Author Archives: ptakatag

Religion in the transition *into* vs. *out of* the Soviet Union

Leviathan depicts a very different notion of religion and the church than we’ve previously seen so explicitly in other works. We read a handful of works from the time of transition into the Soviet Union, in which, on the surface, we saw how the state conveyed the message that people must turn away from tradition and religion in order to pursue a new society based on communal hard work and reason. Of course, in reality, those works (such as Engelgardt’s Letters from the Country, and Platonov’s “The Motherland of Electricity”) showed us how complicated this transition away from religion was for people.

Whereas in the short film, “Bezhin Meadows,” we saw how the film itself supports religion by showing peasants denouncing it, in Leviathan, we see how the filmmakers denounce religion by showing the state supporting it. In “Bezhin Meadows,” the surface-level destruction of religion actually has an underlying suggestion that religion is a necessary part of those peasants’ lives. Leviathan achieves the opposite effect. In Leviathan, we see that the post-soviet transition back toward a nonsecular government changes how we should perceive religion. Toward the beginning, we see three icons on the dashboard, not far from three stickers of sexualized naked women. For me, this was the first visual hint that we, as viewers, are supposed to be suspicious of the ways in which people (particularly the state) turn to religion. Later, when asked by both Vadim and Lilia whether he believes in religion, Dmitri, as (arguably) the most sympathetic character, responds, “I am a lawyer. I care about facts.” These moments set up the idea that religion and facts are mutually exclusive, similarly to the surface-level contrast between religion and reason which we saw in Platonov and Engelgardt’s works.

As the film progresses, these hints of doubting religion turn into a clear denunciation of religion. The Bishop himself tells Vadim, “I am in the same business as you,” (paraphrased), which indicates how interwoven the state and the church are, not only with one another, but with notions of corruption. When we ultimately discover that the destruction of every aspect of Nikolai’s life and home are for the purpose of building this new church, we learn just how different the role of religion is now, compared with during the transition into the Soviet Union. According to this film, if anything, religion encourages corruption by the state, because it serves to atone the government officials from any possible feelings of guilt. The priest’s monologue is brutally ironic, because it centers around the necessity of truth for ultimate freedom. The filmmakers thereby masterfully suggest that this new post-soviet state is devoid of truth.

With space, I would talk more about how images of nature complement these ideas. I’d also like to think more about the Leviathan itself.

 

Life, Love, and Death as One

In Voices from Chernobyl, several victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster share how their notions of life, death, and love are all inescapably intertwined. In the preface, these storytellers are referred to as survivors. The inexplicably awful contradiction that these victims are survivors mirrors the fact that death hangs over every aspect of these people’s lives. 

Each storyteller either directly ponders, or at least tells stories of how life and death are one in their lives. One person describes the door that is used in family rituals for death, but also has etch-marks of him and his children growing up. His “whole life is written down on this door” (35). This man is the only person who suggests how life and death, in this case, were beautifully and meaningfully connected, even before the Chernobyl incident. However, after Chernobyl, life and death forcefully become one and the same.

One pregnant woman recalls from her memory as follows: “The baby starts crying, it’s just come out… So they grab the little baby, it’s been on this earth for maybe five, ten minutes, and they throw it out the window…. How are you supposed to live after that? How are you supposed to give birth?” (57). Another woman who stayed in her village and watched all of her neighbors around her die, says, “you can talk to the dead just like you can talk to the living. Makes no difference to me. I can hear the one and the other. When you’re alone… And when you’re sad” (33). And yet another reflects,  “Back then I thought of death just as I did of birth.” (26).

The prevalence of these piercing images and reflections of life and death shows us how much this incident psychologically killed these “survivors.” They however yearn to return to a reality in which life and love are oppositional to death. The first woman captured this in asking,  “Why are these things together – love and death…. No one wants to hear about death. / But I was telling you about love. About my love…” (23).

The concepts of how nature and individuals and society are in a war with one another– as discussed by our classmates’ blog posts — resonates with me. However, I found it difficult to focus on the portrayal of nature in this work. There are certainly passages that are rich with commentary on how the animals responded to the incident. However, I found, in reading these narratives, that the human emotional destruction is so strikingly horrific that I didn’t even have any emotional capacity to think about nature. In my next read, I will try to hone in more on this, but ultimately, how could these people even think about nature, when their friends and family are being destroyed?

Advancement or ‘Grotesquification?’

Mayakovsky’s poems, Zabolotsky’s poems, and the film Magnitogorsk all convey imagery that flips traditional beauty on its head.

In Magnitogorsk, the transformation of the steppe into a heavily polluted, industrialized landscape is most obviously portrayed. As we hear one story after the next of the difficult labour, hazardous working conditions, coercion, death, misery, and environmental destruction associated with the building of, and continued living conditions in Magnitogorsk, it is no challenge to see that exact human history reflected in the scape of grey, pervasive smoke stacks and industrial apartments. Similarly, Zabolotsky and Mayakovsky’s poems depict the deformation of traditionally beautiful concepts of nature, love, and music into a grotesquely human-influenced aberration.

In “Could You?” and “Love,” Mayakovsky shows how humans can belittle grand concepts. The poet speaks of “the ocean’s vicious cheekblades/ in a dish of aspic.” and asks, “could you/ play a nocturne/ on a flute you’ve made from sluicepipes?” Although the ocean is so powerful and “vicious,” “life’s dull self-portrait” only portrays its ocean in a plate of human food. Likewise, a nocturne on a flute may be traditionally meaningful and beautiful, but to play it simply on sluicepipes (water channel pipes) estranges and “bizarre-ifies” them. In “Love,” Mayakovsky also contradicts the reader’s potential expectations from a poem about love. He fills the poem with grotesque images like “swampy muck…something red squirmed on the tracks… kisses like the butts of cigarettes…”

Zabolotsky’s “The Mad Wolf” shows how the wild and natural form (as described by the Bear) are devolved into madness as the wolves and chairman seek human intellect, occupations, and advancement. We see the complexity of how the wolf (“The Mad One”) thinks through his desire to become a (more human)  philosopher/scientist/writer, actually seeks to become a plant (closer to nature). Later, the wolves of different occupations all show their excitement to find happiness through industrialization. All of these images of the wolves and bears (typically majestic animals) seeking out human qualities are very strange. Though on the surface, they may seem to praise science that “sparkes like a water-spout,” the setting of the story allows us as readers to see how ridiculous the concepts of advancement are.

While all these works depict how human influence estranges natural/classical beauty, it’s interesting to note what different points in time they were written. Mayakovsky wrote in 1913, while Zabolotsky wrote in the 1930s, and Magnitogorsk depicts the persistence of hardship through decades and generations.

Religion and Temptation in The Mermaid

“The Mermaid” portrays the complexity of the relationship between religion (the father) and nature (the mermaid). The mermaid’s physical and emotional transformations over the course of the film parallel the changes in seasons and natural surroundings. (Side note: the mermaid’s intertwined characteristics with nature remind me of Sofya’s parallel to the earth, and Trofim’s parallel to the Neva in “The Flood.”) In the beginning, we see the mermaid reflect winter’s classically beautiful, yet dangerous characteristics; she appears to struggle in the icey river, and the first view of her shows her beautiful, pale face. As spring comes, we see her face become more colored, and her liveliness reflects the vibrance of her surroundings. These very transformations with nature allow her to draw the young man’s attention. While we run the risk of imposing our conception of the siren, I do think that the mermaid’s workings on the man emerge from a place of cunning, rather than love, because she seems to instantly have control over him. Counter to mermaid’s representation of nature and cunning, the young man’s father (who I believe is a priest) seems to stand for religion.

Once the young man has fallen for the mermaid, he goes to his father, but it seems that he does not kiss his hand or accept his father’s blessing. In other words, the mermaid seems to have tempted the man away from faith, blinding him in awe and love (of sorts) for her. If I understood correctly, the mixing and melding of images of the father to the young, naive, man seem to imply that the father had also, long ago, fallen for the mermaid. The key turning point is when, during a flashback, as the father is getting married, he sees the mermaid in church. The mermaid’s presence in the church creates extreme conflict (which is clear when she creates a literal storm outside), because she represents temptation. This flashback shows us why the father tries to keep his son from the tempting and beautiful mermaid.

However, Petrov’s ultimate message is complicated. When the mermaid finally brings about a storm and playfully tips the young man into the water, we see a flash of his cross: the first sign of his own faith. However, the father, as the image of faith, and the mermaid, as the image of cunning, ultimately die, while the young man survives. One one hand, we could interpret, that by having to bury both his father and his love, the young man is punished, and forced to reflect on his sin. Therefore, we see him repairing the church in the last seen, perhaps as a renewed commitment to religion. On the other hand, his survival of the storm seems to imply that his position between his father/religion and the mermaid/temptation, is what prevails over the other two characters’ polarized values.

Zabolotsky’s Contradictions

In both “The North” and “Thunderstorm,” Zabolotsky presents images in such a way that they contradict our expectations for them, or he attributes contradictory concepts to them.  In the first stanza of “Thunderstorm”, he paints in the reader’s mind “a scowling cloud,” which (in my mind at least) appears as a heavy, dark, and imposing cloud. Yet just three lines later, he calls the cloud “a lantern lifted high.” Rather than a source of darkness, we are forced to switch our understanding of the cloud as instead source of light. Then, he describes a beautiful image of the cedar whose “lifeless canopy / Props up the dark horizon.” However, “Through its living heart / A fiery wound courses.” Here, we have three contradictions. While the cedar’s stature is lifeless, its heart is living, yet that very heart is also wounded. (There is also a chance that this stanza could be referring to the thundercloud rather than the cedar, but in either case, the contradiction persists.) Zabolotsky continues: “Scorched needles rain down, / Like stars, or curses!” Whereas we typically associate stars with the heavens, and an overall positive, majestic image, here he nests several metaphors into one another, and seems to show stars as a scary image.

In the final stanza, the poet finds these contradictions even within himself. The lines are crafted such that they offer multiple interpretations.

“Split in two, like you, I did not die –

Why, I shall never understand –

In my heart the same fierce hunger,

And love, and singing till the end!”

Just as the earlier images seem to be split into two interpretations, the poet himself is split in two. The poet cannot understand why he did not die from this strike of lightning. Moreover, he can no-longer feel the same immense emotions that he presumably had once experienced. The upshot is that these three states of emotion: fierce hunger, love, and singing, are all very different from one another. If we have been “trained” in this poem not to associate images or concepts in a typical manner, then perhaps the fierce hunger is meant to be a positive hunger? Or, more likely, are we as readers are supposed to leave this poem acknowledging life and nature’s complexity and duality?

[Side note: It seems that the thunderstorm and the cedar tree are both representing very specific things. I wonder what they are specifically standing in for.]

“The North” Zabolotsky also presents both the beautiful, and the gruesome, frightful interpretations of any given image. He ultimately seems to portray the power and awe of nature through this dichotomy. (no space left, but I will delve into this in class!)

A New Pushkin?

Pushkin’s The Snowstorm shows us a completely different side of Pushkin, than what we’ve previously seen. In reading works like “Echo”, “Sing not, my love…”, “Autumn,” and “The Hills of Georgia,” we gained an appreciation for Pushkin’s ability to find beauty in every-day imagery. I perceived him as a very classically romantic poet. However, now as we read The Snowstorm, Pushkin seems like an unfamiliar and different writer altogether: a comedian!

To me it seems that Pushkin colors The Snowstorm in a comical way, through the narrator’s sarcasm, and through the inconsistent passage of time through the piece.  (Although it’s possible that I read the whole story in the wrong tone,) I got the sense that the narrator himself leads us to ridicule some of the story line. In the very first paragraph, he chooses to carry us down a logical, yet silly progression, beginning with Gavrila Gavrilobich R—-, then jumping to his “kindheartedness”, to the neighbors who “play ‘Boston’ at five copecks with his wife”, and finally to the true protagonist of the story Marya Gavrilovna.  She “had been brought up on French novels, and consequently was in love” (488). This odd progression to  to an introduction to Marya’s love (the centerpiece of the plot), seems to poke fun, both at the French novels, and perhaps even at the legitimacy of Marya’s love. As he carries on, the narrator still presents Masha’s love in such a way that we are (or at least I am) not fully convinced about her true commitment to him. She “urged the invincible strength of passion as an excuse for the step she was taking” in her letter to her parents. An “excuse” is far from a reason!

The other thing that I found odd, and thus took as a sort of humor, was the varying passage of time. There is the jump from focusing on Masha to Vladimir, which is key to the story’s ultimate “punchline.” However, beyond that, some passages are in real-time, while others jump from 2 weeks to multiple years. These sudden jumps seemed disjointed and thus, comical to me. It seems like Pushkin takes on a completely different writing style, through the use of this narrator character.

_______

A completely different topic that I would talk more about with space: the difference in the “use” of snow across the different works today. In this work, the snow storm is like a blank page itself, which enables a completely unexpected storyline to take place.

Depictions of Pyl’Mau (Mau) – In Three Phases

How does the novel’s portrayal of Pyl’maus perspective change over the course of the novel? While we are not to tokenize Pyl’mau as the only central woman character, are there any take-aways about gender dynamics in the novel?

There are three major phases of Pyl’mau in the context of the novel: 1) Pyl’mau, married to Toko, without any contact with John; 2) Pyl’mau, still married to Toko, but having met John;  3) Pyl’mau, having lost Toko, and soon thereafter married John.

From what we know of the “Phase 1 Pyl’mau,” she dearly loved Toko, even though she was initally terrified as an outsider to Enmyn.

Phase two Pyl’mau, to me, is the most interesting. We learn the most about Pyl’mau in the relatively short phase two, because the narration zooms into her perspective. In the very last scene between Pyl’mau, Toko, and John (before Toko’s death,) “Pyl’mau didn’t interrupt the men’s conversation. From time to time, she would get up, add some more duck to the plate, and stealthily move her eyes from one to the other. And the insistent thought was rattling around in her mind: Why can’t a woman do as a man does? Why is what he’s allowed not given to her?” (108). This key passage follows the men’s conversation about the fact that they both did not catch lakhtak this year, so we see a clear contrast between the men’s practical productivity, and Pyl’mau’s quiet but constant work, as she keeps putting food on their plates. It is also one of the most explicty passages in which we see the inequality between men and women, but only because we are briefly seeing her perspective. Phase Two Pyl’mau, she also contemplates having multiple husbands, since she knows men who have multiple wives. My main take away is that in this Phase two Pyl’mau, we as readers are fortunate to see some of her true, and normal human desires.

However, Phase Three Pyl’mau, whom we see for bout the last 170/330 pages of the Novel, seems to show a different personality (not necessarily because she has changed, but because of the lack of her narrative perspective). She is constantly at work, preparing meals for the village, caring for her children, or helping John. She is a crucial character practically, yet we no-longer get glimpses into her actual perspective. We see her outward emotions, as depicted through the narrative of the semi-omniscient-semi-John perspective, but I don’t believe we ever see her inner thoughts again for the entire latter half of the novel. What does this mean about how we should perceive John’s relationship with Pyl’mau? She, along with Orvo, is the most sympathetic character, yet within the narrative structure, we tragically lose connection with her as a real human.

“Melding” Reality and Distant Home

As John, Toko, Orvo, and Armol’ travel, John’s flashbacks to his home are especially interesting. Over the course of the trip, as John’s initial suspicion and mistrust of the Chukchi people slowly (emphasis on slowly!) fades down, his images of home continue to return to him. As he faces mortality, in somewhat of a delirium, he mixes images of his Canadian hometown into his present reality in Siberia.

In the first day of the expedition to Anadyr’, John sees “Orvo’s flat smiling face, incredibly similar to the stylized picture of an Eskimo in the National University Museum in Toronto” (32). This connection in his imagination speaks to the utter cultural disconnect in his perception of Orvo. His only previous exposure to these people had been through a token image in a museum. Clearly, seeing such a stylized image of the Eskimo while back in Toronto had no strong impact on John, since he has no sense of respect or even interest in any of the Chukchi people at the beginning of the expedition.

Then, as John sleeps the first night, he hones in on the “blazing fires of maple-leaf fall” of his last autumn as a child at home, playing with his family, “watching squirrels cavort in the branches overhead.” These warm images of home are familiar to our (as in the western readers in our class) conceptions of childhood. While the flashback may have been a very typical afternoon for John, in his current position, traveling in Siberia, he romanticizes the otherwise normal visions of home. This romanticization of home, and nostalgia for the simple past is a theme we have seen multiple times in past readings: Turgenev, as he wrote from abroad in his Notes of a Hunter, Pasternak, reflecting on the nostalgia of the country-side.

(I also wonder if these connected images of his distant home with his reality can be considered an example of estrangement. I’m curious to discuss the concept of estrangement more, to understand whether it applies in this case.)

However, John’s romanticization of home as he finds himself in an unfamiliar place and culture,  contrasts sharply with Olenin’s denunciation of home, while in the Caucasus. As we continue to read this novel, I want to think more about comparing Olenin and John. Of course, the context of the stories are very different. However, both characters find themselves in a completely different culture. I think that while Olenin enters his Caucasus excursion with good intentions, John enters his situation with little intent to respect the Chukchi. And yet, we see that (so far) both Olenin and John are able to gain some level of connection with the locals, yet maintain their difference as outsiders. By the time they are back in Enmyn, Orvo tells John, “we’ve grown fond of you, but you could not bear this life of ours.” I feel that this will be the case for any of the outsiders who enter a different culture, in the works we continue to read going forward.

 

The Caucasus – Romance, Simplicity, and Masculinity?

Across the works for today’s reading, depictions of the Caucasus seem to be quite consistent with one another. Overall, the Caucasus, as a vast and idealized region, differs from the sentiments we’ve typically seen associated with Russia’s forest. On the other hand, it seems to align more closely with associations of the steppe and the countryside.

When we previously read works such as “Vasilisa the Beautiful” and Uncle Vanya, we noted that the authors commonly associated the Russian forest with a sense of mystery. For example, in “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” we saw that the forest is vast, and contains both evil and good creatures. With Laura Henry, we discussed how culturally important this sense of the deep, mysterious, and never-ending forest was for Russia.

On the other hand, in reading works (like those of Esenin and Pasternak) from the pastoral setting, we learned about the feelings of nostalgia that authors felt for the simplicity of the countryside.

Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Lermontov all value the Caucasus as a place of simplicity, natural beauty, and romance. Just as Esenin spoke so fondly of the simplicity of the countryside peasant lifestyle, these writers convey their heartache and nostalgia for the Caucasus, as a simple place that offers escape from their societies. Lermontov’s  “Peace beneath Caucasian skies,” is a simple escape from societal values of rank. Pushkin’s “heart must burn and love” while in the Georgian Hills, and later, his “heart still longs” as he is forced to be reminded of “another life, a distant shore.”

I find especially interesting that many of these ideas of the Caucasus have to do with romance. As Olenin fantasizes about the “kisses…shoulders…sweet voice…and submissiveness” of the woman he will meet in the Caucasus, he demonstrates the fetishization of the entire Caucasian region. Since cossacks are admired for their masculinity, Olenin prepares himself to be just as masculine and romantic himself.

As we look more closely at each of these different ecosystems and regions, it is becoming clear that “nature” is not just a sweeping concept or place, but rather, the amalgamation of many individual, distinct concepts, each with its own emotional associations.

Going forward, I’d like to think more about what it means that for today’s authors, the Caucasus are an escape from home; they write as outsiders.

The Dark Corner in Gogol and Raika

In Gogol and Raika, Shukshin depicts a universally relatable series of childhood memories, while also presenting the harsh, painful, and frightening realities of war-time life. First of all, the conversational form of the narration allows a heightened sense of connection between the reader and the narrator. It almost feels like a diary entry, in which the narrator reflects on these distinct childhood memories, but then, occasionally inserts his “present-day” self using parentheticals. In the first of many such parentheticals, the narrator remarks, “(To this day your heart shudders when you remember the live, quivering tug of the tow rope in your hands and the way it slaps against the water when it begins to ‘pull’).” The specificity of these details are such that only the narrator himself, or someone who has very similar experiences would entirely understand. Yet, having this level of intimate look into the narrator’s combined childhood and present-day thought-processes creates a strong sense of investment in the narrator for the reader. I assume the narrator is Ivan Popov, a fictional (?) character based off of Shukshin’s (though this is only an assumption and I might be completely off on that).

As the narrator progresses through his story, he does not follow a linear path. Rather, like in a conversation, or as in a diary entry, he weaves along a rather tangential path, until it all comes together for the most extreme of endings. We’ve read countless stories that end in one surprising, and often dark last paragraph; this seems to be a pattern.

I am interested in the connections between the various key images in this narrative. From the very beginning, we sympathize with and relate to the young boy who will do anything to read, and who cares so deeply for his cow Raika. As relatable and happy-spirited, and optimistic of a character Viy is, there is no shortage of dark and brutal imagery:  the starving “endlessly sad cow’s eyes,” the inescapable cold, the “anxious, terrible night,” (which takes place even in his fantasy for the future joyous spring), the image from “Viy,” of a woman “sitting up in her coffin,” and lastly, the cow “with her intestines hanging out of her belly.” All of these horrific images and fears seem to be contained in the ominous “dark corner,” which the narrator avoids when seated atop his stove, and yet conquers after an expedition with his mother.

Other remaining questions – the cow returns to her family to die – what do we make of this? What about the dog that scares his mother?