"I'm afraid", an essay by Jevgeni Zamjatin from 1921
I'm afraid that we keep too closely what we inherited from the royal palaces. Let's take the gilded chairs - yes, of course, they must be preserved: they are so graceful, they gently accept the body of anyone who settles into them. And perhaps it is true that court poets resemble those wonderful gilded chairs in their grace and tenderness. But isn't it a mistake to guard the institution of court poets with the same care as we guard gilded chairs? After all, only the palaces remained; the court is no more.
I am afraid that we are too gentle, and that the French Revolution was more ruthless in destroying everything that had to do with the court. On the eleventh of Messidor (the tenth month in the French revolutionary calendar cf. prev.) in 1794, Peacock, the president of the Commission for Public Education, issued a decree which, among other things, stated the following:
"We have a handful of skilled authors, who constantly keep an eye on the latest trend; they know the fashion and color of a particular season; they know when it's time to put on the red hat and when to take it off... The result is that they only spoil and degrade art. True genius creates thoughtfully and embodies his ideas in bronze, while mediocrity, hiding under the cloak of freedom, grabs for a fleeting triumph in its own name and picks the flowers of fleeting success.”
With this despicable decree, the French Revolution guillotined the masked court poets. And we offer the works of these "resourceful authors, who know when to put on the red hat and when to take it off", when to sing praises to the emperor, and when to use the hammer and sickle - we offer them to the people as literature worthy of the revolution. And the literary centaurs run, kicking and trampling each other, in the race for the magnificent prize - the monopoly of writing odes, the monopoly of the chivalrous calling of slandering intelligence. I'm afraid Pajon was right - it only spoils and degrades art. And I fear that if this continues, the entire recent period in Russian literature will be known in history as the age of the resourceful, because those who are not resourceful have been silent for two years.
And what did those who did not keep silent contribute to literature?
The most skilled of all were the futurists. They declared themselves a court school without hesitation. And for a year we only listened to their yellow, green and raspberry-red victory shouts. However, the combination of the red sunkilot cap with the yellow blouse and the still visible blue flower on the cheek was too sacrilegious even for those with the least expectations. Futurists were politely kicked out the door by those in whose name these self-proclaimed heralds galloped. Futurism is gone. And as before, a lighthouse rises in the middle of a flat futuristic sea - Mayakovsky. Because he is not resourceful. He sang to the revolution while others, sitting in Petrograd, fired their long-range verses at Berlin. But even this magnificent beacon still burns on the old reserves of his Ja i Just like moaning (the names of Vladimir Mayakovsky's first collections of poetry, cf. prev). In "Heroes and Victims of the Revolution", in "Bublik" and the poem about a peasant woman i Vrangelu, it is no longer the same Mayakovsky, Edison, a pioneer who blazed through the jungle every step of the way. He came out of the jungle on a well-trodden path; devoted himself to perfecting official themes and rhythms. But why not? Edison also perfected it Belov invention.
The "Equestrianism" of the Moscow imagists is all too obviously burdened by the iron shadow of Mayakovsky. No matter how hard they try to stink and shout, they will not surpass Mayakovsky in this. Imaginary America, unfortunately, was discovered a long time ago. Back in the day Serafina, the one who considered himself the greatest poet wrote: "If I were not afraid to disturb the air of your modesty with a golden cloud of honor, I could not refrain from adorning the windows of the edifice of fame with the bright garments with which the hands praise the backbone of the names that belong to superior beings." (from the letter Peter Aretina to the Duchess of Urbino). "Hands of praise", "backbone of the name" - isn't that imaginism? An excellent and penetrating tool - the image - has become an end in itself; the cart is pulled by a horse.
Proletarian writers and poets diligently try to be aviators on a locomotive. The locomotive lets off steam honestly and eagerly, but it doesn't look like it's going to soar into the sky. With few exceptions, all practitioners of proletarian culture have the most revolutionary content and the most reactionary form. Proletkult art represents, for now, a step back, towards the sixties of the XIX century. And I am afraid that the airplanes from the ranks of the resourceful will always overtake the honest locomotives and, "hiding under the cloak of freedom", will snatch a fleeting triumph in their name.
Fortunately, the masses have a keener sense of smell than they are given credit for. Therefore, the triumph of the resourceful is only momentary. So it was with the fleeting triumph of the futurists, and an equally fleeting triumph The key, after his patriotic verses about the insidious Wilhelm and his enthusiasm for "resistance in decrees" and the machine gun (divine rhyme: machine guns and honey!). And even this brief measure of success was clearly denied Gorodeckom: he was received coldly at the dinner in the Duma, and less than ten people attended his own dinner in the House of Arts.
And the resourceless are silent. Blocks the poem "Twelve" resonated two years ago - and after the last, twelfth beat, Blok fell silent. Barely noticed, the "Scythians" sped away a long time ago, down dark streets without trams. Last year Notes of a dreamer (a series of anthologies of the symbolist group, published by the publishing house Alkonost from 1919 to 1922), published by Alkonost, are only a pale, lonely reflection in yesterday's darkness. And we hear in them Andrej Belog as he complains:
"The conditions under which we live are tearing us to pieces. A writer often falls under the burden of work that is foreign to him. For months, he doesn't have a chance to focus and finish an unfinished sentence. Often lately, the author has wondered if anyone needs them - that is, if anyone needs them Petrograd or Silver dove (novels by Andrej Belog, cf. translated). Maybe he is only needed as a teacher of 'poetry science'? If so, he would immediately lay down his pen and try to find a job as a street sweeper, rather than dishonor his soul with the surrogates of literary activity."
Yes, that is one of the reasons for the silence of real literature. A writer who cannot be skilled must walk to the office with a bag if he is to survive. In this time of ours, Gogol would run with the bag to the Theater Department; Turgenev would undoubtedly translate Balzac i Flaubert for World Literature; Herzen would give lectures to sailors of the Baltic Fleet; and Chekhov would work for the Commissariat for Public Health. Otherwise - to live as a student five years ago on his forty rubles - Gogol would have had to write four Auditor monthly, Turgenev three Of fathers and children every two months, and Chekhov would have to write a hundred stories a month. This sounds like a silly joke, but unfortunately, it's not a joke; these are real numbers. The work of a literary artist, who "embodies his ideas in bronze" with pain and joy, and the work of a prolific chatterbox - the work of Chekhov and the work Breško-Breshkovski - today they are estimated in the same way: per yard, per sheet. And the writer is faced with a choice: either he becomes Breško-Breškovski, or he remains silent. For a real writer or poet, the choice is clear.
But even that is not the most important thing. Russian writers are used to starving. The main reason for their silence is not lack of bread or paper; the reason is much harder, much firmer, much more iron. True literature can only exist where it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics. But when a writer must be reasonable and rigidly orthodox, when he must be useful today, when he cannot attack everything and everyone, as Svift, or make fun of everything, like Anatole France, then there can be no bronze literature, there can only be paper literature, newspaper literature, which is read today and used to wrap soap tomorrow.
Those who try to build a new culture in our extraordinary time often turn their eyes to the distant past - to the stadium, the theater, the games of the Athenian demos. Hindsight is correct. But it must not be forgotten that the Athenian agora, the Athenian people, knew how to listen even to what they did not leave; he was not afraid of a sharp whip Aristophanes. And we - how far are we from Aristophanes when it is even a completely harmless drama Radnik Slovotekov od Gorky withdrawn from the repertoire in order to protect that silly child, the Russian demos, from temptation!
I am afraid that we will not have real literature as long as we consider the Russian demos to be a child whose innocence must be protected. I am afraid that we will not have real literature until we are cured of this new type of Catholicism, which, like the old one, is afraid of every heretical word. And if this disease is incurable, I am afraid that the only possible future for Russian literature is its past.
(Glyph redaction; Source: soviethistory.msu.edu; Translation from English: Danilo Lučić)
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