Russian writers of pre-revolutionary epoch
Analysis of the stories of Russian writers who lived during the turbulent period between 1894–1917 years. Biographical data, themes of creativity and the basis of literary works of Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Mark Vishniak and Konstantin Paustovskii.
| Рубрика | Литература |
| Вид | реферат |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 15.09.2017 |
| Размер файла | 48,4 K |
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Ministry of Agriculture of Russian Federation
The Department of Scientific and Technological Policy and Education
FSEI HPE “Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University”
Report
“Russian writers of pre-revolutionary epoch”
Krasnoyarsk 2010
Content
literary writer story turbulent
1. Introduction
2. Body of the paper
2.1 Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev
2.2 Mark Vishniak
2.3 Konstantin Paustovskii
Conclusion
References
Annotation
1. Introduction
I am a post-graduate student. My specialty is Russian history; therefore I research political, economic, social and cultural life of my native country. I have read a lot of Russian and foreign books about Russian history. Russia at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries is of great interest to me. It is so called pre-revolutionary epoch, the epoch of great changes in political system and social life of the country, that left traces on Russian culture, had an effect on music, art, and literature. That is why in this report I would like to research the life of real people before the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The report includes the stories of Russian writers who lived during the turbulent period between 1894 - 1917, people from diverse backgrounds, a broad geographic spectrum, and various educational and socioeconomic levels. They speak of events which endure in their memory. Often it is of universal human experience, the consciousness of self in the face of inevitable death. It is at such times that anguish, transformed by intelligence into recollection, loses its power to injure their hearts.
2. Body of the paper
2.1 Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev
Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev was born in 1902 to a family of the nobility and gentry. The family lived on its estate, a productive grain and dairy farm near Viaz'ma, a city of 30,000 east of Smolensk. Young Nikolai was tutored in French and English and had in-laws who were members of the English upper classes. His ability to combine family and personal narrative with the tumultuous historical background is keenly apparent. He writes with pithiness and clarity. The evocation of life whether in the city or on the country estate carries the stamp of unforced authenticity. Rarely in memoir literature do we see a description of a city, Viaz'ma in this case, done so affectionately and informatively. Pahomov G., Lupinin N. The Russian century: a hundred years of Russian lives. Lanham, 2008. P.64
Viaz'ma had a population of 35,000. It was the center of the linen industry and had three leather and two match factories. The streets were cobblestoned and only the rich merchants paved in front of their homes with other materials, be it asphalt or wooden blocks. The Viaz'ma merchants were exceptional. Nowhere in Russia, I believe, was there such a congregation of old merchant families. In 1478 Ivan III conquered Novgorod, but the Novgorodians did not calm down. There were many other campaigns under Vasilii III and Ivan the Terrible. After one of these campaigns, the Muscovites decided that Novgorod would never be pacified while the old merchant class remained there. So they dispatched the merchants to Viaz'ma. It was enough to look at a list of Viaz'ma merchants to recall ancient Novgorod - Stroganov, Kalashnikov, Liutov, Sinel'nikov, Ershov, Kolesnikov, El'chaninov, etc. These families did not sit long in Viaz'ma with their hands folded. They became rich anew trading in linen and leather with the Hansa cities.
The leather factories stretched out one after the other on a bend of the Viaz'ma River. They stank horribly but people were used to it and seemed not to notice. From the river one could see huge piles of sandal shavings that looked like red pyramids.
Beyond the Smolensk gate stood two match factories, the El'chaninov and the Sinel'nikov. They were very different. The El'chaninov plant was in the “latest style.” It was rebuilt several years before the war and looked like a huge glass greenhouse. All the machinery was new with half being automated. Inside one heard the quiet hum of electric motors, central heating was everywhere, and the workers wore white coats as in a hospital. Around the factory was a new settlement for workers with small individual houses set in gardens. Nearby, the Sinel'nikov match factory looked like a barracks. Assorted lumber and odd carts were sloppily strewn about. Everything was untidy. The workers lived in the city in no set location.
The El'chaninov matches were packaged in elegant raspberry colored boxes, 2 x 2 inches and less than half-an-inch thick. “El'chaninov Factory. 48 Matches” was stamped on them. The Sinel'nikov matches came in the simplest boxes. Incomprehensibly, Sinel'nikov workers were very proud of their factory, did not complain of their fate; management was always friendly. But El'chaninov's workers were always whining.
The linen and leather merchants were very rich. Their presence was very beneficial for the town. The merchants competed against each other as to who would excel in charity. Mikhail Ivanovich Liutov built one of the finest hospitals in Russia, Stroganov built schools, and Sinel'nikov equipped the fire department. When my mother undertook the creation of the Viaz'ma library, all the merchants wanted to build it so it would carry their name. Only after having purchased the land, and with great difficulty, was my mother able to convince the merchants to build the library jointly and to stock it. The merchants of Viaz'ma were not only rich but generous, a type of people common in Russia.
The Liutov hospital stood between the city and the railroad station. Liutov hired a superb architect for it and obtained the newest medical equipment from Switzerland. The wards and operating rooms had rounded corners so that dust would not collect there. He brought in Italian experts for the special floors. The walls were tiled. Needless to say, Liutov procured the best doctors and nurses.
In the market square there was a one-story building called the “Trading Row.” This was an arcade with a covered passageway and shops in the interior. All kinds of merchants and storekeepers had businesses there. All of these merchants were either manufacturers or curriers, but they sat in their shops daily even though they had nothing to do with linen or leather. They sold necessities. The stores had boots, axes, scythes, harnesses, matting, hammers, nails, tar. There were barrels of herring, pickles, and all kinds of other things.
The Viaz'ma merchants always wore dark blue homespun coats, similar wide trousers, boots, and peaked caps. They wore silk braided belts. And if the light, tight coat was unfastened, the whitest of white shirts could be seen underneath.
As in other cities, there were artels in Viaz'ma. I don't know when they started in Russia. These were voluntary associations of 30-40 people, though sometimes over 50. The smaller artels had about twelve men. There were construction artels, leather-working artels, and specialized ones. They built bridges, roads, did all forms of mechanical work, and excelled in shipbuilding. They had incredibly strict rules regarding honesty and professional knowledge of their craft. Everyone knew that if an artel took the job everything would be done as contracted. My father said that the artel was the most remarkable organization in Russia, and that an artel member was synonymous with honesty and irreproachability. No one ever worried that the artel people would cheat them. The majority of the artel men were from the peasantry, honest and smart.
Viaz'ma was outside the pale of settlement, but there were many Jews. I do not know precisely what allowed Jews to live outside the pale at that time, but I think that if any Jew had a profession he could live anywhere. In Viaz'ma, for example, all three pharmacists, all six dentists, I do not know how many doctors, the oculists, public notaries, and many storeowners, almost all the bankers, tailors, and shoemakers were Jews. There were about 2,000 Jews in Viaz'ma. Out of thirty boys in my class, eight were Jews and seven of them sat in the front row because they were good students.
There were many educational institutions in Viaz'ma: the First Alexander III men's gimnazium, the first women's gimnazium standing opposite, the second women's at the corner of Moskovskaia, the “realschule,” the technical school, the first and second city schools, and several common schools. I have already noted that my mother always wanted to establish a university in Viaz'ma but the war came along. Волков-Муромцев Н.В. Юность: от Вязьмы до Феодосии. Париж, 1983. С.50-68
2.2 Mark Vishniak
Mark Vishniak, who was trained in government law, was one of numerous highly educated Russians who joined the opposition to the monarchy. The events of 1905 pushed him into the camp of the Social Revolutionaries, an affiliation he was to maintain. However, his opposition to the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution of 1917 ultimately forced him into exile. As part of the Russian diaspora in Paris, where he arrived in 1919, Vishniak became a publicist and writer, helping to found and edit one of the more prominent journals there, the Sovremennye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). He authored a number of books, including a study of Lenin. Pahomov G., Lupinin N. The Russian century: a hundred years of Russian lives. Lanham, 2008. P.95
I cannot determine precisely what made the problem of personal guilt and responsibility primary in my consciousness. I was interested in this question for a long while. All the philosophers, legal philosophers, and criminologists with whom I became acquainted touched on this issue. The social side and the sociological school in criminal law and external conditions, wherein responsibility was not an issue, interested me less. But imputation and responsibility, guilt and misfortune were internally linked with morality and law as well as a human's biology and psychopathology. My attention was drawn to what, in pre-Freudian times, was referred to as moral insanity, i.e., the inability to distinguish right from wrong and resist amoral action. This was irrespective of whether one was conscious or not of the amorality of the deeds. A practical conclusion derives from this: philosophical speculation and jurisprudence were not enough to solve this basic problem. It was also necessary to know the nature of man, be it healthy or ill. But in order to “master” psychopathology, it was essential to take a course in medicine.
My legal studies did not take up much time or effort and I came up with the idea of combining jurisprudence with the simultaneous study of medicine in order to save time. But such a circumstance had been anticipated by the administration. The university office to which I went for the required paperwork explained that to be concurrently registered in two academic divisions was impermissible. The only solution was to continue the study of law in Moscow, and medicine - abroad. A romantic affair that had already commenced with my cousin Mania, my future wife, helped me to arrive at that decision. She had also chosen medicine as her field of education. She had no chance of entry into a Russian medical school without a medal [of academic excellence] and decided to go to Heidelberg. In three months, with my help, she was prepared for a supplemental exam in Latin. This was accomplished in approximately the same rapid-fire fashion that was used during World War II in the
United States to train officers of the army and navy in Russian, Chinese, Malaysian and other languages.
Despite qualms, my parents nevertheless agreed to send me abroad and finance my trip. I was given only one mandatory condition: the university in which I was to enroll could not be the same one in which my cousin was to study. “Draper-Spencer” instilled the belief that marriages between close relatives did not lead to any good. And mother had good reason to fear that the event, which she definitely did not wish for me, might occur. I accepted the condition without hesitation, aware that the other university could well be close to mine. Let my cousin go to Heidelberg; I would go to Freiburg, only a three-hour ride away.
In the autumn of 1903, while still a third-year student in law school in Moscow, I left for Freiburg, in Baden, to study medicine. We left together with my cousin and my friend Boris Lunts, the son of a Moscow doctor to whom my family went in the event of a serious illness. I parted with my friends in Heidelberg, not without sorrow and sadness, and continued on the same train to Freiburg. It was not difficult to find a room and get set up - the charming town lived off its university and students. I set off for the post office to register my address in case I should get letters for general delivery. The clerk immediately gave me a telegram that was already waiting. It was from Heidelberg: my cousin informed me that she was leaving for Freiburg. I was amazed, happy, and saddened. It was unclear as to what had happened. The forthcoming meeting was gladdening while the cognizance of a broken promise was troubling.
The matter was a simple one. Heidelberg's medical school felt itself to be overburdened with female students and rejected the new entrants. My cousin had no choice other than to come to Freiburg, at least for mutual consultation as to what to do. Ultimately, it was not difficult to convince myself that a promise made under a set of totally different conditions cannot be considered binding. I kept my word honorably, but external circumstances proved stronger than I. I did not yet know the multi-leveled excuse of “rebus six stantibus” [given the current circumstances]. But I was already familiar with “force majeure,” and that it was imperative to distinguish between “form” and “content” or essence.
It was much harder to convince my parents, to make them understand and believe everything had happened in precisely this way, that it was not the result of a plan worked out in advance. Вишняк М.В. Дань прошлому. Нью-Йорк, 1954. С.76-124
2.3 Konstantin Paustovskii
Largely forgotten now, Konstantin Paustovskii (1892-1968) was a talented writer whose works began to appear in print in the 1920's. His writing frequently expressed a lyricism not often seen in literature of the Soviet period. Steeped in the inheritance of Chekhov and especially Turgenev, Paustovskii wrote in the high style of Russian literature well into the 20th century. Pahomov G., Lupinin N. The Russian century: a hundred years of Russian lives. Lanham, 2008. P.103
The final examinations began at the end of May and dragged on for a whole month. All the grades had already been dismissed for the summer vacation. We were the only ones who came to the empty, chilly gimnazium, which seemed to be resting from its winter commotion. The noise of our steps resounded through all the floors.
In the auditorium, where the exams were taking place, the windows were wide open. Dandelion seeds floated around the hall in the sunlight like white, twinkling lights.
It was customary to come to the exams in uniform. The stiff collar of the tunic with its silver braid chafed our necks. We would sit in the garden under the chestnut trees with unbuttoned tunics and wait our turn.
We were afraid of the exams. And we were sad about leaving the gimnazium. We had grown accustomed to it. The future appeared dim and difficult before us, mostly because we would lose each other irrevocably. Our loyal, cheerful school family would break up.
Before the exams we held a meeting in the garden. All the boys of our class were invited except for the Jewish boys. They were not supposed to know anything about it.
It was decided at the meeting that the best pupils from among the Russians and the Poles should get a `B' in at least one subject on the exams, so as not to get gold medals. We had decided to give up all the gold medals to the Jews. Without these medals they would not be accepted into the university.
We swore to keep this decision a secret. To the honor of our class, we didn't spill the secret either then or later, when we already were university students. Now I am breaking that vow, because hardly any of my school comrades are still among the living. Most of them perished during the great wars which my generation experienced. Only a few have survived.
Then there was a second meeting. We agreed on who was to help several of the girls from the Mariinskii Girls' Gimnazium write their essays. I don't know why, but they were to take the written exam on the History of Russian Literature along with us.
The negotiations with the schoolgirls were conducted by Stanishevskii. He had brought a list of the girls who were in need of help. There were six names on the list. I was assigned to help a schoolgirl named Bogushevich. I didn't know her and had never seen her.
We wrote the essays in the auditorium. Each one sat at a separate little table, the boys on the left and the girls on the right. The proctors paced along the wide aisle between the girls and us. They watched to make sure that we didn't pass notes, blotters, or other suspicious objects to each other.
All six of the girls on Stanishevskii's list had taken seats near the aisle. I was trying to guess which one of them was Bogushevich. The surname `Bogushevich' brought to mind an image of a plump Ukrainian girl. One of the girls was plump, with thick braids. I decided that this was Bogushevich.
The director entered. We stood up. The director unsealed a thick envelope with a crackle, pulled out a sheet with the theme of the essay sent from the district school board, took a piece of chalk, and carefully wrote on the board: `True enlightenment unites moral development with intellectual development.' An anxious moan passed through the hall - it was a ghastly topic.
I had no time to lose. I immediately began to write an outline of the essay for Bogushevich on a narrow strip of paper.
During the senior-year exams we were allowed to smoke. To do this we would ask permission and, one by one, to go to the smoking room at the end of the corridor. There the decrepit watchman Kazimir was on duty - the same one who had once brought me here to the preparatory classes.
On the way to the smoker I rolled the outline up into a thin tube and stuck it into my cigarette holder. I smoked the cigarette and laid the cardboard holder on the windowsill, in the place we'd agreed on. Kazimir noticed nothing. He was sitting on a chair and chewing a sandwich.
My job was finished. After me, Littauer went off to the smoker. He flipped his cigarette butt containing an outline on the windowsill, got the crib-sheet out of mine, and, returning to his place by way of the aisle, tossed it on Bogushevich's desk. After Littauer, Stanishevskii, Regamй, and two other boys pulled the same trick. Their work required adroitness and an accurate eye.
I had already begun to write my own essay when Littauer returned to the hall. I followed him with my eyes. I wanted to watch how, and to whom, he would toss my crib-sheet. But he did it so quickly that I didn't notice a thing. Only by the fact that one of the girls began to write spasmodically did I understand that the deed was done and Bogushevich was saved.
But it wasn't the girl with the thick braids who began to write; it was a completely different one. I could see only her thin back, crisscrossed by the straps of her white, dress apron and the reddish curls on her neck.
Four hours were allowed for the essay. Most of us finished it sooner. Only the girls still sat suffering at their desks. Паустовский К.Г. Повесть о жизни. М., 1962. С.210-218
Conclusion
Having researched the history and culture of Russia in the period of great ferment (1894 - 1917), I would like to draw the following conclusions.
First of all, Russia was a witness to a stunning cultural explosion, the fabled Silver Age. There are identifiable and innovative movements in literature, both poetry and prose, for instance, Symbolism and Acmeism. They were represented by such outstanding writers and poets as Akhmatova, Pasternak, Mandelstam, Bely, Sologub, Gumilev, Tsvetaeva, Blok, Mayakovsky.
Furthermore, music continues to excel in such major figures such as Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, as well as the recrudescence of church choral music.
Moreover, Russian ballet was a sensation in Europe with Nijinsky in productions by Diaghilev. And Russian art, whether that of painting or theater set design, was truly avant-garde. Vrubel, Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagall, and Goncharova, to name just a few, barely need introduction.
Thus, Russian culture had a great influence on the twentieth century world. Russian music, dance, theatre, art, and literature have shaped contemporary life in significant ways. But this influence also had a dark side. The Russian version of communism was a virulent ideology during a major part of the twentieth century, its global impact so profound that it has rightly become the source of countless studies and extensive documentation. While this focus on Russian communism is invaluable and completely justified, it too often overshadows the many other aspects of Russian life. There is still an unknown Russia, a Russia comprised of private lives as opposed to public history.
References
1. Вишняк, М.В. Дань прошлому / М.В. Вишняк. Нью-Йорк: издательство имени Чехова, 1954. 208 с.
2. Волков-Муромцев, Н.В. Юность: от Вязьмы до Феодосии / Н.В. Волков-Муромцев. Париж: издательство Молодежной Христианской Организации, 1983. 426 с.
3. Паустовский, К.Г. Повесть о жизни / К.Г. Паустовский. М.: Высшая школа, 1962. 350 с.
4. Pahomov, G., Lupinin, N. The Russian century: a hundred years of Russian lives / G. Pahomov, N. Lupinin. Lanham: University press of America, 2008. 329 p.
5. The Russian History: Military and Politics http://www.russian_history.com.
Annotation
The report includes short abstracts from the memoirs of famous Russian writers, such as Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Mark Vishniak and Konstantin Paustovskii. Descriptions of their lives reflect the main historical events in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
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