Category Archives: The Domestic Exotic (on the Southern and Eastern Peripheries of Empire)

Intellectual vs Practical Skills

Rytkheu’s A Dream in Polar Fog, provides an interesting perspective on the benefit of intellectual versus practical skills for exploration and survival. The main character, John, is initially described as an academic from Port Hope who indulges in stories about faraway seas (16-17). Clearly enamored with the thought of traveling and visiting distant lands, he embarks on a journey out of Nome. Once the ship gets stuck in the ice, however, it is revealed that the skills from his life at the university are not sufficient for him to manage in the rugged arctic landscape. Throughout the first ten chapters, John’s intellectual skills, such as reading and writing, prove themselves of little use compared to the practical skills of the native population.

John mishandling the dynamite at the beginning of the story reveals his lack of practical skills and intuition. He is described as “not thinking” as he bends over to grab the dynamite cartridge buried in the snow, when it detonates and severely injuries his hands (20). This lapse in judgment highlights his lack of experience doing challenging and dangerous physical work needed for such an expedition. While other crew members likely have experience using dynamite, John is given the responsibility despite his expertise not lying in arctic exploration. While his dreams of “seasoned mariners… [and] distant lands… undiscovered by civilized man” pique his interest in going on an expedition, his is utterly unprepared given his lack of practical skills (17).

Much like Olenin’s reaction when originally encountering the rugged landscape in The Cossacks, John has only read and dreamed about exotic people and places, which holds him back from understanding the native culture. This is clear from how John describes the native, Orvo, as “incredibly similar to the stylized picture of an Eskimo in the National University Museum in Toronto” (32). This oddly specific description of Orvo underscores John’s prior perceptions of the native culture as something exotic that he would only imagine encountering in a museum. His academic past creates a barrier between his constructed view of the Chukchi and the reality, as he does not have the skills necessary to go out and understand native tribes first hand. Though John eventually realizes that the Chukchi “way of life doesn’t require literacy or books,” he is slow to acknowledge the importance of practical skills like hunting and skinning, which complicates and impedes his embrace of the Chukchi lifestyle (84).

Clash of cultures and the heightened attention to sound

As we talked about at length with The Cossacks, Russian authors love to play with the large cultural gap between the more rural ethnic groups and the Russians from the city centers of the country. This gap is especially apparent in A Dream of Polar Fog between John and the two natives who take him on his journey to the hospital.

The opening of the book draws attention to the cultural and language gap between the two groups. The explosion, which the two native men initially try to pin to a natural phenomenon, has a similar untranslatable quality as many of the mannerism the “white men” show. In response to the language and the noises the “white people” make, Orvo remarks, “Sometimes the white man says a tender word just so, and then it sounds like curses” (10). The actions of the white men on the ship are so foreign to the two native men that they have no clue between well-intentioned action and harmful action.

The same goes towards John’s relationship with the two native men. John is xenophobic scared of the two native for their different culture, calling the “unwashed” and “savages.” John, however, because he needs their help to make it to the hospital, has to rely on these men of different culture for help. John, instead of trying to understand the Chukchi way of life, remarks, “All people live their own way, and there’s no use making another person do as you do, changing his customs and habits. If you stick your nose into another’s person life but only try to work to mutual advantage then there will be no quarrels” (29). Instead of coming from a place of understand and wanting to learn the Chukchi culture and way of life, John instead is bigoted in his own culture.

I am curious, however, so see how the cultural gap develops within the book, and how the two parties overcome the obstetrical of their different cultural backgrounds. I wonder if John will finally have to bend, as he is hinted to already doing, or if he will remain in his problematic way.

Truth and Happiness

In The Cossacks, Tolstoy weaves the tropes of Russian exotic with the absurd in the commonplace events. While some have life-changing moment of clarity after a life-threatening event, Olenin’s moment of clarity comes after a solitary hunting trip in which his biggest danger is the mosquitos. Reveling, “But does it matter that grass will grow?…I still have to live, have to be happy. Because there is only one thing I want—happiness,” Olenin considers his purpose in the grand scheme of life and measures being a mindless element in the circle of life, content in oblivion, against a creature capable of happiness (Tolstoy, 83). And so, thanks to Uncle Eroshka’s advice and the unchangeable nature of mosquitos that makes them bite humans, Olenin discovers the route to being happy is to be his best self.

Seemingly, Olenin is rewarded for this change—he allows himself to fall in love, considers abandoning the life of lies that constitute Russian society, and take up the simpler “truer” life of the Cossack peasants, not to mention prove his masculinity by facing down the Chechens. But in actuality, Olenin deludes himself with this “truth.” Claiming his new environment for himself, “my hut, my forest, and the beautiful woman I love,” he maintains the conqueror’s mindset that if it benefits him, it is his (Tolstoy, 130). Instead of disdaining the local people for their simplicity, he disdains those at home, and yet either way he justifies his inclusion in and dominion over his new environment, his new people. But, he forgets Uncle Eroshka’s perhaps most important lesson: “No one loves us, you and me—we’re outcasts!” (Tolstoy, 118). Eroshka hits upon the most salient point in this exclamation: for different reasons, there truly is no way for Olenin and Eroshka to fit into the Cossack society, as much as they might try to relate to individual people within it. Perhaps the most frustrating obliviousness that Olenin expresses* is the idea that Maryanka loves him. Maryanka never admits any feelings whatsoever towards Olenin, save that she does not dislike him and that his hands are soft. Instead she demurs, in lieu of answers, asking questions such as, “What is there for me to tell [my father]?” or “Why should I not love you, it’s not as if you were one-eyed or a hunchback” or “Why not? If my papa gives me to you” (Tolstoy, 149-150). These questions lend a doubt to any positive feelings Olenin takes away from this encounter. Is she actually expressing the potential for love or is she indulging a slightly crazy foreigner who is providing a generous income to her family? Does she have any agency in deciding who she spends the rest of her life with or will her father (and mother) decide all for her? Olenin decides to believe whatever will bring himself the most happiness and so finds himself deluded with ideas of “truth” and grandeur that few people will actually contradict because of his status as a wealthy Russian elite.

*Frustrating for me at least, as a female reader.

Loving vicariously through nature

In the first few pages of The Cossacks, Olenin is amazed by the vast, snow-capped mountains that tower over the Caucasus. He often stops to reflect on the beauty of his natural surroundings – parting with his privileged city life in Moscow, Olenin uncovers a new appreciation for his natural environment. In Chapter 33, Olenin’s reflects on his life, past and present, and the natural beauty surrounding him, concluding that “Happiness is being with nature, seeing it, talking with it” (145). Olenin’s love for nature and for Maryana are separate in his mind at first, but by the end, Olenin draws connections between the two. He first compares Maryana to nature in Chapter 33, “she, like nature, is even, calm, and self-contained” (147), and later states that “Perhaps in her I love nature, the personification of all that is beautiful in nature; But I do not have a will of my own, and what loves her is some elemental force passing through me; all of God’s world, all of nature presses this love into my soul and says: “Love” (148). For me, this quote admits that nature is stronger than Olenin, and thus, has control over him and his love for Maryana. Is his love for Maryana imaginary and merely symbolic of his new-found love for nature? Or, has nature had such a positive influence on him that suddenly it is allowing his heart to open up, feel love, and mostly, give love?

Olenin set out on this journey to the Caucasus with the hope of learning to love someone other than himself. Thinking back to the woman that loved Olenin but he did not love in return, we potentially see the opposite at the end of the story: Olenin loving Maryana and her failing to reciprocate. Part of me hoped they would end up together in the end, but ultimately, Olenin has achieved what he set out to do: loving another as he loves himself. Though, I do not entirely agree that Maryana does not love Olenin. There are several instances where her feelings are apparent in tear-filled eyes or simple body language but she refuses to express this in words. For instance, when Olenin admits his feelings in the orchard, Tolstoy writes, “…it seemed to him that she had long known all the things he yearned to tell her … But she doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to reply” (141). Maybe Olenin and Maryana both struggle to accept the love they have for the other and therefore cannot fathom a life together. Olenin doesn’t think he is worthy of her love and feels that a village man, such as Lukashka, is more fitting for Maryana. Maryana is less open about her insecurities, but could very well be held back by her own self-doubt.

Repetition of Stanza and Repetition of Line: One Rhetorical Technique that Yields Two Interpretations of Romantic Poetry

In this week’s short poems “Sing Not, My Love,” by Alexander Pushkin and “Farewell to Russia” by Mikhail Lermontov, I took note of stanza and line repetitions, both of which contribute to a recursive, and almost nostalgic, perspective on each author’s life during their periods of exilement. To begin with some background from earlier class discussions: both of these authors had dominated the Russian literature produced in the mid 19th century. Their contributions to lyric poetry during the literary era of Russian Romanticism remain as some of the most significant additions to recorded Russian poetry (Gillespie). I found that a large component of Russian Romanticism revolves around nostalgia for the past. This “longing for the past” is expressed not only through the subject matter of these two poems— which references old Russia whilst written from exile—but is also expressed through form—whether that be the repetition of entire stanzas, or the couplet repetition evident in Lermontov’s “Farewell to Russia.”

 

To begin, the most prevalent stylistic choice utilized by Alexander Pushkin in “Sing Not, My Love,” is his entire duplication of the first stanza at the end of the poem, in which he expresses a sadness and distance from the memories of his childhood. Note that Pushkin begins this lyrical poem with a rejection of his childhood memories, symbolically represented as “Georgia’s songs” (Pushkin 1). His memories from his youth from the small southern province Georgia become encapsulated and represented by a channel of mixed emotions that possess a “mournful grace” (6). These memories harbor the fondness of his early years all while reminding him of his loss, specifically the “poor maiden’s face,” which we later learn is a “reference to Maria Raevskaya,” one of Pushkin’s first loves who had “followed her husband to Siberia when he was exiled” (129). I find it interesting that Pushkin invokes this historical character that followed her husband, Prince Sergey Volkonsky, who had been previously exiled to Serbia before Pushkin. The main difference between Volkonsky’s exile and Pushkin’s is that Volkonsky was trailed by the same lover that Pushkin had lost year’s prior. This detail, along with the repetition of the entire first stanza leads me to believe that Pushkin remains unresolved regarding his exile. He rejects the recognition of his old life, as it is no longer attainable nor pleasant for him. His lover most distinctly has chosen a different man who had inexcusably similar circumstances to Pushkin. What is most interesting is that this reference is closely followed by the aforementioned repeated stanza, as if the initial and ultimate presence of this stanza bounds Pushkin into isolation, leaving him handcuffed to the “haunting force—“ the recursive and seemingly eternal sentence to Siberia (11,12). The resolve of this stanza is rhythmically pleasing, precise, and accurate: it seems almost natural that instead of thinking forward, or looking back to his past childhood, he should remain both symbolically and physically entrapped between not only the bookends of repeated stanzas, but also the between the isolating forests of his Siberian exilement.

 

Furthermore, I found a similar stylistic choice utilized by Mikhail Lermontov in his “Farewell to Russia,” produced in 1840, which was promptly before his second exile (Manuylov, V.A. The Life of Lermontov). This shorter poem features a resolved narrator who begins with a quatrain referencing negative characteristics of Russia, calling it the “land of the masters— “the land of the unwashed” (Lermontov 2,1). Unlike Pushkin, Lermontov does not look nostalgically towards the past: he instead calls his very Russian’s “cringing slaves,” clearly rejecting them (4). Also, notice the clear sense of direction in Lermontov’s narrative. Instead of remaining encapsulated by a mix of mourning and rejection as does Pushkin in “Sing Not, My Love,” Lermontov hopefully lists his wishes for his exile: “peace[ful]” skies, and distance from “tsars” and “everspying eyes”(7,8). His clear and assured direction in thought is supported by the emphatic usage of couplet repetition in each adjacent phrase: “Land of…”, “You…”, and “Far from” (1-2,3-4, 7-8). Each of these repetitions reference a strong sense of movement away from “unwashed Russia, and towards the “peace beneath Caucasian skies” (6). Finally, I find it very interesting that this poem precedes Lermontov’s second exile from Russia, and within this poem, Lermontov utilizes duple line repetition in order to emphasize direction of thought. It is arguable that this is a clear reference between style and meaning; I think it is safe to at least presume that with an experience of previous exilement, this line repetition could perhaps just represent his sureness to move on from his contentious Russian past.

 

In sum, I think that both of these poems, each by Pushkin and Lermontov, represent how different uses of rhetorical style can offer various interpretations of each poem’s relationship with exilement and nostalgia for the past. In my analysis, Pushkin’s repetition of a stanza informs my assumptions that Pushkin had perhaps felt entrapped by his exile and his isolation form society. His style seems to reflect both a physical and emotional isolation from both his past childhood and his future aspirations. Meanwhile, Lermontov’s anaphoric repetition at the beginning of each two lines in his “ Farewell to Russia” functions as an emphatic and resolute method to dismiss his past and move towards his future exile. Lermontov’s strong rhetorical technique establishes a strong sense of direction to which he envisions a peace in isolation. Thus, even though both of these lyric poems regard Romanticism, including its themes of nostalgia, each poem utilizes various repetitive styles, which inform various interpretations of each author’s perspective on exile.

Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses

In these works, we are shown how circumstances can define an experience. Two people can look at the same view of a beautiful sunset, but if one’s heart is full of love and the other has just experienced a terrible heartbreak, they could very well be looking at completely different things. This theme is explored extensively in “Caucasus” by Ivan Bunin, where the story included the radically-different perspectives of two different characters, as well as in Pushkin’s poetry, where themes of love and heartbreak are analyzed.

In “Caucasus”, the narrator describes the ways in which a companion can color an experience, in this case turning a cruel and isolated place into a peaceful and serene vacation: “I had lived a little while near Sochi when I was young and alone, and all my life I’d remembered autumn evenings among black cypresses and cold, grey waves …. She grew pale whenever I reminded her of this, and said, “But this time you’ll be with me in that mountain jungle near the sea.” Love has changed not only what is inside of him, but also how he perceives the things around him. It is amazing how much less daunting the world becomes when you have someone to share it with. It is far easier to have the confidence to follow your instincts, to face your fears and spurn societal conventions if you have someone a partner by your side.

Of course, the flip side of this is represented in “Caucasus” as well, with the story of the rejected husband. He is of course presented as a villain for most of the story, the controlling, evil man thwarting a beautiful and pure romance. But the story ends on a twist, it switches narrators, ending with a description of the husband’s suicide. He literally could not live another day without his wife by his side. It was almost paradoxical how he knew his life would be meaningless without his wife, so he dominated and controlled her, but that very desperation was the reason she could not bear him and fell in love with another man. It shows how love is intoxicating and thus dangerous. Because of love’s immense power, and the ways in which it can make a life worth living, it is unbearable to lose. It begs the question of whether it is better to love fleetingly and see how wonderful life can be, or never love at all and never experience the pain of its end.

Love, it seems, is both what makes life worth living and simultaneously unbearable. But no matter what it does seems like an essential part of life. Pushkin argues exactly this in his poem “The Hills of Georgia”: “For thus my heart must burn and love – because it’s true, That not to love – it knows no way.” He is arguing that the heart only knows that it is alive if it is feeling something. Feeling, even if it causes pain and sadness, is a necessary component of life. The heart lives by breaking and thus all emotions, joy and heartbreak alike, are what gives life meaning.

Hopeless Citizen vs. Hopeless Romantic

Although I’m not sure about the historical context of both of these works, I found the theme of hopelessness in both Bunin’s “Caucasus” and Lermontov’s “Farewell to Russia” to compliment each other in an interesting way.

Lermontov’s “Farewell to Russia” seems to speak to Soviet Russia from a post-exile perspective. The speaker refers to Russia in many unfavorable ways, such as “unwashed” and a “land of knaves.” He also addresses the soviets directly as the people in “neat blue uniforms” who “live like cringing slaves!” The speaker’s tone is resentful, which implies that he preferred Russia as it was before the revolution. The second stanza deals with the speaker’s exile from Soviet Russia, presumably for his dissenting opinions. Although exile is normally seen as a fate worse than death, the speaker says that he “may find / peace beneath Caucasian skies, – / Far from slanderers and tsars, / Far from ever-spying eyes” (1840). The speaker’s preference for exile shows how unfavorable his view of Soviet Russia truly is.

Bunin’s short story “Caucasus” is about a woman who runs away from her oppressive husband with her lover. In the conclusion of the story, the scorned husband searches for his wife at all the false locations she gave him. When he does not find her he “drank a bottle of champagne and coffee with Chartreuse, slowly smoked a cigar. Then he went back to his room, lay down on the couch, put a pistol to each of his temples, and fired” (285).

Though the Bunin story does not deal as directly with Soviet Russia, the feeling of hopelessness comments on how collectivization affected all sectors of life at the time. Additionally, both works appreciated the vast expanses of nature that make Russia has and allude to some sort of pastoral beauty that was lost through industrialization.

Reciprocating Love

The last two lines of The Hills of Georgia by Pushkin read:

              For thus my heart must burn and love – because it’s true

                        That not to love – it knows no way.

In essence, this last line says that without love in your heart, one does not fully exist. This reminded me of Olenin’s desire to allow love into his heart, to become less egocentric, and love others as he loves himself. In talking with Olenin and the others, the person at the beginning of Chapter 1 labeled “the man who is leaving”, says, “‘You think that to be loved is as great a happiness as to love, and if a man once attains it, it will be enough to last him for the whole of his life’” (4). To me, this articulates that being loved by someone, as the beautiful girl does Olenin, is not considered happiness unless that love is reciprocated, which Olenin does not. One of the reasons he leaves for the army is because he is not satisfied with the self-absorbed life he leads and trusts that a new environment will bring him the mental clarity to accept love into his heart, and moreover, reciprocate this love to others. The man who is leaving continues, ‘But why couldn’t one love, too?’…‘Why shouldn’t one be the one who loves?’” (4). This reinstates the idea of providing others love rather than simply accepting their love to you. It seems that Olenin wants to fall in love, expressing that “…within me there’s a desire to love, and nothing could be stronger than that desire!” (5).

Ivan Bunin’s Caucasus also ties into this desire for love and happiness. The adulterous couple sneaks away, the woman leaving her husband at home and unaware of her affair. This narrative reminded me of Olenin’s story in a couple of ways. The way the narrator describes location is key to both narratives. In Caucasus, Moscow is described as rainy, gloomy, and with an unfulfilled and unhappy tone, but the hopeful final destination, the south, is described as warm and beautiful in a much more upbeat tone. The couple hopes for happiness and peace in their new life, as Olenin does in his new life at the Caucasus. Both the adulterous couple and Olenin are leaving a life of mistakes and unfulfillment to discover a more liberated and gratified version of themselves.

The Cossack Fetish

Much like our modern craze of brands such as North Face and Patagonia, the outdoors and rustic living and adventure is something that is attractive and marketable. Especially to urbanites, rural symbols seem to represent a fantastical status symbol of being organically rooted.

 

The Cossack people and the Caucasus seem to have a similar symbolic value to the characters of Tolstoy’s The Cossacks. Just as people in America once fetishized and wore appropriated symbols of Native American culture to represent a connection to a natural past, and just as people wear outdoor brands today, Olenin on his exodus to the Caucasus similarly fetishizes the Cossack people in a series of daydreams, “All his dreams about the future were connected with images of Amalat-Beks, Circassain maids, Mountains, precipices, fearsome torrents and dangers” (12). Regardless of the dangers of living outside of city walls and moving to a less developed place, Olenin fetishizes the place for the status and brand-like-attributes of the Caucuses, “All of this appeared dimly and vaguely; but, glory, with its allure, and death, with its menace, constituted the interest of that future” (12). Instead of realizing the potential hardships of living rustically and within a different culture, Olenin plays off the branded stereotypes and the mythic fantasies of the land. Olenin does not see the realities of the Cossacks, but the romanticized Taras Bulba like allure to the location.

 

Olenin then begins to have two different fantasies, one of adventure and one way more problematically of a Circassain maid. Olenin sexually fetishizes this woman imagining her as his “slave girl… with submissive eyes… covered in dust, blood and glory” (13). Olenin’s dream of his Circassain maid begins to illuminate the elitism and supremacy he feels towards the Cossack people. Not only does he fetishize her ruralness and imagine her as a savage (with reference to the blood) but further imagines her as someone who he can educate and in a way save, “In the longer winter evenings he began to educate her” (13). Olenin’s fetishized Cossack is not one of their original cultures, but one that he adapts and assimilates.

 

Olenin’s fantasy begins to tell us how Russian urbanites of the time viewed the Caucasus and their culture. Instead of viewing the realities of a less developed (I say this in the sense of infrastructural developed, not culturally) society, they exotified the culture for its seemingly organic rustic way-of-life. If I had more time, I would talk further about the stakes of Olenin fetishizing the Cossack people and specifically more analysis on the daydream of the Circassain maid.

On leaving Russia…

In these works, we see a transition in the way Russians perceive nature and their associations with it. Rather than nature as subsistence in the forest, an element to be combatted or a mother figure that both gives and takes, here the speakers and narrators remove themselves from Russia and find the kinder pastures elsewhere are more able to mirror their feelings and passions. But ever present in Russian works is the patriotism to the mother country, and this presents itself in the sadness that the narrators and speakers feel when separated from their country. In “Farewell to Russia,” this sadness of departing is tempered by the irritation of the speaker at the controlling state Russia has turned into. This distinction is clear as the speaker glories in his new freedom in Caucasus, “Far from slanderers and tsars, / Far from ever-spying eyes” (Lermontov, 76). While the speaker in this poem criticizes the government and the military (who support the government), he does not seem to criticize the land itself or the common peasant (unless they fit the category of “unwashed”—I personally took that to mean unclean in a moral way). Yet it is not until the speaker is exiled that he is able to find the peace equal to that in the skies above Caucasus.

Pushkin speaks of his love without naming its object. Yet given the speakers location in Georgia, in facing a foreign landscape, it is logical to connect his love not solely to a singular person, but rather his home of Russia. The river Aragva also acts to mirror the speaker’s emotions and is “murmurs” in an endless way, smoothing the river bed as the emotions wash over the speaker and slowly fade to an ever-present but almost unnoticeable susurrus. When the speaker laments, “For thus my heart must burn and love—because it’s true / That not to love—it knows no way,” his words are applicable to the love for which there is no tangible reason that most everyone feels for their home (Pushkin, 140). Yet this line also speaks to the oft felt love that follows the loss of that belatedly loved item. These poems and “Caucasus” are all moments when the speaker or narrator leaves his home and in travelling, finds that that which he has left behind holds an unexpected sway over the speaker/narrator.