RUSSIAN SHORT-STORY IN MARATHI POLYSYSTEM 177 Chapter V: RUSSIAN SHORT-STORY IN MARATHI POLYSYSTEM I Short story as a genre and Russia: Short stories date back to earliest times. The tradition of story-telling has been prevalent in almost all the countries as a means of entertainment or folk-education. They can be found in the Bible, Gesta Romanorum of the Middle Ages, Boccaccio's Decameron, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and in rich Indian folk-literature. Modem short story as a genre has been generally viewed by scholars as an invention of the nineteenth century. It has been described as a compact prose narrative designed to elicit a singular and unified emotional response. Critics have made formal distinctions between the short story and its generic predecessor, the tale, a short narrative sometimes of oral origin. European and American writers first articulated the formal qualities of the modem short story in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This coincided with the rapid proliferation of periodical publication in the industrializing nations of the westem world at this time, and thus it is thought to have been broadly influenced by economic as well as literary stimuli. Early innovations in the genre appeared in Russia in the short fictional prose of Nikolai Gogol. It developed differently, but on parallel lines in France, the United States, Britain and other countries. Mid-IQ"' century innovators such as Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and Aleksandr Pushkin published works of increasing realism and stylistic precision. In doing so they formed a tradition that was to culminate in the detailed, observant, and often ironic sketches of daily life found in the prose masterpieces of Anton Chekhov. The short story is traditionally thought to have reached a peak of maturity in continental Europe during the late nineteenth century with the Naturalistic pieces of Guy de Maupassant and Anton Chekhov. 178 This form acquired momentum in the Soviet period. Many Soviet authors found expression in this form of literature and depicted the new life, new experiences and new problems in them. So, Russia has a long tradition of short-story as a genre, which contributed emmencely to and enriched the world literature. II Short story in Marathi: In the past thousand years Marathi also always had a rich tradition of 'story' as a part of its ancient folk literature. Hundreds of stories might have entertained and educated the people of Maharashtra. These stories were preserved and passed forward to many generations orally as a rich heritage. This oral folk literature is available today mainly in the form of poetic and religious stories. Printed literature started spreading in Maharashtra in the beginning of 19^ century. This gave momentum to prose writing in Marathi. The first stories in Marathi were the translations of selected fables from English, Sanskrit and Bengali languages. They include the translation of Aesop's Fables Balbodh-Muktawali (1806), Sinhasan Battishi (1814), Hitopadesh (1815) and Panchtantra (1815). A number of story-books for school children were published, which includes a translation of a French book Berquin's Children's Friend done through English by S.K.Chhatre (1718-1830) under the name Balmitra (1828). (Sardarl971: 32-33). This was followed by the publication of abridged versions of pauranik bakhars and translations of Persian and Arabic stories. Very few stories were written independently by Marathi people during this period. In the second phase there were translations of imaginative entertaining stories - romance and mysteries - from English. But the stories selected by the translators were of average quality as they did not possess the ability to appreciate the aesthetic values of European classics. Most of the educated intellectuals were engaged in the attaractive government service. In 1854, an English story-book Berthold v^as translated into Marathi by B.V.Kanvinde, which followed by adaptations of Shakespeare's stories and plays The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Merchant of Venice and Comedy of 179 Errors. It is interesting that a story from the English book 'Classic Tales' - Elizabeth athawa Siberia Deshatil Haddapar Zalele Kutumb (1874) was translated by G.S.Bapat. (ibid.44). After the first independent novel in Marathi Yamunaparyatan (1857), Marathi prose developed its own tradition of realistic novels, as we have already discussed in Chapter III. The short story in Marathi became crystallized as a distinct literary form in 1920s and 1930s. H.N.Apte wrote many short stories, which were like a condensed novel, with a moral tag. The periodical Karamnuk published comic and historical stories, thrillers, and detective stories. This trend was continued later by the monthly Manoranjan. V.S.Gurjar (1885-1962) was the main contributor of this magazine. He portrayed the life of the middle class. His stories became quite popular. Manoranjan also encouraged women writers. They wrote stories with complicated action and moral comments, on domestic issues and didactic stories. After 1935, we see the influence of socialist view on Marathi story. It was Diwakar Krishna (1902-1973) and G.G.Limaye (1891-1971), who discerned that the form had an individual character and they set about exploring it in their own way. N.S.Phadke and V.S.Khandekar came with their respective stands 'Art for Art's Sake' and 'Art for Life's Sake'. Both can be said to be 'romantic', but Khandekar seems to be more 'realistic'. In the mid- thirties emerged women writers like Vibhavari Shirurkar depicting various women's problems, followed by humurous story writers. The precursors of the New Short Story Vaman Chorghade, S.M.Mate, N.G.Goray, Anant Kanekar, R.B.Joshi and Prabhakar Padhye tried to break the chains imposed by earlier writers on the content, expression and the objective of short story writing. The new generation with earnest desire for freedom found expression in the New Short Story or Navkatha, which denied the established conservative canons of short story writings. The issues like decaying joint family system, city life, loneliness, insecurity; impact of growing industrialisation on man, the mechanical life, loneliness of a sensitive man, violence on women in the middle class; the impact of World War II, pessimism, nihilism; Dalit life; rural life; women's perspective; attack on the hypocritic morality of middle class... such issues were reflected in Marathi story in the 20* century. 180 Russian short stories in Marathi: It was in 1934, when the first collection of Russian short stories appeared in Marathi literary polysystem. The first stories were of Tolstoy, Tolstoychya Goshti (1934) and Tolstoychya Bodhkatha (1942), Manuski (1946), Tolstoychya Balkatha (1947), Matsar (1947), Ramachi Karamat (1948), Cokeshasmadhil Kaidi (1955), which came parallel with the stories of Soviet authors Sovietchya Samarkatha Part I (1943) & II (1944), Mrutyunjay (1943), Lai Zenda (1944) and many others. A review of the Russian short-stories in Marathi shows that Tolstoy's stories make a major part of them. There are 11 story books of Tolstoy in Marathi. They include 6 books meant for children. The other short-story writers, which entered into Marathi polysystem are Anton Chekhov and Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Bunin, and Maxim Gorky. There are a number of stories by Soviet authors in Marathi, which include the works of A.Grin, M.Sholokhov, V.Dragunsky, Lavrenyov, Bulatov, Pontelima, A. Tolstoy and others. Children's stories make a major part of Russian stories in Marathi. Ill Texts selected: 1) White Nights by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky 2) Grasshopper by Russian author Anton Chekhov 3) The Fate of a Man by Soviet author Mikhail Sholokhov 4) The Stories of Denis by Soviet authorViktor Dragunsky 5) Right Hand by the dissident author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (i) Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881): was a Russian novelist and writer of fiction. His works, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, have had a profound and lasting effect on intellectual thought and world literature. 181 Dostoevsky in Russian Polysystem: Dostoevsky in his literary world explores human psychology in the troubled political, s6cial and spiritual context of his 19th century Russian society. Dostoevsky's novels primarily embody timeless spiritual values. They are compressed in time i.e. many cover only a few days. Other obsessive themes include suicide, wounded pride, collapsed family values, spiritual regeneration through suffering (the most important motif), rejection of the West and affirmation of Russian Orthodoxy and Tsarism. His characters fall into a few distinct categories: humble and self- effacing Christians, self-destructive nihilists, cynical debauchees and rebellious intellectuals. His characters are driven by ideas. In comparison with Tolstoy, whose characters are realistic, the characters of Dostoevsky are usually more symbolic of the ideas they represent. Dostoevsky is often cited as one of the forerunners of Literary Symbolism in specific Russian Symbolism. Dostoevsky has also been called one of the founding fathers of the philosophical movement known as 'existentialism'. His Notes from Underground, first published in 1864, has been depicted as a founding work of existentialism. Having been exiled to the city of Omsk (Siberia) in 1849, many of Dostoevsky's works entail notions of suffering and despair. With the publication of Crime and Punishment in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky became one of Russia's most prominent authors in the nineteenth century. His other major works include the novels Poor folk (1846), The Double: A Petersburg Poem (1846), The Village of Stepanchikovo (1859), The House of the Dead (1860), The Insulted and Humiliated (1861), Notes from Underground (1864), The Gambler (1867), The Idiot (1869), The Possessed (1872), The Brothers Karamazov (1880), A Writer's Diary (1873- 1881) and many short stories. Dostoevsky in Marathi polysystem: We see the influence of existentialism on some of the Marathi literary writings. It came there through the readings of philosophical writings of existentialist thinkers and the creative writings of novelists, dramatists like Sartre, Cammu, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Salinger, Becket.