Tales of Old Odessa
Roshanna P. Sylvester (Northern Illinois: $38)
Russia in a Box
Andrew L. Jenks (Northern Illinois: $38)
It has been a recent publishing trend to bring out books on “micro-themes,” with single-word titles like Cod, Chocolate, Salt, Help, Coffee and Water. The micro-themes serve as a focal point for a ride through history, examining whatever cod or salt or coffee has touched.
In a similar vein, we have two new, micro-themed histories of Russian places. Their focus on important localities (Odessa and Palekh) serves as a parabolic mirror illuminating all of Russian society. And, while both studies appear to be Ph.D dissertations turned into a first book, neither suffer from esotericus academica. Far from it.
Odessa had several nicknames at the turn of the last century: Russian Eldorado, Little Paris, City of Thieves. Despite the fact that the southern port city was a vibrant metropolis and rich trading center, the lattermost moniker had the greatest sticking power; over time it proved to be most true.
Old Odessa (the book’s focus is 1912-1914) was a tolerant, fresh, warm, funny, optimistic and very Jewish city. As such, it stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the Russian empire, which was largely reactionary, pessimistic and anti-Semitic. Sylvester bases her history mainly on newspaper accounts of the era, and so her account is spiced with fascinating stories of audacious robberies, the massively obese Foss the Wrestler (who charged people to watch him eat), scenes from plays, a salacious domestic scandal, and Iambo the elephant – a real-life tragedy rich in allegory of the city’s political and social life. And she writes beautifully:
Odessa was a volatile modern metropolis, a coquette in open flirtation with the West, sophisticated yet untamed, lively and exciting but dangerous. Catherine’s city had little in common with gray-bearded Moscow – an overgrown village struggling to break the bonds of peasant tradition – or with tense, conflicted St. Petersburg – a city caught in the throes of an identity crisis. Odessa had different interests, different expectations, different aspirations.
Of course, things could not stay this way. The city had grown fat and happy off its privileged position as late Imperial Russia’s main southern port. But when the government, fearful of Odessa’s liberalism, decided to send most of its exports through another port, Odessa had to reinvent itself as a vacation mecca – this is a tale of transformation.
Reinvention is at the heart of Palekh’s story as well. After the revolution, this village of peasant icon artists had to change or die, literally. For just as the poet in Russia is “much more than a poet,” so too the artist. Russians have long used art and literature to debate what Russia and being Russian means. Which means art takes on significance for the State. And so there could be little place for icon painters in an atheistic Soviet state.
Beginning in 1923, enterprising and clever artists transformed their work into Soviet folk art, taking what they learned from decades of Orthodox icon painting and applying it to Russian folk themes. What is more, they created a market for their goods amongst foreign clientele, helping bring in much-valued foreign currency to the struggling Soviet State. Surviving the rocky early years of Socialist Realism’s introduction, Palekh was on the verge of assimilation or destruction when WWII intervened; it was saved by a state-sanctioned revival of Orthodox traditions and revitalization of Russian folk and historical legends.
For the 50 years after WWII, the town’s struggle for artistic independence went through various transformations indicative of Russian society as a whole (grandiose Sovietization, romanticism for village life, detente, perestroika). Jenks relates it all (as well as the fascinating pre-revolutionary period, describing how Palekh rose as the main center of icon production) with a gift for storytelling that is clearly informed by an intimate knowledge of the personal stories and struggles of the artists.
Russian Conservatism
and Its Critics
Richard Pipes (Yale: $30)
In the current climate of international “concern” over “anti-democratic” trends in Russia, this is a very topical read. Tracing back to the foundations of Russia’s paternalistic, autocratic state, Pipes sets out a concise and thorough treatise that offers plenty of food for thought on contemporary events.
Noticeably absent in this volume, however, are any reflections of that sort. Pipes only seeks to recount the history, without reference to current affairs or even to the Bolshevik Revolution – an event he has spent his career writing about, and which he has perhaps most aptly summarized as “the unfolding of a tragedy in which events follow with inexorable force from the mentality and character of the protagonists.”
In any event, throughout his career, Pipes too has long made the case that Russia has never been fertile ground for democracy, that the Bolshevik Revolution succeeded not just because of the personalities involved, but also because, when the autocracy evaporated, there was no legitimate political authority to uphold civil society. By necessity, the spoils fell to those with the best organized military forces, which turned out to be the Bolsheviks.
Pre-revolutionary Russia, Pipes asserts, developed into an autocracy like no other because Russia had no nobility independent of the tsar, no private property, no feudalism, and no independent Church (what is more, it was one that counseled “humility and submissive acceptance of all that God has seen fit to visit on mankind”). There was only one Estate, and it was the Tsar. Everything existed to support this and nothing could exist without its approval. As Pipes writes, “the six hundred accounts left by European travelers of their experiences in Muscovy agree that they had never known a monarchy that enjoyed such extreme powers.” The Vertical of Power, indeed.
While Peter I’s import of western ideas and inventions did bring in some liberal political theory, the seeds fell on parched ground. Society was weak and dissolute; there was no ownership class, only competing clans or groups – in fact, the State owned most everything; the nobility were beholden to the State and the peasants wanted a strong tsar to protect them against their masters.
And so the conservative ideology developed and flourished in Russia, with theorists (like Ivan Kireyevsky, see page 21) arguing that Russia, because of its history, its soul, its geography, was entirely unique. Sure, constitutional monarchy might be fine Over There, but here in Russia, Autocracy and a Strong State is the only answer. In fact, any attempt to reform the Strong State, the conservative theorists argued, would lead Russia into civil war and/or disintegration.
That this was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy is unquestionable. But so to is the fact that the prophecy came true in 1917. And perhaps once again in 1991. Which, for some contemporary observers, might go a long way toward explaining the Kremlin’s current affection for the Vertical of Power.
BRIEFLY NOTED
The Prussian Bride, by Yuri Bulda (Dedalus Books • $17.99) Born and raised in a made-up region of Russia (Kaliningrad), Bulda perhaps could not but write phastasmogorical fiction. The stories in this volume are dense with outrageous characters, vivid realities and haunting impressions of imagined worlds. This is Bulda’s second book translated into English (by Oliver Ready, who won the 2005 Rossica Russian to English Translation Prize for this work; for more information about this prize, visit www.academia-rossica.com), and his second to be short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize. It also received Russia’s Apollon Grigoriev Prize.
Life&Times Series:
Dostoyevsky, Prokofiev, Rakhmaninov, Shostakovich, Trotsky (Haus Publishing • $15.95 each). For times when a Russian Life biography is not enough, and a bookshelf-sagging tome is too much, these new pocketbook bios by Haus Publishing offer a “third way.” Written by British authors, each has good biographical detail, reasonable depth in presenting trends in society, and useful lists of further reading. A real plus are the timelines in each book, which pair up events in the individual’s life with events taking place elsewhere in the world. Photos and illustrations are also quite well chosen. Some may dispute the publisher’s selection of Russian luminaries, based on their goal, to publish “the stories of those people who have shaped our lives, set within the context of their time, culture and influences.” After all, why Dostoyevsky before Pushkin, why Trotsky before Lenin, and what about Tchaikovsky? But that would be quibbling.
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