On Russia Archives - Page 40 of 44 - Los Cuadernos de Julia

Russian Winter Visiting Manchester

As wonderful as it sounds, there is no guarantee that the snow I saw outside my house this morning will stay for a substantial period of time. On the other hand, for the second year running the winter in Moscow was not what it used to be, reportedly there was a perpetual lack of snow and alarmingly repetitive rain. It is all the more interesting bearing in mind that they opened St Petersburg Restaurant in Manchester. I can’t remember anything called “Moscow” being opened or existing in Manchester, but it must be a matter of time now. So, while Russia is bringing her place names and cuisine to the British shores, Britain is lending Russia the weather. Qui pro quo at its best.

Speaking of St Petersburg Restaurant. I haven’t been there, but I have heard some reviews, so I went to check their menu. What I saw was quite puzzling. Borsch is uneqivocally identified as a typically Russian dish, however the classical borsch is cooked with red meat, usually beef but also pork. At St Petersburg they offer a vegetarian option, with chicken – and to be honest with you, this is the first time I heard about chicken borsch. I suppose it has every right to exist, and it is probably quite tasty, but the famous classical borsch is cooked with red meat, full stop. If it is vegetarian, then it is only cooked with vegetables.

And speaking of borsch – if you are up to experimenting, try and cook it at home. I remember the lovely times of coming home from school and sitting down to my afternoon meal. Sometimes it would be borsch, and it is indeed fabulous to serve it in a soup bowl, with a spoon of sour cream. You mix sour cream in with borsch, and you can have brown bread with it. I found this recipe at CookUK particularly welcoming, so I gladly recommend it.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in My Life

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, which is the name of the Russian TV series written and directed by Igor Maslennikov after the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, were to play an important role in my life. By 1988/9 when I first watched it I have already been taking to writing short stories and poems. The first film I’ve seen, The Speckled Band, was vivid enough to scare the hell out of me: for a few nights afterwards I was afraid to go to the kitchen through the dark corridor, and I thought I could hear noises. I didn’t look for serpents under my bed, no, but I suppose I wouldn’t be writing this blog, had I found any.

The final outcome, however, was perhaps the most unexpected, as the fear gradually gave way to a loving obsession with the adventures and unbeatable charisma of both sleuth and his friend. And it was this obsession that made me take an exercise-book (not a notebook yet) and start writing the new chapter in the long chain of Holmes’s meanderings along London’s criminal web. It was in 1989. I passionately filled about half of the exercise-book when it downed on me that there was something wrong about the whole thing. You see, the cover bore a proudly written inscription “Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson”, and I suddenly realised that it was me, not Conan Doyle, who was writing the story. I could very well change the name of the author, but even though I probably didn’t know the word “plagiarism” back then, I knew nonetheless that those two amazing characters had already been created, and the idea of continuing their story lost its charm instantly. This is how I learnt that I wanted to be original and to put my own name to the things I write.

But the film not only remained in my life, it became one of those films that I can watch again, and again, and again. In fairness, this is exactly what I’ve been doing, while in Russia. I probably haven’t missed any single time the series was screened on the Russian TV, and bearing in mind that this is quite a popular film I must have seen each of the episodes more than twenty times. As time went by, I stopped being afraid, and I began to pay attention to acting. And this was when I fell in love with this film once again, this time forever. Almost the entire cast were well-known stage actors, and although the names of the majority of them might not tell you anything, the series can be called star-studded. In the final episode, “The Beginning of the Twentieth Century”, you could see one of the universally acclaimed Russian actors, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, in a cameo appearance. He starred as Hamlet in the 1964 Kosintzev’s adaptation which earned him a BAFTA nomination and the praise from Sir Laurence Olivier. An Oscar-winning Russian film director, Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) appeared, as Sir Henry Baskerville, in the brilliant adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. By the time he played this part, he’d won the Golden Seashell award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1977.

I strongly recommend you reading the article about Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin: The Russian Holmes and Watson, to gain the idea of how the film was made. As the author of the article correctly says, if one knows the Conan Doyle’s Canon, they can easily get the idea of what is happening on screen. Unfortunately, quite a few of the regularly appearing actors have left us, and not only Rina Zelyonaya (Mrs Hudson) and Borislav Brondukov (Inspector Lestrade), but Dr Watson himself (Vitaly Solomin). At the same time, Vasily Livanov is the only Russian actor to have received an honorary OBE for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

The reason I wrote all this is not just a sudden attack of nostalgia. It was the Sherlock Holmes weekend of ITV Granada, and I watched a few films. I’ve seen some adaptations previously, the latest being with Rupert Everett in the leading role. Yet I keep liking the Russian film – not because it was the first screen adaptation I’ve seen or because I’m Russian. Simply, in my eyes the Russian series brings to the screen the solidity and dramatism of Conan Doyle’s stories in the way that no other adaptation does. Shot entirely in what was then the Soviet Union (the Neva in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) playing the role of the Thames, in particular), the creators of the film somehow not only got under the skin of the characters, but under the skin of the Victorian London and of the late 19th c. We may never know exactly how they managed to do this, but this is what art is about – creating a physical shape for the unthinkable.

The Sherlock Holmes Story on Flickr
London Visit of Vasily Livanov (Robert Graham, 16th January 2007)
Meeting Vasily Livanov (photoset accompanying the above)

Finally, to let you delve deeper into the Russian epic film, here is an excerpt (found on YouTube) from The Hound of the Baskervilles. In the first minute of it you see Sherlock Holmes (Livanov), Dr Watson (Solomin), and Mrs Hudson (Zelyonaya), and this is the dialogue between them:

Holmes: It’s interesting to know, Watson, what you can say about this walking stick?
Watson: One could think you’ve got eyes on your nape.
Holmes: My dear friend, had you read my monograph about the tactile organs of the detectives, you’d have known that on the top of our ears there are these sensory points. So, I’ve got no eyes on my nape.
Mrs Hudson: He sees your reflection in the coffee pot.

The music is by Vladimir Dashkevich. Enjoy!

The Public Transport in Russia

As I was writing about the British passion for queuing, I remembered about this text I wrote back in 1999, when I was still a student in Moscow and had to use public transport every day. After I read it again, I realised it was still topical, even so many years later, even in England. So, I translated it. It obviously utters things, as becomes a humourous text, but also sheds tons of light on what it was like – to use public transport in Moscow eight years ago. Enjoy!

The Ode to the Public Transport.

People like slagging off businessmen, actors and generally everyone who possess such a phenomenon of social life, as a private vehicle. One has lost the count of numerous jokes and black humour stories that feature these people and their cars. How many times did you hear, upon going out in the street: “Oh yes, of course, it’s this A* (or X*, Y*, Z*, etc), he’s driving this BMW 600 (or Cherokee, Ford, Fiat, Smart, etc)”? And how many times did you wish plague on all the houses of one unfortunate driver of a “Vauxhall” who managed to splash the entire puddle all over you?

Even so, we ought to always bear in mind that those who we consider lucky are, in fact, losers. Just think, why do they repeatedly say that they are cut off from other people? Exactly because they are hindered by their private means of transport. Of course, their public status is slightly at fault here, too. With all his love to us (people – JD) and to life, a world-known politician (who used to relish a thought of serving the Muses rather than politics) would never get on the bus and begin to read poems about the river Volga, Russia, and her enemies. He would not do it even if that provided him with a guaranteed number of votes at the forthcoming elections. To paraphrase a well-known TV ad, “image is nothing, life is everything”.

Nonetheless, the main cause of all misfortunes of the protagonists of popular legends is their personal transport. For when a man is driving his own half-rotten Fiat, he already considers himself the ruler of the Universe. When he is driving the notorious BMW 600, he considers himself the Universe without any ruler. Whereas, if he finds himself on the public transport, he’ll have to answer the Raskolnikov question: “whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the /right/ . . .”

Those of you, however, who do not possess a car, or who do but for whatever reason do not use it, should not grin gloatingly. Those of you should not do this at all, for you know the price of all trouble, so don’t put this trouble on anyone else.

Therefore, I shall allow myself to be a little more concrete because the main purpose of all that is written is to persuade those who use public transport not to sacrifice the chock-a-block for the solitude of a private car, and to inject the doubt in cars in the minds of the protagonists of popular legends.

Let us look at one day in the life of the public transport user.

Unless you are so lucky that you live in three minutes’ walk from the metro, you will first and foremost have to take a bus, a trolleybus, or a tram. The latter means of transport your humble servant, for all her love for it, uses fairly seldom, the second – more often, but both are a pure exotic in comparison to the bus.

Imagine: early morning, vernal freshness, not a raindrop, not a cloud, a sea of cars, and not a single bus in sight. “Splendid!” you think and slowly, with a bit of whistle, depart from your doorstep. If in the next five minutes you are walking the distance of 30 meters from your house to the crossroads, on the sixth minute you will get it in the neck for being so carefree. For on the sixth minute, when you are getting ready to cross the road, you will see right in front of you an elegant white, with a green stripe, rectangular on wheels, which we call a “bus”.

At such moment different people do different things. Some of them remember their P.T. classes – that is, if they are running with the minimum weight. Others in the same situation remind one of the times before our era. In those distant times there had also been the Olympic games, and a sportsman used to run in the full armour of a hoplite – a Greek soldier – that weighed around 30 kg. Although our contemporary is not a hoplite, and their bags don’t always weigh 30 kg, still, when such contemporary is running for a bus, they look fairly historic.

However, some people carry on walking as they used to. They may have their own reasons, and we shall leave them at this.

Suppose that in a record-breaking time – around 1 minute – you manage to cover three distances from your house to the crossroads. In such case it sometimes turns out that you have considerably outdone the bus (which is still standing at the traffic lights), and so you begin to get bored. This is a huge mistake! For if you reached the bus stop before the bus (especially if it happened), you should be extremely vigilant (providing you want to get onto your bus).

And so your flying carpet on six wheels arrives. Against all fears, you manage to get, or rather to wriggle, in the bus. You only get half of yourself wriggled in – the other half is helped by the closing doors. If your body is inside the bus but your bag is dangling on the outside, don’t start screaming hysterically. First of all, when you bag is in such interesting position, no-one can raid its contents. Secondly, if your bag is outside the bus, the doors will be closing and opening much easier.

Standing on the bus in one of the poses of the Indian traditional gymnastics, you may begin to meditate. The subject does not matter. Sooner or later you will be dragged out of your meditative state by the accent of a conductor. This conductor, who with effort, rale, and squeaks is pushing through the thick backs and wide chests, is chatting ceaselessly:

– What do we have for a fare here? Pay for your journey, please, and show your passes. There at the doors, whom did I not ticket yet?

This procedure is happening every morning, and every morning you most probably cannot understand, how you manage to get your pass from your bag. This is the reason why all passengers should remember: if they are being touched through their clothes by someone’s hand, it does not mean they are standing next to a sexual maniac. Most probably it is a passenger, like them, who is trying to reach for his or her bag.

Let us omit further particulars of the bus ride, and get on the underground. On the station where you change trains, upon going up or down the escalator you will inevitably hear this:

– Standing on the escalator, hold on to the rails by your hands only. Upon getting on or off the escalator, lift up the long ends of your upper coats in prevention of getting in the mechanical elements of the moving stairs of the escalator.

At some stations there sometimes occur such marvellous things, as the queues to the train. But we shall suppose we have got past this stage, and now you find yourself in the wagon, in the position of one of the Eastern martial arts. Your left hand with the bag got lost somewhere on the left, and your right arm is stretched straight, perpendicularly to your body. On your right you observe the tortoise-like skin of someone’s neck, wrapped in a checked mohair scarf. If you turn your head straight, your nose will get right into the hairs of artificial fur on the hood of a lady’s coat. Your appreciation of female beauty may deepen if the lady is wearing her hair loose. If you turn your head to the left, there will normally stand a slim gentleman in tiny glasses on the nose that is “as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus“. In general, your way to work, to the uni or wherever in these morning hours is as eloquent as The Song of Songs.

After all these troubles and sufferings, you finally get to work, to the uni, or wherever. At the end of the day you take the same journey, but towards your home. And it is then that you often think: why are the metro and buses not as empty in the morning, as they are in the evening? Your question will remain without answer. For a long time this phenomenon will be a phenomenon to you. Let us console ourselves in the fact that such was the design of Nature, and this was done especially so that every morning we could feel an immense force of physical, if not spiritual, union with all others who use public transport. Do those who drive a car have so many tempestuous emotions regularly? By the way, there is no need to shower offensive names and jokes on either party. Better get on the bus!

English translation © Julia Shuvalova (JS) 2007

A few notes: 1) the politician in question is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of Russian Lib-Dems, who dabbled in showbusiness and, indeed, read poems in public during the campaign; 2) the ad mentioned in the same passage is the Sprite slogan: “image is nothing, thirst is everything”; 3) the hoplite’s armour weighed, in fact, about 50-60 pounds (22-27 kg).

What Do Your Legs Talk About?

Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t know that our body’s parts can talk. Alberto Moravia, an Italian author whose 100th birthday anniversary is this year, wrote an entire novel about a man’s conversations with his penis. It is called “Io e Lui” (1971) (Me and Him, and apologies but this Italian review is apparently the only review of the book that you can find without diving too deep into Google Search), and, apart from being a hilarious though thought-provoking reading, it seems to be the best critique of a literal interpretation of the idea of sublimation. Many people believe they follow Freud if they think that having sex casts the bad spell on one’s creativity; hence, if one wants to be a successful writer, they first and foremost must stop engaging in that carnal activity. Moravia subtly reminds us that sex does start in one’s head, so while you keep listening to your libido, even if you don’t necessarily follow it, sex goes on.

So, back to legs. Some time ago one actor had an online meeting with his fans. One question was if he liked telling jokes. The answer was positive, and such was one of his favourite ones: “Right leg says to the left leg: “Listen, let’s keep this one between us””.

Now, personally I find this joke funny, as well as everyone who I told it to. But it struck me today that sometimes blogs are being assessed on the level of humour in them. I scratched my head. I certainly wrote some posts that I consider funny, but humour is a difficult thing to estimate. The joke I alluded to is a perfect example here in that it begs the question of exactly what makes it funny. It is as ambiguous as it gets, but it is the ambiguity and the wittiness that make this joke work, at least as far as I am concerned. Undoubtedly though there are those who may disagree, so the question “what makes a joke funny” is indeed rhetorical.

I think there is always some prejudice against a “national” sense of humour. They say that the English humour is difficult to understand. Years ago with this thought in mind I was translating Russian jokes with gusto to a friend of mine, who eventually said, looking aside: “What exactly is funny about it?” That was the day when I realised that the Russian humour is probably just as difficult as English.

To an extent, it was a relief. I was even engulfed by some kind of pride, or at least joy, that a Russian joke can send an Englishman in exactly the same kind of stupor that people from many non-English-speaking countries find themselves in when they hear an English joke. But the same problem occurs in other languages, and the French or Italian humour is no different. And because translation means a migration of a text from one culture to another, those who translate humour have, in fact, to translate an impulse to laugh, not just mere words or phrases. This is really tricky.

Anyway, I didn’t want to make this post too academic, so I’d better tell you a few of my favourite jokes, and I can only hope you find them funny. Somehow almost all of them are about trains, which makes sense, I suppose, since I do love travelling by train.

Two men are riding on the train. They ride in total silence for a long time. Finally, one of them decides to break the silence and says:
– Hello, I’m Smith. John Smith. And you?
– And I am not.

On the train, a man stands at the window in the corridor. Relaxed, he observes the landscape that flies past. Suddenly the train derails, drives across a field, stops at the forest, then turns, moves back, returns to the rails, and drives on, as if nothing happened. Perplexed, the man rushes to the train manager: “What’s going on?!” – “Ah well, you see, there was this man walking on the rails in front of the train”. – “Oh, but you should’ve run him over!” – “Well, that’s it, I only got him near the forest”.

A station warden, while checking the rails, finds on them a rat that was killed by the train. He lifts it by the tail: “Oh for god’s sake, look at this! D’you think you’re Anna Karenina, or what?”

Life in Space: The Anniversaries of Satellites and Search Engines

Russia was in the avant-garde of Space Science in the 20th c. Today’s Google homepage reminded us of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, which was the first satellite sent into space (image is the courtesy of NASA website).

But space has many meanings. In the passage above it means “cosmos”. If I say “I need space” it will mean that I either crave for freedom or that I need to put something somewhere where there is little or no place. And when we say “virtual space”, we mean the web.

Recently it was Google’s 9th anniversary, of which again their homepage has reminded us. At Search Engine Land they contemplated on whether 9 is the correct number, but Google seems to have their own view, which they communicated with this logo (right) on September 27th.

And ten years ago, on September 23rd 1997, Yandex, Russia’s leading search warehouse, has set off their rocket into the virtual space. To mark the anniversary of intermittent work of their orbital station, they have sent a lovely gift. The gift consisted of a cylinder box, which contained: a message to other “space civilisations”, a flashy pen, a tube of cherry and apple juice, a can of meat in white sauce, a prunes and nuts flapjack, and a pack of 10 miniature bread loafs. As you undoubtedly notice, the word juice is spelt “cok” in Russian, which looks very familiar to the English speaker. I would like to repeat that it means juice, and not what it may seem to mean, judging by its spelling. 🙂

Yandex is obviously playing a deft joke on the word “space” and Russia’s history of delving into the cosmic vastnesses. All the food items are exactly what they eat (or definitely used to eat) in space. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre at Starry Town (Zvezdniy Gorodok) in, if I am correct, 1993. I went with my classmates, and I vividly remember our sheer amazement at the size of those Lilliput chocolate bars and bread loafs on display at the museum. Well, now my present colleagues have shared this amazement, too, and in turn, I am sharing it with you.

The Importance of Ambitions

How about that? I’ve just written about the ambiguous use of the words “ambition” and “ambitious”. And now The Guardian published a short review of the results of a study of 13,669 essays written by schoolchildren in 1969. Although the authors of the study have warned against early conclusions, it seems very likely that the earlier in life people set high goals, the more likely they are to achieve them.

Personally, I wouldn’t use either word, and this is not just because the word “ambitious” is being used both to encourage and to dismiss one’s aspirations. I would rather say children should be encouraged to have goals in life that serve to realise their creative, physical, mental, etc. potential. Parents should, on the other hand, be able to recognise such potential in their children and help them realise it, help them formulate and achieve their goals. I feel, judging by the use of the word, “ambition” is often linked to politics, and when we say “ambitious” we picture a ruler who drives the entire nations to wars before dying rather disgracefully during the Ides of March. And because we don’t want to end like this, we often use “ambitious” in a negative sense.

However, having a goal in life is crucial, and setting a goal for yourself early in life is twice as important. It is possible to change goals, it is possible to abandon them, but the process of attaining experience and knowledge of achieving the goals takes years, and time is something we haven’t yet learnt to turn back.

The study has shown that children from the middle-class families had higher aspirations and did better than those from the working-class families. This made me remember about my own experience of going to the Moscow State University straight from school in 1997. Before I tell you this story though, I have to say a few words about Soviet/Russian social classes. Unfortunately, I cannot quite draw analogy between the Russian and British types of what is essentially one system. Nowadays, looking at my country since the fall of the Iron Curtain, I realise that we’ve always had classes there. Any attempt by the Communist government to erase the class differences wasn’t really successful. Perhaps, forming groups is proper to a man, and therefore the Soviet society had established its own classes instead of throwing the idea away completely. But when I was at school I was hardly aware of the class differences, to the point that even now I cannot categorise my classmates to suggest their belonging to the Soviet middle-class or Soviet working-class.

So, the story I want to tell is exactly about the importance of setting those high goals and the possibility of achieving them. At school I’d always been an excellent pupil and eventually graduated with distinction and a medal. I don’t remember when and who first suggested that I should go to study at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU/MSU), Russia’s biggest, oldest and one of the world’s most respected universities. Time went by, the “Yulia will go to the MSU” became practically a figure of speech, so often was it used. I, however, began to feel that I did indeed want to go to the MSU, and nothing but the MSU. I wanted excellent education, I was happy to work hard to get it, so the MSU became my choice.

But it was thought to be extremely corrupt; they said it was impossible to enter the MSU without private tuition or public courses; in addition, it was thought to be extremely elitist. My family didn’t have money to bribe anyone, and was quite far from the elite. Finally, after attending a few public lectures I realised it was a loss of time and money (there was a small fee for each lecture), so I just continued to study on my own.

By all accounts, I shouldn’t have succeeded; against the social, financial and other possible odds, I did. When I was already in England, I watched Madonna talking to Michael Parkinson, who asked her how she’d been living in New York, and if she’d ever thought what she would do if she hadn’t succeeded. She said something along the lines of: “This wasn’t an option”. I can inscribe these words on the file in my head that has got the memories of my becoming an MSU student. The MSU was the only uni where I wanted to be. There was absolutely no option for not entering it. I suppose you can say I had considered myself the MSU student long before I got my student card. I wouldn’t call this “ambition”. It was a dream, and I also loved the place where I was going to study, and they say that when you love something with all your heart, you do eventually get rewarded.

And then I found out that those early predictions were indeed a figure of speech for many people. And although I cannot account for any instances of corruption, I have to admit that the MSU is elitist, but then so is Oxbridge. However, I’m sure I’m not the only person whose drive and passion overturned mountains.

Ambition, ambition… Nothing ever can protect anyone from failure, but usually we don’t know we are to fail until we actually do. To be afraid to realise our potential is the biggest disservice we can do ourselves. And why to think of the worst outcome? There’s a saying in Russia: “if you tell someone they’re a pig, they’ll start oinking”. So why not work hard and believe in success instead?

Let’s face it, we keep talking about one’s private goals, whereas the whole mankind should be our example. How on Earth did the Egyptians erect those pyramids? How did Columbus discover America? How did Magellan circumnavigate the Earth? How did we end up flying not only from country to country, but into space? We are people, we cannot fly, and the law of gravitation is against the whole concept of flying. Yet in the 20th c. we’ve finally got wings, figuratively speaking. There is a burning desire, a dream behind each of these achievements to which we should be looking up, without doubt.

Links:

Lucy Ward, When I grow up… the dreams of primary pupils that came true (The Guardian, September 29, 2007).

Me, Cardinal Wolsey, and Martin Luther King

It could hardly get any better than this – to stumble upon a post about Moscow in 1664 in a blog written by Cardinal Wolsey. The fact that it’s twenty minutes past eleven at night would make me doubt things, but no, this is true: while the life of Henry VIII is being adapted and re-adapted for the screen, his Humble Servant is blogging away “on Tudor history, medieval history, early-modern history and anything else that takes his fancy”.

All jokes aside, Cardinal Wolsey’s Today in History is a really interesting blog, which I haven’t read before. Having spent several years studying mid-Tudor history and specialising in the history of Edward VI’s reign, I was glad to find this post about child kings.

Thanks a lot to Cardinal Wolsey who got me started on remembering my Medieval and Early Modern History studies. I finally feel it is appropriate to tell the story that happened in Moscow in 2003. As you might know, in Russia we have predominantly oral exams, which involve learning a lot of facts, dates, names, definitions, etc., by heart. The exam is taken by a senior academic, who is often assisted by a junior member of staff. So, in my first (and by far the only) year of Ph.D. in History I assisted three or four times, and the final time it was during the summer exam session at the Early Modern History exam.

This 2nd year student had two questions: one on socio-economic history of England in the 16th c., another on the history of German Reformation. He knew his first question badly, and answering it to the senior examiner would have made no difference, as the main examiner was my supervisor, herself an English scholar.

We dragged through this first question, and then I finally “released” him from this turmoil and suggested he’d start answering his second question.

The student evidently thought that German Reformation was an easy question, and that since I was an English scholar I was therefore not a German scholar, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to impress me with some generic phrases. And thus, sitting opposite me at the desk, he almost struck a pose, and pronounced the first sentence that was supposed to start a memorable answer:

– Reformation in Germany was begun by Martin Luther King.

I made my best effort not to take a notice. Alas, the student heard what he said. He shrank and mumbled with a confused smile:

– I mean, simply Martin Luther.

One of my former teachers told me recently he thought this was a joke. It was, of course – except that it was true.

Vladimir Solovyov: A Parody on Russian Symbolists

Vladimir Solovyov A Parody on Russian Symbolists mocks an affected, indulgent style of young Symbolist poets and their love for opulent imagery

Russian Symbolism was a branch of European artistic movement under the same name. I first discovered Russian Symbolist poets more than 10 years ago, when I was still at school (Alexander Blok and Konstantine Balmont were my favourite). I suspect, however, that outside Russia Russian symbolism may be primarily associated with theatre, especially the names of Diaghilev and Meyerhold.

Russian Symbolism was occasionally criticised for its superfluous imagery, and the poem that I translated highlights just this sort of criticism. It was composed by Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian philosopher, who was close enough to the Russian literary circles to be able to smile at these sarcastically. The Parodies on Russian Symbolists were printed in 1895 and consist of three parodies, but my favourite has always been the one I have just translated from Russian. It is very much an impromptu, completed chiefly on the bus on my way home. As you may see, Solovyov’s poem is more of a parody on symbolism per se: he generously fills every line with a “symbol”, to create a hilarious image of a jealous lover. So, please welcome, Vladimir Solovyov A Parody on Russian Symbolists, in Russian and English.

Vladimir Solovyov – A Parody on Russian Symbolists

The skies are burning with the lanterns’ fire –
Dark is the Earth!
So, have you been with him, oh woeful liar?
Let truth shine forth!

But tease not the hyena of misgiving
And mice of gloom!
Or else the leopards of revenge come bringing
In teeth your doom!

And call you not the owl of discretion
This fateful night!
The mokes of poise and elephants of question
Have taken flight!

You bore yourself the monstrous crocodile,
Which is your fate!
Oh let the skies burn with the lanterns’ fire –
Dark is the grave!

© Julie Delvaux 2007

Владимир Соловьев, Пародии на русских символистов (1895)

На небесах горят паникадила,
А снизу – тьма!
Ходила ты к нему иль не ходила?
Скажи сама!

Но не дразни гиену подозренья,
Мышей тоски!
Не то смотри, как леопарды мщенья
Острят клыки!

И не зови сову благоразумья
Ты в эту ночь!
Ослы терпенья и слоны раздумья
Бежали прочь!

Своей судьбы родила крокодила
Ты здесь сама!
Пусть в небесах горят паникадила,
В могиле – тьма!

More posts on Vladimir Solovyov, Alexander Blok, Translation.

Bad Language: The Involuntary Swearing

At work, I am currently being perturbed by a task I never even dreamt of performing. I need to compile a list of negative keywords in Russian. I have an English list in front of my eyes, which includes about two dozens of swearing words, and what perplexes me is that for many of the words there will be more than one Russian equivalent.

The conundrum is further complicated by the fact that, although I know all these words, I don’t say or write them. I’ve always thought that, no matter how annoyed I am by a situation, if I can express my annoyance without using “bad language”, then that’s how I’m expressing it.

With writing, I don’t have any particular prejudice against any of those words, but again I’m thinking in terms of why I would need to use them. I object to using “bad language” merely for the sake of it.

Recently, I read the musings of one seasoned romantic, who explained at length that a decent girl/woman wouldn’t even know such words. Although his musings had a lot of common sense, myself and a few other readers found them overall cynical. One could substantially broaden their awareness of bad language by just using public transport regularly, which I’ve been doing all my life. If you’re an avid reader like me and have read, say, Henry Miller, your awareness has grown further. And even if you never said or wrote (or intended to say or write) words of this kind, your job may eventually compel you.

The whole situation reminds me of the time when I was trying to read 120 Days of Sodom by de Sade. I couldn’t progress in reading one of the chapters, until I realised that I was reading it passively. Once I put myself in the place of an active figure, I found the chapter quite entertaining. So, I’ll have to adjust my frame of mind, to clutch my teeth, and to approach the task professionally. And when it’s completed, I’ll sit back and marvel at how good I really know my native language.

Having said it all, bad language isn’t exactly bad. My personal rejection of Russian swearing words stems not only from their meaning, but from how they sound – I really find them awful to the ear. Surprisingly, it’s different in English or French, which I haven’t really tried to explain, but would be struggling, for sure. A lot of swearing phrases in Russian that I don’t like are either too crude or totally devoid of meaning, although the word-building is always mesmerising.

I suppose this qualifies me as an incorrigible aesthete, who even wants to swear in style.

Those who have thicker skin pursue their passion for Language Studies in the field of scatolinguistics. A very enlightening article from the BBC, The Origins and Common Usage of British Swearing Words, which I highly recommend, will give you more insight into the findings of scatolinguists. As the authors state,

One of the things which becomes clear is that usage varies widely from country to country, and within countries. In one place a word may be a term of affection, in another a clear and direct term of abuse. And these words provide a potted social history of the speakers of the English Language. However, used appropriately and with panache, many people feel that these words actually add depth, colour and a sense of regional variation to the English language.
If you’re interested further, you may visit Swearaurus, which will be your very first search result on Google. You can browse categories by language.

And a couple of funny real-life stories. One I read in someone’s LiveJournal. A person, originally Russian, went to live in America. By the time he returned, French Connection UK has opened a few outlets in Moscow. Going past one of the shops and noticing “FCUK”, the person thought: ‘Now the world has definitely come to an end – they can’t even spell ‘f**k’ without an error’. He was later enlightened by his female friends that there was no error at all.

Another story I read on Linda Jones’s blog. Linda blogs about twins, triplets etc. on You’ve Got Your Hands Full, which can teach you a plenty about kids even if you don’t yet have children or have only one child. She also writes about journalism for a few other resources. Once Linda went to an Ann Summers party, where they were offered to play a “rude alphabet” game. The task was to name a swearing word on each letter of the alphabet. I must admit – as I admitted to Linda in the past – if I was in her place, this would be my story.

In fact, I think this is already my story.

Barbra Streisand in Manchester (M.E.N. Arena, July 10, 2007)

And so, Manchester has finally joined the cities on the route of Barbra Streisand’s first European tour. Some reports prior to Manchester concert expressed fears that the night might fall through because of high ticket prices. Admittedly, pleasure of seeing Streisand on stage wasn’t cheap: add a program’s price (£25) to your cheapest ticket (£75), and you’ll get quite a sum. Looking from my seat in the stalls down on those who sat in the first row in the box did bring certain thoughts to mind. But as the show went on, I realised that with my £75 ticket I bought myself much more than just a lifetime experience.

Like with quite a few other things, it started thanks to my mother. I said before that my mum has got this tremendous ability to discover things – and once Russia has opened her arms to the West after 1991, there was (and still is) a lot to discover. I believe that the discovery of Barbra in my family has started with the song Woman in Love, which was in an audio cassette collection. Around 1996-97 the articles about Streisand have really flooded our first Russian editions of Harper’s Bazaar and ELLE. They wrote about her youth, her romances, her music, but, being an adolescent, I was most interested in her portraits. As terrible as it sounds, before I saw those photos, I thought I would never look good in front of the camera. Studying them, thankfully, changed me in many ways. I still haven’t seen a lot of Streisand’s films, but Funny Girl, The Mirror Has Two Faces, and The Way We Were have entered my memory forever. I would watch The Way We Were anyway because of Robert Redford, but the first two we watched because of Barbra. So, it was only natural that when I saw an email about the release of her tickets I knew I had to go. I wanted to surprise my mother, but in the end we had this conversation on Sunday night:

I: Mum, do you want to be jealous?
Mum: Why?
I: Do you know where I’m going on 10th July?
Mum (anticipating pause)
I: I’m going to Barbra Streisand’s concert
Mum (after a long pause, and with a sigh): Yes, I’m very jealous.

Although I’ve been living in Manchester since 2003, July 10th was the first time I went to a concert at the M.E.N. Arena. Contrary to all fears and misgivings, the hall was full: at 7pm people were coming in tides, and by 7.40 there was virtually no room to move in the foyer. The audience’s rapture was palpable; and how could it not be if the man with a black-and-grey scarf around his neck was one of the first to rise from his seat when Barbra appeared on stage for the first time? I cannot say I’ve been to many concerts, but I’m certain I won’t see such frequent standing ovations any time soon. Where I sat, people behind me were humming and singing along with the performer who – we all hope – celebrates the 50th anniversary of her stage career in three years’ time.

As you can guess, from photos on Flickr and from videos on YouTube, the organisers’ appeal against taking pictures wasn’t acknowledged, and we shouldn’t blame the fans for many of whom this was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see and hear their favourite performer. In the audience there were Mancunians, Liverpudlians, Geordie, as well as Italian and Spanish fans whom Streisand greeted in their native language. When answering questions, she admitted that of all three – singing, acting, and directing – she enjoyed directing more because of what she called ‘inclusiveness’, and this show may very well be the proof of her directorial hold. Alas, we were not introduced to Samantha; instead we saw Streisand putting on glasses and demonstrating her – quite good – piano technique.

The importance of seeing an “old league” performer cannot be underestimated. A rather simply decorated stage was a perfect backdrop for the stunning costumes (designed by Streisand and Donna Karan), a warm smile, and the beautiful, powerful voice of the world’s first showbiz diva. I must admit, after reading several fans’ reviews, that I couldn’t put my feelings about the evening into words better than John Grundeken from the Netherlands did, which is why I hope a lot of you will follow through to Barbra’s Archives to read his heartfelt story of the night at Bercy in Paris. Moreover, John is travelling to London’s concert, as well. What I must absolutely agree with John about is the incredible power of Streisand’s voice: ‘”Starting here, starting now”, her voice sounded so warm and rich. I realised this was the first time ever I wasn’t listening to a recording of her voice, this was the real thing’. And one more fact about John: I am used to seeing people wearing T-shirts with John Lennon’s or Che Guevara’s face, and I made myself a T-shirt with the print of the Beatles’s Let It Be cover. But, upon my word, this was the first time I saw someone decorating a tie with their favourite artist’s portrait. I’ve got a feeling that the world of fashion has already been there, but this tie is special for its colour, design, and image. Above all, the whole work glows with admiration for Barbra Streisand, which makes it really impressive, and this is why I asked John for permission to use the image in my post. Thank you, John.

I have a confession to make. As I mentioned above, my mother is a huge fan of Barbra Streisand. I haven’t been back to Russia since I came to Manchester, which makes almost four years. So as a present for her I recorded several songs from the concert, which are strictly for private use and will not be put up anywhere. However, I noticed that there are many videos on the web, which probably warrants my action: I cut and put together two extracts from the concert. The first extract is a great proof of cordial atmosphere at the M.E.N. Arena, not without a few funny moments. The second is the song Unusual Way from the second half of the concert. Please note that the audio, like all the content of this site, is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – Non-Derivative Works 3.0. If you wish to cite it, please do so accordingly.

[To be reuploaded soon – JD]

The songs may very well be the ones that people older than me have already heard Streisand singing live before. Yet, as Paul Vallely from The Independent puts it, ‘she progressed from one song to the next in a way which was not autobiographical so much as the story of the lives of those who listened. She was singing the soundtrack to their joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures’. In spite of my age, Smile, Unusual Way, Papa Can You Hear Me resonate in me deeply, while People and Somewhere fully correspond to the views and ideas I behold dearly and often express in writing and here, in Los Cuadernos, for which you can certainly call me a Cockeyed Optimist.

The peak of the performance for me was when Streisand run and danced barefoot on stage. And it was most lovely to see the audience standing and greeting Barbra with several rounds of ovation. In Russia, it was a part of nearly every performance experience: to call actors or singers come back on stage several times. In four years here, attending theatre and cinema many times, I almost got used to people giving a few claps, standing up and leaving, so seeing this “Russian” reaction felt incredibly warm.

It is evident that I, like many others, enjoyed every minute of two-and-a-half hours of Streisand’s concert, including the interval, when I took the photos of the Arena’s hall that are now scattered throughout this post. And I feel I should comment on a criticism that the show was scripted. Where I sat, on the side, was the perfect place to see both the stage and the screens with running scripts. First, the lines run fast, so unless everyone (Barbra and the Broadway guys) knows what they are to say, they won’t be on time with the script. Most importantly, though, is that they didn’t actually follow the script word for word. Yes, maybe it’s bad to direct your own show, but as a spectator I think it would be worse to listen to an artist, who sounds and looks like a sheep, not knowing what to say. From my own experience of writing scripts or watching written scripts going live I can only say that it’s essential to know where your carriage (be that a play, a radio or TV show, or a performance) is going at any given minute. To ensure that it runs naturally is up to a performer, and for Barbra Streisand it was a piece of cake.

“Barbra – was she worth the money?” – a sly question that has left many a reviewer’s pens. Someone cynical may say a performer like Streisand is used to the crowd’s adoration, but no matter how used you get to people praising you, there are always new people, and every performer needs them, not only because ‘people need people’, but because people need art, and a performer is the mediator between art and the world. This entire contemplation on worthiness reminds me of Maugham’s Theatre, one of my favourite novels. In one chapter, the heroine’s son reproaches her for being “false”. He fails to understand how one minute Julia Lambert can be all emotion on stage, then have a go at the technician during a short interval, and then immediately regain the altitude and power of her performance once again. She feels disturbed, but in the very final passages of the book she realises that the actors give substance and meaning to the lives of people in the audience: ‘… out of them we create beauty, and their significance in that they form the audience we must have to fulfill ourselves… We are the symbols of all this confused, aimless struggle that they call life, and it’s only the symbol which is real. They say acting is make-believe. That make-believe is the only reality’.

You may cue in Vallely’s review or Gogard’s musings on image and reality in Notre Musique. Or you can read the review of one of the concert’s attendees, who (though not without some inner struggle) has taken from this single night something precious and indelible. One thing is certain: art transforms life, and ever since coming out on stage 47 years ago Barbra Streisand has been doing just that.

Links:

Barbra Streisand official website

Manchester reviews: BBC and Manchester Evening News

Paul Valley, Broadway Diva Lives up to Her Billing, The Independent, 11 July 2007

Set list, photos, press and fan reviews at Barbra Archives.

Barbra Streisand group on Flickr

John Grundeken

The Cotton Mill Blog

Barbra Streisand in Manchester set on Flickr

About images:

All images used in this post are copyrighted. The details for the booklet illustrations can be found in the captions to the pictures here. ‘The Tie’ is designed and produced by John Grundeken.