Avant­Gardes at the Iron Curtain: A Transnational Reading of Allen Ginsberg and the Soviet Estradny Movement by Gregory M. Dandeles A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in the University of Michigan 2017 Doctoral Committee: Professor John A. Whittier­Ferguson, Chair Associate Professor Julian Arnold Levinson Associate Professor Joshua L. Miller Associate Professor Benjamin B. Paloff Gregory M. Dandeles [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000­0003­4716­2210 © Gregory M. Dandeles 2017 i Table of Contents: List of Figures iii Abstract iv Introduction: Avant­Gardes at the Iron Curtain 1 Chapter I: Transnational Beatnik: Russia in Allen Ginsberg’s Early Poetry 19 Chapter II: Red Cats: Allen Ginsberg in Translation and Propaganda 35 Chapter III: Planet News in 1965: The Estradny Movement’s Impact on Ginsberg’s Poetry 69 Conclusion: Avant­Gardes After the Iron Curtain 114 Appendix 122 Bibliography 130 ii List of Figures Fig. 1. The caption of this Soviet­era propaganda says “Freedom, American Style.” 27 Fig. 2. This Khrushchev­era poster promises “Hybrid seeds are the key to high 47 corn yields!” Fig. 3. The cover of a Russian pamphlet of “Howl” (Вой) depicting the “Moloch” 50 figure Fig. 4. “The Moloch of Totalitarianism,” by Nina Galitskaya 51 Fig. 5. The cover of “Red Cats” painted by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 63 Fig. 6. Andrei Voznesensky, “Portrait of Allen Ginsberg,” hair and open cuffs, 1991 65 Fig. 7. Sheet music for “On Jessore Road,” published with the poem in Collected 109 Poems Fig. 8. Images of Ginsberg and Dylan, both wearing the same top hat; from the 110 liner notes of Bringing It All Back Home Fig. 9. The unpublished, Russian draft of “Angelic Black Holes” 115 Fig. 10. From Ginsberg’s March 22, 1965 journal Entry on first meeting with 122 Voznesensky Fig. 11. Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s “The Ohm­issar of American Poetry” (Омиссар 123 Американской Поэзии) translated by Greg Dandeles and Irina Zadnepryanaya in Chapter II Fig. 12 “Night I am Approaching the Throne,” written in Ginsberg’s journal as he 126 entered the USSR by train on March 18, 1965 Fig. 13. “Kremlin Museum Rock,” an early example of Ginsberg composing 127 spontaneous music intended to paint a portrait of his surroundings (in this case Moscow’s Red Square) Fig. 14. August 1961 issue of Foreign Literature, the first Soviet publication of an 129 Allen Ginsberg poem iii Abstract : “ Avant­Gardes at the Iron Curtain” uncovers how Ginsberg’s family connections to Russia, his interest in Russian Futurist and Estradny poetry, his travels to the Soviet Union and other Soviet Bloc countries in 1965, as well as his collaborations and friendships with Russian poets Andrei Voznesensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko profoundly shaped his shift in the late sixties to a new style of aural composition and excursions into new genres and modes of performance. Because of his complex position between two cultures at war, Ginsberg is able to satirically critique both the American and the Soviet governments from a politically neutral yet activist transnational position . Chapter one of this dissertation claims that Ginsberg cultivates, in his early works, a Russian identity based on his family connections to Russia that simultaneous undermines American exceptionalism by drawing parallels between the two countries’ governments while, at the same time, he uses his own conflicted Russian and American identities to channel Whitman’s ideals of American pluralism and their potential restorative powers for American democracy. Chapter two explains how Russian translations of Ginsberg's most famous poems failed as Soviet propaganda while nevertheless succeeding in inspiring young Russian poets of the Estradny movement to introduce subtly dissident politics into official Soviet publications in the form of confessional poetry. This Estradny poetry, in turn, influenced Ginsberg after making its way back to America in the form of Red Cats , a collection of poems conceived of by Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1962. Chapter three argues that Ginsberg’s travels to the Soviet Union in 1965 led to major shifts in his approach to articulating politics in poetry, his method of poetic composition, and his commitment to poetry’s oral tradition and its potential role in popular culture. When we see Ginsberg’s post­1965 poetry in the global context of its inception, poems long thought by US critics to be inert are revealed to be politically and psychologically complex portraits of Vietnam­era Cold War America. Ginsberg’s understanding and often hagiographic appreciation of Estradny poetry’s power as a popular aural art form resulted in his incorporating his own version of their poetics into much of his post­1965 poetry, which transcends the political, cultural, and language barriers that divided the East and West in the 1960s. While language, cultural, and political divisions between the US and Russia have continued to prevent many critics from fully appreciating Ginsberg’s post­1965 shift towards aural composition and overt political intervention, my transnational reading claims that reading these poems in their appropriate global context can help us better understand their political exigence, complex historical origins, aural aesthetics, and their impact on popular American culture and music. This transnational study is intended to improve our understanding of some of Ginsberg’s most frequently undervalued works, but it is also an argument­by­example of the importance of reading across national and linguistic borders as a way of advancing our understanding of the cultures both inside and beyond those borders. iv Introduction: Avant­Gardes at the Iron Curtain I search for the language that is also yours­­ almost all our language has been taxed by war. ­­Allen Ginsberg, “Wichita Vortex Sutra” Allen Ginsberg said in a 1983 interview with Danish scholars Inger Thorup Lauridsen and Per Dalgard: “I am basically a Russian poet, put in an American scene” (28). This dissertation seeks to explore the implications of this statement by uncovering the Russian poetic and cultural influences that run through Ginsberg’s life and work and then tracing how that work, in turn, influenced the poetry and culture of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Ginsberg’s connections to Russia through his Russian­born mother, his interest in Russian Futurism, travels to the Soviet Union and other Soviet Bloc countries at the height of the Cold War, and his collaborations and friendships with Russian poets Andrei Voznesensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko profoundly shaped his work in ways that have not yet been explored. Chapter one of this dissertation claims that Ginsberg cultivates, in his early works, a Russian identity based on his family connections to Russia that simultaneous undermines American exceptionalism by drawing parallels between the two countries’ governments while, at the same time, he uses his own conflicted Russian and American identities to channel Whitman’s ideals of American pluralism and their potential restorative powers for 1 American democracy. Chapter two examines how Russian translations of Allen Ginsberg's most famous poems failed as Soviet propaganda while succeeding in inspiring young Soviet poets of the Estradny (Эстрадный) movement to introduce subtly dissident politics into official Soviet publications in the form of confessional poetry. This Estradny poetry, in turn, influenced Ginsberg after making its way back to America in the form of Red Cats, a collection of poems conceived of by Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1962. Finally, chapter three examines how Ginsberg’s travels to the Soviet Union in 1965 led to major shifts in his approach to politics in poetry, his method of poetic composition, and his commitment to poetry’s oral tradition and potential role in popular culture. When you see the larger role Allen Ginsberg played in shaping the late 20th century Soviet literature, his poems, long thought to be inert in the US, are revealed to be politically and psychologically complex, while the Estradny poets these works inspired can be seen as far more sophisticated and subtly insurgent than Western critics have previously thought. Ginsberg’s own understanding and appreciation of Estradny poetry resulted in his incorporation of their poetics into much of his post­1965 poetry, which transcends the political, cultural, and language barriers that divided the East and West in the 1960s. While these divisions have continued to prevent critics from fully appreciating Ginsberg’s post­1965 shift towards aural composition and overt political intervention, this transnational reading seeks to explore how reading these poems in the global context in which they were written can help us better understand their political exigence, complex historical origins, aural aesthetics, and their impact on popular culture and music. In doing so, Beat scholars can reclaim the mantle of 2 “beatnik” from a term of opprobrium and Ginsberg’s poetry from the realm of pop culture pastiche. This transnational study is intended to improve our understanding of some of Ginsberg’s most frequently undervalued works, but it is also an argument­by­example of the importance of reading across national and linguistic borders as a way of advancing our understanding of the cultures both inside and beyond those borders and especially those on the other side of international conflicts. Transnational Readings of the Global Beat Movement