reception, he was correct in his prediction). The novel’s epilogue offers a model of how the story is to affect the Soviet public in the years to come. Set decades after the war, the epistolary epilogue is a letter written by a new character: a young man vacationing in the area where the novel’s main events took place. The man is sarcastic and frivolous; ostensibly lacking in Soviet consciousness, he speaks in slang, skips work and encourages his correspondent to do the same, and displays an overall consumerist attitude to life and the land

(probably meant to translate into a consumerist attitude towards his Soviet Motherland, in general). Half way through the letter, however, the young man learns the story of the five women and drastically changes his attitude: he abandons the playful tone and slang, and develops a solemn, reverent intonation appropriate for sacred topics484. Apparently, the story of the women’s sacrifice is more than a sad episode from a long-gone war; it is an edifying tale

483 Translation by Robert Daglish. 288. “А немцы ранили её вслепую, сквозь листву, и она могла бы затаиться, переждать и, может быть, уйти. Но она стреляла, пока были патроны. Стреляла лёжа, уже не пытаясь убегать, потому что вместе с кровью уходили и силы. И немцы добили её в упор, а потом долго смотрели на её и после смерти гордое и прекрасное лицо...” Ibid., 106. 484 Ibid., 112. 187 capable of elevating a troubled mind by virtue of its aesthetic and ethical value. In its

function, And Dawns Are Quiet Here is a modern hagiography intended to produce a strong spiritual effect. `

This interpretation of the novel as an edifying tale of sacred events resonates with what Boris

Vasilev has said about his art. “Writers are chosen ones,” he explained […], “extraordinary and important people who understand the soul of their nation and can speak for it…”485 Vasilev has

also acknowledged the saintly dimension of his heroes: “In these books I have said what I

wanted to say about the war. It is necessary to say it because some of our youth have begun to

forget from where we came, to forget about the people-saints who gave their lives in the name of

the future.”486 It is interesting that when speaking about his characters’ sacrifice, Vasilev

articulates its purpose in abstract terms - “in the name of the future” - instead of naming a more

concrete, practical goal (such as, for example, “stopping the enemy”, “winning the war”). It

seems that citing a practical purpose would debase the sublime symbolic meaning of self-

emptying, and could potentially weaken the spiritual impact that the text produces.

It is illuminating to compare And Dawns Are Quiet Here with a British WWII novel written

within the same decade and featuring a female protagonist: Ken Follett’s The Eye of the Needle

(1978). The Eye of the Needle is as different from Vasilev’s novel as a mystery thriller can be

different from a Socialist Realist novel, but the two literary works are comparable in content,

reception, and function. Both novels relate stories of Allied heroism during WWII; both earned

their authors prestigious literary prizes487 and were made into motion pictures soon after

485 Mehnert, 56. 486 Ibid., 57. 487 In 1979, Ken Follett received an Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. 188 publication488. Although in The Eye of the Needle, there is only one woman instead of five, and one Fascist instead of sixteen, both novels rely on the same basic plot element: confrontation between an inexperienced woman (a mother of a young child) and a skilled German soldier in an isolated setting (a distant forest in And Dawns Are Quiet Here, and an island in the British novel).

While the premises of the two novels are similar, the trajectory and the outcomes are strikingly different: the British woman beats all the odds, defeats the enemy, and survives. Like

Vasilev’s female characters, she is heroic, but her heroism shapes itself into victory, not sacrifice. Inexperienced and unprepared for combat at the beginning of the novel, she hardens and gains strength in the course of the events; she defends herself and kills her adversary. The different treatment of the theme is aimed at a different audience: English-speaking readers with no kenotic bias would be less impressed by the kind of heroism that kills the hero and accomplishes little. For Soviet readers, on the other hand, a heroic tale would appear less effective if it lacked kenotic elements.

488 The The Eye of the Needle film came out in 1981 with a screenplay adapted by Stanley Mann and directed by Richard Marquand. 189 C h a p t e r 5

SECULAR KENOSIS IN EDUARD LIMONOV

One of the most striking portrayals of secular kenosis in the twentieth century comes from a

work written in the United States: Eduard Limonov’s 1979 novel It’s Me, Eddie. This novel

draws a picture of a man who identifies himself as a Russian poet, and forms value judgments

about himself and the world based on a value system where secular kenosis occupies a principal

position. This chapter will explore the insight provided by Limonov’s novel, poetry, and

political activity into the role of secular kenosis in twentieth-century Russian culture.

The novel, written in the United States and first published in Paris, scandalized readers by its

arguably unprecedented generosity with obscenities and graphic descriptions of sex, homosexual

and otherwise. The question of whether the breaking of many Russian literary taboos in

Limonov’s prose is unprecedented has inspired many scholarly studies, in which Slavists attempt

to fit Limonov’s controversial literary style into a certain artistic tradition489. Limonov himself claims that he has experienced no Russian literary influences490, and some critics agree491.

489 Attempts to fit Limonov’s controversial literary style into a certain artistic tradition have resulted in studies that describe Limonov as a literary successor of Lomonosov (Brodskii, 1978, p. 153); Trediakovsky (Titunik, 1984); Mikhail Chulkov (Pavlenko, 1995, pp. 74-5); Barkov (Gidoni, 1979, p. 236; Bondarenko, 1992, p.8); Derzhavin (Zholkovskii, 1989, pp. 344-6); Pushkin and his uncle (Shukman, 1983, p. 2; Zholkovskii, 1990, p. 158; Kustarev, 1983, p. 204); Lermontov, Ivan Turgenev (Pavlenko, 1995, pp. 79-82); Dostoevskii (Matich, 1986, pp. 533-5; Ryan- Hayes, 1988, pp. 445-6; Porter, 1991, p 65, Simmons, 1993, p. 183; Pavlenko, 1995, pp.83-5; Wakamiya, 2000, pp. 150-59); Sergei Aksakov, Lev Tolstoi (Lautredou, 1987; Ryan-Hayes, 1993, p. 8); Gorky (Matich, 1986, p. 535; Lautredou, 1987; Vail’ and A. Genis, 1987, pp. 122, 125; Carden, 1990, p. 228; Bondarenko, 1992, p. 3; Bogomolov, 1992); Chekhov (Vail’ and A. Genis, 1984c, p. 29); Bunin (Bykov, 2002, p. 63); Gleb Uspenskii (Zinik, 1984); Nekrasov, Blok, Zoshchenko (Kustarev, 1983, p. 204); Igor’ Severianin (Piatnitskii, 1975); Fedor Sologub (Lekukh, 1992); Mandelshtam and the Acmeists (Zholkovskii, 1991, p. 16; Porter, 1991, p. 64); Maiakovskii and the Futurists (Matich, 1986, pp. 526, 528, 535; Zholkovskii and Shcheglov, 1986, p. 278; Carden, 1984, p. 226; Dreizin, 1988, p. 66; Simmons, 1993, pp. 184-5; Zhivolupova, 1994, p. 195, Pavlenko, 1995, p. 106); Kharms and the OBERIU (Brodskii, 1978, p. 153; Carden, 1984, p. 226; Matich, 1984, p. 225); Anastasiia Verbitskaia, Vaginov, Erenburg, Malyshkin, Romanov, Aleksandr Zinov’ev (Geller, 1980, pp. 85-7; Epshtein, 1994, p. 176); Olesha (Ashkenazi, 1979, p. 197); Makarenko (Vail’ and Genis, 1987, p. 127); Vasilii Aksenov, Gladilin 190 Another issue that has instigated as much critical debate is the degree to which the novel

It’s Me, Eddie can be considered autobiographical. A majority of scholarly studies of Limonov’s

famous work start off by a thorough investigation of arguments supporting or refuting its

autobiographical nature492, occasionally arriving at interesting perspectives493. In many cases,

however, inquiry into the autobiographical nature of Limonov’s prose appears to be both inspired

and limited by the question whether Limonov has really experienced the homosexual adventures

he describes, and whether he has “really had as much sex as he claims”494. This interest is probably related to Limonov’s current conspicuous position in Russian politics: he is a leader of his own party, a permanent opponent of the government and one of the few remaining critics of the regime.

For the purposes of this dissertation, it is irrelevant to which degree It’s Me, Eddie is

autobiographical. Whether events occurred in extra-literary life or not, Limonov’s decision to

(Gidoni, 1980, p. 159); Shukshin (Bondarenko, 1992, p.5); Esenin (Porter, 1994, pp. 180-81; Bondarenko, 1992, p.3) and Pasternak (Shukman, 1983, pp. 5-6). 490 He occasionally makes exceptions for Gogol’, Bakunin, Konstantin Leont’ev, Rozanov, Khlebnikov, Platonov and Nabokov. See Matich, 1984, p. 229; Limonov, 1985, pp.35-8; Mirchev, 1989, pp. 91, 101; Khlystun and Shvets. 1990; Limonov and Erofeev, 1990, p. 18; Leont’eva, 1992; Glad, 1993, p. 261; Gol’dshtein, 1997, pp. 330, 334. 491 See, for instance, Voronel’, 1979, p. 187. 492 See, for instance, Matich; Donde; Shukman; Smirnov; Wakamiya, 2000. 493 Thus, Karen Ryan-Hayes offers an interesting view that It’s Me, Eddie is a parody of the nineteenth-century Russian literary childhood, which is often portrayed as idyllic (on the idyllic nature of Russian literary childhood, see Andrew Wachtel, The Battle for Childhood : Creation of a Russian Myth). Ryan-Hayes writes, “Emigration entails isolation, the loss of prestige, the absence of contact with the Russian language an the necessity of coming to terms with a new culture and its unfamiliar values. […] The world Edichka confronts in his first months of emigration is chaotic, formless and incomprehensible. […] We observe Edichka’s attempts to make this world svoi, to impose order on chaos. It’s Me, Eddie is essentially the history of his second childhood”, see Ryan-Hayes, 1993, p. 7. Zholkovskii points out instances when the shifting point of view in Limonov’s autobiographical prose and poetry occasionally creates puzzling grammatical lapses, such as the following: “Зато я никому не должен / Никто поутру не кричит / И два часа и в пол-другого / Зайдёт ли кто а я – лежит”, see Zholkovskii, 1986, pp. 581-82. 494 In the chapter Eduard Limonov’s True Lies of the book A Biographical and Critical Study of Russian Writer Eduard Limomov, Andrei Rogachevskii quotes numerous statements made by Limonov vis-à-vis the autobiographical nature of his novel. In the majority of statements, Limonov denies that he has had homosexual relations. Rogachevskii also quotes what he calls the “expert opinion” of Limonov’s two ex-wives about the verisimilitude of events described in It’s Me, Eddie, for example: “Let me once again fall back on Nataliia Medvedeva’s expertise. She says about Limonov: “Having described so many cunts, he did not know anything about their structure” (Medvedeva, 1994, p.232). This phrase makes one seriously doubt if Limonov has really had as much sex as he claims”, see Rogachevskii, 35. 191 include them in the novel is an artistic one. The author’s choice to include certain events is

motivated by his aesthetic principles; even if he were to pursue historical accuracy, limitations of

size would necessitate omitting a large portion of his real life episodes, and decisions about

which episodes to omit would be based on the author’s aesthetics. Therefore, this study will

approach the novel as a work of fiction, and consult the author’s biography only if it offers

additional insight into the subject matter. Since the author and the character have the same name

- Eduard Limonov, I will draw the line between the two by referring to the writer as “Limonov”,

and to the character as “Eddie”.

What It Means to be Russian in It’s Me, Eddie

One of the reasons why the theme of secular kenosis is so pronounced in It’s Me, Eddie is the

novel’s amplified attention to the subject of Russianness495. The setting of a foreign city with an

alien culture not only provides a contrasting background, but also serves as a catalyst that causes

Eddie’s Russianness to express itself in extreme forms. In It’s Me, Eddie, the character’s shock

from the first encounter with a different culture is still fresh; the reader witnesses a miniature

clash of civilizations496 that causes Eddie desperately to seek meaning in his native culture. The nature of the clash experienced by Eddie in 1978 is hard to conceptualize thirty years later, when

Moscow is hardly distinguishable from New York in its abundance and anarchy. Russians of the early twenty-first century face a multiplicity of choices analogous to that of citizens of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, but this was not the case in 1970s. In order to demonstrate the immensity of difference that Eddie witnessed, let me briefly outline the most salient features of

495 The theme of Russianness is not unique to It’s Me, Eddie; it has also been dominant in Eduard Limonov’s other work. His 2003 poetry collection is called “Русское”; his two collections of essays, published in 2003, are called «Русское психо» and “Другая Россия”. A 2005 film, although predominantly based on Limonov’s novel Adolescent Savenko, is also called “Русское”. 496 Samuel Huntington’s term. 192 the world from which he came to New York. While the following three paragraphs will probably offer little new information, they will summarize the facts of Soviet life most responsible for Soviet expatriates’ shock at their encounter with the United States.

Soviet citizens of Eddie’s generation knew neither advertising nor commercial competition.

Every store was identical to another in prices and selection, and every item on sale was affordable to anyone. Consumers’ choices were extremely scarce: stores usually offered one to none variety of each product. Soviet people did not value their jobs, because the idea of being fired held no threat: the state was responsible for providing its citizens with employment and housing, however unsatisfying. Medical care and college education were free; all students received stipends, which were small but sufficient for independent survival. Moreover, the state paid for all sports and cultural clubs for children and adults, and provided an annual month-long resort vacation for each citizen, with food and spa services included. As a result, few Soviet citizens had any motivation to work hard; holding extra jobs added little to the quality of life.

Instead of exceeding bosses’ expectations in their jobs or seeking additional employment, Soviet people spent their time socializing, visiting each other, and attending frequent feast-like dinner parties, creatively organized with the few available resources. Scarcity of material resources was made more bearable by the fact that there were no obvious points of comparison available: the party elite did not practice conspicuous consumption and revealed no signs of its advantaged status; and neither television nor movie theaters showed Western films portraying the wealthy life abroad.

In terms of life style, as in terms of material well-being, Soviet people of the 70s were more homogenous than their Western contemporaries. There was neither homelessness, nor poverty, nor unemployment. Homosexuality was an official crime fraught with a potential prison 193 sentence, and even heterosexual adultery could land the perpetrator at a Party meeting, where comrades would express their disapproval and urge the adulterer to return to his/her family. The government controlled the media, and only published or broadcast materials which buttressed the official party line497. The official ideology – ridiculed by many, and yet ubiquitous – was that of universal friendship, peace and equality. Soviet people saw ordinary Western citizens as friends, abused by the wealthy elite.

This was the world that Eddie knew when he landed himself in New York. The way he describes the Soviet Union to Americans reveals that Eddie approves, and even admires, many aspects of Soviet life. Thus, in an English class, Eddie shocks and impresses Latin American emigrants by telling them that in the Soviet Union, they would have free education for all their children, and would never have to worry about paying medical bills498. Eddie’s discontent with the USSR is based on only one reason: the impossibility of getting published and thereby satisfying his “wild desire to squeeze my name into the history of this country, or, even better, the history of the world.”499 In his position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, Eddie appears to agree completely with his creator, who said: “I never expressed any opposition to the politics of the

USSR or against its ideology. I simply struggled for the expansion of artistic freedom.”500

497 Soviet citizens successfully went around this stipulation with the help of Samizdat and Tamizdat, photographed images of prohibited books, and tuning into American radio stations. 498 “Тогда включился и я и сказал, что в СССР, откуда я приехал - высшее образование бесплатное, и любое другое образование тоже. Такого эффекта я не ожидал. Они были потрясены. Бесплатно! […] Чтобы поддать жару в огонь, я сказал им, что и медицинское обслуживание бесплатное. Что тут началось... […] Им понятно было другое - страна, в которой бесплатное высшее образование, бесплатное медицинское обслуживание, где квартирная плата составляет ничтожную долю зарплаты, где разница между зарплатой рабочего - 150 рублей - и академика или даже полковника КГБ - 500 рублей, всего 350 рублей, господа, это вам не астрономические суммы, в которые оцениваются состояния богатейших семейств Америки, и рядом жалкие 110-120 в неделю, которые Эдичка зарабатывал басбоем в отеле "Хилтон" - такая страна не может быть плохой страной.” See Limonov, Chapter 8. 499 “бешено[е] желани[е] во чтобы это ни стало втиснуть свое имя в историю своей страны, а еще лучше мира.” Limonov, Chapter 8. 500 Andrew Wachtel quotes this in Remaining Relevant on p. 90. 194 Yet, Eddie differentiates between Soviet values, internalizing some and dismissing others.

As most of his Soviet contemporaries, who snoozed through numerous party meetings during the

day only to tell cynical jokes about party leaders in the evening, Eddie’s attitude to distinctly

Soviet goals is that of jaded indifference:

But we’re sick of defending your faded old banners, your values, which long ago ceased to be values; sick of defending what “yours.” We’re tired of “yours”, old men, we ourselves will soon be old men, we doubt that we should, that we must. You can all go fuck yourselves…501

For Eddie, Soviet banners are old and faded, as are those who hold these banners sincerely: “old

men”, the generation that conceived and fought the Revolution and the “Great Patriotic War” (as

World War II was called in the USSR). Eddie is indifferent to the goals that drove the old-

timers, goals that were at that time still spelled out in decorative brick on facades of Soviet era

buildings, or in hyacinths and poppies on giant flower beds of Soviet resort towns: the impending

reign of Communism, the World Revolution, and the immortality of teachings by Marx, Engels,

and Lenin. Indifferent to the official, monumental goals, Eddie is not indifferent to the concept

of monumentality: he wants to assert his own. For this purpose, Eddie chooses the traditional

Russian role of immaterial monumentality: that of a Russian poet502.

501 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. Translation by S.L. Campbell. 21. All translations of Limonov’s novel It’s Me, Eddie are by S.L. Campbell, unless otherwise noted. “А нам надоело защищать ваши старые вылинявшие знамёна, ваши ценности, которые давно перестали быть ценностями, надоело защищать «Ваше». Мы устали от Вашего, старики; мы уже сами скоро будем стариками, мы сомневаемся, следует ли, нужно ли. Ну вас всех на хуй...” 502 The topos of art, and literature in particular, as immaterial monumentality established itself in Russian culture after Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s first monumental poet, articulated it in his poem Monument: «Я памятник себе воздвиг нерукотворный...» 195 In the Soviet Union, Eddie, as his creator, achieved no official recognition as a poet.

Soviet media refused to publish his poetry; Eddie cites censorship as the reason503 and heads

west, hoping to find recognition and achieve fame there. Yet, he quickly realizes that in the US,

his chances to become famous drastically diminish, as his readership drops from few to none.

Moreover, Eddie experiences a radical plunge in his status: from prophet to loser. Nostalgically,

Eddie recalls the position of a poet in his home country:

In Leningrad, after all, apart from his troubles, he had had tens fo thousands of admirers, he would have been received with delight in any house on any evening, the beautiful Russian maidens, the Natashas and Tanyas. Were all his – because he, a red-haired Jewish youth, was a Russian poet. The best place for a poet is Russia. There, even the authorities fear our kind. They have from time immemorial.504

This is not the case in the US: America has no interest in or respect for Eddie, and even his own wife loses her fascination with his poetry and leaves him. The novel It’s Me, Eddie documents

the first, raw phase of the clash between Eddie’s expectations and reality. Eddie is still reluctant

to internalize the values of American culture505; instead, he capitalizes on the role he already

503 Yet, as Andrew Wachtel points out, there is nothing in Limonov’s poetry that would arise ideological objection to Limonov’s writing: “…there is nothing in form of content that is particularly dissident. Rather, most of his work is rather lyrical and, rather than a youthful restlessness and arrogance, lacks any hint of an oppositional political stance.” (See Andrew Wachtel, Remaining Relevant, pp. 89-90). Wachtel explains this incongruence between Limonov’s claim about being suppressed by censorship and the apparent lack of motivation for such suppression by excessive restrictiveness of the Soviet postthaw censorship. While his observation about the nature of postthaw censorship is doubtlessly true, there may be another reason why Limonov’s poetry was rejected by Soviet publications: editors could have merely deemed it not good enough to include in highly competitive Soviet publications. In the USSR, a great number of people considered themselves poets and bombarded publishing house with their poetry. The very limited number of Soviet publications could only accommodate very few of them. Space on a printed page, like so many things in the Soviet Union, was a scarce commodity. 504 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 20. “Ведь он [Бродский] в Ленинграде, кроме неприятностей, десятки тысяч поклонников имел, ведь его в каждом доме всякий вечер с восторгом бы встретили, и прекрасные русские девушки, Наташи и Тани были все его - потому что он - рыжий еврейский юноша - был русский поэт. Для поэта лучшее место – это Россия. Там нашего брата и власти боятся. Издавна.” 505 In Limonov’s later novels of the American period, the theme of Russianness loses some of its acuteness. It’s Me, Eddie is the first part of a trilogy; in the following two pieces – A Loser’s Diary and His Butler’s Story – the theme of secular kenosis is significantly mitigated, as is the character’s emotional strain, and the general intensity of the novels. In the latter parts of the trilogy, Eddie is already in the process of integrating into a different culture, and the intense probing of his Russianness yields to his experiments with newly acquired values. Later, Limonov would 196 knows – that of Russian poet – and, when this fails to yield results, he escalates his self-

assertion in this role beyond all boundaries.

In his relationship with the notion of a Russian poet, Eddie is a consumer rather than a

demiurge. For him, the role comes with pre-assigned rules and limitations, and Eddie follows

the rules and respects the limitations, benefitting or suffering from the results, as the case may

be. In moments of emotional turmoil, when the world seems especially hostile, his high status of

a Russian poet gives Eddie license to act as he wishes. For example, when people drag the

intoxicated Eddie into a shower, another Russian émigré protests, "Don’t touch him, he’s a great

Russian poet! All fo you together aren’t worth his fingernail, leave him alone!”506 Upon

learning about the accident the following morning, Eddie approves of the formulation: “Masha

was one of us [...] she knew what to scream.”507 According to Eddie’s value system, the status of

Russian poet exempts him from laws governing mere mortals, such as, the moral ban on

romancing other women in the home of one’s girlfriend, in front of her and her guests508.

On other occasions, limitations imposed by the role of a Russian poet prevent Eddie from

bettering his life situation. Working at a restaurant, Eddie cannot escape the feeling that this job

does not match his status:

indirectly acknowledge that he has internalized lessons learned while in the US; he will cite his experience of having lived abroad as adding to his qualifications of a political leader505. In short stories dealing with Limonov’s later years in the US, the protagonist often takes the American side when partaking in intercultural conflicts. Thus, in a short story Великая американская мечта, the character (identified as the author of It’s Me, Eddie) refuses to support an older Russian émigré colleague when the latter tries to assert his Old World attitude to work in the United States. In the short story Великая американская мечта, Eddie’s older colleague demands to be paid by the hour regardless of the type of work he is doing. A valuable specialist, he spends intentionally long periods of time driving to his assignments in order to bill the company for more hours a week. His employer objects, and Eddie, who is translating the negotiations, tells his Russian émigré colleagues that the truth is on the boss’s side. See Limonov, Великая американская мечта. Обыкновенные инциденты. 506 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 178. “Не трогайте его, он великий русский поэт! Вы все ногтя его не стоите, оставьте его в покое!” 507 Ibid. “Маша была свой человек […] она знала, что кричать.” 508 “Ты не помнишь, ты обнимал Лилю, - сказала она патетически. […] Лиля должна была уйти, - продолжала она, - все видели как ты с ней обнимался, это нехорошо, почему русские всегда так напиваются.” See Limonov, Chapter 9. 197 My native literature would not let me become an ordinary man and live in peace, shit no, it tweaked me for my red busboy jacket and preached at me, arrogantly and justly: “Shame on you, Edichka! You are a Russian poet, that is your caste, my dear, that is your uniform. You have discredited your uniform, you must leave this place. Better a beggar, better to live as you did at the end of February – a beggar and bum.”509

Revealingly, his self-perception as a Russian poet urges Eddie to accept poverty and homelessness rather than descend to work. Apparently, participation in a professional world clashes with his understanding of a Russian poet’s nature. Considering Eddie’s intelligence and energy, his employment could gradually lead to his social and material elevation not necessarily fraught with a sacrifice of his art. After all, USA is the country where a typesetter grows up to become Mark Twain, and a bookkeeper – O’Henry. But noblesse oblige; Eddie’s understanding of his “Russian poet” status precludes him from banal employment.510

Evidently, Eddie takes his role very seriously. But what exactly does “being a Russian poet” mean? Unpublished and unknown, Eddie lives far from Russia and dodges Russian immigrants, yet sees it fit to define himself as a Russian poet. The meaning he invests in the notion must lie beyond the semantic fields of citizenship and profession. Let us first zoom in on

Eddie’s conception of “poet”, and then proceed to explore his understanding of Russianness.

509 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 40-41. “Моя родная русская литература не давала мне стать простым человеком и жить спокойно, а вот хуй-то, она дергала меня за красную куртку басбоя и высокомерно и справедливо поучала: "Как тебе не стыдно, Эдичка, ведь ты же русский поэт, это каста, дорогой, это мундир, ты уронил честь мундира, ты должен уйти отсюда. Лучше нищим, лучше как жил в конце февраля - нищим бродягой.” 510 As many other conceptions from Eddie’s cultural baggage, the notion of mundane work as incompatible with the status of a Russian poet loosens its grip of the character in the subsequent novels of the American cycle. In His Butler’s Story, Eddie already works as a wealthy man’s housekeeper. Described in the little details, this job appears more servile and humiliating that the more impersonal employment at a restaurant, which Eddie rejected with such indignation in the first novel of the trilogy. 198 Eddie’s only literary work mentioned in the novel is his book called «We Are a National

Hero.”511 The provocative title of Eddie’s self-defining book will be discussed below. For now, let us concentrate on the quantitative aspect of Eddie’s literary output: it consists of only one book, short enough to be read in forty minutes512; yet the state of being a poet is a key element to

Eddie’s self-identification. In this representative passage, the narrator refers to himself as a poet twice:

Elena Sergeevna […] stopped in at a poverty-stricken, blindingly sunny little room to see the poet Eddie. It was I, gentlemen. I undressed this creature, and having drunk a bottle of champagne or even two – the poverty-stricken poet drank only champagne in the land of the Gulag Archipelago – having drunk some champaigne, we gave ourselves over to such love…513

Besides using the word “poet” as a substitute for a first-person pronoun or his name, Eddie also implies that his status of a poet is the reason why Elena chose him over her wealthy husband.

As illustrated by the paucity of Eddie’s literary output, he understands being a poet predominantly as a state of mind. Moreover, being a poet has a mystical element of membership in a cultural continuum, which can reveal itself through meaningful coincidences: «if you recall,

I have mentioned somewhere that in Moscow, I was friends with Mayakovsky’s mistress Lily

511 “Мы – национальныц герой.” The plural first-person pronoun describes Eddie and his wife. The plurality of the subject, however, is ambiguous: Eddie apparently sees himself and his wife as one whole entity, as expressed in the choice of the singular form «герой» instead of «герои». Understanding two individuals as constituting one whole entity bears signs of influence from the Slavophil notion of sobornost’, discussed in the first Chapter of the dissertation. 512 According to Eddies, one of his ex-wife’s lovers “читал мою рукопись три уикэнда, хотя дела там на сорок минут.” See Limonov, Chapter 13. 513 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 239. “Елена Сергеевна […] заходила вместе с белым пуделем в нищую, ослепительно солнечную комнатку к поэту Эдичке, это был я, господа, я раздевал это существо и мы, выпив бутылку шампанского, а то и две, -нищий поэт пил только шампанское в стране Архипелага Гулаг, - выпив шампанского, мы предавались такой любви…” 199 Brik. It’s odd how fate persistently links little Eddie with the sexual legends of another great

poet.”514

The one mentioned literary work – “We Are a National Hero” - must have enough weight in

Eddie’s conceptual world to justify his status as a poet in spite of the lack of overwhelming

evidence. “We Are a National Hero” is, in fact, a phrase rich in meaning. The word “герой”

conveniently captures two concepts, which the English language conveys with the words “hero”

and “protagonist”. The title of Eddie’s first book evokes both meanings, and the context of It’s

Me, Eddie engages both concepts. Heroism is central to Eddie’s self-understanding: “…my profession is to be a hero. I always thought of myself as a hero.”515 His impending status of a literary character is also openly present in the narrator’s self-consciousness. In the last chapter of the novel, The ABSOLUTE BEGINNER, or the True Story of Writing It’s Me, Eddie, in the

penultimate paragraph, the narrator says: “Eddie – a personage in pink shoes with 13-santimeter-

heels, in a white suit, with a cross around his neck – can’t be kicked out of literature anymore. A

creation of the Russian spirit, he’ll always remain there.”516 Thus, the novel’s narrator is conscious of his position as a literary character, and not just any character, but a specifically

Russian one. The word “national” (“natsional’nyi”) elevates this twofold concept of “hero”

514 Ibid., 224. “если вы помните, я уже где-то обмолвился, что дружил в Москве с Лилей Брик. Странно, что судьба упорно связывает Эдичку с сексуальными преданиями другого великого поэта.” Eddie is referring to Vladimir Maiakovskii, who devoted some of his most renowned lyric poetry to his lover Lilia Brik. 515 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 128. “…моя профессия - герой. Я всегда мыслил себя как героя.” Several scholars have addressed the subject of heroism and the image of hero in Limonov’s It’s Me, Eddie. In his study Poetics of Heroism: Eduard Limonov’s It’s Me, Eddie, Alexei Pavlenko argues that Limonov’s concept of a hero and heroism are central to his texts. He shows how Limonov’s poetics – “the subject matter, the plots, the tropes” – reveal his peculiar vision of heroism. Pavlenko argues that Limonov’ image of hero closely relates to the Russian folk hero myth, see Pavlenko, 1995. Andrei Rogachevskii addresses the twofold potential contained of the concept of “hero” in Limonov’s work: he talks about Limonov’s “heroic vision” of the world as the basis of the writer’s Weltanschauung”, and Limonov’s legendary image that makes him the hero of rumours, anecdotes, and even Russian folklore songs (see Rogachevskii, 2003; in particular, the chapter Limonov’s Concept of Hero). 516 “Эдичку, - типа в розовых туфлях на каблуках в 13 сантиметров, в белом костюме, крестик под горлом ... уже не выставить из литературы. Создание русского духа, так он в ней и останется.” Limonov, Eto Ia, Edichka, 303. Trasnlated by Nina Wieda. 200 from the personal level to that of the nation. Thus, the title of Eddie’s book – “We Are a

National Hero” - interlocks the idea of national myth-creation with that of heroism; it can be summarized that Eddie’s defining work is that of creating a national myth through literature. Of course, this is what Russian poets have been known to do, and through partaking in this tradition, the unpublished and little known Eddie enters the ranks of Russian poets.

Thus, for Eddie, “a Russian poet” translates into “creator of a national myth”. Although

Eddie appears to be a consumer of this myth rather than its creator, the internalized national myth is still central to his self-identification. What is this Russian myth that drives the character, or, in other words, what is Eddie’s understanding of Russianness? First of all, his understanding of nationality is strikingly divorced from ethnicity, as illustrated by the following phrase about

Brodsky: “he – a read-haired Jewish youth – was a Russian poet.” The narrator acknowledges

Brodsky’s Jewishness, and disregards it in defining him as Russian. When speaking about himself – the very embodiment of Russianness – Eddie casually points out his un-Russian, and even un-Slavic, ethnic origin: “on my Mongolian mug.”517 In his book We Lived in a Great

Epoch (1989), Limonov devotes several chapters to the exploration of his ethnic origins, underscoring his confirmed and speculated un-Slavic roots: Cherkess, Mongol, and Romani ones.

Along with ethnicity, religious affiliation appears equally irrelevant. Eddie describes a fellow

émigré, who lived up to his cultural expectations in a hostile American environment, as follows:

Masha was one of us, she had been raised in the best traditions of Moscow’s bohemia, she knew what to scream. Masha was a baptized Uzbek. Here in New York she

517 “на моей монгольской роже.” Ibid., Chapter 2. Trasnlated by Nina Wieda. 201 zealously attended church, sang in the choir, but the best traditions of Moscow’s free bohemia were firmly lodged within her.518

An ethnic Uzbek (and, presumably, originally a Muslim), Masha converted to Orthodox

Christianity. Yet, Eddie defines her as “svoia” – “one of our own” - not due to her ardent

Orthodox religiosity, but, rather, in spite of it: he divides the parts of the sentence dealing with

Masha’s religiosity and her faithfulness to the traditions of Moscow bohemia with a contrasting conjunction “but”. Eddie’s understanding of national identity is secular; religious affiliation may serve as an interesting detail of one’s image, but is irrelevant in defining one’s Russianness.

Another passage in the novel draws a sharper dividing line between irrelevant and relevant arguments for one’s Russianness. Eddie narrates a story of Simon, a Jewish Russian expatriate living in Vienna. Simon is Russian neither ethnically nor religiously; he neither resides in Russia nor holds Russian citizenship. Yet, he partakes in Russian culture (as a consumer), he considers himself Russian, and, most importantly, he behaves like one. Eddie describes Simon crying while listening to Poliushko-pole and saying, «...hell with that, what sort of Jew am I – I am a

Russian! [...] He drove very fast and drank a lot. Already when in America, I learned that he had a car accident. A deadly one.”519 Simon identifies himself as Russian despite the absence of ethnic or civic ties to Russia, and expresses his Russianness through his behavior.

Eddie appears to be a proponent of cultural nationalism, which defines one’s membership in a nation by participation in a shared culture. As illustrated by Simon’s case, an important part of

Russian culture consists in self-destructive behavior, which may – and often has – served as a

518 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 178. “Маша была свой человек, она была воспитана в лучших традициях московской богемы, она знала, что кричать. Маша была крещеная узбечка, здесь, в Нью-Йорке, она ревностно посещала церковь, пела в хоре, но лучшие традиции московской вольной богемы засели в ней крепко.” 519 “какой я к чёрту еврей – я русский”. […] Он очень быстро ездил и много пил. Уже в Америке я узнал, что он разбился на машине. Насмерть.” Ibid., 16. Translated by Nina Wieda. 202 manifestation of the kenotic attitude. The following sections of this chapter will demonstrate

that kenotic aptitude does, in fact, play an important role in Eddie’s definition of Russianness.

Before proceeding to analyze what the novel It’s Me, Eddie says about the relationship between

Russianness and kenosis, let me put it in context of Limonov’s life-long engagement with the

theme.

Limonov’s Russianness

Before emigrating to the United States, Eduard Limonov mostly wrote poetry. He never

gained official recognition as a poet in the Soviet Union, but became well known on the Moscow

art scene through Samizdat. During his seven years in Moscow520, Limonov hand-produced and distributed ten small volumes of poetry, later combined into a collection Russianness

(“Russkoe”). The provocative title is not misleading: the collection sheds light on Limonov’s

understanding of Russianness, providing an illuminating context for examining the theme in his

later works.

The most striking feature of Limonov’s poetry collection Russianness is its literariness,

foregrounded by Limonov’s trademark mastery of the vernacular. Along with conversational

and merely ungrammatical units, the bookish constitutes the very fabric of Limonov’s poetry.

Limonov generously uses literary archaisms forgotten by the official literature of his generation,

such as “guberniia” (the archaic for “province”). Russian authors and their characters inhabit

Limonov’s poetic world on par with his flesh-and-blood contemporaries. For example, a poem

Golden Era. An idyll521 is densely populated by literary figures, who live and act alongside the

520 Limonov moved to Moscow in 1967 from Kharkov, and left Moscow for New York in 1974, see Wachtel, Remaining Relevant, 89. 521 Limonov, Zolotoi Vek. 203 lyric hero’s parents and friends. In some poems, both heroes and situations are literary: thus,

the poem About Lisa – featuring an aristocratic woman living among the “peasantry” – boasts a

character of a no-longer-existing class, a literary word “krest’ianstvo” (peasantry), and a

recognizable allusion to Goncharov’s Oblomov:

Uiti, iekhat’ ili ubezhat’?

No bolee znakomoe – lezhat’

Tak vsiakii russkii na divane na krovati

Lezhit byvalo ne snimaia platii.

(To walk away, to ride away, to run away? / But it is more familiar to lye down / Thus every

Russian, on a sofa or on a bed, / is taken to lying down, with the clothes still on).522

On a deeper level, Russian literary figures infiltrate the text as points of reference, allowing for

comparisons such as, “khudozhnik Misha Basov s litsom losia ili Aleksandra Bloka” (“the painter

Misha Basov with the face of a moose, or of Aleksander Blok”).523 In Limonov’s heavily referential poetry, even visual images such as color can be qualified through a literary reference:

Tikhuiu mechtatel’nuiu zelen’

S kislym turgenevskim ottenkom

Peremezhaiushchuiusia devushkami nemnogo.

(The quiet, dreamy greenery / with a sour Turgenevian undertone / alternating, occasionally, with young maidens).524

Literary clichés hold so much power over Limonov that one part of a familiar phrase summons another, seemingly irrelevant part, and pulls it into the fabric of the poem: the word

522 Limonov, O Lize. 523 Limonov, Zolotoi Vek. 524 Limonov, Elegiia. 204 “Turgenev’s”, describing a sour tint of green, invites the habitual “young women” from the proverbial phrase “turgenevskie devushki” (“Turgenevian maidens”) – a staple of Soviet criticism.

The collection Russianness makes a mockery of Limonov’s famous statement that he is not familiar with Russian literature. For young Limonov, as for most Soviet citizens, the Russian classics constituted a part of “living literature”, defined by Felix Vodicka as “the literature which forms part of the awareness of the readership”525. However, the directness with which Limonov turns to Russian classics is unusual; most of his Samizdat peers displayed significantly more subtlety in their dialogue with their Russian literary predecessors, or rejected them altogether in favor of foreign authors526. One could explain Limonov’s frankness by his provinciality: while the Moscow intellectual elite took familiarity (and oversaturation) with Russian literature for granted, an officer’s son from Kharkov’s industrial suburb could have seen his mastery of literature as a distinction. However, if this were the case, the literariness of Limonov’s poetry would have decreased in intensity as he became integrated into Moscow literary circles, presumably losing his provinciality. However, this did not happen. The degree of Limonov’s engagement with literature remains constant and accumulates new overtones: the later poems of the cycle increasingly illuminate the link between literature and Russianness.

The long poem that lent its name to the collection – Russianness (1971)527 – reads like a pastiche of seemingly unrelated and often quotidian passages from Russian literary classics,

525 Vodicka, “The History of the Echo of Literary Works” in Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style ed. Paul L. Garvin pp. 71-81. 526 A notable exception is Andrei Bitov’s novel Pushkin’s House (written in 1964-1971, published in Russia in 1987). 527 While the adjective “Russian” occurs numerous times throughout the collection, qualifying various nouns, the neutral form russkoe with no accompanying noun – the word that became the collection’s title - occurs only twice, in the two poems discussed here. 205 placed in no obvious order528. The title of the poem suggests that for Limonov, Russianness

is, first of all, literature. Another poem from the collection, originally part of a volume titled

Saying Farewell to Russia529, illuminates the connection between literature and Russianness even further. This poem with no title speaks directly about “russkoe” (Russianness) as understood by the lyric hero. The poem opens with the lyric hero finding a pile of old books at a dacha and forgetting everything to savor them:

A doleful sleepy day. I discovered at the dacha

A whole bunch of the unneeded old books.

Oh, my pile! Forget lunch and dinner

I am savouring in silence. Every moment is precious to me.530

As in many of his other poems, the lyric hero revisits different clichés of Russian literature: merchants’ language (probably Ostrovskii), a clever German doctor, Chekhov’s Yalta, etc. The poem elucidates the nature of Russian literature as a container of Russianness; as the hero reads on, the “Russian world” appears before him:

And laziness is so easy to me. And Yalta is so convulsive

there, in the distance, where Chekhov was dying

And the entire Russian world came to me, in retrospective

And I, loving it and laughing, cried over it.531

528 Except for flash card format allowing for rearranging the sequence, Limonov’s compilation of recognizable, but decontextualized passages predicts Lev Rubinshtein’s conceptualistic poetry of 1974, see http://www.rvb.ru/np/publication/02comm/33/04rubinstein.htm. 529 Limonov, Proshchanie s Rossiei. 530 Унылый сонный дождь. На даче обнаружил я целую толпу ненужных старых книг Ах груда ты моя! Долой обед и ужин смакую в тишине. мне дорог каждый миг 531 И так мне лень легко. Так судорожна Ялта вдали где Чехов умирал И весь он русский мир явился мне попятно И я его любя. смеясь над ним рыдал 206 The markedly clumsy and even ungrammatical syntax of the stanza does not conceal the

sophistication of its allusion to Chekhov: the author does not only bring in the person and the

setting (Chekhov, Yalta), but also incorporates the trademark Chekhovian emotion: laughter

through tears. At the end of the poem, the hero regains awareness of his surroundings and

concludes with a line that could serve as an epigraph to It’s Me, Eddie: “seichasnoe proidet. a

russkoe so mnoi” (“the things of today will pass. But Russianness is with me”). Limonov

contrasts the transient realities of today (his neologism “seichasnoe”) with “Russianness”, which

is, apparently, timeless, because it is embedded in literature.

In Limonov’s poetry, literature’s power to retain Russianness and infect readers with it is not

necessarily a blessing; a recurrent theme of the cycle is the intoxicating and even deadly nature

of Russian literature. Thus, the poem Russianness concludes a parade of literary pseudo-quotes

with a first-person declaration that art is poison: “It’s as if I am saturated by art. Poison! Poison!

– I cried.”532 The poem Knizhishchi (The Big Mean Books), written in a folksy fairy-tale

language, narrates the story of a pure boy driven off the right track by books:

Ooh, big mean books! Ooh, old ones! Ooh, rabble!

You destroyed the under-touched boy.533

The boy ends up flying away and getting lost at sea, and the poem ends in denunciation: “Burn, you damned mean books!”534 A later poem from the cycle Asia articulates the attitude even

more directly:

At first, I was just like you

Limonov, Unylyi sonnyi den’. 532 Limonov, Russkoe. “Я как напоенный искусством. Яд! яд! вскричал я.” 533 Уу книжищи! у старые! у сволочи! загубили мальчика недотронутого. Limonov, Knizhishchi. 534 “Горите проклятые книжищи!” 207 But then, harmful features developed in me

Books and the environment played the fatal role.535

«The fatal role of the environment » is a Marxist-cum-Soviet cliché, explaining people’s faulty morality by their unsatisfactory social environment. In an ironic twist, the lyric hero blames books for collaboration with social environment - the very factor whose negative influence literature was supposed to counterbalance, according to Soviet pedagogy. What “harmful features” are those promoted both by the dominant culture and Russian books? A comparative look at Russian literature and Soviet culture suggests that the culprit is the cherished Russian requirement to sacrifice oneself, i.e., secular kenosis.

In Russianness, the theme of secular kenosis lacks the clarity of focus that it gains in It’s Me,

Eddie when placed against the contrasting background of a foreign culture. Instead, it offers striking images of self-sacrifice and self-emptying connected to nationality, heroism, and the role of a Russian woman. In the poem Akh, rodnaia, rodnaia zemlia (Oh, the native, native land) the lyric character asks his native land what she needs him for, and the personified Russia responds that she needs him for sacrifice:

You are made specially for these plains

You are made for this sorrow

For my weedy grass

And for the whisper of the rusty knives

I am looking for your poor chest

535 Я вначале был такой же как и ты Но потом развились вредные черты Роковую роль сыграли книги и среда Limonov, On okatyvaia zuby. http://nbp-info.com/nbart/lim_rus/azi_12.html 208 But I’ll pay you for this service

I’ll twine your name into a candle

It will burn and burn

Any Russian will forgive you

And understand, understand everything,

take his hat off and shed a tear.536

In this poem, the relationship between the hero and his nation is that of sacrifice; his nation claims him as created specifically for that (“You are made specially for these plains / You are made for this sorrow”). The promised reward is virtual canonization; not the man, but his name will live on as a sacred symbol: a burning candle. For the reader, it is not clear for what Russians would forgive the sacrificed hero, but the lyrical voice of Russia promises that any Russian will understand, honor and admire this sacrifice (“And understand, understand everything / take his hat off and shed a tear.”)

In this poem, the voice of the nation articulates reliance on secular kenosis as the basis of its relationship with its members. An individual has to be ready to empty himself for his nation, in a symbolical rather than practically useful manner. The nation’s voice in the poem asks for no

536 Ты специально для этих равнин Ты и сделан для этой беды для моей для травы-лебеды И для шепота ржавых ножей Я ищу бедной груди твоей Но за службу такую плачу Твое имя свиваю в свечу и горит же она все горит тебя всякий из русских простит И поймет все поймет шапку снимет и слезы прольет Limonov, Akh, rodnaia, rodnaia zemlia. 209 concrete contribution; it seeks neither protection, nor help, nor glorification. It requires self- sacrifice as an aim in itself. At this point of Limonov’s career, he does not yet internalize the justification of such claim; the second voice of the poem – that of the lyric hero – questions the nation rather than agrees with its dogma. While there is no open opposition to kenotic expectations, one senses a certain reluctance on the lyric hero’s part; he does not appear completely convinced of the necessity of his sacrifice. Soon after writing this poem, Limonov chose to abandon his nation in pursuit of personal glory, rather than stay and serve his nation’s ends. However, when faced with an identity crisis in the foreign land, Limonov’s lyric hero returns to secular kenosis as a proven way to assert his worth.

While the poem Akh, rodnaia, rodnaia zemlia offers a rather nuanced dialogic contemplation on the nature and role of kenosis, Limonov’s other poems serve kenosis in the shape of pre- packaged formulas ready for consumption. Thus, in the poem V proshlyi prazdnik rovno v ponedel’nik (Last holiday, on Monday sharp), the lyric hero promises to prove his heroic, out-of- the-ordinary self by emptying himself of his life:

- I am a hero! A hero!

Wait, papa, why are you forcing

Me into the common ranks

I have a gift, I do

Disappear, father!

I’ll die, and scare all of you

Eventually!537

537 - Я герой! Герой! Погоди-ка папа что ты тулишь 210 As in the previous poem, the purposelessness of the sacrifice is striking: the speaker of the poem plans to demonstrate his heroism not by completing a difficult or dangerous task, but simply by dying. As in many artifacts starting from Boris and Gleb’s hagiography to Socialist

Realist fiction, not the purpose, but the very act of sacrifice holds value538.

Kenoticism as a defining feature of a Russian woman – a notion that will resurface in It’s Me,

Eddie – first appears in Limonov’s early poem Khoronili sochinitelia (A writer’s funeral). In the poem, failure to act kenotically precludes a generic “girl” from becoming a Russian woman:

They were burring a writer

The spring was beautiful

A girl in galoshes came

and cried a lot

She covered her face with her weak hand

And cried for a long time

She did not manage to become a Russian woman

And buy some wine for him

To stroke his hair

Меня в общий строй

Обладаю даром обладаю Пропади отец! Я умру и всех вас напугаю Наконец! Limonov, V proshlyi prazdnik rovno v ponedel’nik. 538 Association of heroism - and even, in particular, its military type - with sacrifice rather than achievement is striking in another of Limonov’s poems, Вот я вечером гуляю взаперти. In the poem, an expression of suffering (a pale and twisted face) serves as an indication of the hero’s heroic and even soldierly nature: “Видишь бледное лицо мое все набок/ Я геройский человек. я есть солдат”, see http://nbp-info.com/nbart/lim_rus/3sb_11.html. 211 Embrace him first

Stand between him and the grave

Prevent him from going insane539

The first word of the poem – “khoronili” (“they were burying”) sets the mood as one of

irrevocability: the lyric hero has already died. Enter the villain: a girl in galoshes who failed to

become a Russian woman and save the hero. Being a Russian woman entails various forms of

giving and self-emptying: buying wine for the hero, stroking his hair, hugging him and

protecting him from going insane. Her responsibilities include providing unreturned affection:

note the verb “obnimat’” (one-sided action), intensified by “sama” (herself) rather than the reflexive “obnimat’sia” (mutual exchange of affection). Among other things, a Russian woman is expected to step between the hero and the grave; of course, this action would place the woman herself closer to the grave, thus bringing her multifaceted kenosis to its culmination in ultimate self-sacrifice.

However, the heroine has failed to empty herself; as a result, the hero is dead and she is alive.

Her failure stems from weakness rather than unwillingness: she did not manage (“ne smogla”).

The poem portrays participation in secular kenosis as determined by people’s capacity; the value of kenotic behavior is undisputed, but not everybody is capable of meeting the challenge. The

539 Хоронили сочинителя Хороша была весна Пришла девочка в калошках очень плакала она Закрывалась ручкой слабою долго плакала она не смогла стать русской бабою да купить ему вина

волосы его поглаживать обнимать его сама от могилы отгораживать не давать сойти с ума Limonov, Khoronili sochinitelia. 212 poem’s heroine falls short of this task due to her immaturity: she remains a generic child, a

“devochka”, unable to graduate into the proud ranks of kenotic Russian women (“ne smogla stat’

russkoi baboiu.”) The author’s choice of a marked “baba” rather than the more neutral

“zhenshchina” can be interpreted in two ways. “Baba” can serve as a contemptuous variant of

“zhenshchina”, but this meaning is unlikely, since “russkaia baba” here describes a kenotic ideal with capacity to save the hero. The second meaning - countrywoman, peasant woman, the female equivalent of muzhik - appears more likely: kenoticism is not a Western quality characteristic of the refined and civilized women (“zhenshchiny”), but a Russian folk feature pertaining to simple Russian people. The poem’s heroine already belongs to this social stratus: she wears galoshes, a staple of the unrefined country life, unimaginable in the wardrobe of a sophisticated woman. Not the barrier of refinement, but a lack of strength and maturity apparently prevented the heroine from developing into a kenotic Russian woman and saving the hero.

Limonov’s poetry cycle Russianness introduces many themes that will become foregrounded

in his later writing. The cycle’s preoccupation with literature – understood as the repository of

Russianness – confirms Limonov’s faithfulness to the Russian literary tradition, and his

understanding of heroism as willingness to sacrifice rather than determination to achieve

prepares the set for the kenotic excesses of It’s Me, Eddie. Limonov’s understanding of a

Russian woman’s role as, first of all, a kenotic one provides an illuminating context for gender

role experiments undertaken by the protagonist of It’s Me Eddie and discussed later in the

chapter.

Contrary to the usual scheme, Limonov’s voice loses in dialogism as he moves from poetry to

prose. His poetic cycle features a variety of voices expressing different attitudes and points of 213 view; his prose, starting with It’s Me, Eddie, features the same recognizable character with a

consistent set of beliefs and biography540. In Limonov’s poetry, the lyric hero may debate with

the voice of Russian culture; in his prose, the protagonist embodies it. Limonov’s 1974 work We

Are the National Hero is a transition between the two genres: although much lengthier and with a

skeleton plot, it is reminiscent of Limonov’s earlier poem Russianness. Its position vis-à-vis dialogism is also transitional: on the eve of emigration, Limonov invested his conception of

Russianness into one two-faceted protagonist: the Limonov-and-Elena couple.

In We Are the National Hero, the lyric hero no longer questions his cultural dogma, he embodies it: “And wherever he goes – it is necessary to know that he is the son of the Russian culture and Russian instincts, and that no one else embodies Russia like Limonov.”541 The new element of this work is the conceptual divorce between Russianness and the Soviet Union: having made the decision to emigrate, the protagonist intends to carry on his national identity independent of statehood. Limonov’s matured protagonist has learned to dismiss the civic understanding of nationalism propagated by the Soviet state, and articulates his new, purely cultural definition of Russianness: “If the Russian state system fails to produce a national hero, then the Russian humaneness will produce one.”542 About to leave Russia, he does not intend to renounce Russianness; on the contrary, his purpose is to illustrate and exemplify it: “If you want to understand Russians, look into me.”543 In many respects, the novel It’s Me Eddie is a

540 Wachtel writes: “…there is no question that readers are meant to see the whole package as a portrait of the artist as the hero of an ongoing story”, see Remaining Relevant, 91. 541 “И куда бы он не поехал — нужно знать что он сын русской культуры и русских инстинктов, и что никто другой так не олицетворяет Россию как Лимонов.” Limonov, My – natsional’nyi geroi. 542 “Если национального героя не в состоянии выдвинуть русская государственность, то его выдвигает русская человечность.” Ibid. 543 «Если Вы хотите понять русских — взгляните в меня.” Ibid. 214 significantly less celebratory continuation of the same project: exemplifying Russianness to

the world.

“Not towards oneself, but away from oneself – that’s beautiful.”544

The title of this section - a direct quote from the novel’s first-person narrator –laconically

summarizes the cultural imperative with which the protagonist of It’s Me, Eddie defines his

Russianness. The novel portrays kenosis as an aesthetic value and an important component of

Russian national identity. Eddie’s understanding of the role that kenosis plays in life becomes

manifest through two channels: his behavior and his statements. Let me begin by analyzing the

character’s behavior in relation to the economy of daily life.

Eddie – an unemployed, lonely, linguistically and socially isolated Russian émigré in New

York City – lives a miserable life, exacerbated by his apparent refusal to pursue self-interest, if

one is to understand self-interest as physical comfort and social and financial accomplishment.

In spite of his miserable circumstances, Eddie does not seek employment, but spends his time

aimlessly sitting on a park bench. When he does find employment, he gives it up after a month,

commenting that it brought him nothing but money545. Starving for intellectual discourse, Eddie nevertheless declines, indignantly, a professorship at a college, offered by a friend. Pining for social affirmation, he makes himself a pariah in the homophobic Russian émigré society – the only group that still remembers and values his dissident achievement – by flaunting his degrading relationships with vagabonds or older rich men.

544 “Не к себе, а от себя – это красиво.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. Chapter 13. 545 “Ресторан стал надоедать мне. Единственное, что он мне приносил - немного денег, и я мог осуществить на эти деньги кое-какие мои мелкие желания, например, купил […] черную кружевную рубашку”, see Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. Chapter 2. 215 The aspects of Eddie’s behavior discussed thus far – his refusal to have a job, frivolity

with time, even flamboyant homosexuality – may be explained as trademark manifestations of a

universal bohemian lifestyle. Eddie subscribes to other Bohemian clichés, as well: he has a

weakness for catchy eccentric clothing; he enjoys nudity and worships his body; he values self-

expression; believes in living for the moment and shattering all laws and conventions; and loves

shocking the philistines (Epater les bourgeois!)546 All the mentioned characteristics can describe a generalized bohemian rebelling against a bourgeois life style and an equally characteristic bohemian quest for self-expression.

Yet, the universal bohemian doctrine fails to explain the peculiarities of Eddie’s rebellion, and the concrete ways in which he chooses to express himself. One would expect a bohemian to spend his last money on eccentric clothes instead of a refrigerator, but clothes for himself, not for others. It is common for bohemians to engage in depraved sexual acts, but the driving force is usually the pursuit of pleasure, not compassion. Bohemians have traditionally been fascinated by death, but seldom by self-sacrifice to a national idea. Finally, shocking the philistines has always been one of Bohemians’ favorite pastimes, but the concrete ways in which Eddie chooses to do the shocking reveals a lot about his value system and understanding of beauty. In It’s Me,

Eddie, the character appears to be filling the universal bohemian forms with a uniquely Russian

content.

The Russian content that dictates Eddie’s choice in forms of self-expression is the cultural

dogma of secular kenosis. Eddie believes that it is beautiful to empty himself out, and insists on

flaunting his kenotic behavior, although no one in his immediate environment understands or

546 Eddie’s values and behaviors very closely match those of the twentieth-century bohemians, in particular the Greenwich Village type described by Malcolm Cowley in his 1934 book Exile’s Return. 216 appreciates this. In pursuit of attention and admiration, Eddie stages endless one-man shows

of kenotic behavior aimed at any audience he can access: his potential readers (the protagonist is

writing an autobiographical account of his life), neighbors, restaurant patrons, or occasional

passers-by. Like the author, who shocked the Russian reading public by describing the most

intimate moments of his hero’s life, his character Eddie exposes his most private spaces and

spheres: he treats his home as a stage on which he performs for those who can see him through

the windows, and he turns the betrayal of his wife into an exhibition attended and photographed

by strangers.

The novel’s first paragraph already sets the tone of the novel as that of histrionic

demonstration of Eddie’s Russianness:

If you’re walking past the corner of Madison Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street between one and three in the afternoon, take the trouble to tip back your head and look up – at the unwashed windows of the black Hotel Winslow. There on the topmost, sixteenth floor, on the centermost of the hotel’s three balconies, I sit half naked. Usually I am eating shchi and at the same time working on my tan, I’m a great sun lover. Shchi, or sauerkraut soup, is my usual fare; I eat pot after pot of it, day after day, and eat almost nothing else. The spoon I eat the shchi with is wooden and was brought from Russia. It is decorated with flowers of scarlet, gold, and black.547

The very first sentence is a cry for attention: in the imperative mood, the narrator urges his

readers to overcome their laziness and look at him. The location of the narrator is given with

excessive detail: not simply “the highest floor” of the building, but “the highest, 16th floor”; not

547 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 3. “Проходя между часом дня и тремя по Мэдисон-авеню, там где ее пересекает 55-я улица, не поленитесь, задерните голову и взгляните вверх - на немытые окна черного здания отеля "Винслоу". Там, на последнем, 16-ом этаже, на среднем, одном из трех балконов гостиницы сижу полуголый я. Обычно я ем щи и одновременно меня обжигает солнце, до которого я большой охотник. Щи с кислой капустой моя обычная пища, я ем их кастрюлю за кастрюлей, изо дня в день, и кроме щей почти ничего не ем. Ложка, которой я ем щи - деревянная и привезена из России. Она разукрашена золотыми, алыми и черными цветами.” 217 merely “the balcony in the middle”, but “the middle of the three balconies”. Eddie sees

himself as the absolute center of gravity, and it is very important for him to direct readers’

attention exactly to him, preventing it from getting lost in the surrounding landscape.

Unsurprisingly, Eddie is lunching together with the Sun – as did another narcissist of Russian

literature, Vladimir Mayakovsky548. However, the ensuing details of the meal, monopolized by a

hardly appetizing cabbage soup, would have appeared puzzling,549 if not for the painted Russian

spoon. This spoon – a stereotypical staple of Russian folk culture – serves as a built-in

directional signal, inviting the reader to treat Eddie’s behavior as a manifestation of his

Russianness. Not coincidentally, a consistently and voluntarily scanty diet is a frequent trope in

Russian Orthodox hagiographies550. Among numerous Russian saints that earned their

sainthood, in part, by restraining their appetite, the most conspicuous figure is St. Theodosius,

who, according to his Vita, ate nothing but “cooked vegetables”551. St. Theodosius is not only a

key Russian saint – second only to Boris and Gleb – but also a devoted disciple of kenoticism, of

548 See Vladimir Mayakovsky, Необычайное приключение, бывшее с Владимиром Маяковским летом на даче. Vladimir Mayakovsky is not a passing reference for Limonov; later in the novel, the narrator carefully constructs a mystical link between himself and his great predecessor through Lilya Brik, the woman whom Mayakovsky loved and to whom he devoted his most renowned lyric poetry (see below). Andrew Wachtel’s comment suggests the nature of Limonov’s fascination with Mayakovsky: “Limonov’s persona is Mayakovskian in his grandeur and conceit” (Wachtel, Remaining Relevant. 92). The parallel between Eddie and Mayakovsky reemerges later in the novel, when Eddie brings up, twice, Andrew Wachtel notes the parallel between Eddie and Mayakovsky 549 Having read more of the novel, readers realize that limiting food intake to shchi is not, indeed, a practical necessity for Eddie: he could have afforded a more various diet if he bought less wine, flashy clothes from expensive stores, or costly presents for his ex-wife. 550 Daniel Rancour-Laferriere discusses the following Russian saints’ weakness for uneventful diets: 551 Zenkovsky, Serge A. Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. 129. It is unlikely that Eddie – or his author, Eduard Limonov – are familiar with Life of Our Blessed Father Theodosius: in the officially atheist Soviet Union, only a very limited group of philologists read Russian hagiographies. Eduard Limonov never went to college, and hardly could have had access to this vita, unless he was introduced to it by a religious friend. The similarities between Eddie’s behavior and Russian hagiographic clichés testify to the degree to which the kenotic ideal was embedded in the Russian culture, and continued affecting the behavior of Russians long after it lost its religious meaning. 218 which his undemanding diet is a manifestation. Inadvertently or not, Eddie emulates St.

Theodosius’s behavior, probably because it fits his aesthetic ideal.

Eddie’s kenosis is not private; it is meant for an audience. He treats his room - which could serve as a welcome refuge from the cruel world around him – as a stage, whose shallow space

(“four steps long and three steps wide”) has the audience for the fourth wall. Moreover, Eddie takes full advantage of a space that resembles a stage even more - his balcony:

I choke and gobble, naked on the balcony. I’m nto ashamed before those unknown people in the offices or their eyes. […] I am not inhibited. I am often to be found bare- assed in my shallow little room, my member pale against the background of the rest of my body, and I do not give a damn whether they see me or don’t, the clerks, secretaries, and managers. I’d rather they did see me. They’re probably used to me by now, and perhaps they miss me on days when I don’t crawl out on my balcony. I suppose they call me “that crazy across the way.”552

Realizing that his culinary exercises, kenotic or not, can hardly attract much interest from the spectators, Eddie performs them in the nude, aware that nudity can draw more attention to his kenosis. Hopingly, Eddie contemplates who that audience may be: “clerks, secretaries, and managers,” and speculates on how they feel about him, whether they miss him, and what nickname they might have given him.

The detailed description of his room’s interior design is reminiscent of stage settings: each object reveals an aspect of the inhabitant’s personality553. Included in the stage settings is the

552 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 3-4. “Я, задыхаясь, жру голый на балконе. Я не стесняюсь этих неизвестных мне людей в оффисах и их глаз. […] Я не стеснительный. Я часто вожусь с голой жопой и бледным на фоне всего остального тела членом в своей неглубокой комнатке, и мне плевать, видят они меня или не видят, клерки, секретарши и менеджеры. Скорее я хотел бы, чтобы видели. Они, наверное, ко мне уже привыкли и, может быть, скучают в те дни, когда я не выползаю на свой балкон. Я думаю, они называют меня - "этот крейзи напротив.” 553 The description of Eddie’s room serves as a miniature Table of Contents, which foreshadows the important upcoming chapters in Eddie’s life. Each prop placed on the walls of Eddie’s room corresponds to a theme or an 219 image of the main hero as he wants to be seen: “my own photograph against a background of

icons and a brick wall, and me holding a thick volume, perhaps a dictionary or a Bible, and

wearing a 114-patch blazer tailored by me, Limonov.”554 Throughout the novel, the character

reveals very little affiliation with religion; yet, his proto-image includes icons – a clear reference

to Orthodoxy - as the background, and the prop in his hands is suggestive of a Bible (or a

dictionary – the ambiguity of the “volume” relieves Eddie from the cumbersome task of holding

two books: one denoting his Russianness, and the other underscoring his literary affiliation). The

selection of books in Eddie’s room is not specified; they also play a symbolically decorative role

in the stage settings: “Completing the wall décor are two shelves of books. Mainly poetry.”555

Renouncing the privacy of his room, Eddie turns it into a stage on which he exhibits the image

of himself that he wants the world to see: a beautiful, kenotic Russian poet mortifying his flesh.

Throughout the novel, Eddie gives a religious twist to his performances. In an extreme case

of emotional exhibitionism – an exhibition devoted to the betrayal of his former wife Elena –

Eddie invites people to see the artifacts of Elena’s infidelity, accompanied by a painfully

confessional commentary on how these artifacts wound him. He calls the happening “A

Memorial to Saint Elena,”556 and invites photographers to commemorate it. The overarching

important event upcoming in the novel: “На стенах, прикрывая пятна, оставшиеся от прежних жильцов, висят: большой портрет Мао Цзэ Дуна - предмет ужаса для всех людей, которые заходят ко мне; портрет Патриции Херст; моя собственная фотография на фоне икон и кирпичной стены, а я с толстым томом - может быть словарь или библия - в руках, и в пиджаке из 114 кусочков, который сшил сам - Лимонов, монстр из прошлого; портрет Андре Бретона, основателя сюрреалистической школы, который я вожу с собой уже много лет, и которого Андре Бретона обычно никто их приходящих ко мне не знает; призыв защищать гражданские права педерастов; еще какие-то призывы, в том числе плакат, призывающий голосовать за Рабочей партии кандидатов; картины моего друга художника Хачатуряна; множество мелких бумажек. В изголовье кровати у меня плакат - "За Вашу и Нашу свободу", оставшийся от демонстрации у здания "Нью Йорк Таймз". Дополняют декоративное убранство стен две полки с книгами. В основном - поэзия.” 554 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 4. “моя собственная фотография на фоне икон и кирпичной стены, а я с толстым томом - может быть словарь или библия - в руках, и в пиджаке из 114 кусочков, который сшил сам.” 555 Ibid. “Дополняют декоративное убранство стен две полки с книгами. В основном – поэзия.” 556 “Мемориал Святой Елены.” 220 theme of the exhibition is self-humiliation and self-torture; again, one is reminded of St.

Theodosius – the Russian kenotic icon - and his practice of wearing an iron chain girded around

his loins and gnawing into his body557. Eddie does not limit himself to physical or

emotional kenosis; he engages in emptying himself of material resources, as well. In spite of his

limited funds, Eddie manages to find an opportunity for grand financial self-emptying, combined

with turning the other cheek and self-humiliation: a cuckolded husband, abandoned for a lover,

he buys expensive lingerie for his ex-wife, knowing that she will use his gift in her sexual

pursuits with others. Eddie also buys his ex-wife dinners in chic restaurants (Elena invites her

lover along); shoes in Bloomingdales; hair dye; make-up bags; he brings her food when she is ill;

alters her dresses; and comes to see her on stage when her current lover fails to show up. No one

approves of Eddie’s behavior; a friend yells at him in indignation: “I’ll smash that prostitute’s

face! Why does she take money from you? […] You bought her panties, you fool, you

shitass!”558 and then describes the painful details of how exactly Elena uses Eddie’s gifts.

Kenosis has not always been Eddie’s norm in his relationship with Elena. From the character’s flashbacks, the reader learns of his numerous attempts to control Elena’s behavior, which took Eddie as far as choking her. Eddie’s fantasies are also rather violent: they involve kidnapping and rape. His eventual kenotic attitude to Elena appears to be inspired by external models rather than his natural inclinations. The character himself suggests one of these models:

You think I am farting around showing off, making myself out to be an all-forgiving Christ? Fuck no, this is honest, I wouldn’t lie, I’m too proud. It hurts me, it hurts, but every day I tell myself and instill in myself: “Treat Elena, Eddie-baby, as Christ treated Mary Magdalene and all women who sinned. No, treat her better. Forgive her both

557 Zenkovsky, 124. 558 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 253. “Я набью этой проститутке морду, почему она берет у тебя деньги […] Трусики ты ей купил, дурак, блядь!” 221 today’s whoredom and her adventures. All right, it’s the way she is,” I exhorted myself. “If you love her […] love is above personal grudge. She’s unwise and evil and unhappy. But you feel that you’re wise and good: love her, don’t scorn her. Keep an eye on her life. Sge doesn’t want you to, don’t pry into her life, but help when you can and must. Help, and expect nothing in return – don’t demand that she com back to you in return for whatever you’re able to do. Love does not demand gratitude and gratification. Love itself is gratification.”559

Eddie conjures up a parallel that is far from exact: the prototypical personae did not have the

personal relationship of a cuckolded husband and a deceitful wife. Eddie’s cultural baggage

suggests another, more precise intertextual connection: Chekhov’s short story The Grasshopper.

As any person who grew up in the Soviet Union, Eddie is likely to have read this story, which was a staple of the Soviet high school literature program. In the story, Dr. Dymov unconditionally accepts and supports his wife Olga in spite of her obvious unfaithfulness.

Dymov stays up nights to make extra money in order to send it to his wife traveling with her lover. At her soirées, Dymov reduces himself to the role of butler. In joy or sorrow, he gains no attention from Olga, but never fails to provide for her entertainment, and comforts her when

Olga’s lover abandons her. At the end of the story, Dymov dies from an infection contracted while performing a risky operation to save a child patient560.

559 Ibid., 237. “ Вы думаете, я выебываюсь и делаю из себя Христа всепрощающего? Ни хуя подобного, это честно, я не стал бы врать, слишком гордый, мне больно, больно, но я всякий день говорю себе и внушаю: "Относись к Елене, Эдичка, как Христос относился к Марии Магдалине и всем грешницам, нет, лучше относись. Прощай ей и блуд сегодняшний и ее приключения. Ну что ж - она такая, - убеждал я себя. - Раз ты любишь ее […] - любовь выше личной обиды. Она неразумная, и злая, и несчастная. Но ты же считаешь, что ты разумный и добрый - люби ее, не презирай. Смотри за ее жизнью, она не хочет - не лезь в ее жизнь, но когда можно и нужно - помогай. Помогай и не жди ничего взамен - не требуй ее возврата к тебе, за то, что ты сможешь сделать. Любовь не требует благодарности и удовлетворения. Любовь сама - удовлетворение". The reference resurfaces once again in the novel, when Eddie employs the ennobling parallel to overcome his pain- induced anger: “Я вспомнил ее слова: "Ты - ничтожество!" - сказанные мне в феврале по телефону. - "Нет в моем сердце злобы!" - сказал я себе для успокоения. - "Как Христос Марию Магдалину!" - продолжал я про себя. Помогло.” 560 In his article Čexov's "The Grasshopper": A Secular Saint's Life, George Pahomov shows that although explicit biblical references are absent from Chekhov’s story, implicit ones are abundant. Pahomov illuminates parallels 222 There is a striking structural similarity between Dr. Dymov and Eddie: each character is emptying himself for a woman who accepts his material and immaterial gifts, but spends her love elsewhere561. The difference between the two consists in the degree of each character’s self- consciousness. For Dymov, kenotic behavior appears to come naturally; he acts this way with everyone562, not just Olga, and never steps outside his kenotic role. For Eddie, on the other hand, kenosis appears to be just one of several options of how to behave with Elena. Far from

Dymov’s naïve conduct, Eddie’s kenosis is an aesthetic choice, reinforced by grand cultural prototypes.

Dymov’s example affects Eddie in two ways: it provides him with a concrete model of kenotic behavior towards an unfaithful woman, but also forewarns him of the likely outcome of such behavior. In Chekhov’s story, Dymov dies abandoned and misunderstood, and only after his death, Olga somewhat acknowledges his greatness. However, Dymov’s grim end – which could be read as a warning against excessive kenotic practices in daily life - does not discourage

Eddie; he volunteers to accept the role of giver in a kenotic scenario with full consciousness of its bleak implications. Like Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull, who assumes the kenotic role in

between Dymov’s story and two renown Russian hagiographies: Vita of St. Theodosius and St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, and convincingly demonstrates that Dymov’s life story is modeled on that of a specifically Russian, kenotic saint. The next question to ask would be the motivation behind this striking parallel: is Dymov imitating St. Theodosius or St. Tikhon in his behavior (and if so, is he doing it self-consciously?), or is Chekhov modeling his story of an Orthodox Vita, transposed into the nineteenth-century secular scientific milieu? 561 The ostensible difference between Chekhov’s character and Eddie is that Dr. Dymov’s beneficiary is his wife, while Elena is not Eddie’s wife anymore; George Pahomov, however, speculates that Olga is Dymov’s wife on paper only and that there is no corporal dimension to their relationship, see George Pahomov, Čexov's "The Grasshopper": A Secular Saint's Life. 562 Dymov acts kenotically with everyone he encounters: he continuously welcomes guests who do not respect him or bring him joy; in a scene at the dacha, he goes away hungry, leaving delicacies for strangers; he repeatedly abandons caution when working with patients, which eventually leads to his death. 223 spite of Trigorin’s rather explicit warning563, Eddie enters a pre-existing kenotic plot, prepared and willing to face the consequences.

Yet, passive kenosis à la Boris and Gleb does not fully satisfy Eddie. Since Eddie bases his notion of self-worth on kenotic ability, he seeks to escalate his kenosis and empty himself more thoroughly or more strikingly. In pursuit of a more arresting case of giving himself away, Eddie experiments with gender roles and homosexual love; his experiences in this area are noteworthy enough to deserve a separate discussion.

Gender Role Experiments. Woman: Consumer or Giver?

Most scholars conclude that the character of It’s Me, Eddie turns to homosexuality because he

is disappointed in women564. The narrator himself suggests this interpretation: when asking a friend to introduce him to his first male lover, Eddie explains that he is too revolted by women to continue as a heterosexual: “women rouse me to disgust, my wife has made intercourse with women impossible for me, I can’t deal with them.”565 Yet, Eddie’s refusal to deal with women has a curiously non-sexual character. He cannot “deal” with females (presumably, because of their treacherous nature); yet, he never articulates his repulsion toward female physiology or attraction toward the male one. While choosing to initiate relations with men, he never mentions sexual feelings toward his own sex. The only reasons Eddie cites for turning homosexual are socio-economic ones:

563 See Chekhov chapter. In a few words: Trigorin shares with Nina his “plot”: “Сюжет для небольшого рассказа: на берегу озера с детства живет молодая девушка, такая, как вы; любит озеро, как чайка, и счастлива, и свободна, как чайка. Но случайно пришел человек, увидел и от нечего делать погубил ее, как вот эту чайку.” (Act 2). He introduces the plot in which Nina is sacrificed, and she eagerly agrees to assumes the role. Moreover, she phrases her intention to participate in the plot in a way that emphasizes the kenotic aspect of her role: “Если тебе когда-нибудь понадобится моя жизнь, то приди и возьми ее.” (Act 3). 564 See, for instance, Pavlenko. 565 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 44. “бабы вызывают у меня отвращение, моя жена сделала для меня невозможным общение с женщинами, я не могу с ними иметь дело.” 224 They [women] are always having to be serviced, undressed, fucked. They’re panhandlers and parasites by natures, in everything from intimate relations to the economics of the normal joint household in society. I can’t live with them anymore. The main thing is, I can’t service them – take the initiative, make the first move. What I need now is someone to service me – caress, kiss, want me – rather than wanting and being ingratiating myself. Only from men can I get all this.566

For Eddie, homosexuality appears to be an experiment in economically-defined gender roles

rather than in sexual orientation. Choosing men as partners, Eddie does not simply change his

sexual behavior, but alters his role in relation to life resources567, mimicking that of a woman.

Descriptions of his encounters with male lovers copiously emphasize Eddie’s contextual femininity, and the pleasure that he derives from feeling like a woman. Yet, the meaning that

Eddie invests into a woman’s role is ambiguous: his direct statements point to understanding the female role as that of a consumer, while his behavior during the homosexual episodes suggests a more kenotic, giving attitude characteristic of women’s traditional role in Russian culture.

During Eddie’s first physical encounter with a man, he does not only associate himself with a woman, but even imitates the behavior of a concrete female role model - his wife:

He put me on the bed, I lay on my back, and he lay on top, making motions such as you make when fuckign a woman. He devoted himself to this travesty for some time, panted heavilty and breathed in my ear, kissed my neck. I threw back my head and rolled it from side to side exactly as my last wife had...568s

566 Ibid. “их [женщин] всегда нужно обслуживать, раздевать, ебать, они от природы попрошайки и иждивенцы во всем – от интимных отношений - до нормальной экономической совместной жизни в обществе. Я не могу больше жить с ними, а главное, я не могу их обслуживать - первому проявлять инициативу, делать движения, мне нужно сейчас чтоб меня самого обслуживали, ласкали, целовали, хотели меня, а не чтоб я хотел и заискивал - все это я могу найти только у мужчин.” 567 The concept of “life resources” is explained in more detail in the Introduction. 568 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 61-62. “Он положил меня на кровать, я лег спиной, и он лег сверху, делая такие движения, как делают с женщиной, когда ее ебут. Некоторое время он занимался этой имитацией, тяжело дышал и сопел у меня над ухом, целовал в шею, я откидывал голову и катал ее из стороны в сторону совершенно так же как это делала моя последняя жена…” 225 Dedicated to playing a woman’s role, Eddie projects his histrionic attitude onto Raymond: he

calls Raymond’s apparently genuine love-making a travesty (“imitatsiia”.) Describing his affair

with a different man, Eddie casually refers to his own behavior as “pretending”: “I was getting

drunk and silly, and passing from the state of pretending and humor into a state of genuine

drugged relaxation.”569

Rather than perceiving his homosexual experience as an act of love between two men

attracted to each other, Eddie sees it as a surrogate of an act between a man and a woman. In his

later homosexual adventures, Eddie also persistently envisions himself as a woman, or, more

precisely, Elena. His encounter with Chris starts after Chris tries to strangle Eddie, the way

Eddie tried to strangle Elena570. The act of physical love between the two men seems to be a

reenactment of the act between Eddie and Elena, only this time, Eddie plays Elena’s part:

“Cautiously I stroked his scar with my fingers. He caught my hand in his lips and kissed it finger

by finger, as I had done with Elena.”571 In the midst of love-making, Eddie revels in being treated like a woman:

At that moment I was really a woman, capricious, demanding, and probably seductive […] These were purely feminine feelings, I think. […]

I was behaving now exactly as my wife had when I fucked her. I caught myself feeling this, and I thought, So this is how she is, this is how they are! Exultation surged through my body.572

569 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Я пьянел, дурнел и от притворства и юмора перешел в настоящее дурманное расслабленное состояние.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka, Chapter 8. 570 “Этот парень душил меня, это было справедливо, потому что два месяца назад я душил Елену”, see Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka, Chapter 4. 571 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 77. “Я осторожно погладил его шрам пальцами. Он поймал губами и поцеловал мою руку, палец за пальцем, как я делал когда-то Елене.” 572 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 81. “В этот момент я действительно был женщиной, капризной, требовательной и наверное соблазнительной […] Думаю, это были чисто женские ощущения. […] 226 Throughout his descriptions of homosexual scenes, Eddie keeps reflecting on his role as that

of a woman, and this realization seems to be the chief source of his enjoyment573.

Judging by Eddie’s direct statements, what motivates him to try the role of a woman is his desire to take rather than to give. He claims that he envies women for their receiving position in life:

Now, after everything, I was suffering acute envy towards Elena, and since she embodied for me the whole female sex, envy toward women in general. The biological injustice roused my indignation. Why must I love, seek, fuck, preserve – so many more verbs could be piled on – while she must only use.574

In an attempt to correct this biological injustice, Eddie decides to become homosexual, which, for him, means assuming a female role.

Eddie’s first relationship with a man – a wealthy former dancer named Raymond - is set in the mood of economic transaction rather than passion or romance. Eddie contemplates his budding relationship in terms of a business contract, trying to determine the preferred sequence of

“payments”:

…I was suddenly struck by the thought, He’s seeking love, care, and kindness, but I seek the very same thing – that’s why I’m sitting with him, I came for love, care, and kindness. But how can we part? I was distraught. If I’m supposed to give him love, I don’t want to – I don’t, that’s all. I want to be loved, otherwise I don’t need any of it. In

Я вел себя сейчас в точности так же, как вела себя моя жена, когда я ебал ее. Я поймал себя на этом ощущении, и мне подумалось: "Так вот какая она, так вот какие они!", и ликование прошло по моему телу.” 573 The only time Eddie reports experiencing physical, rather than psychological satisfaction during a homosexual episode is when he dissociates himself from his male partner and fantasizes about women, see Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka, Chapter 8. 574 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 32. “Сейчас, после всего, меня пронизывает острая зависть к Елене, а так как в ней для меня воплотился весь женский род, то зависть к женщинам вообще. Несправедливость биологическая возмущает меня. Почему я должен любить, искать, ебать, сохранять – сколько еще можно было бы нагромоздить глаголов, а она должна только пользоваться.” 227 return for his loving me, if he does, I will come to love him later. I know myself, that’s the way it will be. But to begin with, let him love me.575

The entire relationship rotates around the question of daily life economics. Raymond starts their

first date by reporting on his available resources, in material, temporal, and emotional terms.

When he asks Eddie about his life in Russia, the poet responds by a detailed account of his daily

economics: producing samizdat books, selling them for 5 rubles a piece; sewing pants for 20

rubles a pair, etc.576 Raymond gives Eddie a sum of money, and pays for him in an expensive

restaurant. He is also willing to make an economic commitment: “he’ll take you to restaurants

very often, he’ll buy you a suit, but just don’t live with anyone for now.”577 The ensuing erotic moment is inspired by the sense of obligation: Eddie feels that he has to provide satisfaction in exchange for what he expects from Raymond.

When the affair is on its way, however, Eddie suddenly realizes that what he really wants is not to use his wealthy benefactor Raymond, but to play Robin Hood and give things and affection to those less fortunate than himself:

And suddenly I realized that I would gladly have taken a knife or a razor and slit this Raymond’s throat, although it was not he who had raped me, I had raped myself. Here I

575 Ibid., 57. “…меня вдруг поразила мысль - он ищет любви, заботы и ласки, но ведь я ищу того же самого - за этим я и сижу с ним, я пришел за любовью, заботой и лаской. Как же мы разойдемся? Я растерялся. Если я должен давать ему любовь - я не хочу, не хочу и все, я хочу чтоб меня любили – иначе не нужно ничего. За его любовь ко мне, если она будет, я полюблю его впоследствии, я себя знаю, так будет, но вначале пусть он.” 576 “Мои произведения не печатали журналы и издательства. Я печатал их сам на пишущей машинке, примитивно вставлял в картонную обложку, скреплял металлическими скрепками-скобками и продавал по пять рублей штука. Сборники эти оптом по 5-10 штук продавал я своим ближайшим поклонникам- распространителям, каждый из которых являлся центром кружка интеллигентов. Распространители платили мне деньги сразу, а потом распродавали сборники поштучно в своих кружках. Обычно Самиздат идет бесплатно, я единственный, кто продавал таким образом свои книги. По моим подсчетам, мне распространили около восьми тысяч сборников... […] - Еще я умел шить и шил по заказу брюки. Брал я за одну пару 20 рублей, шил я и сумочки, и моя предыдущая жена Анна, помню, ходила продавать их в ГУМ - главный универсальный магазин на Красной площади по 3 рубля штука.” See Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka Chapter 3. 577 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 59. “он будет водить тебя в рестораны, очень часто, купит тебе костюм, только ты чтобы не жил пока ни с кем.” 228 sat, but I could have slit his throat, stripped off his diamond rings, headed home from the expesive apartment with the Chagall, and bought myself a prostitute for the whole night, the girl of Chinese-Malayan descent, the small and elegant one who always stands on the corner of Eightth Avenue and Forty-fifth Street, but female, a girl. I would have kissed her all night, I would have made it nice for her, I’d have kissed her peepka and pretty little heels.

And with the rest of the money I would have bought the most expensive suit at Ted Lapidus for this booby Kirill, because who else would buy it for him, and I was older and more experienced.578

Contrary to his claims, Eddie does not want to be on the receiving end of economic interactions;

he wants to give, whether it is pleasure to a prostitute or expensive clothing to his poorly-dressed

friend. In spite of Raymond’s commitment to provide for him emotionally and financially, Eddie

never actualizes the relationship.

In his actual homosexual relationships, Eddie continues experiencing the female role, but in a

manner opposite to the consumerist position that he articulated earlier. Having failed in the role

of a materialistic concubine with Raymond, Eddie feels more natural playing the part of a

devoted, selfless girlfriend to a series of two vagabonds: Chris and Johnny. Eddie

enthusiastically gives pleasure to his chance acquaintance Chris on a pile of sand at an

abandoned construction site, and rejoices when his lover agrees to “keep” him: “He was taking

me, I was absolutely happy; he was taking me.”579

578 Ibid., 66-67. “И вдруг я понял, что сейчас с удовольствием перерезал бы глотку этому Раймону ножом или бритвой, хотя не он меня насиловал, а я насиловал себя сам, сидел здесь, но я перерезал бы ему глотку, содрал бы с него кольца с бриллиантами и ушел бы восвояси из дорогой квартиры с Шагалом, и купил бы себе девочку-проститутку на целую ночь, ту, китайско-малайского происхождения, маленькую и изящную, что всегда стоит на углу 8-й авеню и 45-й улицы, проститутку, но самочку, девочку. Целовал бы ее всю ночь, делал бы ей приятное, и пипку и пяточки целовал. А на оставшиеся деньги купил бы этому балбесу Кириллу самый дорогой костюм у Теда Лапидуса, потому что кто ему еще купит, а я старше и опытнее.” 579 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Он брал меня, я был совершенно счастлив, он брал меня.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. Chapter 6. 229 His second homosexual relationship is even more openly saturated with the spirit of giving

rather than passion or romance. Eddie chooses a shabby beggar in dirty clothes, despised by the

inhabitants of New York streets: “He was the lowest man in this world, my Johnny, and I was his

boyfriend. I understood at once that he was the lowest of the low.”580 There is hardly any sexual

attraction: “I did not want him at all.”581 Neither human warmth nor comradeship is present in the relationship: Johnny does not validate Eddie and even acts as if he is ashamed of the poet582; he lets his friends beat Eddie and even asks them to rob him; finally, he abandons the poet several times during one night583. Moreover, Johnny suffers from Eddie’s pet peeve weakness: he is not on the giving side. During their night of wandering around New York streets, the penniless Eddie repeatedly asks Johnny for food, but the latter refuses: “He was laughing. He understood very well that I was hungry. […] But he didn’t want to buy me food.”584 Eddie is not delusional; he registers his boyfriend’s shortcomings: “Stingy bum, loathsome zhlobby character!” Trudging along behind him, I cursed him in Russian and in English.”585 Yet, Eddie continues to “trudge along behind” Johnny the entire night, tolerates all the offenses, and faithfully waits when Johnny attends to his begging business.

Eddie’s motivation appears to be purely kenotic:

580 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Он был последний человек в этом мире, мой Джонни, а я был его дружок. Я сразу понял, что он последний человек.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. Chapter 8. 581 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Я же его совершенно не хотел.” Ibid. 582 “Я думал: "Конечно, он подонок, шестерка, хуже и меньше его даже здесь нет никого, все его гонят, и очевидно, он выпрашивает монеты, но даже он стесняется меня, делает вид, что со мной не знаком, что я со стороны, а он, Джонни, - сам по себе.” Ibid. 583 “Джонни в эту ночь бросал меня порой надолго, и у меня не раз возникало подозрение, что он хочет от меня отвязаться.” Ibid. 584 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Он смеялся. Он отлично понял, что я хочу есть. […] Но он не хотел купить мне еды.” Ibid. 585 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 165. “Жадный бродяга, мерзкая жлобская личность! - ругал я его по-русски и по- английски, плетясь за ним.” 230 Within me was the stubbornness of an all-forgiving love. […] something made me sit and wait for this bum and not go home to bed in the hotel. Something very powerful. I absolutely clung to him. Maybe I wanted to pity him, to give myself to him, this man chased away by all.586

Eddie wants to give himself away in a gesture of pure, disinterested self-emptying, and the low

status of the recipient increases the purity of Eddie’s gesture, since it reduces the possibility of

self-interest. Eddie revels in Johnny’s social and moral inferiority, and derives from it his

kenotic inspiration:

Of course he’s punk, a flunky. There’s no one worse or less than he, even here. Everyone chases him away, and he’s obviously begging for coins, but even he is ashamed of me, pretends that he doesn’t know me, that I’m an outsider and he, Johnny, is on his own. Nevertheless, I must be here and wait for him, the lowest filth off New York’s sidewalks, I must be with him.587

Eddie sees his extraordinary kenotic capacity, which allows him to gift himself to such an

undesirable, lowly creature, as a marker of his exceptionality: “Another man in my place would

have left, wouldn’t have given a damn, especially since the excitement was gone, the sex drive

had vanished, there was only a drugged, alcoholic state; but that was what another would have

done. Not I.”588 In an ecstasy of self-admiration, Eddie feasts on the realization of his lover’s inferiority, which translates, for Eddie, into his own moral beauty: “I felt that I must walk with

586 Ibid., 162. ”Во мне было какое-то упрямство любви и всепрощения. […] нечто заставляло меня сидеть и ждать этого бродягу и не идти спать в отель. Нечто очень сильное. Я к нему приебался. Может, его, всеми гонимого, мне хотелось пожалеть, дать ему себя.” 587 Ibid. “Конечно, он подонок, шестерка, хуже и меньше его даже здесь нет никого, все его гонят, и очевидно, он выпрашивает монеты, но даже он стесняется меня, делает вид, что со мной не знаком, что я со стороны, а он, Джонни, - сам по себе. Тем не менее, я должен быть здесь и ждать его, грязь последнюю с нью-йоркских тротуаров, я должен быть с ним.” 588 Ibid., 159. “Другой на моем месте ушел бы, плюнул, тем более, что возбуждение пропало, секс улетучился, было только дурманно-алкогольное состояние, но так сделал бы другой, но не я.” ” 231 him everywhere in his strange dealings, wait for him, and be a friend to him, to this lowest

man, this punk dressed in dirty rags.”589

Eddie is not naïve enough to be completely oblivious to the psychological justification of his behavior. While waiting for his lover attend to his begging business, Eddie experiences an intense internal dialogue, trying to understand the motivation for his actions. Towards the end of the dialogue, one of his internal voices mocks his behavior as artificial and histrionic: “Fucking all-forgiver, he’s playing the saint, he’s come to save Johnny, bring him love!” a seventh voice screamed obscenely.”590 Eddie silences the vulgar voice, and continues on his path of thorough self-emptying. Yet, by the end of the night, it is exactly his histrionics that enable the exhausted

Eddie to follow through with his self-emptying: “Already people were walking to work – admittedly, not many – and they gave us a wide berth. On seeing the people I came alive as an actor […] I wanted to fuck, and at the same time I wanted to scare these people walking to work.

I went for his cock.”591

Thus, Eddie’s homosexual adventures appear to be experiments with yet another type of kenosis. In Russian culture, the kenotic role has traditionally been a female one. Of course, there are striking examples of male kenoticists, including those discussed in this dissertation.

However, these cases are striking partially because in their kenotic behavior, men violate the norm and assume a role not characteristic of a male. Women, on the other hand, are expected to act kenotically; their self-emptying does not draw attention because it falls fully within the

589 Ibid. “Я считал, что я должен ходить с ним везде по его странным делам, ждать его и быть этому последнему человеку, подонку, одетому в грязные тряпки, другом.”” 590 Ibid., 163. “Всепрощенец ебаный, святого из себя корчит, спасать Джонни пришел, любовь ему принес! - похабно взвизгнул седьмой голос.” 591 Ibid., 166. “Уже шли люди, редкие, правда, на работу и с опаской обходили нас. Увидав людей, я встрепенулся как актер […] мне захотелось одновременно и ебаться и как-то напугать этих людей, идущих на работу. И я полез к его хую...” ” 232 Russian cultural norm. The Russian cultural perception of woman as naturally kenotic is

well illustrated by Tolstoy’s short story Father Sergius. In that story, a monk spends his life in

pursuit of saintliness and fails, only to recognize genuine kenosis in an ordinary woman, who has

lived kenotically all her life without anyone ever noticing or appreciating it. While this story

may be interpreted as manifestation of Tolstoy’s personal views on womanhood, which were

infamously limiting592, Father Sergius also provides an insight into the Russian cultural stereotype of woman as naturally kenotic593. In spite of his resentful statements to the contrary,

Eddie shares this cultural stereotype, and acts it out when in pursuit of new kenotic forms.

Secular Kenosis and War

No matter how far Eddie stretches his boundaries, trying to make his romantic encounters dangerous and self-destructive, the traditionally peaceful self-emptying through love does not bring him full satisfaction. After all, his more immediate role models come from war fiction and films, which, as discussed in the previous chapter, enjoyed immense popularity with the Soviet public and served as the foundation of Soviet identity. War fiction and films taught their viewers the idea of active kenosis: self-emptying through podvig, and Eddie seeks podvig, as well.

592 Other scholars have used the words “nurturing” or “motherly” to describe Tolstoy’s perception of woman’s natural role, see, for example, Richard Gregg, Psyche Betrayed: The Doll's House of Leo Tolstoy. For the full and balanced treatment of Tolstoy’s ambivalent views on womanhood, see Ruth Grego Benson, Women in Tolstoy: The Ideal and the Erotic. 593 Daniel Rancour-Laferriere discusses what he calls “the cult of suffering” among Russian women in the chapter titled Is the Slave Soul of Russia a Gendered Object? of his book The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering. He shows that the cult has existed since the earliest times to the present, and among the peasant and the intelligentsia alike. He also discusses the ambivalent position of a Russian mother, who is doomed to constant work and self-sacrifice in her ostensibly matrifocal culture. While Rancour-Laferriere casts his discussion in psychoanalytical terms and focuses on suffering rather than self-emptying, he appears to be concerned with the same phenomenon that this dissertation describes as “secular kenosis”. Thus, in his Introduction, Rancour- Laferriere uses the word “kenosis” as a synonym of “masochism”, and the examples discussed in his book often coincide with those addressed in this dissertation. 233 Having experimented with various forms of kenosis in daily life, Eddie takes it to yet another level, seeking to relinquish his entire self through the experience of voluntary death. The protagonist is looking for an occasion to sacrifice his life:

Whom I will meet, what is ahead of me – it’s not clear. Maybe, I’ll stumble upon an armed extremist group, outcasts like myself, and die while hijacking a plane or expropriating a bank. Maybe, I won’t stumble upon them, and go somewhere, to Palestinians, if they survive, or to Lebanon, to Colonel Kaddafi, or somewhere else – to give up my life to some people, to some nation.

After all, I am a guy who is ready to do anything. And I’ll try to give them something. My exploit. My meaningless death. Eh, why “I’ll try”? I’ve been trying for thirty years. I will give it away.594

The most striking feature of this passage is not even the character’s willingness to empty himself of his life, but his indifference to the cause for which he will do so. The passage abounds in indefinite pronouns: “go somewhere,” “or somewhere else,” “to some people”, “to some nation”,

“give […] something”. The author is emphasizing, over and over again, that it is not the purpose, but the process of sacrifice that is valuable. The purpose, in fact, may be nonexistent:

“My meaningless death.” The passage ends in an affirmative one-word sentence consisting of the one key word: “Dam” (“I will give it away.”)

Self-sacrificial terrorism as a manifestation of secular kenosis is the most radical kenotic behavior encountered in Limonov. Yet, this is the one kenotic manifestation that survives in

Limonov’s prose after It’s Me, Eddie. In his later novels and short stories, the protagonist no

594 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Кого я встречу, что впереди – неизвестно. Может, я набреду на вооружённую группу экстремистов, таких же отщепенцев, как и я, и погибну при захвате самолёта или экспроприации банка. Может, не набреду и уеду куда-нибудь, к палестинцам, если они уцелеют, или к полковнику Каддафи в Ливию, или ещё куда – сложить Эдичкину голову за каких-то людей, за какой-то народ. Ведь я парень, который готов на всё. И я постараюсь им что-то дать. Свой подвиг. Свою бессмысленную смерть. Да что там постараюсь! Я старался тридцать лет. Дам.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. The Epilogue. 234 longer experiments with gender roles (and even announces his official denunciation of the

practice); ceases mortification of his body through a saint’s diet; and stops emptying himself out

emotionally and financially. His behavior is often quite contrary to that of Eddie from

Limonov’s first American novel: the new protagonist successfully embraces capitalism by

seeking gainful connections595, enjoying room and board at a millionaire’s house596, and

capitalizing on his importance rather than his humility. In contrast to Eddie’s behavior in

relation to Elena, a protagonist of Limonov’s later work becomes enraged when he realizes that

instead of using a woman, he is being used by her597.

While Limonov’s later characters lose interest in many kenotic behaviors valuable to the

protagonist of It’s Me, Eddie, ritualistic self-sacrifice through a terrorist act remains a prominent theme throughout the writer’s creative and extra-literary life. The theme is highly visible in both subsequent novels of Limonov’s American cycle: A Loser’s Diary and His Butler’s Story. In his

later short stories, it often makes an unexpected and striking appearance. Thus, in a short story

American Vacation, the protagonist enjoys the summer staying with a lover in a picturesque

small town in California, among pine trees, red cliffs, and ocean views. He is writing, drinking

red wine, and taking recreational trips. Yet, this idyll appears to be lacking in its very opposite:

danger, violence, and early death:

595 In A Loser’s Diary, the protagonist reports on a loveless relationship with a woman whom he is hoping to use to advance in American society. The title of the novel – A Loser’s Diary – emphasizes the remaining discrepancy between Eddie’s aspirations and his current position, but the novel’s protagonist no longer celebrates his kenosis. Having adopted the values of the society in which he now lives, Eddie has learned to keep the eyes on the prize. 596 In His Butler’s Story, Eddie narrates how he started dating a woman because he believed her to be a wealthy owner of a luxurious mansion. Having found out that she is but a housekeeper, he continues the relationship hoping to use it as a gateway into the world of her millionaire employer. Later, he accepts the position of a millionaire’s housekeeper in exchange for room and board in the latter’s luxurious mansion. Although the novel’s title still reveals self-irony in relation to Eddie’s un-poetic employment, the protagonist nevertheless continues working as a housekeeper for a significant period of time, reaping all the benefits of his proximity to the rich. One can hardly imagine the protagonist of It’s Me, Eddie accepting and retaining such position; in the earlier novel, Eddie could not even remain working as a waiter: he felt that he could not serve, since he was not a waiter, but a poet who tried to pretend to be a waiter. 597 Limonov, Ист-Сайд – Вест Сайд. http://nbp-info.ru/new/lib/lim_amervac/01.html 235 It felt good. But in that sun, in that light, among these cliffs, and waters, and hotels, and the provincial Southern restaurants one had to act, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t act. Without doubt, the little town was a great scenery for a good civil war, for executions by the ocean, […] For moving troops, for meeting some last ships in the fog, for all that constitutes the core of life, or the end of life, for a normally developing revolutionary romantic writer. But it wasn’t there.598

In his extra-literary life, Eduard Limonov pursued and achieved what his characters sought. In the 1990s, he participated in three military conflicts: on the side of the Bosnian Serbs in the

Yugoslav wars, on the side of Abkhaz secessionists against Georgia, and on the side of

Transdnistrian secessionists against Moldova. A video of Limonov firing a machine gun into

Sarajevo from an overlooking mountain is widely available on the Internet599. Limonov is apparently proud of his war experience, as evidenced by his non-fictional books Limonov

Against Zhirinovsky and Limonov Against Putin. The Program of Limonov’s National

Bolshevik Party, discussed further in the chapter, is militaristic to the extent that allowed the

Russian law to protest its existence. The NBP has been twice liquidated by the State Court of the

Russian Federation600. In 1996, a Russian Court judged that Limonov’s newspaper Limonka (a hand grenade) had advocated "revenge and mass terror, raised to the level of state policy."601 In

598 Limonov, American Vacation. http://www.nbp-info.com/new/lib/lim_amervac/02.html 599 In particular, the video is posed on the YouTube site by a user Balkani1 under the title: Russian Writer Shooting at Sarajevo. The following commentary accompanies the video: “Eduard Limonov, now of "Other Russia" opposition, seen here on the hills above Sarajevo. Next to war criminal Radovan Karadzic. Limonov, now an "opposition activist", together with chess master Garry Kasparov.” See The YouTube. The Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCFJAfLTJE. Accessed January 7, 2009. 600 The June 2005 liquidation was overturned by the Russian Supreme Court two months later; the April 2007 liquidation is still in power. See Nazbol.ru: the Official Website of the National Bolshevik Party. The Internet: http://nazbol.ru/rubr3/3292.html. Accessed January 7, 2009. 601 http://www.vii.org/monroe/issue30_31/signs.html. 236 2001, Limonov was jailed on charges of terrorism, the forced overthrow of the constitutional

order, and the illegal purchase of weapons602.

The route travelled by the notion of secular kenosis from all-encompassing harmony promised

by Dostoevsky to violence and death preached by Limonov appears strange. Yet, already

Dostoevsky had outlined the trajectory whose final point becomes especially apparent in

Limonov’s work. In his fictional interview with a “Dreamer”, discussed in the first chapter of

this dissertation, Dostoevsky explored the kenotic potential of war. The writer’s fictional

interlocutor argues that humanity loves war due to the opportunities it provides for self-sacrifice

and participation in a “magnanimous idea”; he considers people’s yearning for war a need.

Dostoevsky’s Dreamer also points out that commonly spilt blood is an effective means of

unifying a nation603. Although in this fictional interview, Dostoevsky occupies the position of the Dreamer’s opponent, he does not denounce the latter’s arguments, but rather mildly questions them. Apparently, Dostoevsky saw advocacy of war as one of the valid potentials contained in the idea of kenosis.

Notwithstanding Dostoevsky, the more immediate influence in regards to connection between kenosis and war comes from Soviet war fiction and film, which abound in kenotic self- sacrifices604.

Kenosis as an Aesthetic Category

602 Limonov was tried in 2002, and sentenced to four years imprisonment. In April 2007, he was arrested again after an anti-government rally in Moscow, see http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2007/04/200852514126933824.html. 603 Достоевский. Дневник писателя за 1876 год. Апрель. Полное собрание сочинений в тридцати томах. Том 22. Ленинград: Издательство «Наука», 1981. 122. 604 In her book The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, Katerina Clark points out the dominance of ritual sacrifice patterns in the literature of Socialist Realism, in particular those dealing with military action. 237 As Eddie’s occasional contemplations demonstrate, he is somewhat conscious of the

philosophical foundation of his kenotic tendencies. Not unlike Dostoevsky, Eddie speculates on

the way in which kenosis can change the world. In the following passage from It’s Me, Eddie,

strikingly reminiscent of Dostoevsky’s musings in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, Eddie

insists that what the world really needs is the new norms of behavior and social interactions, and

these new norms have to be based on brotherly love:

I see that what the world needs is not national self-determination; not governments made up of one group or another; not a change from one bureaucracy to another, capitalist or socialist; not capitalists or Communists in power, the both of them in suits and ties. The world needs the collapse of the foundations of this man-hating civilization, new norms for behavior and social relations, the world needs real equality of property; equality at last, and not the lie that the French, in their time, wrote on the banners of their revolution. We need people to love one another so that we may all live loved by others and with peace and happiness in our hearts.605

Like Dostoevsky, Eddie criticizes the hypocrisy of the French, who put the words Liberté,

égalité, fraternité on their banners, but, in Eddie’s opinion, have not fulfilled their meaning.

Like Dostoevsky, he paints an idyllic picture of the world built on the principles of brotherly

love: “peace and happiness in our hearts.”606

605 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 147. “Я вижу, что миру нужны не национальные самоопределения, не правительства из тех или иных лиц, не смена одной бюрократии на другую, капиталистической на социалистическую, не капиталисты или коммунисты у власти, и те и другие в пиджаках – миру нужно разрушение основ этой человеконенавистнической цивилизации - новые нормы поведения и общественных отношений, миру нужно настоящее равенство имущественное; наконец, равенство, а не та ложь, которую в свое время написали на знамени своей революции французы. Любовь людей друг к другу нужна, чтоб жили мы все, любимые другими, и чтоб покой и счастье в душе.” 606 In her study of Eduard Limonov, Wakamiya discusses parallels between It’s Me, Eddie and Dostoevsky’s Winter Notes, noting, in particular, “A narrative concerned with the ambivalent Russian outlook on the West as conveyed by an unreliable and ironic narrator, It’s me, Eddie resembles Dostoevskii’s Winter Notes in its narrative strategies, but also confronts Dostoevskii’s concern with the Western tendency towards a “principle of individuality, a principle of isolation, of urgent self-preservation, self-interest, and self-determination for one’s own I”, see Wakamiya, 152. 238 The resemblance of Eddie’s musings to those of Dostoevsky proves to be nothing but a

superficial resemblance: Eddie’s philosophical rumination lacks the logical structure that

supports Dostoevsky’s argument. At the beginning of his statement, Eddie dismisses Socialist

bureaucracy and Communist rule as equal in worthlessness to their capitalist equivalents. Yet, in

his discussion of the path to the future idyll, he suggests a purely Communist slogan as a

requirement for universal harmony: “equality of property.” Later in the passage, he offers a

distinctly Marxist argument that love will reign if the external condition for its opposite, i.e.,

material inequality, is removed:

And love will come to the world if the causes of unlove are annihilated. There will be no terrible Elenas then, because the Eddies will not expect anything from the Elenas, the nature of the Eddies will be different and that of the Elenas different, and no one will be able to buy any Elena, because there will be nothing to buy with, no one will have a material advantage over other people…607

Eddie’s rumination appears to be a curious cross-breed between Dostoevsky’s meditation on

kenosis and Soviet propaganda.

In his Dostoevsky-inspired passage, Eddie fails to provide a logical explanation for his

attachment to kenosis; but other passages of the novels reveal that for Eddie, the appeal of

kenosis consists in its aesthetic, rather than ethical value. In Eddie’s value system - informed by

the Russian cultural dogma - kenotic behavior is beautiful, and for Eddie, beauty ranks higher

than utility or humaneness. Thus, by accentuating his kenotic behavior, Eddie promotes his

image of a beautiful person; this action is analogous to Eddie’s telling readers about his

607 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 147. “А любовь придет в мир, если будут уничтожены причины нелюбви. Не будет тогда страшных Елен, потому что Эдички ничего не будут ждать от Елен, природа Эдичек будет другая, и Елен другая, и никто не сможет купить любую Елену, потому что не на что будет покупать, материальных преимуществ у одних людей перед другими не будет…” 239 attractive, tan abs608 or his striking elegant outfits609. Eddie’s purchase of lingerie for his ex- wife is akin to his purchase of a beautiful white suit for himself: both actions are aimed at beautifying his own image. As Robert Porter pointed out, Eddie is obsessed with his own image and self-promotion. Even the title of the novel – It’s Me, Eddie - points to the narrator as the absolute center of gravity: the expression chosen as the title includes both the first-person pronoun “I” and the name of the character “Eddie”, and the demonstrative pronoun “eto” (“it’s”).

In Eddie’s world, the association between kenosis and beauty is so strong that kenotic capacity determines Eddie’s choice of friends and lovers. Throughout the novel, Eddie uses people’s capability for selfless giving as a central evaluation: “…I think it’s that people in general have become uninteresting to Eddie, the ones who are only for themselves, about themselves, unto themselves.”610 By repeating the personal pronoun “self” with different prepositions, the narrator recreates, on the linguistic plane, the world view that places “self” as its absolute center, and expresses his distaste for this type of Weltanschauung611. Eddie disdains those who live according to the principles of individualistic self-interest, and prides himself on being different: “Sometimes I even seem proud of my satiety and the fact that I can calmly not use […] This circumstance […] separates me from those who get for themselves, love

608 “…мой уже загорелый живот. Ах, какой у меня животик - вы бы посмотрели – прелесть,” see Limonov, Chapter 1; “Мне хуй дашь мои тридцать лет, я стройненький, у меня безупречная, даже не мужская, а мальчишеская фигурка…”, see Limonov, Chapter 3. 609 “рубашки у меня все кружевные, один пиджак у меня из лилового бархата, белый костюм - моя гордость - прекрасен, туфли мои всегда на высоченном каблуке, есть и розовые […] Я хочу, чтобы даже туфли мои были праздник.” See Limonov, Chapter 4. 610 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 193. “…я думаю, вообще стали они люди Эдичке неинтересны, такие люди, которые только для себя, о себе, к себе.” 611 Ironically, the title of the novel – It’s Me, Eddie – reveals an analogous degree of self-absorption. The clash between the purported and the actual value systems of the protagonist will be addressed later in the chapter. 240 themselves, live for themselves.”612 The repetitious, almost chanting use of the different

forms of the pronoun “sam” (“self”) recalls Dostoevsky’s technique discussed in Chapter 2.

When speaking, condescendingly, about the generalized Western bourgeois, Dostoevsky piles up words beginning with “samo-” (“self”): “self-preservation, […] self-seeking, […] self- determination within one’s own personality or self.”613 The resulting, almost tautological, phrase creates a linguistic image of a universe centered around “self” – the effect analogous to one created by Limonov’s repeated use of “self” with different prepositions.

Eddie’s choice of romantic objects and his musings on the subject elucidate the place of kenosis in Eddie’s aesthetics especially well. His failed affair with an American woman named

Roseanne is a good example. Eddie tries to date Roseanne in an attempt to integrate into

American life: “for the sake of having at least some sort of involvement in American life, seeing at least some sort of people.”614 For the unemployed, lonely, depressed Eddie who speaks no

English and has no friends, Roseanne is a rare and valuable chance. Eddie admits that he does not have much choice: “I had only two or three people to serve as my entrees into this world.”615

Moreover, Roseanne seems like a good match and a rare find: she speaks fluent Russian and is working on a dissertation about a Ukrainian thinker; she holds socialist views and introduces

Eddie to interesting people. Eddie likes her appearance and performance in bed, and really enjoys her condo overlooking the Hudson River. However, in spite of overwhelming reasons to stay in the relationship, Eddie ends it.

612 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 193. “…иногда я как бы даже горжусь своей пресыщенностью и тем, что я спокойно могу не воспользоваться […]. Это обстоятельство [...] отделяет меня от гребущих к себе, любящих себя, живущих для себя.” 613 Translation by Kyril FitzLyon. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes, 60-61. “самосохранения, самопромышления, самоопределения в своем собственном Я.” 614 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 190. “…хоть как-то быть причастным к американской жизни, видеть хоть каких- то людей.” 615 Ibid. “…у меня выходов-то в мир было всего два-три человека.” 241 The reason Eddie cannot bear to continue the relationship with Roseanne is her position

vis-à-vis life resources: occasionally, she reveals an unmasked tendency to keep or take rather

than to give. Eddie cites numerous examples of Roseanne’s lack of kenotic spirit; the common

feature of these examples is that they would have probably passed unnoticed for a person

brought up in American culture. Roseanne always offers her lover cheap California wine, even

when she has better, Spanish wine in her condo. She serves breakfast in small portions; Eddie

comments: “I would have prefered to eat without plates, but more of it.”616 She requests Eddie’s

time and effort to help her clean up after a party, instead of allowing him to sleep in. Eddie

comments:

Since I was in the house, she had to make use of me. Subsequently I was amazed by her ability to use me and evidently everyone else. If I was going out, even after making love, even at two in the morning, she did no forget to hand me a bag of garbage, which I was supposed to stick in the garbage chute on the way.617

These little details, which would have left an American man indifferent, produce a strongly negative impression on Eddie, and irrevocably repel him from Roseanne.

Eddie understands the culture-specific nature of his preferences, and even identifies kenotic behavior as backward and calculated behavior as civilized. In an internal dialogue, he rationalizes that Roseanne’s behavior is standard for her culture, and reflects on his own cultural dogma with self-humiliating irony:

Well, was it her fault if she was stingy by my standards? She had been born in this world, where children were not raised to be carefree idlers and wastrels. The gesture, the

616 Ibid. 184. “Я предпочёл бы есть без тарелок, но побольше.” 617 Ibid. 183. “Так как я был в доме, нужно было меня использовать. Меня впоследствии удивляла ее способность использовать меня и, очевидно, всех. Если я уходил от нее даже после любви, даже в два часа ночи, она не забывала вручить мне пакет с мусором, который мне следовало сунуть по пути в мусоропровод.” 242 display, the overgenerosity that suited us barbarians, us Georgians and Russians – according to one anecdote, a Georgian leaves his opvercoat as a tip for the doorman and instead of saying “Keep the change!” says “Keep the coat!” – this was hardly necessary in a young lady from a Jewish family that had emigrated from Germany.618

Eddie calls his own culture “barbaric” and cites an anecdote that demonstrates the absurdity of

unabridged kenotic behavior in everyday life619. Later in the novel, Eddie equates Roseanne’s attitude with a civilized way of life: “I was demanding that Roseanne fulfill barbarian customs of hospitality. But she was a civilized lady.”620 The narrator qualifies one of the manifestations of

618 Ibid. 185. “Ну, если она по моим понятиям жадная, виновна ли она? Она родилась в этом мире, где бездумных гуляк и растратчиков из детей не воспитывают. И то, что пристало нам - варварам - грузинам и русским - жест, показуха618, сверхщедрость, - по анекдоту грузин оставляет как бы на чай швейцару свое пальто и вместо "сдачи не надо" - говорит "пальто не надо!", - то, едва ли нужно девушке из еврейской семьи, выехавшей из Германии.” Yearning for kenotic feasts that make life worth living, Eddie recalls scenes from his Russian past, when kenotic behavior was the norm: “Я к ней не навязывался. Но если она имела хорошее вино и мы были любовниками, то почему она не дает мне его - этого я не мог никак уразуметь. Я- то ведь ничего не жалел. Я ведь в России такие пиры закатывал своим гостям, будучи бедным человеком, господа! Празднуя день рождения, к примеру, я шел с приятелями на базар и покупал полмешка мяса, господа, и звал сорок человек, и покупал алкоголь, чтоб на каждого человека приходилось по русскому расчету: на мальчика - бутылка водки, на девочку - бутылка вина. Я тратил все деньги, все до копейки, еще и занимал порой, и никаких счетов в банке у меня не было, меня мало интересовало, что будет завтра. […] Гости у меня ели, пили и часто спьяну ругались с хозяином. Сейчас я грязь, нищий, в чужой стране, но и то у меня всегда кто-нибудь ест. И не я один такой исключительный добряк. И Эдик Брутт - сосед - всех кормит, если сам что имеет. Первое дело - накормить и напоить человека. Тогда ты ему друг. В общем, я понимал, что мы из разных миров, но сделать ничего с собой не мог.” This scene, in its detailed description of abundant purchases and superfluity of spending, recalls the scene of carousing at Mokroe from The Brothers Karamazov, where Mitya spent at an analogous grand scale. Mitya’s willingness to empty himself won him Grushenka’s heart; Roseanne’s refusal to empty herself has the reverse affect on Eddie. 619 The emergence of a Georgian in this quote is not accidental. Kenotic behavior appears to be a characteristic feature of Caucasian cultures (in particular, Georgian and Armenian) as represented by or for Russians. A good example of such representation is Georgi Daneliya’s 1977 cult film Mimino, in which a Georgian and an Armenian compete in kenotic behaviors in Moscow. While the film’s director is Georgian, Mimino achieved the status of a cult film among Russians: in 2006, the Committee on Culture at the Moscow State Duma declared their plans to erect a monument to Mimino characters in Moscow (see В Москве установят памятник героям фильма "Мимино”. PanArmenianNet. The Internet: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/rus/?nid=20531. Accessed December 17, 2008). Judging by the way representatives of Caucasian nations are portrayed in the Russian culture, the aspect that makes them appealing for Russian audiences is their kenotic behaviors: unrestrained generosity, life- threatening bravery, and the emphasized contempt for self-profit. This stereotype of Caucasians as highly kenotic clashes with a more recent, negatively-colored stereotype about the same category of people as profit-seeking businessmen. 620 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 186. “Я требовал от Розанн исполнения обычаев варварского гостеприимства. Она же была цивилизованная дама.” 243 kenoticism – hospitality – as barbaric621. Failing to find satisfaction in the anthropological approach (for Eddie, “civilized” is not necessarily a positive qualifier622), he attempts to delve into psychology and see the situation from Roseanne’s point of view: “Roseanne must have been very proud of her uncalculated behavior.”623 Yet, neither rationalizing nor seeing the situation through Roseanne’s eyes relieves Eddie’s distaste for her careful behavior which he cannot but see as calculated.

Rationalizing fails to compensate for Roseanne’s lack of kenotic capacity because for Eddie, her offense is of an aesthetic nature. For Eddie, Roseanne’s incapability or refusal to empty herself removes her from the sphere of the beautiful. Her careful, calculated behavior denies her the status of a love object, or, even, an object of sexual desire:

Oh, it may be petty, but this was what formed my image of her. […] I sought love, wanted love, and could give it myself, but I couldn’t give it when things were this way. […] Even when I fucked her I could nto forget this pettiness, could not separate her sweet cunt from her stinginess – stinginess in my view, gentlemen, only in my view.624

Thus, kenotic capacity appears to be an essential part of a person’s aesthetic characteristic; the incapability to act kenotically annihilates her aesthetic value. The lonely, poor, marginalized

Eddie leaves his attractive lover because her stance on secular kenosis does not meet his aesthetic criteria.

621 Eddie’s self-ironic claim that hospitality and giving are pre-modern social features is supported by modern anthropology. In his study The Gift, a French anthropologist Mauss shows that giving and hospitality play a much more important role in the lives of pre-modern societies than modern ones. See Mauss, The Gift. 622 Limonov’s collection of essays Дисциплинарный санаторий relates his view of a Western (civilized) society as a mental institution, where patients are “drugged” with pop-culture and modern conveniences to prevent them from realizing their real self, thus disturbing the peace and order of the institution, see Limonov, Distsiplinarnyi sanatorii. 623 “Розанн, видимо, очень гордилась своей как бы нерасчётливостью.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka, Chapter 9. 624 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 185. “Э, может, это мелочно, но из этого складывался для меня её образ. […] Я любви искал, хотел и сам мог любовь дать, но я не мог, когда так. […] я не мог забыть этой мелочности, не мог отделять её сладкую пизду от её жадности, на мой взгляд, только на мой взгляд, господа.” 244 In contrast to the unwanted, unkenotic Roseanne, Eddie’s object of intense desire - his

former wife Elena – is a model case of self-emptying. A pure poetic woman in the past, she left

her wealthy husband and luxurious life to be with the poor poet Eddie; now, Elena uses heroin

and cocaine, experiments with bisexual love, and participates in orgies. A working model, she

saves nothing; her American friends consider her “crazy”. Before leaving Eddie, she repeatedly

hurt and humiliated him. Yet, Eddie still admires and desires her intensely. Among other

expressions of his feelings is an exhibition, put up by Eddie, of Elena’s intimate artifacts625, and

Eddie’s obsessive fantasy of kidnapping Elena, keeping her captive, and forcing her to have his

child.

While the narrator frequently cites Elena’s physical beauty as the reason for his obsession

(although he also notes that some of his lovers had been equally or more beautiful), the following

passage elucidates a different type of attraction that Elena holds for Eddie:

…all are free to mess up their own lives as they wish, and people like Elena and me are especially capable of messing up our own lives.

She is. I remember her first and last trip to Kharkov: Touched by the spectacle of my fat, gray, and crazy ex-wife Anna, she removed a diamond ring from her own finger and put it on Anna’s.

…I saw that scene vividly, and all my anger, which had been about to flare up, passed off. It may be worth living just for the sake of such scenes. Not to yourself, but from yourself – that’s beautiful. That’s why I so hate miserliness and do not love Roseanne.

625 Я […] увидел опять свою жуткую выставку вещей Елены, развешанных по стенам, с этикетками под каждой такого содержания: “Чулочек Елены – белый. Где второй неизвестно. Она купила белые чулочки уже когда была знакома с любовником, и тогда же купила два тонких пояска – в них она с любовником и ебалась – Лимонову Эдичке грустно и страстотерпно".[…] Предметы висели на гвоздях и плечиках, были прикреплены к стенам клейкой лентой.” See Limonov, Chapter 2. 245 Elena Sergeevna is a little bitch, a whore, what you will, but she’s capable of impulses, or was. Oh, I am proud of her now, from afar. What else do I have left?626

Thus, Elena’s aesthetic appeal consists not only of physical attributes, but also of her ability to

“mess up their own lives” – waste her life, or empty herself of it. The statement about Elena’s

capacity to waste her life integrally continues to describe a case of Elena’s irrational generosity –

an impulsive gift of a diamond ring to a virtual stranger.

This scene with the ring has ritualistic properties: it is devoid of practical meaning, it involves

a largely symbolic valuable object, and it serves as a rite of passage, testing a person’s capacity

to determine whether she belongs in a certain sphere. In its attitude to kenotic capacity, this

episode is reminiscent of the scene at Mokroe in The Brothers Karamazov. As in Dostoevsky, a

person’s capacity for giving allows one into the sphere of those worthy of love and devotion:

Grushenka realized her love for Mitya after his kenotic feat, and Eddie cites the scene with the

ring as justification for his feelings for Elena. Eddie, however, seems more conscious of the

symbolic meaning of the scene than his nineteenth-century predecessor: he clearly articulates the

idea that Elena’s kenotic behavior is what makes her worth of loving in spite of her negative

qualities: “Elena Sergeevna is a little bitch, a whore, what you will, but she’s capable of

impulses.” Moreover, he points to the capital role that kenosis plays in his value system: “It may

be worth living just for the sake of such scenes.” The emotional charge of kenotic behavior is so

626 Limonov, It’s Me, Eddie. 235. “..всяк волен испоганить свою жизнь так, как он хочет, а люди вроде нас с Еленой особенно способны испоганить свою жизнь. Она способна. В её первый и последний приезд в Харьков помню, как она, растрогавшись зрелищем седой и толстой и сумасшедшей бывшей жены Анны, сняла с пальца кольцо с бриллиантом и надела ей. […] ...я живо вижу эту сцену, и вся моя злость, вспыхнувшая было, проходит. Может, и жить стоит только ради таких сцен. Не к себе, а от себя – это красиво. Потому я так ненавижу скупость и не люблю Розанну. Елена Сергеевна сучка, блядь, кто угодно, но способна на порывы была. Эх! Я горжусь теперь ею издалека, что мне ещё остаётся” 246 high that Eddie, even rejected as Elena’s lover, derives a positive feeling from observing her kenosis: “I am proud of her now, from afar.”

For Eddie, kenosis proves to be not only the most noteworthy, but also the most valuable element of Russianness. A look at Limonov’s biography shows that in this respect, the character articulates the opinion of his author, who took his views as far as placing them at the basis of his political platform.

Secular Kenosis in Limonov’s Political Platform

Limonov’s current political activity is yet another stage in his engagement with the theme of

Russianness. Only this time, Limonov addresses his campaign of explaining and propagating

Russianness not to the outside world, but to Russians themselves: those Russians who, in

Limonov’s eyes, lost much of their national feeling during Perestroika and the subsequent social cataclysms. In 1992, after 18 years of emigration, Limonov renewed his Russian citizenship and became engaged in Russian politics; two years later, he became one of the founders of the

National Bolshevik Party. This curious political movement, which has brought its founder little following627 and much trouble, capitalizes on culturally-defined, kenosis-based Russianness.

On the eve of Limonov’s emigration, his lyric hero expressed the view of Russianness as a cultural phenomenon unrelated to statehood. Twenty years later, on the ruins of the country where he grew up, the repatriate Limonov called for a state united by culturally-defined

627 The NBP was refused registration as an official party, and the Russian Supreme Court upheld a ban on it in November 2005 (on the technical ground that it violated the law on political parties by calling itself a party without being registered as such). As a result, there are no official NBP membership numbers available. According to the Wikipedia, “At present, the party membership is around 15,000”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party#cite_note-13. 247 nationalism. The National Bolshevik Party program628, most likely written by Limonov,

defines its goal as building an empire “based on Russian civilization.”629 The program

emphasizes that for the NBP, political orientation is secondary, while Russianness is primary:

The NBP is neither a left nor a right party, but a national party of Russians. A Russian is defined neither by blood nor by faith. ONE WHO CONSIDERS THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND RUSSIAN CULTURE HIS OWN, THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA – HIS OWN HISTORY, WHO HAS SPILT AND IS READY TO SPILL HIS OWN AND SOMEBODY ELSE’S BLOOD IN THE NAME OF RUSSIA AND FOR HER ONLY, WHO CAN THINK OF NO OTHER MOTHERLAND AND NATION, IS RUSSIAN. (Capitalization in the original).630

The thorough capitalization (which occurs nowhere else in the Program) draws attention to the

passage as the program’s center of gravity. Dismissing ethnic and religious criteria, it asserts

that the only decisive factors in defining one’s Russianness are participation in Russian culture

(language, history), devotion to Russia, and capacity to sacrifice oneself and perpetrate violence

(“SPILL HIS OWN AND SOMEBODY ELSE’S BLOOD”).

While the militaristic formula “SPILL HIS OWN AND SOMEBODY ELSE’S BLOOD” is

not necessarily kenotic, the Prayer of the NBP member is:

I, a warrior of the NBP, greet the new day

628 On its website, the National Bolshevik Party displays two programs: the original program dated 1994 and the minimum program dated 2004. The older, longer program is more ideological: it consists of 26 points divided into ten sections such as, for example, “The Essence of Our Ideology”, “Our Enemies”, “Our Purpose”, “Economy”, “Geopolitics”, and “Slogan. Greeting. Banner”. The minimum program offers only eight mostly practical points, such as “canceling privileges for government officials”, see http://nbp-info.ru/new/partia/. 629 Programma Natsional-Bolshevistskoi partii. NBP-INFO. The Internet: http://nbp- info.ru/new/partia/programm.html. Accessed May 10, 2010. 630 “НБП не левая и не правая, но национальная партия русских. Русский определяется не по крови и не по вероисповеданию. ТОТ, КТО СЧИТАЕТ РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК И РУССКУЮ КУЛЬТУРУ СВОИМИ, ИСТОРИЮ РОССИИ - СВОЕЙ ИСТОРИЕЙ, КТО ПРОЛИЛ И ГОТОВ ПРОЛИТЬ СВОЮ И ЧУЖУЮ КРОВЬ ВО ИМЯ РОССИИ И ТОЛЬКО РАДИ НЕЕ, И НИКАКОЙ ДРУГОЙ РОДИНЫ И НАЦИИ НЕ МЫСЛИТ, ЕСТЬ РУССКИЙ.” (capitalization in the original). 248 And in this Hour of Party Unification, I am with my brothers! I feel the power of all the party brothers

wherever they are

let my blood flow into the blood of the Party

let us become one body

yes, death!631

Somewhere on the border between hilarious and terrifying, the secular movement’s “prayer” is

addressed to no gods; it is a prayer to the collective body of the Party. A “Chant” or “Solemn

Promise” would probably be a better name for it, but the expression “Solemn Promise” would

trigger too quick of an association with the Solemn Promise of Soviet Pioneers, which probably

inspired Limonov in his work on the prayer, consciously or subconsciously632. Limonov

supplemented the innocuous shell of a children’s Solemn Promise with heavily kenotic rhetoric

that would have made Dostoevsky proud: starting from Dostoevsky’s favorite word “unification”

(“edinenie”), to the image of the Party as a graphically described collective body: “Let my blood

flow into the blood of the Party, let us become one body.” In the Prayer, a NBP member

articulates his desire to empty out his individuality into the common reservoir of the party and

become a cell of its body.

631 “Я, воин НБП, приветствую новый день. И в этот Час Единения Партии, я со своими братьями! Чувствую мощную силу всех братьев Партии, где бы они сейчас не находились. Пусть моя кровь вольётся в кровь Партии, пусть мы станем единым телом. Да, Смерть!” Molitva nastbola. NBP-INFO. The Internet: http://nbp-info.ru/new/partia/devotion.html. Accessed May 10, 2010. 632 The text of the Soviet Pioneer’s Solemn Promise: “Я, (фамилия, имя), вступая в ряды Всесоюзной пионерской организации имени Владимира Ильича Ленина, перед лицом своих товарищей торжественно обещаю: горячо любить и беречь свою Родину, жить, как завещал великий Ленин, как учит Коммунистическая партия, как требуют Законы пионеров Советского Союза.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solemn_Promise,_Motto_and_Rules_of_Young_Pioneers. Like 99% of Soviet schoolchildren, young Limonov was probably a member of the Pioneer organization, and knew the Solemn Promise by heart. 249 Notwithstanding the terrifying imagery of blood exchange, the most striking part of the

Prayer is its last line: “Yes, Death!” In spite of their declared mightiness and brotherly unity, the

NBP party members are announcing their willingness to die. This willingness is, apparently,

central to the Party’s ideology, because the phrase “Yes, Death!” becomes the NBP’s official

greeting: “Greeting: a hand thrust forward and to the side, squeezed in a fist, and an exclamation:

“Yes, Death!”633 Thus, the key element of the NBP ideology is not its collective power, but the shared kenotic impulse, which has been central to Limonov’s understanding of Russianness since his early poetry, and crystallized itself especially clearly in his first American novel It’s Me,

Eddie. Apparently, Limonov’s followers take this ideology seriously, judging by incidents such

as the one in 2005, when three party members slashed their wrists in protest of a government raid

of the party office.634

The case of Limonov is a bright illustration of the tight links between literature and extra- literary life, characteristic of Russian culture. “Infected” (according to his own poetic accounts) with kenotic ideals by literature, Limonov places them at the base of his identity, carries them through emigration and into his literary output, and finally returns them to Russian extra-literary life in the form of his political Party.

633 “Приветствие: выброшенная вперед и в сторону рука со сжатым кулаком, и возглас: "Да, смерть!" Programma Natsional-Bolshevistskoi partii. 634 National Bolshevik Party. The Wikipedia. The Internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party. Accessed May 10, 2010. 250

CONCLUSION

Calculating Russianness Through its Resilience to Calculation

In 1866, the Russian poet Fyodor Tiutchev famously wrote,

Russia cannot be understood by the intellect, nor can it be measured by the common measure

(Umom Rossiiu ne poniat’

Arshinom obshchim ne izmerit’)

These frequently quoted lines once again give voice to the common perception of Russia as a culture resilient to conventional calculation. This dissertation explores two aspects of this belief: the perception of Russian culture’s uniqueness and its difficult relationship with calculation as the basis of daily life economics.

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 251 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.

Dostoevsky’s role in the history of the secular kenotic cult in Russia is a crutial one for two reasons. First, Dostoevsky has refocused public attention on the notion of kenosis as a part of the Christian dogma. Second, he has advocated expanding kenosis beyond the religious sphere into the secular life, and celebrating it as Russians’ strong point. The dissertation chronicles the development of Dostoevsky’s thought on secular kenosis, and the writer’s attempts to articulate his ideas to the broad public through journalism and fiction. Dostoevsky’s characters consider it ethical to act kenotically, that is, to empty themselves of all they have. Given Dostoevsky’s enormous influence on Russian reading public, and the Russian cultural tradition of applying literary models to extra-literary life, it would not be surprising if secular kenosis started spilling out from Dostoevsky’s fiction into his readers’ lives. And this is exactly the process on which

Anton Chekhov comments in his fiction and drama.

An astute observationalist with an anthropological bend, Chekhov writes about his native culture with an uncharacteristic impartiality vis-à-vis secular kenotic. Many of his characters make the secular kenotic doctrine the foundation stone of their lives. Chekhov chronicles the ways in which the doctrine enters their worldview, mechanisms through which it inspires exultation and a sense of belonging, and circumstances under which it starts raising doubts or 252 translating into practical self-destruction. With his trademark skeptical distance, Chekhov recreates kenotic living as seen without the kenotic lens, and the result is often unnerving.

The second part of this dissertation concerns the fate of secular kenosis in the twentieth century. In particular, it looks at the use of kenotic bias in socialist realist art, and at the way in which secular kenosis operates in Eduard Limonov’s writing. Revealingly, these two very different literary spheres display a similar attitude toward kenosis: admiration for its ethical and aesthetic value, and confidence in its connection to Russianness.

Socialist realist ideologists sought to inspire people for an exploit. They saw Russian cultural reverence for kenosis as a useful resource to which they could appeal to convince

Russians to empty out. However, kenosis was only lauded if accompanied by the right consciousness, which led to a clash between the purposeful nature of socialist realism and the purposeless nature of kenosis. Augmenting kenosis with practical goals undermined its very nature as an ethical and aesthetic value in itself. Thus, socialist realist art is full of tension between kenosis and attempts to utilize it.

Kenosis is as prominent in the works of Eduard Limonov, who denies having read Russian classics, yet has his protagonist articulate views that directly resonate with Dostoevsky’s. Like his nineteenth-century predecessor, Limonov’s hero perceives kenotic capacity as a marker of human worth and an essential component to internal beauty. However, the twentieth-century kenoticist arrives at conclusions that are quite different from those of Dostoevsky: rather than advocating kenosis that comes on par with all-encompassing love for others and results in social harmony, Limonov’s hero seeks “an exploit, a meaningless death”635 with an extremist group, or an uprising, or a plane hijacking – any life-threatening activity that he can find. Thus, the

635 Translation by Nina Wieda. “Свой подвиг. Свою бессмысленную смерть.” Limonov, Eto ia, Edichka. The Epilogue. 253 concept makes a full Hegelian circle, and emptying out becomes a goal in itself once again, albeit on a very different level.

Secular Kenosis in the Time of Troubles: Future Direction for Research

This study by no means exhausts the question of secular kenosis in Russian culture. I plan to expand my research to include two key periods in which culture-induced reverence for secular kenosis directly influenced the extra-literary life in Russia. My first avenue of research will explore the ethics of self-emptying that played a significant role in the Weltanschauung of the

Russian radical intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century, a group known for their extremist social action, including terrorism. I hypothesize that Russia’s educated and wealthy nineteenth- century elite sought to strip themselves of their privileges in part because of their kenotic ideals, the secular rendition of which saturated the atheistic worldviews prevalent among members of this social stratus.

In The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought, Nadejda Gorodetzky wrote:

The young men and women of the ‘seventies who joined the ranks of the revolutionaries put into practice their ideas of poverty, of social self-abasement, of voluntary suffering. We had thus to classify the movement as one of “kenotic” inspiration.636

Gorodetzky links the philosophical foundation of the radical movement to the Christian doctrine.

Since atheism was one of the central doctrines of the radical movement, it may be more insightful to explore its links to the cultural tradition of secular kenosis rather than to its

Christian conceptual forefather. This dissertation has already yielded results that illuminate the

636 Gorodetzky, 176. 254 possible links between the secular kenotic bias and interest in terrorism in Eduard Limono’s life and work. Applying the analogous methodology to a period characterized by a high terrorist activity can assist in illuminating the phenomena of secular kenosis and terrorism, alike.

The second area of interest is the post-Perestroika clash of Western-style capitalistic ethics with secular kenotic values in Russian culture. I project that the idiosyncratic contradictions in the Russian popular understanding of capitalism result from the reliance of post-Soviet individuals on a value system already in place in their culture, a value system that undermined the very principles of capitalism. The key to my analysis resides in culture-conditioned statements of attitudes vis-à-vis daily life economy in popular fiction and journalism of both periods. Appeals to be generous with one’s effort, or mockery of those reluctant to sacrifice their life, for example, delineate an axiological tendency to revere self-emptying in all its manifestations. I will focus on the analysis of post-Perestroika era cult figures, placing special emphasis on the ways in which they positioned themselves vis-à-vis kenosis and capitalism in their public actions.

In the end, I intend to place the findings of my dissertation in the context of Russian everyday culture as documented by journalism, anthropology, and sociology, and analyze the interdependencies between the ideals of secular kenosis in literature and their realizations in everyday life. 255

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