Dovlatov

What does an emigrant bring with them? In Чемодан (The Suitcase) Sergei Dovlatov starts out by describing how he was allowed to take only one suitcase with him when he left the Soviet Union. The book goes on to describe several indicents from Dovlatov’s life in the Soviet Union before emigration, amusingly recounted, each one centring around the one of the items in the suitcase. He produces a vivid picture of 1970s Russia, and — particulalrly given relatively recent demostrations in Russia where large crowds have been protesting and shouting “Putin thief” — it seems that some things have not much changed.

Двести лет назад историк Карамзин побывал во Франции. Русские эмигранты спросили его:

— Что, в двух словах, происходит на родине?

Карамзину и двух слов не понадобилось.

— Воруют, — ответил Карамзин…

Действительно, воруют. И с каждым годом все размашистей.

Two hundred years ago, the historian Karamzin visited France. Russian emigrants asked him:

— What, in two words, is happening at home?

Karamzin didn't even need two words.

— Stealing, — he answered ...

Indeed, they steal. And every year it gets worse.

In Заповедник — translated somewhat surprisingly as Pushkin Hills — we get the typically cynical and ironic tone:

Ты добиваешься справедливости? Успокойся, этот фрукт здесь не растет.

Are you looking for justice? Settle down, that fruit doesn’t grow here. 

Of course everyone stealing in Russia is a cliché, but also we must acknowledge that clichés gain circulation through various means and Dovlatov is perhaps to some extent the voice of a generation. Russian drinking is of course another universal cliché, and there are plenty of references to it through Dovlatov’s books. 

Меня зачислили в бригаду камнерезов. Нас было трое. Бригадира звали Осип Лихачев. Его помощника и друга — Виктор Цыпин. Оба были мастерами своего дела и, разумеется, горькими пьяницами.

I was enrolled in the brigade of stone cutters. There were three of us. The foreman's name was Osip Likhachev. His assistant and friend was Viktor Tsypin. Both were masters of their craft and, of course, real drunks.

In Заповедник the protagonist remarks:

Знаете, я столько читал о вреде алкоголя! Решил навсегда бросить...читать. 

You know I’ve read so  much about the dangers of alcohol I decided to give up … reading.

The deterioration of the Soviet Union, the delapidation of the State, is a theme often implicit and sometimes explicit throughout his books:

Между делом я прочитал Лихоносова. Конечно, хороший писатель. Талантливый, яркий, пластичный. Живую речь воспроизводит замечательно. (Услышал бы Толстой подобный комплимент!). И тем не менее, в основе – безнадежное, унылое, назойливое чувство. Худосочный и нудный мотив: «Где ты, Русь?! Куда все подевалось?! Где частушки, рушники, кокошники?! Где хлебосольство, удаль и размах?! Где самовары, иконы, подвижники, юродивые?! Где стерлядь, карпы, мед, зернистая икра?! Где обыкновенные лошади, черт побери?! Где целомудренная стыдливость чувств?!..» Голову ломают:

«Где ты, Русь?! Куда девалась?! Кто тебя обезобразил?!»

Кто, кто… Известно, кто… И нечего тут голову ломать…

(I’ll follow mjuch of Katherine Dovlatov’s translation, including replacing the reference to the Rus’ with simply the word “Russia”)

In the meantime, I read Likhonosov. Of course, a good writer. Talented, bright, flexible. He reproduces live speech remarkably. (Tolstoy should get such a compliment!) And yet, at the core is a hopeless, dull, and nagging feeling. An exhasuted and tedious motif: “Where are you, Russia?! Where did it all go?! Where are the folk verses, embroidered towels, the fancy headdresses?! Where is hospitality, bravery and grand scale?! Where are the samovars, the icons, ascetics, and holy fools ?! Where is sturgeon and carp, the honey and caviar?! Where are the regular horses, damn it?! Where is chaste modesty of feeling?! .. ” They rack their brains:

“Where are you, Russia?! Where did you disappear?! Who ruined you?! "

Who, who ... Everybody knows who ... There is no need to rack your brain. 

The emigrant’s suitcase is naturally packed with clichés, with fragments of an abandoned life, with triggers for nostalgia. You bring your culture, moreover a snapshot of your culture at a particular point in time, with you when you relocate: the Chinese Imperial Dragons that have been used in Melbourne and Bendigo dated back to the 1800s, and I can’t help thinking that some of the intricacies of Polish grammar (for instance the first person plural verb forms that depend on the genders of the people the speaker is representing) have something to do with the banning of the language for some period when teaching had to effectively go ‘underground’. 

Like The Suitcase, his book The Compromise (Компромисс) also relies on the external scaffolding of a collection of things, this time short articles he had written during his time as a journalist. The Zone (Зона: Записки надзирателя) narrates incidents from his time as a prison guard, and Заповедник describes in a straightforwardly sequential manner a lightly fictionalized account of the author’s time working as a tour guide at the Mikhailovskoe, the Pushkin family estate.

All these books are suffused with a wry and ironic humour. The central character — either Dovlatov himself or a thinkly disuguised stand-in — is usually struggling to get by in the environemnt in which he finds himself. 

Жизнь расстилалась вокруг необозримым минным полем. Я находился в центре.

Life spread around like an endless minefield. I was at the centre.

Self-deprecation is his strong suit, often voiced via recollected conversations with his wife:

– Даже твоя любовь к словам, безумная, нездоровая, патологическая любовь, – фальшива. Это – лишь попытка оправдания жизни, которую ты ведешь. А ведешь ты образ жизни знаменитого литератора, не имея для этого самых минимальных предпосылок… С твоими пороками нужно быть как минимум Хемингуэем…

“Even your love of words, insane, unhealthy, pathological love, is false. This is just an attempt to justify the life that you lead. You lead the lifestyle of a famous writer, without having even the minimal prerequisites ... With your vices, you need to be at least a Hemingway ...

And:

Я говорил:

— Пушкин волочился за женщинами… Достоевский предавался азартным играм… Есенин кутил и дрался в ресторанах… Пороки были свойственны гениальным людям в такой же мере, как и добродетели…

— Значит, ты наполовину гений, – соглашалась моя жена, – ибо пороков у тебя достаточно…

I said:

“Pushkin chased after women ... Dostoevsky indulged in gambling ... Yesenin boozed and picked fights in restaurants ... Vices was just as common to men of genius as virtue …”

“Then you must be at least half a genius,” my wife would agree, “you’ve more than enough vices …”