July 2012 - Los Cuadernos de Julia

Mikhail Lermontov – I Come Out To the Path, Alone…

On July 27, 1841 the great Russian Romanticist poet Mikhail Lermontov had been killed at the duel in Pyatigorsk. In his short lifetime, filled with romance, military service, and bitterness, he composed numerous poems, several long poems (Demon, Valerik) and ballads, plays (The Masquerade), short stories, and a novel The Hero Of Our Time that has long been in Russian school curriculum.

The poem “I Come Out To the Path, Alone” was composed in 1841 – the year Lermontov died, and prophetically carries the gloom of predestination. It successfully marries Russian melancholy with the Romanticist fighting spirit. The disillusioned protagonist foresees his death but wishes it would lead to eternal life where he could join and enjoy the Nature.

The poem was put to music and has long been a popular romance. It also featured in The Life of Klim Samgin becoming the epitome of the spiritual searches and disillusionment of all Gorky’s characters, caught up in the ever changing Russian life at the turn of the 19-20th cc.

The song in the extract is performed by Marina (Natalia Gundareva) and Kutuzov (Andrejs Zagars). The poem was translated into English in 1995 by Yevgeny Bonver.

I come out to the path, alone,
Night and wildness are referred to God,
Through the mist, the road gleams with stone,
Stars are speaking in the shinning lot.

There is grave and wonderful in heaven;
Earth is sleeping in a pale-blue light…
Why is then my heart such pined and heavy?
Is it waiting or regretting plight?

I expect that nothing more goes,
And for past I do not have regret,
I wish only freedom and repose,
I would fall asleep and all forget…

I would like to fall asleep forever,
But without cold sleep of death:
Let my breast be full of dozing fervor
For the life, and heave in gentle breath;

So that enchanting voice would ready
Day and night to sing to me of love,
And the oak, evergreen and shady,
Would decline to me and rustle above.

The Gift of Acting: Leonid Yarmolnik

I’ve been publishing previously some excerpts from Russian/Soviet films showcasing the outstanding talent of Russian actors, and I thought we could watch these excerpts more regularly, and not just from Russian films. In case you’re new to LCJ, you can check out this excerpt, this, this.

Today we shall have two sketches by Leonid Yarmolnik. I was a toddler when he performed them in the TV programme “Around the Laughter“. A spin-off version of it still lives, but the stand-up comedy as it is today rarely takes my fancy. The case was different in the 80s when the likes of Roman Kartsev, Gennady Khazanov, Evgeny Petrosyan, Mikhail Zadornov, and Alexander Ivanov read brilliant sketches parodying and satirizing the Soviet realities and the human character.

The sketches performed by Yarmolnik paved his way to the big screen. In this programme he was a Taganka Theatre actor, and very soon he took part in many features, including Cherchez la Femme, The Man From the Boulevard des Capucines, A Woman In White, and many others.

In the 90s Yarmolnik started producing films and hosting TV programmes. Today he’s actively involved in Russian social life, looking after homeless dogs and donating his time to being a patron of Artist Charitable Fund that supports elderly actors and children with disabilities.

I had the pleasure to stumble once into Leonid and to see him several times at press-conferences and events. To me, he comes across as an intelligent, gifted person with a great sense of humour – something I always treasure in all people.

Leonid’s official site.

The sketches you are about to see are “Vulture” and “Tobacco Chicken”. Between two sketches Leonid explains that, as students at the Theatre Institute, they had to impersonate all things, from pens to window leaves, “but little did you know that it was possible to “show” a tobacco chicken. The tobacco chicken is actually a meal very easily cooked, you only need a chicken and lots of pepper. Here’s the recipe.

A Russian Literature Reading List – Where to Start

Russian Literature reading list helps you to discover the beauty and wealth of Russian literature beyond Master and Margarita

Some time ago on Reddit someone asked where they could start with Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Russian Literature in general. Good advice was given even before I joined, and obviously I added my two pence. I thought I’d share my recommendations with you, in case you also want to start on your Russian Literature reading list. I’m sure you know it anyway, but recommendations are based on my personal reading experience.

I’m in the process of making ready a project dedicated to Russian children’s books, tales, poetry, illustrations. What I’m finishing is just a preliminary stage, and ahead lies a wonderful opportunity for everyone to get a glimpse of Soviet/Russian childhood through the words and images. But for now let’s see what can be there on the Russian Literature reading list.

So, first come the advice for those who are interested in Fyodor Dostoevsky:

“my suggestion re: Dostoyevsky would be to try his shorter stories first: Nevsky Prospect, Belye Nochi, Netochka Nezvanova. From there I’d go to The Idiot, this is the work that is most often cited, studied and mentioned by Western writers.

Crime and Punishment is on Russian school curriculum, but it might require a bit of acquaintance with Russian philosophy of the time. Dostoyevsky was a spokesperson for “pochvennichestvo”, a current in philosophical thought after 1860 that invested Russian people with a messianic role in saving the mankind from the rotten bourgeois morals, and instructed intelligentsia to embrace the masses through religion and ethics. I’m not discarding C&P, just saying that it contains some very specific ideas.

Also, Dostoyevsky had a soft spot for gambling, and he actually earned some of his money through that. He narrated his entire experience in a novel The Gambler.

One last thing about Dostoyevsky: he’s mostly read as a very serious writer, very concerned with the harsh reality of life. But I tend to agree with those critics who say he’s often very ironic, and that even very serious things could be written with tongue in cheek”.

Speaking of the latter passage, about Dostoevsky’s humour: I recently read a collection of his unfinished work, all short stories. One of them tells a very peculiar story of a Russian civil servant who got swallowed by a crocodile.

And now,

Russian Literature reading list:

Alexander Pushkin, The Little Tragedies (Mozart and Salieri and Boris Godunov)
Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin, The History of a Town (a bitterly satyrical take on Russian history)
Leonid Andreev, Judas of Iskariot (the story was written long before The Last Temptation of Christ or Jesus Christ Superstar, but has certain similarities)
Maxim Gorky, The Life of Klim Samgin (the story of Russian intelligentsia from the end of 19th c. through the first two Revolutions)
Nikolai Gogol, The Government Inspector (a play about the pervasive corruption, deceit, and bureaucracy)
Alexander Griboyedov, Woe from Wit (a play in verses; good if you can read Le Misanthrope by Moliere before this one, then you can compare)
Anton Chekhov, short stories and plays (Seagull is best-known, so try Ivanov, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard)
Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov (a novel about a mid-19th c. Russian landowner)
Ivan Bunin, The Cursed Days (a diary of the build-up to the October Revolution and a few years after, until Bunin’s emigration)
Mikhail Bulgakov, Ivan Vassilievich Changes the Occupation (a play, it was turned into a brilliant film)
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Days of the Turbines (a play, adapted to screen)
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Flight (a play, adapted to screen, starring Mikhail Ulyanov and Alexei Batalov)
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Heart of a Dog (a short novel, adapted to screen)
Isaac Babel, Konarmia (a short novel about a Jewish journalist (Babel) accompanying and narrating the accomplishments of the Red Army in Poland and Ukraine during the Civil War of 1918-1922)
Vladimir Mayakovsky, My Discovery of America (notes on the voyage to America, 1925-1926)
Andrei Platonov, Chevengur (I don’t know if it’s translated; if you manage to find it, it’s a kind of continuation of WE by Zamyatin, in the sense that Chevengur is a dream communist place where things sadly don’t go as “communist” as they should; quite a surrealist story)
Mikhail Sholokhov, The Fate of a Man (a WW2 story, adapted to screen, directed by and starring Sergei Bondarchuk)
Mikhail Sholokhov, Quiet Flows the Don (the life of cossacks from approx. 1912 through the Civil War; adapted to screen 4 times!)
Boris Vassilyev, Tomorrow Was the War (WW2, adapted to screen)
Boris Vassilyev, The Dawn Is Silent Here (WW2, adapted to screen)
Alexander Kuprin, The Garnet Bracelet (a short story about fated love for)
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (a mid-19th c. intelligentsia torn between love and reason)
Leo Tolstoy, Kreutzer Sonata (a short novel studies the position of a man and a woman in the society; a Russian Symbolist poet Konstatin Balmont was unhappily married when he read this Tolstoy’s novel, and it impacted him so that he tried to commit suicide; he survived and went on to become a really great lyrical poet).

As I said on Reddit, I have hard time enjoying contemporary Russian Literature, however, Andrei Bitov, Anatoly Rybakov, Grigory Gorin, Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Voznesensky are a must.

More Unusual Moscow Museums to Visit

I’ll finally have some time off work, which I hope to use to roll on the green Moscow grass. I’ve had this inexplicable crave for grass-rolling for about a month now. As a matter of fact, yesterday I came closer to fulfilling my dream – I lay on a bench near the house.

Knowing that some of you will want to visit Moscow museums this summer or later, I dedicated my guest blog post on Cheapoair Travel Blog to this very topic. The carlift museum, theatre museum, museum of erotica, museum of Oriental Art, and more wait for you.

(By the way, if you want me as a guest blogger, or ready to guest blog for Los Cuadernos de Julia, drop me a line).

Sad news today: BBC Manchester building on Oxford Road has been sold for 10mlnGBP. I spent there 2005 and 2006 and visited many times after. Sad it’s about to disappear. Read my Qype review of it.

Great news: Maria Sharapova will be Russia’s flag-bearer at the Olympics. It was Maria’s life-long dream that is about to come true. And in November she marries her basketball fiancé, Sasha Vujacic. An altogether brilliant year for Masha!

Odd news: those who share the views of an Oscar-winning Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov formed a party recently. As the party symbols, they adopted the black-and-gold St. George standard and the eight-pointed star of Our Lady that used to grace the Russian military standards. In their political programme they rely on the writings of Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Peter Struve. The party “For our Motherland” believes that Russia is the world’s greatest civilisation, but speaking about Mikhalkov joining the ranks the present head of the party commented: “We are not sure that Nikita Mikhalkov joins our party, and it seems to me that he’s quite content with the status of a nonpartisan“.

The latter is the phrase of the week for me.

Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week

Russia’s leading fashion and style portal, LookAtMe, has published a photographic digest of Men’s Fashion Week in Milan this year. I’m a rare one for fashion photography, as you know, but men’s fashion has always been a bit underestimated. I must say, however: it is when I look at these photos that I wish I was born a man. Photos by Michele Michelsanti.