How was Dostoevsky seen in his own time?

Two hundred years after he was born Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. But how was he seen in his own time?

Well, Turgenev and Nekrasov once called Dostoevsky a pimple on the face of Russian literature! 

It all started with Poor Folk

Dostoevsky became famous overnight with his debut novella Poor Folk (1846), a title that would prove to be prophetic for his own life.

The secret of this success lied in Dostoevsky’s ability to sense that a new literary and social era was beginning, and he cleverly played into that. As any Russian writer does, he took a few bits from his predecessors: the title he borrowed from Karamzin’s Poor Liza, he applied Pushkin’s compassion for his characters to his and he used similar protagonists as Gogol did in his Petersburg stories. And so Dostoevsky wrote the first Russian novel in the sentimental naturalistic genre.

The novel was praised by everyone, including Nekrasov and Turgenev, and Dostoevsky was hailed as Russia’s next big writer. Understandably the sudden success went to his head a bit, he was still quite young after all. Dostoevsky had a strong need for love and acceptance, combined with a tendency to think highly of himself. When he met a pretty admirer at a fancy ball in 1846, Dostoevsky apparently couldn’t handle his emotions and fainted, which caused Nekrasov and Turgenev to make fun of him. 

Even so, this pimple was destined to become the face of Russian Literature.

Siberia and literary comeback

In spite of this flying start Dostoevsky struggled for some years after the publication of Poor Folk to find his place in the phenomenal world of Russian literature. His second novella The Double was criticised for being too ‘Gogolian’. In 1849 his literary career was ruthlessly interrupted when he got arrested for ‘conspiring against the regime’ and was sentenced to four grim years of forced labour in Siberia.

After this ordeal he picked up his writing career in 1859 with two comedies: Uncle’s Dream and The Village of Stepanchikovo. Neither were very successful. His real comeback came in 1862 with The House of the Dead, a semi autobiographical novel about the prison life in Siberia.

Crime and Punishment

In 1866 Russia was in the grip of Crime and Punishment, published in instalments in the literary magazine The Russian Messenger, in which at the same time Tolstoy’s War and Peace* was published. Now Dostoevsky had finally reached the literary top, although he had to share it with Tolstoy and Turgenev. 

He was so much in debt most of the time that he had to write to make money. To make matters worse, he would ask for advances for future work from his publishers and was faced with impossible deadlines in return. He was envious of his competitors, and imagined them living a life of luxury and only writing when they felt like it. His work did not exactly suffer from it though, and he wrote masterpiece after masterpiece: The Idiot, Demons, The Brothers Karamazov.

A Writer’s Diary

Between 1873 and 1881 Dostoevsky wrote more personal essays for his A Writer’s Diary, which was published in various magazines. Through the Diary, which was very popular, the public got to know the person Dostoevsky better and it gained him a new following, especially among young people. He wrote about articles that he had read in the newspapers, the political situation, religion, literature and his personal life. It was a prelude to The Brothers Karamazov, in which all his ideas and views on religion and politics came together.

The Pushkin Speech

By the time Dostoevsky finished writing The Brothers Karamazov, he had reached a prophetic status in Russia. In his famous Pushkin speech in 1881 (a time when the country was struggling with terrorist attacks) Dostoevsky provided the answers that the people wanted to hear: the Russian people themselves held the key, and it was to be the Russian people who would lead Europe into the light, and not the other way around. It was a roaring success, and the success lit up the final months of his life.

Outsider

Dostoevsky always remained a bit of an outsider, and he never really fitted in the literary circles of his time. Because of his sensitive nature he was easily offended, although he regularly offended others himself. But it was precisely his own psychological struggles and hypersensitivity that gave him the ability to depict the inner turmoil of his characters so brilliantly.

With Turgenev and Tolstoy 

Dostoevsky admired Turgenev’s writing style and a lot of his work, but accused him of being too Western. He was also unable to forget the pimple incident, and he once had to ask Turgenev for a loan* after he had lost all his money at the roulette table. In Demons he took revenge on Turgenev and parodied him mercilessly. He did, however, pay Turgenev a compliment in his Pushkin speech, praising Turgenev’s protagonist Liza from Home of the Gentry.

He never met Tolstoy (1828-1910) in person, and although Tolstoy was more a Slavophile like Dostoevsky, he mostly disagreed with his views. In his Writer’s Diary he once wrote a whole rant about how stupid Tolstoy’s Levin from Anna Karenina was, because he disagreed with the political views that Tolstoy had given Levin. Tolstoy never openly responded, but did express genuine sorrow when he learned of Dostoevsky’s death.

The role of the writer in 19th century Russia cannot be underestimated. The three giants influenced the public opinion each in their own way; it was even expected of them. Dostoevsky gave the Russian people a sense of pride and hope for the future.

*******

*Dostoevsky and his second wife Anna devoured War and Peace, but Dostoevsky hid the part in which Lise dies in childbirth, because Anna was pregnant at that time. She was quite upset with her husband for losing it! I wonder how he explained her sudden absence and Andrey being suddenly a marriage prospect for Natasha;-)

** He had asked Turgenev for 100 thalers, and Turgenev sent him 50. By the time Dostoevsky paid Turgenev back the value of the thaler had dropped so much that it was practically worth nothing.

********

Russian Literature timeline:

1792 Poor Liza, Karamzin

1830 The Belkin Stories, Pushkin

1832 Eugene Onegin, Pushkin

1842 Dead Souls, Gogol

1842 Petersburg Stories, Gogol

1852 Childhood, Tolstoy

1846-1852 A Sportsman’s Sketches, Turgenev

1859 Oblomov, Goncharov

1862 Fathers and Sons, Turgenev

1866 Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

1867 The Gambler, Dostoevsky

1869 The Idiot, Dostoevsky

1865-1869 War and Peace, Tolstoy  

1872 Demons, Dostoevsky

1877 Anna Karenina, Tolstoy  

1879-1880 The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky

*******

Text and photo © Elisabeth van der Meer 2021

Books read: Dostoevsky in Love by Alex Christofi and Joseph Frank’s biography of Dostoevsky.

The Karamazov Readalong

As you may have seen already, my friend Liz Humphreys from the blog Leaping Life is going to host a The Brothers Karamazov readalong. Her timing is no coincidence, as 2021 marks the bicentenary of Dostoevsky’s birth. It’s the perfect opportunity for those of you who have been meaning to read Dostoevsky’s epic novel The Brothers Karamazov. She has invited me and our mutual friend Rebecca Bud to make some contributions to the readalong, which obviously we were more than happy to do!

Intimidating

The Brothers Karamazov is definitely one of those intimidating novels that are huge in every way. It tackles some of the biggest questions in life, such as the conflict between reason and faith. Of all the great Russian writers of the 19th century it was after all Dostoevsky who made us think and reflect the most. He didn’t shy away from subjects such as poverty and prostitution and has a habit of leading you into the darkest corners of the human mind.

A very short biography

Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821, where his father was a doctor at a hospital for the poor. Perhaps it was there that his lifelong fascination with less fortunate people began. By the time Dostoevsky was 18 years old, both his parents had died. He and his brother moved to St Petersburg, a city that would become very important for his work and life. His first literary succes was a short novel called Poor Folk (1846), and it made him famous overnight. In 1849 Dostoevsky was arrested for treason and sentenced to death. He was already taken to the place of execution, when the tsar at the very last moment pardoned him and his fellow prisoners. He was sent to Siberia instead, and spent four years doing forced labour in chains. He wrote all his major novels (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Devils and The Brothers Karamazov) after Siberia. He married twice (the second time happily), had 4 children (of which 2 died), and had to overcome a severe gambling addiction. As if all that was not enough he was always ill: he suffered from epilepsy, haemorrhoids and emphysema. The emphysema caused his death in 1881.

Politics

The Brothers Karamazov was written in the last two years of his life, and as such it should be seen as his life’s work. This was a time of great political turmoil in Russia. After the abolition of serfdom Russia had come to a crossroads and the country was divided. Dostoevsky was a convinced Slavophile, believing that Russia should stay true to itself in order to move forward. One of Dostoevsky’s motivations to write The Brothers Karamazov was to have an opportunity to explain his moral and political views. 

Death of his son Alyosha

The basic idea for the novel, which he had in his head for several years before he started writing, changed after the death of his 3 year old son Alyosha. Little Alyosha died from an epilepsy fit. Besides being struck with grief, Dostoevsky also felt immensely guilty, as clearly Alyosha had inherited the disease that killed him from his father. Dostoevsky went to the famous Optina Pustyn monastery, and there he talked to the equally famous Father Ambrose about the death of little Alyosha. He named on of the brothers in The Brothers Karamazov ‘Alyosha’ and gave Father Ambrose a part as Father Zosima. 

The quintessential novel

“Everything would be put in with an idea that would illuminate the whole.The very selection of facts will suggest how they are to be understood. And it ought to be interesting even for light reading, apart from its value as a work of reference. It would be, so to say, a presentation of the spiritual, moral, inner life of Russia. I want everyone to buy it, I want it to be a book that will be found on every table. It’s an immense undertaking” (from Demons, as quoted by Christofi, page 176 Dostoevsky in Love).

*****

I can highly recommend the biography Dostoevsky in Love by Alex Christofi as an introduction to Dostoevsky and his work. Christofi takes you through Dostoevsky’s life with quotes from letters, excerpts of his novels and notes from his diaries. It’s as if we can hear Dostoevsky himself reminiscing about his life.

*****

As an introduction to the readalong the three of us have recorded a podcast, in which Liz explains all about the readalong. If you wish to take part, you can find more information on Liz’s blog. The readalong starts on the 27th of July.

Text and photo © Elisabeth van der Meer 2021

The Eugene Onegin Guide – Chapter 8

In which Eugene falls for Tatyana and she refuses him…

Tatyana is now Princess N.

We left Tatyana in chapter 7 where she had caught the attention of a corpulent general. When we see her next in chapter 8 she is married and goes by the title ‘Princess N’. Instead of a  description of the engagement and subsequent marriage, Pushkin talks about his muse, who came to him in different guises at various stages in his life. At the end of stanza 5 we can recognise Tatyana as his muse. Now Pushkin has taken his muse into the salons of the high society in Saint Petersburg, where she holds herself very well indeed.

The lack of information about her engagement and marriage to general N, or even N’s full name (it is not even certain that he is the same as the corpulent general), is congruent with her own lack of interest in such things.

Onegin

Now we also see Eugene again, in his natural environment this time. He has apparently been traveling* and is now in his late twenties. No, he hasn’t changed, he’s still bored with everything. Until he meets Tatyana again, that is. He can’t believe his eyes when he spots the transformed Tatyana and has to double check with his cousin, who happens to be the general himself, if that perfectly accomplished and composed lady is really the shy girl he used to know. 

Whatever Tatyana may be thinking when she meets Eugene again, she shows no sign of it and greets him just like she would any old acquaintance. She has clearly taken the lessons that Eugene preached to her in 4:16:12 to heart. Although Tatyana has nothing fake or feigned about her, we are reminded of the opening of chapter 4: ‘the less we love her when we woo her, the more we draw a woman in’. Only now it’s the other way around; by not showing any interest in Eugene, she makes him fall in love with her.  

Onegin’s letter(s)

When all his conventional attempts to woo Tatyana fail, he resorts to writing her a letter. By mirroring Eugene’s letter with Tatyana’s letter from chapter 3, Pushkin emphasises the differences between the two. Eugene’s letter is a strange mixture of reproach (she doesn’t acknowledge his attentions) and commonplace phrases (To swoon and pass away… what rapture!). When she does not reply, he writes another, and another. She continues to ignore him, although she does understandably begin to show signs of annoyance. 

Like any self respecting literary hero would, Onegin loses himself all winter long in self pity and depression. When he has grown tired of that too, he hastens along the Neva’s bank to Tatyana’s house. There, as in a fairy tale, door after door opens until he finds himself in Tatyana’s boudoir. This scene echoes both Tanya’s flight into the garden (3:38) and the running away from the bear (5:13). Pushkin uses the same ‘interstrophic enjambment’ technique in stanzas 38-39 of chapter 3 as in stanzas 39-40 of chapter 8: “so fast that, panting, on a bench at last she falls..” and “But where in such a headlong rush has my Eugene directly hastened?” This continuation of one sentence into the next stanza is a literary trick that Pushkin employs to emphasise the parallels between the two scenes.

Tatyana’s rejection

Tatyana sits not yet fully dressed crying over presumably one of his letters. Onegin kneels in front of her and for a second it looks as if she may give in, but then she resolutely rejects him. Now it’s her turn to teach Eugene a lesson. She explains that she only married because of her mother, that she does not care for all the glitter and glamour that now surrounds her, and that she misses her former beloved country surroundings. She ends her speech with the famous last words ‘but I am now another’s wife, and I’ll be faithful all my life

How are we to understand Tatyana’s words? Is she really unhappy?

She insinuates that she married the first suitor who came along, just to satisfy her mother’s wishes. According to Nabokov’s calculations she is now in her early twenties, and her husband is about 15 years older. Hardly an old man. The marriage has freed her from a mother who does’t understand her. She has a proud and loving husband. As Princess N. she is a respected and wealthy lady. There is nothing that indicates that she is not free to visit her mother whenever she wants, or visit her husband’s country estate if she’s longing for fresh air. She is certainly now able to buy as many books as she likes.

Onegin’s appearance has stirred up her old feelings (the simple girl he’d known before, who’d dreamed and loved, was born once more 41:13) and she is fondly remembering the time when her future was still undecided, when she did not yet know that Eugene was not he she thought he was.

She knows that Onegin’s sudden interest in her has everything to do with her transformation into Princess N. He does not intend now, any more than he did in the past, to marry Tatyana, even if such a thing were possible in 1825. She points out to him that he has had and missed his chance and that it is wrong of him to try to seduce her. When she asks him to leave while admitting that she still loves him, she appears to be talking to the old Eugene. As such we can also interpret her final words as a reminder to herself to move on.

*The stanzas about Onegin’s travels were added to the novel as an appendix by Pushkin.

Interesting facts:

The majority of chapter 8 was written during the so-called Boldino autumn. A very prolific period in 1830 when Pushkin was quarantined due to a cholera outbreak.

In the original Russian text Tanya wears a ‘raspberry beret’ in stanza 17, which has caused speculations about Prince having read Eugene Onegin.

Stanza 27 originally stated that Eugene was so blinded by the vision of the new Tatyana, that he did not even notice the tsar and tsarina entering the room. Naturally this could never have gotten through the censure.

In a famous and passionate speech about Pushkin, Dostoevsky refers to Tatyana and her famous last words. He saw her as a fine example of the Russian woman, who prefers the simple things in life to wealth and status. She sacrifices her own happiness and is faithful to her husband, even if he is an old man who she cannot possibly love: “No, a pure, Russian soul decides thus: Let me, let me alone be deprived of happiness, even if my happiness be infinitely greater than the unhappiness of this old man. Finally, let no one, not even this old man, know and appreciate my sacrifice: I will not be happy through having ruined another.”

*****

Text and photos © Elisabeth van der Meer 2020

The appendix with Onegin’s travels is scheduled for the 21st of June. Happy reading!

Turgenev’s Phantoms

We’ll stay with Turgenev a bit longer, if you don’t mind. One of Turgenev’s best know ghost stories is ‘Phantoms’ (Призраки). It’s an interesting story, and not in the least so because it appears to have been influenced by Gogol. 

Struggles with Dostoevsky

It was published first in 1866 in the first episode of the new literary magazine Epoch that was launched by Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail. As we know Turgenev and Dostoevsky were not the best of friends. Turgenev had sent the story to Dostoevsky when he was in Baden Baden. Dostoevsky, however, was too busy playing roulette and returned the story without having read it. Mikhail told him in a letter that that had been a big mistake, because their magazine was sure to be a succes if they could have a new Turgenev in the first episode. Dostoevsky proceeded to write an apologetic letter to Turgenev and managed to secure Phantoms for the magazine.*

How it came about

From an 1849 letter to Pauline Viardot we know that the inspiration came from a dream that Turgenev had had. In this dream there was a whitish creature claiming to be his brother Anatoli (Turgenev had two brothers: Nikholai and Sergei). They both turned into birds and flew over the ocean. In another letter Turgenev writes that he was looking for a way to connect several landscape sketches that he had written. He combined the flying with the landscapes and came up with a vampire woman to explain the flying.

Short summary

The protagonist is under the spell of a female vampire who calls herself Alice. Alice takes him along on a few of her nightly flights and during the flights she sucks his blood. They fly over Russia, the Isle of Wight, Paris and ancient Rome, some flights go back in history.

Inspired by Gogol?!

The first flight particularly reminded me strongly of the scene in Gogol’s The Viy, where the student is forced to fly by a witch. The setting of the two scenes and the words used to describe them are very similar. Both protagonists are taken on a nightly flight over forests, fields and rivers. The night air is moist and it is quiet. The moons shines and the shadows of the trees are visible from above. Both writers use words like ‘mist’, ‘moonshine’ and ‘shadow’ to emphasise the dreamy atmosphere. Both protagonists hear a strange dream-like sound.

It’s even almost as if Turgenev’s protagonists is thinking of Gogol’s student; Turgenev’s hero apparently is not someone who thinks about the devil. In Gogol’s world the devil is part of daily life. Gogol’s hero is not surprised when the witch tries to possess him; he merely says “Ah! it is a witch!”. He knows what do do and says his prayers and speaks out formulas of exorcism against evil spirits. Turgenev hero, perhaps following Gogol’s hero’s example, also starts to say some prayers. Alice’s grip becomes less tight, but he doesn’t persist and he doesn’t win from Alice.

Pauline Viardot

This story too can be seen in the context of Turgenev’s strange relationship with Pauline Viardot: the female apparition has a foreign face and takes the protagonist all around Europe. The protagonist appears unable and unwilling to get out of her spell. Even if it costs him his life.

Not political enough?

Turgenev himself was not entirely convinced about his story. He worried that it should have a more political message, that is was too fantastic. Of course because it isn’t political, we can still enjoy it today. So let’s do that! It’s a short read, the link can be found here and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

*****

Text and photos © Elisabeth van der Meer 

*Dostoevsky: His Life and Work – Konstantin Mochulsky 

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/turgenev/ivan/dream/chapter2.html

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gogol/nikolai/g61v/

Turgenev’s Smoke

In its own time a political novel, in our time a love story.

Smoke was first published in 1867 in the Russian Messenger, the famous literary magazine in which Crime and Punishment and War and Peace were also published. The political message of the novella made it very controversial at the time. Its pro western sentiment was perceived as being anti Russian, and the satirical depiction of the Russian aristocracy in Baden Baden was not appreciated by that same aristocracy either; after publication Turgenev received considerably less dinner invitations.

Social responsibilities

It was the ‘job’ of the nineteenth century Russian realist writer to address social and political issues, and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Turgenev succeeded extremely well in conveying both their message and writing a great story around it. It is thanks to that, that we can nowadays still enjoy their works, whether or not we have a background knowledge of Russian history.

A Love Story

When we leave the political message out of Smoke, we are left with a love story. A typical Turgenev love story with autobiographical elements. The novella takes place in Baden Baden in Germany. Baden Baden was a popular destination for the Russian aristocracy at the time. Dostoevsky too visited it several times, once with his young bride Anna. At the time he was still addicted to gambling and he gambled away everything they owned in the casinos of Baden Baden, down to the wedding rings.

Turgenev was no gambler; he tried his best his whole life to take as few risks as he possibly could. Marriage comes with risks. If it’s a happy marriage, there’ll be no more inspiration for writing. If it’s a bad marriage, there’ll be inspiration, but whether it’ll be worth it remains to be seen. And actually, he writes to his friend Leontiev, he doesn’t understand how a young girl can evoke passion in a man. A married woman is much more interesting, because of her experience.

Pauline

Turgenev was in love with the same married woman his whole life: Pauline Viardot. Pauline was a celebrated singer, and when he saw her perform in 1843 in St Petersburg, he was sold for life. When her career took her to Baden Baden, Turgenev followed and even moved into the house next-door to the Viardots. To love and follow a married woman may sound extreme, but for Turgenev it was a safe choice. She would never leave her husband and it doesn’t seem as if Turgenev would have wanted her to. He was happy with every scrap that she threw at him.

Olga

In 1854 he was temporarily back in Russia and during the summer he met his remote cousin Olga. She was eighteen and he was thirty-six. A romance blossomed and for a while it looked like he was going to get married. But when it came down to it, he didn’t choose domestic happiness, but instead, as he described it in a letter to countess Lambert, a gypsy existence abroad, following Pauline wherever she goes, and that shall be his fate. Fate, he said, was invented by weak characters, so that they would not have to take responsibility for the way their lives turned out. 

Ménage à Trois

In Smoke the protagonist Litvinov is in Baden Baden to meet up with his fiancé Olga and travel back to Russia with her. While he is waiting for her to arrive, he unexpectedly meets his first love, Irina. Ten years ago the two of them were going to get married, but Irina broke with him when she had the opportunity to get into the highest social circles in St Petersburg through a wealthy relative. Now she is married to some important person. After a few meetings their old love blossoms up again and they have an affair.

Irina tells him she is willing to give up her luxury life for him, and when the sweet, good and wise Olga finally arrives in Baden Baden, Litvinov breaks off the engagement. Then he receives a letter from Irina: she is not going to leave her husband after all and offers Litvinov the opportunity to become her lover. Litvinov does something that Turgenev never did: he thanks for the honour and returns to Russia alone. In the epilogue Turgenev writes that Litvinov did meet Olga again some years later and that she forgave him, suggesting that they may have gotten married.

What if…

Turgenev was not unhappy in his strange relationship with Pauline, but here he appears to have been thinking “what if…” Politics may be controversial, love is universal.

Text en photos © Elisabeth van der Meer 

Smoke – Turgenjev 

Turgenev, His Life and Times – Schapiro

Toergenjev’s Liefde – Schmeltzer 

Six Degrees of Separation – From A Christmas Carol to War and Peace

Inspired by fellow blogger An Argumentative Old Git, I decided to make a #6degrees blogpost too. The idea is that each month there is another book as a starting point, and this month it’s A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. From there you can connect to six other books. The meme is hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best.

So we start with A Christmas Carol (1843), the classic Christmas story. 

Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, showing him the past, the present and the future. Scrooge quickly understands that he needs to better his life. The Undertaker by Pushkin (1831) features an un-Dickensian undertaker with a Scrooge-like disposition. He too is visited by ghosts, a whole party of them: they are his dead clients, accusing him of ripping of their next of kin. Unlike Scrooge, Prokhorov does not seem inclined to better his life the next morning; he simply orders tea and calls his daughters. And we can almost hear him think “Bah! Humbug!”.

There’s a ghostly party in The Master and Margarita (1940) by Bulgakov too. In this satirical novel Satan himself himself has come to Stalinist Moscow to organise a ball on Walpurgis night. The guests are all dead and they have all committed a crime that has sent them to hell. Among the guests are famous people and notorious criminals. They arrive at the party through the fireplace. Sounds familiar, right? But we’re not going there. The novel’s most famous quote is “Manuscripts don’t burn”.

In 1852 Gogol famously burned most of the manuscripts containing the second part of Dead Souls shortly before he died in sad circumstances, suffering from depression. Dead Souls (1842) is, contrary to the title, a lively tale. A satire about an aspiring noble man traveling around Russia and the people he meets. Chichikov is accompanied by a faithful servant, Petrushka, who likes a drink and smells peculiarly, but is devoted to his master.

That brings us to another devoted servant: Zakhar. The interfering, lazy, complaining and gossiping servant of Oblomov. Oblomov has perfected the art of procrastinating and famously does not get out of bed for the first 150 pages of the novel. Oblomov was written by Goncharov in 1858, as an example of a ‘superfluous man’. Oblomov simply refuses to worry about things that everybody else already worries about, and does not like it when ‘things’ are expected of him. His home is his safe haven.

From that save haven on Gorokhovaya Street we take stroll to Stolyarny Alley, to the humble quarters of another famous Petersburg hero: Raskolnikov. The protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) doesn’t just dream and scheme; he acts out his plan and murders an old pawnbroker. With her money he wants to help the poor, but he becomes consumed by guilt.

Crime and Punishment was first published in episodes in the famous Russian magazine The Messenger. If you were a subscriber to that magazine, you were in for a real treat each month; just imagine, in 1866 it also ran Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Of course the reader already knew how the war with Napoleon ended, but what about Natasha, was she going to be reunited with prince Andrey?! The novel is full of cliffhangers and the reason is precisely that: the monthly episodes.

Dickens was immensely popular in Russia, and both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy admired him and were influenced by him. Where would A Christmas Carol lead you?

Text and photos © Elisabeth van der Meer

Books read: all of the above and an article from The Dickens Magazine by George Gorniak about Tolstoy, sent to me by Roger W. Smith.  

Russian Ghost Stories

Now that the evenings are getting longer again, it’s the perfect time to read ghost stories. And there were plenty of ghosts, witches and other scary things around in 19th century Russian literature! With the greatest pleasure I emptied my book shelves and (re)read some, in fact most, of the following examples.

Pushkin

Pushkin‘s Queen of Spades (1833) is without a doubt the best known Russian ghost story. It is also the best, even if it’s not the scariest. Written in a masterly way, Pushkin gradually builds up the tension. The young officer Hermann wants to extract a secret from an old Countess. It’s a combination of cards that will guarantee you to win at Faro, a betting cards game. The Countess, however, doesn’t just give away her secret… A story as fresh as if it was written yesterday and highly readable any day of the year.

Lermontov

And what to think of Lermontov’s Shtoss (1841)? Shtoss is a cards game similar to Faro. The hero Lugin keeps hearing a voice in his head repeating an address in St Petersburg. A friend advises him to investigate, and the address exists and is up for rent. He moves in, but it turns out there lives a ghost who likes to play Shtoss… The story ends with an open question and it is unclear whether the story is finished or not, and whether Lermontov was serious about it or not. In any case, Lermontov died shortly after writing it.

A.K. Tolstoy

A.K. Tolstoy, a remote cousin from Leo, wrote several classic horror stories. The Vampire was published in 1841 as well, under the nom de plume Krasnorogsky. This highly entertaining and original novella features a female vampire: an old woman who is after the blood of her (obviously attractive) granddaughter. The hero of the story, Runevsky, tries to protect her from her loving grandmother. Elegantly written horror with a healthy dose of humour.

Gogol

And that brings us to Gogol: the writer who knew all about (Little) Russia’s legends and superstitions. They feature in many of his stories, particularly in those from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka and Mirgorod. Gogol had a vivid imagination and the coffins and witches almost fly off the pages. His heroes are not in the least surprised; they do not doubt that witches and sorcery exist. Viy (1835) is the scariest, but May Night and A Terrible Vengeance aren’t for the faint hearted either.

Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky, who did have a contagious sense for the absurd like Gogol’s, also wrote a ghost story: Bobok (1873). It’s a short and funny story about a certain Ivan Ivanovich, who one day happens to hear the dead chat amongst each other under their gravestones. What are the consequences of dying and what do dead people talk about? I had a good laugh reading this story!

Odoevsky

The inspiration for Bobok came from Odoevsky’s The Live Corpse (1838), an amusing story about a man who finds out he has died, but has a hard time accepting that. Other, more serious, mysterious tales from this Russian nobleman are The Salamander, Cosmorama and The Sylph. Odoevsky was, among many other things, interested in science and his works feature metaphysical, occult, gothic and romantic elements. Harry Potter fans will recognise a thing or two.

Turgenev

Even though he was a firm Realist who didn’t believe in God, Turgenev wrote numerous ghost stories: the best known being Klara Milich (1883); a great Turgenev story, that due to its almost claustrophobic atmosphere has a Dostoevskian feel to it. The recluse student Aratov literally becomes possessed of a young female singer who commits suicide while performing. His dear old aunt Platosha is worried sick about him, and not without reason…

Chekhov

The last of the great Russian Realists was of course Chekhov. The Black Monk (1893) is one of his best works. Chekhov, who was actually a doctor, considered it primarily a case study of a young man suffering from megalomania, but in a literary sense the novella could be categorised as a supernatural tale. Kovrin is a brilliant student who leaves for the countryside to rest his overworked brain. Once there, however, he starts getting visions of a black monk… Chekhov at his understated best!

*****

Hopefully I have inspired you with this diverse lineup. Did you read any of these stories, are you going to, did I miss something or would you simply like to share your favourite ghost story? Let me know in the comments…

Text and photo © Elisabeth van der Meer

 

Married to a Genius

The married lives of Anna Dostoevskaya and Sophia Tolstoya

The ladies Dostoevskaya and Tolstaya were most probably too young and inexperienced to judge correctly what they were in for at the moment they said “yes” to to their husbands. Both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were already successful and celebrated writers, and in spite of the considerable age differences, all parties involved were in love. Both ladies kept diaries during their marriages, so that we have a clear picture of what they had to endure from their husbands.

Anna Snitkina

Anna Snitkina was twenty years old when she started work as a stenographer for the forty four year old Dostoevsky. He had made a deal with a publisher on terrible conditions and with an impossible deadline in order to pay off his gambling debts. A friend had suggested that he should hire a stenographer, so that the writing would proceed faster. With Anna’s help a schedule was made and the novella The Gambler was written. But when the deadline approached, Dostoevsky realised that he would miss Anna terribly after their work was finished. Because he had no idea if she felt the same, he devised a plan: he asked her advice on a story he was working on. In this story a middle aged artist fell in love with his young assistant. Was it possible, from Anna’s female perspective, that this love was mutual? After Anna’s reply that it was very well possible, Fyodor felt confident enough to ask her and not much later they were married.

 

It soon became clear to Anna that Dostoevsky’s debts were not caused by gambling alone; he took financial care of the whole family of his deceased brother and of his spoiled stepson from his first marriage. On top of that he was legally obliged to take over the debts that his deceased brother had. As soon as any money arrived, a whole crowd stood on his doorstep, and it disappeared again in no time. To get a break from all those people, the couple travelled abroad, to Baden Baden. Where the famous casino was. And Dostoevsky started gambling again. He gambled away everything: the wedding rings, Anna’s jewellery, her clothes, their travel money, everything. Dostoevsky had to ask his publisher for an advance, and the morning it arrived, he went out to buy their things back. In the evening he came home crying: that money had been gambled away as well.

 

The saintly Anna kept forgiving and believing in her husband. The few desperate outbursts she had, were confined to the pages of her diary, and even so she found herself a bad person for giving in to them. She blamed Dostoevsky’s epilepsy for all his problems. Thanks to her practical mindset, Dostoevsky managed eventually to get rid of both his gambling addiction and his debts. Anna took on all financial affairs and dealt with the publishers herself.

 

During their marriage Dostoevsky wrote masterpieces such as The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.

Sophia Behrs

Sophia Behrs was the daughter of a doctor friend of Tolstoy. She was eighteen when she married the thirty four year old Tolstoy. Tolstoy was very much in love and tried to make that clear to her in a way he later described in Anna Karenina: he wrote down the first letters of the words of a long sentence and made her guess the sentence. She succeeded, and a lifetime of working out her husband’s handwriting and unpredictable character would follow.

 

Although Tolstoy clearly had the upper hand in the marriage, the first years together were really happy. Sophia played an important role in her husband’s writing: she edited and copied out his manuscripts, so that they were ready for the publisher. She helped Tolstoy with his female characters, and most importantly she gave him the peace and space he needed to write.

 

According to Tolstoy a woman’s calling was to give birth to and breastfeed children, and although Sophia had had enough of that after five children, she would give birth to another eight. With each child came more worries and her life became more confined to the nursery. From the thirteen children eight would make it to adults and she had to bury five. Later in his life Tolstoy preached sexual abstinence, even while Sophia was pregnant again, which she found terribly embarrassing.

 

Most of her married life she lived on Tolstoy’s simple, almost spartan, country estate Yasnaya Polyana. Sophia grew up in the centre of Moscow and missed the pleasures of the city. She constantly had to adjust to her husband’s latest obsession and that caused more and more friction. Tolstoy wanted to give away the rights of his novels, give up his aristocratic title, and developed a close friendship with the Tolstoyan Chertkov. Sophia became more and more jealous, sad and desperate. She felt the gap between her and her husband widening, and wanted even to take her life in a cry for attention. Eventually Tolstoy found the situation so unbearable, that he ran away from Yasnaya Polyana and Sophia, in the middle of the night, aged eighty two. He would die ten days later.

 

No doubt Sophia had imagined her life as Countess Tolstaya to be completely different.

 

During their marriage Tolstoy (to mention just a few things) wrote two of the greatest novels ever written, learned Ancient Greek in five months, learned to ride a bicycle and play tennis, got excommunicated from the church, raised a record amount of money for charity, tried to fight the widespread illiteracy, got followers called “Tolstoyans”, wrote with Gandhi about non-violent resistance and became a vegetarian.

 

*****

Text and photo © Elisabeth van der Meer

Tolstoy – A Russian Life, Rosamund Bartlett

Dostoevsky – A Writer in His Time, Joseph Frank

 

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Gogol’s Taras Bulba – a milestone

Gogol gave Russian literature its’ own identity

Gogol’s Taras Bulba (1842) is a milestone in Russian literature. If Pushkin provided a language and inspiration for future Russian writers, than Gogol gave them their own distinct identity. When you’re reading Taras Bulba, you recognise so much of what has been written later.

The Romantic Era

Romanticism was the main literary movement in Russia from the end of the eighteenth century until halfway into the nineteenth century. Lermontov and Pushkin are the most famous writers of this period. The industrial revolution sparked an interest in all things pure, natural, past and authentic.

Gogol was an Ukrainian with Cossack blood running through his veins living in Saint Petersburg. When everything to do with Little Russia, as Ukraine was called back then, became hugely popular there, he cleverly wrote Taras Bulba. The story is full of Ukrainian words, folklore and Cossack customs.

The story

It’s a rather violent story. The hero of the story, Taras Bulba, is a Cossack headman, who in order to complete his sons’ education, takes them to fight against the catholic Poles. The youngest walks over to the other side for the sake of a Polish girl and for that his father kills him, while the oldest gets tortured to death by the Polish in front of his father. Not for the faint-hearted.

“Oh, steppes, how beautiful you are!”

The story has often been criticised. Historically it’s incorrect and the centuries are mixed up. The Cossacks are so violent that they would make the average Isis soldier look away. A Polish servant girl escapes through a secret tunnel from the city that has been besieged by the Cossacks. She wakes up the youngest son to tell him that his sweetheart is among the starving in the city. Together the go through the tunnel into the city, where indeed the people are dying in the streets. Why didn’t they just all escape through that tunnel?! The love story is not at all plausible. Gogol talks about the unspoiled Steppe, ‘upon which were sprinkled millions of different flowers’, and ‘the air was filled with the notes of a thousand different birds’, and more of this.

Its’ Follow-ups

Dostoevsky apparently said once that every Russian writer came from underneath Gogol’s Overcoat. He was a huge fan of his work and found him very inspiring. In The Brothers Karamazov (1880) there is a rather painful scene that appears in Taras Bulba too: an emaciated woman with a infant clutched to her dried out breasts. Just like Gogol, Dostoevsky was fascinated by the excesses of human existence.

Turgenev most definitely took inspiration from Taras Bulba. Especially the striking nature scenes resound even more beautifully in Turgenev’s work. His Acia (1858) contains many Romantic elements and there too the protagonist falls in love with a lively dark-eyed girl.

And in Tolstoy’s Cossacks (1863) too: it starts more or less the same. The protagonist is traveling to the Caucasus and thinks about his past and future. The scene is reminiscent of Taras Bulba departing with his sons, each with their own thoughts. Tolstoy’s protagonist is very much attracted by the Cossack way of life and he too falls in love with a spirited dark-eyed girl. Tolstoy’s Cossacks are not as violent, though.

Hadji Murat (1904) is most similar. Both stories are named after their hero, and both heroes are exotic leaders, feared and admired by all. It breathes the same atmosphere, we encounter the same freshly plastered walls and the same girls with coins on their necklaces. Tolstoy’s last fictional story would appear to be an homage to Gogol.

Conclusion

Gogol used a lot of humour in his work. Although it is not always clear if he meant something as humorous or if he was genuinely exaggerating, I’m more inclined to consider the former. If Taras Bulba slays six enemies with one sway with his sword, surely that is meant to be funny. All in all it’s a pretty good story, just like Pulp Fiction is a pretty good film. Is it one of the ten best books ever written, like Hemingway once claimed? No, that really is exaggerated. But it is definitely a milestone well worth reading.

 

 

© Elisabeth van der Meer

The illustrations are from an old Russian edition of Taras Bulba

I read the Peter Constantine translation

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A Russian Affair is two years old!

Two years ago I wasn't sure if the world was waiting for a blog about Russian literature, but hey, I'm the kind of girl who reads Nabokov's comments on Pushkin's Eugene Onegin for fun, so it was only natural that if I was going to have a blog, that that should be the subject.

My aim was to keep it as accessible as possible. I regularly hear people say that they find Russian literature daunting, even intimidating, before they've even read one page! So I took it upon myself to use this corner in cyber space to take away that prejudice. And judging by the comments I have already convinced some of you.

Inspired by the fantastic BBC series War and Peace, I wrote several posts about that epic Tolstoy novel. People were particularly interested to find out about the relationship between brother and sister Hélène and Anatole and Is there really an incestuous relationship in War and Peace? (http://wp.me/p5zzbs-4L) became by far the most popular post on my blog. Another favourite was Fyodor Dolokhov – the Bad Guy from War and Peace (http://wp.me/p5zzbs-5t).

Undoubtedly the most fun to make was In the Footsteps of Tolstoy and Turgenev in Paris (http://wp.me/p5zzbs-4F). For two days I wandered through Paris with Google Maps, searching the addresses where the two writers lived. I was particularly keen to see the house where Turgenev had lived for many years with the Viardot family. Nowadays there is an authentic French patissier on the ground flour of the house on the Rue de Douai. They serve a delicious breakfast and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting there and watching tout l'arrondissement buy their pain quotidien there.

The most interesting blog post to make was Turgenev's birds (http://wp.me/p5zzbs-7h). It was a spontaneous post inspired by another blogger. It showed beautifully why Turgenev was such an accomplished writer. Fathers and Sons is a masterpiece, and it features many subtle details that make it very atmospheric. Unconsciously our brain makes all kinds of associations while reading, even if you don't pick up on it. By focussing on a seemingly small detail, birds in this case, I managed to show that that detail was put into the novel with a purpose.

In 2016 I have started a series of “Typically …”. So far we've had Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky. In 2017 I shall write about Gogol, Chekhov, Goncharov, Pushkin and Lermontov. But you can also expect spontaneous blog posts like In the Footsteps and Turgenev's Birds.

My goals for my blog remain the same: to show you how fascinating, rich and most of all fun Russian literature really is!

Reactions, questions and requests are always welcome. Happy reading!

*** Photos by me, except Anatole and Hélène from the BBC's War and Peace.

 

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