Martina Stemberger The Plague in Paris or Burning Cities: Bruno Jasieński versus Paul Morand L’écriture est un incendie […] (Cendrars, L’Homme foudroyé 9) What can I say? Paris is the capital of the world, Moscow may well become so one day. (Roth, Flight Without End 44) Prologue In 1928, Bruno Jasieński1 published a reply to Paul Morand’s anti-communist novella Je brûle Moscou:2 the equally ‘incendiary’ novel Je brûle Paris.3 Cosmopolitan Paris, devastated by the plague, isolated by a strict cordon sanitaire, disintegrates into a series of hostile ethnic and ideological commu- nities. Once Paris is depopulated, former political prisoners found a commu- nist ‘new metropolis’. In this article, Je brûle Paris, in its time “le best seller absolu de la littérature prolétarienne” (Rayski 10), will lead to reflections on Paris as a site of – in this case, rather aggressive – cultural exchange in the 1920s, on the intertextual implications of Jasieński’s de(con)struction of Europe, but also on the entanglements of literature and politics, art and ideol- ogy. 1 Bruno Jasieńki (1901-1938), born as Wiktor Zysman, adopted by the Jasieńkis at the age of eight (Jaworski2 29f), started his career as Wiktor Jasieński (50), before abandoning ‘Wiktor/Victor’ for ‘Bruno’. 2 First published in Demain (n° 13, April 1925), then included in L’Europe galante (1925); henceforth ‘JbM’. 3 Jasieński started working on his novel (henceforth ‘JbP’) in October 1927; on January 15th, 1928, a fragment (W więzieniu Santé/In the Santé prison) was published in Sovetskaja Tribuna. On April 22nd, Ja žgu Pariž appeared in Moscow; from September 14th until November 13th, 59 sequels of Je brûle Paris were printed in L’Humanité (Jaworski2 136ff, 160ff), followed by the Flammarion book edition. The first Polish edition (Palę Pariż) came out in 1929, another in 1931; both were censored with regard to ‘anti-Polish’ motifs. In this article, indications of pages refer to the following French edition: Bruno Jasienski, Je brûle Paris. Paris: Félin, 2003. All translations from French, Russian, Polish and German are the author’s, if not stated otherwise. 230 Martina Stemberger Intertextual Fireworks or Subtle (Mis)Understandings The fiery exchange between Morand and Jasieński might have originated in a linguistic misunderstanding. Did Morand indeed ‘burn’ Moscow? Jasieński probably did not grasp the ambiguity of the French ‘brûler’ (Wat 33, Jawor- ski2 141). The Polish translation of Morand’s title, Palę Moskwę, suggests a serious pyromaniac project, just as Jasieński’s Palę Pariż, a flamboyant an- swer to Morand.4 While Morand, who ingeniously plays with the ‘masks’ of fiction (Douzou 208), whose works “caractérisent admirablement sinon la vie, du moins les rêves secrets de la classe dirigeante” (Ehrenbourg 74) and whose ambiguous title is neither coincidental nor innocent, ridicules Soviet revolutionary achievements, Jasieński restores the Russian Revolution to its dignity. Moscow is burning: like “red sparks” and “burning coals”, Lenin’s words fly over the world, setting it on fire (JbP 124).5 Je brûle Paris attacks “les fondements du mythe parisien” (Wyka 210, qtd. in Asholt 220): Paris might once have been the capital of revolution; but now, the half-effaced words “Liberté – Fraternité – Égalité” (sic) on the façade of a prison resem- ble “une inscription funéraire à demi illisible, sur la tombe délaissée de la Grande Révolution française“ (JbP 73). The French Revolution has degener- ated into a tourist event; not for nothing, the destruction of Paris starts on 14th July, turning a discredited anniversary into an international danse macabre on the Revolution’s grave. Morand’s and Jasieński’s ‘fireworks’ not only enlighten each other, they are both part of a complex intertextual network. One of Morand’s main tar- gets, “Mardochée Goldvasser, le poète rouge” (JbM 399) alias Vladimir Majakovskij, is immediately recognizable.6 Morand was certainly “un adver- saire résolu du bolchévisme” (Sarkany 221);7 and Majakovskij a prominent figure of Soviet literary life; but what had he done to deserve such a personal- 4 In 2005, Warsawian Jirafa Roja published the two works in a single volume, finally melting them into an inter/textual unity. 5 Jasieńki is quoting no other than Lenin himself: “When we took power in October we were nothing more in Europe than a single spark. True, the sparks began to fly, and they flew from us. […] Several countries are enveloped in the flames of workers’ revolution” (from Lenin’s Speech on the International Situation, delivered on November 8th, 1918, at the Extraordinary Sixth All- Russia Congress of Soviets; qtd. in Lenin 155). 6 Morand (who, in 1964, confirmed having portrayed Majakovskij and his “milieu”, cf. Sarkany 199) uses well-known biographic details (Majakovskij’s hypochondriac phobias, his relationship with Lilja and Osip Brik etc.). 7 And an enemy of what he calls “le bolchevisme des mœurs, le communisme de la peau” in his Éloge de la marquise de Beausemblant (416). .