Philosophical Writer

Sixty-five years ago, on May 27, 1937, the writer Andrei Bitov was born in Leningrad. Widely considered one of the best Soviet writers of the 1960s, Bitov came to literature the hard way. A 1962 graduate of the Mining Institute, he worked for a time as drilling master in exploratory geological expeditions. Yet, by 1963, he had totally switched to literary work.

A first collection of stories, Big Balloon (1963), earned Bitov popular acclaim from readers and sharp criticism from official critics. Readers were as impressed as critics were distressed by Bitov’s truthful portrayal of Soviet reality. Thus, his next books of stories (Such a Long Childhood and Dacha District), were eagerly anticipated. Apothecary Island followed soon thereafter.

Arguably Bitov’s best work of fiction is Pushkin House. First published in the US in 1978, it had to wait until the era of glasnost to be published in Russia’s literary journal Novy Mir. Like much of Bitov’s work, Pushkin House is part story, part philosophical essay, in this case on the legacies of Stalinism, on severed ties with Russia’s literary past, on the future of literature.

In an interview a decade ago with Sally Laird, Bitov commented on a major theme in Pushkin House: “We’re very proud of our literature. But one can’t help reflecting on the enormous gap between our culture—which is built first and foremost on literature—and our actual standard of life. We’re not yet civilized. Our history has consisted of a series of tragic changes; we’ve constantly shot off in different directions, always on the brink of civilization but never quite reaching it. And it occurred to me that maybe there’s been some kind of spiritual mistake. Our literature has been the result of this mistake. It’s sacrilege to say so—but maybe our literature has been too good. If our culture had developed more slowly…”

In 1989, Bitov earned three prizes for Pushkin House, the Andrei Bely Prize in Russia, the prize for Best Foreign Book in France and the Pushkin Prize in West Germany. Bitov’s latest work, The Empire in Four Dimensions, was published under his own plan, text and layout. Bitov travels frequently to lecture on Russian literature in the US.