The Concepts of the Underground in Russian Literary and (Counter)Cultural Discourse: From Dostoevsky to Punk Rock Vladimir Ivantsov Department of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures McGill University, Montreal June 2017 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Vladimir Ivantsov 2017 2 CONTENTS Introduction 9 Part I. Dostoevsky Chapter 1. Philosophy of the Underground: the Absurd and Rebellion 23 Chapter 2. Psychology of the Underground: Vyvert and Nadryv 46 Chapter 3. Imagery of the Underground: the Metaphorical and the Literal 69 Part II. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Chapter 4. The Political and the Existential Underground: From Dostoevsky to Leonid Andreyev 88 Chapter 5. “Podpol’e pomyslov svoikh”: Dostoevsky’s Underground and Leningrad Unofficial Culture of the 1970s-80s (Viktor Krivulin) 122 Chapter 6. “Vozmozhno, andegraund ne nastoiashchii”: Vladimir Makanin’s Novel Underground, or A Hero of Our Time 168 Chapter 7. “Iz kreizovoi blagodati da v undergraund”: Dostoevsky’s Underground and Siberian Punk 194 Conclusion 226 List of Works Cited 230 3 Abstract In this dissertation, I argue that Dostoevsky’s notion of the underground, which originates in his novella Notes from Underground, informs the literary representations of various undergrounds – the political, the literary, and the rock underground – in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The primary texts studied are Dostoevsky’s writings of 1864-1880, Leonid Andreyev’s short stories, the poetry and essays of Viktor Krivulin, Vladimir Makanin’s novel Underground, or A Hero of Our Time (1994), and the texts of Siberian punk rock (Egor Letov, Konstantin Riabinov). My theoretical framework includes Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of discourse in Dostoyevsky; the key concepts of philosophy of existentialism (absurd, angst, metaphysical rebellion); the analysis of holy foolishness and buffoonery in cultural studies (Sergei Ivanov, Tatiana Goricheva, Mikhail Bakhtin); the psychological and sociological theory of ressentiment; and the approaches to space in literary semiotics and phenomenology (Yuri Lotman; Gaston Bachelard). The examination of the underground in various discourses from Dostoevsky to punk rock reveals uniform patterns, which allows me to formulate a general definition of the underground as a discursive model. The underground is 1. a philosophical attitude that questions the existing human condition and suggests rebellion against an imperfect universe; 2. a psychological pattern based on ressentiment that manifests itself as, or transforms into, provocation, aggression, buffoonery, and anguish; and 3. a literalized metaphor: the symbolic subterranean space imbued with the mythological connotations of the underworld and associated with both chaos/death/decay and resurrection/salvation/revelation. The persistence of this three-fold model of the underground throughout various discourses developed by the opposition to the mainstream suggests its applicability for further studies of this phenomenon. 4 Résumé : Dans cette thèse, nous soutenons que la conception du « souterrain » de Dostoïevski, qui tire son origine du roman Notes d’un souterrain, met en lumière les représentations littéraires de divers undergrounds – l’underground politique, l’underground littéraire et l’underground du rock – au XXe et XXIe siècles. Les principaux textes étudiés sont ceux de Dostoïevski, écrits entre 1864 et 1880, les nouvelles de Leonid Andreïev, les poèmes et les essais de Viktor Krivulin, le roman Underground ou un héros de notre temps (1998) de Vladimir Makanine, ainsi que les textes issus du punk sibérien (Egor Letov, Constantin Ryabinov). Notre approche méthodologique est basée sur l’analyse du discours de Dostoïevski qu’a menée Mikhail Bakhtine, sur les concepts clés de la philosophie de l’existentialisme (l’absurde, l’angoisse, la rébellion métaphysique), sur la vision de la bouffonnerie et des iourodivy dans les études culturelles (Sergei Ivanov, Tatiana Goricheva, Mikhail Bakhtine), sur la théorie psychologique et sociologique du ressentiment, ainsi que sur les études de l’espace dans la sémiotique littéraire et la phénoménologie (Youri Lotman, Gaston Bachelard). L’examen de l’underground dans divers discours – de Dostoïevski au punk rock – révèle des modèles uniformes, ce qui nous permet de formuler une définition générale de l’underground comme modèle discursif. L’underground est 1. une attitude philosophique qui remet en question la condition humaine existante et suggère une rébellion contre l’univers imparfait; 2. un modèle psychologique fondé sur un ressentiment qui se manifeste, voire se transforme, en provocation, agression, bouffonnerie et angoisse; et 3. une métaphore littéralisée – l’espace souterrain symbolique imprégné des connotations mythologiques du monde souterrain et associé à la fois au chaos/mort/décadence et à la résurrection/relèvement/révélation. La persistance de ce modèle triple de l’underground à travers divers discours sur l’opposition au courant dominant suggère son applicabilité pour d’autres études de ce phénomène. 5 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor Dr. Lyudmila Parts for her intellectual, organizational, and moral support on all stages of writing this dissertation, as well as during my studies at McGill in general. Dr. Parts’s insightful and stimulating advice helped me shape my arguments, while her timely and diligent supervision allowed me to complete this project on time. I am grateful to other faculty members of the Russian Studies program at McGill. Dr. Laura Beraha’s graduate seminar on Mikhail Bakhtin informs the methodological approach used in this dissertation. Her enthusiastic support of all my projects, big and small, has been enormous help, and I am deeply indebted to her for copy-editing my thesis. My research also greatly profited from Dr. Anna Berman’s comments and suggestions. In German Studies, a special thank you goes to Dr. Karin Bauer whose seminar on Friedrich Nietzsche shaped my understanding of the underground in philosophical and psychological terms. During my time at McGill, I have been in caring hands of Ms. Lynda Bastian, aka Antlers, who, unlike many Russian writers, always knew answers to her “little ones’” eternal questions. Beyond McGill, I am indebted to Dr. Byron Lindsey (University of New Mexico) for his continuous care and support as a colleague and a friend. His welcoming home in Albuquerque has virtually been the “creative laboratory” at which many of my ideas took their shape. I am thankful to Dr. Josephine von Zitzewitz (University of Cambridge) whose presentation at the 2014 ACLA conference in New York brought my attention to Viktor Krivulin and his notion of the underground. 6 My appreciation extends to Dr. Susanne Frank who hosted me at Humboldt University in Berlin and whose scholarship on Siberia informs the “geographical” sections of my chapter on punk rock. My graduate studies and research were funded by McGill University and Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. Without their generous support, I would not be able to bring this project to completion. I thank Dr. Richard Cooper and Ms. Nina Mondré Schweppe for proofreading and editing of my thesis, and Mr. David Gosselin for correcting my French. All the remaining errors are mine alone. My loving wife Olesya has been my greatest inspiration. I am grateful for her understanding, support, and advice. I dedicate this thesis to her. 7 TECHNICAL NOTES I transliterate Russian names, titles, and quotes using a simplified version of the US Library of Congress transliteration system, except for the traditional spelling of a few names (Dostoevsky, Andreyev, Elena, and so on). The names of Dostoevsky heroes are spelled in accordance with the English texts (translations and scholarly sources) in which they appear. The sources of translations of primary texts are specified in each chapter. Except for the professional translations of Mikhail Bakhtin’s, Yuri Lotman’s, Lev Shestov’s, and Vladimir Solovyov’s works, all the translations from Russian critical and scholarly sources are mine. I use the following abbreviations in in-text citations: PSS – Dostoevsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh BK – Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov PDP – Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 8 To Olesya 9 Introduction Pushkin! Tainuiu svobodu Peli my vosled tebe! Aleksandr Blok, “Pushkinskomu Domu.”1 The underground man is the principal figure in the Russian world. I spoke about him more than any other writer did.2 Fyodor Dostoevsky. In his critically acclaimed novel Chapaev i Pustota (1996),3 Viktor Pelevin includes a remarkable episode in which the protagonist-narrator Pёtr Pustota discusses the concept of the “secret freedom of the Russian intellectual” with the revolutionary Kotovskii. Pёtr tells Kotovskii about a meeting of the famous symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok with social democrats from England, where Blok “spent the whole evening telling them about this secret freedom which, as he said, we all laud, following Pushkin” (290).4 After Blok leaves, the Englishmen begin to ask everyone what exactly secret freedom means. Nobody can answer this question except for one Romanian who draws a parallel between “secret freedom” and the way Romanian peasants used to defend themselves from nomads in the Middle Ages: the peasants constructed immense dugouts, entire underground houses, into which they drove