Nicolas Dreyer Phd Thesis
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‘POST-SOVIET NEO-MODERNISM’: AN APPROACH TO ‘POSTMODERNISM’ AND HUMOUR IN THE POST-SOVIET RUSSIAN FICTION OF VLADIMIR SOROKIN, VLADIMIR TUCHKOV AND ALEKSANDR KHURGIN Nicolas Dreyer A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2011 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1917 This item is protected by original copyright University of St Andrews ‘Post-Soviet Neo-Modernism’: An Approach to ‘Postmodernism’ and Humour in the Post-Soviet Russian Fiction of Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin Nicolas Dreyer A dissertation submitted to the University of St Andrews in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts, Department of Russian 19 May 2011 Abstract The present work analyses the fiction of the post-Soviet Russian writers Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin against the background of the notion of post-Soviet Russian postmodernism. In doing so, it investigates the usefulness and accuracy of this very notion, proposing that of ‘post-Soviet neo-modernism’ instead. Common critical approaches to post-Soviet Russian literature as being postmodern are questioned through an examination of the concept of postmodernism in its interrelated historical, social, and philosophical dimensions, and of its utility and adequacy in the Russian cultural context. In addition, it is proposed that the humorous and grotesque nature of certain post-Soviet works can be viewed as a creatively critical engagement with both the past, i.e. Soviet ideology, and the present, the socially tumultuous post-Soviet years. Russian modernism, while sharing typologically and literary-historically a number of key characteristics with Western modernism, was particularly motivated by a turning to the cultural repository of Russia’s past, and a metaphysical yearning for universal meaning transcending the perceived frag- mentation of the tangible modern world. Continuing the older Russian tradi- tion of resisting rationalism, and impressed by the sense of realist aesthetics failing the writer in the task of representing a world that eluded rational comprehension, modernists tended to subordinate artistic concerns to their esoteric convictions. Without appreciation of this spiritual dimension, se- mantic intention in Russian modernist fiction may escape a reader used to the conventions of realist fiction. It is suggested that contemporary Russian fiction as embodied in certain works by Sorokin, Tuchkov and Khurgin, while 1 stylistically exhibiting a number of features commonly regarded as postmod- ern, such as parody, pastiche, playfulness, carnivalisation, the grotesque, in- tertextuality and self-consciousness, seems to resume modernism’s tendency to seek meaning and value for human existence in the transcendent realm, as well as in the cultural, in particular literary, treasures of the past. The close- ness of such segments of post-Soviet fiction and modernism in this regard is, it is argued, ultimately contrary to the spirit of postmodernism and its rela- tivistic and particularistic worldview. Hence the suggested conceptualisation of post-Soviet Russian fiction as ‘neo-modernist’. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 7 Notes on Style, Transliteration and Translation 10 Introduction 14 1 Postmodernism 29 1.1 Terminology . 34 1.1.1 Literature . 37 1.1.2 Philosophy . 38 1.2 Modernity and Postmodernity . 46 1.3 Literary Postmodernism . 54 1.3.1 Modernism . 54 1.3.2 Postmodernism . 58 1.4 Conclusions . 67 2 Russian Modernity 68 2.1 Continuity vs. Progress . 71 2.2 Soviet Marxism . 80 2.3 Shell vs. Substance Phenomena . 84 2.4 Cultural Continuity . 85 3 2.5 Conclusions . 100 3 Russian Modernism 102 3.1 Spiritual Seeking . 104 3.2 Style . 111 3.3 Perspective . 115 3.4 Ontology vs. Epistemology . 119 3.5 Anti-rationalism . 124 3.6 The Absurd and Daniil Kharms . 127 3.7 Russian Modernism and Beyond . 139 4 Perspectives on Humour and ‘Postmodernism’ in Post-Soviet Russian Fiction 144 4.1 Aufarbeitung, Bew¨altigung and Relief . 146 4.1.1 Humour . 147 4.1.2 Carnivalisation . 155 4.1.3 Jesting and Iurodstvo . 161 4.1.4 Conceptualism and Sots-art . 164 4.2 The Redemptive Power of Literature . 169 4.2.1 Intertextuality . 173 4.2.2 Metafiction . 176 4.2.3 Pastiche and Parody . 179 4.3 Conclusions . 187 5 The ‘Gnostic’: Vladimir Sorokin 189 5.1 The Narrative World of The Blue Fat . 190 5.2 Moral Concerns . 197 5.2.1 Humour . 201 5.2.2 The Notion of Progress . 206 4 5.2.3 Russian History and Culture . 210 5.2.4 Discourse and Violence . 212 5.3 Typological Considerations . 216 5.3.1 Surrealism . 216 5.3.2 Gnosticism . 219 5.4 Conclusions . 224 6 The ‘Aesopian’: Vladimir Tuchkov 226 6.1 Intertextuality and Pastiche . 229 6.2 Anti-utopia and the Logic of Power . 236 6.3 ‘Moral Masochism’ . 244 6.4 Parody and Metafiction . 255 6.5 Conclusions . 271 7 The ‘Kharmsian’: Aleksandr Khurgin 274 7.1 Semantic Interplay at the Stylistic and Thematic Levels . 280 7.2 Structure . 290 7.3 Themes . 299 7.4 Conclusions . 305 Conclusions 308 Bibliography 317 Works of Reference and Bibliographies . 317 Primary Sources as Focus of Analysis of Post-Soviet Fiction . 318 Writers’ Websites containing Bibliographies . 320 Primary Sources Informing the Theoretical and Secondary Discus- sion: Literature and Film . 320 5 Secondary Sources: Philosophy, Theory, Criticism and Media Cov- erage . 324 6 Acknowledgements First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor, Dr. Roger Keys, for all his invalu- able help, kind support and guidance throughout the years of my doctoral studies. In the same vein, I am indebted to the whole Department of Rus- sian for giving me the great opportunity to study, learn and feel at home at St Andrews for several years, and in particular to Dr. Claire Whitehead, Professor Ian Press and Dr. Tat"iana Filosofova for their advice, suggestions and continuous encouragement. I thank Tania Filosofova specifically for her support in matters of language teaching, and Natal"ia Biletska for her help in computer-related matters. I also wish to thank a number of other scholars for listening to my thoughts and questions and for offering their valuable encouragement and professional counsel in one way or another: Dr. Sergei Akimovich Kibal"nik (‘Pushkin House’, IRLI, St Petersburg), Dr. Liudmila Aleksandrovna Iezuitova (St Petersburg State University), Professor Aleksandr Olegovich Bol"shev (St Petersburg State University), Dr. Liudmila Pavlovna Grigor"eva (St Petersburg State University), Dr. Natal"ia Nikolaevna Kakshto (Rus- sian State Herzen Pedagogical University, St Petersburg), Daniel Gwertzman (AMI Center, Jerusalem), the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington, and Professor Uriel Procaccia (Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliyah). I extend my gratitude in particular to those also who have kindly taken 7 the time to read my dissertation or different individual parts thereof at dif- ferent stages, and offer comments on them: Dr. Raoul Eshelman (Ludwig- Maximilians-Universit¨atof Munich), Dr. Tania Filosofova, Dr. Emily Finer (University of St Andrews), Dr. Sergei Kibal"nik, William Simpson and Dr. Chris Watkin (University of Cambridge). I also thank the anonymous reader for his comments on an article which comprised earlier elements of my dis- sertation, which I had submitted in 2009, and which is still awaiting re- submission. My thanks also include the School of Modern Languages for the PhD Scholarship, the School’s helpful secretaries, and the Registry team for the time spent working with them. I am also grateful for the opportunities to present parts of my research at the BASEES Contemporary Literature conference (Oxford, 2008) and the Contemporary Literature: Mapping New Trends international conference (St Andrews, 2010), as well as at several research seminars at the Institute for European Cultural Identity Studies (IECIS), the School of Modern Languages and the Department of Russian of St Andrews University. I am very grateful to my parents and family for their support and en- abling me to pursue a PhD, which I dedicate to them. My thanks also include my friends in St Andrews. These are in particular: Dr. Albert Lukaszewski with family, whose friendship, advice and help with LATEX and various other computer issues is most appreciated; Joy Frye, Hongwei Qui, Kyoung Jin Park and Narges Pourabdi for their fellowship; Leticia Neria for her company and the conversations in our shared office; further fellow PhD students for their friendship; John and William Simpson and Felix Pinkert, for numerous stimulating discussions; Roger and Sandie Hurford, for their humour-filled company and continuous and most generous practical support 8 in all imaginable regards; and the Eden Church for offering me a spiritual home in St Andrews. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the meaningfulness of the following words of the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid and comfort shall surely come home through open and winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender soul in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace.1 1Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson With a New Introduction by Charles John- son, ed. by William H. Gilman (New York, London, Camberwell et al.: Signet, 2003), p. 309. 9 Notes on Style, Transliteration and Translation In general, this dissertation follows the simplified version of the Library of Congress system of transliteration, except for cases where the MHRA Style Guide2 explicitly stipulates a divergent transliteration, e.g. regarding the surnames of Fedor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy and Maksim Gor"ky. However, where another writer with the same surname, e.g. Aleksei Tolstoi, is con- cerned, I retain the Library of Congress system.