{"id":51249,"date":"2013-04-25T10:30:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T14:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=51249"},"modified":"2014-01-25T15:28:58","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T20:28:58","slug":"week-in-culture-sophie-pinkham-slavicist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/25\/week-in-culture-sophie-pinkham-slavicist\/","title":{"rendered":"Week in Culture: Sophie Pinkham, Slavicist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SPPushkin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

May 22, 1929<\/p>\n

I was sitting on the roof of the State Publishing House, making sure that everything was in order, because no sooner do you overlook something than something happens. You can\u2019t leave the city unwatched. And who will keep an eye on the city, if not me?<\/p>\n

A Watchman has the right to:
1. Sing.
2. Shoot at whomever comes along.
3. Invent and compose, also make notes, and recite in a low voice, or learn by heart.
4. Look over the panorama.
5. Compare life below to an anthill.
6. Contemplate book publishing.
7. Take a bed along.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Daniil Kharms, Boris Levin, and Yury Vladimirov, from I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary : The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms<\/em>; translated by Peter Scotto and Anthony Anemone<\/p>\n

DAY ONE<\/b><\/p>\n

I go to Serbo-Croatian class, where we learn how to say \u201che gave her three piglets as a gift,\u201d and \u201cin Dalmatia there are many stones.\u201d I look forward to the day when I will use these sentences in a conversation.<\/p>\n

I go home to read Turgenev, but watch the news all day instead. My friends and I are proud to be among the only Americans to know the whereabouts of both Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan, and the very real difference between Chechnya and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

\n

it\u2019s topsy-turvy
but there\u2019s something happy
there\u2019s dignity even
in the idea<\/p>\n

that not all the world\u2019s monsters
are ours<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Vsevolod Nekrasov, \u201cI Live I See,\u201d translated by Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich<\/p>\n

DAY TWO<\/b><\/p>\n

On Saturday, I attend a panel titled \u201cThe Russian Avant-Garde Goes Underground.\u201d On Monday, I attend a reading of the work of three Russian poets. (I reject linear time and treat these two events as one.)<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s discussion is focused on Oberiu, the \u201cAssociation for Real Art\u201d founded by Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky in Leningrad in 1928. Oberiu dissolved in 1930, after one of its signature poetry reading\/magic shows attracted the attention of the authorities. It was the last Soviet avant-garde to live in the open. (Watch a cartoon version of Kharms\u2019s absurdist writing here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Eugene Ostashevsky, who translated the first English-language collection<\/a> of Vvedensky\u2019s poetry<\/a>, quotes Nietzsche: \u201cI am afraid we cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oberiu rejected the use of language to create artificial boundaries, to make what is different similar, to make time a line. In 1933, Vvedensky reflected on his work<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I raised my hand against concepts, against initial generalizations \u2026 I became convinced of the falsity of old connections, but I don\u2019t know what the new ones should be like \u2026 my basic impression is that of the disconnectedness of the world and of the dismemberment of time. Since these contradict reason, that means that reason does not understand the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ostashevsky says that for Oberiu, \u201cactive non-understanding of reality\u201d was the purpose of art, the means by which art helped you to live. Polina Barskova, who writes wonderful meta-literary poems<\/a>, speaks about Yakov Druskin, the only member of Oberiu to survive the winter of 1941\u201342, the siege of Leningrad. At a time when people were eating their boots, and sometimes even their neighbors\u2019 children, Druskin\u2019s diary makes no mention of the siege, of the landscape, of the war. Druskin preserved the manuscripts of both Kharms, who died in a prison asylum after asking for a hat to conceal his thoughts, and Vvedensky, who died on a train, having been deported after missing another, earlier train of literary evacuees.<\/p>\n

The rejection of concepts, causality, and sequence can lead to practical difficulties. One audience member asks, \u201cWhat is the consequence of dropping consequences?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostashevsky answers, \u201cI can\u2019t answer that, because without sequences I can\u2019t formulate an answer, and you can\u2019t understand what I say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a problem,\u201d the audience member agrees, and returns to his seat.<\/p>\n

Matvei Yankelevich, who has translated both Kharms<\/a> and Vvedensky, remarks that Oberiu\u2019s work is \u201cboth tragic and inexhaustibly hilarious.\u201d During a reading of Vvedensky\u2019s short verse plays, the audience giggles at lines like \u201cImpotent-shimpotent. Who cares. That\u2019s not why I died, to have to do everything all over again.\u201d But the tragic, too, is ever-present: \u201cThe ruling night was just beginning, \/ we cried a century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ainsley Morse, who cotranslated, with Bela Shayevich, I Live I See<\/i><\/a>, a lovely little brick of poems<\/a> by the Moscow minimalist Vsevolod Nekrasov, speaks about Nekrasov\u2019s rejection of \u201cliterocentrism\u201d and his embrace of \u201cliving speech,\u201d a personal relationship to a historical moment. In a sense, his position was the opposite of Oberiu\u2019s: he believed that \u201cthe more you resemble others, the more you resemble yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morse\u2019s and Shayevich\u2019s incantatory, musical readings bring out the humor in Nekrasov\u2019s poems. The packed room laughs at lines such as \u201chead \/ in the water \/\/ head \/ in the sky \/\/ foot in shit,\u201d (a pithy summary of the plight of many writers) or \u201cthe cause of death \/ was living \/\/ the immediate cause \/ of death was \/\/ living in Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nekrasov\u2019s use of repetition and his elimination of context both reduce and multiply the meanings of individual words, stripping away traditional signification and giving words new life in sound. Morse and Shayevich read Nekrasov\u2019s parody of Alexander Blok\u2019s classic poem \u201cNight, a streetlight, a canal, a pharmacy\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

A canal
A streetlight
Here\u2019s the streetlight
Here\u2019s the canal
Blok was here
He stood
And dunked
The streetlight
into the canal
The streetlight
into the canal
The streetlight
into the canal
Blok dunked
Blok dunked<\/p>\n

Brodsky
Helped<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While Nekrasov slept
Nekrasov slept
Nekrasov slept
Nekrasov slept
Nekrasov slept<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Their rhythmic performance makes the poem sound almost like a sample, a loop. Keith Gessen and Kirill Medvedev create a similar effect in what Gessen introduces as their \u201cfirst number,\u201d a performance of Nekrasov\u2019s poem about Boris Groys, one of his numerous nemeses. (Groys, who teaches at NYU, is author of The Total Art of Stalinism<\/em><\/a>, a book that has blown my mind on several occasions.) I keep waiting for Gessen to start beatboxing as Medvedev drums on the lectern, chanting,<\/p>\n

\n

don\u2019t oh boy Beuys
but if you gotta fret
forget Beuys, get<\/p>\n

fed up with gross Groys<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Peter Scotto, who co-edited and co-translated I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary : The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms<\/em><\/a>, observes that \u201ctranslating a poem is like bringing a plane in for a crash landing\u2014the question is how much damage will be done, and whether there will be any survivors.\u201d Reading bad translations is like strolling through a morgue. But these new, distinctly American renderings of Kharms, Vvedensky, Nekrasov, and Medvedev are full of life, well-populated. It\u2019s brave, even foolhardy, to try to translate poets who undermined the very foundations of language. So when it turns out well, it\u2019s like Sully Sullenberger landing on the Hudson.<\/p>\n

DAY THREE
<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Socialism or death. Why pick when you can have both.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Nekrasov, \u201cI Live I See,\u201d translated by Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich<\/p>\n

I go to Brooklyn for a reading and concert by Kirill Medvedev, a socialist underground poet from Moscow. By now you\u2019ve probably heard of him: n+1<\/i> and Ugly Duckling Presse recently released a book of his poems and essays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Medvedev sits at BookCourt, flanked by \u201cCooking,\u201d \u201cTravel,\u201d and \u201cPsychology and Self-Help,\u201d and sings his socialist protest songs, accompanying himself on the guitar. He performs a Russian version of \u201cWhich Side Are You On?\u201d and two songs set to lyrics by Alexander Brener, a Russian performance artist and activist most famous for spraying a green dollar sign on Malevich\u2019s painting of a white cross. Many audience members look sympathetic but bewildered; it is possible that they were attracted to the event more by n+1<\/i> than by any special passion for Russian socialist folk-rock.<\/p>\n

The evening ends with lyrics by Brener, with an amusing translation read by Gessen:<\/p>\n

\n

Novelists snort coke and guggle down whiskey
While in Afghanistan refugees tremble with dried-out kidneys.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Musicians have grown fond of their magnificent poses
While in Russia people choke on vodka and tuberculosis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who are you working for, artists and writers?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who are you working for, poets and musicians?
Someone answers: For applications… for teaching positions!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For the last few months, my friends and I have been pondering the Medvedev phenomenon. His book has been reviewed in The New York Times<\/i>, Bookforum<\/i>, The Observer<\/i>, and other publications in which one is unaccustomed to seeing underground socialist poet-activists. This is in part thanks to the good connections of Medvedev\u2019s translators. But Medvedev\u2019s work also seems to have struck a chord with a group of Americans for whom an unapologetically leftist writer has an undeniable charm. (Merriam-Webster announced last winter that \u201csocialism\u201d \u201cand capitalism\u201d had tied for top word of 2012, trailed by \u201cmalarkey\u201d and \u201cschadenfreude.\u201d) I met Medvedev in Moscow in December, for an article<\/a> I was writing on Russian literature and politics. When he casually mentioned \u201cclass warfare,\u201d in reference not to the right-wing fantasy of bloodthirsty welfare queens, but to the systematic exploitation of the poor by the rich, I felt a little tingle down my spine.<\/p>\n

\n

A Watchman should be a man of the Oberiu confession with the following characteristics:
1. Moderate height.
2. Brave.
3. Far-seeing.
4. A stentorian and powerful voice.
5. Mighty and plain spoken.
6. Able to catch every kind of sound and not easily bored.
7. A smoker or, in an extreme case, a non-smoker.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We go to the afterparty, a room full of attractive young people who want to talk about Russian literature. I die of happiness.<\/p>\n

DAY FOUR<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

The only thing that interests me is \u201cnonsense\u201d: only that which has no practical meaning. Life interests me only in its absurd manifestations. Heroism, pathos, daring, ethics, hygiene, morality, tenderness and fervor are odious to me as words and feelings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Kharms, I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary : The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms<\/em><\/p>\n

I resurrect myself and have dinner with my friend Julia from Kiev. She works for an oligarch who will soon go to space as a tourist. He has sent her to New York for a conference on 3-D printing. At the moment, Julia tells me, this technology is used mostly for personalized dildos, but the oligarch has greater ambitions. He wants to go to the moon and print out whole cities. Julia has laryngitis, and tells me all this in a stage whisper.<\/p>\n

DAY FIVE<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

From above with a crash
you fell into the bath.<\/p>\n

Too brief
is the life
of the poet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Kharms, I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary : The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms<\/em><\/p>\n

I attend a seminar taught by Mikhail Shishkin, who is rumored to be Russia\u2019s greatest living novelist. I signed up because I was curious about how a writer could teach himself. When Harvard was considering hiring Nabokov, Roman Jakobson quipped, \u201cEven if one allows that he is an important writer, are we next to invite an elephant to be professor of zoology?\u201d Harvard didn\u2019t hire old Volodya. (You can assess Nabokov\u2019s teaching skills based on his own account<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Unlike the average elephant, Shishkin subscribes to old-fashioned and distinctly Russian ideas about the writer as prophet and martyr. The great writer sacrifices his health to impart a sense of immortality to others. He lives a lonely life in order to facilitate the mingling of souls. He has a divine mission, and will not rest until he has achieved it. Or died in agony. Whichever comes first.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid my novel make you feel a little bit immortal?\u201d Shishkin asks us, looking around the room hopefully. We avoid eye contact.<\/p>\n

Eventually someone asks, \u201cWhy write many books when you could write just one?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Oh how many wonderful discoveries for us
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to say anything else\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say anything else\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Nekrasov, \u201cI Live I See,\u201d translated by Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 22, 1929 I was sitting on the roof of the State Publishing House, making sure that everything was in order, because no sooner do you overlook something than something happens. You can\u2019t leave the city unwatched. And who will keep an eye on the city, if not me? A Watchman has the right to:1. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":282,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10722,10721,10723,10726,10719,10718,7287,587,10725,504,10727,165,447,10724,10720],"class_list":["post-51249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-culture-diaries","tag-ainsley-morse","tag-alexander-vvedensky","tag-bela-shayevich","tag-boris-grovs","tag-boris-levin","tag-daniil-kharms","tag-ivan-turgenev","tag-keith-gessen","tag-kiril-medvedev","tag-literature","tag-mikhail-shishkin","tag-poetry","tag-russia","tag-vsevolod-nekrasov","tag-yury-vladimirov"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWeek in Culture: Sophie Pinkham, Slavicist by Sophie Pinkham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 25, 2013 \u2013 May 22, 1929 I was sitting on the roof of the State Publishing House, making sure that everything was in order, 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