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zur 5. tagung des jungen forums

slavistische literaturwissenschaft

in muenster, september 2002

anmerkungen

(1): Throughout this article, the term 'metaphor' is used rather than 'allegory', since the use of the image that we refer to is restricted to elements within literary texts; however, these texts as a whole should not be interpreted as symbolic representations of Russia as a beloved (cf. "Metapher und Symbol sind Binnenelemente literarischer Texte, die Allegorie dagegen ist auch eine Gattungsform", Kurz 1997: 5)

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(2): Thus Germann says, referring to Faina: "I do not remember her face" (Originalzitat) (Blok 1908b: 147); "So you are my bride? Open your face to me [...] I do not remember you." (Originalzitat) (Blok 1908b: 164). The motif of the invisible or covered face as a sign of the unattainability of the heroine as the metaphorical "Russia-beloved" for the hero is repeated throughout the play and in several of the poems in Родина as well (cf. Blok 1908c: 254-255, 268-270).

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(3): "Pobedonoscev [...] outlined Russia with a glorious circle, Looking her in the eyes With the glass gaze of a sorcerer; To the sound of the clever fairy-tale murmur It is not difficult for the beauty to fall asleep, And she grew cloudy, Having overslept her hopes, thoughts, passions..." (Originalzitat).

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(4): Cf. "You are still a bride" (Originalzitat) (Sologub 1915: 397); "have they raised you to be a bride...? [...] You homeless, street-walker, light-headed, God's fool in Christ, Rus'!" (Originalzitat) (Voloshin 1917: 92-3); "The silent Country is all in white, Like a bride, clothed in a gown" (Originalzitat) (Bal'mont 1913: 398); "I am ready to accept anything for only one [...] My wife! Russia!" (Originalzitat) (Bal'mont, 1924: 452). Other examples include Zinaida Gippius, who speaks of the earth in her poem Земле (To the Earth) as the Earth-Bride (Gippius 1905: 158); Andrej Belyj calls Russia a bride and a "Woman clothed with the sun" (Originalzitat) in the poem Христос Воскресе (Christ has Risen) (Belyj 1918: 441, 444)

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(5): In Voloshin's poem Россия, for instance, Russia is imagined as a female slave who is tied and beaten by her evil master ("having tied you by the legs, The master swipes Your gentle eyes" (Originalzitat) (Voloshin 1915: 85); in Святая Русьthe poet accuses Russia of having refused to be a bride-Carevna for the "sons of overseas princes" (Voloshin 1917: 92), and of being somebody who "gave herself to a robber and a thief" (Originalzitat), (Voloshin 1917: 93) as a result of which Russia is now "profaned, and poverty-stricken, and a slave of the last slave" (Originalzitat) (Voloshin 1917: 93); cf. also Русь глухонемая "you are possessed by a spirit, deaf-and-dumb Rus'! A demon [...] Throws you into fire and water [...] And here we appeal: "Come to us!" And the chosen one, far from the battles, Hammers the sword of his prayers with fastings And he will soon say: "Demon, leave!" (Originalzitat) (Voloshin 1918: 96).

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(6): Cf.: "[Dostoevsky] as it were saw before his eyes, how the masculine principle in the mysterious depth of folk life can isolate itself from Christ and how its feminine principle, the Russian Soul-Earth sighs and pines for its promised bridegroom, hero in Christ and god-carrier, finally making up his mind" (I thank Dr. Sander Brouwer for his translation) (Originalzitat) (Ivanov 1914: 510) .

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(7): The first situation occurs, for instance, in Turgenev's story Первая любовь (First Love) and in Dostoevskij's Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov); the situation in which a younger hero is confronted by the older husband or fiancée of his beloved can be found in several nineteenth-century Russian novels. Some famous examples include Евгений Онегин, Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) and, in the twentieth century, Bunin's story Ворон (The Raven) and Pasternak's Доктор Живаго (Doctor Zhivago).

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(8): In the eleventh and twelfth lecture, Solovjov opposes the Eastern and the Western Church as the embodiment of the divine versus the human principle, and claims that the new "godmanhood" should be born from their union. The East is in this context considered to be represented by Russia in particular; it is referred to as "Byzantium and the people that have accepted Byzantine culture headed by Russia" (Originalzitat) (Solovjov 1878: 167). Thus, the "godmanhood" was to be born from a union between Russia and the West. Such a union, Solovjov asserts, has a mystical meaning, which he explains in gender terms as a fertilization of the divine by the human principle: "the impregnation of the divine mother (the church) by the active human principle should articulate the deification of manhood." (Originalzitat) (Solovjov 1878: 169). In the history of Christianity, according to Solovjov, this marriage bond or fertilization can be formulated in terms of an impregnation of the divine element or of Sophia by the human ratio:"in the process of Christianity the basis, or substance, is nature, or the divine element (the Word, that has become flesh, or the body of Christ, Sophia), the active and forming principle is the human intellect, and their result is Godman" (Originalzitat) (Solovjov 1878: 169)

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(9): Variants of the metaphor - often through the prism of "Moscow as unattainable beloved", in which Moscow functions as the symbol of everything genuinely Russian - can also be found in Platonov's novel Счастливая Москва (Happy Moscow, 1936) and, in postmodern literature, in Mikhail Epshtejn's essay Русская красавица (Russian Beauty, 1977-88), the poem cycle Моя Россия (My Russia, 1990-1994) by Dmitrij Prigov, Pavel Peppershtejn’s story Яйцо (The Egg, 1983-1997), Pelevin's novel Жизнь насекомых (The Life of Insects, 1998), Viktor Erofeev's Энциклопедия русской души (Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul, 1999), Sorokin's essay Эрос Москвы (The Eros of Moscow, 2000), several poems of Timur Kibirov (f.i. Русская песня (Russian Song, 1989), and the cycle Upon Reading the Anthology “Россия-Russia” (По прочтении альманаха "Россия-Russia”, 2000), and Ol'ga Mukhina's play Ю (Yu, 1996), which was staged lately - autumn 2002 - at the MKhAT theatre in Moscow.

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