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Parallel Lives: Gogol'’s Biography and Mass Readership in Late Imperial Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Stephen Moeller-Sally
Stephen Moeller-Sally*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Stanford University
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Extract

Our view of the cultural situation in late imperial Russia is changing. Long set aside as a distinct period in literary and cultural history, the decades embracing the turn of the twentieth century have customarily been described according to two master narratives. The first has tied developments in cultural life to the political struggle between revolution and reaction, and to the history of Russian revolutionary ideology. The second focuses on the evolution of style, recounting the transformation of realism and the concurrent emergence of decadence and modernism. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to reveal the limits of these paradigms by directing attention to fundamental changes in the institutions of Russian literature. Jeffrey Brooks has shown how the Russian reading public expanded and diversified in the wake of the Great Reforms, thus preparing the way for a broadly based popular literature governed by market forces. As technology improved in the areas of printing, transportation and communications, the potential of this new market was increasingly exploited so that by the turn of the century popular literature had risen from its origins as a virtual cottage enterprise to the status of a major industry.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 62 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1995

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References

1. Jeffrey, Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985 Google Scholar. Brooks observes that the national literacy rate increased from 20% to 40% in the years 1897-1914. Unfortunately, there is no reliable data concerning national literacy rates from the 1880s or early 1890s. It is worth noting, however, that literacy among the rural population is thought to have quadrupled to almost 25% from the 1860s to the 1910s. See Brooks, 4.

2. I have borrowed these terms from Robert Escarpit's Sociology of Literature. Escarpit defines the “cultured circuit” of distribution as oriented toward readers with formal intellectual training, toward a group that more or less constitutes the “literary milieu.” In turn, the popular circuit serves readers who possess “intuitive literary taste” but not “an explicit or reasoned power of judgment” (Sociology of Literature, trans. Ernest Pick [London: Frank Cass & Co., 1971], 57-74). My use of these phrases is by no means intended to suggest that members of the popular circuit, whether literate or illiterate, did not have culture. Rather, Escarpit's terms capture the paradoxes of acculturation: despite the intelligentsia's efforts to create a shared cultural space with the common people, significant boundaries persisted within that space.

3. Jeffrey, Brooks, “Russian Nationalism and Russian Literature: The Canonization of the Classics” in Nation and Ideology: Essays in Honor of Wayne S. Vucinich, eds. Banac, Ivo, Ackerman, John G. and Szporluk, Roman (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1981), 315–34Google Scholar.

4. P. V., Annenkov, Materialy dlia biografii A.S. Pushkina [1855] (Moscow: Kniga, 1985 Google Scholar; P. A., Viskovatov, Mikhail lur'evich Lermontov: zhizn’ i tvorchestvo [1891] (Moscow: Kniga, 1989 Google Scholar.

5. Brooks, “Russian Nationalism and Russian Literature,” 327.

6. Materialy dlia biografii Gogolia’ serves as a useful standard by which to distinguish a popular biography. Shenrok's work appeared in 1, 200 copies, while popular biographies were almost always released in print runs ranging from several thousands to more than 10, 000. In addition, at twelve rubles Shenrok's four-volume biography was prohibitively expensive for the majority of literate Russians in the 1890s and, even if provincial readers had the money to spare, chances were slim that they could obtain the work because it was distributed primarily in urban centers. I have also used criteria of cost and distribution to differentiate biographies for mass audiences from popularizations written for the educated circuit.

7. Although I have included all educated-circuit popularizations from this period, the biographies for mass audiences that I discuss below constitute just over a quarter of the twenty such works that appeared during 1880-1917. I have selected six biographies for close analysis for several reasons. First, taken together they encompass the entire range of approaches to Gogol’ in this genre. (Where biographies are representative in their treatment of GogoFs life, I have included citations to other works exhibiting similar characteristics in the footnotes.) Second, the works in question include the three most widely circulating biographies of this period. And finally, since the goal of this article is illuminate the socio-cultural role of popular biography, 1 have included works in which the reader is offered a functional orientation toward the text.

8. Review of Materialy dlia biografii Gogolia vol. 3 by V.I. Shenrok, NabliudateV 4 (1895): 13 and Review of Materialy dlia biografii Gogolia vols. 1-3 by V.I. Shenrok, Niva 5 (1895): 753.

9. Niva, op.cit.

10. V. I., Shenrok, Materialy dlia biografii Gogolia (Moscow : Tipografiia A.I. Mamontova, 1897), 4: viiiGoogle Scholar.

11. Ira Nadel has argued that the biographical series was modeled on Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which presented a “condensed life with a moral purpose” (Biography: Fiction, Fact, and Form [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984], 19).

12. Ibid., 20. Among the more amusing examples of the latter type of series, Nadel mentions Lives of Distinguished Shoemakers.

13. Kufaev, M.N., quoted in Rubakin, N.A., “Iz istorii bor'by za prava knigi: Florentii Fedorovich Pavlenkov,” Kniga: issledovaniia i materialy 9 (1964): 209.Google Scholar

14. Pavlenkov was tried for publishing the collected works of Dmitrii Pisarev in 1866.

15. All factual details concerning Lives of Remarkable People are drawn from T.F. Nepomniashchaia, “Biograficheskaia biblioteka Pavlenkova, F.F. “Zhizn’ zamechatel'nykh liudei’ kak tip izdaniia,” Kniga: issledovaniia i materialy 19 (1969): 114–22.Google Scholar

16. The other categories were: musicians and actors, scholars, travelers and “people of great initiative. “

17. Nepomniashchaia, 116.

18. As the sister of the revolutionary Petr Tkachev and the wife of a narodnik journalist, Annenskaia had superb ideological credentials for the series. See A. P., Babushkina, Istoriia russkoi detskoi literatury (Moscow : Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1948), 421–26Google Scholar.

19. Belinskii, V.G., review of Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami by N.V. Gogol', , Sovremennik 1, no. 2 (1847): 103–24.Google Scholar

20. Chernyshevskii, N.G., review of Sochineniia ipis'ma N.V. Gogolia, ed. Kulish, P.A., Sovremennik 8 (1857)Google Scholar.

21. Aleksandra, Annenskaia, N.V. Gogol': ego zhizn’ i literaturnaia deiatel'nost’ (St. Petersburg: F.F. Pavlenkov, 1891), 81 Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., 90.

23. Ibid., 26.

24. A. N., Annenskaia, N.V. Gogol': ego zhizn'iproizvedeniia (St. Petersburg : Biblioteka Vskhodov, 1902)Google Scholar.

25. Avenarius's reputation in this regard is confirmed by Chekhov, N.V., “Ocherki istorii russkoi detskoi literatury” in Materialy po istorii russkoi detskoi literatury (1750-1855), eds. Pokrovskaia, A.K. and Chekhov, N.V. (Moscow : Institut metodov vneshkol'noi raboty, 1927), 1: 61 Google Scholar. Despite Avenarius's evident popularity and reputation, he does not appear to have had any followers, for, excepting the work of Annenskaia, I have not found other fictional biographies of Gogol’ or even of Pushkin.

26. V. P., Avenarius, Gogol'-gimnazist (St. Petersburg : Izdatel'stvo P.V. Lukovnikova, 1897)Google Scholar; Gogol'-student (St. Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo P.V. Lukovnikova, 1898); Shkola zhizni velikogo iumorista (St. Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo P.V. Lukovnikova, 1899).

27. Gogol’ the Schoolboy, for example, cost 1 ruble 25 kopecks unbound. For 2 rubles, a reader would receive the volume cloth bound with an imprinted floral design. Later editions featured a portrait of Gogol’ and illustrations of his characters.

28. V.P. Avenarius, Gogol'-gimnazist, 38.

29. Ibid., 42.

30. Annenskaia, N.V. Gogol': ego zhizn1 i proizvedeniia, 24-28.

31. Avenarius, Gogol1 student, 8.

32. Ibid.

33. Review of Shkola zhizni velikogo iumorista by V.P. Avenarius, Novoe vremia 8192 16 December 1898): 7.

34. Review of Gogol'-student by V.P. Avenarius, Niva 12 (1897): 873.

35. Davis, Natalie Zemon, “Printing and the People” in Rethinking Popular Culture, eds. Mukerji, Chandra and Schudson, Michael (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1991), 66 Google Scholar.

36. Novoe vremia 8192 (16 December 1898): 7.

37. Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” trans. Josue V. Harari in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 113. Foucault argues here that authorship involves not simply the attribution of a discourse to its producer but also a classification of that producer. In other words, the designation “author” carries with it a cluster of characterstics, ancillary roles and values deemed by a given society to constitute that designation.

38. The fact that different variants of the same story circulated simultaneously also suggests possible parallels between attitudes toward printed texts of commercial popular literature and the practices of oral literature.

39. “Vii” appeared under the title “Three Nights by the Coffin” while “A Terrible Vengeance” was published as “Terrible Sorcerer.” See I. D., Sytin, Stranitsy perezhitogo (Moscow: Kniga, 1985), 88 Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., 80-82.

41. V.N. Ostrogorskii, Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol': Literaturno-biograficheskii ocherk (Viatka: Viatskoe gubernskoe zemstvo, 1902), iv.

42. R., Khlebnikova, Kak zhil N.V. Gogol’ i chto on pisal (Moscow : Tovarishchestva I.D. Sytina, 1902), 8 Google Scholar.

43. Ibid., 7-8.

44. Solov'ev, V.S., ed., Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol’ (St. Petersburg : Postoiannyi komitet narodnykh chtenii, 1901), 3 Google Scholar.

45. Biografiia N.V. Gogolia: K piatidesiatiletiiu so dnia ego konchiny (Khar'kov: Izdatel'skii komitet Khar'kovskogo obshchestva gramotnosti, 1902), 3. Gogol''s desire to help others and serve good also figures in S., Rusova, Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol': Biograficheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg : Tipografiia Al'tshulera, 1909), 12–13 Google Scholar and Vetrinskii, Ch., Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol’ (St. Petersburg : Prometei, n.d.), 52 Google Scholar.

46. Khlebnikova, 25. V.N. Ladyzhenskii sums up Gogol''s career in much the same vein. See N.V. Gogol': O zhizni i sochineniiakh (Moscow: Tipografiia A.V. Vasil'eva, 1902), 15-16.

47. A. M., Kutuzov, Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol1 (dlia uchashchikhsia nizshikh shkol) (Novyi Nikolaevsk : Tipografiia N.P. Litvinova, 1907), 12–14 Google Scholar.

48. Ibid., 14-15. Note also the rhetorical sleight of hand through which sequence— improvements that took place in Russia after Gogol'—implies consequence.

49. For details concerning Tolstoi's reaction to Gogol''s work, as well as the publication of Gogol', kak uchitel’ zhizni, see Opul'skaia, L.D., Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi: Materialy k biografii s 1886 po 1892 god (Moscow: Nauka, 1979), 112–14Google Scholar.

50. Ibid., 113.

51. Ibid.

52. A., Orlov, Nikolai Gogol1, kak uchitel’ zhizni (Moscow : Tovarishchestvo I.D. Sytina, 1902), 20 Google Scholar. Only one other popular biography approached Orlov's in its emphasis on Gogol''s religious life: Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol', 1809-1909, published by the Kiev School District and written in cooperation with three local clergymen. The second chapter of this biography is entitled “N.V. Gogol', Faithful Son of the Orthodox Church and the Homeland. “

53. Ibid., 61.

54. Ibid., 63. The historical legacy prophesied in this biography directly parallels the rejection of art that marked the conversions of both Gogol’ and Tolstoi.

55. Kutuzov, 9.

56. Rusova, 45.

57. Ostrogorskii, xxvi. In this regard see also N.V. Gogol’ (Moscow: Tovarishchestvo I.D. Sytina, 1909), 22; and Sergei, Orlovskii, Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol': Biograftcheskii ocherk (Moscow: Obshchestvo rasprostraneniia poleznykh knig, 1904), 78 Google Scholar.

58. Dmitrii, Merezhkovskii, Gogol’ i chort (Moscow: Skorpion, 1906 Google Scholar; Valerii, Briusov, Ispepelennyi. K kharakteristike Gogolia (Moscow: Skorpion, 1909 Google Scholar; Andrei, Belyi, “Gogol'” Vesy 4 (1909): 69–83 Google Scholar. At present there is no comprehesive description of Gogol''s creative reception by writers, including the symbolists. However, Monika Greenleaf is investigating the relationship of tradition to authorial self-fashioning in a forthcoming book on the reception of Pushkin.

59. Gregory, Freidin, “Authorship and Citizenship: A Problem for Modern Russian Literature,” Stanford Slavic Studies 1 (Stanford, 1987): 364–65.Google Scholar

60. Novoe vremia 8192 (16 December 1898): 7; emphasis mine.

61. Boris, Tomashevskii, “Literatura i biografiia,” Kniga i revoliutsiia 4 (1923): 6–9.Google Scholar

62. Roland, Barthes, “The Death of the Author” in Image Music Text, trans. Heath, Stephen (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 142–48Google Scholar. Barthes's essay dates from 1968.

63. Cheryl, Walker, “Persona Criticism and the Death of the Author” in Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism, ed. Epstein, William H. (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1991), 111 Google Scholar. Other recent critiques and qualifications of the “death of the author” include: Lawrence, Lipking, “Life, Death, and Other Theories” in Historical Studies and Literary Criticism, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 180–98Google Scholar; and Svetlana, Boym, Death in Quotation Marks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991 Google Scholar.

64. Stanley Fish has also expressed this view. Noting that all speech is contextual and presupposes some kind of speaker, he argues that one cannot “read independently of biography, of some specification of what kind of person—and with what abilities, concerns, goals, purposes, and so on—is the source of the words you are reading. [It follows that] disputes about meaning are always disputes about biography, whether or not they are explicitly so labeled” ( “Biography and Intention,” in Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism, ed. William H. Epstein [West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1991], 12).