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A Modern Demonology: Some Literary Statins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Margaret Ziolkowski
Margaret Ziolkowski*
Affiliation:
Miami University, Ohio
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Extract

The publication of Anatolii Rybakov's Deti Arbata (1987) was heralded with much fanfare both in the Soviet Union and abroad. In the novel Rybakov seeks to capture the essence of Stalinism as it affected the day-to-day existence of Soviet citizens, a theme that commands intense interest in the Soviet Union today. Yet it seems unlikely that Deti Arbata would have attracted the attention it has were it not for its lengthy passages devoted to the actions and thoughts of Stalin. The novel's protagonist Sasha Pankratov remains curiously flat, too reminiscent of socialist realist paragons; it is instead Rybakov's Stalin who holds the reader's attention.

Few reliable Soviet histories of the Stalinist period or biographies of Stalin exist. Dmitrii Volkogonov and others are trying to rectify this situation, but literature has attempted to fill the gap and to respond to the national desire for some insight into the mysteries of Stalinism and its creator.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , Spring 1991 , pp. 59 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1991

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References

1. See Volkogonov, Dmitrii, Triumf i tragediia [Politicheskii portret I. V. Stalina], 2 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Agentstva pechati Novosti, 1989)Google Scholar.

2. Moskovskii rabochii is planning to publish Anton Antonov-Ovseenko's harshly critical portrait of Stalin, Portret tirana (New York: Khronika, 1980), in the Soviet Union.

3. Ulam, Adam, Stalin: The Man and His Era (New York: Viking, 1973)Google Scholar; Tucker, Robert, Stalin as Revolutionary 1879-1929: A Study in History and Personality (New York: Norton, 1973)Google Scholar; Medvedev, Roy A., Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, ed. Joravsky, David and Haupt, Georges, trans. Taylor, Colleen (New York: Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar, and Medvedev, Roy A., On Stalin and Stalinism, trans. de Kadt, Ellen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Souvarine, Boris, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism (London: Alliance, Longmans, Green, 1939)Google Scholar; Antonov-Ovseenko, Anton, The Time of Stalin, trans. Saunders, George (New York: Harper and Row, 1981)Google Scholar.

4. Irving Howe describes Rybakov's Stalin as being “pretty much the same monster we have come to know from [various] biographers and historians” (The New York Times Book Review, 22 May 1988, 7).

5. Znamia. 1986, nos. 10-11.

6. Znamia, 1988, no. 9.

7. Oktiabr', 1988, nos. 1-4.

8. Druzhba narodov, 1988, nos. 9-10. Other works that appeared too recently to be incorporated here are Ales’ Adamovich's “Dubler: Sny s otkrytymi glazami,” Druzhba narodov, 1988, no. 11, and Vladimir Uspenskii's Tainyi sovetnik vozhdia, Prostor, 1988, nos. 7-9. An important critical study that also appeared too recently to be incorporated into my discussion is Rosalind Marsh's Images of Dictatorship: Stalin in Literature (London: Routledge, 1989).

9. See, for example, Iuz Aleshkovskii's “Pesnia o Staline,” quoted in Iurii Mal'tsev, Vol'naia russkaia literatura 1955-1975 (Frankfurt a. M.: Possev, 1976), 320, and Vladimir Gornyi's [pseud.] “Palach i ego master,” Novyi zhurnal, no. 114, 1974. Also noteworthy is Andrei Siniavskii's Sud idet (1960), which contains brief sections in which the “Master,” easily recognizable as a stylized Stalin, appears. See Fantasticheskii mir Abrama Tertsa (New York: Inter-Language Literary Associates, 1967), 199-276.

10. “O Lenine,” in I. V. Stalin, Sochineniia, 13 vols. (Moscow: OGIZ / Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1946-1951) 6:52-64. Page of exact quotation is indicated in parentheses in the text.

11. Bertram D. Wolfe, Khrushchev and Stalin's Ghost: Text, Background and Meaning of Khrushchev's Secret Report to the Twentieth Congress on the Night of February 24-25, 1956 (New York: Praeger, 1957), 214.

12. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (kratkaia biografiia) (Moscow: OGIZ / Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1945), 74.

13. Cheremin, G. S., Obraz 1. V. Stalina v sovetskoi khudozhestvennoi literature (Moscow: Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo po rasprostraneniiu politicheskikh i nauchnykh znanii, 1950 Google Scholar). Cheremin quotes here from Stalin's “O Lenine.”

14. Iakov Il'in, Bol'shoi konveier (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1934), 161.

15. Pavlenko, Petr, Schast'e (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo detskoi literatury, 1950), 165 Google Scholar.

16. On the underground dissemination of some of these writings, see, for example, Reddaway, Peter, ed., Uncensored Russia: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union (New York: American Heritage, 1972), 377, 417Google Scholar, and Slusser, Robert M., “History and the Democratic Opposition,” in Dissent in the USSR: Politics, Ideology, and People, ed. Tökés, Rudolf L. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 334, 343, 345, 346Google Scholar. Most of this material has either recently become or will soon be officially available to the Soviet reading public.

17. Lenin's “Testament,” a letter addressed to the Twelfth Party Congress, is found in V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1958-1965) 45:344-346.

18. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Sobranie sochinenii (Paris: YMCA Press, 1978-), vol. 1, V kruge pervom, 1:116. Bednyi's observation is in Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vospominaniia (New York: Chekhov, 1970), 29-30.

19. Il'ia Suslov, Rasskazy o tovarishche Staline i drugikh tovarishchakh (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Hermitage, 1981), 9.

20. Anonimov, P. N., Une matinée de Joseph Staline (Utro v mae 1947 goda), bilingual edition (n.p.: L'Herne, 1969), 18 Google Scholar.

21. Iskander, Fazil’, “Piry Valtasara,” in Sandro iz Chegema (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1979), 187–229, quotation on 206Google Scholar.

22. Fazil’ Iskander, “Diadia Sandro i ego liubimets,” in ibid., 285-319.

23. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, V kruge pervom (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 93 Google Scholar. In the 1978 text, reference to Stalin's eyes has been replaced by mention of his mustache, ibid., 150.

24. Gladilin, Anatolii, “Repetitsiia v piatnitsu,” Kontinent 12 (1977):47–84 Google Scholar, and 13 (1977):91-131; quotation on 12:55.

25. Bek, Aleksandr, Novoe naznachenie (Frankfurt a. M.: Possev, 1971), 30 Google Scholar.

26. Maksimov, Vladimir, Kovcheg dlia nezvanykh (Frankfurt a. M.: Possev, 1979), 36 Google Scholar.

27. Aleksandr Galich, “Poema o Staline,” in his Kogda ia vernus’ (Frankfurt a. M.: Possev, 1981), 269-281, quotation on 270.

28. Rybakov, Anatolii, Deti Arbata, Druzhba narodov, 1987, no. 4: 3–133 Google Scholar; no. 5: 67-161; no. 6: 23-151; quotation on 4:13.

29. Voinovich, Vladimir, “V krugu druzei,” in his Putem vzaimnoi perepiski (Paris: YMCA Press, 1979), 166 Google Scholar.

30. Djilas, Milovan, Conversations with Stalin, trans. Petrovich, Michael B. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962), 12.Google Scholar

31. See Simonov, Konstantin, Glazami cheloveka moegopokoleniia, Znamia, 1988, no. 3, 33 Google Scholar.

32. Dmitrii Volkogonov, “Fenomen Stalina,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 9 December 1987, 13.

33. Antonov-Ovseenko, Portret tirana, 73.

34. Antonov-Ovseenko, The Time of Stalin, 234. The chapter from which this quotation is taken is not included in the Russian edition. In much the same vein as Antonov-Ovseenko, Edward J. Brown observes that “Stalin the orthodox seminarian, as Trockij long ago pointed out, developed a style which is a weird miscegenation of content and form: communist ideas couched in quasi-religious, catechetical style. The drearily repetitive questions and answers come readily to mind” (“Solzenicyn's Cast of Characters,” Slavic and East European Journal 15 [1971]: 162).

35. Layton, Susan, “The Mind of the Tyrant: Tolstoj's Nicholas and Solzenicyn's Stalin,” Slavic and East European Journal 23 (1979): 488 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Maksimov, Vladimir, Karantin (Frankfurt a. M.: Possev, 1973), 83–90 Google Scholar, quotation on 88.

37. See, for example, Kern, Gary, “Solzhenitsyn's Portrait of Stalin,” Slavic Review 33 (March 1974): 16–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Grebenschikov, Vladimir, “Les cercles infernaux chez Soljénitsyne et Dante,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 13 (1971): 154-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Iurii Borisov, “Chelovek i simvol,” Nauka i zhizn', 1987, no. 9, 63.

39. Mal'tsev, Vol'naia russkaia literatura, 213; and Rosalind J. Marsh, Soviet Fiction since Stalin: Science, Politics and Literature (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 33. Josephine Woll argues that Rybakov is “relentlessly realistic” (The Atlantic, June 1988, 103).