Telling and Retelling a War Story: Svetlana Alexievich and Alexander Prokhanov on the Soviet-Afghan War Holly Myers Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Science COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Holly Myers All rights reserved ABSTRACT Telling and Retelling a War Story: Svetlana Alexievich and Alexander Prokhanov on the Soviet-Afghan War Holly Myers Unlike the Russian Civil War or Second World War, the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989) never acquired a stable, dominant narrative in Soviet or Russian culture. Even as the war was in progress, Soviet media revised its evaluation of key events and players to reflect the changing political tides through the 1980s. After the war ended, state leaders were distracted by the political turbulence of the 1990s, and the citizens—largely unaffected by the war on a personal level—were not particularly interested in assessing either the war’s successes or failures. This lack of definition left the descriptions and representations of the Soviet-Afghan War open to the influence of evolving political realities and agendas. This study examines the literary techniques and strategies that writers Svetlana Alexievich and Alexander Prokhanov have employed in articulating different narratives that responded to the shifting demands of the moment. With respect to the several revisions that Alexievich made to her documentary novel Zinky Boys from its initial publication in 1990 through its final version in 2007, I argue that the author’s position as anti-authoritarian and anti-war becomes increasingly rigid. Like many liberal-minded members of the intelligentsia after the fall of the Soviet Union, Alexievich had early hopes for a transition from totalitarianism to democracy in her native Belarus which would be disappointed. The poetics of her documentary prose, I argue, challenge the traditional identities and relationships of author, character, and reader by destabilizing the boundaries and allowing crossovers between roles. By engaging the reader in constructing the deeper meaning of the novel, Alexievich projects her reader into the full and active participation of a citizen building a new post-Soviet state. Prokhanov, situated on the opposite side of the political divide, also made substantial revisions to his novels about the Soviet-Afghan War. Prokhanov’s 1994 novel The Palace is remarkable for its change in message and tone from the narratives of his Soviet-era writing on Afghanistan: it openly questions the Soviet Politburo’s decision to invade, and includes surreal dreamlike sequences that, I argue, reflect his contemporaneous collaboration with Alexander Dugin, founding proponent of neo-Eurasianism. In Dream about Kabul—his 2001 “remake” of his own 1982 novel Tree in the Center of Kabul—Prokhanov’s alter-ego protagonist becomes an even more passive participant in the progression of the Soviet-Afghan War, compared to The Palace, as well as a powerless pawn in the political conspiracies involving the Russian Federation, Israel, and the United States. His reader is more like the obedient subject of a tsar than the politically engaged citizen of a democracy, as envisioned by Alexievich. In my study of the substantial revisions that Alexievich and Prokhanov made to their Soviet-Afghan War stories from the 1980s into the twenty-first century, I demonstrate how the literary representations of a military conflict in recent Soviet history reflect the increasing polarization of political and social realities facing authors and readers in the post-Soviet states of Russia and Belarus. The aesthetic decisions that Alexievich and Prokhanov made in revising their Soviet-Afghan War stories carry political and ethical implications. Thus, the relationship between implied author and implied reader in a literary text becomes a political statement about the relationship between the state and the citizen. TABLE OF CONTENTS A Note on Transliteration............................................................................................................... ii List of illustrations......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................... vi Chronology.................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One The Shifting Story of Afghanistan in Soviet Media......................................................... 26 Chapter Two Svetlana Alexievich’s Monophonic Truth about the Soviet-Afghan War: History, Memory, and the Document............................................................................... 50 Chapter Three The Poetics of Svetlana Alexievich’s Soviet-Afghan War: Authors, Readers, and the Responsibility of Being “You”............................................... 92 Chapter Four Alexander Prokhanov’s Post-Soviet Return to the Soviet-Afghan War: Moscow, Kabul, and the Eurasian Soul.......................................................................... 129 Chapter Five The Resurrection of Alexander Prokhanov’s Soviet-Afghan War: Authors, Readers, and the Ecstasy of Violence.............................................................. 177 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 229 Works Cited................................................................................................................................ 237 Appendix..................................................................................................................................... 255 i A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION Throughout the dissertation I use the Library of Congress system of transliteration except when writing the names of well-known Russian writers, literary critics, and public figures, and first names that are common in English. Therefore, I transliterate Belosel'tsev, Kariakin, and Ekaterina, but write Alexievich rather than Aleksievich, Yeltsin rather than Eltsin, and Alexander instead of Aleksandr. When providing bibliographic information, I use the Library of Congress system, except when citing English-language translations or articles. There I cite the author’s name as it was transliterated by the translator or literary critic. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Photograph of Moscow White House, Zavtra ................................................................. 163 Drawing of Moscow White House, Zavtra ...................................................................... 164 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS So many people have contributed to this project that acknowledging even a small percentage of the help I have received over the years is a daunting task. First, I want to thank my advisor, Liza Knapp, for her indefatigable support and encouragement. She returned drafts with lightning speed, was ready to meet whenever necessary, and always made sure I did not miss the forest for the trees. Without her extraordinary effort my work would have been much harder. I have learned so much from her about good academic research and writing, as well as teaching and mentorship. Alan Timberlake has been a constant source of intellectual inspiration in this and other projects that we have tackled together over the years. He has what seems a magical power to see two or five steps ahead, to recognize an idea that is hiding just below the surface, and to sense the potential of new approaches; this dissertation has benefited enormously from his involvement in it. Eliot Borenstein, who generously agreed to come onboard midway, was an invaluable resource as I refined the scope and focus of this project. I greatly admire his research, and the accessible, exciting way in which he writes about complicated trends in contemporary Russian culture. The idea for this dissertation was first developed in conversations with Cathy Nepomnyashchy, who treated the early project with her characteristic enthusiasm and energy. She is dearly missed. Cathy Popkin’s questions, comments, and exclamations during dissertation workshop presentations over the years encouraged me to consider my work in new ways. My special thanks to David Herman, who has been a mentor and a friend, and whose unwavering and optimistic conviction that I will succeed means a great deal to me. iv My work on this dissertation was funded in part by an academic year fellowship from the Harriman Institute and summer funding from Columbia’s Slavic Department. Not all graduate students have an opportunity to work on their dissertations without teaching or another job; I consider myself extremely fortunate to have received funding that occasionally gave me that opportunity. I am exceedingly grateful for the help I received from Alla Rachkov, John Lacqua, and Rob Davis, who, as far as I am concerned, is a wizard as well as a librarian. He was able to acquire obscure sources and information for my dissertation with impossible speed. A version of Chapter Two was published as an article in a Canadian Slavonic Papers special issue on Svetlana Alexievich. My thanks to the editor, Heather Coleman, and the anonymous