Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page i Voices of Russian Literature Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page ii For Marco and Sylvie Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page iii Voices of Russian Literature Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers Sally Laird 1 Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page iv 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Sally Laird 1999 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press. or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquiror British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–815181–0 10987654321 Typeset in Utopia by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., Guildford and King’s Lynn Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have inspired and helped me to put this book together, and I would like to thank them. The late George Theiner, then editor of Index on Censorship, gave me the initial idea for the project when he sent me to explore the literary scene in Russia in 1987. Several émigré writers and critics whom I got to know at that time, among them Zinovy Zinik, Natasha Rubinshtein, and Sergei Yurenen, gave me the benefit of their knowledge and friendship. I owe a special debt to Igor and Lina Pomerantsev, who made me welcome in their world, and influenced mine in all sorts of ways. My work on this book involved many visits to Moscow, and I am grateful to Natasha Perova for being such a generous host to me there, putting herself, her apartment, and her address book at my disposal. She also kindly obtained for me most of the photographs in this collection. Catherine Shepherd has been a very entertaining and tolerant host on my visits to London to do research. My mother Shirley Laird helped to make the research possible by looking after her grand- daughter on numerous occasions. Inge Larsen, Helle Dalgaard, and Tanja Koleva made me feel at home in Denmark by including me in their Russian corner of Aarhus, and have been very helpful in finding Russian books and journals for me there. In England, I have enjoyed many stimulating conversations on Russian themes with Svetlana Carsten from the Uni- versity of Bradford. Robert Porter, at the University of Bristol, has given me useful bibliographic help. I would like especially to thank Martin Dewhirst from Glasgow University, who at very short notice undertook to read painstakingly through the typescript. His com- ments, suggestions, help with references, and not least his friendly encouragement have been invaluable to me, and his eagle eye has saved me from all manner of in- felicities and errors (any errors that remain are of course my responsibility alone). My editors at the Oxford University Press have been patient during my slow pro- duction of this book. I am grateful to Andrew Lockett for his helpful comments on the first chapters, to Sophie Goldsworthy, Frances Whistler, and Janet Moth for supervising the preparation of the book, and to Mary Worthington for her careful reading of the text and her many useful suggestions and corrections. All the writers whom I interviewed for this book (including several whose inter- views, to my regret, could not be included here for reasons of space) have been gen- erous in giving me their time. It has been a pleasure to get to know them. My husband Mark Le Fanu and daughter Sylvia have cheerfully tolerated my many absences while I have worked on this project. They have also given me all sorts of things to enjoy and care about besides Russian literature, and I dedicate this book to them. Sally Laird August 1998 This page intentionally left blank Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page vii CONTENTS List of Illustrations viii A Note on Style ix Chronology of Events x Introduction xiii 1 Fazil Iskander 1 2 Lyudmila Petrushevskaya 23 3 Vladimir Makanin 49 4 Andrei Bitov 72 5 Tatyana Tolstaya 95 6 Yevgeny Popov 118 7 Vladimir Sorokin 143 8 Zufar Gareyev 163 9 Viktor Pelevin 178 10 Igor Pomerantsev 193 Select Bibliography 213 Index 227 Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Fazil Iskander 1 Photograph: Aleksandr Karzanov (Literaturnaya gazeta) 2 Lyudmila Petrushevskaya 23 Photograph: Giovanna dal Magro 3 Vladimir Makanin 49 Photograph: N. Kochnev 4 Andrei Bitov 72 Photograph: N. Kochnev 5 Tatyana Tolstaya 95 Photograph: N. Kochnev 6 Yevgeny Popov 118 Photograph: N. Kochnev 7 Vladimir Sorokin 143 Photograph: Renate von Mangoldt 8 Zufar Gareyev 163 Photograph: E. Nikiforov 9 Viktor Pelevin 178 Photograph: E. Nikiforov 10 Igor Pomerantsev 193 Photograph: Sergei Bardin Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page ix A NOTE ON STYLE In this book I have used a modified version of the standard British transliteration system. My aim has been to make Russian words both recognizable to speakers of Russian, and reasonably pronounceable and familiar to non-Russian speakers. Thus I have used ‘Ye’ for ‘e’ at the beginnings of words, and after other vowels (e.g. ‘Yevgeny’, ‘Chapayev’); ‘yo’ or ‘o’ for ё (e.g. Pyotr), except in names where the spelling ‘e’ is commonly used (e.g. Khrushchev, Gorbachev); ‘y’ for name and adjec- tival endings in both ый and ий, to conform to the common British practice with names such as Dostoyevsky; ‘ii’ for nominative and genitive plural endings in ии and ий; ‘ei’ for ей, to conform with the common practice with Germanic names such as Norshtein; ‘oi’ for oй, except with names such as Tolstoy where the ‘oy’ end- ing is commonly used; and ‘ai’ for aй. The soft and hard signs have been indicated only in the bibliography and in the titles of literary works or publications given in the main text. Except where otherwise stated, dates given in brackets after the titles of works are dates of publication. Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page x CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1932 (April) Party decree ‘On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations’, involving systematic unification of cultural life under Party leadership and creation of single Union of Writers of the USSR (and analogous unions for other arts). (May) The term ‘socialist realism’ is first used by I. Gronsky, Chairman of the Or- ganizing Committee of the Union of Writers. 1934 (August) First Congress of the Union of Writers. Socialist realism adopted as the approved method for all Soviet writers. (December) Assassination of Leningrad Party leader Sergei Kirov signals start of the Great Terror. 1935 (January) Start of mass deportations to the White Sea and Kolyma to ‘avenge’ Kirov’s death. 1936 First of the ‘show trials’ of Stalin’s enemies in the Party (Kamenev and Zinovev). 1937–9 Height of the Great Terror, involving ‘show trials’ of top members of the Party and military and mass arrests of innocent people. Over 2,000 writers are arrested, of whom half eventually perish in the camps. 1941 Germany invades USSR (June). Evacuation from Moscow and Leningrad of certain writers, artists etc. to safety in cities further east. During the war ideological control over writers is partially relaxed. 1941–4 Siege of Leningrad. 1945 (9 May) Germans surrender. 1946 (August) Andrei Zhdanov, the Party’s ideological watchdog, issues a decree on liter- ature, vilifying Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko. Start of the period of ‘zhdanovshchina’: ideological clamp-down on the arts and xenophobic attack on ‘cosmopolitans’ which continues until Stalin’s death. 1953 (5 March) Death of Stalin. (September) Nikita Khrushchev becomes First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). 1954 Ilya Ehrenburg publishes his novel The Thaw, signalling new direction in literature and giving name to the period that follows. (December) Second Congress of the Union of Writers takes place (with only 20 per cent of original members alive to participate), becoming occasion for first denunci- ation of Stalin’s repressions. 1955 Founding of the journal Yunost' (Youth) in which many young writers of the Thaw period make their name. 1956 (February) Twentieth Congress of the CPSU. Khrushchev makes his ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing Stalin’s crimes. Start of ‘rehabilitation’ of writers and others repressed under Stalin. Publication of liberal anthology Literaturnaya Moskva (Literary Moscow), edited by Konstantin Paustovsky. Prelims.Q2 1/19/1999 2:53 PM Page xi Chronology of Events xi 1957 Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago is published in Italy.