Romance as an Experimental Form in Polish and Russian Early Modernism by Łukasz Wodzyński A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto © Copyright by Łukasz Wodzyński 2015 Romance as an Experimental Form in Polish and Russian Early Modernism Łukasz Wodzyński Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto 2015 Abstract In my dissertation I examine a group of modernist novels that attempt to braid together two seemingly divergent literary modes: modernism and popular fiction. I argue that in the field of the novel popular culture was able to educate modernist writers on how to narrate their key ideological positions. The introductory chapter describes the situation of the novel in Polish and Russian early modernism and poses the question of the modernist authors’ need to experiment with popular literature. In this chapter I also develop an argument for the applicability and usefulness of the concept of romance in theorizing the relationship between the two modes. In the first chapter I present Fedor Sologub's novel-trilogy The Created Legend as an example of a “modernist romance” by using Northrop Frye’s structural approach. I also argue that the trilogy can be read as a narrativized justification of the author's sudden rise to prominence in the Russian literary field. The second chapter examines Jerzy Żuławski’s science-fictional epic The Lunar Trilogy. I look at spatial architecture, the protagonists, and temporality in this work as three loci in which the modernist ideology and romance engage in a dialogue. In order to ground my discussion in particular historical developments, I situate each of these narrative components in the larger cultural context of late-nineteenth-century modernity. Chapter 3 ii considers Evgeniĭ Zamiatin’s essayistic work and his novel We against the background of “the crisis of the novel” in post-revolutionary Russia. Incorporating its author’s reflections on the uses of engaging plots and the fantastic in contemporary literature, We enters the dialogue with various forms of romance, most notably gothic and spy fiction, yet without severing its ties to literary modernism. Significantly, the novel presents the figure of the author as the modern incarnation of the romance hero. Thus, I conclude my study by suggesting that the modernist experimentation with popular literature gradually moves towards what Harold Bloom termed “the internalization of romance,” a process whereby modernist authors adapt the imagery and narrative structures of romance to build elaborate allegories of the precarious position of the writer in the modern world. iii Acknowledgments My dissertation is about writers struggling with form and ideas; writers who introduce romance into their plots and visions and who oftentimes imagine their own artistic struggles as quests. In that sense, this work now seems to me to be quite autobiographical. Working on this dissertation was a quest like no other, and I have plenty of people to thank for helping me to complete it. I owe my very special thanks to Professors Leonid Livak and Tamara Trojanowska for being my mentors throughout both undergraduate and graduate periods of my apprenticeship in Slavic and comparative literary studies at the University of Toronto. Their lectures and seminars have not only built the foundations of my knowledge of Polish and Russian literatures, but also been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for my ever-changing intellectual pursuits. Writing a dissertation under their supervision was a great privilege. The role of their constant guidance, encouragement, personal attention, support, and generosity for my personal and professional maturation cannot be overestimated. Almost eleven years ago, they inspired me – in their individual ways – to embark on a path to become a humanities scholar, which I continue to walk to this day and, hopefully, will continue to walk in the years to come. For that and for countless other things that would be impossible to list here, I will be forever grateful to them. I would also like to thank Professor Thomas Lahusen, for joining my dissertation committee and providing me with support and lots of valuable suggestions, and Professor Irene Masing- Delic, who acted as my External Appraiser and offered very generous feedback that significantly improved the quality of my dissertation. Over the years I received encouragement and support from the faculty, administrative staff, and my colleagues at both of my departmental homes at the University of Toronto, the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. I would like to thank Professors Veronika Ambros, Eric Cazdyn, Barbara Havercroft, Kate Holland, Eva-Lynn Jagoe, Taras Koznarsky, Christina Kramer, Neil ten Kortenaar, Donna Orwin, Jill Ross, and Joseph Schallert for their advice and ongoing interest in my academic career. I also want to acknowledge Drs. Artur Płaczkiewicz and Piotr Kajak, as well as my “comrades-in-arms”: Jonathan Allan, Amber Aulen, Lauren Beard, Ryan Culpepper, Paula Karger, Timothy Ormond, Jeannine Pitas, Natalie Pendergast, Olga Ponichtera, Jan Schallert, Joseph Schlegel, Lyubov Shmygol, Łukasz Siciński, Rachel Stapleton, Olga Tatarenko, Antonio Viselli, and Dmitri Zheltovsky (many of them also PhDs by now). We worked, studied, and partied together, organized and attended conferences, exchanged ideas and experiences, and it all greatly contributed to making my graduate years the most memorable period of my life. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been part of such vibrant and collegial communities. Two iv friends deserve special recognition: Jonathan Haskins, who never failed to infect me with his energy and optimism, and Łukasz Siciński, who was the best intellectual partner one could ever wish for. I am also grateful to the staff and fellows at the Jackman Humanities Institute for their support and stimulating discussions, which not only helped me refine the ideas presented in this dissertation, but also provided me with new perspectives on the academic profession. Another great stimulus to my thinking on problems of utopia, romance, modernity, and the novel were seminars taught by Dame Gillian Beer as well as Professors Christine Bolus-Reichert and Franco Moretti. Also, this study benefited greatly from the careful editorial work of Jonathan Allan and Kate Brennan. I wish to thank the University of Toronto, the Centre for Comparative Literature, the Department of Slavic Languages, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Jackman Humanities Institute, the Mickiewicz Foundation in Canada, W. Reymont Foundation, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 3902, for their generous financial support. Lastly, I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to my other friends and my amazing, ever growing family, both in Canada and Poland (and now also the States) – my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, stepmother, stepbrothers and their families, my mother-in- law and the rest of my wife’s family – for the love, encouragement, and support they provided me, many of them throughout my entire life. Most importantly, I want to acknowledge and thank my best friend and wife, Kasia, who was with me through all the ups and downs of this turbulent journey and without whose love and patience I would never have finished this dissertation. Whatever the intellectual and professional stakes of my “quest” have been, my wife, our wonderful son Maximilian, and his soon-to-be-born sibling are my true Happily Ever After. v Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1 “Pure Fame”: Fedor Sologub’s The Created Legend……………………………………….... 40 Chapter 2 In Search of a New History: Jerzy Żuławski’s The Lunar Trilogy……………………….… 99 Chapter 3 “Wild Whirlwind of Ancient Life”: Evgeniĭ Zamiatin’s We …………………………....153 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………. 207 vi 1 Introduction Have you ever heard of parallel streams of time within a two-track time? Yes, there are such branch lines of time, somewhat illegal and suspect, but when (…) one is burdened with contraband of supernumerary events that cannot be registered, one cannot be too fussy. Let us try to find at some point of history such a branch line, a blind track onto which to shunt these illegal events. Bruno Schulz, “The Age of Genius”1 In this study I look at one instance of what Bruno Schulz named in the above epigraph “the parallel streams” (and “branch lines”) of time. Namely, I examine the role of popular fiction – “the romance paradigm” – in the history of Polish and Russian modernist novel. As the literary history has it, once the golden age of classical nineteenth-century realism had come to an end, modernity found a new, more radical and more adequate form of representation through which it could express itself. We call this new artistic idiom “modernism” and although a myriad of competing versions of the concept circulate among scholars, few question the basic narrative of a paradigm shift (i.e. from realism to modernism). Another important aesthetic break that is said to occur at the turn of the century is the rapidly growing gap between the emerging market for popular fiction and so-called “serious” or “artistic” literature. Andreas Huyssen names this second break “the Great Divide” and argues that it created a discourse that had shaped attitudes towards culture pretty much until postmodernism blurred all distinctions between “high” and “low” culture2. Since both of these ruptures in the seemingly monolithic nineteenth-century literature and culture took place at the same time – roughly the end of the nineteenth century – it is no surprise that they came to be perceived as products of the same historical dynamic: the dissolution of realism as the dominant aesthetic and the disappointment 1 Schulz, “The Age of Genius,” 131. 2 See Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. 2 of positivist hopes for the future of civilization.