Chekhov's Gun

The other night one of our guests said she was torn over Russian literature and culture these days.  Should she read Dostoyevsky?  Is it OK to listen to Tchaikovsky?  She threw it out more as a question in general.  Over the past year, Ukrainian officials have been urging persons to turn away from Russian culture as it is used as a means of propaganda.  Certainly one can argue as I did in a post 9 years ago at the time of the Euromaiden protests that the notion of a "Greater Russia" has long been promulgated in Russian culture and is still very much alive and well, but does that mean I turn my back on Russian culture?

I have lost interest in certain writers like Dostoyevsky who was an ardent Pan-Slavist but I like to think that if Chekhov was alive today he would be very much against this war in Ukraine and critical of the Russian government.  

Russia has been exposing its metaphorical and literal gun since it invaded Georgia in 2008, but we looked the other way until it became ever more clear Putin had greater territorial ambitions than simply "liberating" Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  The situation has played out like a multi-act play with the world more or less passive until Russia finally made a grave miscalculation in Ukraine.  It seemed that the international community was tacitly willing to "give" Crimea back to Russia, even if they didn't recognize the annexation.  However, the massive physical assault we saw last February brought UN condemnation and international military support for Ukraine.

Since then we have seen a backlash to everything Russian much to the chagrin of those who have long been cultural Russophiles.  How can one discount all those great works of the past?  Yet, most if not all of those great works are intrinsically tied to Russia's imperial past. Even Chekhov, although he chose to chronicle its aristocratic decay in the late 19th century.  Yet, we still see a wide range of productions worldwide largely because this culture has long been appropriated by others and adapted to suit different tastes.  One of my favorites is Vanya of 42nd Street.

This got us talking about all the books and plays we have enjoyed.  Daina brought up Sergei Dovlatov, who had emigrated to New York to join other Russian expats like Brodsky in the waning years of the Soviet Union.  He felt stranded and began writing short stories and novels like The Suitcase which captured his misery in all its subtle irony.  A favorite of mine as well.  Indeed, there is something special about Russian literature that seems so uniquely its own, whether historic or contemporary.

Yet, here we are nearly two years into a war all because Putin couldn't put the gun away.  Not content with having acquired Crimea and building a bridge to it, he wanted to secure the entire coastline.  I guess he figured he could hem Ukraine in and take it at his leisure or leave it to his successors to finish the partitions, much like Peter and Catherine did in the 18th century.  Only problem is he forgot to consider the steely resolve of Ukrainians who have long fought against Russian dominance.  

This not only showed a poor sense of history but of culture as well, as "Russian" literature is not Pan-Slavic but rather Poly-Slavic.  What we consider to be great Russian writers hail from different parts of the empire, each providing their unique interpretations of what they saw at the time.  Some were ardent nationalists like Dostoyevsky but others deeply questioned the state like Chekhov.  He even traveled to the notorious Sakhalin Island in the 1890s and wrote extensively of the situation there.  He urged penal reforms in his own quiet way, either avoiding censorship or simply providing an objective account.  

After a brief flirtation with democratic reforms, Russia collapsed in the early 20th century and the Soviet Union was born.  It held much promise in the early going, especially among Jewish writers who had long been subjected to Russian antisemitism.  Yuri Slezkine wrote extensively about this in The Jewish Century and how USSR quickly fell into the same form of oppression under Stalin.  Many Russian writers chose to leave.  Among them Ivan Bunin, whom Nabokov gave a marvelous account of in Paris, which I related to our guests.  He dressed and comported himself with the inseparable elegance of his literature.  An early role model as Bunin refused to serve the state either at home or abroad.

Oddly enough Pushkin didn't come up in our discussion.  A universal favorite, yet also an ardent nationalist.  However, one can only cringe at the way he is used today in Russian propaganda.  Tatyana Tolstaya probably does better than anyone in describing how Russian culture is bent to serve state purposes in Pushkin's Children, foreshadowing the rise of Putin in the early 2000s.  Yet, Pushkin's poetry endures largely because it speaks to something greater than the "Russian soul."

Still, I don't find myself with much interest in Russian literature these days beyond the Strugatsky Brothers, largely because I love their science fiction.  I can read Roadside Picnic over and over again because of their irony and wit.  Recently, I picked up One Billion Years Until the End of the World.

Maybe it is time to return if for no other reason than to gain a better understanding of how we got to this point in time where Russia has become the pariah of the Western World.  So much so that many Russians feel compelled to hide their national identity while living or traveling abroad.  Anyway, there is nothing to be ashamed of.  It is great literature and culture although best to keep the gun in the cabinet.