Ethnic identity and the nationality issue in contemporary Soviet literature

TOMAS VENCLOVA

Ethnic Identity and the Nationality Issue in Contemporary Soviet Literature

The

Soviet

Union

nationalities.

Great

nationalities

is a country Russians

consisting

account

of roughly

for only

about

one hundred

and

eighty

half the population.

These

are joined by a common fate: to more or less the same degree, they all have

endured decades of communist dictatorship. In spite of this common fate, the peoples of the Soviet Union are quite dissimilar. They differ, often quite markedly, with respect to their languages, religions, histories, level of modernization, the degree to which their traditions have been preserved, and their conceptions of the future. Even the totalitarian government

of the USSR

common denominator.

has been unable to reduce the myriad of ethnic groups to a

In fact, the official elite of non-Russian

their cultural elite, however weak it may be-have greater autonomy

and even separatism.

issues concerning

the preservation

involves

issues of political

related.)

Outwardly

the limitations nationalism

although

to mention

been gravitating

one should make a distinction

of ethnic identity and the nationality

power,

this separatism

the Soviet institutions

(Here,

peoples-not

inevitably

toward between

question which

issues of both kinds are usually closely

expresses itself and is kept within the framework

of

and the lexicon of Soviet ideology. Only in the samizdut press are

of “Newspeak”

(and chauvinism)

exists in the Ukraine,

cast away, replaced with the language of traditional dating back to the 19th century. Such a samizdut press

in the Baltic republics,

in the Caucasus

(especially Armenia),

and

also in Russia. In the sumizdut press the question of independence from the Soviet Union arises, a question which the Soviet elite has not taken seriously up to now. Despite the multitude of taboos in official Soviet culture, the taboo against serious discussion of the nationality question has always been, shall we say, “first among equals.” In the epoch ofglasnost andperestroiku-and even slightly earlier-the taboo has nonetheless started to crack. I will attempt to trace several of these events and their possible implications. The well-known Kirghiz with a statement

writer Chingiz

that it is necessary

Aitmatov

appeared

in Literuturnuyu

Guzetul

to preserve linguistic diversity as long as possible;

the disappearance of even one small people and language signifies the impoverishment of the world (here Aitmatov, incidentally, concurs with Solzhenitsyn). In the same article

Aitmatov,

mechanical

although

borrowings

restrained,

from the Russian,

speaks unequivocally of Russilication, of of the inappropriate eulogies of Russia which

for many have become almost a profession, and of careerist charges that the protectors of Kirghiz culture are nationalist and “narrow-minded.” The Baltic people are also speaking out (although the local languages significantly better position).*

and cultures

in the Baltic region are in a

1. Chingiz Aitmatov, “Tsena-zhizn,” Literdurnaya Gazefa, 1986, VIII.13, p. 2. 2. See Baltic Forum (Gothenburg), IV, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 67-75, 82-90. SIUIHES

IS CoMt’Aui.tvF

0039-3592/88/03/40319-l

COMMUNISM, 1 $03.00

0

VOL. XXI,

1988 University

Nos.

314, AU-I.UM\\/WINIEK

of Southern

California

1988, 319-329

At the level of the official press and public pronouncements,

the changes occurring

in

Belorussia have been perhaps the most interesting. Belorussian literature and cultural consciousness were created as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, through the efforts of a small group of intellectuals. In Stalin’s time this group was wiped out and all efforts to strengthen Belorussian cultural consciousness discontinued. The Belorussian language almost died out-not only as a result of direct government action, but also through neglect. It reverted once more to a rural dialect, the same condition from which the promoters of Belorussian national rebirth had led it forth. Recently, however, the press has been examining the unhappy proposed for its revival. On December appealed

to Gorbachev,

extinction.“”

asking

Belorussians

fate of the language and measures are being 15, 1986, 28 cultural activists of Belorussia

him to save the Belorussian

nation

from “spiritual

point out that their language is almost unused in official life,

in theater or in film. In 1984 less than 5 percent of the books published

in the republic

were in Belorussian,

it their native

language. recently,

Belorussian

although

80 percent

of the Belorussians

schools were closing down on a large scale in the cities and, more

in rural areas as well.

The situation

in the Ukraine

is altogether

such an extreme.

Ukrainian

no less prominent

prose writer Oles Gonchar,

similar,

writers, including

although there it has not reached

the prominent

they have been accused.

poet Ivan Drach and the

discuss the situation quite frequently

openiy in the press. One should note that both Gonchar although

consider

and

and Drach are official writers,

in their time, of nationalist

deviations.

(Gonchar’s

novel The Cuthedd--a distant precursor of contemporary politically sensational novels -was banned for some time. The banning order helped it to achieve fame incommensurate with its artistic value.) It is still unclear how Gorbachev and his entourage will react to all these opmions. complaints, and proposals. Obviously a serious examinatiot~ ofthe nationality question has been postponed

for the time being (quite understandably

so, if one considers

the

extreme complexity and poignancy of the problem). On the other hand, a more open discussion of national problems is being permitted. This discussion, to a degree, expresses the interests of competing officialdom tries to justify its existence

groups within the elite. Quite to the ethnic group it represents

often, local by furtively

proclaiming itself the only protector of separate national interests. M:hatever the limits of official ideology and language, they always result in a certain amalgam

with unofficial

language

Soviet Union is in an ideological to express

and ideology.

At present it is already clear that the

vacuum of sorts. The official consciousness

itself in stiff automatized

forms of language

and conduct,

continues

but it does not

define the internal world of the Soviet person. This internal world presenrs a rather cheerless spectacle. Its main characteristics, accurately depicted by the late Yury Trifonov and many other authors, are torpor, loss of orientation, and deficient knowledge of past and present, of one’s own country, and of the surrounding world. On this ground arises the Soviet version of the “consumer society,” even less agreeable than the Western version. Here the insatiable pursuit of material goods absorbs all a person’s energies and lifts all moral restrictions while, as a rule, these goods are of pitiful quality. Escapism, withdrawal into bohemianism, application of one‘s spiritual potential in some harmless, curious, and socially useless area are also not uncommon.

3. For thr hll textot’ the letter, SC?Forum (.Munwh). IIO.18 (1988),pp. 78-91

Ethnic Identity and the Nationality Issue in ContemporarySoviet Literature And yet even so the vacuum is not completely filled; certain structures need to replace the dead official ideology.

intellectual

321

and moral

One of the most common substitutes for ideology is xenophobia, a search for a “scapegoat. ” A sad maxim runs in dissident circles: namely, that each of the 180 Soviet nationalities cannot tolerate the remaining 179 (exceptions, such as the mutual sympathy of Lithuanians

and Estonians,

of antagonisms

is anti-Semitism.

its own right;

the Holocaust

are very rare). A familiar thread in this tangle

I agree that anti-Semitism experience

is a phenomenon

has proven this irrefutably.

Soviet Union it is often perceived asjust one in a multitude of “antis.” groups,

Russians

are the scapegoats

unique in

And yet in the For non-Russian

more often than not. At the same time,

local

conflicts and local scapegoats exist as well. The mutual hostility between the Georgians and Armenians

is widely known;

against the Azerbaijanis.

moreover,

The Lithuanians

both sides hold territorial

are advancing

grievances

similar grievances against the

Belorussians and even the Poles (apparently Polish, as well as Soviet, authorities fuel the traditional Polish-Lithuanian enmity). The Abkhasians are so unhappy with their placement in Georgia that they have been expressing a wish to join the RSFSR. Many Russians find scapegoats in Jews, but also in other ethnic groups. There is a very popular view that in fact the Russians have suffered from totalitarianism more than anyone else, that the national republics (and non-Russians in general) enjoy numerous privileges, essentially exploiting Russia, that they bring false values into Russian culture, etc. To a certain extent such views are upheld by many emigre authors, including

those who have little in common

Zinovyev). “Pamyat” some

with each other (from

In Russia itself, these views are propagandized (Memo7y)

and similar associations,

Sovietologists

Stanislav

Kunyayev,

Gennady

Shimanov

but also by a group of intellectuals,

are inclined

to call “the Russian Party” Vladimir Soloukhin, Paliyevsky,

Pyotr

and others).

Solzhenitsyn

not only by extremists

Andrei Sinyavsky,4

Alexander

to

from which

(Vadim Kazhinov, the samizdut writer Yanov,5

and several

other scholars and publicists have written and are writing much about this group. In my opinion,

the group’s potential for harm and danger is somewhat overstated.

it is too heterogeneous, it any particular the Gorbachev unquestionable

and not too organized;

support (fearing the extreme

First of all,

second, the authorities have never given reaction

of other ethnic groups),

and in

era they are obviously striving to dissociate themselves from it. Still it is that xenophobia

in the Russian environment,

as well as in the environ-

ment of other nationalities, is fraught with a fascist type of behavior and pogrom sentiments. There are other ways, peaceful and constructive, of filling the ideological vacuum (unfortunately, they often intertwine and grow together with xenophobia). These are interest in the past, in one’s roots, the cult of historical and ethnic memory, the conviction

that a nationality

has certain

constant

spiritual

characteristics,

and non-

ephemeral elements of culture. These characteristics are considered to be inalienable, to unify the culture at all levels and to be irreducible to a Marxist analysis in terms of class. Such a view dates back to Romanticism; in the case of Russians, to classical Slavophilism. It has numerous analogies in the West and in the Third World as well. It is the search for roots which may, for a Russian,

turn into an interest in Orthodoxy,

in the

4. See Oleg Dmitriyev, Andrei Sinyavsky, “Intervyu s kommentariami,” Sin~ahs (Paris), no. 2 (1978), pp. 36-62; A. Sinyavsky, “Sny na pravoslavnuyu pa&h,” ibid., no. 8 (1980), pp. 7-14, et al. 5. Alexander Yanov, Institute of International

The Russian New Right: Right- Wing Ideologies in the Contemporary USSR (Berkeley:

Studies,

University

of California,

1978).

322 icons

STUDIESIN of the Northern

Lithuanian,

School,

in Berdyayev

and

Florensky,

into an interest in the legacy of Catholicism,

[Mikalojus

eiurlionis

(1875-191

l),

likewise in the survivals of paganism; Turkish

COMMUNISM

COMPARATIVE

and Islamic cultural tradition.

traditional

consciousness

a famous

in Bakhtin;

in folk sculpture,

Symbolist

for the

in Ciurlionis

artist and composer],

and for the Uzbek or Kirghiz,

and

into an interest in

Hence the attempts of writers to reconstruct

of their ethnic group as a counterbalance

restore the ancient spiritual substance which, in all probability,

the

to the present and to

never existed in such an

exalted state. Such is the penchant of the Russian Valentin Rasputin, the Kirghiz Chingiz Aitmatov, and the Armenian Hrant Matevosyan; and also of the Abkhasian Fazil Iskander and the Lithuanian

Marcelijus

Martinaitis,

both of whom, in contrast to

the others, accomplish this task with no small share of irony and for that very reason more successfully. The old, irreversibly disintegrated totalitarian myth is being replaced with new myths, whether neo-Rousseauist, Jungian, or those dangerously close to the Nazi myth of Blunt und Boden. Quite often these myths are constructed from haphazardly selected fragments

of past cultures,

from the material

Claude Levi-Strauss. my opinion,

parts, fitting together badly-in

a word,

with the principle of bricoluge as described

Often naive and feeble constructions

Aitmatov

This ideological

from contradictory

at hand, in accordance

result from this bricoluge

by (in

serves as a typical example).

vacuum,

filled with “whatever

is available,”

may serve as a back-

ground for examination of the unfortunately renowned story by Viktor Astafyev, “Fishing for Carp in Georgia.“b Its fame is based not on any particular attributes (it is an entirely insignificant and ordinary work for Astafyev, in the style of a sketch developing described

his favorite themes), finely in the present

but on its responsibility issue by Edward J.

for the setting off of a scandal

Brown.

The Astafyev/Eidelman

correspondence following the publication of the story became an ideological sensation in emigre circles as well as inside the country. ’ I am inclined to believe that the correspondence reveals Astafyev’s personal views and idiosyncrasies, while the story is representative of a mythology that, in the consciousness of many, replaces Marxist mythology. Astafyev is first and foremost a conservative and passeist (in other words, he is an “anti-Futurist” and comparable with those for whom the Futurists used this term as a negative

label).

His ideal is depicted as some kind of brotherly

with itself, with the material

world and with nature.

tracing back to cosmogonic myths, the archetype perspective tracing back to Slavophilism-appears

commune

This ideal-in

in harmony

distant perspective

of the Golden Age, and in closer defiled, collapsed, destroyed. The

contemporary condition of the world (especially Russia) is described in apocalyptic tones. It is a world of declining moral standards, of degeneration and ruin brought from somewhere outside. Accusations are directed now at the West with its commercial spirit, now at modern science and technology, now at the epoch of the 1920s. In all likelihood, Marxism and the Jewry play the main role among the culprits, yet it is as if they were dissolved into a broader context. In the search for a new’ axiology, Astafyev attempts to counter the Marxist Utopia with another Utopia based on forgotten traditions, on Orthodoxy, on ethnic and racial purity; moreover, he propagates it with Stalinist-like fervor. “Lovlya peskarei 6. C’iktor Astafyev, (Moscow), no. 5 (1986), pp. 123-141. 7. See N. Ya. Eidelman, V. P. Astalyev,

o Gruzii” “Perepiska

(“Fishing iz dvukh

for Carp uglov,”

m Georgia”),

Sdaksi~.

no.

Nash

17 (1987),

mmmennik pp

80-87.

Ethnic Identip and the Nationality Issue in Contemporal;vSoviet Literature “Fishing for Carp in Georgia” totally simplified and caricatured

323

suggests this mythological complex to the reader in a form. The story-most probably written in the wake

of real events-is pervaded with a sense of downtroddenness, xenophobia, and antiintellectualism. Its characters are stereotypes, ethnic and racial stereotypes at that. Almost the entire work is written in a feeble lampooning style. The main symbol, borrowed from The Old Man and the Sea by the unloved Western Hemingway, beats you over the head: the symbol of crayfish devouring the carp caught by the author; that is to say, the enemies of the people, destroying its morality and vitality.8 Astafyev illiterate,

depicts the typical modern

everywhere

in the following manner:

“Greedy,

with the pockets wide open, shiny from unwashed hands, everywhere

flings his money cultivated

Georgian

one of those who in Russia is called a ‘kopek soul,’ everywhere he is ungirded, about,

but is stingy with his wife, children

a passion for cars, he grovels before imports,

observance

and parents,

he

he has

for some reason, evidently for

of fashion, he brings fat children behind him, and in the hotels you can see

the Gogia weighing four poods, short of breath, sunken between his glossy cheeks.“g car, medicine,

an airplane,

from a Russian

stuffed into his jeans,

In the Georgian

a Kalashnikov,

gold teeth, an excellent

school and Moscow University,

with sleepy eyes

town of Zugdidi “you can buy a student’s

diploma

without knowing one word in Russian

or in Georgian for that matter. “‘0 These stereotypes are unquestionably inherent in the mass consciousness, and not only among Russians; they have a certain basis, since the

‘ ‘second economy ” in Georgia is unusually well developed (this, in my opinion, is a positive phenomenon and gives Georgia a kind of democratic charm); but only Astafyev has decided to bring these racism-stained stereotypes into the official press-and has succeeded. His pages about Georgians are especially shocking, since a romantic myth about Georgia, similar to the myth of the “noble Indian” in American classics, has existed in Russian Pushkin,

literature

Griboyedov,

Pasternak,

Tikhonov,

It is interesting

for a long time; this myth is associated with the names of

Lermontov;

in this century,

and most recently,

that here Astafyev

it is to be found in the writings of

Akhmadulina. shares

something

with those emigre’ writers

(Zinovyev in particular) who believe that Russia is witnessing the phenomenon of “anticolonization”: namely, its penetration by members of the surrounding and subordinated

ethnic groups, many of them very privileged.

of Astafyev reading the following tirade by Zinovyev: privileged position, (in the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan).

forming associations

One is very much reminded

“Some ethnic minorities occupy a

barely distinguishable

from those of gangsters

at times, entire republics appear like this, for instance,

Georgia,

’’’ l

At the same time, having read Astafyev’s

story through to the end-admittedly,

it

requires a certain effort-we recognize that his main semantic opposition is not spatial but temporal. The juxtaposition occurs not between two nationalities, not between the Russian and Georgian ethnic groups (at any rate, not only and not so much between them), but rather between the great past and the spiritless present, the Orthodox Middle Ages and the apocalyptic 20th century, the retreating countryside and the victorious city. The Georgian villages live “a measured life without vanity;“*2 they are traversed 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Astafyev

(1986), note 6, p. 138.

Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 126.

Aleksander Zinovyev, Kommunizm kak realnost (Lausanne: Astafyev (1986), note 6, p. 126.

Editions 1’Age d’Homme,

1981), p. 163.

STUDIES IN COMPARATILE COMMUNISM

324

by “old, withered, sorrowful women, who appear to be expiating the sins of all highhanded, impolite people”.13 The narrator recalls the poems of Baratashvili, “a contemporary and a spiritual double of the martyred poet Aleksei Koltsov” [Nikoloz Baratashvili (1817-1845), a Georgian Romantic poet; Aleksei Koltsov (1809-1842), a Russian peasant poet] 14, and even evokes the legendary hero from Rustaveli’s medieval epic poem: the knight in the tiger’s skin, who seems to him a sort of Christ, traders out of the temple. I5 In bombastic ancient

sanctuary

in Gelati,

driving the

but at times moving tones he describes

which is close to Russian

culture

since it represents

the the

Eastern See: “Here eternity was keeping silence, heeding the sad wisdom of the creator, listening to the meaning of imperishable words carved in stone .“.I” In this passage, snide remarks are reserved for the Mongols, evidently,

is untrue historically,

well known Orientalist

since they are barbarians

since many Mongols,

Lev Gumilyov,

according

and pagans (this,

to the research of the

were Nestorians).17

If it is easy to call Astafyev a Georgiophobe,

and just as easy to call him a Mongolo-

phobe and Judeophobe, then in many of his works it is not difficult to find invectives against degenerated contemporary Russians as well. One can most accurately define him as a hater ojfthe present. His xenophobia turns into an aversion to the present of all peoples, including his own. This “presentophobia” becomes definitely maniacal, giving birth to passages which can be classified as clinical delirium (even grammatical shifts in the Russian text-a mixture of accusative with nominative-give a picture of paranoia): “Whether

a flower

with oats,

whether

a Colorado

beetle

with potatoes,

whether

varroatosis on bees, whether a movie with naked women-vampires, whether it’s the tag on the uniform breeches for the hairy half-idiot who has studied too much, with the inscription

of the battalion

nothing to no purpose, Compared literature.

that burned children alive in Songmi,

the bourgeois

give us

all is with an intent.“‘s

with Viktor

Moreover,

Astafyev’s

Aitmatov

work, the books of Chingiz

is much better known,

Aitmatov

seem great

belongs to the liberal wing of

official society and is said to be Gorbachev’s favorite writer. A non-Russian, though writing in Russian, he stands as if on the other side of the barrier from Astafyev. All the same, the similarities

between them are perhaps more revealing than their differences.

As I have already said, Aitmatov constructs from an assortment

of available sources:

a substitute for bankrupt

from the remnants

official ideology

of local traditions,

from an

odd mixture of pagan myths, Islam and poorly understood Christianity, and from Rousseauist “natural values. ” The “natural” 1s represented not only by a primitive person, but also by a being outside of culture, a noble and powerful beast (the she-wolf Akbara in Plakha (The Executioner’s Block), the camel Karanar in the novel I dolshe veka dlitsya den (And the Day Lasts Longer than a Hundred Years). Here Aitmatov echoes Tolstoi (cf. “Kholstomer”, his story told from the point of view of a horse), although probably Kipling serves as a more significant subtext for him; however, on a literary level, Aitmatov’s treatment of animals approaches rather the mass literature of the Ernest Thompson Seton variety. Aitmatov’s Utopianism, like Astafyev’s invectives, is directed

13

Astafyev

(19%).

notr

b. p. 129

14. Ibid., p. 132. 15. 16. 17. Nauka, 18.

Ibtd., p. 135. Ibid., p. 133. See L. N. Gumilyov, I’oiskr uymyshlennonotrarstxz Legenda o ’ ‘,qosudarstuepremttera loanna”(Moscow: 1970). Astafyev (1986), note 6. p. 127.

Ethnic Identity and the Nationality Issue in ContemporarySoviet Literature against

contemporary

rationalism, current”

Soviet

pragmatism, of this kind,

important

society

but

also against

and the cult of science. an opposition

and even essential

to the march

for humanity.

Western

One

consumer

325 society,

can agree that a “counter-

of present-day

Yet the Aitmatov

civilization,

is

version does not leave

great hope for a solution to the country’s true problems through democratization rapprochementwith the West. His is an isolationist, patriarchally romantic Utopia,

and close

to the writings of contemporary Russian nationalists, such as Vladimir Osipov, Igor Shafarevich, and Solzhenitsyn as well, in which according to its principle, universal values should be replaced with homespun

ones, understanding

of the law with under-

standing of the truth conveyed in the words of prophets or even holy fools, consumerism with voluntary (or not-so-voluntary) asceticism, contact with the surrounding world with immersion in “one’s own,” “the primordial.” I do not number among the admirers of The Executioner’s Block, a novel by Aitmatov that became a major literary event in the USSR in 1986.19 I will add that his earlier work And the Day Lasts Longer than a Hundred Years, is, in my view, much more successful. The Executioner’s Block is constructed chaotically, overloaded with journalistic tirades, often approachmg parody in style. Its hero, Avdy Kallistratov, with his impotent sanctimonious homilies,

is a sad imitation of Prince Myshkin

scenes with Pilate and Christ Margarita; moreover,

are blatantly

copied

and Alyosha Karamazov.

from Bulgakov’s

they are at least as inferior in relation to Bulgakov

The

The Master and as is Bulgakov

to the Gospels. The third part is somewhat more successful, connected to the others only by the novel’s framing tale involving wild animals; same time,

a reading

distressing

impression

it is almost a separate story. At the

of The Executioner’s Block leaves a certain of a contemporary

world,“20 of a polluted, callous, inherently It would be naive to consider

apocalypse:

overall,

a picture

powerful and

of “the end of the

evil universe.

The Executioner’s Block a symptom of the Christian

revival

in Russia as many critics, both in the Soviet Union and in the West, are inclined to do. Putting aside an argumentum ad hominem, let us consider three points. In the first place, Aitmatov himself observes,

quite rightly, that Christianity

in his work is presented from

the point of view of a person of another (Islamic) culture. In the second place, what Avdy preaches is more than questionable from the theological point of view (it is a kind of feeble blend of semi-Christian and progressivistic ideas). In the third place-and this is the most important-Aitmatov is prepared to resort to any myths, to any prayer, if only to fill the spiritual void. His heroes turn to “the god Baubedin,” to the “spirits of the ancestors, the Arbaks,” to the “sovereign of the bitter cold sky, the blue Tengri,” and to “the god of winds Shamal;” even the she-wolf Akbara sees “the goddess of wolves Byuri-Ana ” in the moon.21 In contrast to “true Orthodox” Astafyev, Aitmatov is a “God-Seeker.” His world view can be traced back to the pan-Mongolism, Scythianism and Eurasianism of the beginning of the century, although in a somewhat simplified form. For him, the Soviet Union is a special continent, not so much geographically as spiritually; human salvation is hidden, perhaps, in its cultural diversity and specificity. Alas, the nondogmatic search for some syncretistic Eurasian W’eftanschauung is executed in this novel on a very low theoretical and practical reminiscent of the quests of naive or even charlatan Western sects. 19. no. 8, 20. 21.

Chingiz Aitmatov, “Plakha” (The Executioner’s pp. 90-148; no. 9, pp. 6-64. Ibid., no. 9, p. 64. Ibid., no. 9, pp. 14; 16, 35; 36; 38.

Block), NovyA4ir(Moscow),

level,

no. 6 (1986), pp. 7-69;

326

STUDIES

IN COMPARATILT

COMMUNISM

This pursuit of a salvatory world outlook, rooted in history and prehistory, touches upon the nationality established

problem.

In The Executioner’s

practices of socialist realism-endeavors

this slippery

area.

Hence,

among

inevitably

Block, Aitmatov-using

the

to preserve some sort of balance in

the protagonists,

a Russian

Avdy and a Kirghiz

Boston strive for good; a Russian Ober-Kandalov is a theoretician of amoralism; a Kirghiz Bazarbai Noigutov is a practical amoralist. At times this brings the keen observation of Voinovich to mind: “The model Soviet writer should display special tact with respect to the nationality question. If a Russian and a Tadzhik have roles in the work, the Tadzhik should definitely be good, but the Russian should be just a little bit better.“22 Perhaps the unwritten taboo is broken only in the depiction of pitiful Uzyukbai, emphasize

a member

of Ober-Kandalov’s

this by giving him the nickname

gang,

despised

Aborigine.

by his comrades,

The case of Uzyukbai

who

touches

upon aspects of Soviet life which could not be discussed in print; if Ober-Kandalov’s gang is somehow a micro-model

of Soviet society, it is easy to interpret

as a symbol of the factual inequality

Uzyukbai’s

of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union,

fate

the racial

discrimination that is part of everyday existence. Nevertheless, although Aitmatov on the one hand strives

towards

syncretism

of

heterogeneous

to socialist realism,

he

traditions,

and on the other hand pays tribute

clearly places ethnic values higher than class values and much higher than stillborn Soviet values. This is stated directly in the inserted “Georgian” novella “Six and the Seventh”,

where an old folk song unites, in life and death, a partisan struggling with the in the class struggle”, in the cautious words of Avdy-

Soviet authorities-“entangled and his opponent, of his ethnic

a Chekist

group,

23According to Aitmatov,

who, like Bazarbai

Noigutov,

he who has rejected the customs

turns to tradition

only under the

pressure of terror, not only suffers his own spiritual death, but brings closer the end of the world for everyone. l’his theme is elaborated much more clearly in the novel And the Day Lasts Lunger than u Year~,2~ which was an event in its time and perhaps continues to be an event. It deals mainly with the standardization of man, with the manner in which his consciousHundred

ness is flattened and his conduct begins to be determined

not by deeply ingrained

arche-

types, but by the here and now. The axis of the book is the memorable symbolic image of the “mankurt,” that is, a person forcibly deprived of memory.2s This is one of the cardinal themes of the 20th century; moreover, Aitmatov does not hide the fact that, for his heroes, loss of memory takes the form of Sovietization and Russification. Sabitzhan, a Kazakh of the new post-Stalinist generation, turns out to be a “mankurt”; he is juxtaposed

with Edigei,

a man of the soil, in his own way a Central

Asian Platen

Karatayev. In the novel, several important Soviet taboos are broken. For example, Aitmatov carries his praise of traditional custom to the point of justifying polygamy: Edigei and the two women close to him could be happy only in a traditional Muslim family, but that is forbidden by the alien, imposed Soviet law. This theme is suggested with great caution (the Soviet critics preferred not to notice it); however, so that there may be no doubt in the reader’s

mind as to the author’s

message,

parallel to Edigei’s

22. Vladimir Voinovich, Anlmwcfsky SouetskySoyw (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1985), p 233. 23. Aitmatov (1986), note 19, no. 6. pp. 39-44; 40. 24. ChmgiL Aitmato\, I ddshe veka dld~m &n (Frunzc: Kyl-#y~stan,1981). S ee i~lw Katw~na C:lark. “I’hr Murability <)f thr Canon Socialist Kralisrn and Chmsiz Aitrnatov’s I &ol Ihe wka dlttsta &VI,” Slacu Kwzew, LXIII, no. 4 (Winter 1984), pp. 573-587. 25. Aitmatov (1981). note 24, pp. 107-126.

Ethnic Identity and the Nationalip Issue in ContemporarySoviet Literature plot runs the plot of the camel Karanar

and his happy family of four she-camels

327 (four is

the lawful number of wives in Islamic marriage). A still deeper taboo is touched upon in the scene of the burial of aged Kazangap. Upon reading this scene it is impossible not to see that Kazakhstan is an occupied country, desecrated by a foreign army, where the stable everyday life and faith of the autochthons are defiled and tramped over for the sake of the interests of a featureless foreign-tongued empire. Lieutenant Tansykbayev, a severs his bonds with his fellowKazakh numbering among the “mankurts,” countrymen:

“Comrade stranger, address me in Russian. I am a man entrusted with does, as far as it the fulfillment of official obligations. “Z This scene should evoke-and is known-a sharp reaction by no means on the part of the Kazakhs alone. Aitmatov’s

novel had a unique resonance

in the Baltic area which is entirely remote

from Central Asia culturally as well as geographically. there ended up in the first rank of bestsellers official

literary

Aitmatov

press,

where they received

On the one hand, its translations

and were discussed

the highest

praise.

are found in the works of young Baltic writers,

Saulius Tomas Kondrotas

including

in the

imitations

of

the Lithuanian

(who defected to the West in 1986). The staging of the novel

in a Vilnius Youth Theater visited Vilnius recently,

for months

Direct

became an event of several seasons (Arthur

Miller,

having

spoke highly of it). 27 On the other hand, the novel was received

just as ecstatically by Lithuanian samizdat critics. I know of no other instance where the opinions of the official and underground presses have concurred to such an extent. In unofficial Lithuanian circles the term “mankurtization” spread, meaning Russification, departure from one’s native language and religion, the forgetting of national history, the creation of mixed families, and similar processes, which, in dramatic tones, the underground national movement depicts and attempts to halt. This, without a doubt, is a good example of interchanges of ideas between Soviet nationalities ‘ ‘over the the Russian language indeed played the role of heads of Russians” -although mediator. Insofar

as we have already

mentioned

the Baltic

area,

examples not lacking in interest, this time from Lithuanian not as famous as Astafyev and Aitmatov, Avyiius,

is a Lenin

Prize winner;

but still rather well-known:

the other, Justinas

popular (though by no means the best) Lithuanian Both of them (especially MarcinkeviEius, an anti-dissident

story called “The

Yet this makes the example represent

the attitudes

trated by anti-Russian

in two more

These are writers one of them, Jonas

Marcinkevitius,

is the most

poet, known also to Russian readers.

who, in his time, by KGB assignment,

Pine that Laughed”)2s

of their writing

of Baltic officialdom sentiments,

I will bring literature.

wrote

belong to the official elite.

all the more a sign of the times; which has in general

they

been deeply pene-

perhaps even more so than is the case among the

population at large and the dissidents. As early as 198 1 a novel by Avyiius appeared with the characteristic name Degimai (A Burnt Place).29 This is a typical socialist realist work, ultraconservative from the literary point of view (a rarity in Lithuania, where experimental prose flourishes). Its hero, District Committee Secretary Danielius Girinis, is all but a Kochetov [Vsevolod Kochetov (1912-1973), a Stalinist writer] type ofcharacter. It is somewhat awkward to 26. Ibid., p. 273. 27. See “Arthur Miller in Vilnius: An Interview,” Baltic Forum, III, no. 1 (Spring 28. For a fuller account see Ballic Forum, IV, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 42-43. 29. Jonas Avyiius. “Degimai,” (A Burnt Place), Per& (Vilnius), no. 9 (1981), pp. 8-96; no. 11, pp. 36-109.

1986). pp.

pp. 14-93;

l-17. no.

10,

SNIMES IN COMPAKA,IIVECOMMUNISM

328

paraphrase Avyiius’s novel, since it is too remote work rends to be the most indicative socioiogically. open

treatment

situation Avy&s

of national

an honest

communist.

His wife is monstrous:

divorces.

those

her;

around

tongueT’);

among

liberated

like manner, permitted

no getting

to everyone

you, ” “in

Russia

there

rarity

even advised]

quite negatively. A Lithuanian, is

chauvinist

She is prepared

to Iearn

Lithuanian

Fima,

won’t

culture,

incidentally,

while

in Soviet

literature.

someone

to portray

my

schoo1

use of a kind

of

for instance:

you have

in an extremely

all

break

ro a Russian

she makes

and not only in Lithuania,

is a high

whom

to denounce

(“I

she sends the children

anywhere”};

in Lithuania

depicted,

is an exceptional

(and perhaps

refuses

of Danielius,

there’s

“jO Such a character,

militaristic.

In such a

the elite officialdom.

the great Russian

is altogether

to the wishes

language

well known

customs.

Fima

she categorically

contrary

your

argument “we

particularly

the invariable practice has been to depict 1acaI nationalists turns the situation upside down. The protagonist Daniclius,

he fortunately

(“with

frictions,

from art: however, this very kind of The novel’s interest lies in its quite

only

primitive,

savage poster-

The fact that the authorities a Russian

woman

as a bfatant

colonizer bears witness to the manipulation of Lithuanian public opinion and to the hidden power struggle between different groups within officialdom, where quite untrivial moves are being made. Of course, Fima is set in contrast to a “true Russian,” Party functionary Vadim Fomich, who declares to her: “People with attitudes such as yours undermine the trust in the great Russian peopie, the ftrst in the world to undertake the realization of the principle of the equality of nations”; incidentally, Fima counters

this by caflin
while introducing

the truly typical

ponding counterarguments too vivid and undesirable The play ~~u~~~~~ 1986)

appears

of Lithuanian nationalists; a response from the reader.

by MarcinkeviEius

to be a more

of the population

goal [his role and status in Kirghizia). circles

work,“”

of Lithuania,

His plays are praised a certain

they would

undoubtedly

evoke

at the end of 1984 and staged although

it virtualiy

amounts

in to a

It is already the author’s fourrh play on a theme from aspires to the role of’ national bard, acceptable to

in Lithuanian

as well; they arouse

(published

significant

collection of melodramatic cliches. Lithuanian history. Marcinkc\+ius ail layers

“‘%I It is characteristic of Avvtius that, of Fima, he avoids introducing the corres-

arguments

and he has to a marked society

are similar

by the official interest

press,

also beyond

degree

to those of’Chingiz yet enjoy Lithuania’s

success borders

attained

this

Aitmatox in unofficial (especially

in Hungary). Like the earlier plays of Marcinkevirius, Daukantas is written in a somewhat stylized manner, under Schiller’s influence. Simonas Daukantas (1793-1864) was the first thinker not lacking in quixotic traits who died in was acknowledged as the precursor of the Lithuanian national revival and a prophet of Lithuanian independence. In his fate there are similarities to both Lomonosov and Skovoroda. From the Soviet point of view he is an ambiguous character, to say the least; his works are published, but rarely and not in full. Having created the ideal myth of a primeval pagan Lithuania, Daukantas to a great extent became a myth himself. It goes without saying that the play reads like a transparent alfegory. In toil and deprivation its hero restores the historical memory of Lithuanian

poverty

historian,

and obscurity,

a provincial but later

30. Avyiius,

note 29, no. 10, pp. 61; 63; 83 31. Ibid., pp. 83; 85. ‘“Daukantas,” Pupic. 32. justinas h?arcinkevir5s,

ntr. 2 j1984),

pp. 3-34,

Ethnic Identity and the Nationality his people, existence.

recreates

their national

The fundamental

Issue in Contemporary Soviet Literature

consciousness

goal is proclaimed

empire bent on leveling the differences

and,

as a result,

possess freedom.

between

its subjects.

along

democracy,

i‘ History is freedom.

To possess freedom

restoring

memory, questions

the people’s the

way-or

The play is loaded with

shoved into the background

them

true (“You

Possess your history,

is to possess memory.“33

sense of self-worth, else declare

individual freedom,

their historical

to be ethnic survival in a multinational

maxims that are noble, although vague and at times not completely long as you know your history”;

329

Historical

exist as and you

and ethnic

must resolve all the remaining nonexistent:

such

categories

as

individual human worth, criticism and skepticism are

or even into nonexistence.

Perhaps the most revealing motif

in the play is Daukantas’s disagreement with the Philomaths (a Polish revolutionary circle in Wilno [Vilnius]) and the Decembrists (whether or not this was in fact the case, we do not know). He refuses to participate in the 1831 uprising against the Russian czar. The education of the people in the spirit of traditional national values is declared more important than attempts to change the political structure (attempts which, according to the hero, are known to be doomed to fail). Here it is not difficult to perceive the polemic that Marcinkevicius Lithuanian. one-lies

is waging with dissidents,

both Lithuanian

The author clearly identifies with the hero; the difference-and

in the fact that Daukantas

one cannot

and nona sizeable

truly sacrificed himself in the name of an idea, while

say that about MarcinkeviEius,

the pet of the authorities

and of official

criticism. In any event, the limits of the permissible ing in Soviet

literature.

The

search

for the nationality theme have been widenis becoming an authorized, even

for “roots”

fashionable activity. Moreover-and this is especially important-this affects not only Russians. A small dosage of nationalism is permitted in the other republics as well, where, with the subtle blessing of Moscow,

it is supported by local officialdom.

to replace Marxist

values with nationalist

cases, neo-Nazism

(or a tangle of neo-Nazisms);

provincialism tradition,

and retrogression.

historical

memory

values presents many dangers;

An effort

in the worst of

in somewhat better versions you find

And still one has to say that the right to one’s language, and ethnic

particularity

is one of the first and most

inalienable human rights; the struggle for this right deserves sympathy and support. Two questions are the most interesting of all. The first is: how to distinguish the false from the genuine; that which is permitted and even promoted from that which trespasses the bounds of the permitted; the channeling of national sentiments, convenient to the authorities, from a sincere interest in the fate of cultures and peoples; a questionable and dangerous

mythology

from a humanistic

mythology.

I cannot solve this question;

I can

only say that these opposing threads are often intertwined to the point of indistinguishability. The second question is: how much rebirth of national values in different groups will intensify their frictions and clashes (right up to the point of bloodshed), extent some kind of “alliance

of nationalists”

is possible, furthering

and to what

a peaceful and not

necessarily negative transformation of the Soviet system (examples of such an alliance are well known in the dissident environment). I do not presume to answer that question either, but it probably

needs to be asked.

(Translated

33.

Ibid., pp. 11; 13.

from the Russian

by Diana

Senechal)