Author Archives: Maisie Campbell

In the Dead of Night

The darkness, the more common occurrence of the thinning veil between the living and the dead mimics the rarer All Saints’ Day. Turgenev’s “Bezhin Meadow” emphasizes this mysterious and haunting time. The first suggestion of death weighing on the narrator, “a bulging game bag cut into my shoulders mercilessly,” counters the victory of a successful hunt with the burden and pain of carrying the dead around with him (24). This theme continues as the five boys, as many youths around a campfire are wont to do, tell ghost stories based in Russian mythology. The first tale of a water nymph, a rusalka, also takes place at night when a traveler loses his way. Some researchers, such as Ivantis in Russian Folk Beliefs, report the belief that the rusalka and other household spirits are actually the dead who have continued residence on this earth. The melding of worlds does not stop at the living and the dead, but also the future and the past: “you can see a living man too. I mean one whose turn it is to die in that year” (39). And the evidence of the accuracy of these portents is portrayed as steadfast, between the Ivanshka Fedoseyev that died in the spring and the ominous ending of the story in which the narrator notes that Pavlusha “died the same year” as when he heard the dead boy calling his name from the water (48). Interestingly, the Russians in this story take a rather fatalistic approach to these omens, “No use running away from your fate, is it?” which recalls many Greek tragedies like Oedipus that reinforces the accuracy of said prophecies (46).

The bridging of life and death arises again in Turgenev’s “Forest and Steppe” as he recounts, “You breathe in peace with every breath, yet a strange unrest comes upon the spirit…all the time images and faces of the beloved, dead or alive, keep coming to mind” (395). The black and blank night acts as a tapestry on which the mind projects these images, called forth by the haunting, cloying emptiness of night. Pushkin takes a darker turn in his poem, “When Lost in Thought” when he contrasts, “slimy graves awaiting with a yawn” and “some ancestral village keep, / Where all the dead in solemn stillness sleep” (200:13, 20-21). The chilling assumption in the latter that in the graveyard he stumbles upon, the dead are not as restful as one would hope (or expect). These reflections on Russian perceptions of the afterlife and the joining of the past and the present in the form of the living and the dead reveal the ongoing prevalence of folk beliefs merging with Christianity.

Note: I would have liked to delve deeper into the idea presented in the last sentence based on the conflict and comingling of Christian values and pagan beliefs. Examples include the use of the cross to ward off the rusalka and the changing views towards the spirits (the “evil” water nymph and forest demons in contrast with the helpful and omniscient wolf in “Ivan and the Grey Wolf”). This is a theme I found to be quite prevalent in Ivantis’s Russian Folk Beliefs and found quite interesting and compelling.

Time’s ticking on, ticky ticky ticky

One of the largest themes in “Uncle Vanya” is the passage of time and change over time. The arrival of the professor and his young wife in this country home catalyzes self-reflections, arguments and regrets with regards to how the characters have spent their time. Starting with the doctor, Astrov, Marina tells him honestly that, “You were young then, and handsome…you’ve lost your looks. And you like your vodka” (63). Astrov and Uncle Vanya share a discontent that time is passing them by and they are facing a stark and limited future. As Uncle Vanya reports despondently, “Everything’s old. I’m the same as always. Well, maybe a bit worse” (66). Not only is time passing, but any change it brings is for the worst.

Astrov remains obsessed with this idea of change in the form of the environment. In his rant about how the forests are being destroyed by lazy Russians, he despairs, “There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, game animals are all but extinct, the climate is being ruined, and day by day the land gets poorer and uglier” (72). These remarks appear very forward-thinking, especially for the late 19th century. Yet the character who takes his views to heart is the young and in-love Sonya. This suggests few are as enamored with this idea of taking care of the environment. Regardless, the doctor continues later, equating healthy forests with gentler climates and thereby gentler people. This remark presents a hopeful possibility for harsh Russia (and Russians).

The artwork Astrov dedicates himself to also represents this change over time as he depicts the successive diminution of the forest in the country. In showing the pictures to Yelena, his conclusion, “What we have here is basically a picture of gradual but unmistakable decay” reiterates the negative change time has wrought. In this story, the deterioration of the environment mirrors the social decay prevalent in the household as the characters become listless; they become obsessed with beauty over their other passions and works and drink themselves silly. Yet, the ending of the story provides a sobering glance of the future as once the professor and Yelena leave, every aspect of life for the others returns to as it was before. Powerless in the face of time, the best they can do is live as the world deteriorates around them. Or do they render themselves powerless by not trying?

A Powerful Friend and Dangerous Enemy

Nature in Russian fairy tales plays a dual role: both that of friendly aide and powerful danger. To start with, in “Tsarevich Ivan and Grey Wolf,” two of the mythical beasts (Fire-Bird, and Grey Wolf) play rather willful personalities in which they are literally awesome but eat whatever they care to. Yet differentiating the Grey Wolf from the other beasts is his sentience and omniscience that allows him to talk to and help Ivan and a moral compass that causes him to atone for eating Ivan’s horse by aiding him in his quest.

Contrary to other tales of animals, such as The Big Bad Wolf or The Three Little Pigs, in which the wolf is villainized for being a hungry and dangerous being intent on eating everyone, the Grey Wolf apologizes, “I am sorry” after eating Ivan’s horse (22). The choice of wolf who is not necessarily kind but is honorable and loyal plays with the uniqueness of some of the other Russian poets who find surprisingly good traits in otherwise unlikable seasons and places (in “Autumn” and “My Native Land”). Yet evidence of the wolf’s ‘true nature’ comes through in the tale when he “tore [the other princes] to bits and scattered the bits over the field” (31). The Grey Wolf also has mystical powers, besides those of speech and knowledge, that allow him to shapeshift and bring Ivan back to life. These powers suggest a Russian belief in the might of nature and wild beasts and a certain mystique that the humans do not possess.

Similarly, in “The Hedgehog in the Fog,” all the creatures are personified and can communicate with each other, even those so different as a hedgehog and a bear. The scene in which the bear scolds the hedgehog for being late is the one moment he seems frightening and threatening, despite his friendship with an animal that could be prey. And of course, the ‘villain’ of the story is fog: a natural entity without sentience, but which casts a land known well into a dangerous minefield. And what saves the hedgehog from the river after the fog caused him to lose his way but another kindly animal, suggested to be a water serpent of some kind. Like the Grey Wolf, this serpent is shown to possess a helpful nature unlike those vilified in other stories and yet the most dangerous aspect of either story is a non-human entity.

Sleeping Beauty

A striking question posed by several poets in their works, “In early autumn sweetly wistful…,” “Autumn,” and “The Poet,” is whether winter truly symbolizes death or merely a period of dormancy. The implication therein being the forthcoming awakening, with regards to Russia as a landscape and a country awaiting to potential glory. A time many view as a colorful prelude to dark, cold days of misery, Tyutchev marvels at autumn as “sweetly wistful” as though dreaming of and awaiting the future. In the second stanza, the stark images of death and abandonment, “empty fields…where sickles ravaged in the harvest’s ebb” both evokes the ebb and flow of time and the forthcoming bereavement of life in winter. But Tyutchev balances this image with the hopeful evidence of a single living spider. And in the face of flight-prone and fanciful birds that are “afraid of future shadows” (“In early autumn sweetly wistful…,” 9), the divine “heaven pours its azure, pure and warm, / on quietly resting fields and meadows…” (“In early autumn sweetly wistful…,” 11-12). Rather than this imminent and depressing death, the fields are simply restoring themselves in divine emptiness. Somehow hopeful, this poem does not disparage winter, long though Russia faces it, but glories in its peaceful rest and potential to be awoken.

Similarly, Pushkin does not dread the oncoming darkness and cold, but in his poem “Autumn,” he loves “the splendid fading of those days” (“Autumn”, VII:3). In this prolonged Russian winter, he “sleep[s] a lot and sometimes even eat[s]” (“Autumn,” VIII: 4) and yet finds himself awoken with passion and struck with creativity that causes frantic “fingers seek[ing] the pen, and pen–the sheets; /One moment–and the verses flow in time!” (“Autumn,” XI:3-4). Not only is he struck with creative genius, but it flows from him perfectly! Like the bard called forth by the Sun God, Apollo, “The poet’s dormant soul is stirred / And like a mighty eagle wakes.” (“The Poet,” 11-12). These two figures are both awoken with divine inspiration like an eagle soaring over the wonders of the land or a ship breaking the waves with the swiftness of its passage.

Do these poets hold the image of Russia in the backs of their minds, her long and barren winters often mistaken for lifeless? “Even sleeping you astonish me,” proclaims Blok (“Russia,” 1), but what will happen when she awakes?