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Literary Criticism in Post)Soviet Russia: The “Decade of Zeros”
249
are as adaptable as quicksilver; who, as a rule, are not worn out by an excess of
reflection; and who, on signing a contract with one or another publisher prom
ise under oath: I can’t guarantee quality, but it will be fresh and lively.
Or, when the market manager is moved not by commercial interests but by
some sudden philanthropic whim, he again turns to support not the Critics
who represent some Old Testament, yawninducing, slowly disappearing thick)
journal culture, but to some particular literary specialists who, from time to
time, also undertake setting contemporary literature in order.
The support in such cases comes, of course, not from the regular security of
advertising revenues but from philanthropic grants that have the quality of be
ing quickly used up. Therefore, setting aside the Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie
empire, we see a series of quickly appearing and just as quickly disappearing
publications for specialists in literary commentary – Opyty (1994), Pushkin
(199798), Na postu (1998), Novaia russkaia kniga (20002002), and now Krit)
icheskaia massa, put out by Valery Anashvili and Gleb Morev.
The young people (and women, too) who collect around these publications
are exceptionally severe—to the point of being aggressive. They are of very dif
ferent talents, however, so that, resisting the temptation to provide a summary
evaluation of the whole of our young philologist criticism (for convenience sake
we’ll call it that), one can only note the impulses that move them. The first of
these is an emphatic repulsion from everything marked by these critics as Soviet
or specifically Russian. The second impulse is a fundamental rejection some
thing organic in Russian thought: providing ideological and moral components
to aesthetic evaluations. In the practice of our young philologists this usually
takes the form of ideological and moral sloppiness and of recognizing as cur)
rent art only and exclusively those phenomena that aggressively announce their
own extravagance and radicalism. And finally, the third basic aim is assuming
the position of “strangers in their own country,” a rigid orientation toward the
language and methodology of the latest in Western cultural and literary studies,
a striving to treat whatever existed before the theory (the “premodelled”) as a
disappearing (and offensively small) part of the global multicultural space.
They are, of course—if we look at the issue of selfidentification—members
of our intelligentsia, whereas the “academics” regard themselves as writers, while
the glamourjournalists, by analogy with political advisors, sell their services as
literary advisors.
2.
All these, of course, are only my own propositions, rough by definition, and
nothing more than a bare outline that leaves in the shadows the very things that
need illuminating, specifically the turbulent flourishing of individualities that
make up our criticism during the “decade of zeros.”
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Nevertheless…
The very tripolarity of the world of contemporary criticism, in which there
is a competition not only among personalities but also among schools or, if you
like, discourses, a competition taking place in an invigorating atmosphere of
literary argument, leads one to regard with some suspicion the little phrases
that regularly pop up in our periodicals, such as the one that Dmitry Bak let fall
not long ago: “…It’s scarcely worth mentioning yet again that literary criticism as
a single verbal and notional space no longer exists” (Novy mir, No. 12, 2002).
Enough of that: it exists, and it’s scarcely worth mentioning yet again that it
exists!
Although I must confess that I feel sorry for the reader who suddenly gets the
notion to make his way through all this verbal and notional wealth.
Was this how it was formerly, when you could just keep up with the thick
monthlies, take a quick look through Literaturnaia gazeta, and see the whole
of criticism, lined up and ready for inspection? Now, however, apart from the
essential “thick journals” you have to buy as well the insipid journal Politbiuro
for the sake of the vivid articles of Boris Kuzminsky, subscribe to Vremia nov)
ostei for the sake of Andrei Nemzer, to Moskovskie novosti for Mikhail Zolot
onosov, to Vremia MN and Profil’ for Aleksandr Ageev, not miss Afisha (and for
merly Vedomosti as well) with Lev Danilkin, Gazeta, with Nikolai Aleksandrov
or Ezenedel’nyi zhurnal, have a look at Izvestia, just in case Aleksandr Arkhan
gelsky may have written something, and at Den’ literatury so as to find out about
the latest escapade of Vladimir Bondarenko in his own words and not someone
else’s… And then there are the St. Petersburg periodicals as well. And the provin
cial ones… You have to be careful since you can wear yourself out running around
so as not to lag behind the shifting lines of the literarycritical front even before
plunging head first into the sweet abyss of the Internet.
With all its allure, however, the Internet for our criticism is still a habitat, a
means rather than a form of life. Nevertheless, it is a special habitat, having an
elevated metabolism, serving as a kind of laboratory, an experimental station
both for speculative manipulations of words, meaning and professional reputa
tions, and also for the formation of yet another fashion or, to put it more bom
bastically, for the reigning style of the era.
And so it’s this—the style of the “zero decade,” to which one by no means is
compelled to submit but with which all critics of intelligence and talent are
forced to bring their pursuits into line—that we’ll now address.
3.
And we shall begin not with aesthetics but with the question that is the pri
mary one in criticism: supply or demand, the creator’s conception or the edi
tor’s order.
Literary Criticism in Post)Soviet Russia: The “Decade of Zeros”
251
In distinction from the critics of the preperestroika era, scarcely any of whom
scarcely ever possessed their own tribune
2
and wrote guided exclusively by their
own lengthy ideas, the critics who followed my generation have agreed, it seems,
to write about literature only if there is a publication prepared to take them on
staff or on contract with the requisite granting of carte blanche in a predeter
mined format.
The example of Boris Kuzminsky is particularly significant, of course. His
career is plainly marked by periods of activity in which he is swept away by his
feverish drive, times when the critic received carte blanche from Nezavisimaia
gazeta (19911992), from Segodnia (19931996), from Russkii zhurnal (2000
2001), and now from Politbiuro, as well as pauses, when he was busy with all
sorts of things other than composing articles and reviews.
Such is now the norm sanctioned, in the first place, by work (creative work?)
under the nontraditional—for Russia—system of “switch it on, switch it off,”
and in the second place, insofar as the each employer finds it quite sufficient to
have just one specialist in the field of contemporary literature for each publica
tion, sharply dividing critics into those who are hired (i.e., who are worthy of
hire), literary reviewers, and freelancers.
This allows, on the one hand, the unambiguous identification of the reviewer
with the publication to which he sells his inspiration. On the other hand, it
places the freelancers in a position where they, alas, are compelled either to
retrain themselves as prose writers or poets
3
or, having lost the right to express
themselves effectively in non)literary publications, to cast their articles—increas
ingly rare and, volens nolens, increasingly detached from the topics of the day—
among the thick, i.e., specialized literary monthlies.
4.
It would not be worth mentioning these problems of the trade, of course,
were it not for the fact that the staffing problem (by analogy with Bulgakov’s
apartment problem) is vigorously transforming our criticism, affecting both the
kind of literarycritical expression that is becoming the norm and its poetics as
well.
Formerly, every publication that brought in authors from the outside was
something in the nature of a Hyde Park, and every pronouncement that added
its voice to the dissonance of the critical choir was accordingly accepted simply
one of many possible others; today, however, the accepted model of “one publi
cation, one critic” inevitably removes from the agenda both the idea of a plural
istic competition of opinions as well as well as the possibility of dialog within
the publication.
Every reviewer—only on the territory of his own publication, naturally—is
tsar and god these days, and a general of the army as well. His writing is mono
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Sergei Chuprinin
logic and directive, something that fully suits today’s reader, who is not overbur
dened by a surplus of free time nor by excessive intellectual curiosity: he can
choose his own critic (in the same way that he chooses his own barber, mechan
ic or psychotherapist) and, without wasting any time, put together his own read
er’s diet based on authoritative recommendations.
That’s the first thing. And the second thing: no matter how much you com
pare the positions of today’s newspaperjournalInternet reviewers you still find
neither the readiness to listen to another opinion and respond to it nor com
ments that invite discussion or general debate among the whole literary com
munity. Critics, when stung to the quick, might exchange a few punches, but
under no circumstances will they enter into a meaningful argument with one
other. They have no wish and no time to carry on a dialog with their colleagues.
Yes, indeed, there’s not enough time; and the principal (in many instances,
the only) virtue of hired critics who, in accordance with their contracts are
compelled to combine the authority of experts with the duties of reporters, has
in the last few years become efficiency. To say something, not more intelligent
or more precise, but to say it sooner, ahead of the others—that’s what matters
now.
“The journalist of today works, thinks and writes not just quickly but crimi
nally quickly,” the art reviewer of Izvestia, Olga Kabanova, remarked not long
ago (17.02.2003). And, indeed, I’m prepared to sympathize with the permanent
staff members of daily and weekly publications, since the need to take part in
the race for the disappearing day objectively deprives them of freedom of choice
and freedom of manoeuvre, just as it deprives them of the right to pause, to use
passing over in silence as a form of literarycritical assessment. And this makes
them hostages at once to two unrelenting marathons—those of book publish
ing and prizegiving.
Despite all my professional solidarity, I am much more alarmed by the fact
that the movement of literature for some time now no longer presents criticism
as a living process of the longterm interaction of writers, books and tendencies
of various sorts but as a kind of conveyor in which the regular flow of new
material casts aside the previous; and any author, even one of an outstanding
book, has to give up his place as the hero of the day to the next candidate for
that role.
To return anew to that author, to attract once more the unfocused attention
of the readership to a book regarded as an event, there has to be an occasion for
publicity. By today’s norms that can only be (aside, of course, from the need to
write an obituary) the nomination to one or another prestigious literary prize.
And I, watching with amazement and sorrow how so many—even our most un
selfish writers—furiously compete for the opportunity to shine in one of the
regular lists of nominees, can now understand why this is so. The issue isn’t only
one of money, although it is that as well, and it isn’t only one of honours; it is
Literary Criticism in PostSoviet Russia: The “Decade of Zeros”
253
the fact that even a superlative book that doesn’t make the long list—and even
better, the short one—is nowadays consigned to oblivion just as quickly as even
the most successful television premiere. To get onto the list means to remind
people of yourself; it means to hear some response, and it is precisely a response
that any writer who regards his talent responsibly, perhaps even without being
aware of it, needs.
5.
After the excitement generated in the media and dating back some ten or fif
teen years, when critical opinion was in demand by both Gudok and Ogonek; after
the wearisome long years without easy mass communication that ensued thereaf
ter, our literary specialists once again want to be heard; and it is not their fault
that the demand for analysis and discussion is at an all time low, while the de
mand for news—preferably scandalous, and for practical recommendations of the
kind “browser, take note, buyer, write it down”—is at an all time high.
Such recommendations we designate as expert. And I’m not inclined to ob
ject to such a professional attitude from critics during our “zero decade.” Still…
In calling ourselves experts have we not thereby declared that we bear responsi
bility only for concrete evaluations of concrete texts and for nothing else?
I’m afraid that we have made such a declaration.
In Russia now, if we speak generally, everything is in relative order in the
practice of reviewing, in commenting on books, events, literary acts.
Things are worse, although still more or less in order, with regard to general,
socalled panoramic overviews of things. As if they were flying over the nineties
in a space ship, some critics mutter in disgust about “the twilight of literature”
(A. Latynina), “the accursed nineties” (D. Olshansky), while others, to the con
trary, swear by their honour that it was a “remarkable decade” (A. Nemzer).
In Russia, apart from the odd thick journal publication, that which in our
tradition comprises precisely the core, the basic content of literarycritical ac
tivity has disappeared. What I mean by “the core” is the understanding of liter
ature as a process, the attention to its living dynamics, to what particular things
distinguish this from some other year, the state of one or another genre, the
flourishing or the fading of this or that ideological or stylistic tendency.
Ultimately, any person is capable of saying: we have a literature or we have
no more liteature, even a person who never picks up a book. Assessing a work
bought by chance, received as a gift or borrowed from a library can also be done
by almost anyone, and it’s not without reason that excellent reviews or “literary
portraits” are turned out not only by professionals but also by prose writers and
poets who indulge themselves in such business.
But only critics, and critics specifically, can offer an integrated “view of Rus
sian literature” for suchandsuch a year, can trace the subtle intra and extra
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Sergei Chuprinin
generic interplay of this or that creative undertaking, outline the context essen
tial for a true interpretation of this or that work, see the stylistic, semantic,
ideological or any other oppositions of contemporary literature in their vital
kinship and vital differences.
And that is precisely what we are not doing now. Or almost not doing. Yearly
summaries—the highest, if anyone recalls, genre in the literarycritical hierar
chy since the time of (forgive me) Belinsky—have come down to numerical rat
ings and surveys, to questionnaires or to collages of literary events. And the usu)
al analytical articles are in demand by no one aside from the thick journals, and
so almost all of us—whether among the “academics” or the “glamour journal
ists” or the “young philologists”—have either forgotten how to write them or
still haven’t learned—and will they ever learn?
6.
And that’s sad. Because the single kind of knowledge we possess, knowledge
not inherent in anyone else, is knowledge of context. The single sphere in which
we are the irreplaceable specialists is the special sphere (those who can’t quite
remember the dialectics of the private, special and general I send back to their
university textbooks and dictionaries). And the material on which we base our
argumentation, whether pragmatic or grandly elevated, whether from a short
or longterm perspective, has been and remains the books we are now reading
or hope to read.
One can, of course, take comfort in the fact that the legacy of the old (and
young, too) masters is till held in high regard and so, as they say, we need only
change our sociocultural situation and there will be a demand for profound,
elevated, broad, etc. discussion of literature..
I believe that.
But for the moment I can see what the late Igor Dedkov (his diaries continue
to be published in Novy mir) meant when he described quite another situation
as thought at an idle.
And I wonder if we really ask to speak—“Citizens, listen to me”—only in order to
announce urbi et orbi the award of this or that prize or, using the classic formula, to
say: this book has been published; is there a reader somewhere waiting for it?
Is that really all we want to do?
Notes
1 The caustic Belinsky (not without an eye, however, to his own private aims)
compared such critics with the unfortunate man “in a madhouse who, with
a paper crown on his head, majestically and virtuously rules over his imag
ined kingdom, metes out punishment and mercy, declares a war and con
Literary Criticism in Post)Soviet Russia: The “Decade of Zeros”
255
cludes a peace, since no one prevents him from carrying on his honourable
occupation.”
2 Exceptions might be found in the practice of the journals Novy mir and
Oktiabr’ in the 1960s, when V. Lakshin, Iu. Burgin, and I. Vinogradov, on the
one hand, and P. Strokov, D. Starikov, Iu. Idashkin, on the other, saw them
selves (and were seen by others) not only as regular authors but also as
strategists and architects of their journals’ policies. The same is true, per
haps, even of the yearlong “engagement” of V. Turbin in Molodaia gvardi)
ia, which was then as colourful as a spring bouquet…
3 And in fact: Dmitry Bak has seriously taken up writing poems, and almost
every second “academic” is more and more solidly linking his creative inter
ests to prose and essays: Sergei Borovikov does so, along with Dmitry Vavil
sky, Vladimir Novikov, Natalia Ivanova, Petr Vail, Aleksandr Genis, Viacheslav
Kuritsyn, Evgeny Shklovsky, Maria Remizova, Mikhail Epshtein, Nikita Eli
seev… And that, one has to think, is what compels the same Vladimir Novik
ov to advocate energetically “the promising model of the universal writer,
the critic with his own creative experience. I think that our criticism will
now not follow the Soviet route of Belinsky and Pisarev but rather that of
the Silver Age, the path of Innokenty Annensky, Andrei Bely, Yury Tynianov.
‘Pure’ critics will still exist, of course, but as the exception rather than the
rule” (Russkii zhurnal, 15.02.2002).
* This article is based on material from a forthcoming book, Russian Literature 1995)2002: On
the Threshold of the New Millennium.
© N. N. Shneidman, 2003
N. N. Shneidman
Contemporary Prose in Post7Soviet Russia
Literature as a form of art always reflects, to a degree, the social, political,
and economic reality in which it is created. An artist, in a free society, can use
his or her creative imagination to venture beyond the immediate realm of one's
practical experience, yet even one's subconscious and imaginative faculties take
root in the real world and are nurtured by past experiences or experimental
knowledge. To that effect most contemporary Russian writers are the products
of Soviet upbringing and education, and the current changes in their mentality,
which take place under the influence of the new social environment in which
they create, are still in the early stages of development.
Today, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet state, the life of most individ
ual Russians has changed drastically, and members of the creative intelligentsia
in general, and of the writers' community in particular, try hard to adapt to the
new social and economic conditions in the country in order to survive. Thus,
the creative output of most contemporary writers reflects today not only their
artistic approach to literature, but their ideological, political, and social attitude
to the situation in the new Russian state as well. In the late Soviet era there were
two distinct streams of literature in the Soviet Union: official Soviet literature,
and underground antiSoviet samizdat and tamizdat literature.
Today, there are also two divergent ideological literary streams in Russia. One
includes all liberal writers, regardless of their artistic inclinations, and the other
one incorporates all Russian conservative, socalled “patriotic,” writers. The litera
ture of each stream has its own readership, and representatives of each group do
not fail to criticize and attack each other on political and ideological grounds.
The ideological split between the conservatives and liberals is reflected today in
the organizational framework of the writers' community, and in the establish
ment of two antagonistic writers' unions. The new Union of Writers of the Russian
Federation is conservative, nationalistic, proSlavic, antiWestern, and claiming
affinity to the Russian historical heritage and the Russian Orthodox Church. Ale
ksandr Prokhanov, Vasilii Belov, Valentin Rasputin, Vladimir Krupin, Iurii Bondar
Contemporary Prose in Post)Soviet Russia
257
ev, among others, as well as a number of young writers, primarily from the prov
inces, belong to this conservative union. The newly formed Union of Russian Writ
ers, although also adhering to traditional Russian cultural values, is also liberal,
democratic, proWestern and supports freedom of expression, human rights, and
political reforms in Russia. Andrei Bitov, Vladimir Makanin, Evgenii Evtushenko,
and Viktor Erofeev, among others, as well as many writers of the young genera
tion, belong to this liberal union. The conservative and liberal unions have sepa
rate offices, and distinct monthly periodicals and weekly newspapers.
Despite the insurmountable ideological rift in the Russian writers' communi
ty, the two unions have recently made efforts to patch up their differences and
form a joint writers' organization with a common platform. This is essential in
order to gain access to the Russian state administration, to reclaim the property
of the former Soviet Writers' Union, and to battle for the improvement of the
economic conditions and political rights of Russian writers. It appears, howev
er, that the ideological schism is so deep and the animosity and mutual hate is
so intense that no rapprochement is currently possible. Rasputin, for example,
states bluntly that he cannot imagine himself to be a member of a creative un
ion to which Evtushenko and Iurii Chernichenko belong.
1
The internal strife in the Russian writers' community and the extreme ideo
logical views expressed in various literary journals are a reflection of the cur
rent political and intellectual situation in the country. In the late 1980s and
early 1990s ideological dissension in the writers' community assumed political
form and many writers became directly involved in political activity, thus trans
forming writers' unions into ideological formations. Conservative writers ex
press their extreme chauvinistic, nationalistic, and antigovernment views in
their public appearances, journalism, and biased fiction. Moreover, they call for
the formulation of a new Russian national “idea” which would replace the com
munist ideology of the Soviet era. This “idea” would have to express the mes
sianic role of Russia and its unique path of development.
Some authors formerly identified with Soviet “village prose” stand out most prom
inently among the antidemocratic writers of the conservative “patriotic” camp.
Rooted in the Russian native soil movement and Slavophilism, in the past these
writers defended the patriarchal character of the Russian village and opposed the
intrusion of city culture and technological progress into the Russian countryside.
Today writers such as Belov and Rasputin are particularly active in preaching their
adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church, and they claim that Russian Ortho
doxy should be part of the new national ideal. In an extensive article, in which the
“patriotic” principles of contemporary Russian culture are expressed, Kapitolina
Koknesheva writes that “the conservatives have always asserted that the essence of
Russianness was determined by faith – Russian Orthodox faith.... The creative work
of Russian writers always expressed the national relation to life... Conservative writ
ers believe in personality, liberal writers believe in individualism.”
2
258
N. N. Shneidman
In general terms the situation on the current Russian literary scene is para
doxical. On the one hand, the number of writers and titles published increases
regularly, while, on the other, the number of readers of serious prose, and the
artistic quality of most narratives published, are in the process of decline. There
are a number of interrelated causes which determine the current complex state
of affairs in Russian literature. The difficult economic situation in the country
affects both the readers and the writers. The reader who has little money to buy
books turns away from serious prose and spends his or her cash on pulp litera
ture which is entertaining and easy to follow. The writer, who is unable to sell
the product of his labour, often stops writing serious fiction and starts produc
ing mystery narratives and detective novels.
The pressure of the market, however, affects, even those writers who stick to
their trade and continue to write serious prose. Since publication honorariums
are small and royalties are low, there are very few authors who can survive and
support their families on the income generated from writing serious prose. Hence,
most writers are forced to supplement their income by working as journalists,
translators, or editors, and, therefore, have little time to perfect their artistic
craft. Thus, much of the recent literature currently on the market is hastily pro
duced and superficial. That refers especially to the works of authors without a
vivid imagination, and to members of the younger generation who still have
little life experience.
The decline of the artistic quality of the literature published in the second half
of the 1990s has also been affected by some others causes. Thus, in the days of
perestroika, and the immediate postSoviet years, a number of new names ap
peared on the literary scene. Some of these new authors had been perfecting their
works in the underground for years before they could officially have them pub
lished. Still others mastered one theme, which has recently exhausted itself, and
are currently unable to diversify their creative range. Many of these writers con
tinue to publish, but they produce mediocre texts which cannot satisfy the high
expectations of readers and critics alike. Thus, the early works by authors such as,
for example, Viacheslav P'etsukh, Anatolii Gavrilov, Valeriia Narbikova, Andrei
Korolev, or Aleksandr Lavrin were much better than their recent publications.
There are also some authors of well known narratives, writers of the mature
and older generation, who currently rest on their laurels and produce little of
any significance. They are satisfied with their reputation established many years
ago and publish little of substance. Bitov, Ruslan Kireev, and Mikhail Kuraev,
among others, belong to this group. The quality of literature is also influenced
today by the conscious decision of a number of writers to become involved in
practical endeavours not directly related to literature or the arts. Thus, for ex
ample, Belov and Rasputin have turned their main attention to political activity,
Krupin has become a Russian Orthodox educator, while Anatolii Pristavkin has
become an important government bureaucrat.