ASEES29

Australian Slavonic and East
European Studies
(Formerly Melbourne Slavonic Studies)
Journal of the
Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ Association
and of the
Australian Association of Communist and Post-Communist Studies
Volume 29, Nos. 1-2

2015
Australian Slavonic and East European Studies
Editor: Dr Robert Lagerberg, University of Melbourne

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Dr Julie Fedor, University of Melbourne
Dr John McNair, University of Queensland
Dr Lyndall Morgan, University of Queensland
Prof. Marko Pavlyshyn, Monash University
Dr Alexandra Smith, University of Edinburgh
Dr Ludmila Stern, University of New South Wales
Dr David N. Wells, Curtin University
Assoc. Prof. Kevin Windle, Australian National University
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ANZSA
Office bearers of the Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ Association are:
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Wales
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Dr Lynne Alice, Deakin University
iv
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Translations and Transformations: Kostomarov’s Renderings
of Byron’s Hebrew Melodies ............................................................................ 1
ALEXANDRA SMITH
Lev Tolstoy in the Age of Kinoglasnost: Mikhail Shveitser’s
The Kreutzer Sonata as a Critique of Russian Erotic Utopia and
Soviet Ideology................................................................................................ 31
ANDY BYFORD AND HENRIETTA MONDRY
Love, Service and Sacrifice: Narratives of Dogs and Children
in the Soviet 1930s ........................................................................................ 63
JOHN MCNAIR
The ‘Rambling Victorian’ and the Modern Sphinx: An Australian
View of Russia in 1883 .................................................................................. 91
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Key Areas of Variation in Russian Nominal Word Stress ........................... 117
REVIEWS
Harai Golomb, Presence Through Absence: A New Poetics of Chekhov’s

Plays (Michael O’Toole) .............................................................................. 161
Notes on Contributors .............................................................................................. 165
v
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS:

KOSTOMAROV’S RENDERINGS OF BYRON’S HEBREW MELODIES1
‘Translation can support the formation of national identities through both the
selection of foreign texts and the development of discursive strategies to translate
them,’ wrote Lawrence Venuti in 2005. ‘A foreign text may […] be chosen because
its form and theme contribute to the creation of a specific discourse of nation in the
translating culture. […]. Such translation practices form national identities through a
specular process in which the subject identifies with cultural materials that are defined
as national and thereby enable a self-recognition in a national collective’. In particular
historical circumstances translations invite such self-identification with a national dis-
course ‘articulated in relation to hegemonic foreign nations’.2 In the case of the nine-
teenth-century Ukrainian national movement, the main addressees of such invitations
in both the Russian and the Habsburg empires were members of social groups – gen-
try and clergy, respectively – accustomed to using languages other than the vernacular
(Russian and French in the first instance, Polish and German in the second) for educa-
tion, communication with officialdom, informal interaction within their social milieu,
and the satisfaction of their cultural needs. For these groups literary translations could
1 The research project of which this article is one of the outcomes received support from the Australian Research
Council, the Ukrainian Studies Support Fund of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria (Australia) and the
Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia. I gratefully acknowledge the research assistance rendered to the project
by Ms. Khrystyna Chushak and Mr. Dmytro Yesypenko.
2 Lawrence Venuti, ‘Local Contingencies: Translation and National Identities’, Nation, Language, and the Ethics
of Translation, ed. Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005),
174-202, here 180 and 187.
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 1-30

MARKO PAVLYSHYN
and did advance ‘self-recognition in a national collective’. They also contributed to a

potential national high culture by expanding the range of genres across which the
Ukrainian language, the chief symbol of Ukrainian ethno-cultural identity, could be
employed.
But this was not how all early translators into Ukrainian conceived of their ac-
tivity. Rather than seeking to fashion the nascent Ukrainian literary language to ac-
commodate the expressive demands of foreign texts at the same register as the origi-
nals, some of their number created translations or adaptations that conformed to, and
reinforced, the low-brow, carnivalesque template for Ukrainian-language literature
that had been established by Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Eneida (1798-1842), his travesty of
Virgil’s Aeneid. Kotliarevsky’s popular and influential text engendered a wave of imi-
tation, known as kotliarevshchyna in the critical tradition, that was much deplored in
its own time, and later, for nurturing a stereotype of Ukrainian-language cultural pro-
duction as predominantly humorous, lightweight and destined to remain at the periph-
eries of serious cultural activity.3 Thus, for example, Petro Hulak-Artemovsky (1790-
1865), author of both Russian-language and Ukrainian-language verse, wrote Ukrain-
ian burlesque adaptations of Horace’s odes and a translation of Goethe’s ‘Der Fischer’
(The Fisherman) which, though not parodically plebeian, made a point of its stylistic
informality. His ‘free translation’ of an excerpt from Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ into
Russian, on the other hand, aspired to preserve the solemnity of the original.4
3 See George G. Grabowicz, ‘Subversion and Self-Assertion: The Role of Kotliarevshchyna in Russian-Ukrainian
Literary Relations,’ History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the
19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004-2006), 1:
401-09.
4 Petro Hulak-Artemovsʹkyi, Baiky, balady, liryka (Kyiv: Radiansʹkyi pysʹmennyk, 1958), ‘XIV oda Horatsiia, kn.
II’ (125-28); ‘IX oda Horatsiia, Kn. II’ (129-31); ‘Rybalka (Malorosiisʹka balada)’ (76-77); and ‘Muchenie satany
pri vozzrenii na edem (Volʹnyi perevod iz Milʹtonova ‘Poteriannogo raia’)’ (91-94).
2
KOSTOMAROV’S RENDERINGS OF HEBREW MELODIES
Other translators – Markian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych and Yakiv

Holovatsky in Habsburg Galicia, Levko Borovykovsky, Opanas Shpyhotsky and
Oleksandr Korsun in the Russian Empire – aimed to produce Ukrainian texts ap-
proximating the tone and stylistic level of the originals. Often they were led by their
Romantic interest in folklore, as well as by their pan-Slav convictions, to translate
South and West Slavic songs and other folkloric texts.5 For these translations equiva-
lent Ukrainian folk forms provided a suitable stylistic base. Among the first to trans-
late works of literature in other tonalities was Mykola (or Nikolai) Kostomarov (1817-
1885).
As an historian of Russia and Ukraine from the second half of the 1850s on-
ward Kostomarov was ambivalent toward the Ukrainian national project, regarding
Russians and Ukrainians as culturally distinctive parts of the one nation and question-
ing whether a high literature in the Ukrainian language should be a priority for mem-
bers of the Ukrainian movement.6 From the late 1830s until his arrest in 1847 for his
role in the secret pan-Slav and Ukrainophile Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius,
however, Kostomarov advocated a Ukrainian literature and reflected in some depth
(though not conclusively) on the proper nature of a national identity for Ukrainians.
Prior to his arrest, his political prescription of Ukraine’s future, set out in his ‘Knyhy
bytiia ukraïnsʹkoho narodu’ (Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian people) saw the coun-
5 The study by members of each Slavic nation of the folklore and literature of other Slavic nations was an explicit
recommendation of Jan Kollár, the pre-eminent advocate of pan-Slavism, in his treatise On Literary Reciprocity
among the Various Tribes and Dialects of the Slavic Nation (1837). Jan Kollár, Rozpravy o slovanské vzájemnosti,
ed. Miloš Weingart (Prague: Slovanský Ústav, 1929), 37.
6 Kostomarov elaborated on this idea in his 1881 essay ‘Zadachi ukrainofilʹstva’ (The Goals of Ukrainophilism). In
particular, he was critical of directing energy into literary translation (‘It is best to leave all the Byrons and
Mickiewiczes in peace…’, he argued) at the expense of producing texts that would directly serve the
enlightenment of ordinary people. N. I. Kostomarov, Russkie inorodtsy (Moscow: Charli, 1996), 554-68, here 567.
3
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
try as an independent republic in federation with the republics of other Slavic nations,
including a Russia no longer subject to tsarist tyranny.
In this early period of his life Kostomarov, undaunted by his initially shaky
knowledge of Ukrainian, systematically set about producing literary works in a range
of ‘high’ genres: historical drama, tragedy and philosophical lyric. He also continued
to write lyric poetry in the folk manner, creating works that, like almost all verse in
vernacular Ukrainian in the early decades of the nineteenth century, were cast into the
shade by the poems of Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar (The Minstrel), published in 1840.
Possibly Kostomarov’s most accomplished exercises in verse were his translations of
Byron’s Hebrew Melodies. They appeared in 1841, signed with Kostomarov’s literary
pseudonym Yeremia Halka, in the almanac Snip (The Sheaf), published in Kharkiv by
his friend Oleksandr Korsun (1818-1891). A significant part of Kostomarov’s endeav-
our to broaden the thematic and stylistic repertoire of Ukrainian literature, they also
extended his reflections on national identity. Kostomarov’s selection of Jewish subject
matter was of interest in the light of the fact that Poles and Jews in his earlier poetry
and drama were groups against which he had defined Cossack identity – and the Cos-
sacks, in turn, were the historical centrepiece of the contemporary Ukrainian identity
that Kostomarov sought to animate. The following discussion seeks to clarify the role
of Kostomarov’s translations of Byron in the evolution of his views on national iden-
tity and its relationship to religious identity. It is an inquiry into a phase in the gesta-
tion of the opinions of an important contributor to the discussion of nation and culture
in the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, a member, with Shevchenko and
Panteleimon Kulish, of the ‘Ukrainian Triad’, 7 rather than a study of texts with
7 This term was applied to the three men by Omeljan Pritsak in his ‘Prolegomena to the National Awakening of the
Ukrainians during the Nineteenth Century’, Culture and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Roland
Sussex and J. C. Eade (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1983), 96-110, here 107.
4
significant impact on public opinion in their own time. It was not the destiny of The
Sheaf to enjoy wide distribution: as Korsun wrote to Shevchenko in 1843, ‘I printed
600 copies, thinking, here’s a good thing – people will buy it and start reading in our
language! […] More fool me!!! I printed 600, sold 50, gave away 200 and have no
idea what to do with the remaining 350.’8
The Sheaf represented in miniature the tension between the two models of
Ukrainian literature current at the time: a national literature seeking to establish itself
among other national literatures, and a comic addendum in the spirit of kotliarevsh-
chyna to Russian national literature. The almanac opened with three items by
Kostomarov: his play ‘Pereiaslavsʹka nich’ (The Pereiaslav Night); his translations
from Byron under the title of ‘Ievreisʹki spivanky’ (Hebrew Songs); and ‘Olenʹ’ (The
Stag), a poem translated from Vaclav Hanka’s pseudo-medieval Rukopis královéd-
vorský (Queen’s Court Manuscript, 1817). Other authors’ contributions to the almanac
were more or less evenly divided between the burlesque Kotliarevskian mode and
more earnest Romantic treatments of predominantly rustic themes. The latter included
several accomplished lyric poems by Mykhailo Petrenko and Marta Pysarevska’s
‘Petrarkyna pisnia (Iz italiiansʹkoho)’ (Petrarch’s song [From the Italian]).9
The placement of Kostomarov’s ‘Hebrew Songs’ immediately after his ‘Perei-
aslav Night’, whether intended by him or not, invited the reader to consider the trans-
lated songs as a continuation of the reflections on national identity that Kostomarov
had inscribed into the preceding drama. In the latter, Kostomarov had chosen the sev-
enteenth-century Khmelnytsky rebellion as the historical background for the devel-
8 Lysty do Tarasa Shevchenka, ed. V. S. Borodin (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1993), 12. Author’s translation.
9 Snip: Ukraïnsʹkyi novorochnyk. Zkrutyv Aleksandr Korsun (Kharkiv: drukovano v Universytetsʹkii shtamparni,
1841). In Korsun’s orthography, one of many proposed at the time for the vernacular Ukrainian, the details on the
title page were as follows: СНJПЪ, українській новорочникъ. Зкрутивъ Александръ Корсунъ. РJКЪ ПЕРВІЙ.
ХАРКJВЪ. Друковано въ университетськjй штампарнj. 1841.
5
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
opment of his thesis that national identities are emphatically demarcated from each
other by differences in religion and culture. In the play, Orthodox ‘rusʹki’ (Ukrainians;
in this drama the issue of differentiation between Ukrainians, Belarusians and Rus-
sians is not raised) are fundamentally separate from Roman Catholic Poles, but also
from Uniates (who are also Ukrainians and Belarusians, but of Eastern Catholic faith)
and Jews. Such differences, according to the play, generate antagonisms that are pro-
found, unavoidable and best controlled, not through violent confrontation (this being
contrary to the precept of Christian mercy), but through physical separation. The solu-
tion to the Polish-Ukrainian conflict that is advanced by Kostomarov’s mouthpiece in
the drama, the Orthodox priest Anastasy, and in the end agreed to by the Cossack
leader Lysenko, is that Poles should be allowed peacefully to go ‘with God’s blessing
to their homeland’ 10 – presumably parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
where ethnic Poles constitute the majority. The play offers no vision of future rela-
tions between the Orthodox on these Ukrainian lands and Uniates (who have no
homeland other than Ukraine) or Jews, a nation in diaspora unable to ‘return home’.
The Orthodox-Uniate and the Ukrainian-Jewish confrontations are simply left unre-
solved.11 The translations of Hebrew Melodies might have been seen by a reader of
The Sheaf as a return at least to the latter of these questions.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, had written the poems of Hebrew Melodies
(1815) to put words to Isaac Nathan’s settings of melodies from synagogue liturgies.
The collaboration of the most celebrated English poet of his day, notorious provo-
cateur of establishment mores and advocate of liberation movements Europe-wide,
10 Mykola Kostomarov, Tvory v dvokh tomakh, ed. V. L. Smilians'ka (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1990), 1: 273.
11 For a study of the treatment of national identity in Kostomarov’s earlier drama Sava Chalyi, see Marko
Pavlyshyn, ‘For and Against a Ukrainian National Literature: Kostomarov’s Sava Chalyi and Its Reviewers’,
Slavonic and East European Review, 92.2 (2014): 201-27.
6
and Nathan (1790-1864), an acculturated but not assimilated Jewish composer and
musician,12 as well as the debate engendered by the fruits of this collaboration, have
proved fertile ground for modern scholarship interested in the nuances of power rela-
tions between dominant and subaltern cultures, or dominant and subaltern elements
within the one culture.13 Kostomarov’s reception of Byron, on the other hand, has re-
ceived minimal attention.14
12 For a biography of Nathan, who immigrated to Australia in 1841 and was an early transcriber of indigenous
Australian music, see Catherine Mackerras, The Hebrew Melodist: A Life of Isaac Nathan (Sydney: Currawong,
1963).
13 Joseph Slater read the collection as a straightforward expression by Byron of solidarity with proto-Zionism in a
spirit of Romantic dedication to political liberty (‘Byron’s Hebrew Melodies’, Studies in Philology, 49.1
[1952]:75-94). More recently, a study of the early reviews of Hebrew Melodies has shown how, in British post-
Enlightenment culture, approval of the Old Testament as a pre-history of the Christian era coexisted with prejudice
against contemporary Jews (Jeremy Davies, ‘Jewish Tunes, or Hebrew Melodies: Byron and the Biblical Orient’,
Byron and Orientalism, ed. Peter Cochran [Newcastle, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006], 197-
214). Toby R. Benis has studied the awkward identification with the subject position of ancient Jewish musicians
that the act of singing Nathan’s songs to Byron’s words imposed upon British performers (‘Byron’s Hebrew
Melodies and the Musical Nation’, Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures, ed. Sheila A. Spector
[Farnham, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2011], 31-44). Sheila A. Spector has inquired into the meanings generated
by Nathan’s superimposition of Byronic poems over pre-existing liturgical melodies, each associated with a Jewish
text and ritual (‘The Liturgical Context of the Byron-Nathan Hebrew Melodies’, Studies in Romanticism, 47.3
(2008): 393-428; see also her Byron and the Jews [Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2010]).
14 Histories of Ukrainian literary translation do little more than note the existence of Kostomarov’s translations of
Byron. Maksym Strikha mentions them in passing in his Ukraïnsʹkyi khudozhnii pereklad: Mizh literaturoiu i
natsiietvorenniam (Kyiv: Fakt, 2006), 9. Mykhailo Moskalenko dedicates only a few lines to them, noting the
analogy between the message of liberation from foreign tyranny in some of Kostomarov’s translations and in his
‘Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian People’. ‘Narysy z istoriï ukraïnsʹkoho perekladu’, Vsesvit, 1-2 (2006), 172-
190, <http://www.vsesvit-journal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=41>, access-
ed 26 September 2014.
7
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Byron’s poems were popular15 and widely translated.16 Indeed, they were ideal
for translation: relatively short, they dealt with love, death, courage, melancholy and
other human emotions and circumstances well established as lyrical subject matter in
most European cultures; they made reference to a widely familiar text, the Old Testa-
ment; and their formal precision and Byron’s verbal mastery – they are, as one critic
put it, ‘finely executed, rich in tone, and unified in mood’17 – made them a worthy
challenge for the translator. Up to the mid-1840s at least ten translators, including
Mikhail Lermontov and Afanasy Fet, 18 had rendered individual poems from the
Melodies into Russian. Kostomarov, in trying his hand at translating them into
Ukrainian, was up against stiff competition. On the whole, he made a good job of it.
His translations compared favourably with older and contemporary Russian-language
15 The folio containing Nathan’s musical settings and Byron’s words sold ten thousand copies in two editions
(Paul G. Trueblood, Lord Byron [New York: Twayne, 1969], 65). There have been numerous musical re-settings
of the individual poems, including 73 of ‘She Walks in Beauty’ (Benita Eisler, Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of
Fame [London: Hamish Hamilton, 1999], 760-61).
16 The bibliography in Ernest Hartley Coleridge’s 1904 edition of Byron’s poetry (The Works of Lord Byron: A
New, Revised and Enlarged Edition with Illustrations, Vol. VII [London: John Murray, 1904]) lists editions of
Hebrew Melodies as a whole, not counting the many translations of individual poems, as follows: five into German,
two into Italian, and one each into Czech, Danish, Hebrew, Russian and Swedish: <http://www.gutenberg.org/files
/27577/27577-h/27577-h.htm#Page_152>, accessed 26 September 2014.
17 Leslie A. Marchand, Byron’s Poetry: A Critical Introduction (London: John Murray, 1965), 133.
18 Iuliia Lusova lists the following additional translators of Hebrew Melodies: Dmitrii Oznobishin, Mykola
(Nikolai) Markevych, Mykola Hnidych (Nikolai Gnedich) and Ivan Kozlov (Retseptsiia D. G. Bairona v Rossii
1810-1830-kh godov [Diss. abstract Nizhnii Novgorod, 2003], <http://cheloveknauka.com/v/39285/a>, accessed 27
September 2014). By 1846, poems from the Melodies had also been translated by Sergei Durov (see
<http://az.lib.ru/d/durow_s_f/text_0020.shtml>) and Aleksandr Polezhaev (see <http://az.lib.ru/p/polezhaew_a_i/
text_0010.shtml>), as well as Ivan Kreshev and Ivan Borozdna (see <http://eadgene.org/index.php/term/7-slovar-
vii,2527-dzhordzh-gordon-baijron.xhtml>). Sites accessed 30 September 2014.
8
renderings, as a comparison of the first four lines from Byron’s ‘Sun of the Sleepless’
with Kostomarov’s and three other translations may demonstrate.19
Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!

Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show’st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember’d well! (Byron, 1815)20
Несонним сонечко ти, зіронько мутная!

Як твій дрижачий світ далеко сумно сяє!
Твій блідий лик прогнати ніч не має власті,
Ой, як він схож на згадку про старинне щастя.
Little sun for the sleepless, dim little star! / How far away your trem-
bling light sadly shines! / Your pale visage has no power to fend off
the night. / Oh, how similar it is to a remembrance of ancient happi-
ness. (Kostomarov, ‘Misiatsʹ’ [The Moon], 1841)21
Бессонного солнце, в тумане луна!

Горишь ты далеко, грустна и бледна.
При тусклом мерцаньи мрак ночи страшней,
Так в памяти радость утраченных дней.
19 Comparison of various translations of this poem into Russian was the basis of a proposal in 1965 by Aleksandr
Finkelʹ for an objective method of evaluating the ‘adequacy’ of verse translations, first published as ‘O tochnosti
stikhotvornogo perevoda’, Moskovskii lingvisticheskii zhurnal, 5.2 (2001): 127-186.
20 Lord Byron, The Complete Poetical Works, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 3: 305.
21 Mykola Kostomarov, Tvory v dvokh tomakh (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1990), 1: 152. All reverse translations are the
author’s.
9
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Sun of the sleepless, moon in the mist! / You burn far away, sad and
pale. / In the presence of a dim, flickering light the darkness of the
night is the more frightening, / As is, remembered, the happiness of
lost days. (Ivan Kozlov, ‘Evreiskaia melodiia’ [A Jewish Melody],
1825)22
О солнце тех, кто не вкушает сна,

Звезда задумчивых, печальная луна!
Украся свод небес эфирный и пространный
Сколь ты прекрасна для очей!
Но луч твой нежный и туманный
Не разгоняет тьмы ночей.
O sun of those who taste no sleep, / Star of those who are pensive, sor-
rowful moon! / Gracing the ethereal and spacious vault of the heavens,
/ How beautiful you are to the eye! / But your delicate and misty beam
/ Does not dispel the darkness of the nights. / (Mykola Markevych, ‘O
solntse tekh, kto ne vkushaet sna…’ [O Sun of Those Who Taste no
Sleep…], 1829)23
О Солнце глаз бессонных! Звездный луч,

Как слезно ты дрожишь меж дальних туч…
22 Ivan Kozlov, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatelʹ, 1960), <http://az.lib.ru/k/
kozlow_i_i/text_0110-1.shtml>, accessed 10 October 2011.

23 Nikolai Markevich, ‘O solntse tekh, kto ne vkushaet sna’, quoted in Ia. S. Ruleva, ‘Osobennosti adekvatnogo
perevoda stikhotvorenii: Peredacha metafory na russkii iazyk pri perevode poeticheskikh proizvedenii Dzh. G.
Bairona’, Vestnik KASU, 2 (2006): 116-121, <http://www.vestnik-kafu.info/journal/6/214/>, accessed 10 October
2011.
10
Сопутник мглы, блестящий страж ночной,

Как по былом тоска сходна с тобой…
O Sun of sleepless eyes! / Starry beam, / How tearfully you tremble

among the distant thunderclouds… / Companion of mist, shining
guardian of the night, / How akin to you is longing for what was…
(Afanasii Fet, ‘O solntse glaz bezsonnykh…’ [O Sun of Sleepless
Eyes], 1844)24
Byron’s four lines are a sustained apostrophe to the moon,25 upon which the
epithets ‘melancholy’, ‘tearful’ and ‘tremulous’ confer the qualities of fragility, tenta-
tiveness, weakness, anxiety and sadness. This impression is reinforced by the fact that
the moon’s light is apprehended as distant and that the moon is described as a star,
merely one of many points of light in the night sky, not the single bright disc that
dominates all the other heavenly bodies. The passage constructs an analogy whose
purpose is to give shape to an observation on the nature of human happiness. Because
the moon’s light is feeble, it ‘shows’ – emphasises by contrast, renders more palpable
– the darkness of the night. If the remembered joy (as distinct from present joy) is
similar to moonlight, that is so not only because remembered joy itself is weak, like
the moonbeam, but also because the recollection of it intensifies present unhappiness.
The image creates a visual explication of the famous aphorism from Canto 5 of
24 Afanasii Fet, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii A. A. Feta. Prilozhenie k zhurnalu ‘Niva’ na 1912 g. (Sankt-
Peterburg: A. F. Marks, 1912), 2: 185.

25 Nathan reported to Byron that some readers were not sure whether the ‘star’ in Byron’s poem signified the
moon or the evening star (Thomas L. Ashton, Byron’s Hebrew Melodies [London: Routledge, 1972], 83). No such
doubts beset Kostomarov, Kozlov or Markevych.
11
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Dante’s Inferno, ‘There is no greater woe / than looking back on happiness in days /
of misery’.26
While the analogy gives the four lines an intellectual structure, their emotional
import rests upon the sympathy that the speaker (by implication, one of ‘the sleepless’)
expresses toward the moon. The speaker’s attribution to the moon of sadness, fearful-
ness and tremulousness suggests that it is he (or she) who experiences the melancholy
and anxiety that is projected onto the inanimate, but anthropomorphised, addressee.
There is a familiarity between them, a friendship in misfortune. The lyrical ‘I’ empha-
sises this by continuing to talk to the moon throughout, addressing it as ‘thou’ in the
third and fourth lines. There is no need for the speaker to use the word ‘moon’: that
would be superfluous in so intimate a dialogue. Also significant, and requiring repro-
duction in a competent translation, is the strength of the ‘joy’ of the fourth line:
though it is past, it is not merely remembered, but ‘remembered well’: it is fixed in the
speaker’s mind.
As for the metrical structure of the verses, Byron uses a regular iambic pen-
tameter, inverting the stress only in the first foot of the first line. This inversion places
strong emphasis on the word ‘sun’, appropriate to its weight in the poem: though the
speaker extends a compliment to the moon by comparing it to the sun, yet the remain-
der of the four lines underscores the fact that the moon is less like the sun than it is
like one of the stars.
Kostomarov’s translation captures a surprisingly large number of these nu-
ances. It establishes and maintains the conversational and sympathetic tone of the
speaker’s address to the moon. The Ukrainian diminutives ‘sonechko’ (little sun) and
‘ziron΄ko’ (little star) render the address more intimate than the original, while also
naturalising it: diminutives are common in Ukrainian folksongs and folklore-inspired
26 Dante Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Michael Palma (New York: Norton, 2002), 21.
12
verse. At the same time, the diminutives by no means lower the stylistic level of the
translation or render it rustic: there is no hint of Kotliarevsky’s heritage here. In gen-
eral, Kostomarov reproduces the emotional tone well: he renders Byron’s series of
attributives, ‘melancholy/tearful/tremulously/far’ by ‘dryzhachyi’ (trembling), ‘sumno’
(sadly) and ‘daleko’ (far). Byron’s ‘melancholy star’ becomes ‘ziron΄ka mutnaia’, a
‘dim’ or ‘murky’ star. The translation is inaccurate, but activates an association with
turbid water that underscores the weakness of the moonlight. Kozlov’s translation re-
sorts to a similar stratagem, placing the moon ‘v tumane’ (in a mist), but names the
moon by name, thus losing an important effect of Byron’s. (Markevych’s translation
does the same. It is also wordier and longer than the original, overlooks the frailty of
the moonbeam and introduces the alien and distracting notion of its beauty.) Only Fet
competes with Kostomarov in the appositeness of the words chosen to render the
quality of the moonbeam: ‘slezno’ (tearfully), ‘ty drozhish΄’ (you tremble) and
‘dal΄nikh’ (distant).
An important challenge to the translator is the treatment of the analogy be-
tween the moon, which, failing to dispel the ambient darkness, renders it even blacker,
and the joy that, being absent, makes the sense of its loss more acute. Only Kozlov
picks up on the fact that the weak moonbeam serves only to intensify the gloom: ‘Pri
tusklom mertsan΄i mrak nochi strashnei’ (By a dim, flickering light the darkness of the
night is the more frightening). Kostomarov and Markevych both state only that the
moonbeam has no power to dispel the night, while Fet goes in an altogether new di-
rection, contradicting his excellent rendition of the weakness of the moonlight with
images that make it forceful and active again: ‘Soputnik mgly, blestiashchii strazh
nochnoi’ (Companion of mist, shining guardian of the night). This means that the
analogy is complete only in Kozlov’s translation; in Kostomarov’s and Markevych’s
only half of it remains (the weakness of the moonbeam parallels the pallor of the
13
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
memory of joy); and in Fet’s the introduction of the bravura of the ‘shining guardian’
makes it unclear what qualities similarity to the moon confers upon ‘longing for what
was’ (‘po bylom toska’).
As for ‘joy remembered well’, the balance between the idea of the loss of an
earlier happy state and the continuing intensity of its presence to the mind escapes
Kozlov (who speaks of the ‘happiness of lost days’), Markevych (who loses the idea
of joy altogether and retains only ‘remembrance’) and Fet (in whose translation what
is lost is the past – ‘byloe’ – in general). Kostomarov makes by far the best job of it:
his ‘zhadka pro starynne shchastia’ (‘recollection of ancient happiness’) retains the
ideas both of memory and of happiness, and selects a word from the historian’s vo-
cabulary – ‘starynne’ (ancient) – to convey the idea of the durability of memory.
Kostomarov also has the advantage over his fellow translators when it comes
to the treatment of metre and rhyme. Markevych’s lines with their uneven numbers of
iambic feet, together with his lengthening of the poem, produce an effect remote from
the discipline and economy of Byron’s verse. Kozlov and Fet seek to echo Byron’s
metrical regularity, Kozlov in amphibrachic tetrameter and Fet in Byron’s own iambic
pentameter. In neither translation, however, does the rhythmical structure contribute
to the meaning or emotion of the poem. Kostomarov, on the other hand, works quite
creatively with the metre. His iambic hexameters produce a slightly longer line than
Byron’s and therefore provide a little more space in which to reproduce key associa-
tive words. The extrametrical syllable at the end of each line enables feminine rhyme
that harmonises with the melancholy of the poem, an effect further strengthened by
the fact that Kostomarov’s couplet rhymes are imperfect. But the technical coup of the
translation lies in its treatment of the first line. Byron’s poem began with an inversion
at the first foot, resulting in strong emphasis on the word ‘sun’. Kostomarov achieves
a similar effect by the shrewd deployment of diminutives – the three-syllable
14
‘sonechko’ (little sun) and ‘ziron΄ko’ (little star), each of which has a stress on the
first syllable and, in natural language, no perceptible secondary stress. In the first line
of the poem, therefore, there are effectively four, not six, stresses, and the primary
stress on ‘sonechko’ and ‘ziron΄ko’ is followed by three unstressed syllables. The re-
sult is strong emphasis on the words for ‘sun’ and ‘star’ – the very words that, in
Byron’s poem, are highlighted by their position as the first and last syllables, both
stressed, of the first line.
In short, Kostomarov’s translation of Byron’s four lines into Ukrainian was
more faithful both to the letter and the spirit of the original than those of any of his
three predecessors and contemporaries into Russian. Nevertheless, it also managed to
share the folklorically inflected tone of the new Ukrainian Romantic writing. The
quality of this translation was maintained in those of Kostomarov’s renditions of He-
brew Melodies which aimed for translation rather than adaptation. Together, these
verses demonstrated that translation of subtle, sophisticated and aesthetically charged
texts into Ukrainian from one of Europe’s most developed literatures was not only
possible – it was possible to a high level of both precision and poetic accomplishment.
Kostomarov had taken a significant step in his project of expanding the stylistic reach
of Ukrainian literature and creating a literature which, while written in vernacular
Ukrainian, did not ‘play the peasant’. This fact was recognised: Mykola Tykhorsky,
reviewing the almanac in which Kostomarov’s translations and his tragedy ‘The
Pereiaslav Night’ were published, asked whether it was possible in Ukrainian to write
in a genre as exalted as tragedy, and answered,
Why not? The Little Russian language is sonorous, deep and dignified
– it suffices to read the Hebrew Songs in Mr Halka’s Sheaf to see how
properly, how beautifully they express the most elevated thoughts of
the British poet! It follows that, if it has been possible fully to convey
15
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Hebrew Melodies in that language, it is also possible to use it to write

a tragedy.27
Nathan’s 1815 edition of Byron’s poems and his music contained twenty-four
songs; the full corpus amounts to thirty.28 Only seven of Kostomarov’s renderings ap-
peared in The Sheaf; ‘Benket Baltazara’ (Balthazar’s Feast), a faithful rendering of
Byron’s ‘Vision of Belshazzar’, remained unpublished until 1967, and ‘Pohybelʹ Ieru-
salyma’ (The Demise of Jerusalem), not a translation nor even an adaptation, but a
polemical rejoinder to ‘On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’, was
published in 1859. Kostomarov submitted other translations of Hebrew Melodies for a
second number of The Sheaf which never came to fruition; the manuscript of the en-
tire issue was lost, and only one of Kostomarov’s Jewish-themed poems, ‘Ievreisʹka
spivanka’ (A Jewish Song) destined for that publication survived, to be published only
after the author’s death.29 Expressing the lyrical subject’s yearning for a return to Zion,
this last poem corresponds in melancholy tone and diasporic theme to several of
Byron’s Melodies, without being clearly associated with any one of them.
The seven poems in The Sheaf represent three types of interacton with a source
text. Three poems may be classified as aiming for close equivalence to the original:
‘Nad Iordanom arabsʹki verbliudy pasutʹsia’ (Near the Jordan Arab Camels Graze, a
translation of Byron’s ‘On Jordan’s Banks’), ‘Misiatsʹ’ (The Moon, discussed above)
and ‘Pohybelʹ Sannakheribova’ (The Demise of Sennacherib, a translation of Byron’s
‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’). In these poems the texts follow closely the mean-
27 Nikolai Tikhorskii, ‘Snip (snop) Ukrainsʹkii novorochnik. Zkrutyv Aleksandr Korsun. Rik pervyi. Kharkiv.
Drukovano v Unyversytetsʹkii shtamparni. 1841. str. 228 i IV’, Maiak, 5, kn. IX, hl. IV (1842): 1-21. Emphases in
the original.
28 Ashton, 65.
29 See V. L. Smiliansʹka’s annotations to Tvory (1990), 1: 520-23.
16
ing of the originals; stanzas and, generally, lines of the translation follow those of
their source poems; and key images, words and Old Testament references are repro-
duced. Byron’s rhyme schemes are followed exactly in all three poems, and ‘The De-
mise of Sennacherib’ follows Byron’s metrical pattern as well.
A further three poems are adaptations. Two of these, ‘Zhurba Ievreisʹka’ (Sor-
row of the Hebrews; Byron’s ‘Oh! Weep for Those’) and ‘Dyka koza’ (The Wild
Goat; Byron’s ‘The Wild Gazelle’), are relatively faithful paraphrases of the ideas and
tone of the originals, but pay scant heed to their length and form, while the third,
‘Kokhavsʹ ia toboiu’ (I Was Loved by You), identified in the notes to both modern
editions as a ‘free translation’ (perespiv) of Byron’s ‘Oh! Snatch’d Away in Beauty’s
Bloom’, is in fact only distantly reminiscent of its source: both deal with the theme of
lost love, but Kostomarov does not follow Byron in specifying that the cause of the
loss is the beloved’s death. Finally, ‘Do zhydivky’ (To the Jewess), likewise conven-
tionally styled a perespiv, in fact polemically takes issue with its prototype, Byron’s
famous ‘She Walks in Beauty’, whose first four lines it quotes as an epigraph.
The variety of Kostomarov’s approaches to the task of translating Byron into
Ukrainian underscores the demonstrational character of his literary works in that lan-
guage. Just as his plays may be read as efforts to prove that historical drama and trag-
edy are possible in vernacular Ukrainian, so his poems inspired by Hebrew Melodies
may be understood as tests of the capacity of lyric poetry in Ukrainian to recreate ex-
actly, or to adapt freely, or indeed to take issue with, the polished verse of a celebrated
poet from one of Europe’s best established literary cultures.30 It would be reasonable
30 A reference guide to translation research is imprecise in generalising that ‘Mykola Kostomarov’s version of
Byron […] still represented the tradition of adaptation, rather than translation itself’ (Nataliya Olshanskaya,
‘Culture and Translation in Ukraine’, bersetzun : in internationales Handbuch zur bersetzun sforschun
ranslation: An International ncyclopedia of ranslation Studies raduction: ncyclop die internationale de la
17
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
to say, then, that one of Kostomarov’s nation-building objectives, the construction of

a national literary language serviceable across many of the stylistic registers needed
for modern communication, including those demanded by serious literary works, was
well served by his translation of Byron.
Translating the British poet, however, was for Kostomarov far more than a
linguistic exercise. A proportion of Byron’s Hebrew Melodies dealt with the themes
of history and national identity in relation to the Jews, a people defined by their rela-
tionship to God and deprived of the homeland that they loved. It was these poems,
called ‘proto-Zionist’ in some of the scholarly literature, that Kostomarov chose
above all for translation, no doubt because they reverberated with his interest in the
history, community and faith of the Ukrainians as a people and in Ukraine as a home-
land – and their better past and diminished present. Byron’s ‘Oh! Weep for Those’
invited sorrowful sympathy for the victims of the Babylonian captivity and lamented
their loss of homeland as well as the desolation, both cultural and physical, of the
Kingdom of Judah. Kostomarov placed his version, ‘Sorrow of the Hebrews’, at the
head of the selection in The Sheaf. Byron’s lines, ‘And where shall Zion’s songs again
seem sweet? / And Judah’s melody once more rejoice / The hearts that leap’d before
its heavenly voice’ in the Ukrainian context could be read allegorically as an expres-
sion of apprehension lest the ‘song’ of Ukraine – the country’s folklore and nascent
literary culture – disappear from its homeland. Kostomarov’s translation of the pas-
sage was close to the original:
recherche sur la traduction, ed. Harald Kittel, Juliane House and Brigitte Schultze, [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004], 3:
2098-102, here 2099).
18
Чи ще сіонську пісню він [ізраїль] почує?

Чи ще музика Юди задзвенить?
Чи ще вона нам серце звеселить? (1: 152)
Will [Israel] hear the song of Zion ever again? / Will the music of Ju-
dah ever resound again? / Will it ever again bring joy to our hearts?
If challenged to decode the Ukrainian analogy for the Babylonian captivity,

Kostomarov would no doubt have pointed to the dolorous lot of Ukrainians within the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during Cossack times, as he had done in his his-
torical dramas and his Master’s thesis on the Church Union.31 Byron’s line, ‘where
their God hath dwelt the godless dwell’, he may have considered applicable to the
pressure of Catholicism upon Orthodoxy in the Commonwealth; the corresponding
lines in his poem broaden the concept of the religious difference of those who now
occupy the land of Judah to one of a generalised enmity:
У тій землі, де Бог наш панував,

У тій землі панує ворог лютий! (1: 151)
In the land where our God once ruled, / In that land our ferocious en-
emy is lord!
There is no evidence that in 1840 Kostomarov thought of the Russian Empire,

within which Ukraine was submerged in his own time, as an enslaving Babylon.
Given, however, that the poem and its translation were directed against tyranny in
31 Pavlyshyn, 209-211.
19
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
general, the poem had the potential to be so read. Byron’s ‘On Jordan’s Banks’ called
upon the God of Israel to sweep away false gods and the tyrants who had dominion
over the land of the Jews; Kostomarov situated his translation, ‘Near the Jordan Arab
Camels Graze’, immediately after ‘Sorrow of the Hebrews’, no doubt to accentuate
the need for violent divine intervention as a response to the parlous situation described
in the first poem.
After these two programmatic poems, the nostalgia of ‘The Moon’ (Byron’s
‘Sun of the Sleepless’) for a Golden Age of happiness the more sorely lamented for
being so well remembered receives a distinctly political coloration. ‘The Destruction
of Sennacherib’ Kostomarov translated in part, no doubt, because of the challenge
presented by Byron’s anapaestic tetrameters, suggestive of the thunder of galloping
cavalry, but in part because of the theme – the destruction, against all human odds, of
a mighty enemy by the will of God. ‘The Wild Goat’ concludes the selection of po-
ems where Kostomarov follows Byron in articulating sympathy for a people con-
demned to a diasporic existence, deprived of the land where its covenant with the
Lord took place. Kostomarov takes over from Byron the symbols of the gazelle, the
palm tree and the cedar of Lebanon. By remaining in the land where they have their
roots (the palm and the cedar) or their freedom (Byron’s gazelle is ‘wild’, but
Kostomarov’s goat is also ‘vilʹna i veselenʹka’ [free and cheerful]), these elements of
created nature contrast starkly with ‘yzraïlʹsʹki rozihnani narody’, an especially felici-
tous translation of ‘Israel’s scatter’d race’.
At this point, the nature of Kostomarov’s homage to Byron changes. The next
two poems, while responding to Byron, are new works that deviate markedly from
their prototypes; the final part of this paper is devoted to their discussion. The poem
that differs less radically from the original is the last of the selection, ‘You Were
Loved by Me’. Byron’s ‘Oh! Snatch’d Away in Beauty’s Bloom’ mourned the death
20
of a young and beautiful woman and dismissed as fruitless enjoinders to learn to for-
get her. Kostomarov took up the theme of the lost beloved, but not the idea of the
superfluity of consolation. The result was one of his finer lyric poems, whose opening
lines are especially evocative:
Кохавсь я тобою,
Як місяць водою,
Як сонце усходом,
Як роса травою. (1: 157-158, here 157)
I was loved by you / As the moon is loved by the water, / As the sun is
loved by the dawn, / As the dew is loved by the grass.
The lover’s experience of love by the beloved is elucidated by three comparisons,

linked to each other by anaphora, with three different relationships in inanimate nature:
the lover is reflected in the beloved as the moon is reflected in water; he awaits her as
the sun awaits its rise at dawn; she supports him as grass supports the dew. If one
were to perform the task, inimical to poetry, of ‘paraphrasing’ this poem, one would
say that it makes observations about the impact of the mental state called ‘love’ upon
the person who experiences it. Love enables a mutual seeing of the self in the other;
bringing day where night was before, love makes life seem richer, brighter and more
vital; where previously life was vaporous and diffuse, love appears to give it sub-
stance and shape. The similes are laconic and unpretentious; the rest of the poem is
equally satisfying.
The more interesting of the two poems inspired by, but not translated from,
Byron is ‘Do zhydivky’ (‘To the Jewess’). Labelled an ‘adaptation’ of Byron’s ‘She
21
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Walks in Beauty’ in the notes to the two most recent editions,32 the poem is in fact a
wholly original piece, provocatively different in character from Byron’s. Byron’s
poem, which stands at the head of his collection, celebrates the beautiful face of a
brunette. The literature on Byron that has focussed on connections between his liter-
ary output and events in his life has noted that the poem, whose composition predated
Byron’s collaboration with Nathan, was inspired by Byron’s meeting with a Mrs
Wilmot, the wife of his cousin.33 Be that as it may, the poem is a good choice as an
introduction to the collection. Its expression of admiration for a woman’s beauty as
the outward sign of spiritual excellence creates a bridge between the literary (and,
perhaps more importantly, extra-literary) persona of Byron as a man knowing little
restraint and interested in the intimate dimension of human relationships, and a corpus
of poetic works in which this same poet, uncharacteristically for him, expresses sym-
pathy for a community defined by its religious beliefs. In a collection titled Hebrew
Melodies the few hints given to the reader of the outward appearance of the woman
being admired – that she has ‘raven tress[es]’ and that a contrast of ‘dark and bright’
defines her ‘aspect’ – suggests that she may be Jewish. If that is so, then her perfec-
tion, both physical and moral, from the start excludes the possibility that what follows
may reiterate negative stereotypes of Jewishness of the kind that would prove to be
pervasive in early reviews of the collection.34
The lyrical ‘I’ is moved by the chiaroscuro play upon that face of light and
dark:
32 Mykola Kostomarov, Tvory v dvokh tomakh, ed. Ievhen Shabliovsʹkyi (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1967), 1: 406;
Kostomarov, Tvory (1990), 1: 521.

33 See note, Byron, 3: 467.
34 For samples of such reviews, see Gordon K. Thomas, ‘The Forging of an Enthusiasm: Byron and the Hebrew
Melodies’, Neophilologus, 75.4 (1991): 626-36.
22
She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.35
Any alteration in this harmony would detract from her beauty. Kostomarov took
Byron’s first four lines, quoted above, as the epigraph to his poem. Like Byron’s hero-
ine, the lady addressed by the lyrical subject in Kostomarov’s poem is distinguished
by her beauty and virtue. But where the authorial voice in Byron contemplates her
from an idealising distance and makes observations about her in the third person, the
lyrical subject in ‘Do zhydivky’ is the lady’s lover. The poem is addressed to her, and
speaks of a troubled and problematic involvement between them in which cultural dif-
ference plays the role of nemesis.
Never one to avoid a shocking formulation, Kostomarov commences the poem
by homing in on the woman’s Jewish identity and having the lyrical ‘I’ articulate, as a
notion that he shares, the idea of the Jews collectively as the killers of Christ:
Над всіх дівчат гарніш, миліш

Моя израїльська дівчина,
З богоубійників рода
Всіма забутая дитина!
More beautiful and sweet than all others / Is my Israelite maid, / A

child of the clan of God-killers, / Forgotten by all! (1: 154)
35 Byron, 3: 228
23
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
For eleven stanzas following, the speaker lists the associations with Biblical land-
scapes that come to his mind as he contemplates her face: the cedars and fields of
Lebanon, the river Jordan swathed in palm groves, and the valley where Bethel lies.
The warmth of her voice reminds him of a bard who preaches grace and hope. When
she herself sings about the unhappy fate of her people, he visualises a grieving elder
weeping over the ashes of his fatherland and is moved to sympathy:
І стане серце у мене

За рід ваш бідний жатись, битись,
І в ту часину радий я
До вас, як к рідним, притулитись.
And my heart / tightens and races [with feeling] for your unfortunate
people, / And at that hour I would be glad / To embrace you as my
own. (1: 156)
From this point onward the speaker’s empathy unravels. In the very next stanza he
off-handedly introduces the prospect – inevitable, from his point of view – of his part-
ing from her. This information is wedged, like an aside, in the middle of a sentence
that, like almost everything that he says, is concerned solely with his own emotions.
What, he asks, is the cause of his heavy heart?
Чого ж, голубочко моя,

Як прийдеться нам час, буває,
Розстатись, – в мене нишком щось
На серце тяжко налягає?..
24
Why is it, my dove, / As the time approaches (as these things do) / For
us to part, that something secretly / Presses heavily upon my heart? (1:
156)
He professes to feel pity for her, for she will be disdained by non-Jews and Jews alike.
Non-Jews will reject her because of their prejudices:
Не розбираючи, чужі
Твій рід кепкують, зневажають.
The foreigners indiscriminately / Mock your people and hold them in

contempt. (1: 156)
Jews, on the other hand, will do so because, in contrast to their Old Testament ances-
tors, they have become corrupt, and her virtue has nothing in common with their de-
generacy:
А кревні? Кревнії твої

Давно вже серце загубили;
Через наругу душі їх
Заснітитись і зачерствіли.
Твій рід на срібло проміняв

Звичай дідівський, старосвітський.
Од слави батьківській зоставсь
В насліддя ляк їм соромницький!
25
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
Вони погані, ти чиста

І неповинна, як голубка!
У них в серцях сміття; в тобі –
Угодна Богу сяє думка!
Так часто бачиш: по лісах

На липі, вже зусім сухої,
Зосталась гілочка одна,
Що зеленіє під росою!
And as for those of your own blood? They / Have long ago lost their
hearts; / The scorn [they have experienced] has made their souls / mil-
dewed and stale. // Your clan has exchanged for silver / The old-world
customs of your ancestors, / Of your fathers’ glory there remains / No
inheritance but shameful cowardice. // They are vile, while you are
pure / And innocent as a dove! / In their hearts there is but waste,
while in you / Shine thoughts that are pleasing to God! // One sees this
often: in forests / On a dead lime tree / There remains a single branch /
That is green and dewy! (1: 156)
The situation, it transpires, is that of The Merchant of Venice: there exists, as a mar-
vellous exception, a Jewess who is beautiful and good, but her virtue only heightens
the unworthiness of most contemporary representatives of her people. As the poem
began by invoking the condemnation of Jews as those who killed Christ, so it ends
with the stereotypes of the Jews as money-loving (the reference to the exchange of
ancient customs for silver alludes to Judas’s betrayal of Christ) and cowardly, a dis-
grace to the memory of their ancestors. The Jews of the Old Testament, those in-
26
scribed into the Christian orbit of positive values by their Scriptural role as worship-
pers of the true God, deserve retrospective respect and compassion as a people for
centuries enslaved and homeless. As for the Jews of the present, their identity is
stamped by their joint historical responsibility for Christ’s death, while their collective
personality is marred by disagreeable traits. As far as the lyrical ‘I’ of the poem is
concerned, they deserve and receive no respect or compassion, even though the ‘I’
concedes that the unappealing social and psychological demeanour for which he criti-
cises them is a response to the scorn and contempt that they suffer.36
The shifts in attitude that the ‘I’ records in the course of the poem construct a
body of evidence showing the reader how destructive of personal morality are the ef-
fects of attempting to breach the cultural divide. The lyrical ‘I’, lover or not, turns out
to be no sympathetic character. He begins by recounting what aesthetic and intellec-
tual delights the proximity of his beloved has brought for him; he confesses that the
experience has at times moved him and brought him to a sense of kinship (‘iak k rid-
nym’) with her people; but his love for her lacks the dimension of commitment, and
he takes their parting as a foregone conclusion. There is no determination on his part
to overcome the cultural rift between their communities – on the contrary, the ‘I’ read-
ily assents to the prevailing perception of Jews. Finally, he distances himself from his
beloved through the device of pity: none will now support her – neither those of her
own blood, nor ‘the foreign ones’ (‘chuzhi’), of whom, at the poem’s end, he is one.
Having achieved the distance of objectivity, or rather, having withdrawn from in-
volvement, he can afford to offer an aestheticising generalisation, likening his (former)
beloved to the sole green branch on a tree that otherwise has withered. The poem is a
36 For a subtle discussion of the underlying problematic – the capacity of a dominant Western Christian culture to
define and shift the boundary between a positively evaluated ‘Hebrew’ heritage and a suspect ‘Jewishness’, see
Davies, 211.
27
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
monologue; there is no right of reply, and it is up to the reader to imagine how the ad-
dressee might have responded to her lover’s setting her apart from her community, yet
tarring her with the same brush as them; describing the subtleties of his admiration for
her, yet discarding her with few regrets; and finally, rid of her, turning her into an ob-
ject of pity and a picturesque theme for a poetic analogy. The poem’s ‘I’ gazes at the
young woman through an Orientalist lens, combining desire with disdain, denying her
subjectivity, subjugating her to his needs and whims.37
What meaning should we ascribe to Kostomarov’s having placed, in the con-
text of other more or less faithfully translated poems, one whose thinking goes so far
beyond that of the poem which inspired, or perhaps provoked it? Byron’s poem con-
templates the portrait-like beauty of a lady; Kostomarov’s asks what it might mean for
a Christian man to love a Jewish woman in a society where there is prejudice. What is
the relationship between ‘Kostomarov’ and the ‘lyrical subject’ of his poem? How
does ‘Kostomarov’ want his readers to judge his protagonist? Does he invite them to
stand on the principle of enlightened tolerance and condemn him as a man of weak
character, ready to betray both his beloved and his own authentic emotions in order to
share the prejudices of his society? Or does he, rather, prefer them to accept with res-
ignation the irreducible and tragic (even if historically produced and by no means in-
evitable) division of humanity into groups that despise each other, and therefore con-
37 For a discussion of the complexity of applying the notion of Orientalism as developed by Edward Said in
Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978) to an analysis of Byron’s Hebrew Melodies, see David Ben-Merre,
‘Reading Hebrew Melodies’, Shofar, 24.2 (2006): 11-32, here 16-18. While Orientalist discourse in this model
typically ‘conceals the often oppressive political intentions of colonisation’, Byron’s Melodies, by adopting the
subject position of the East, seem ‘at once both to follow and to invert Said’s model’ (16). Benis is likewise alert to
the complexity of ‘Byron’s ventriloquism of the Jewish national sorrow’ (36). In the case of Kostomarov’s ‘To a
Jewess’ the situation is no less ambivalent, but for another reason: there is no doubt that the lyrical subject is guilty
of sins that today are recognisable as Orientalist, but the poem is coy about the identification (or otherwise) of the
lyrical subject with the implied author.
28
cede that the lyrical ‘I’ has acted in a way that, while not admirable, acknowledges the
real structure of the world?
Kostomarov did not answer these questions, adding to the other major, but un-
resolved, world-view conundrum that his early works had raised: should the enmity of
historical foes – Poles and Ukrainians, two Christian peoples, but divided from each
other by confession – remain immutable, or should it be overcome? This question
Kostomarov would soon resolve to his satisfaction and in a spirit of pan-Slav rap-
prochement in his ‘Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian People’. But the issue of non-
Christian Others – Jews – remained open for him in the 1840s, and would remain so
in the decades following his arrest. Given different opportunities to articulate his
views concerning Jews as a religious and cultural group, or Jews as individuals resi-
dent in the Russian Empire, Kostomarov adopted different, indeed inconsistent, posi-
tions. On the one hand, he refused to distance himself from the blood libel. In 1852,
when Kostomarov was still in exile in Saratov, three Jews were accused of the murder
of two Christian children. Asked by the provincial governor to report as an historian
on the possibility that Jews used Christian blood for ritual purposes, Kostomarov pro-
duced a document that declined to rule it out.38 At about the same time he wrote ‘The
Demise of Jerusalem’, a poem that deviates drastically from its source in Hebrew
Melodies. In Byron’s ‘On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’ the lyrical
subject, contemplating from afar the obliteration of his city, consoles himself that no
act of the Romans can profane the holy place, nor will dispersion reduce the loyalty of
the Jews to God. Kostomarov, on the other hand, presents the destruction of Jerusalem
as Jehovah’s punishment of the Jews for their collective collusion with Rome in the
execution of Christ (1: 159-161). As far as beliefs concerning Jews were concerned,
38 In 1875, dictating his autobiography, Kostomarov saw no reason to revise this view. N. I. Kostomarov,
Istoricheskie proizvedeniia. Avtobiografiia (Kyiv: Lybidʹ, 1990), 494-495.
29
MARKO PAVLYSHYN
then, Kostomarov was prepared to grant credence to stereotypes inherited through

theological as well as folkloric traditions. On the other hand, when it came to the
question of the rights of Jews in the Russian Empire, Kostomarov was willing to take
their side: in 1858 he joined with other Ukrainian intellectuals, including Shevchenko,
in signing a letter of protest, published in Russkii vestnik, against an anti-Jewish pub-
lication in the journal Illiustratsiia.39
What Kostomarov thought about Jews as a people is, of course, a different is-
sue from what he might have thought about the relationship of Jews to the nascent
Ukrainian national community. He never wrote explicitly about the question – his
‘Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian People’ did not discuss the status of minorities
within the federation of ‘free Slavic republics’ that the document presented as its po-
litical ideal. His literary works, however, made clear that the nation, in his view, was a
religiously, culturally and ethnically homogeneous entity. Those outside the ethno-
cultural core were destined to remain aliens with respect to it. Kostomarov’s re-
imagining of, indeed polemics with, Byron’s Hebrew Melodies made the point unam-
biguously.
39 For overviews of Kostomarov’s inconsistent attitude towards Jews, at times supportive of Jewish rights, at other
times receptive to anti-Jewish stereotypes and myths, see Thomas M. Prymak, Mykola Kostomarov: A Biography
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 45, 91, 114-117 and 198-199, and B. V. Liubchenko, ‘Chynnyky
formuvannia pohliadiv M. Kostomarova na ‘Ievreisʹke pytannia’ ta istoriiu ukrainsʹko-ievreisʹkykh vzaiemyn’,
Problemy istoriï Ukraïny XIX – pochatku XX st., Vypusk 19 (Kyiv: Instytut istoriï Ukraïny Natsionalʹnoï Akademiï
Nauk Ukraïny, 2011), 402-414.
30
ALEXANDRA SMITH
LEV TOLSTOY IN THE AGE OF KINOGLASNOST: MIKHAIL SHVEITSER’S THE

KREUTZER SONATA AS A CRITIQUE OF RUSSIAN EROTIC UTOPIA AND
SOVIET IDEOLOGY
At first glance, the 1987 film adaptation by Mikhail Shveitser and Sofiia
Milkina of Lev Tolstoy’s controversial novella The Kreutzer Sonata (Крейцерова
соната) — published in 1889 and censored on publication by the Russian authorities
— seems at odds with the radical restructuring of the Soviet cinema industry triggered
by Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. In comparison with the upsurge of innovation and
creativity during the Khrushchev thaw, which was the by-product of a general policy
of liberalisation (albeit suppressed by the end of the 1960s),1 the artistic revival of the
Perestroika period was sustained by the Party and resulted in a radical restructuring of
the cinema industry. The reshuffling of the administration comprised the replacement
of the Minister of Culture and the removal of Goskino’s conservative head Filipp
Ermash, who was publicly blamed for the stagnation of Soviet cinema in the 1970s-
1980s. By 1987 Soviet censorship had been almost dismantled as an institution, but its
final abolition came with the approval of the Law on the Press by the Supreme Soviet
on 2 June 1990. It led to the creation of a free flow of information and the establish-
1 David Gillespie’s assessment of the literary developments of the 1960s is fully applicable to the Soviet film
industry too. Gillespie writes: ‘By the 1970s Russian literature was in dialogue with itself. Its soul had been
profoundly affected by external events, such as the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the fall of Khrushchev in 1964 and
the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and there was within the intelligentsia disillusion with the prospect of
liberalisation, often bordering with despair’. – Gillespie, David, ‘Thaws, Freezes, and Wakes’, in Cornwell, Neil
(ed.), Reference Guide to Russian Literature, London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998, pp. 59-64, see
p. 61.
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 31-61

ALEXANDRA SMITH
ment of many independent newspapers, film studios and publishing houses. In the
minds of Soviet filmmakers the notions of glasnost and freedom of expression were
interchangeable. According to Eduard Volodarskii’s 1989 article, Soviet filmmakers
welcomed glasnost and embraced the opportunity to make films about Soviet-era ta-
boo subjects such as labour camps, corruption, drug addicts, prostitution, the moral
degradation of the army, and the mafia.2 Taking account of how the chief focus of So-
viet kinoglasnost was on the exploration of Soviet-era taboo subjects, including de-
Stalinisation, this article will examine Shveitser’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s story as a
veiled critique of the exaggerated indulgence in violence that was manifested in the
media, literature and film of the Gorbachev years. As will be argued below,
Shveitser’s film expresses concerns similar to Hanna Arendt’s conceptualisation of
the Nazis’ crimes against humanity as an assault against thinking, expressed in works
such as The Origins of Totalitarianism3 and ‘Reporter at Large: Eichmann in Jerusa-
lem’,4 the latter a series on the 1961 trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann.
Similarly, Shveitser’s film contains a semi-veiled criticism of the defenders of com-
munist ideology and Socialist Realist dogma that led to the oppression of critical
thinking, artistic experimentation and creative spontaneity.
Shveitser’s film also conveys an anxiety about the excessive reproduction of
revolutionary violence in a fetishised fashion through its obsessive criticism of the
past in late Soviet film and literature, which was a result of the influx of previously
censored texts and images. His interest in the use of the confessional mode of repre-
sentation of violence in The Kreutzer Sonata might also have been triggered by the
2 Volodarskii, Eduard, ‘I vot eto vremia prishlo…’, Sovetskii ekran, No. 17, 1989, p. 7. (All translations from
Russian texts are mine, unless specified otherwise. [A.S.])

3 Arendt, Hanna, The Origins of Totalitarianism, San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1973.
4 Arendt, Hanna, ‘Reporter at Large: Eichmann in Jerusalem – V,’ The New Yorker, 16, March 1963, 58–134.
32
MIKHAIL SHVEITSER’S THE KREUTZER SONATA
widespread valorisation of violence in the late Soviet period. It was associated with
the revival of sentimentality characterised by the exploitative use of cheap emotions
in order to overemphasise evil, especially in relation to the re-examination of the So-
viet past. It would be useful to invoke here Phyllis McGinley’s 1961 essay ‘The Sen-
timentalists’ which says that ‘to overstress evil is as banal as to overemphasise good-
ness’. Although McGinley’s observation refers to a group of American writers who
substituted the nineteenth-century sentimentality of virtue ‘with the sentimentality of
wickedness, weakness, self-pity’,5 it can be applied to late-Soviet writers and film-
makers whose attacks on communist ideology were often highly emotional and self-
indulgent. Shveitser’s film suggests that Tolstoy’s representation of the corrosive ef-
fects of habitual attitudes to violence in Russia, as demonstrated in The Kreutzer So-
nata, points to the manipulative use of confessional discourse and sentimentality in
the construction of public perceptions of history, national identity and individualism.
It is worth noting here that Shveitser’s use of literary adaptations prior to 1987
was indicative of his desire to switch the audience’s attention from Socialist Realist
modes of expression to the notions of creativity offered by Russian nineteenth-century
authors whose works were often reduced by Soviet educationalists and censors to the
status of instruments of propaganda. In a 1999 interview Shveitser presents himself as
a follower of Georgii Kozintsev, Lev Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol and Fedor Dostoevsky.
Shveitser’s interview sheds new light on the hero of the film, Pozdnyshev. It moulds
Tolstoy’s protagonist into an enlightened figure who had experienced a spiritual trans-
formation after several years of imprisonment for murdering his wife. According to
Shveitser, Pozdnyshev grew to understand that he was the product of a conformist so-
ciety which taught him to treat women as objects of desire and think only about per-
5 McGinley, Phyllis, ‘The Sentimentalists,’ Ladies Home Journal, volume 23, July 1961, 102-103, see p. 102.
33
ALEXANDRA SMITH
sonal satisfaction, responding thereby only to physiological needs. Shveitser explains

Pozdnyshev’s monological mindset as one of the main factors responsible for his
murder. ‘He murdered his wife,’ says Shveitser, ‘because he judged her and the musi-
cian in accordance with his own world view.’6 Following Tolstoy, Shveitser defines
this extreme version of subjectivity as madness that derives from an egocentric out-
look based on the desire to consume everything and satisfy personal ego. He regards
this phenomenon as caused by the degradation of Christian values, the suppression of
a holistic approach to human behaviour, and a lack of spirituality. Shveitser’s 1999
interview also poses a question about the ethical responsibility of artists, and affirms
that they should be opposed to attempts by mass culture and television to manipulate
public opinion. Shveitser presents himself as an avid opponent of the market economy
and extreme subjectivity, someone anxious about the fragmentation of social and pri-
vate selves triggered by the reforms of the 1980s. At the same time, he advocates the
reinstatement of moral values and spirituality as a counter-vision to the prevailing
sense of nihilism, cynicism and disillusionment.
In his 1999 interview Shveitser also explains that his film The Kreutzer Sonata
includes a polemical approach to Tolstoy’s philosophy of erotic celibacy. As
Shveitser asserts, his film was meant to dismiss Tolstoy’s ideal as unattainable. In or-
der to draw the attention of viewers to the polemical engagement with Tolstoy’s text,
Shveitser inserted at the beginning of the film an episode (absent in Tolstoy’s text)
featuring several travellers drinking tea and discussing the publication of Tolstoy’s
latest book – The Kreutzer Sonata – which they see as a manifestation of madness.
One of the travellers (played by Alla Demidova) expresses her opinion on Tolstoy’s
enthusiasm about erotic celibacy thus: ‘It’s a pity that our Russian writers go mad so
6 Shveitser, Mikhail, ‘A seichas drugoe vremechko…’, Figury i litsa, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 26.11.1999, accessed
on May 9, 2010, http://faces.ng.ru/figures/1999-11-26/5_othertime.html
34
quickly’. She claims that she has two daughters and such a recipe for social engineer-
ing would be harmful to them. Another participant in the conversation suggests that
such a utopian ideal could lead to the disappearance of humankind altogether.
The above discussion of Tolstoy inserted into the film enables the audience to
view his novella in the context of the Russian erotic utopia advocated by the decadent
utopians. It aspired to overcome the pan-European crisis of sexuality and create new
forms of love and life practices that would enable individuals to transform the body
and the family. According to Olga Matich, ‘the key difference between the Russian
erotic utopia and Freud’s theory […] is its grounding in a profoundly religious as well
as utopian vision of life instead of individual psychology.’ 7 Furthermore, Matich
identifies Tolstoy in his later years as an adherent of ‘the specifically Russian chal-
lenge to individualism, procreation, and genealogy’ and attests that ‘even though the
Bolshevik revolution was firmly grounded in a social philosophy of history, its subtext
was also related to utopian thinking and a concern with Russian history.’8 She sees
Tolstoy as a transitional figure between Russian realism and early Russian modernism
characterised by the influence of Vladimir Solov´еv and Russian Symbolism. She dis-
tinguishes, however, between Tolstoy’s vision of erotic celibacy shaped by the moral
tradition of Christian asceticism and Solov´еv’s notion of transfigurative celibacy en-
twined with a utopian teleology. The latter presupposes the existence of different
stages of cultural developments such as growth, stagnation and death, advocating
thereby an organicist model of history. 9 In representing the body, Tolstoy, argues
7 Matich, Olga, Erotic Utopia: The Decadent Ima ination in Russia’s Fin de Siècle, Madison, Wisconsin: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, p. 5.

8 Ibid.
9 In Russia such a view of culture was developed by Danilevskii: Danilevskii, N. Ia., Rossiia i Evropa: Vzgliad na
kul´turnye i politicheskie otnosheniia Slavianskogo mira k Germano-Romanskomu, St Petersburg: Tipografiia

bratév Panteleevykh, 1895.
35
ALEXANDRA SMITH
Matich, has some similarities with psychopathologists of the 1880s who were espe-
cially interested in obsessive repetition and fetishism. She goes on to say: ‘Of particu-
lar interest in this respect is his choice of words to express the power of art, which he
described using medical discourse. I have in mind his well-known essay What is Art?
[…], in which he affiliated its power with infection […] and contagion.’10 Matich at-
tests that Tolstoy’s evolution from the writer who celebrated family and procreation to
the author who developed a fear of the degeneration of society and the body can be
explained by the influence of contemporary scientific theory. Viewed in this light,
Pozdnyshev’s confession might be seen ‘as a psychopathological case history from
Psychopathia Sexualis’. 11 Matich’s observation that Pozdnyshev describes Trukha-
chevskii as a feminised male who has protruding buttocks like a woman and talks
about several degenerative aspects of Russian men’s behaviour implies that
Pozdnyshev presents himself to his fellow travellers as ‘the contemporary psycho-
pathologist who tries to be scientific.’12 She also finds it difficult to believe that Tol-
stoy, ‘a firm believer in individual moral responsibility, put all the blame on society,
even though Pozdnyshev seems to attribute his condition to the depraved state of con-
temporary family relations.’ 13 Such a conceptual framework provides a clue for
Shveitser’s selection of The Kreutzer Sonata for adaptation during the period of
Kinoglasnost. Indeed, the film brings to the fore the question about the radical forms
of utopian thinking that lead to the decadent displacement of the whole by a fetish ob-
ject as a tool for controlling body and society. Such a radical form of utopian thinking
10 Ibid., p. 29.
11 Ibid., p. 51.
12 Ibid., p. 52.
13 Ibid., p. 54.
36
also ensures criminalisation of those forms of behaviour and artistic expression that
deviate from the established norms and, therefore, might be deemed as degenerate.
Furthermore, by presenting Pozdnyshev’s behaviour as totalitarian, Shveitser identi-
fies the roots of Pozdnyshev’s criminal mindset in the suppression of critical thinking
and pluralism with the help of scientific discourse and positivist approaches to creativ-
ity to which he was exposed. In an allegorical way, the film alludes to the obsessive
applications of Marxist dogma in real life with the help of scientific discourse during
the Soviet period.
It is clear from the invention of the introductory part by the directors that their
emphasis on the metatextual quality of the film enables them to promote an open dis-
cussion about the inter-relationship between art and life. Their film might be defined
as a commentary that re-emphasises the original.14 Shveitser’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s
novella can be best described in terms suggested by Linda Hutcheon: ‘What we might,
by analogy, call the adaptive faculty is the ability to repeat without copying, to embed
difference in similarity, to be at once both self and Other.’15 Hutcheon’s theory of ad-
aptation implies that adaptations might be approached in the same way as biological
organisms, enabling the readers to observe ‘how stories evolve and mutate to fit new
times and different places.’16 In this respect, it seems that Shveitser’s adaptation of
Tolstoy’s novella differs from the original, inasmuch as it does not display the same
anxiety towards music as does the narrator of Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata. On the
contrary, it welcomes the shift articulated in Beethoven’s music from the romantic
image of the interpreter towards music that can be re-constructed and experienced
anew.
14 Wagner, Geoffrey, The Novel and the Cinema, Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1975.
15 Hutcheon, Linda, A Theory of Adaptation, New York; London: Routledge, 2006, p.174.
16 Ibid., p.176.
37
ALEXANDRA SMITH
According to Barthes, Beethoven’s music is placed in the revolutionary cate-

gory in the context of nineteenth-century aesthetics that might be defined as tangible
intelligibility. Barthes points out that the operation by which one can grasp Beetho-
ven’s late music is not related to performance or hearing, but to the ability to read its
score: ‘Just as the reading of the modern text […] consists not in receiving, in know-
ing or in feeling the text, but in writing it anew, in crossing its writing with a fresh
inscription, so too reading this Beethoven is to operate his music, to draw it (it is will-
ing to be drawn) into an unknown praxis.’17 In other words, Barthes thinks that Bee-
thoven’s late music contains a utopian goal to teach the audience to approach any per-
formance as master class or workshop. By the same token, Shveitser’s film explores
the metatextual quality of Tolstoy’s novella in order to teach the new audience to ap-
preciate classical authors and composers through the lens of adapters who approach
the stories of the past as eternal cognitive models. Such an approach to adaptation en-
ables the audience to see the world afresh and enrich its understanding of human ac-
tions in new socio-political contexts. Robert Stam explains the inter-relationship be-
tween original text and film in these terms: ‘The source text forms a dense informa-
tional network, a series of verbal cues which the adapting film text can then selective-
ly take up, amplify, ignore, subvert or transform.’18 Indeed, inter-textuality is an im-
portant part of film adaptation. Not only does it enhance the meaning of adaptation
with an additional dimension, it also enables us to talk about film adaptation in terms
of layering, acknowledging thereby the effect of simultaneity on the construction of
17 Barthes, Roland, Image, Music, Text, Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath, London: Fontana Press,
1977, p. 153.
18 Stam, Robert, ‘Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation’, in James Naremore (ed.), Film Adaptation,
London, Anthalone Press, 2000, pp. 54-78, see p. 66.
38
meaning. As Stam puts it, ‘film adaptations can be seen as a kind of multileveled ne-
gotiation of intertexts.’19
In order to see the process of the interaction of intertexts in film adaptation, it
is worth examining the importance of the preservation of the confessional mode of
narration in Shveitser’s film. In Tolstoy’s narrative about the violent death of an inno-
cent individual, Vasily Pozdnyshev, the protagonist of the story, murders his wife out
of jealousy, but he talks about his crime in a sentimental and self-pitying way to his
fellow travellers in the train while he is returning home from prison. Pozdnyshev pre-
sents himself as a victim of Russian education and societal conventions which did not
provide him with a good set of moral and spiritual guidelines. Clearly, Shveitser
thought that it would be helpful to assist attempts by late Soviet subjects to compre-
hend Stalinism and its legacy by means of Tolstoy’s story which voiced a critique of
the Russian legal system and imperial ideology. More importantly, Shveitser might
have been as suspicious as Tolstoy of the role of confessional modes of expression in
the manipulation of the truth and in the process of forgetting the uncomfortable past. J.
M. Coetzee’s observation that confession is only one element in a sequence that also
includes transgression, penitence and absolution suggests that it results in ‘the closing
of the chapter’ and ‘the oppression of the memory’.20 Such a view provides us with a
good understanding of Shveitser’s anxiety about the fact that the truth about one’s self
revealed through confession might lead to transgression and to the suppression of
some aspects of a guilty conscience which resist representation. To put it differently,
if Shveitser’s film alludes to contemporary debates about the Soviet past, then it could
be interpreted as an embodiment of the director’s concerns about the ethics of repre-
19 Ibid., p. 67.
20 Coetzee, J. M., ‘Confession and Double Thoughts: Tolstoy, Rousseau, Dostoevsky’, Comparative Literature,
37/3, 1985, 193-232, see p. 194.
39
ALEXANDRA SMITH
sentation and the existence of the right legal and moral structures for dealing with
numerous stories about victims and perpetrators of violence in Stalin’s Russia in a
sensitive and responsible manner.
It is useful to start our analysis with Tolstoy’s ‘confessional fiction’21 itself in
order to see which aspects of the story became accentuated in Shveitser’s film and to
examine the contextual setting of Shveitser’s concerns about crime and punishment in
the 1980s. It is worth noting here that Pozdnyshev’s story is not welcomed by his fel-
low passengers, who shift away from him, leaving him alone with an unnamed narra-
tor. Pozdnyshev’s story retold through the narrator – who listens in full to the whole
history of Pozdnyshev’s crime – constitutes the main body of Tolstoy’s text. Such a
perspective on Pozdnyshev’s crime raises a question about the subjectivity and relia-
bility of the story that remains unverified by others. We are not sure whether Pozdny-
shev’s account of his moment of illumination in prison was correctly reported by the
narrator or whether it was mediated by the narrator in a fictionalised manner. As has
been noted above, Shveitser was unconcerned with the notion of the reliability of the
story. His focus is on the moment of illumination in Pozdnyshev’s life which might be
seen as a first sign of spiritual awakening. Certainly, the use of exclamation marks and
the repetition in Pozdnyshev’s statements that his eyes had become opened and ‘eve-
rything has been reversed, everything has been reversed’ since then make his confes-
sion sound more authentic and emotionally charged.22 Coetzee reminds us that the use
of confession in Tolstoy’s novella is twofold: ‘The confession on which he embarks in
the train has […] two sides: the facts of the ‘episode’, which have already, of course,
come out in court, and the truth about himself to which his eyes have since been
21 Ibid., p. 195.
22 The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude and J. D. Duff,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 85-177, see p. 96.
40
opened. Telling the latter truth, in turn, is closely allied to denouncing error, a state of
error in which, in his opinion, the entire class from which he comes still lives.’23
By reducing the role of the narrator in his film and by using the close-up,
Shveitser turned Pozdnyshev into a confessor who simultaneously speaks to a scarcely
visible person and to the audience of Shveitser’s film. As a result of this switch of at-
tention to Pozdnyshev himself, the film uses a shock effect and confronts the audience
with the overpowering reality depicted in the film. Was it then Shveitser’s intention to
make his audience realise that any seemingly rationalised explanations of the radical
evil found in late Soviet literature and media cannot offer any satisfactory solutions to
the crimes against humanity committed during Stalinism? An implied critique of the
mass violence and totalitarian murderers embedded in Shveitser’s film accords well
with Vida Johnson’s description of the widespread interest in the dark sides of Rus-
sian history and psyche found in the films inspired by Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost.
She writes: ‘ […] glasnost films of the late 1980s and early 1990s tended to focus ei-
ther on rediscovering the ‘real’ Soviet history, especially the Stalinist period, or of-
fered hard-hitting, often overdone, exposés of the social, economic and moral collapse
of the present-day Soviet Union (these were pejoratively known as chernukha,
pornukha, bytovukha films). But the novelty and shock value of such films wore off
rather quickly, in that real life events — the August putsch, the collapse of the Soviet
Union, mafia killings — which were all reported in living colour on TV screens, out-
did anything the filmmakers could dream up.’24 Her statement suggests that the obses-
sion with violence in films made in the late 1980s and early 1990s might have been
23 Coetzee, ‘Confession and Double Thoughts’, p. 195.
24 Johnson, Vida T., ‘The Search for a New Russia in an “Era of New Films”’, Russian Review, 56/2, 1997, 281-
285, see p. 282.
41
ALEXANDRA SMITH
caused both by the commercial interests of some filmmakers and by the many sensa-
tionalist aspects of re-examining the past.
The first three years of the economic restructuring of Soviet cultural institu-
tions under Gorbachev distracted the best talent from aesthetic pursuits. Many critics
felt that no masterpieces were produced during the Perestroika period, and for this
reason the Eighth Plenum of the Filmmakers Union in May 1989 was dedicated to the
renewal of artistic awareness. It led to the rehabilitation of many films prohibited in
the 1960s-1980s. The influx of censored films from the 1960s-1970s triggered a pub-
lic debate about the conformity of the Soviet intelligentsia and about the effects of this
conformism on Soviet writers and filmmakers. The main concern of the participants of
this meeting — including invited speakers from abroad such as Andrei Siniavskii and
David Puttnam — was the artistic quality of late Soviet films. Anna Lawton notes:
‘Two causes were pinpointed: conformism of thought, due to long years of ideological
brainwashing, and commercialisation, or the gold rush triggered by the free market
economy.’ 25 Arguably, Shveitser and Milkina’s film engages with these concerns.
That is why the emphasis on Pozdnyshev, presented as a conformist in Shveitser’s
film, would have been understood by the audience as an allusion to the public debate
about the legacy of the Soviet totalitarian regime and its ideology.
The above-mentioned political overtones are especially strongly pronounced
in its final part where the concluding words of Pozdnyshev’s confession ‘Forgive me’
are addressed not only to his travelling companion, but also to the audience. The
close-up used in this scene features Pozdnyshev’s face surrounded by darkness, and it
creates an icon-like effect that forces the viewers to accept the new enlightened self of
Tolstoy’s protagonist. At this particular point the style of acting that presents Pozdny-
shev as a psychopathologist and the muffled voice of Oleg Iankovskii (who plays
25 Lawton, Anna, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 91.
42
Pozdnyshev), together with the use of monochrome colouration, invokes the image of
Hamlet played by Innokentii Smoktunovskii in Grigorii Kozintsev’s 1964 film Hamlet,
establishing thereby some thematic analogies between the two films.
Kozintsev’s film develops many ideas conveyed in Nikolai Akimov’s 1932
stage adaptation of Hamlet: the sense of continuity was also reinforced by Dmitrii
Shostakovich’s colourful music which was used in both adaptations of Shakespeare’s
play. The premiere of Akimov’s production of Hamlet at the Vakhtangov Theatre in
Moscow took place on 19 May 1932 where, as Alma Law puts it, ‘Akimov’s basic
thesis was that Hamlet is a fighter and a political intriguer rather than a philosopher.
In this sense he more closely resembles his forerunner, Saxo’s clever Amlethus, who
feigns madness to protect himself until the time is ripe to avenge the murder of his
father.’26 Yet Shveitser’s production portrays Pozdnyshev as a pseudo-Hamlet who
just wants to present himself to his fellow travellers as an enlightened person. In real-
ity, if Pozdnyshev presents himself as a victim of the society to which he belonged,
then it means that he lacked the courage to fight social ills and injustice. Furthermore,
Shveitser’s film implies that Pozdnyshev was a ‘totalitarian’ murderer because he was
anxious to control his wife and protect her from the liberating effects of Beethoven’s
sonata. By using a close-up and a loud musical performance contrasting with Pozdny-
shev’s muffled voice in the train, the director encourages his audience to appreciate a
truly dialogical and improvisational mode of artistic expression represented in the film
by Pozdnyshev’s wife and her co-performer Trukhachevskii. They both enjoy playing
Beethoven’s music, and their performance – presented in the film in a powerful man-
ner – reinforces the dialogical principle of true art. Shveitser also highlights how
Pozdnyshev is threatened by the effects of Beethoven’s sonata on people by depicting
26 Law, Alma H., ‘“Hamlet” at the Vakhtangov,’ The Drama Review, 21/4, Playwrights and Playwriting Issue,
1977, 100-110, see p. 101.
43
ALEXANDRA SMITH
him as an obsessive individual. Pozdnyshev’s words ‘Ugh! It’s a terrifying thing, that
sonata’27 are translated into a cinematic spectacle that both enchants and terrifies the
audience.
Bearing in mind that Pozdnyshev is portrayed in the film as an obsessive ‘to-
talitarian’ thinker, the main accusation raised in the film lies in the sphere of personal
responsibility. Not only does Pozdnyshev suppress any creative and improvisational
modes of artistic expression in himself, but he also suppresses his own ability to think
critically and wants others to be obedient and passive. He acts like a pseudo-Hamlet
because he uses confession upon his return from prison to present himself in a self-
pitying manner. At the same time, his desire to analyse everything and to talk about
his life in an open manner reminds the audience of how any form of introspective
mode of thinking and writing were suppressed by the Soviet authorities. Commenting
on the suppression of reflexivity associated with Hamlet-like behaviour during Sta-
lin’s era, Nikolai Chushkin writes: ‘In contrast with the heroes of other great Shake-
spearean tragedies, Hamlet, it was said, with his tragic doubts and indecisiveness, his
inability to see concrete ways of eradicating evil, was distant from contemporary So-
viet audiences who were filled with active courage, optimism, and a sense of clear
purpose in life and who looked to Shakespeare for ‘a real hero’, not ‘Hamletism’, for
them synonymous with vacillation and passive reflection […]. In the following years,
the very idea of showing on the stage a thoughtful, reflective hero who took nothing
on faith, who scrutinised intently the life around him in an effort to discover for him-
self, without outside ‘prompting’ the reasons for its defects, separating truth from
falsehood, the very idea seemed almost ‘criminal’.’28 That is why in the post-Stalin
period Soviet theatres were seized by the Hamlet fever, since many theatrical and film
27 The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, (trans. L. Maude et. al.), p. 144.
28 Chushkin, N. N., Gamlet-Kachalov, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966, p. 309.
44
directors felt that Stalin liquidated Hamlet leaving no place in a closed society for a
person who scrutinised and vacillated. ‘Beginning with a Leningrad performance of
Hamlet in April 1954, under Kozintsev’s direction,’ Arthur Mendel attests, ‘Hamlet
became a ‘brother-in-arms’ […] in the arduous and tortuous efforts of Soviet society
to liquidate Stalinism.’29 It seems that by exposing Tolstoy’s protagonist as a pseudo-
Hamlet, Shveitser and Milkina continued the tradition of the Thaw period when So-
viet intellectuals equated Hamlet with the strikingly pensive mood of society in a
country intensely engrossed in a struggle against the legacy of Stalinism.
The gesture of Shveitser and Milkina to link Pozdnyshev to the representation
of Hamlet in Soviet film and theatre stems from the belief that the Thaw period was
an unfinished project in the liberalisation of Soviet society that could be successfully
developed during Perestroika. In his extensive survey of Soviet criticism of Hamlet,
Miller pinpoints this: ‘What is rotten in Elsinore, in the opinion of Soviet critics, is the
deep and pervasive moral corruption of its people, and the cause of this corruption
they find not in class relations, in feudal or capitalist exploitation, or in the nature of
private property, but in the tyranny of its criminal ruler.’30 Departing from the Thaw
period’s focus on Stalin and his associates, Shveitser’s film implies that totalitarian
tendencies turned ordinary Soviet people into conformists. The film also alludes to the
many Soviet filmmakers who felt during the period of Gorbachev’s glasnost that they
were coerced by Soviet authorities into reproducing images of revolutionary violence
and propaganda. As with Pozdnyshev, many representatives of the Soviet intelligent-
sia felt they were deprived of an opportunity to be more independent.
The use in Shveitser’s film of cinematic images based on the contrast between
darkness and light, as well as between loud and muffled sound effects, suggests that
29 Mendel, Arthur P., ‘Hamlet and Soviet Humanism,’ Slavic Review, 30/4, 1971, 733-747, see p. 734.
30 Ibid.
45
ALEXANDRA SMITH
Shveitser’s visual and aural allusions to Kozintsev’s film were intentional. After all,
Kozintsev’s depiction of Elsinore in Hamlet was meant to invoke the atmosphere of
political oppression and fear that hung over everyday life in the Soviet Union even
after the death of Stalin. In his collection of articles Our Contemporary William
Shakespeare, Kozintsev reveals the widespread obsession with the evil power of the
state in terms conspicuously similar to the description of Stalin’s era in Soviet
unofficial literature. His statement that ‘fear – a general, mutual guarantee – is the
very air of Elsinore’,31 is applicable to Shveitser’s portrayal of Pozdnyshev’s totalitar-
ian behaviour towards his wife. Shveitser’s Pozdnyshev instils fear in the members of
his own family even prior to the act of murdering his wife, especially because of his
fascination with knives and weapons. According to the logic of the film, Pozdny-
shev’s belief in abstract principles and his perverted ill will detach him both from his
family and from humanity. Throughout the film, exaggeratedly and repetitively,
Pozdnyshev refers to the widespread conformism and the evil power of the state that
infects its subjects, thereby presenting himself as a victim and a puppet of the existing
order based on violence. Yet he never questions his own ‘totalitarian’ solutions to the
problem of superfluous music exemplified by Beethoven’s works that do not match
his utilitarian vision of art as a tool of control and manipulation.
The above observations help explain why some critics found the ending of the
Shveitser’s film so obscure. Arguably, its symbolic visual language and intertextual
references to Kozintsev’s Hamlet add further depth to its meaning. The film was
meant to be better understood by the viewers versed in Shveitser’s Aesopian language
and visual allusions to famous Russian films that treat similar themes. The allegorical
meaning of the concluding scenes can be interpreted in conjunction with the final sce-
31 Kozintsev, Grigorii, Nash sovremennik: Vilíam Shekspir, Leningrad-Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966, p. 320.
46
ne of the film bearing the phrase ‘It was early spring.’32 The phrase is taken from the
first paragraph of Tolstoy’s novella, but its placement in the concluding scene of the
film enables the director to position the film with an open-ended framing. The inscrip-
tion referring to early spring would have been taken by many viewers as an allusion to
both the cultural thaw of the 1960s and the liberal policies of the Perestroika period.
Without the analysis of intertextual links between Shveitser’s film and Soviet cinema
of the early period, it would be difficult to understand how Shveitser inscribes himself
as an interpreter of Tolstoy in a new political context into the tradition of polyphonic
representation of truth.
The aforementioned intertextual link between Soviet liberal cinema (exempli-
fied by Kozintsev’s Hamlet) and Shveitser’s film escaped some critics altogether. Be-
ing a non-Russian viewer, Philip Strick notes that the request for forgiveness inserted
into the concluding scenes of the film is puzzling. He states: ‘The Russian word for
‘farewell’ […] also intriguingly embodies a request for forgiveness — but for what?
For committing murder? For proving an implausible advocate? For outstaying his
welcome? And this apparently irrelevant afterthought, transposed from the opening of
the novel, conveys curious undertones both of hope, against all odds, and of a histori-
cal event that is now rendered harmless.’33 Although Strick’s interpretation is mis-
guided, since the film does not use the imperfective imperative plural form of the Rus-
sian word ‘to forgive’ (прощайте) which can be used to mean ‘farewell’, but restricts
its usage to the perfective imperative forms (both singular and plural,
прости/простите), i.e ‘forgive’, he rightly detects the presence of optimistic over-
tones in Shveitser’s film. In some ways, it might be seen as a reinforcement of Tol-
32 The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, (trans. L. Maude et. al.), p. 85.
33 Strick, Philip, ‘Kreitzerova Sonata (The Kreutzer Sonata)’, Monthly Film Bulletin, 56/660, January 1989, 17-18,
see p. 18.
47
ALEXANDRA SMITH
stoy’s belief in the importance of Truth and the transformative power of art, especially
because of the association between early spring and the Easter celebrations explored
in Russian literature in terms of new beginnings and spiritual awakening.
Furthermore, the use of the still in the concluding scene of the film destroys
the boundary between the cinematic space and reality. As Roland Barthes puts it, ‘the
still throws off the constraint of filmic time […], scorns logical time’ and ‘teaches us
how to dissociate the technical constraint from what is the specific filmic and what is
‘indescribable’ meaning.’34 The framing of the last episode in a way that imitates the
use of stills in silent movies creates a sense of the simultaneous existence of two dif-
ferent temporal dimensions. It draws the attention of viewers to the concluding part of
the film. It is imbued with symbolic meaning that links the revival of the thaw peri-
od’s cultural policies with the rebirth of spirituality in the late Soviet period. Viewed
as a parable, Shveitser’s film implies that the reinforcement of a new social order
based on the notion of spiritual rebirth and dialogicity would be impossible without an
acknowledgement of the shared sense of collective responsibility for sustaining the
totalitarian regime for so long. In this respect, the philosophical tenets of Shveitser’s
film echo Kozintsev’s concerns with the moral disintegration of Soviet society as ex-
pressed in his adaptation of Hamlet. As Kozintsev points out, ‘Research into the po-
etic images show that concepts of sickness-unto-death and decomposition dominate in
Hamlet […]. What is noble and spiritual has disappeared from life. What is dreadful is
not the beastly crimes but the day-to-day relationships that lack humanity. Decorative
words form merely an appearance of humanity and nobility. And these are lies…
Hamlet wants to make people stop lying.’35 Likewise, Shveitser wants Soviet citizens
of the late 1980s to stop lying.
34 Barthes, Roland, Image, Music, Text, pp. 67-68.
35 Kozintsev, Nash sovremennik, pp. 173 & 175.
48
One of the most significant messages conveyed in Shveitser’s film is related to

the importance of education in the formation of morally developed individuals. The
flashbacks featuring Pozdnyshev’s youth in The Kreutzer Sonata characterise him as a
product of high-placed judgements and established conventions. The use of the lively
cabaret-style music that accompany Pozdnyshev’s memories of sexual encounters and
moral corruption stand in sharp contrast to the music associated with moments of
spiritual awakening. It is not coincidental that the most striking flashbacks, occurring
towards the end of the film, merge into a single event of Pozdnyshev’s wedding and
his wife’s funeral. The golden images of the Russian Orthodox cathedral and the sun-
ny landscape featured in these flashbacks convey the belief in the indestructibility of
soul and spirit.
Furthermore, the episodes depicting Pozdnyshev’s wife as a saint-like figure
(associated with the light and sunny landscapes) contrast strikingly with the dark train
compartment in which Pozdnyshev tells his story to a random travel companion and to
the dark aspects of his mind responsible for his impulsive and irrational behaviour.
The liturgical music in the final episodes invokes the funeral procession related to
Ophelia’s death depicted in Kozintsev’s film in a similar way that associates her with
holiness and nature. Both funeral processions interweave into their music the chimes
of church bells that allude to the Kontakion, an ancient Russian Orthodox hymn used
inter alia as part of the Russian Orthodox requiem service. With Shostakovich’s me-
lodic signature DSCH deriving from the two main phrases in the Kontakion melody,36
Gubaidulina’s use of this melody enables the directors of the film to remind the audi-
ence of Russian liturgical music so as to reinforce the message that everyone deserves
commemoration after death. In Tolstoyan manner, the film reminds the audience that
36 Strachan, Iain, ‘Shostakovich, Britten, Beethoven, and the “Russian Kontakion for the Departed”’, DSCH
Journal, 11, 1999, 54-61.
49
ALEXANDRA SMITH
the glory of the Russian and Soviet empires depends upon the sacrifice of many ordi-
nary Russians seldom recognised as heroes. Thus the semi-veiled reference to the
Kontakion and to Shostakovich’s music is meant to remind the audience that even if a
saint or martyr is not officially canonised by the Eastern Orthodox Church, a memo-
rial service may be celebrated at any time.37
Clearly, the film dismisses the philosophy of totalising truth as harmful and
destructive, suggesting thereby the importance of cultivating the notion of empathy
and tolerance. If we were to interpret the theme of suffering and empathy as an exten-
sion of the Hamlet theme popular in the cinema and literature in the post-Stalin period,
then Kozintsev’s understanding of Shakespeare’s work as a tragedy of consciousness
appears applicable to Shveitser’s version of Tolstoy’s story: it explores the ability of
criminals to feel guilt. In summary, Kozintsev explains the essence of Shakespeare’s
tragedy as follows: ‘It was possible to swim with the current, to live without thinking,
and even quite comfortably. To accept as necessary what existed in fact, without
thinking about it, without searching into the essence of things that were beyond the
power of one individual to alter, to be concerned only about oneself or, at best, those
nearest one. […] And if the conscience of a man did not grow deaf and dumb, then he,
with all the strength that was in him, cursed man’s inhumanity. And he cursed himself
if he could not fight it.’38 In Pozdnyshev’s case, however, the act of cursing inhumani-
ty stems from the murder of his wife and his subsequent imprisonment. Symbolically,
the flashback of saint-like images of Pozdnyshev’s wife presents her as an Ophelia-
like figure.
37 Serfes, Father Demetrious, ‘Tropar and Kontakion for Royal Martyrs and New Martyrs of Russia’, accessed on
July 5, 2011, http://www.serfes.org/royal/tropar.htm

38 Kozintsev, Nash sovremennik, p. 208.
50
The music of Sofiia Gubaidulina used in The Kreutzer Sonata resembles

Kozintsev’s creative appropriation of Shostakovich’s music in Hamlet in which the
image of Ophelia signifies Truth. 39 As with Shostakovich, Gubaidulina, a leading
Russian neo-avant-garde composer, wanted to break the mould of the Socialist realist
aesthetic and to revive the notion of spirituality and polyphony. In the words of Vera
Lukomsky, Gubaidulina is ‘recognised as one of the most original and powerful com-
posers of our time […] who opposed the totalitarianism of Soviet ideology.’40 Lukom-
sky aptly sums up the most striking philosophical and moral tenets of Gubaidulina’s
music thus: ‘Her predilection for mysticism and metaphysics, her religious spirituality
and musical fantasy that often projects images of the Apocalypse and the last Judge-
ment, her preoccupation with musical symbols of crucifixion, resurrection and trans-
figuration, did not, of course, meet the requirements of Socialist Realism.’41 Gubai-
dulina emerged in the 1980s as a composer of great significance; prior to this, in the
1960s and 1970s, she was known as a co-founder of the group ‘Asteria’ that per-
formed experimental music using western and oriental traditions and instruments, as
well as electronic music. Most importantly, Gubaidulina is often seen as a composer
with a deep-rooted belief in the mystical properties of music. In an interview she
comments on the pre-Perestroika oppressive cultural climate in a critical way: ‘As I
grew older, music became the single sustenance by which I was able to live and exist
[…]. All my life was grey, and I only felt good when I crossed the gate of the music
school. From this moment I would find myself in a sacred space. I would hear the
39 According to Kozintsev’s observation, based on his long-standing friendship and cooperation with Shostakovich,
Shostakovich’s voice of Truth is feminine. See: Kozintsev, Grigorii, King Lear: The Space of Tragedy: The Diary
of a Film Director, translated by Mary Mackintosh, London: Heinemann, 1977, p. 247.
40 Gubaidulina, Sofiia, ‘My Desire is Always to Rebel, to Swim Against the Stream!’, Interview Conducted and
Translated from the Russian by Vera Lukomsky, Perspectives of New Music, 1998, 36/1, 1998, 5-36, see p. 6.
41 Ibid.
51
ALEXANDRA SMITH
sounds coming out of the classrooms, I would feel a bond with all of the pupils, and
all would be joined together in this polytonal harmony of sounds, and in this world I
wanted to live in.’42 Gubaidulina sees herself as Russian Orthodox, but her religious
and spiritual interests include the Catholic tradition, Judaism, shamanism, Islam, and
Russian religious philosophers such as Vladimir Solovév and Nikolai Berdiaev. In an
interview Gubaidulina suggests that it became evident during the Perestroika period
that there were many ‘living cells’ in the Soviet Union which resisted the disintegra-
tion of the spirit.43
In her 1989 interview, Gubaidulina goes on to say: ‘The unavailability of an
interpretation and the opposition of the bureaucrats resulted in my devotion to compo-
sition of the highest philosophy since the world’s origin and, in doing so, I allowed
myself the most complicated constructions.’44 Gubaidulina’s music engages the audi-
ence in the same manner as Kozintsev’s films, believing that the public is keen to en-
gage in active spiritual work through listening to music and the experience of pro-
found contemplation. Gubaidulina is convinced that ‘the audience strives for active
spiritual work’ and that people are grateful to performers who enable them ‘to cure
themselves from the state of dispersal and disconnection that they suffer in everyday
life.’ She continues: ‘Listening to a musical composition, like reading a book, helps
people restore themselves.’45 By using Gubaidulina’s music in their film, Shveitser
and Milkina imply that Pozdnyshev’s and Tolstoy’s view of music as illusionist and
seductive is reductionist. In their film, Gubaidulina is given her own voice that has a
powerful effect on the audience. It celebrates unity and spirituality.
42 Quoted in Kholopova, Valentina, Sofiia Gubaidulina, Moscow: Kompozitor, 1996, pp. 96-100.
43 Gubaidulina, Sofiia, ‘Est´ muzyka nad nami: beseda s Dmitriem Kadantsevym,’ Ogonek, No. 8, 1989, p. 25.
44 Ibid.
45 Gubaidulina, Sofiia, ‘Est´ muzyka nad nami’, p. 10.
52
Unlike Gubaidulina, Shveitser’s Pozdnyshev was intoxicated by music to the

point of obsession and he sees it as a threat to people’s unity. In Gustafson’s opinion,
Pozdnyshev ‘loses clarity of consciousness’ and becomes coerced into activity that
estranges him from himself, so he overlooks how ‘art returns men into their natural
state of harmony.’46 The latter statement corresponds to Gubaidulina’s vision of the
restorative role of music in the life of individuals traumatised by historical upheavals.
Gubaidulina and Shveitser offer a counterpoint to Pozdnyshev’s statements suggesting
that music is a terrifying thing. Pozdnyshev confesses: ‘Music makes me forget my-
self, my real position, one not my own. […] Music transports me immediately and
directly into that spiritual state in which the person was who composed it.’47 Accord-
ing to Caryl Emerson, while Pozdnyshev is an admirer of Beethoven and infected by
Beethoven’s music, he is unable either to perform the sonata that affects his imagina-
tion or to create it anew. ‘The result of infection,’ says Emerson, ‘was therefore not
love, and not new creation […] but creative frustration and murder.’48 Tolstoy’s own
perception of Beethoven’s sonata as an erotic piece of music is dismissed in
Shveitser’s film. As Emerson affirms, in his novella, ‘Tolstoy confronts the contradic-
tory elements of his own infection theory: its indifference to the dimension of time, its
confusion of creation and performance, its insistence on a cloning of feelings in all
participants.’ 49 Emerson thinks that Tolstoy’s novella contains a variation on the
theme of envy (as manifested in Pushkin’s play ‘Mozart and Salieri’) rather than jeal-
46 Gustafson, Richard F., Leo Tolstoy: Resident and Stranger, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 371.
47 Tolstoi, Lev Nikolaevich, ‘Kreitserova sonata,’ Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, volume 27 (Moscow-Leningrad:
Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1933): pp. 5-78. The quote from chapter 23 in English
is taken from: Emerson, Caryl. ‘What is Art?and the anxiety of music,’ Russian Literature, XL, 1996, 433-450, see
p. 441.
48 Emerson, ‘What is Art?’, pp. 441-442.
49 Ibid., p. 442.
53
ALEXANDRA SMITH
ousy. She elucidates: ‘For what makes the Kreutzer Sonata so genuinely dangerous –
and Pozdnyshev senses this truth, whereas Tolstoy the theorist of art resists it – is not
its ability to fuse performers and listeners into a single, static loving whole but pre-
cisely its ability to differentiate, to complicate and enrich the world with multiple
voices through time.’50 Shveitser’s clearly expressed empathy for Pozdnyshev’s wife
– reinforced by the use of Gubaidulina’s music and the use of religious symbols – im-
plies that he is of the same opinion of Pozdnyshev as Emerson. The film’s denuncia-
tion of the monological and monumental tenets of artistic expression seems to be al-
luding to the Socialist Realist dogma and its watchdogs eager to attack zealously any
manifestations of originality and diversity.
Given that Shveitser was a disciple of Eisenstein and Kozintsev and a victim
of Stalin’s 1940s campaign against cosmopolitans, it is not surprising that Shveitser’s
film, laced with political overtones, continues the tradition of his teachers of exposing
the evils of society with the help of Aesopian language. Its allusions to the films of
Kozintsev and Eisenstein51 examining political oppression and violence lend them-
selves to be interpreted as a homage to his teachers. To some extent, Shveitser’s film
might be seen as a homage to Eisenstein who taught Shveitser to appreciate Tolstoy
when in 1943-1944 he supervised Shveitser’s film on Tolstoy. Shveitser describes his
50 Ibid., pp. 446-447.
51 The scene of violence and madness in Shveitser’s film, including the graphic depiction of murder and
Pozdnyshev’s collection of sabres and daggers, invoke, to a great extent, Eisenstein’s films October (1927) and
Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958), especially because of their melodramatic overtones and the music that resembles
the operatic conventions of the modernist period. As Douglas Geallez asserts, Eisenstein’s representation of Ivan
the Terrible is constructed in accordance with operatic conventions: ‘In Ivan, the songs and choruses follow these
conventions, and the stylized performances of the principals, the melodrama and the mise-en-scène are within the
operatic realm (particularly Wagnerian music and Bergian expressionism) rather than realistic.’ See: Gallez,
Douglas W., ‘The Prokofiev-Eisenstein Collaboration: “Nevsky” and “Ivan” Revisited,’ Cinema Journal, 17/2,
1978, 13-35, see p. 28.
54
indebtedness to his teacher thus: ‘We have learnt from Eisenstein how to be honest
and how to read real literature.’52 Shveitser continued to be interested in the aesthetic
of sincerity exemplified by Tolstoy’s writing throughout all his life. As an example,
declaring that all his films were permeated with the invisible presence of Tolstoy,
Shveitser pointed out that the protagonists of his film Somebody lse’s Family
(Чужая родня, 1956) reproduce the intensity of emotions displayed by Tolstoy’s
characters.53 Viewed in this context, the film The Kreutzer Sonata might be interpret-
ed as an allegorical denunciation of violence and conformity. In some ways, Pozdny-
shev’s madness (as depicted in the film) resembles the overwhelming state of madness
and paranoia prevalent during the Stalin years. If the audience was expected to view
the film as a parable about the long lasting effects of Stalin’s terror on individuals,
then Pozdnyshev’s obsessive behavior might be seen as a mirror image of state vio-
lence. The depiction of Pozdnyshev’s crime would invoke in a late 1980s audience the
theme of madness associated with Stalinism and the times of Ivan the Terrible. As Ni-
kolai Cherkasov wrote in his autobiography, Stalin considered Ivan the Terrible to be
‘a great and wise ruler who protected the country from the infiltration of foreign
influence and had tried to bring about the unification of Russia.’54 It is worth noting
here that Eisenstein was coerced by the authorities in 1940 to produce a film about
Ivan the Terrible. It was expected that his film could convey to the audience the patri-
otic and nationalistic approach favoured by Stalin himself. As Kristin Thompson
52 Quoted in Margolit, Evgenii, ‘Umer Mikhail Shveitser’, Noveishaia istoriia otechestvennogo kino, 1986–2000,
Kino i kontekst, volume VII, St Petersburg: Seans, 2004, accessed on June 5 2010, http://www.russiancinema.ru-
/template.php?dept_id=3&e_dept_id=5&e_chrdept_id=2&e_chr_id=841&chr_year=2000
53 Ibid.
54 Quoted in: Thompson, Kristin, ‘“Ivan the Terrible” and Stalinist Russia: A Reexamination,’ Cinema Journal,
17/1, 1977, 30-43, see p. 33.
55
ALEXANDRA SMITH
notes, ‘the connection between Ivan and Stalin would inevitably be drawn by many.’55
Although Eisenstein’s film takes the orthodox Stalinist view of Ivan the Terrible as a
cruel tyrant driven by a rational purpose, his film portrays an ambivalent image of
Ivan the Terrible exploring the dialectical struggle between the irrational and rational
aspects of his personality in a mythopoeic way. As Thompson observes, Eisenstein
was more concerned with ‘creating an image of history’.56
Likewise, Shveitser’s use of Pozdnyshev’s story might be seen as another
mythopoeic and allegorical image of history. Shveitser’s The Kreutzer Sonata is full
of images of trains and train journeys. It alludes to the first film shown in Russia: it
was a Lumière film, L’arrivée du train en gare. Shown in May 1896 at the Aquarium
Theatre in St Petersburg, it contained images of a train, violence and religious rituals
including the Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II on 26 May [O.S. 14 May] 1896. Several
shots depict the Imperial couple entering and leaving the Cathedral of the Assumption
in the Kremlin. Jolyon Mitchell comments: ‘The religious rituals at the centre of the
Coronation are not recorded nor are the numerous orthodox priests robed in gold or
the golden icons that covered the walls of the cathedral. A camera did record, howev-
er, the moment a few days later when the Tsar was presented to the Russian people,
only for a stand to collapse, leading to a stampede where hundreds were crushed to
death. The film was confiscated and has never been seen since that time.’57 The repeti-
tive usage of the train imagery in The Kreutzer Sonata also brings to mind other im-
ages of trains as symbols of modernity. Many early Soviet films celebrated the new
Soviet man and his machine-like ability to work hard. The list of famous films include
55 Ibid., p. 34.
56 Ibid., p. 36.
57 Mitchell, Jolyon, ‘Portraying Religion and Peace in Russian Film,’ Studies in World Christianity, 14/2, 2008,
142-152, see p. 143.
56
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera, the Kozintsev and Trauberg
1934 movie The Youth of Maxim, and Aleksandr Zarkhi’s 1967 film adaptation of
Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina. In contrast, Shveitser’s film departs from the machine
aesthetic of the Soviet avant-garde and accentuates the bond with nature rather than
with technology. This is especially felt in the scenes containing the images of the train
engine juxtaposed with Pozdnyshev’s ritualistic and machine-like behaviour. This
technique of baring the device (discussed in Viktor Shklovsky’s seminal essay ‘Art as
Device’) is prominently featured in Eisenstein’s art defined by Roland Barthes as the
artistic mode that defies ambiguity. Barthes writes: ‘[…] Eisenstein’s ‘art’ is not
polysemous: it chooses the meaning, imposes it, hammers it […]: the Eisensteinian
meaning devastates ambiguity, by the addition of an aesthetic value, emphasis. Eisen-
stein’s ‘decorativism’ has an economic function: it proffers the truth.’58 The examples
of Eisenstein’s decorativism used in Shveitser and Milkina’s film include repeated use
of the image of the train wheels and engine, especially in relation to the discussion of
conformity and sexual desire presented in the film as a form of ritualistic behavior and
positivist outlook shaped by the Soviet vision of modernity. Strick pinpoints the satir-
ical intention of Shveitser and Milkina in using Offenbach’s can-can theme on the
soundtrack featuring the brothel sequence and of ‘O sole mio’ for scenes featuring
Roman landmarks: he suggests that these satirical overtones contribute to the reduc-
tionist reading of Tolstoy’s novella.59
The lubok-like quality of the above-mentioned scenes might be seen as part of
the aggressive rendering of the original text with the help of intellectual montage. As
Neia Zorkaia explains, kinolubok is meant to erase the author’s individuality, level out
58 Barthes, Roland, ‘The Third Meaning’, in: Image, Music, Text, Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath,
London: Fontana Press, 1977, pp. 52-68, see p. 56.

59 Strick, Kreitzerova Sonata, p. 17.
57
ALEXANDRA SMITH
different sources and transform them into the same story in such a way that the story
of jealousy or murder becomes highlighted and singled out as the dominant theme.60
At the same time, Shveitser’s The Kreutzer Sonata contains a parodic rendering of the
notion of ‘kinolubok’ as something incompatible with the language of Tolstoy’s
metatextual narrative that explores the role of the performer and the interpreter in the
construction of meaning of works of art.
Even though Tolstoy’s text is closely followed, the directors of the film have
included several deviations that break the linear perception of time in the narrative.
Strick indicates that some of the expansions are striking and visually engaging: ‘There
are, however, a number of interpolations, the most startling occurring as the school-
boy is being led towards his first sexual encounter: a steam engine materialises in the
corridor, rushes towards him and we are all engulfed in light, steam and noise until the
initiation is complete. The plunging pistons reappear during the honeymoon, and their
vulgar symbolism would be disastrously at odds with Tolstoy (whose case for celiba-
cy was based on the belief that the act, far from being mechanical, is a deplorable ex-
pression of the unrestrainedly animal) were it not that the context of the entire narra-
tive is a train journey, from which the directors have derived possibly more mileage
that the novelist had in mind.’61 Another recurrent association inserted into the film is
the juxtaposition between Pozdnyshev and his collection of knives and sabres. They
emphasise Pozdnyshev’s inclination towards violent behaviour and prepare viewers
for the murder scene near the end of the film, creating the rhyme between love and
murder found in Tsvetaeva’s poem 1923 ‘Hamlet’: Tsvetaeva’s Hamlet is implicated
60 Zorkaia, Neia, ‘Russkaia shkola ekranizatsii’, Ekrannye iskusstva i literatura, Moscow: Nauka, 1991, pp. 105-
130.
61 Strick, Kreitzerova Sonata, p. 17.
58
in the death of Ophelia through the use of the rhyming of the verbs ‘I loved her’ and ‘I
killed her’.62
The repetitive use of one particular detail which enables Shveitser and Milkina
to build up the character or to reinforce their message about the corrosive effect of
conformism on individuals might be seen as an attempt to reproduce several stylistic
peculiarities of Tolstoy’s writing that were defined by Vsevolod Pudovkin as power of
persuasion. In his 1928 article ‘How I work with Tolstoy’ Pudovkin writes: ‘He works
with enormous persistence upon every detail. He denies himself any simple rules of
elegant compositional style and doesn’t shy away from using one and the same word
repeatedly in a single passage in order to confer the greatest persuasive power. Tol-
stoy leaves the reader no room to see something other than as he shows it. Everything
that he writes accords perfectly with the real object… The form of his language is so
fundamental to the idea that any relativity is ultimately lost.’63 The indebtedness of
the directors to Pudovkin is also felt in the graphic examples of Pozdnyshev’s impres-
sionistic cognition of reality: through the use of flashbacks and the recurrent use of the
train image that embodies his animal-like and conformist behaviour. These scenes in-
voke Pudovkin’s 1926 film The Mechanics of the Brain (The Behaviour of Man and
Animals) in which Pudovkin shows several experiments with animals undertaken by
Pavlov’s followers (including Sechenov) and featuring mentally retarded and syphilit-
62 Mikhail Shveitser appears to be well aware of this rhyme which was highlighted in Shostakovich’s 1974 vocal
cycle based on the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva: it features her poem ‘Hamlet’. Victoria Shveitser, Mikhail
Shveitser’s sister and the author of one of the leading biographies of Tsvetaeva, has talked in her interview with
Maiia Peshkova about her brother’s love for poetry, suggesting that he knew many poems by heart. See: Peshkova,
Maiia. ‘Neproshedshee vremia’, Ekho Moskvy, 20.07.2008, 08:35, accessed on June 7 2010, http://www.echo.-
msk.ru/programs/time/528382-echo/
63 Quoted in: Sargeant, Amy, Classic Films of the Soviet Avant-Garde, London, New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers,
2000, p. 64.
59
ALEXANDRA SMITH
ic patients. The repetitive use of can-can music and the image of the train’s engine in
The Kreutzer Sonata might be also seen as a parodic rendering of the ideological
thrust of Pudovkin’s The Mechanics of the Brain which features such scene titles as
‘All life, all culture is wholly made up of reflexes’ and ‘The study of conditioned
reflexes serves as the basis of materialist understanding of the behaviour of animals
and man.’ By contrast with Pudovkin and Eisenstein, Shveitser and Milkina offer an
alternative to Pavlov’s belief in the power of science and the future potential of physi-
ology to address the world’s ills.
As indicated above, the use of radiant and dream-like images of the Russian
Orthodox Church, especially in one of the final episodes that features the funeral of
Pozdnyshev’s wife, creates a sense of the mystery and richness of life. The final scene
featuring the dead body of Pozdnyshev’s wife also contains a flashback to remind
viewers of Pozdnyshev’s wedding and the church ceremony associated with it, signi-
fying wholeness and spiritual union between man and woman. Despite Shveitser and
Milkina sharing with Pudovkin the imperative for clarity and the careful organisation
of camera work in time and space, their use of light in the film and the dream-like
quality of flashbacks representing the inner thoughts of Pozdnyshev testify to their
belief that the camera should also be used to explore metaphysical truths. In many
ways, their film exposes the limitations of the use by Pudovkin and Eisenstein of intel-
lectual montage as an effective tool in the conscious guidance of the spectator. The
film offers a critique of the assumption that the conditional reflex should be seen as
the foundation of behaviour in man. Thus Pudovkin’s 1925 statement that Soviet cin-
ema should propagate Pavlov’s teaching, corroborated by the materialist world view
that the notion of soul had to be extinguished,64 appears replaced in Shveitser’s film
64 Pudovkin, Vsevolod, Kinogazeta, 28 July, 1925. The article is quoted in Sargeant, Classic Films of the Soviet
Avant-Garde, p. 49.
60
by the revival of spirituality. This is achieved by the close collaboration between

Shveitser, Milkina and Gubaidulina who were all opposed to the use of culture for
propaganda purposes. Gubaidulina’s vision of the transformative and corrective role
of religious discourse in cultural activities appears representative of many non-
conformist artists, composers, writers and film-makers, including Andrei Tarkovskii,
Gennadii Aigi, and Ol´ga Sedakova. Gubaidulina explains: ‘I’m a religious orthodox
person and I understand religion literally: namely as religion — the restoration of a
connection, the restoration of the Legato of Life. Life tears a person to pieces. One
must repair one’s wholeness — that is what religion is all about. There is no more se-
rious reason for the composition of music than spiritual restoration.’65 In the light of
this contextual setting, it becomes clear why Shveitser and Milkina would have cho-
sen Tolstoy’s novella about music for their philosophical parable. As with
Gubaidulina’s music, their film aspires to restore the human connection through music
and visual images which celebrate improvisation, diversity and richness of life.
65 Quoted in: Kholopova, Valentina, Sofiia Gubaidulina: Putevoditel´ po proizvedeniiam, Moscow: Kompozitor,
2001, pp. 3-4.
61
ANDY BYFORD AND HENRIETTA MONDRY
LOVE, SERVICE AND SACRIFICE:

NARRATIVES OF DOGS AND CHILDREN IN THE SOVIET 1930S
‘Do not beat the dog – it was human once.’

Russian proverb.1
In the 1930s, the Soviet state’s expansion of agricultural and industrial exploi-
tation to new territories resulted in a rapid increase in the number of professional ken-
nels for service dogs in the Russian Far East as well as in central Russia. This went
hand in hand with the unprecedented growth in specialist literature devoted to the
training of these highly developed animals.2 Indeed, it was assumed that the prepara-
tion of dogs for various branches of Soviet life, from pulling sledges to defending the
country’s borders, had to be underpinned by a correct theory if they were to be turned
into fully contributing members of the new society.3 These developments paralleled
the contemporaneous expansion of Soviet fiction for children with related ambitions
to turn new Soviet generations into loyal citizens of their country and fierce defenders
of its values.
1 Dal´, V., ‘Sobaka’, in Tolkovyi slovar´ zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka, vol. 4, Moscow: Russkii iazyk, 1980, p.
251.
2 Andreev, L. A. et al., Rukovodstvo po podgotovke spetsialistov sluzhebnogo sobakovodstva, Moscow : Gos.
Izdatel´stvo sel´skokhoziaistvennoi literatury, 1936. G. P. Medvedev et al. Nastavlenie voennomu sobakovodstvu,

Moscow: RKKA, 1937.
3 Nelson, A., ‘A Hearth for a Dog: The Paradoxes of Soviet Pet Keeping’, in Borders of Socialism: Private
Spheres in Soviet Russia, ed. L. H. Siegelbaum, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 123-144.
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 63-89

A. BYFORD & H. MONDRY
Semiotics scholar Boris Uspensky has noted that the correlation between dogs
and humans was a strong feature of Russian culture.4 One of Uspensky’s examples
concerns the words ‘tsitsik’ and ‘tsutsia’, which, as he shows, were applied in rural
Russia equally to puppies and children. The parallelism between children and dogs
denotes their similar status vis-à-vis adult society: both were at root considered part of
nature and in need of conditioning in order to be admitted to society with its norms
and hierarchies; without proper training and strict control both would be destined to
remain part of nature and outside of organised society. At the same time, both were, in
contrast to wild animals, supremely malleable and therefore ideal training subjects.
Both the need for training and the trainability of dogs and children acquired
very specific connotations in the political culture of the Soviet 1930s, when various
professions and disciplines made bold claims about their capacity to transform human
and animal nature for the betterment of society. Both children and animals were
viewed as material for the advancement of the Soviet project. Pedagogy, psychology
and zoopsychology formulated theories and conducted experiments that were directed
at improving nature, both human and animal, often in conjunction with each other.
Ivan Pavlov’s (1849-1936) experiments on dogs implied underlying physio-
logical correlations between human and dog organisms. As he himself put it in his
memoirs, ‘[t]hat which I see in dogs, I immediately transfer to myself, since, you
know, the basics are identical’.5 Pavlov’s turn to neuropsychiatry in the 1930s ‘in-
volved an intensification and systematisation of his long-standing practice of inter-
4 Uspenskii, B. A., ‘Religiozno-mifologicheskii aspekt russkoi ekspressivnoi frazeologii’, in Semiotics and the
History of Culture, eds. M. Halle et al., Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1988.

5 Pavlov, I. P., ‘Moi vospominaniia ‘, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 6, Moscow: Nauka, 1954, pp. 445-449, p.
447.
64
NARRATIVES OF DOGS AND CHILDREN
preting dogs as people and people as dogs’.6 Indeed, Pavlov’s work on dogs’ condi-
tional reflexes was expected to have potential applications for humans, ultimately re-
sulting in the forging of a new humanity ridden of old habits. This was contingent,
however, on Pavlov’s understanding of dogs as fundamentally moral creatures, capa-
ble of moral actions as part of their intimate, if subordinate, relationship to humans.
This refers specifically to Pavlovian representations of dogs as creatures able and will-
ing to sacrifice themselves in order to help humans.7
A very different parallelism between children and domesticated animals, such
as dogs, as subjects of training, is to be found in the zoopsychology of the famous cir-
cus entrepreneur Vladimir Durov (1863-1934). Durov argued that animal training
achieved the best results when the subjects were treated humanely, without the
infliction of pain or punishment. Durov claimed to have developed methods of animal
training based on telepathic suggestion, which apparently worked best of all on dogs.
As the Soviet state expanded its economy to the Far North and Far East, Durov ex-
pected his methods to be of use not only in the circus, but also in the wider socialist
enterprise, as the title of his 1938 book Zoopsychology in the Service of Socialism
would suggest.8 Somewhat intriguingly, this book was published by the Soviet Chil-
dren’s Publishing House (Detizdat). For, indeed, Durov was not just a celebrated ani-
mal trainer, but even more so a highly successful child entertainer. His animal per-
formances were always expected to have an educative value and he assumed that the
principles of kindness, reward and suggestion underpinning his animal training theo-
ries also applied to children’s upbringing.
6 Todes, D. P., Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 631.
7 For a more general take on these problems see Haraway, D. J., When Species Meet, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 69-93.

8 Durov, V., Zoopsikhologiia na sluzhbu sotsializmu, Moscow: Detizdat, 1938.
65
This article will explore the complex relationship between dogs and children
that one finds at the meeting point of animal training, child upbringing, the taming of
wild nature, and the defence of the beloved country in Soviet culture of the 1930s. By
analysing a selection of children’ stories and films from this period, we will examine
correlations between, on the one hand, ideas about service dog training and, on the
other, the preparation of Soviet children for adulthood under socialism. For our analy-
sis we have chosen three Soviet children’s classics from 1939: Ruvim Fraerman’s
(1891-1972) ‘Dikaia sobaka Dingo, ili povest´ o pervoi liubvi’ (Wild Dog Dingo, or a
Tale about First Love), Arkadii Gaidar’s (1904-1941) ‘Dym v lesu’ (Smoke in the
Forest), and the film ‘Vysokaia nagrada’ (High Reward), directed by Evgenii Shneider
(1897-1947) and produced by Soiuzdetfil´m.9
We see these works as examples of cultural artefacts which thematically corre-
late the politically motivated drive to bring up a new generation of both physically
and morally strong and healthy young people with the need to create new methods for
training service dogs. We will explore this correlation through the lens of the above
two contrasting training traditions from the Soviet 1930s, the ‘Pavlovian’ and the ‘Du-
rovian’. The parallelism between children and dogs in the above three works of fiction
creates narratives with dramatic adventure and danger plot lines, whose aim is to
teach its young readers how to overcome weaknesses, such as emotions, or develop
strengths, such as vigilance, all in the service of the motherland. The concept of ser-
vice, which dominates the rhetoric of the period, binds together the roles assigned not
only to dogs and children, but also to writers and cinematographers entrusted with the
very construction of these instructive narratives.
9 Gaidar, A., ‘Dym v lesu’, Moscow: Det. Lit, 1962. Fraerman, R., ‘Dikaia sobaka Dingo, ili povest´ o pervoi
liubvi’, Minsk: Iunatsva, 1986. Vyskokaia nagrada, dir. E. Shneider, Soiuzdetfil´m, 1939.
66
All three texts share the plot typical of high Stalinism: that of the protagonist
coming into contact with an enemy from within or abroad, a villain whose aim is to
violate the country’s borders by making them penetrable to a further destabilising
threat from the outside. The didactics in Gaidar’s story and Shneider’s film suggest
that only properly prepared children and professionally trained dogs can be trusted
with the protection of the motherland. Dogs here become divided into useful and de-
pendable, on the one hand, and useless and dangerous, on the other, depending on
whether they have received the right kind of training. Fraerman’s narrative, however,
contains a more nuanced take on the parallelism between children and dogs, and, we
suggest, challenges the utilitarian and emotional exploitation of dogs for the greater
good of society, in opposition to the dominant rhetoric of this era. As the subtitle of
Fraerman’s novella suggests, it is a story about love, and it is the notion of cross-
species, human-dog love that we will highlight here, something that has not as yet
been explored in readings of this work.10
Of Love and Self-Sacrifice: Human-Dog Relations after Pavlov and Durov

When Pavlov commissioned his Monument to the Dog (‘Pamiatnik sobake’)
in 1934, he personally authored four inscriptions engraved on the cast-iron round base
of the sculpture. The sculpture, technically produced by KNAP (‘Kombinat nagliad-
noi agitatsii i propagandy’), the Leningrad factory that made public display artefacts
for the purposes of ‘agitation and propaganda’, was installed in Leningrad in 1935.
Pavlov’s inscriptions present dogs as willing co-operators during experiments and
emphasise their desire to please their human (tor)mentors. The central inscription
justifies the dog’s sacrifice for the sake of human science: ‘Let the dog, man’s best
10 Balina, M., ‘Narrating Love in Soviet Adolescent Literature of the 1930s: Ruvim Fraerman’s “The Wild Dog
Dingo or, a Tale about First Love”’, The Russian Review, 73/2014, pp. 354-370, reads this story through the theme
of adolescent love.
67
helper and friend from prehistoric times be sacrificed for science, though our dignity
obliges us to make sure that it always happens without unnecessary torment.’ Another
inscription, on the back of the monument, vividly promotes the notion of the dog’s
willingness to serve the experimenter: ‘The dog, thanks to its long-established friendly
disposition towards man, its cleverness, patience and obedience, serves the experi-
menter, with considerable pleasure in fact, for many years, and sometimes even for
the whole of its life.’
Pavlov’s text contains a number of assumptions about canine ethics, including
that it is natural for dogs to accept suffering for the sake of humans and that dogs have
the ability and the willingness to express their friendship, love and loyalty to people
through self-sacrifice and the acceptance of physical suffering. These inscriptions lay
bare what is arguably the most exploitative side of Pavlov’s experiments on dogs: the
use and misuse of these animals’ ability to love. They also articulate the expectations
that humans have of dogs – namely that they be ready to sacrifice their lives for a
greater goal.
The latter reflects broader discourses of physical suffering and self-sacrifice
expected of Soviet citizens as a natural part of their heroic and patriotic deeds for the
benefit of the motherland. There is, however, an important difference. In the case of
humans, heroic self-sacrifice is assumed to be the result of self-control and the exer-
cise of strong will – essentially the power of spirit over matter and character over
emotions. It is this spirit, power and domination over the self that is to be nurtured in
children as part of their upbringing. In the case of ‘useful’ dogs, however, the tension
between nature and nurture is more complex: it involves not only the dichotomy be-
tween the wild and the domesticated, or the question of the degree to which the do-
mestication and training of dogs achieves their separation from nature and incorpora-
tion into human society and relationships; the dog’s ‘readiness’ for submission and
68
sacrifice is meant to be already there in potentio in its ‘nature’ as a species, one to be

harnessed by the animal trainer and/or experimental scientist. This does not, however,
prevent dogs from being presented as heroic and, in effect, moral creatures that in the
process of training need, similarly to humans, to exercise control and suppress in-
stincts and emotions.
When the first Central Moscow School-Kennel for Military and Sports Dogs
was established in 1926, members of Pavlov’s group were invited to give lectures on
theoretical aspects of animal training. Pavlov’s younger collaborator Iu. P. Frolov be-
came involved in a number of experiments in service-dog breeding and training, in-
cluding a trip to the Far North in 1932. He was also the co-author of service-dog train-
ing manuals.11 Pavlov’s ‘disciples’ advocated adherence to Pavlov’s theory of reflexes
as the foundation for training based on a combination of rewards and what they eu-
phemistically called the application of pressure on the external points on the surface
of the dog’s body, thereby alternating ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ stimuli. The term ‘pain’
to express the dog’s experience of electric shocks or burning by the apparatus that
tested the dog’s response to heat was considered too ‘subjective’ to have scientific
value.12
The 1936 Manual for Preparing Specialists in Service-Dog Training was mar-
keted as the first textbook in the field based comprehensively on Pavlov’s theory of
reflexes.13 The Introduction written by Professor L. A. Andreev was critical of other
manuals of the 1930s, stating that these books merely recycled dated information from
foreign works. Instead, it was Pavlov’s teaching that was to underpin a theory of train-
ing based around the problem of disciplining and remoulding nature, while firmly re-
11 Medvedev et al.
12 Todes, Ivan Pavlov, p. 340.
13 Andreev et al.
69
inforcing the hierarchy between human trainers and dog trainees. The Manual rec-
ommended the lashing of dogs undergoing training as one of the methods included in
the effective development of reflexes, even if this approach was expected to be used
only rarely.
At the same time that Pavlov was relying on the heroic self-sacrifice of ‘man’s
best friend’ for the advance of science and his followers were reworking this principle
in the context of animal training through the conditioning of reflexes, Vladimir Durov
was actively publicising his own very different method of training based on kindness
and rewards, which he described in his 1929 book Moi zveri (My Animals). When the
first Central Moscow School-Kennel for Military and Sports Dogs was established in
1926, Durov and his nephew Anatolii (1887-1928), were invited to provide their ex-
pertise. Durov’s method of rewards, of encouraging animals to do his bidding with the
help of treats such as sugar and sweets, went counter to common practice among cir-
cus and menagerie trainers at the beginning of his career in the 1890s, but he firmly
maintained that the infliction of pain on animals only created resistance and led to a
refusal of cooperation. Durov also believed that it was possible to communicate tele-
pathically with animals. His telepathic exercises, modelled on fashionable hypnotism
séances on humans, claimed that dogs were capable of perceiving human commands
inter-mentally, thereby positing a correlation between the human and non-human
mind. Durov had scientific ambitions, in fact, and his zoopsychology attracted the at-
tention of Russia’s foremost hypnosis specialist at the time, the renowned neuropsy-
chiatrist V. M. Bekhterev, Pavlov’s arch rival and critic. Durov also sought to con-
tribute to the exploration of the Soviet Union’s uncharted lands in his Zoopsikhologiia
na sluzhbu sotsializmu (1938) where he contended that untamed animals, those that
had not been exposed to hunting and other forms of human violence, displayed no fear
of humans.
70
As we shall argue, both Gaidar’s story and the film ‘High Reward’ contain
what one might term ‘anti-Durovian’ motifs vis-à-vis his trademark method of train-
ing by rewarding animals with treats. The film features, in fact, a dangerous interna-
tional espionage ring-leader disguised as a circus trainer who has a small circus-
trained dog as his loyal helper. Durov’s method of kindness with its emphasis on
cross-species love thereby appears to be politically obsolete in the context of the late-
1930s’ efforts of children’s writers to make both dogs and children ready to serve the
country loyally in the build-up to war. As we shall see, the dynamics around the sepa-
ration of children from nature, as a mark of their reaching the right kind of conscious-
ness and vigilance, are figured by children overcoming emotional attachments to dogs,
which in some scenarios involve not only acts of disciplinarian dog-training, but also
acts of punishment and betrayal of the dogs’ love of and loyalty to their young mas-
ters in ways that evoke ‘Pavlovian’ discourse and practice as discussed above. The
exploitation of the dog’s ability to love becomes not only the act of mastering one’s
will and the child’s symbolic separation form nature; it also gives rise to the ethics of
betraying ‘friendship’ for the sake of the country.
In Shneider’s ‘High Reward’ and Gaidar’s ‘Smoke in the Forest’ love is
treated with suspicion, given that it weakens the will and impairs vigilance. Fraer-
man’s work, however, places the question of a dog’s love for a girl and his ability to
sacrifice himself for her sake within the broader theme of love as an emotion among
adolescents. Indeed, while the other narratives under examination display a simplistic
following of the ‘Pavlovian’ framing, Fraerman’s novella takes a more nuanced ap-
proach to matters of ethical and emotional interaction between humans and animals.
While the parallelism between children and dogs is at the core of all three narratives
examined here, some, like Gaidar, adopt it in an unproblematic way, others, like
Shneider, enforce hierarchy, with children placed firmly in charge of dogs, while oth-
71
ers still, namely Fraerman, question the very notion of the trainability and malleability
of both species.
‘High Reward’: On Dangerous Animal Trainers and Vigilant Border Guards

The film ‘High Reward’ presents a caricature of Durov in the character of the
circus animal trainer Sobachkin (from sobaka, meaning ‘dog’) who is portrayed as an
agent of an international plot to steal state military secrets. The secrets, typically for
the 1930s’ cultural script, relate to an airplane design which a capitalist industrial es-
pionage ring is keen to appropriate in order to endanger the defence capability of the
Soviet Union and lower its potential to conquer new territories in the Far North and
Far East. Sobachkin impresses an unsuspecting boy to get to his famous father, a pro-
fessor of aircraft engineering. The scene takes place after a circus act with small dogs.
Durov as a historical prototype is easily recognisable in the clown-trainer who per-
forms Durov’s trademark act: Sobachkin uses his own bodily postures to suggest to
animals what he wants them to do in imitation of his own actions.
Having established contact with the boy, the trainer visits the family at their
summer house, which is where the classified drawings of the new airplanes are kept.
The boy’s father is critical of Sobachkin’s little circus dog whom he dismisses as a
‘toy-dog’ (fintifliushka) – a ‘useless’, purely decorative animal, a remnant of the bour-
geois past (thereby making it synonymous with the class enemy). The story also con-
tains a counter-motif to that of the toy-dog trained by a spy: it features useful, service-
dog characters, who are being trained by the boy-protagonist. Indeed, the boy is en-
gaged in the training of two German shepherds, generically called ovcharki to avoid
politically incorrect connotations of the breed’s name.14 The training is part of the
14 The official recognition of the politically correct ‘East European shepherds’ as opposed to ‘German shepherds’
took place only in 1964.
72
boy’s school’s scheme of fostering young dogs for a career in the border guards. The
fostering takes place during the school summer holidays, and the two puppies live at
the professor’s country dacha. The boy’s father teaches the boy that service dogs have
to be brought up as ‘vicious’ (zlye), because they will have to defend the country from
the enemy. The father here displays awareness of training methods recommended in
the manuals of this era, specifically those that claimed to be based on Pavlov’s
reflexology.
Indeed, the Manual for Preparing Specialists in Service-Dog Training, au-
thored by leading personalities staffing the experimental service-animal training cen-
tres in 1930s’ Moscow, including Pavlov’s junior colleague, Professor A. P. Orlov (cf.
his ‘Theoretical Foundations of Training’, pp. 179-277), and M. I. Vanichev, V. V.
Rylov, N. A Sakharov (cf. ‘Training Service Dogs’, pp. 273-418), explains that the
training of dogs uses the animal’s inborn features, which include ‘viciousness’ (zlost´)
as one of its main characteristics, alongside the dog’s good sense of smell and hearing,
resilience and strength.15 However, dog training has to ‘develop new qualities under
the impact of a human on the dog’s organism’.16 The manual conflates the Russian
term for animal training (dressirovka) with a range of other terms typically used for
humans, such as ‘upbringing’ (vospitanie), ‘discipline’ (distsiplina) and ‘habits’
(privychki), explaining that they are all equally applicable to humans and dogs.17 The
manual advises that the trainer cannot work with the dogs only by influencing them
with ‘tenderness’ (laska), but should also use other stimuli (razdrazhiteli, lit. ‘irri-
tants’), including, if necessary, lashing. 18 This method was deemed acceptable for
15 Andreev et al.
16 Andreev et al., p. 234.
73
search, guide and guard dogs in order to develop ‘viciousness’ in ‘an active form’,
although the manual recommends that strong lashes be used only exceptionally in or-
der to avoid the inhibition (tormozhenie) of reflexes.19
Special attention in the manual is given to the use of food and treats in training
because the trainer has to teach the dog not to accept food from strangers. ‘Subjectiv-
ity in training’, such as showing love, is termed ‘humanisation’ (ochelovechivanie)
and is considered to be a common mistake.20 The manual purports to use Pavlov’s
views on the continuity and discontinuity between humans and dogs in reflex forma-
tion. It explains that humans are superior to dogs, because while the primary signal
system works for both, the secondary system, linked to language, is uniquely human.
Indeed, the manual considers the method of ‘showing’ the animal what to do – i.e.
precisely the method that Durov promoted and that Sobachkin uses in the film – as
misconceived and ineffective. In the story, however, the circus trainer Sobachkin in-
terferes with the boy’s method of training his foster dogs by advocating a different
approach – that of (apparent) kindness. He uses rewards to corrupt one of the ovchar-
kas in order to achieve his act of political sabotage: he feeds the boy’s dog with juicy
bones, which leads the animal to accept the trainer-spy as a ‘friend’. When the crucial
moment arrives, this incorrectly trained dog allows the villain to enter the house
where the secret documents are kept.
On discovering that the dog accepts food from strangers, the professor de-
clares that the dog will have to be re-trained. While the implication here is that ani-
mals can be ridden of bad habits, the method that it entails is harsh: in one episode the
boy establishes his authority by lashing the young dog with his father’s leather belt.
Lashing with the father’s belt was, in fact, a typical form of child punishment among
74
the lower classes of Russian society. The belt is synonymous with the power of the
father as well as the authority of the state. Using leather for lashing was a common
form of corporeal punishment in pre-Revolutionary times. The gentry were exempt
from it, but it was commonly applied to serfs and other lower classes.
The boy’s act thus implies the establishment of a hierarchy and it both breaks
and reinstates the correlation between children and dogs. By disciplining the dog the
boy separates himself from nature and assumes a place equal to that of his father in
the hierarchy father-child-animal.21 By assuming the role of his father he also shows
his ideological maturation. In the story’s conclusion the well-trained dogs and the po-
lice manage to stop the perpetrator who eventually makes an attempt to steal the
classified drawing. And it is the circus trainer’s little dog who makes the blunder of
attracting the attention of a security guard who is monitoring the house.
The story contains a parallel subplot which involves another spy attempting to
steal the plans by pretending to be in love with the professor’s daughter. Thanks to her
vigilance and distrust of his false pretences, she helps to intercept him as a perpetrator.
The love subplot here establishes the symmetry between human-to-human and hu-
man-to-animal love – in both cases love is portrayed as a dangerous emotion. In both
subplots love is exploited by the enemy, and it is only thanks to the right kind of up-
bringing that the professor’s children stop a serious act of sabotage and subversion.
Fittingly, their father’s vigilance also plays a major role because he had, in fact, pre-
emptively substituted the newest aircraft drawings with old ones.
The film also introduces the opposition between ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ dogs, a
distinction formulated in the 1933 service-dog training manual The Shepherd Dog at
21 On this hierarchy in European culture see Salisbury, J., The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, London:
Routledge, 2010.
75
the Service of the Kolkhoz.22 According to this manual, in contrast to working dogs,
there are also harmful, parasitical dogs, among which are included both strays and
lapdogs. The manual argues that the Soviet Union, which is building a socialist soci-
ety, needs only useful dogs, especially working breeds.23 It is quite clear that circus
dogs like poodles, in spite of their high intelligence and trainability, did not fit the
category of being ‘useful’ – like Sobachkin’s little dog assistant, they were associated
with the bourgeois classes emblematised by Durov and his circle.
‘Smoke in the Forest’: On the Perils of Treating Dogs with Sweets

Gaidar’s ‘Smoke in the Forest’ continues the script of dividing dogs into those
that are useful as defenders of the country and its people and those that are harmful
because they have not been subjected to utilitarian training. An untrained dog parallels
an uneducated and naïve child, while the child reader is expected to identify with and
emulate a trained service dog. Gaidar’s story is devoted to the dubious heroics of the
teenage boy Volodia who tries to rescue a wounded Soviet airplane pilot by finding
the way out of the forest in which the pilot had crashed when his aircraft was shot
down by the enemy. It turns out, however, that Volodia had failed geography in
school and was bad at reading maps. Fittingly, the boy is accompanied by a small dog
called Brutik who is not only useless as a pathfinder and rescue dog, but ends up put-
ting the boy in danger. Not being adequately trained, this pet dog relies on the help of
humans for his own survival: instead of helping the boy cross the river, Brutik throws
himself onto the boy when they are in the water and almost drowns his young master.
The boy is saved in the end by a well-trained border-guard dog of the approved breed
22 Zavodchikov, P. A., Ovcharka na sluzhbe v kolkhoze: Instruktornye ukazaniia, Leningrad: Leningradskoe
oblastnoe izdatel´stvo, 1933.

23 Zavodchikov, p. 7.
76
– the ovcharka. The shepherd dog drags the boy to safety and hands him over to the
border guards. The trained service dogs also help rescue the wounded pilot. The dog
Brutik drowns in the river, however, his fate exemplary of what happens to dogs (and
children) who have not received the necessary training.
But what exactly was wrong in Brutik’s training? The answer lies in a cryptic
episode at the beginning of the story. Brutik belongs to the little girl Fenia, the pilot’s
daughter, and both Volodia and Fenia feed Brutik a sweet. The way in which this is
expressed – ‘skormili sobake’ – suggests that the act was the children’s initiative, the
dog himself being made to have the sweet. The two children then ask for another
sweet for each of them, as well as a ginger cookie, which they give Brutik to eat.
Moreover, as a prank they smother the dog’s nose with honey. The symbolic meaning
of these acts is a moral one, hinting at the link between the dog’s spoilt upbringing
and the consequences that this then has on his training and eventually on his sorry fate.
Brutik is not only separated from nature, but also the product of the wrong kind of
nurture.
The act of feeding sweets to the dog hints at the ‘Durovian’ method of training
animals, which emphasises rewards by treats. Moreover, because the children are also
spoilt by indulging in sweet treats, the episode establishes a parallelism between the
children and their dogs, given that both end up helpless and useless in their efforts to
find and save the pilot. The moral is that both children and dogs place themselves and
others in danger if improperly brought up. Sweets represent not only the wrong kind
of training, but also the wrong way of showing love as part of this training. At a time
when heroic deeds at the service of the country are expected of adults, children and
animals alike, love is yet again revealed as a potentially treacherous emotion.
It is noteworthy that the story also frames the dog Brutik’s demise as the inevi-
table loss of life in war. The ‘reformed’ boy Volodia says about his dog’s death: ‘War
77
is war’ (‘Raz voina, tak voina’), accepting the culture of sacrifice that comes with de-
fending one’s country. Interestingly, though, in the 1955, post-Stalin-era, film adapta-
tion of this story by directors E. Karelov and Iu. Chuliukin,24 Brutik survives, return-
ing to his young friend after the near-drowning episode, helping him recover, in fact.
This exhibits a very different ethos of human-animal relations, stressing the positive,
healing role that pets like Brutik can have on their child-companion. It also reflects the
more humanistic attitude towards working dogs characteristic of the Thaw era, which
culminated in the anti-Pavlovian novella ‘Mukhtar’ (1959-60) by Izrail´ Metter.25 Fit-
tingly, as a marker of the Thaw and of a new attitude towards the role of animals in
child upbringing, the Moscow animal circus for children known as The Corner of
Grandpa Durov (Ugolok dedushki Durova) received high praise in Emilii Dvinskii’s
1956 book Ugolok imeni V. L. Durova.26 While this book still had to state that animal
training at this circus was carried out in line with Pavlov’s theories of conditional
reflexes, its publication signalled the emergence of a new sensibility towards the role
that animals were expected to play in child upbringing in the Soviet Union – one that
represented a move towards the ‘Durovian’ heritage of love and kindness as the nor-
mative feature of human-animal interactions.
‘The Wild Dog Dingo’: On the Sacrifice of a Malformed Pet

In its exploration of the wider theme of love, Fraerman’s ‘The Wild Dog
Dingo, or a Tale about First Love’ imbricates the motif of love between a dog and a
human with the motif of the emergence of feelings of romantic attraction between
adolescents. The story’s action is set in the Far North East of Russia – a setting typical
24 Dym v lesu, dir. E. Karelov and Iu. Chuliukin, Mosfil´m, 1955.
25 Mondry, H., Political Animals: Representing Dogs in Modern Russian Culture, Leiden: Brill, pp. 219-30.
26 Dvinskii, E., Ugolok V. L. Durova, Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1956.
78
for 1930s narratives of heroic exploration, made additionally authentic thanks to Fra-
erman’s personal experiences of living and working in these territories. A friend and
colleague of Gaidar’s, Fraerman shared with the latter not only aspects of biography,
such as serving in the Red Army during the Civil War and as a war correspondent
during the Second World War, but also a strong sense of romantic longing for new,
formerly unexplored lands. Both Fraerman’s and Gaidar’s story are set in thick forests
exemplifying untamed nature to be taken over by the Soviet socialist enterprise.
Part of Durov’s Zoopsychology in the Service of Socialism is devoted to the
elaboration of the idea that wild animals have an inborn friendly disposition towards
humans. This friendliness applied to those animals that had not been previously ex-
posed to human cunning and violence. Thus, in Durov’s imagination, the uncharted
lands of the Soviet Union acquire a quasi-Arcadian character. Durov also understood
that animals perceived their first encounter with humans as an encounter with another
species in nature. In Durov’s book wild nature did not represent danger to be over-
come or a world to be captured and tamed, as was common in Soviet discourse of the
1930s, but an ecosystem ready for cooperation with humans, provided they did not
use force and violence.
The conceptualisation of wild nature of the Far North East in ‘The Wild Dog
Dingo’ contains some of the above ‘Durovian’ features. It shares the setting with the
exploration narratives of the 1930s, yet it presents a complicated picture of human
interactions with nature, situating the latter both outside and inside humans and ani-
mals, while also showing that animals can be more ‘humane’ than humans. And while
the goodness of animals is still measured by their ability to be useful to humans,
Fraerman chooses the dog subplot of his story for the dramatic portrayal of the key
emotions of love, loyalty and the capacity for self-sacrifice.
79
Fifteen-year-old Tania Sabaneeva27 lives in a village in the Soviet Far North

East with her mother, who brought her up without a husband. Her father arrives in the
same village with his new wife, and they bring with them the boy Kolia, who, impor-
tantly, is not a blood relative of Tania’s, but a nephew of her father’s new wife. Be-
fore the boy’s arrival Tania asks her mother whether Kolia is her father’s son, but
learns that he is not, making him fall into the category of permitted objects of love.
Fraerman thus introduces the problematics of culture vs. nature into the theme of ado-
lescent love. Were the boy Tania’s half-brother, ‘culture’ would have forbidden the
liaison. Fraerman, however, allows culture and nature to conflate in order to allow the
consummation of ‘natural’ feelings.
Before Kolia’s arrival, Tania was friendly with the Nanai boy Fil´ka, who is
unmistakably attracted to her. She also has a non-human friend, the dog Tiger, a small
ten-year-old malformed animal who is particularly devoted to the girl. The dog’s
name highlights the discrepancy between his physical characteristics and that of the
most powerful predatory animal of the forests in the Russian Far East. The dog’s ap-
pearance receives special attention, and Fraerman hints at the dog’s awkward shape
which is said to be the result of overbreeding. Tiger, an epitome of a domesticated pet,
is thus featured as the product of nurture over nature.
Tania’s behaviour to both Kolia and her own father manifests characteristics
typical of adolescent awkwardness: she is jealous of both, but tries to conceal her
jealousy; she is shy of receiving presents from her father or Kolia and she refuses to
accept food from her father’s wife even when hungry; she regrets her actions, yet re-
mains entrenched in stubborn pride and self-pity. It is only the native boy Fil´ka and
27 Fraerman ciphers a cryptic code in Tania’s surname – Sabaneeva: aside from the fact that the first two syllables
of the name are phonetically equivalent to the first two syllables of sobaka [sab ka], knowing dog lovers will
recognise that this is also the surname of the influential pre-revolutionary zoologist, Leonid Sabaneev (1844-1898),
the editor of the journal Priroda i okhota in the 1870s-80s and author of influential books in cynology.
80
the dog Tiger that make her feel comfortable. Fil´ka’s appeal lies in the fact that he
blends harmoniously into the surrounding nature and culture alike. Russian children
tease Fil´ka’s native skills, such as his path-finding abilities, by calling him a dog – a
symbol of his cultural and ethnic Otherness. One example of Fil´ka’s interactions with
nature makes a particularly potent statement: he treats Tania with what he calls ‘ant
juice’ – a refreshing sour-tasting secretion left by ants on a wooden stick that he puts
inside an anthill. This act speaks of the native population’s harmonious relationship
with nature: Fil´ka harvests the juice without harming the ants that produce it – a
striking counter-example to the invasive surgical methods of harvesting dogs’ gastric
juices that typified Pavlov’s experiments.28
Building towards the story’s dramatic denouement – Tania saving Kolia’s life
in the snow blizzard by sacrificing her loyal dog Tiger to a pack of vicious and dis-
obedient sledge-pulling dogs – Fraerman punctuates his narrative with a number of
episodes that relate to human-animal encounters, linked to the thematic cluster of
trainability and exploitation, on the one hand, and love and loyalty, on the other. One
episode combines the idea of the cooperation of wild animals with humans (as ad-
vanced in Durov’s Zoopsychology) with the use of punishment in child upbringing.
Fil´ka’s father, a herdsman, hands him his long leather belt in an ambiguous, yet
highly symbolic, gesture that at the same implies punishment for Fil´ka’s disobedi-
ence and the granting of permission to Fil´ka to use the belt as he wishes. Fil´ka re-
fuses to use the belt on the animal. And indeed, the deer does not even require pulling
by the noose, but willingly follows Fil´ka to the camp. The leather belt as a weapon of
punishment and discipline is thus revealed as obsolete in the conditioning of both
animals and children.
28 Todes, D. P., Pavlov’s Physiolo y Factory: xperiment, Interpretation, Laboratory Expertise, Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
81
This episode is paralleled by another symbolic motif already encountered in

the narratives discussed above – that of treating children and, by extension, dogs, with
sweets. During the first meeting between Tania and her father, he hands her a box of
sweets. The episode is depicted with considerable attention to detail: the father tries
clumsily to pull the box out of his pocket, which takes him an embarrassingly long
time as the box seems to be wedged in awkwardly; when he finally manages to pull it
out he tells Tania apologetically that he should have brought her flowers instead, be-
cause she is now quite a grown-up girl. He lays the box on the first object available,
the sledge, while the dog Tiger and the house cat sniff at it with great interest.
Tania’s mother witnesses the gift-giving with disapproval and immediately
puts the sweets away. It is quite clear that Tania has not been brought up on sweets.
Yet why would Tania’s mother treat this box with such suspicion? Is it because she
considers sweets to be spoiling children, especially in a harsh environment such as the
one they lived in, in terms both of the climate and the political realia of the late 1930s?
We have seen that Gaidar’s story made sweets emblematic of the wrong kind of train-
ing for dogs. Fraerman echoes this motif, while leaving it ambivalently unresolved:
the box of sweets is not eaten by either the girl or the dog, as the connection between
upbringing and emotions, growing up and love, fails to actualise. Tania’s emotional
turmoil is further manifested in another symbolic episode also involving animal life.
When she receives a goldfish in a bowl as a present from Kolia, she threatens to fry it.
This spiteful and aggressive behaviour could be seen as typical of adolescent expres-
sions of attraction through its opposite. But the motif also relates to ideas about the
‘usefulness’ of animals in the new world which has no room for decorative animal life,
but only forms that can be of practical use to humans – a fish exists to be eaten and
not to be kept as a pet.
82
These episodes serve as signalling markers and structural building blocks for
the main and most controversial episode of the story, in which Tania heroically saves
Kolia, but only by sacrificing the life of her loyal dog Tiger. The episode is a complex
interaction of young people and dogs, and it sets the fully domesticated house dog Ti-
ger against the semi-domesticated working dogs – the sledge-pulling laikas used by
the Nanai people. Fil´ka receives a pack of these Siberian laika dogs from his father
as a present, and both father and son warn Tania that these are freedom-loving and
ferocious animals. Knowing of Tania’s fantasies about the Dingo, Fil´ka jokes that the
laikas are far more vicious than the Australian wild dog. This does not deter Tania,
however, who asks Fil´ka’s father to allow her to drive the sledge with the pack. Tell-
ingly, the laikas give Tania a look described as ‘wolf-like’ (po-volchí).
To control the dogs Tania wields a kaiuk – the traditional Nanai wooden driv-
ing stick with a metal ending. The driving stick suggests the harsh method of training
that these dogs undergo, but it also stands for their ultimate un-trainability: had they
been fully domesticated, no whip would be required; it is only through the application
of force that these dogs continue to serve people. However, Fraerman never shows
Tania whipping the pack; she either waves the kaiuk, or sticks it into the snow in a
failed attempt to slow down the pack. In the same way that Fil´ka did not use the
leather belt earlier in the story, she did not use the stick to lash the dogs, although she
ends up being ineffective in controlling the wild pack.
In her treatment of Tiger, we again encounter the method of rewards with
treats: in order to entice Tiger to follow her into the snow storm Tania throws him a
sugar cube. It turns out, however, that Tiger, owing to his advanced age, cannot in fact
see the sugar in the white snow nor can he sniff it out; yet he follows the girl voluntar-
ily, the implication being that he does so not because of the reward, but out of love
and loyalty. In the story’s climactic scene, as Tania drives the pack to rescue Kolia out
83
of the snow storm, and as the ferocious pack is about to take the wrong turn by fol-
lowing a horse that has unexpectedly appeared in the forest, the girl ends up throwing
Tiger from the sledge on to the ground in order to divert the pack’s attention:
Она подняла Тигра высоко над своей головой и бросила его на

дорогу. Он с визгом упал на снег. Потом, словно поняв, что ему
нужно делать, мгновенно вскочил и с громким воем понесся
рядом со стаей. Он опередил ее, будто сам обрекая себя на гибель.
Собаки заметили его. Он бросился прочь с дороги. И стая
кинулась вслед за ним. Лошадь проскакала мимо.
«Дорогой мой, бедный Тигр!» - подумала Таня.
Он прыгал по целине высоко, он тонул, он задыхался в снегу.
Он, может быть, проклинал людей, которые изуродовали его тело,
сделали короткими ноги, шею длинной и слабой. Но он любил эту
девочку, с которой вместе играл щенком и вырос вместе, и только
он один состарился. Справедливо ли это?
Он сел на снег и стал дожидаться смерти.
А Таня припала к нарте, услышав его долгий визг, и хрипенье,
и стук собачьих клыков, заглушивший громкий шум ветра.29
Having torn Tiger to pieces, the pack of laikas run away into the forest. Tania
herself takes their place and pulls the sledge against Kolia’s protestations. The con-
trast between the individual domesticated house-dog Tiger and the collective semi-
wild sledge-dogs is essential to the symbolic meaning of this scene. The laikas’ run-
ning away into the forest shows that they have not been tamed. Turning dogs into
hard-working service animals through the exploitation of their strength and energy by
29 Fraerman, p. 110.
84
means of force is clearly not tantamount to fostering the animals’ willing cooperation
with humans. It is the ‘useless’, artificially-bred and awkward-looking, domesticated
Tiger who displays the necessary loyalty and performs the ultimate sacrifice.
Yet the depiction of the Tiger-Tania relationship in the story questions the ex-
ploitative side of human emotional interactions with the socialised dog. While this
relationship depends on the domesticated dog’s ability to love the girl and go all the
way in order to help her, it also shows that in the girl’s hierarchy, the boy whom she is
in love with comes first. The ethical question of both sacrifice and self-sacrifice in the
context of love is made poignant by the ambiguities of the meaning of cross-species
relationships, here between the girl and her dog. While Tania unquestionably loved
the dog, she nevertheless made what to her appeared to be a rational choice, given the
assumption that dogs ultimately have a service function in relation to humans.
The dog’s act, on the other hand, is presented as an ethical one of self-sacrifice.
Tiger’s apparently willing acceptance of death at the hands of the wild pack for the
sake of the girl is a complex metaphor. On the surface it fits the overall discourse of
the heroics of self-sacrifice by Soviet people and the Pavlovian notion of dogs’ self-
sacrifice for a higher cause. Yet this sacrifice is also a form of suicide – and it is at this
point that it becomes not heroic, but subversive – subversive of the very narrative of
heroic sacrifice, here underpinned by the failures of human love, friendship and loy-
alty in relation to the animal. Tania, after all, with her longing for the wild Australian
Dingo uses her loyal old malformed dog to her own ends. She shows the same per-
verse understanding of ‘friendship’ as did Pavlov who sacrificed the lives of the dogs
even when naming them Druzhok – ‘Little Friend’.30
In the end Kolia and Tania are saved by border-guard dogs on skis. These ap-
pear out of nowhere, deus-ex-machina-like. Their presence as life-savers testifies to
30 Todes, Pavlov’s Physiolo y Factory, pp. 123-152.
85
their being on guard at all times and in all conditions. It is they who ultimately over-
come the forces of nature. Their panoptic vigilance shows, moreover, how difficult it
would be to cross the border not only from the outside, but also in the opposite direc-
tion, if one wanted to escape. Tania does leave this place, however, after the traumatic
experience, in part because her mother makes the decision to move in order to avoid
being in the same place as Tania’s returned father – the man whom she still loves, but
who evidently loves another woman. Thus, Tania leaves the village, yet for an
unidentified destination, suggesting perhaps that she will follow her dreams, whatever
meaning her youthful fantasies might acquire in her actual life trajectory.
Conclusion: Where the Wild Things Are

Tania’s out-of-place-ness in the world she inhabits is emblematised by her
idiosyncratic dream of the Australian dog Dingo. This dream can be interpreted as a
transposition of an adolescent romantic longing, but also as her outsider status within
the system, cultural as well as political. If the story of the first love between a girl and
a boy was written for both adult and adolescent audiences, the story of the love of a
small dog for the girl and the fantasy of the girl for the wild dog Dingo was written
for those in the know. In order to fully understand the symbolism of the Dingo dog it
is useful to note this animal’s typological definition in the 1936 Service Dog Training
Manual: ‘Contemporary scientists consider the Australian dog Dingo as a special case
– that of a formerly domesticated dog that had become wild.’31
The wild dog Dingo is a polyvalent metaphor for the adolescent girl protago-
nist’s inner world of feelings and fantasies. However, Fraerman also invests the wild
Dingo motif with his own authorial code, resulting in a complex narrative abundant
with Aesopian layers in need of deciphering. The central motif is that of the girl who
86
lives with her mother in the Soviet Far North, yet dreams of a dog that represents the
North’s opposite pole – Australian wilderness. The girl’s dreams of the Dingo thus
emerges as a subversive counter to the Soviet socialist project of the late 1920s-30s
with its construction of the Far North and Far East as the cross-section of romantic
longing for virgin lands upon which to stage socialist missionary heroics. The girl’s
own formulation: ‘Why does everybody around here talk about bears, and not about
the wild Dingoes?’ can be read as a challenge to Russo-Soviet patriotic colonial ex-
pansionism. Her indifference to the local bears and her preference for the wild Dingo
becomes a dream of escape from the dominant ‘bear-centred’ political script. Indeed,
the girl’s story is not one of overcoming of the wild Dingo fantasy, but of becoming-
Dingo.
The notion of the reversal of domestication to wilderness is a powerful meta-
phor for liberation. The laikas that ran away into the forest have a chance to become
wild again, to revert to their wolfish past. If badly or incorrectly trained dogs can be
re-trained, following the thinking promoted in ‘High Reward’ and the Soviet dog-
training manuals, then Fraerman suggests that the whole enterprise of training is a
form of captivity from which some animals can still escape. He comes close to ideas
found in contemporary animal studies that advocate the radical separation of animals
from humans as the only true form of animal liberation. Dogs, however, occupy a
unique place in this context, and ‘overbred’ pets, like Tiger, appear to have reached a
place of no return to nature: their liberation can be found only in extinction.
The political code in Fraerman’s text at times becomes almost dangerously
overt: Tania simultaneously dreams of ‘becoming a pilot, of other countries (‘inye
strany’), of another world (‘inoi mir’), of, for instance, the Australian dog Dingo.’32
By putting together the dream of becoming a pilot, and that of ‘another world’, with
32 Fraerman, p. 35.
87
the dream of the wild dog Dingo, Fraerman introduces a conflicting script of wanting
to serve the country, yet also wishing to escape into a different realm and a different
form of being. The standard teenager’s dream of the 1930s of becoming an airplane
pilot is here combined with the subversive narrative of running away from ‘the land of
the bear’. As a writer who had risked his life when he served in the Red Army in 1919,
Fraerman had good reason to consider himself an underdog in the menacing years of
the Stalinist Great Terror of 1937-39, the years when many of his contemporaries per-
ished in the Ezhov purges.33
Fraerman’s text also clearly questions the ‘Pavlovian’ model that champions
the sacrifice of animals for human needs and desires. His story contrasts the mecha-
nistic narratives of Gaidar and the Soiuzdetfil´m production, which put the trainability
of dogs and children on a par, expecting both to experience and express only one kind
of love – love for the service of their country. The service dogs that exemplify this
kind of love in the above-discussed narratives can, in fact, be seen as part of a literary
canine genealogy – one that culminates in Faithful Ruslan, the labour camp guard-dog
of Georgii Vladimov’s eponymous dissident text, written in the 1960s, which places
the conditioning of service dogs at the centre of his political satire of Soviet life dur-
ing de-Stalinisation. Ruslan’s training based on the infliction of pain alternated by re-
ward was exemplary of the ‘Pavlovian’ paradigm discussed above. The paradox of the
trained dog Ruslan is that he loves his trainer, despite the latter inflicting pain on him.
The allegorical implication is that the Soviet people loved Stalin and were ready to
sacrifice their lives for the love of their leader, whose name became synonymous with
the mother/fatherland. For the human and canine Ruslans alike there is no return from
domestication to wilderness: the ovcharka cannot become the Australian Dingo.
33 The writer’s identification with the (under)dog is a motif well-developed in Russian and Soviet literature. See
Mondry, pp. 149-216.
88
While faithful Ruslan is the emblematic product of high Stalinism, the Thaw
marks a shift in the discourse that correlates dogs with children. This applies espe-
cially to the role that ‘love’ between species is expected to play in children’s upbring-
ing, even if this still implies a utilitarian view of dogs as ‘helpers’ in it. As the 1963
book My Friends, authored by a professional dog trainer and published by the Soviet
state publishing house of children’s literature states: ‘Treasure the dog. It is your
helper and friend; a true, unselfish friend, who will never ever change. But in order for
it to give so much to you, you must give a lot of feeling, care, love and affection to it.
A dog is your friend, if you are its friend.’34
Dogs as children’s friends and loyal companions in this new discourse are still
expected to serve people, especially in the task of bringing up emotionally developed
citizens. Dog love, however, is no longer viewed as an unconditional emotion to be
used for experiments on conditional reflexes, but as a direct response to human love.
This was part of the 1960s’-70s’ trend of promoting the ‘harmoniously developed per-
sonality’ as the desired outcome of upbringing, one which included the didactic incul-
cation of love of nature and a condemnation of cruelty to animals.35 The concept of
‘friend’ here changed significantly from the ‘Pavlovian’ notion emblematised in the
nickname of Pavlov’s experimental dog Druzhok, reflecting rather more the myths of
‘Durov’s Corner’ in Moscow, which remains to this day an iconic site used to instil in
children a sense of closeness to the animal world as an essential part of their ethical
and emotional development.
34 Riabinin, B., Moi druzía, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo detskoi literatury, 1963, p. 189.
35 Bibikov, A.T., Grammatika poriadka: istoriia sotsiologicheskikh poniatii, kotorye meniaiut nashu realńost´,
Moscow: Vysshaia shkola ekonomiki, 2014.
89
JOHN MCNAIR
THE ‘RAMBLING VICTORIAN’ AND THE MODERN SPHINX:

AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW OF RUSSIA IN 1883
While some case might be made for Governor Macquarie as its precursor,1 the
Australian tradition of travel writing about Russia more plausibly had its actual be-
ginnings in a weekly series of articles published as ‘Sketches in Russia’ in the Mel-
bourne Argus between April and November, 1885.2 Their authorship, masked by the
nom de plume ‘A Rambling Victorian’, was revealed in April the following year,
when the same newspaper announced the forthcoming publication in book form of Mr
A.F. Morrison’s widely-admired columns.3 Sketches in Russia, a 250-page volume,
with twenty-five chapters corresponding to the twenty-five original instalments and a
final summative reflection on ‘Russia, Present and Future’, duly appeared in Decem-
ber 1886, commending itself to the Australian public as an attempt ‘to increase pleas-
antly the stock of information about one of the most interesting countries in the world,
a country which is comparatively little known and hence imperfectly understood.’4
1 Macquarie’s account of his journey through Russia from Baku to St Petersburg in 1807 (some two years before
his arrival as governor in New South Wales) forms part of his unpublished Journal (Mitchell Library (State
Library of New South Wales) ML: A771). For an account of the relevant passages, see Aleksandr Massov,
‘Lachlan Macquarie in Russia’, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, 22/1-2, 2008, 45-59.
2 Twenty-five articles appeared more or less regularly on Saturdays between April 25 and November 14.
3 Argus, April 16 1886, p. 6.
4 A.F. Morrison, Sketches in Russia, Melbourne: W. Inglis, 1886 [p. i]. An excerpt from one of the chapters is
reprinted in Ros Pesman, David Walker, Richard White, eds., The Oxford Book of Australian Travel Writing,
Melbourne: Oxford UP, 1996 (‘A.F. Morrison in Moscow, 1883’), pp. 26-30.
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 91-115

JOHN MCNAIR
Alexander Fraser Morrison,5 born in 1856 in Hamilton (Lanarkshire), arrived

in Australia as an infant when his father took up the post of principal of Scotch Col-
lege in Melbourne in 1857. His conspicuous success in this role over more than four
decades,6 mirrored by that of one brother who served as his deputy and another who
was headmaster of the Geelong College, ensured the family’s rise to prominence and
prosperity. Like other male Morrisons of the second generation, Alexander thus grew
up in the privileged and cultivated milieu of the Melbourne Presbyterian establish-
ment and received the best education the colony could provide. From Scotch College
he went on to study law at the University of Melbourne and thence, following his
graduation and admission to the Victorian bar, to the Middle Temple in London. Here,
at the age of 25, he was called to the bar on 29 June, 18817 — surely a promising start
to any legal career. Of his life between then and his arrival in Russia in the (northern)
winter of 1883, we know only that he had the leisure and the means to travel widely in
Europe: Sketches in Russia alludes in passing to time spent in Paris, Berlin, Vienna,
Rome, Athens and Constantinople, cities in which the author had had ample opportu-
nity to observe Russians abroad8 before setting out to study them in their native ele-
ment.
Arriving in Moscow by train from Lemberg (Lviv) and Kiev, Morrison re-
joices to find himself ‘beyond that zone of Europe blighted by circular tours and Mr
5 See ‘Morrison, Alexander Fraser (1856-1904)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian
National University, http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/morrison-alexander-fraser-14239/text25283, accessed 13

January 2015. Originally published in the Melbourne Argus, 21 December 1904, p. 8.
6 See E.L. French, ‘Morrison, Alexander (1829-1903)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne:
Melbourne UP, 1974, vol. 5, pp. 295-297.

7 See Men at the Bar: A Biographical Hand-list of the Members of the Various Inns of Court, Including Her
Majesty’s Jud es etc, (http://www.mocavo.com.men-at-the-bar, accessed 13 January 2015)

8 See e.g., Morrison, p. 239.
92
Cook’s tickets’.9 Russia in 1883 was certainly far from the beaten track of interna-
tional tourism, although it was already emerging as a favourite destination for more
adventurous travellers, and the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 had thrust it to
the forefront of the collective European consciousness. By the same token, in the
years since the Crimean War it had inspired a considerable travel literature: one recent
survey of first-hand accounts by British and American visitors lists 180 items pub-
lished in the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881) and a further 142 in the much shorter
reign of his successor (1881-1894).10 Morrison himself had in his luggage copies of
two celebrated French classics of the genre, Théophile Gautier’s Voyage en Russie
(1867) and Victor Tissot’s La Russie et les Russes (1882), whose confiscation by Rus-
sian Customs officials at the border crossing of Pidvolochysk is described in his first
dispatch. 11 Though certainly exploring a new frontier for Australian travellers and
travel-writing, therefore, Morrison, his journey and his narrative reflect a wider con-
text of European encounters with and representations of Russia in the second half of
the nineteenth century and exemplify attitudes and stereotypes that had become cur-
rent.
Avoiding any precise dates, the account spans the winter months of 1883-1884
and describes (as well as a few hours’ stay in Kiev) prolonged sojourns in Moscow
and St Petersburg, from where the traveller and his (unnamed) companion (or com-
panions) entrain for Berlin as the spring thaw sets in.12 Much of it is devoted to the
tourist ‘sights’ and architectural monuments that form the staple of Russian journey
9 Morrison, p. 26.
10 Anthony Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs: an Annotated Bibliography of First-hand English-language
Accounts of the Russian Empire, 1613-1917, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2014.
11 Morrison, pp. 1-3. More unaccountably, perhaps, his copy of Tom Sawyer was also seized.
12 Morrison, p. 250.
93
JOHN MCNAIR
narratives: St Sophia’s in Kiev, ‘Red Place’ and the palaces and churches of the Mos-
cow Kremlin, and in St Petersburg — ‘without a doubt the grandest capital in
Europe’13— the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, ‘Neffsky Prospect’, the Peter and Paul
Fortress, the cathedrals of St Isaac and Our Lady of Kazan and much else. In tone and
style, however, nothing could resemble less the clichés of Barthes’ Guide Bleu,14 as
witness the description of ‘the Cathedral of Vassili Blajennoi, or the Blessed St Basil’:
This building … suggests some stranded jelly-like sea polyp of many

colours, which has thrust itself out all over into knobs and excrescen-
ces at its own sweet will. The church is the most extra-ordinary mass
of terraces, galleries, pinnacles, small steeples, onion-shaped domes,
pagodas, and Gothic windows that was ever jumbled together. The
colours used are red, green, lilac, yellow, blue and other shades hardly
to be found in the rainbow… The whole church is the design which an
architect who had been studying Chinese, Gothic and Turkish build-
ings at once would dream of in a dreadful nightmare.15
Nor (again to invoke Barthes) are such touristic attractions as cathedrals, mu-
seums and palaces isolated from their context of ‘ordinary’ daily life, or from the his-
torical, social, political and economic factors of which they are the product: there are
as well descriptions of street markets, restaurants, taverns, teashops, theatres, police
stations, a skating rink on the Moika, the Moscow Foundling Hospital and (even in
the dead of winter) the St Petersburg Botanic Gardens, all accompanied by a spirited
14 See Roland Barthes, ‘The Blue Guide,’ in Mythologies, selected and translated by Annette Lavers, New York:
Noonday Press, 1972, pp. 74-77.

15 Morrison, p. 20.
94
and often outspoken commentary on institutions, organisations, public order, govern-

ance, commerce, manners and morals − indeed, on the condition of Russia itself. The
strictures inspired by the first encounter with agents of the inefficient, arbitrary and
corrupt state bureaucracy on the country’s borders assume the character of a sustained
critique of ‘an autocratic paternal government’.16 This is developed in specific denun-
ciations of an ‘inherently vicious’ legal system whose processes are routinely overrid-
den by administrative orders dictating arrests and sentences as a matter of ‘autocratic
will’, 17 and of ‘the police and their ways’ 18 (outlining mostly the activities of the
Third Section, whose ‘whole machinery is kept going by an odious system of bribery
and espionage’).19 Hardly less than those of the state, ‘the ways and means of the
church’20 also attract their share of condemnation, whether for the ostentatious display
of wealth in vestments and décor, the ‘openly-practised gold-grubbing idolatry’21 that
is its source of income, the unenlightened superstition it panders to or the ignorance
and drunkenness of many of its clergy, as graphically exemplified by a ‘personal ob-
servation’ of two priests in Orel:
In their greasy light-grey smocks, with their colourless eyes, bleared

and watery with drink, their fat bloated cheeks on the usual Russian
large cheek-bones, their thick lips turning a little upwards under the
short straight nose, their matted hair and uncombed dirty beards, and
their variegated blotched complexion, red with wine and blue with cold,
16 Morrison, p. 4.
17 Morrison, p. 53.
18 Morrison, pp. 51-62.
19 Morrison, p. 55.
95
JOHN MCNAIR
they were indeed types to remember of the Russian pope at his lowest
moments.22
The ‘disgusting and deplorable’ extent of public drunkenness in general23 is

only one of the social evils singled out for condemnation; others include the illiteracy
of the mass of the population, the high incidence of violent crime, the pernicious
influence of Nihilism and other ‘wild theories’24 on idealistic but misguided youth, the
sybaritic indolence of the educated classes and the generally dissolute lifestyle of high
society: for in the opinion of our traveller, ‘viewed from the standpoint of moral purity,
Russian society is hopelessly bad and corrupt.’25
Their sometimes negative and censorious tone do not detract from the value of
Sketches in Russia as historical source and reference guide. Written barely two years
after the assassination of the tsar-liberator, when the site of the deed is marked only
by a makeshift shrine and horrified onlookers assemble to examine newly-excavated
terrorist ‘mines’ in the heart of the capital, they convey the turbulence of the times,
acknowledging both widespread revulsion at nihilist ‘atrocities’ and the quandary of a
government that recognises the need for reform, but fears the threat it poses to stabil-
ity and the status quo.26 They characterise an intellectual landscape in which Nihilism
has become less ‘prevalent’ than the contest between ‘Zapadniks’ and Panslavists,27
and a social structure in which ‘satrapic’ landowners rule over longsuffering moujiks
22 Morrison, p. 39.
23 Morrison, p. 40.
24 Morrison, p. 59.
27Morrison, pp. 115; 245; 247.
96
(‘a solidly safe bulwark against revolutionary action’28) and a middle class — ‘which
would be the central pith and sturdy strength of this as of any other country — is
really only in process of formation.’29 Their portrait of Moscow students — brooding,
sulky and sullen and ‘dressed like working men or tradesmen’s assistants, except they
did not look as well fed or cared for’30— recalls many a nineteenth-century novel,
while their reports of sensational criminal cases are equally redolent of the world of
Dostoevsky: one, for example, recording the acquittal of a confessed murderess on
evidence from ‘a Professor Balinsky’ that she was a psychopath – ‘a new form of
malady evidently invented for the occasion […] as an excuse for or justification of
wrongdoing.’31 There are glimpses of famous persons: ‘M. Katkoff , the one great
pressman of Russia,’32 ‘Professor Tschaikoffsky, the eccentric and misanthropic, but
influential principal of the Conservatorium of Music,’33 the composer Anton Ruben-
stein at luncheon in the Hôtel de l’Europe in St Petersburg.34 There are memorable
vignettes of ‘typical’ characters glimpsed on city streets, like the merchant downing
fourteen large tumblers of tea in twenty minutes,35 or ‘a good type of ordinary young
Russian peasant’ at prayer outside St Isaac’s, 36 or the nouveau riche dandies (‘the
most unpleasant class in Russia’) hanging around stage doors to waylay ballerinas.37
28 Morrison, p. 40; p. 246.
31 Morrison, p. 59.
32 Morrison, p. 29.
33 Morrison, p. 116; Tchaikovsky was a professor at, but never principal of the Moscow Conservatory.
35 Morrison, p. 32.
37 Morrison, p. 92.
97
JOHN MCNAIR
There is a virtual inventory of European paintings in the Hermitage and another of

‘breath-taking’ exhibits in the museum of the Gorny Korpus.38 There are reports from
the St Petersburg Gazette and the Moskauer Zeitung,39 revelations by casual acquaint-
ances (‘an intelligent and obliging young student, M. Varanoff” of Kiev, ‘a Russian
prince we met in Tula’)40 and titbits of society gossip (for example, concerning the
scandal of the late tsar’s affair with ‘Princess D[olgorukova], already installed with
their children in the Winter Palace before the late Empress’s death).41 There are statis-
tical data and economic minutiae unlikely to be found together in any other single
source: we learn for example, that Russian prisons accommodate 95,000 inmates in
cells meant for 75,000, and that 2,700 students were deported from Moscow for the
duration of the coronation festivities in May, 1883;42 that there are 20,000 Germans in
Moscow and 4000 Britons in St Petersburg;43 that it costs twice as much to be married
(2 roubles, or 5 shillings) as to be buried (1 rouble or 2s.6d.) by a parish priest, but up
to 100 roubles to rent the Icon of the Iberian Mother of God for an hour;44 that a cheap
fur coat can be bought for £10 and a good one for £200;45 that university fees amount
to only £5 or £6 per annum, while a domestic servant can expect to be paid £12 a
year;46 that a tram-ride costs only 2½ d. but a sleigh-ride across the Neva only 1d.;47
38 Morrison, pp. 204-10; 179-85.
39 Morrison, p. 57-9.
40 Morrison, p. 11; p. 62.
42 Morrison, p. 59; p. 54.
43 Morrison, p. 29; p. 171.
44 Morrison, p. 39; p. 97.
45 Morrison, p. 63.
46 Morrison, p. 114; p. 41.
47 Morrison, p. 133, p. 191.
98
and that a young Russian man-about-town will think nothing of paying 1 rouble 50
kopeks for a cigar ‘where many an Englishman would have been thriftily content with
a more modest sixpence.’48 There are digressions on ‘isvostchiks’ – ‘the best-natured,
most obliging fellows you can meet, brimful of humour’49 – and, less appealingly, on
the inadequacies of Moscow’s public sanitation, revealed for all to see and smell
when the snow melts each spring.50
Morrison’s attempt ‘to increase pleasantly’ the stock of information on Russia
reflect a wide range of cultural interests. On subjects as diverse as Orthodox theology,
church music, ecclesiastical and civil architecture, town planning, painting, sculpture,
literature, music and the Russian language he has knowledge and opinions to impart;
if not always reliable or impartial, they are (as he likes to emphasise) the result of his
personal observations, reflections and taste. His remarks on the Russian language, for
example, are characteristic: humorous in tone, occasionally inaccurate, often percep-
tive and generally revealing a degree of awareness seldom encountered in the ac-
counts of later Australian travellers in Russia. The demands made on the ‘tortured ar-
ticulating organs’ by the ‘charming vocalic’ shtch, the effort needed to nerve tongue
and jaws before ‘launching out’ on vossemdjessyattscheturiye, the vagaries of stress
(‘put the accent on the most inconvenient and unlikely syllable [of any word], and you
have it as it ought to be said’51) are all causes of rueful complaint; and yet he finds
that the language as a whole ‘as spoken by natives … is perhaps the most beautiful
living language one can hear. It is wonderfully melodious, rich, and lyrical.’ 52 More
49 Morrison, p. 27.
51 Morrison, p. 214; p. 76; p. 160.
99
JOHN MCNAIR
practically, the reader is introduced to a glossary of useful, (more or less) phonetically

transcribed Russian words (isvostchik, tchinovik [chinovnik], budotchnik, gardavoi
[gorodovoy], zakuski, kulibiaka 53 ) and even phrases: tchai tchass! (‘bring tea
quick!’54), for example, or gavarheete pa Russky! (the verb, it is implausibly sug-
gested, ‘nothing more or less’ than the Scots haverin’ in an unexpected guise).55
References to Russian literature suggest a less direct engagement, being gen-
erally confined to the listing of notable names (‘Lomonosoff’, ‘Karamsin’, Tolstoi and,
more obscurely, Shadoffskaya (sic), author of ‘pretty verses’ about St Petersburg),56
but Pushkin is quoted in the author’s own verse translation (‘from the [German-
language] Leipzig edition’57), Turgenev, ‘the man who by his writing has done more
to gain the sympathy of western Europe for Russia than any other Russian who ever
wrote,’58 is invoked several times as an authority on the national character, and there
is a brief synopsis of the plot of Gogol’s Shinel´, albeit with the garment transformed
into a fur coat and the story attributed to Nekrasov.59 Altogether less flattering is the
appraisal of Russian art. ‘Badly drawn’ icons of saints ‘stiff in attitude and grim in
expression’60 are admired only for their jewelled frames, while the modern paintings
in the Hermitage collection, ‘with some really fine exceptions’, are ‘the worst things
53 Morrison, pp.13, 27, 31, 37, 66, 68.
54 Morrison, p. 13.
56 Morrison, p. 203. Iuliia Valerianovna Zhadovskaia (1824-1883) enjoyed considerable success with volumes of
poetry published in the 1860s.

57 Morrison, p. 67. Robert Lippert’s German translation of Pushkin was published in Leipzig in 1840.
58 Morrison, p. 54.
59 Morrison, p. 64. The error perhaps arises from some conflation of Gogol’s story and Nekrasov’s poem ‘Moroz,
krasnyi nos’.
60 Morrison, p. 219; p. 23.
100
perpetrated by clumsy brush, crude colours and execrable taste,’ the worst offenders
being the most esteemed artists, Verestchagin (‘clever in execution, but hideous in
effect’) and Aivazoffsky (‘a torture to look at’).61 A performance of an ‘indifferent’
opera by Rubinstein strikes a jarring note of cultural condescension:
Russians may not have many authors, painters, or musicians, but they
are intensely and unreasonably proud of those they have.62
At the same time, however, the choral singing in the Uspensky Cathedral in the Krem-
lin inspires awe and admiration:
The clear, ringing upper notes of some of the boys’ voices ar equalled
by the inconceivable depth of the basses, which really sound like a
deep rolling organ pipe gifted with a human utterance... the modulation
is marvellous. Beginning in a whisper so faint it seems to come from
outside the walls, the sound gradually swells in richness and power till
it comes to a full close in a burst of music, which is re-echoed down
from the dome, and floats through the church long after the singers’
voices have ceased…63
The author of the Sketches is generally less favourably impressed by the archi-
tecture of Russian churches. St Sophia’s in Kiev is ‘a mixture of cave and Gothic ca-
thedral,’ 64 while St Basil’s in Moscow resembles a mosque. 65 An emphasis on its
62 Morrison, p. 90.
63 Morrison, p. 24.
64 Morrison, p. 9.
101
JOHN MCNAIR
‘wealth and magnificence’ dominates the description of St Isaac’s in St Petersburg (‘A

Costly Temple’66), although the disapproval of extravagance and ostentation implicit
in the catalogue of dimensions and costs gives way to a less characteristic acknowl-
edgement of aesthetic and spiritual value:
Some critics may think it an architectural failure, but the traveller is to

be pitied who cannot both appreciate and feel astonishment at this
wonderful building… The effect which may be produced by a prodigal
outlay of wealth, patient and ingenious labour, and priceless and exqui-
site richness of materials can nowhere be so well studied as in this ca-
thedral of St Petersburg.67
The contrast between Morrison’s response to a church ‘in the form of a Greek
cross and built in the Greek style’68 and his reaction to the ‘nightmare’ of St Basil’s
(or the even more ‘extraordinary’ Church of the Miracleworker St Nicholas, with its
‘Corinthian pillars, French windows, portholes and domes’69) points to an architec-
tural prejudice that underlies many of his pronouncements on the built environment
and translates in part to a marked preference for the ‘European’ style of St Petersburg
over the ‘bizarre and queer appearance of many streets in Moscow’. 70 Indeed, of all
the buildings in the old capital, only two earn his unreserved approbation: the new
(still incomplete) Historical Museum, the work of an English architect, with ‘a sober,
65 Morrison, p. 21; the comparison is attributed to Napoleon.
69 Morrison, p. 35.
70 Morrison, p. 36.
102
sensible look among the half-barbaric structures crowding round;71 and the Rumiant-
sev Museum, ‘the most beautiful modern building in Moscow… somewhat in the
style of a Greek temple.’72 In St Petersburg, by contrast, there are no ‘mad colours’ or
‘quaint Mongoloid domes’; the buildings are ‘so Western … as to be almost denation-
alised,’73 and if the overall effect is monotonous, it is yet impressive: St Petersburg is
built on a colossal scale, and ‘without a doubt, the grandest capital in Europe.’ 74 The
Neffsky Prospect is ‘the finest street in Europe, or perhaps the world’;75 and if ‘good
taste is sadly lacking’ in the design and decorations of the Winter Palace and other
prominent buildings,76 the Hermitage, the Admiralty, St Isaacs, the Kazan Cathedral
and the Smolny church and convent, ‘one of the most splendid groups of buildings in
Russia’ 77 provide ample compensation. And although the city is ‘notoriously un-
healthy’,78 when viewed from the dome of St Isaac’s, it has ‘a peculiar and indefinable
charm of its own’79 and inspires admiration, not only for the foresight of its founder,
but ‘for the power of rulers and the capabilities of people, who in less than 200 years
have made up for former lost time, so as to present before your eyes today this city, as
grand as any other in Europe, which has, perhaps, been four times as long in coming
to its present state and even now cannot surpass the Russian capital.’80
71 Morrison, p. 115 . V.I. Shervud [Sherwood] was in fact Russian by birth.
72 Morrison p. 116.
77 Morrison p. 200.
103
JOHN MCNAIR
Morrison’s claim to ‘simply give my own experiences and impressions’81 is

disingenuous to the extent that, like any traveller, he carries with him a personal bag-
gage of prejudice, opinion and world-view which inevitably shapes his perception.
Thus, occasional disparaging references to the ‘lower orders’ – to their ‘simply appall-
ing drunkenness,’ their ‘dirt’ and ‘odorous bulk’, their superstitiousness and credulity,
their laziness82 — ‘date’ his account as much as the predilection for facetious mag-
niloquence that occasionally distinguishes his style (tipping tour-guides ‘bestows the
means for procuring liquid calorification’83). Even less consonant with modern sensi-
bilities are comments now likely to inspire charges of racism and sexism: he opines,
for example, that Moscow women have ‘too strong an infusion of the a Mongol or
Tartar type for English tastes, and a thick flattened nose and yellowish complexion do
not add very charming finishing touches to the facial picture;’84 and while the ‘grace
and beauty’ of St Petersburg ladies ‘make up for the shortcomings of two or three
Moscows,’85 females of the ‘higher social classes’ are found in general to be ‘emanci-
pated’ and ‘loud’, ‘that modesty of demeanour which we expect in ladies … replaced
by a masculine abandon and a bold freedom of manner.’86 In the censure he reserves
for certain aspects of the Orthodox church − its exploitation of superstition, fondness
for meretricious display and general venality, not to mention the ‘revolting practices’
of the Raskolniks87 — it is perhaps not too much to discern the puritan influence of a
Presbyterian upbringing. And there is surely more than a hint of sanctimonious Cal-
82 Morrison, pp. 34; 154; 169; 176.
84 Morrison, p. 91.
85 Morrison, p. 91.
87 Morrison, p. 96; p. 39; p. 85.
104
vinism in the condemnation of Russian ‘immorality’ that runs as a leitmotiv through-

out the whole sequence: drunkenness and loose conduct at every level of society,
fashionable ladies addicted to champagne and gambling and visiting handsome monks
in their private cells, ‘filthy and prurient’ material on sale in railway bookstalls, the
‘cynical frankness’ surrounding sexual misdemeanours, ‘temporary conjugal ex-
changes’, open adultery and cohabitation, spouses colluding to secure convenient di-
vorces — ‘the worst thing is not the number of cases of flagrant, open immorality in
society here, though that is bad enough, but the nonchalant way in which their exis-
tence is indifferently accepted as a mere matter of course, not calling forth comment,
far less reprobation.’88
No less than similar travel accounts, moreover, Sketches in Russia is the prod-
uct of attitudes and assumptions which derive from a less personal sense of self. In its
attempt to characterise and interpret the Other it aspires to mediate, it is notably cir-
cumscribed by an ‘occidentalist’ mindset that habitually contrasts ‘Asiatic’ Russia and
the ‘Sclavonic’ mentality with more ‘civilised’ European ways and modes of thought:
the ‘satrapic’ plutocrats and ‘mongoloid’ domes are but two manifestations of that
‘Oriental barbaric love of display’89 and ‘Oriental luxury of living’90 in evidence eve-
rywhere and the ‘Oriental magnificence and lavishness’ so often found alongside at-
tempts to emulate ‘Western culture and refinement’. 91 Russia is indeed ‘a land of
strange contrasts’, of ‘Western veneer over Eastern barbarity.’ 92 The ‘odoriferous
88 Morrison, p. 34; p. 239; p. 198; p. 126; p. 243.
91 Morrison, p. 40.
92 Morrison, p. 33.
105
JOHN MCNAIR
moujik’93 in his sheepskin and the illiterate merchant with his abacus are both ‘thor-
oughly oriental’94 in appearance, but even the ‘European’ Russian gentleman is in-
clined to ‘a truly Oriental dreaminess’ – an ‘engrossing reverie’ so disabling that ‘you
cannot imagine a Russian as a hard, stern logician, a discoverer of a new method in
political economy, or a scientific statistician.’95
Perceptions of the East-West divide and an us-versus-them attitude echo
throughout the account, sometimes underlined by somewhat forced attempts to in-
clude the Australian colonies in the occidental world: we are told, for example, that
the Bellevue Hotel in Kiev ‘would not look out of place in Ramsgate or Queenscliff’,
and that Sokolniki may be deemed ‘the Regent’s Park or Fitzroy Gardens’ of Moscow,
although the hippodrome does not compare in size to Epsom, Longchamps or Flem-
ington; while the retail outlets of Okhotnyi riad and Passage – to say nothing of the
‘Asiatic’ street-stalls of Kiev96 − lack the glamour of Bond Street, Bourke Street, Pic-
cadilly or the Melbourne arcades. 97 Yet, despite other intimations of an Australian
identity – the author is chagrined to discover that the single Australian eucalypt in the
St Petersburg Botanic Gardens stands only 5 feet high,98 and resigned to the fact that
Russian ignorance regarding the country should be ‘as great as it is in England’ 99 –
Morrison’s terms of comparison remain unquestioningly British. Implicit assumptions
regarding the superiority of British institutions underlie his critique of Russian auto-
cratic government, bureaucratic corruption and administrative ineptitude. His scathing
93 Morrison, p. 2.
94 Morrison, p. 86.
96 Morrison, p. 11.
97 Morrison, pp.7, 49, 84, 147.
99 Morrison, p. 65.
106
analysis of the shortcomings of Russian jurisprudence bespeaks the influence of years

of training for the English Bar.100 His remarks on the brooding, sullen and occasion-
ally rebellious demeanour of Russian students stop only just short of lamenting their
lack of a British public school education:
[these] young men do not indulge in any healthy pastimes or athletics.

Cricket and rowing are of course unknown to them, but they do not
even practise wrestling, boxing or fencing.101
More unabashedly explicit is his proclamation of those notional virtues held to

distinguish the English country gentleman from his Russian counterpart:
in that great quality of strict morals and a pure life, which is admitted
to be of such great importance in fostering a national vitality, the Eng-
lishman must always appear to Russians … as so immeasurably above
them as to be an unattainable ideal.102
It would, however, be a misrepresentation to suggest that the Sketches are no

more than a vehicle for the endorsement of Anglo-Saxon attitudes and the assertion of
British superiority. Their severest strictures on Russian shortcomings are occasionally
offset by the recognition of worse failings closer to home: thus, the ‘obliging good
nature’ of Russian officials is contrasted with ‘the supercilious indifference of the
English red-tapist’ 103 and the violent aggression of the ‘besotted English labourer’
107
JOHN MCNAIR
with the ‘infantile good humour’ of the drunken moujik;104 while it is ‘far safer to
leave your indispensable galoches (sic) in the porch of a Russian church than your
equally indispensable umbrella in the porch of an English one.’105 The ‘kindness and
generosity’ extended by Russians to visitors from abroad is ruefully contrasted with
the treatment likely to be experienced ‘by a Russian stranger in London speaking Eng-
lish very imperfectly’.106 And the traveller betrays more than passing sympathy with
those Russians who, speaking English well enough to read the latest authors in the
original, must endure the complacency of British visitors who never trouble to learn
Russian and remain ‘profoundly ignorant of the intellectual forces which influence our
life and politics.’107
More generally, indeed, however blunt its condemnation of the negative phe-
nomena of Russian life, Morrison’s account does not hesitate to temper blame with
praise. The ‘unvarying courtesy’ of government officials is cited as evidence that ‘the
administrators are far pleasanter than the system they must administrate’ 108 and even
claimed as a ‘fortunate compensation’ for ‘the worst system of government in the
world.’109 Public charitable institutions like the Moscow Foundling Hospital, liberally
funded from the state monopoly on the sale of playing cards, ‘are the one bright spot
in Russian public life, darkened as it is by the shadows of autocratic tyranny, official
corruption, and social immorality.’110 In St Petersburg too, ‘hospitals, schools and be-
nevolent refuges for the poor or the sinning’ are organised on a ‘regal scale’, so that
107 Morrison, p.71.
108 Morrison, p. 4.
108
while the Government may be justly denounced ‘in many directions’, ‘the thoughtful
attention and liberal purse it gives to charity certainly should cover a multitude of
sins.’111
Also in St Petersburg, the impressive Botanical Gardens can heat its green-
houses and finance its scientific expeditions only because the state has no need to jus-
tify such expenditure –‘a despotism has some advantages after all.’112 More surpris-
ingly, perhaps, although a fifteen-hour train journey from Moscow to St Petersburg by
rail takes fifteen hours longer than advertised, Russian railways ‘with their unrivalled
comforts and luxury and their moderate fares’ are ‘in all points except speed […]
models to be copied by all other countries in Europe;’ 113 while London and other
European centres have much to learn from ‘luxurious institutions’ like the city’s Fan-
taisie Theatre.114 Even a visit to the Uspensky Cathedral, far from eliciting the cus-
tomary reflections on ‘low superstition’ and vulgar ostentation, assumes a different
character as the traveller succumbs to the spell of the sung liturgy: ‘the effect is so
splendid that it is impossible to grudge the wealth and magnificence that have been
lavished on this shrine.’115
Thus the author makes good his claim to that degree of balance and fair-
mindedness he enjoins on his audience:
109
JOHN MCNAIR
In reading what I say, I simply ask readers to free their minds from that
deceiving quality which is so conspicuously absent from the average
Russian mind: prejudice.116
Russia might remain for the traveller ‘a land of strange contrasts’, 117 but
throughout his account he warms noticeably to Russians as people, as he engages
more closely with ‘the average Russian mind’. He notes the ‘goodness and kindness’
with which foreigners are received, the ‘surprising directness’ with which details of
their financial and family situation are elicited, the ‘unbounded hospitality’ accorded
them, the ‘honest, open, manly’ attitude to them, contrasting with the ‘patronising su-
periority’ or ‘cringing inferiority’ other nations are wont to affect in their dealings
with foreigners.118 Such qualities are weighed against less positive aspects of the na-
tional character: well-read and cosmopolitan, the younger generation in particular are
‘apt eagerly to adopt any of those fatally absurd political or social theories which in
Russia shoot up like some deadly fungus growth’; 119 while the general ‘unabashed
immorality’ in sexual conduct has its corollary in the refreshing lack of ‘prudish sensi-
tivity’ in attitudes to children born out of wedlock.120 ‘Nothing if not erratic,’ Rus-
sians are ‘too sharp at everything to be sure about anything,’ as subject to ‘constant
reckless exhilaration’ as to ‘hopeless depression;’121 although travellers’ tales of ‘that
famous “Russky Petchal”’122 misstate the case: ‘what struck us was not perpetual sad-
118 Morrison, pp. 14; 15; 223; 225.
120 Morrison, pp. 240; 77.
122 Morrison, p. 231; more accurately, of course, russkaia pechal´.
110
ness but extremeness in feelings and action.’123 In short, the author concludes, while
Russia in its international dealings is commonly seen as ‘sly, treacherous and untrust-
worthy, […] I found it impossible to discover these qualities in Russians in private
life.’124 Even more ‘paradoxical’ is his conclusion that ‘in many matters the Russians
more nearly resemble the English than do [sic] any other Continental nation.’125
As Morrison himself recognises, it is the ‘besetting sin’ of travellers to essay
bold generalisations about national characteristics that risk mistaking the ‘exceptional
eccentricity’ of a particular individual for a universal trait.126 His own, though argua-
bly based on intelligent observation over a sustained period, trenchantly expressed
and in many cases consistent with the consensual wisdom of commentators before and
since, are no less opinionated than the general run, and just as open to the charge of
perpetuating national stereotypes and prejudices. To suggest that the want of ‘cool-
headed, calculating moderation’ is the ‘keynote’ of the Russian character127 is after all
to lament by implication an absence of British phlegm, while to praise Russians over
the French, Germans Swiss and Italians for ‘more nearly resembling the English’ is
surely the ne plus ultra of national hubris and condescension. Yet at the same time,
his reflections on Russians as people are an essential part of Morrison’s bid to chal-
lenge the ‘doomed law’ that ‘English and Russians are always to be implacable and
bitter enemies’:
111
JOHN MCNAIR
it is too often seen as “unpatriotic” to use of this great nation any

words not hostile or suspicious… this view is surely not to be accepted
[…] … the more impartially we study Russians as they are the better.
Such study may lead to a better mutual understanding…128
Mutual understanding no doubt seemed all the more necessary in the light of
renewed tensions in Anglo-Russian relations that surfaced in the months immediately
preceding the publication of the book, when territorial disputes in Afghanistan had
brought the two countries close to the brink of open conflict.129 The Australian’s at-
tempt to read the riddle of ‘the Modern Sphinx’130 seeks to persuade its readers that,
in regard to Russia, ‘received principles and ideas have to be rethought.’131 To this
end, his final chapter offers a considered assessment of Russia’s past, present and fu-
ture, and of her strengths and weaknesses: her immense but largely ‘latent’ capacities,
her ‘astounding’ achievements over the past two centuries, the challenge of the ‘co-
lossal elasticity’ of her boundaries, the ignorance and superstition of her peasant
masses, the political conservatism and indifference of her middle class, the ‘reckless
or envious miscreants’ of Nihilism (including many examples of ‘noble, though mis-
guided…criminal female heroism’ 132 ), a government nervous of reform, agitators
promoting ‘poisonous’ doctrines in its name, Zapadniks and Panslavists (‘the more
129 In March, 1885, a Russian expeditionary force seized the Panjdeh Oasis, precipitating an international crisis
and enflaming British suspicions of Russia’s designs on India. The dispute was resolved with the establishment of
an Anglo-Russian border commission.
112
ardent party’) vying to influence domestic and foreign policy.133 There are clouds on
Russia’s horizon,
but notwithstanding they are not thick enough to prevent an unpreju-

diced man seeing the great future Russia has inevitably before her, if
not immediately, still far nearer than it is possible to convince the
brains of most Western peoples.134
In spite of such optimism, it was with a sense of relief that Alexander Morri-
son alighted in ‘snowless Berlin’ from the train conveying him from St Petersburg late
in the spring of 1884; for ‘in Russia you never quite get rid of the thought that it is just
within the bounds of possibility that something awkward might happen to you.’135
Such an apprehension – surely familiar enough to many a more recent visitor to that
country – was not enough to mar his enjoyment of a tour ‘among the kindest people
who ever tried to make a traveller forget he was a stranger;’ 136 and it would be pleas-
ant to record that he was able to make the journey again, and test the accuracy of his
predictions. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that he did, and of his later life we
know only that he returned to Melbourne and to legal practice not long after his Rus-
sian sojourn, moving to London to continue his disrupted career in journalism late in
1903. He died in Kensington after contracting pneumonia in December the following
year.137
133 Morrison, pp. 24 -249.
137 ‘Morrison, Alexander Fraser (1856-1904)’, Obituaries Australia.
113
JOHN MCNAIR
‘An almost complete ignorance [of Russia and the Russians]’ – Morrison notes
wryly towards the end of his Sketches — ‘is the sole qualification many people have
for forming a judgement on them.’138 Whatever his shortcomings, few readers will
relegate him to the ranks of the ignorant. The virtues of his dispatches are all the more
apparent when they are seen in the context of the substantial corpus of witness narra-
tives by Australians travelling in Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As
might be expected, the volumes of testimony by those who embarked on the Soviet
guided tour139 comprising the bulk of this material seldom transcend the limitations of
their genre, but, those apart, there is little enough to match the Rambling Victorian
and his record of the impressions of an independent, intellectually curious observer,
unchaperoned by official guides and unrestricted by official itineraries, well-read in
European and Russian history and culture, interested in the Russian language and ex-
posed to Russian life across a range of social settings over an extended period of time.
Political to the extent that he advocates some Anglo-Russian rapprochement and dé-
tente, he lacks the narrow political agenda and naïve idealism of the Cold War fellow-
travellers. His Sketches exemplify that openness of mind and freedom from ‘deceiving’
prejudice he urges on his readers, for as he believes:
however odious, overbearing and antagonistic to us we may consider

Russian political leaders and military politicians, there is no doubt that
the great mass of the Russian people – the human being in the Russian
139 For further discussion of some examples see Sheila Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Rasmussen, eds. Political Tourists:
Travellers from Australia to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-1940s (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2008);
and John McNair, ‘Australians in the “Workers’ Paradise”: the Soviet Pilgrimage of the 1920s to 1930s’, in
Alexander Massov, John McNair, Thomas Poole, eds. Encounters under the Southern Cross: Two Centuries of
Russian-Australian Relations 1807-2007 (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2007), pp.185-203.
114
skin – […] are charitable, liberal and, above all things, hospitable.
They may be misled by those whom they follow for what reason they
know not; but who has not noticed these qualities in the average Rus-
sian and in Russian life must be blind or swayed by a prejudice, insular
or otherwise.140
In the words of their author’s obituarist, they constitute ‘a remarkable good se-
ries of articles’;141 and readers happening on them so many decades later may well
discover that in them we have not only the first substantial Australian narrative of
travel in Russia, but arguably the best.
141 Morrison, Alexander Fraser (1856-1904).
115
ROBERT LAGERBERG
KEY AREAS OF VARIATION IN RUSSIAN NOMINAL WORD STRESS
1. Introduction
This paper gives an overview of a wider corpus-based approach to variation in
Russian word stress currently being carried out by the author. On the basis of variant
stress forms (amounting to some 5200 in total) collected from а comprehensive con-
temporary source (Gorbačevič 2000), key areas, i.e. those types of variation which
occur most frequently in the said sources, of nominal stress variation in Russian are
identified and analysed. As Bybee (2007, 7) writes, ‘Corpus studies often reveal quan-
titative patterns that are not available to introspection but that are likely to be impor-
tant to the understanding of how speakers store and access units of language.’ In par-
ticular, factors motivating their type of variation are delineated, and conclusions re-
garding their dynamics and possible future directions of change are given. By their
very nature, stress variants represent some degree of ambivalence, which, presumably,
in the future will be resolved in one way or another. In addition, stress variation gen-
erally operates at the ‘fault lines’ of the phonological system, in those areas (typically
known to learners as the difficult areas of Russian stress) where there is tension be-
tween two or more competing motivations for a particular stress position or type, and
an appropriate corpus of such forms can offer an overview of such areas based on a
categorisation of forms. The aim of this paper is to analyse and outline the dynamics
of some of the most common areas of stress variation in Russian nouns.
Words with variation in stress allow the possibility of two, or occasionally
more, syllables on which the stress may fall in a given word form without any differ-
ence in meaning (though stylistic differentiation can be and, indeed, generally is a fac-
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 117-159

ROBERT LAGERBERG
tor). Thus, for example, the plural short form of the adjective верный ‘true, faithful’ is
given in standard lexicographical sources (e.g. ORD 1993) as either верны or верны
without any finer distinction between the two forms.
There are two main, distinct areas of stress variation in Russian. Firstly, varia-
tion may occur in one or more inflected forms of a word, as in the latter example (cf.
the other short forms of верный with non-variable stress, viz верен, верно, верна), or,
for example, in the case of the noun вода ‘water’ three oblique plural cases are given
(e.g. Zaliznjak 2010) as either водам, водами, водах or водам, водами, во-дах (the
latter forms, however, are marked as obsolete in the said source), but only вода is
given for the nom. sg., only воду for the acc. sg. etc. Secondly, in contrast, a word can
be characterised by stress variation in all its forms: essentially this results from varia-
tion occurring in the base form (i.e. nom. sg. of nouns, nom. sg. masc. of adjectives,
the infinitive of verbs). Thus, if we take the noun творог ‘curd cheese’, which in
most contemporary sources (e.g. ORD 1993) is given as either творог or творог, one
finds that one is dealing with two different accentual paradigms: in the case
of творог it is paradigm a (fixed stem stress) and in the case of творог it is para-
digm b (fixed ending stress), to use the commonly applied system.1 Thus, the former
base form results in all inflected forms having fixed stem stress on the initial syllable
1 Henceforth we use the generally adopted alphabetical system of Russian stress patterns found, for example, in
Zaliznjak (2010). There follows a list of some of the main stress patterns used in our further discussion. Pattern a:
fixed stem stress; pattern b: fixed desinential stress; pattern c (masc. nouns): stem stress on all singular forms and
nom. pl., on ending for all other forms; d: desinential stress in the singular, stem stress in the plural; pattern d´: as
pattern d above, but with stress retracted on to the initial stem syllable in the accusative singular (e.g. спина);
pattern f: desinential stress throughout, except for the nominative plural which has stem stress on the initial stem
syllable; pattern f´: as pattern f above, but with stress retracted on to the initial stem syllable in the accusative
singular (e.g. ру а, го ова); C(1) (masc. nouns): stem stress in singular; end stress in plural, nom. pl. in –а/–я.
118
VARIATION IN NOMINAL WORD STRESS
(e.g. gen. sg. творога), and the latter in all forms having ending stress (e.g. gen.
sg. творога).
A subtype of the latter type of stress variation occurs when stress falls on dif-
ferent syllables of the stem (though not on the ending), in which case one is dealing
with one stress paradigm (a or fixed stem stress), but with the stress falling on a dif-
ferent stem syllable in all forms of the paradigm, e.g. мыш е-
ние/мыш ение ‘thinking’, gen. sg. мыш ения/мыш ения. This type of stress varia-
tion plays a prominent role in the second distinct area of stress variation in Russian,
namely word formation: words containing the same suffix may either form uniform
categories in terms of stress (so called ‘dominant’ suffixes such as -ист with stress
always, that is, without any exception, on the same, in this case, final stem syllable,
e.g. оммунист ‘communist’, шахматист ‘chess player’), or a more complex ‘pat-
tern’ may occur with stress occurring in two or more different syllabic positions in
different words. An example of this is provided by the verbal suffix -ировать which
can be stressed on the final or pre-penultimate syllable in different verbs:
thus мас ировать ‘to mask’ versus те е онировать ‘to telephone’. There are also
individual verbs with both stress positions permitted in standard sources (without any
distinction in meaning, but with possible different stylistic evaluation),
e.g. татуировать/татуировать ‘to tattoo’ (Zaliznjak 2010). The latter type of
stress variation is the focus of much of the current article.
Other types of stress variation which are less common and play almost no role
in the current paper are the following:
a) free variation occurs in a relatively small number of cases of stress variation
where a non-derived word, or, at least, word whose morphology is perceived to be
non-derived, has two free, legitimate stress positions in its initial form (and, therefore,
119
ROBERT LAGERBERG
two different stress paradigms) with no difference in meaning and, therefore, no ap-
parent motivation other than etymological, e.g. творог ‘curd cheese’;
b) semantic cases of stress variation are those when a different stress is con-
nected to a different meaning, i.e. these are homographs, e.g. ат ас ‘atlas’ and ат ас
‘satin’, but, as in a above, have no apparent motivation;
c) dialectal differences of stress have limited effect on the standard language,
since they are essentially restricted by geography, education, the standardising role of
the spoken media and social class. In particular, southern Russian dialects differ from
standard Russian in some areas of stress (e.g. acc. sg. non-retracted stress for fem.
nouns with retracted stress in the standard language: воду, ногу vs. standard воду,
ногу) (see Cubberley 2002, 326).
2. Areas of variation
In the following sections, the most frequently occurring types of nominal
stress variation in Russian are analysed and presented, based on data collated from аn
extensive source (Gorbačevič 2000) by a noted expert in the area (see, for example,
discussions of word stress in Russian by Gorbačevič (1978a, 1978b)).2 The relevant
words (taken from Gorbačevič (2000)) in each section are presented in tables at the
end of this article, which, for reasons of space are listed without English translation.
In her study of the effects of frequency on language, Bybee (2007, 9-15) dis-
tinguishes between tokens and types: token frequency counts ‘the number of times a
unit appears in running text […]’, but ‘[o]nly patterns of language have type fre-
quency, because this refers to how many distinct items are represented by the pattern.’
While token frequency has been included in a previous study of Russian stress
2 Feminine mobile patterns, one of the most complex areas of Russian stress, are not treated here, but have been
discussed previously in connection with variation and frequency (Lagerberg 2010).
120
(Lagerberg 2011), the present article is both restricted by space and more concerned
in the first instance with type frequency (albeit with some discussion of token fre-
quency within this) in an attempt to document the main areas of Russian word stress
in which variation occurs. Certainly the broader project in progress will take more ac-
count of token frequency within each type, which, in agreement with Bybee’s work,
clearly plays a role in Russian stress assignment (see Lagerberg 2011, 128-130).
2.1 The nominative plural of masculine nouns in - /- (alternating with -ы/-и

(stressed or unstressed))
There has been a notable progress from the second half of the twentieth centu-
ry for the nominative plural ending -а/-я (always stressed and referred to as type C(1)
by Zaliznjak, i.e. - /-я in the nom. pl. and ending stress in other plural forms)) from
monosyllabic Slavic or non-Slavic masculine hard-consonant stems (e.g. дом ‘house’,
сорт ‘sort’) and pleophonic Slavic stems ( ерег ‘shore’, терем ‘tower chamber’) to
include also (see Stankiewicz 1993, 191-194):
a. names of professions (Slavic and non-Slavic (including soft-stem)
roots): до тор ‘doctor’, мастер ‘master’, е арь ‘doctor’, у ите ь
‘teacher’;
b. technical terms (generally non-Slavic roots): у ер ‘buffer’;
c. other terms (Slavic and non-Slavic): адрес ‘address’, остров ‘island’,
ве ер ‘evening’.
The phonetic shape of these lexemes (particularly non-stem-final stress (see
below)), colloquial usage, professional speech and (mid-high) frequency are all possi-
ble factors in the spread of - /-я. Essentially, therefore, C(1) stress has spread from
pattern-a nouns with non-stem-final stress according to the level of assimila-
tion/frequency of the noun in question either in the language as a whole or in specific
121
ROBERT LAGERBERG
micro social/work groups (professional speech). Semantic variation may also occur,
distinguishing homonyms, e.g. с ёт > с ета ‘bills’ vs. с ёты ‘personal accounts,
abacus’. Variation without semantic or stylistic differentiation is the result of a hither-
to unresolved choice of ending (and generally stress too), - /-я generally representing
the newer type and, presumably, the direction of the variation: дья он ‘deacon’ >
дья оны/дья она. That the ending -а/-я with its concomitant stress can be viewed as
the more dominant of the two can be ascertained by its gradual (non-normative)
spread even into nouns with stem-final stress in the nominative singular, e.g.
инженер ‘engineer’, nom. pl. инженеры/инженера, the latter certainly regarded as
incorrect (Gorbačevič (2000)), but nevertheless making inroads into what was previ-
ously regarded as not possible (i.e. nouns with pattern-a stress on the final syllable).
Thus, in a noun with variant stress in its basic form, initial stress договор (‘agree-
ment’) gives nom. pl. договора, while final stress договор gives договоры, but not
vice versa. As the data from the sources demonstrate, it is also important to note that
even some third-declension feminine nouns have variant forms with C(1), though they
are deprecated as ‘incorrect’ (e.g. репость ‘fortress’, pl. репости/((неправи ьно)
репостя).
Nouns with this type of (variant) stress collected from the sources (363 in total
- see Table 1 at the end of this article) for the most part have variation between stress
pattern a and C(1) (patterns b and c varying with C(1) are also possible, however). In
most cases there is some stylistic evaluation of the C(1) stress type, including
неправи ьно (‘incorrect’) (e.g. вырез ‘cut’) (96 forms), просторе ие (‘popular lan-
guage’) (e.g. ондарь ‘cooper’) (38 forms), не ре омендуется (‘not recommended’)
(e.g. о ер ‘sketch’) (12 forms), допустимо (‘permissible’) (e.g. вымпе ‘pennant’)
(37 forms) and про ессиона ьая ре ь (‘professional speech’) (e.g. дроссе ь ‘throt-
122
tle’) (68 forms). 3 In some 50 cases pattern a is stylistically deprecated as archaic

(устаре ое) or obsolescent (устаревающее), e.g. до торы ‘doctors’ (‘archaic’),
indicating the general shift towards normative C(1) (до тора). Data collected from
the sources clearly indicate that in nouns which vary between C(1) stress and another
pattern (mainly pattern a), there is a definite shift towards C(1). In particular, the dep-
recation of archaic pattern-a variants (vis-à-vis their C(1) counterparts) as unambigu-
ously archaic or obsolescent is importamt. In addition, in general in stress variation
the three labels ‘incorrect’, ‘not recommended’ and ‘permissible’ taken as a whole can
indicate an early-stage underlying direction of stress shift with, of course, various de-
grees of acceptability ranging from the lowest (‘incorrect’) to most acceptable (‘per-
missible’) or even equivalent status (i.e. when there is no stylistic deprecation and
both variants are simply listed). It should also be noted that any labels such as these
are always subjective and depend on the view of the scholar or editor in question.
Variation between pattern C(1) and other patterns also seems to be connected
with assimilation and higher frequency (though more work needs to be done to
confirm this). This is indicated by instances of professional speech noted above. Pro-
fessional speech indicates a higher frequency in a micro-group giving rise to such a
stress type associated with assimilation on the part of the speaker. As a stress pattern,
therefore, C(1) will continue to be productive, including more nouns of higher fre-
quency and/or higher assimilation, while words of lower frequency and/or lower as-
similation will tend towards the stem-stress pattern a type. Variation, it seems, will
continue to operate in words which occupy an intermediate position with regard to
frequency and assimilation.
3 In the tables of data the following abbreviations for these terms are used respectively: неправ. (‘incorrect’),
прост. (‘popular speech’), не ре . (‘not recommended’), допуст. (‘permissible’), про . (‘professional speech’).
Descriptions such as в ре и моря ов (‘in the speech of sailors’) are also taken as instances of professional speech.
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2.2 Movement of stress from nouns on to prepositions

The movement of stress from nouns on to prepositions (mainly ез ‘without’,
за ‘by, during’, из ‘from’, на ‘on to’, по ‘along, through’, под ‘under’) when placed
directly before nouns and numerals (e.g. за ру у ‘by the hand’, за десять ‘by ten’)
(see Voroncova 1979, 137-166; Ukiah 1998; Comrie et. al. 1996, 82-85) is a feature
of Russian that ultimately goes back to the intonation system of Proto-Slavonic and
essentially conserves early c-type recessive stress, which itself results from the ab-
sence of any morphemes in the word form with the ability to attract stress (thus from
early mobile type го ова ‘head’, (recessive) acc. sg. го ову > на го ову). However,
the picture has become more confused with original non-mobile words also affected
by this feature in modern Russian.
The general opinion regarding this type of stress retraction is that it has been
(and continues to be) one of steady decline from as early as the nineteenth century. As
Comrie (ibid., 83) states, ‘In the nineteenth century this practice was still much more
widespread than in the twentieth century, and examples are found which would be
quite impossible nowadays, such as […] на ошадь. […] In current usage, the ten-
dency to replace preposition stress by stress on the noun is continuing.’ Comrie (ibid.)
cites a survey of 1959 in which 87 (young) informants chose the stress на ерег ‘to
the shore’, only 27 на ерег, with 32 unsure of which they preferred. More recently
Ukiah (1998, 316) confirmed this process in a 1994 survey of Moscow speakers of
Russian: ‘[T]here appears on the evidence of the survey to be an overall decline in the
occurrence of this stress phenomenon: a large number of phrases now exhibit the
more ‘regular’ stress pattern of unstressed enclitic followed by a noun, numeral […]
with main stress, in the speech of a majority of the speakers surveyed.’
124
Gorbačevič (2000) (see Table 2 below) has some 40 of examples of variation

of this kind, but offers only some guidance on the matter of stylistic choice: for exam-
ple, he simply lists за зиму/за зиму ‘during the winter’, о по /о по ‘against the
floor’ without further comment, but notes that по по у ‘along the floor’ is used seldom
in contrast with the more common по по у. More information tends to be given in the
case of sayings or proverbs, e.g. а снег на го ову ‘like a bolt from the blue’, special
idiomatic usage, e.g. во по е ‘in the field’ (‘в народно-поэтической речи’), or where
there is a distinction between more literal meaning, e.g. за городом ‘beyond the
town’, and idiomatic meaning, e.g. за городом ‘in the suburbs’ (ibid., 38). However,
in three cases where information is given as to the obsolescence (устаревающее) of a
stress position, it is in each case the type with stress on the preposition (i.e. it is in line
with the general decline of this type), the second example of each of the following
pairs: e.g. из дня в день/изо дня в день ‘from day to day’, по угу/по угу ‘through
the meadow’, в сто раз/во сто раз ‘a hundred times’.
General guidelines are also given by some other scholars, e.g. Comrie et. al.
(1996, 83-84) state, for example, that на attracts stress if it indicates specific direction
towards a location, but not in more abstract senses: cf. сесть на по ‘to sit down on
the floor’ vs. посмотреть на дверь ‘to look at the door’. As seen above, numerals
may also act as nouns, yielding stress to the preposition in some preposition + nu-
meral (+ noun) phrases, e.g. на пять ру ей ‘for five roubles’, however, this is gen-
erally not a feature of educated speakers. Where there is neutral variation, the general
tendency is, as would be expected in line with the general tendency, towards stress on
the noun, e.g. ез вести > ез вести ‘without a message’. With set expressions,
however, such as пропасть ез вести ‘to be missing in action’, the stress tends to be
conservative, i.e. on the preposition. Frequency may be a factor here, with more regu-
lar usage, i.e. higher frequency, being a pre-requisite, or, at least, correlative, of con-
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
servation of stress on the preposition in such phrases, but more work needs to be done
in order to confirm this possible connection.
2.3 Nominal suffix – ж/– ж

Nouns with the suffix -аж/-яж consistently have stress on the final syllable in
the nominative singular. Nouns with variation have pattern a and pattern b, i.e. some
nouns have fixed stress on the final stem syllable, while others move it from the stem
final syllable to the ending in all inflected forms. While a more basic analysis of its
accentual characteristics, such as that of Fedjanina (1982, 50-51), simply lists such
nouns as varying between stress of pattern a and pattern b, Zaliznjak offers a more
detailed account (Zaliznjak 1985, 68-69). Zaliznjak classifies -аж/-яж as a dominant
pattern-b suffix, i.e. stress is consistently on the final syllable (and on the ending if
present), e.g. типаж ‘type’, gen. sg. типажа, dat. sg. типажу etc., although the
effect of what he terms ‘Polysyll’ means that words with a base component of more
than one syllable generally have pattern-a stress, e.g. шпионаж ‘espionage’, gen. sg.
шпионажа. What is relevant for the present discussion, however, is that pattern-a
stress also occurs when a word is not assimilated (i.e. this is the effect of what he
terms the ‘pragmatic factor’ and ‘professional speech’).
The pragmatic factor is defined by Zaliznjak (1985, 12 and 23) as the effect on
stress in both underived and derived words of their relative assimilation or lack
thereof (in Russian, освоенность/неосвоенность respectively) by native speakers.
As the effect of the pragmatic factor differs depending on whether the words in ques-
tion are underived or derived (ibid., 23), it can potentially be used as a criterion for
determining their status. Regarding the pragmatic factor in general terms, unassimi-
lated underived words, according to Zaliznjak (1985, 69), generally display ‘trivial’
stress, i.e. fixed stem stress, while assimilated underived words display ‘non-trivial’
126
stress, namely desinential or mobile stress.4 For derived words Zaliznjak (1985, 23)
states that the pragmatic factor operates differently and with two conditions: 1) the
affix in question must leave areas for the pragmatic factor to operate in, i.e. the affix
alone cannot determine the stress regardless of other factors; 2) assimilated derived
words are characterised by stress on the suffix, unassimilated by stress on the (pre-
suffixal) stem – ‘trivial’ and ‘non-trivial’ stress play no role here. By way of example
Zaliznjak (ibid., 79-80) cites the adjective мус у истый ‘muscular’, which, in his
view, has a more colloquial suffixal stress variant (мус у истый) by virtue of the fact
that it is assimilated; the conservative, morphemically inherited stress variant
мус у истый (from мус у ‘muscle’ with fixed stem stress) represents, in his view,
the literary ‘unassimilated’ norm. Professional stress is essentially a further reduction
in the scope of the pragmatic factor and is defined by Zaliznjak (1985, 68-69) as a
variant, (often, but not always) ‘non-trivial’ stress, i.e. desinential stress or mobile
stress, in the specialised vocabulary of certain professions and occupations. Profes-
sional stress is, in fact, a kind of phonological jargon: for example, while the word
массаж ‘massage’ has fixed stem stress (gen. sg. массажа) in the standard language,
amongst masseurs it has desinential (fixed ending stress) (gen. sg. массажа), indicat-
4 The pragmatic factor is described by Zaliznjak (1985, 12) as follows: ‘Для взрослого носителя языка
освоенными являются слова повседневной обиходной лексики, названия предметов, связанных с его
профессиональной деятельностью, слова, специфические для его микроколлектива или ограниченной
среды. Неосвоенными являются, в частности, названия предметов из жизни других стран или прошлых
эпох, термины незнакомых данному человеку профессий, слова чужих микроколлективов, для
большинства носителей языка - также все слова возвышенно-книжного и архаизирующего стиля.
Неосвоенным для данного человека является также всякое слово, которое он только что узнал; однако
через некоторое время, иногда довольно короткое, он может вполне освоить это слово.’ Assimilated words,
therefore, are defined as those with which speakers of Russian are familiar in the course of their everyday or
professional lives; unassimilated words are those words with which such speakers are not familiar, since they are
connected, for example, with other countries, professions, historical eras or social/professional groups, or they are
words with which a given speaker has only recently become acquainted.
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
ing assimilation of the word in question among the members of this micro-group of
speakers.
Thus, with regard to the suffix –аж/–яж, for example, the words зондаж
‘sounding’ and массаж both have pattern-a stress in standard use, but pattern-b stress
in professional speech. What is notable here, then, is that nouns derived with the
suffix –аж/–яж behave, from the accentual point of view, as though they were un-
derived words: the unassimilated words have trivial (pattern a) stress, while the assim-
ilated words (i.e. within the given professional micro-group) display non-trivial pat-
tern-b stress.
Gorbačevič (2000) lists some 50 nouns with the suffix -аж/-яж and stress
variation (see Table 3 below). In some instances it is difficult to determine whether we
are dealing with a suffix or simply a loan word: for example, the noun таж ‘floor,
storey’ appears not to have any other word in Russian from which it is derived, and
could be considered a loan word, but is included, since it is argued here that nouns in -
аж/-яж behave from the accentual point of view as though they were underived. Ex-
amples of this phenomenon from Gorbačevič (2000) are variant forms deprecated as,
for example, ‘incorrect’ or ‘permissible’ (12 nouns) (e.g. ар итраж ‘arbitration’ -
gen. sg. ар итража and ар итража (неправ.)), ‘not recommended’ (11 nouns) (e.g.
юзе яж ‘fuselage’ - gen. sg. юзе яжа and (не ре .) юзе яжа), ‘obso-
lete/obsolescent’ (11 nouns) (e.g. демонтаж ‘dismantling’ - gen. sg. демонтажа vs.
(устаревающее) демонтажа), and ‘professional speech’ (2 nouns) (e.g. массаж -
gen. sg. массажа vs. (про .) массажа).
Nouns in –аж/–яж with the subjective qualitative stipulations ‘incorrect’,
‘permissible’ and ‘not recommended’ for pattern-b variants show the underlying and
ongoing shift towards pattern-b stress. Nouns with the stipulations ‘obsolete’ and ‘ob-
solescent’ for pattern-a variants, by contrast, show the same underlying shift towards
128
pattern b from pattern a at a more advanced stage. This is shown by nouns such as
демонтаж which has a polysyllabic base component and which would, therefore, be
expected to display pattern-a stress, but which is labelled ‘obsolescent’. Taken as a
whole, the data collected on variant stress in nouns with suffix –аж/–яж illustrates
clearly a general (ongoing) stress shift from pattern a to pattern b, as well as the ef-
fects of what are designated by Zaliznjak the ‘pragmatic factor’ and ‘professional
speech’ with reference to underived nouns. Nouns with this suffix, therefore, are bet-
ter viewed as underived loan words whose suffix is, in fact, not a suffix as such, but an
integral part of the noun itself. Indeed, for several of these nouns one can find variant
verbs which are, in fact, clearly derived from the noun and not vice versa, e.g.,
дренировать/дренажировать ‘to drain’, массировать/массажировать ‘to mas-
sage’.
2.4 Nominal suffix -и

The nominal suffix –ия displays complex accentual behaviour, with the stress
position varying between the pre-suffixal and suffixal syllable (e.g.
индустрия/индустрия ‘industry’, both stress positions possible). Zaliznjak (1985,
69-71) classifies it with two markers, ←D (consistent pre-suffixal stress, e.g.
индустрия) and ↓D (consistent suffixal stress, e.g. индустрия). In his view it is ←D
which is the default type of the two, with semantic factors being the main cause of
nouns differing in their stress position. ↓D occurs in the following semantic groups:
1a) states and properties, in particular biological, and also diseases, e.g.
в ония ‘euphony’, а ергия ‘allergy’;
1b) areas of practical activity, in particular medical, e.g. хирургия ‘surgery’;
1c) ecclesiastical terms, e.g. итургия ‘liturgy’;
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
1d) late borrowings, which preserve the stress of the original language, e.g.
траттория ‘trattoria’.
In the first two of these groups, professional speech plays a role, whereby nouns used
more in professional speech favour ↓D, but tend towards ←D in non-professional us-
age (cf. пи епсия/ пи епсия (про .) ‘epilepsy’). It should be noted though that
nouns in –ия which are ‘professional’ by nature tend towards ↓D, e.g. ма ярия ‘ma-
laria’ even in non-professional, standard usage.
In all other semantic groups, ←D operates (with some exceptions), including
the following:
2a) living creatures, e.g. урия ‘Fury’;
2b) countable material objects, e.g. мантия ‘robe’;
2c) areas, institutions, e.g. гу ерния ‘province’;
2d) works of literature, art etc., e.g. омедия ‘comedy’;
2e) events, e.g. авария ‘accident’;
2f) sciences, areas of study, e.g. геогра ия ‘geography’.
Between 2f (‘sciences’) and group 1b further above (‘practical activity’) there is a
possibility of some semantic cross-over, though Zaliznjak (ibid., 71) notes that accen-
tual distinctions are generally well preserved, cf. геогра ия (area of study) vs.
те егра ия ‘telegraphy’ (practical activity).
Gorbačevič (2000) has some 80 nouns in –ия with variation between pre-
suffixal and suffixal stress, though, in line with the general complexities of stress in-
volved with this suffix outlined above, it is initially difficult to identify any discernible
tendencies. Variant stress occurs in the source data (see Table 4 below) with varying
degrees of deprecation, e.g. авто ратия/авто ратия (неправ.) ‘autocracy’,
инематогра ия/ иноматогра ия (не ре .) ‘cinematography’, инду-
стрия/индустрия (no stylistic difference), светометрия/светометрия (про .)
130
‘photometry’, деспотия/деспотия (устаре ое) ‘despotism’. The latter deprecation

indeed accounts for 16 instances of variation (e.g. перипетия/перипетия (устар.)
‘peripeteia’, антонимия/антонимия (устар.) ‘antonymy’) in which archaic stress is
characterised by pre-suffixal stress for the most part (13 cases). As these nouns are
representative of semantic groups characterised by ↓D, but ←D in non-professional
usage, this may be the reason (though they are not marked as ‘professional’ in the
source data). Thus, while ←D may indeed be the default property of this suffix, it ap-
pears not to represent the favoured type of any historical tendency which may have
occurred or be occurring. A few occurrences with the older form having suffixal stress
and the newer form having pre-suffixal stress also occur: аристо рат-
ия/аристо ратия (устар.) ‘aristocracy’, по игамия/по игамия (устар.) ‘polyga-
my’.
In general in stress variation stylistically censorious labels such as ‘incorrect’,
‘not recommended’ and ‘permissible’ taken as a whole can indicate an underlying
volatility and direction of stress shift with, of course, various degrees of acceptability
ranging from the lowest (‘incorrect’) to most acceptable (‘permissible’) or even
equivalent status (i.e. when there is no stylistic deprecation and both variants are sim-
ply listed). In the case of the nominal suffix –ия there is a clear move towards suffixal
stress (i.e. ↓D) indicated by these three labels found in the source, though there are
some anomalies also. Thus, for 16 nouns in Gorbačevič (2000) with the label ‘неправ.’
in one variant, 10 of these ‘incorrect’ variants have suffixal stress; for 16 nouns with
stress labelled ‘не рек.’ in one variant, 12 have ‘not recommended’ suffixal stress; for
7 nouns with stress labelled ‘допуст.’ in one variant, 5 have ‘permissible’ suffixal
stress.
Where professional stress occurs in the data source, it is mostly accompanied
by suffixal stress (14 out of 15 nouns) and in nouns corresponding semantically to
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
groups 1a and 1b (see above), thus illustrating well the ambivalence described by Zal-
iznjak concerning the sphere of use (professional or normal) of these nouns. Thus, we
find these examples among others: а азия/а азия (в ре и меди ов) ‘aphasia’,
гастрономия/гастрономия (про .) ‘gastronomy’. The case of по и он-
ия/по и ония (не ре ., про .) ‘polyphony’ (type 1a), however, appears to indicate
the propensity of professional speech to differentiate itself by using an alternative
stress position, even if that position is at odds with its typical accentual behaviour.
2.5 Combining form -лог

Another instance of nominal stress variation is represented by the combining
form - ог (English -logist/-loger/-log/-logue/-logy, French -logue, German -log(e)),
which goes back to Greek -λογος, and occurs for the most part in compound nouns of
a specialised (i.e. academic, scientific or technical) nature. The initial components of
such words are generally of Greek and Latin origin, and this combining form is essen-
tially (rather like the suffix -аж/-яж), not an integral part of Russian word formation,
but, rather, occurs in compound words which are borrowed as whole units (generally
from French, German, Polish and, more recently, English).5
In the first place, a distinction needs to be made between animate and inani-
mate nouns with - ог. For the former there has been a general shift of stress from the
final syllable to the penultimate during the course of the last two centuries (see Lager-
5 The Academy Grammar of 1980 (AG 1980, 245), although not discussing the stress characteristics of such words,
offers the following description: ‘Особое место среди сложных существительных занимают сложения со
связанными опорными (последними) компонентами преимущественно интернационального характера.
Такие компоненты используются только как связанные корни – в сложениях данной структуры, либо также
в сложениях иной структуры (иногда как первый компонент) или в суффиксальных образованиях.
Сложения со связанными опорными компонентами составляют продуктивные типы, использующиеся
главным образом в сфере научно-технической терминологии.’
132
berg (2005) for an account of this). This is reflected clearly in Gorbačevič (2000) by
12 archaic variant forms of animate nouns with final stress, e.g.
антропо ог/антропо ог (устаре ое) ‘anthroplogist’, тно ог/ тно ог (устаре ое)
‘ethnologist’. These obsolete variant forms, therefore, represent an advanced stage of
a shift from final stress towards penultimate stress (антропо ог > антропо ог)
which has occurred in animate nouns.
For inanimate nouns with - ог, final stress occurs in the majority of such
nouns in modern standard Russian (cf. диа ог ‘dialogue’, ата ог ‘catalogue’), but
there are some signs of an ongoing shift of stress on to the penultimate syllable (e.g.
диа ог, ата ог, in the speech of some Russians (see Superanskaja (1968, 153)).
Undoubtedly, there is a clear distinction between the inanimate and animate words in
- ог, insofar as the former have essentially maintained the predominance of final
stress in contrast with the general shift of stress from final to penultimate syllable in
the latter. However, as the corpus data show, there appears to be a general shift to-
wards penultimate stress which is likely the result of a general analogy of nouns with
– ог, i.e. a move towards uniform stress. Gorbačevič (2000), has, for example (see
Table 5 below): диа ог/диа ог (устаре ое), ата ог/ ата ог (не ре ., про .),
моно ог/моно ог (неправ.) ‘monologue’, не ро ог/не ро ог (не ре .) ‘obituary’.
Thus, while all forms with penultimate stress are deprecated, their presence is evi-
dence of a general pressure towards such a stress position. The exception here is the
‘archaic’ диа ог with penultimate stress which appears to be at odds with the general
tendency towards such a stress position.
The general tendency towards penultimate discussed above is in line with a
more general shift of stress in Russian away from the final syllable.6 Thus, according
6 Gorbačevič’s (1978b, 63) theory of stress rhythmicity postulates a tendency towards stress on the middle/middle-
right of any given word unit of three or more.
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
to Ryazanova-Clarke and Wade (1999, 314), ‘[u]se of non-standard stress is endemic

in the speech of many speakers, with a general but by no means universal tendency to
move stress closer to the beginning of the word.’ Indeed, one of the words which they
cite is ата ог. In this way, if the theory is correct, one can expect inanimate words
in - ог increasingly to display stress on the penultimate syllable as indicated by dep-
recated variants such as ата ог and моно ог.
3. Conclusion
Variation in Russan word stress is an area rich in complexity, with over 5000
lexemes displaying this characteristic. A corpus-based analysis of variant stress forms
in Russian is able to give a snapshot of the current situation and, by categorising the
different types, highlight and analyse those areas of word stress which have the high-
est degrees of variation. Variation in word stress is, in fact, central to an understand-
ing of word stress in general as it identifies precisely those areas of Russian stress
which are more complex as a result of tension between competing factors in the lan-
guage.
The present article has presented some key areas of nominal stress variation
(based on number of occurrences) in Russian nouns in an attempt to analyse their dy-
namics, arranging them by types: masculine nouns with –а/-я in the nominative plural,
the movement of stress on to prepositions, and variant stress in nouns with three
suffixes, namely -аж/-яж, -ия and – ог.
In the case of masculine nouns with C(1) stress variation, the corpus is able to
demonstrate both its scale (which affects some 360 nouns), as well as analyse its un-
derlying dynamics. In some 200 nouns with this type of variation, the variants with
C(1) stress are deprecated as incorrect, not recommended, permissible or non-standard
(просторе ие). In this way, an underlying trend towards this type of stress can be
discerned, which, for the most part, is at an early stage of development, resulting in
134
such stylistic deprecation. Frequency is also a possible factor, whereby mid-high fre-
quency nouns may be more likely to shift stress towards the C(1) pattern. However,
more work is required to uncover this area. A clue to frequency being a factor is pro-
vided by some 70 nouns with so called ‘professional speech’: nouns used frequently
by a micro-group of society (e.g. profession) in these cases favour C(1) stress. In addi-
tion, the deprecation of pattern a in some 50 nouns with this type of variation clearly
demonstrates the overall direction of change away from fixed stem stress towards
C(1).
The normative question of whether stress should or should not be on the
preposition before certain nouns and numerals is given some more clarity by the cor-
pus. While most of the 40 examples do not give guidelines on this question, special
idiomatic usage is identified as an important factor in its preservation, and in a few
examples the variant with stress on the preposition is marked as obsolescent. Once
again here, frequency may be a factor in preserving more commonly used stressed
preposition phrases vis-à-vis those where stress on the preposition is rarer or marked
as non-standard (e.g. obsolete).
Variation in the stress of three nominal suffixes was also analysed. Variation
between pattern a and pattern b in nouns with the suffix -аж -яж is present in some
50 nouns in the corpus. Stylistic deprecations show that the suffix is in the process of
shifting stress towards pattern b from pattern a, but, unusually for a suffix, frequency
affects such nouns by causing them to behave as underived nouns - lower frequency
nouns have pattern a (stem stress), while higher frequency (assimilated) nouns have
desinential stress (pattern b). The suffix -ия is characterised by unusually complex
stress variation (suffixal vs. pre-suffixal) with semantic factors playing a large role in
stress assignment. Stress variation is present in some 80 such nouns in the corpus.
Overall there appears to be a trend towards suffixal stress, which is connected with the
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
semantic category of ‘states’ (particularly medical) and professional usage. Finally the
suffix - ог was analysed and shown to be extending the already well established shift
of stress from suffixal to pre-suffixal syllable in animate nouns to inanimate nouns
also. This shift of stress away from the final syllable is in line with general develop-
ments in Russian, so that the centre-right syllable of a word is more likely to bear the
stress.
136
TABLES
Word Variation
автоинспектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. автоинспекотры, gen. pl.
автоинспекторов) and (допуст. в устной речи) C(1) (nom. pl. автоинспектора,
gen. pl. автоинспекторов)
автор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. авторы, авторов) and (неправ.) pattern
C(1) (nom. pl. автора, gen. pl. авторов)
адрес In meaning of ‘place of residence’ pl. адреса, адресов. In meaning ‘written
greeting’ pl. адресы, адресов
аптекарь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. аптекари, gen. pl. аптекарей) and (прост.)
C(1) (nom. pl. аптекаря, gen. pl. аптекарей)
архитектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. архитекторы, gen. pl. архитекторов) and
(прост.) C(1) (nom. pl. архитектора, gen. pl. архитекторов)
байкер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. байкеры, gen. pl. байкеров) and (неправ.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. байкера, gen. pl. байкеров)
библиотекарь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. библиотекари, gen. pl. библиотекарей)
and (неправ.) C(1) (nom. pl. библиотекаря, gen. pl. библиотекарей)
бойлер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. бойлеры, gen. pl. бойлеров) and C(1)
(проф.) (nom. pl. бойлера, gen. pl. бойлеров)
бондарь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. бондари, gen. pl. бондарей) and (прост.)
C(1) (nom. pl. бондаря, gen. pl. бондарей)
боцман Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. боцманы, gen. pl. боцманов) and C(1) (в
речи моряков) (nom. pl. боцмана, gen. pl. боцманов)
брoнекатер Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a (nom. pl. бронекатеры, gen. pl.
бронекатеров) and C(1) (nom. pl. бронекатера, gen. pl. бронекатеров)
брокер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. брокеры, gen. pl. брокеров) and C(1)
(неправ.) (nom. pl. брокера, gen. pl. брокеров)
бульдозер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. бульдозеры, gen. pl. бульдозеров) and
C(1) (прост.) (nom. pl. бульдозера, gen. pl. бульдозеров)
бункер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. бункеры, gen. pl. бункеров) and C(1)
(nom. pl. бункера, gen. pl. бункеров)
бухгалтер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. бухгалтеры, gen. pl. бухгалтеров) and (в
устной речи) C(1) (nom. pl. бухгалтера, gen. pl. бухгалтеров)
вексель Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. векселя, gen. pl. векселей) and
(устаревающее) pattern a вексели, векселей
137
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
вектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. векторы, gen. pl. векторов) and C(1)
(проф.) (nom. pl. вектора, gen. pl. векторов)
вензель Variation between patter C(1) (вензеля, вензелей) and (устаревающее) pattern
a (вензели, вензелей)
вентиль Variation between pattern a (вентили, вентелей) and pattern (проф.) C(1)
(вентиля, вентилей)
воз Pattern c (не рек. pattern C(1)). With preposition на воз or на воз
возраст Variation between pattern a (pl. возрасты, возрастов) and (прост.) pattern C(1)
(возраста, возрастов)
ворох Variation between pattern C(1) (pl. вороха, ворохов) and pattern a (pl. ворохи,
ворохов)
вымпел Variation between pattern a (pl. вымпелы, вымпелов) and (допуст.) pattern
C(1) вымпела, вымпелов
выпас Variation between pattern a (pl. выпасы, выпасов) and (допуст.) pattern C(1)
выпаса, выпасов
выпуск Variation between pattern a (pl. выпуски, выпусков) and (прост.) pattern C(1)
выпуска, выпусков
вырез Variation between pattern a (pl. вырезы, вырезов) and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
выреза, вырезов
выход Variation between pattern a (pl. выходы, выходов) and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
выхода, выходов (на выхода, на выходах (в речи артистов))
газгольдер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. газгольдеры, gen. pl. газгольдеров) and
(прост.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. газгольдера, gen. pl. газгольдеров)
гейзер Variation between pattern a (pl. гейзеры, гейзеров) and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
(гейзера, гейзеров)
герб Variation between pattern а, b, c and C(1): gen. sg. герба and герба; pl. гербы
(неправ. герба), гербов (устаревающее гербы, гербов)
гидропривод (проф.) гидропривод; variation in pl. between pattern a (гидроприводы,
гидроприводов) and (проф.) pattern C(1) (гидропривода, гидроприводов)
глиссер Variation between pattern a (pl. глиссеры, глиссеров) and (допуст.) pattern
C(1) (глиссера, глиссеров)
гол Variation between pattern c (gen. sg. гола, pl. голы, голов), (в речи
спортсменов) pattern b (gen. sg. гола) and (неправ.) C(1) (nom. pl. гола)
гончар Pattern b; (неправ.) C(1) nom. pl. гончара
горб Nom. pl. горбы (неправ. горба)
горн Pattern a; (проф.) C(1) nom. pl. горна
го спиталь Pl. го спитали (прост. госпиталя), госпиталей and го спиталей
гравёр Pl. гравёры (проф. C(1) гравера)
138
Word Variation
грейдер Pattern a; (проф.) C(1) pl. грейдера, грейдеров
грейфер Pattern a; (проф.) C(1) pl. грейфера, грейферов
гримёр Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1) (pl. гримера, гримеров)
грифель Variation between pattern a (pl. грифели, грифелей) and pattern C(1) (грифеля,
грифелей)
гром Variation between pattern a (pl. громы, громов) and pattern C(1) (грома,
громов)
груз Variation between pattern a (pl. грузы, грузов) and pattern C(1) (груза, грузов)
демпфер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. демпферы, gen. pl. демпферов) and C(1)
(проф.) (nom. pl. демпфера, gen. pl. демпферов)
джемпер Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
дизель Pattern a; (проф.) C(1) pl. дизеля, дизелей
диктор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. дикторы, gen. pl. дикторов) and (неправ.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. диктора, gen. pl. дикторов)
дилер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. дилеры, gen. pl. дилеров) and (неправ.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. дилера, gen. pl. дилеров)
директор Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. директора, gen. pl. директоров) and
(устаревающее) pattern a nom. pl. директоры, gen. pl. директоров)
диспетчер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) pattern C(1)
договор Variation between pattern a (договор) and pattern C(1) (договор) (nom. pl.
договора, gen. pl. договоров)
докер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
доктор Pl. доктора, докторов and (устарелое) докторы, докторов
должность Nom. pl. должности (неправ. должностня); gen. pl. должностней and
должностней
допуск Variation between pattern a and C(1)
дро ссель Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. дро ссели, gen. pl. дро сселей) and C(1)
(проф.) (nom. pl. дросселя, gen. pl. дросселей)
дупель Variation between pattern a and (устаревающее) C(1)
дьякон Variation between pattern a and C(1)
дюкер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
егерь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. егери, gen. pl. егерей) and pattern C(1)
(nom. pl. егеря, gen. pl. егерей)
ёмкость Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1) (емкостя, емкостей)
ефрейтор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. ефрейторы, gen. pl. ефрейторов) and
(прост.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. ефрейтора, gen. pl. ефрейторов)
139
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
жёлоб Pattern C(1). Pattern a is устаревающее.
жемчуг Variation in plural between pattern b and pattern C(1)
жерех Variation in plural between pattern b and pattern C(1)
жёрнов Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
жупел Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. жупелы, gen. pl. жупелов) and (прост.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. жупела, gen. pl. жупелов)
зуммер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
игумен Pattern a; (неправ.) C(1)
инвестор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
индуктор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
инжектор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
инженер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. инженеры, gen. pl. инженеров) and
(неправ.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. инженера, gen. pl. инженеров)
инкубатор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
инспектор Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. инспектора, gen. pl. инспекторов) and
(проф.) pattern a (nom. pl. инспекторы, gen. pl. инспекторов)
инструктор Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) pattern C(1)
кабель Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
катер Variation between pattern a and (устаревающее) C(1)
каупер Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
кивер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
китель Variation between pattern a and C(1)
клапан Variation between pattern a and C(1)
клевер Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a and C(1)
кливер Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a and C(1)
клинкер Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
клипер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
кожух Pattern b; (допуст.) кожух (pattern C(1))
колер Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
коллектор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
колоб Variation between (устарелое) pattern a and C(1)
колокол Variation between pattern C(1) and (устарелое) pattern a
компрессор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
конвейер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
140
Word Variation
кондитер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
кондуктор «работник транспорта» - pattern a and C(1); «деталь машины» - pattern a and
(проф.) C(1)
конструктор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
консул Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
контейнер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
контролёр Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
конус Variation between pattern a and (не рек.) C(1)
концлагерь Variation between pattern a and (C(1)
конюх Variation between pattern a and C(1)
корм Variation between C(1) and (устарелое) pattern a
короб Variation between C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a
корпус «туловище человека» - pattern a; «остов, здание» - pattern C(1)
корректор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. корректоры, gen. pl. корректоров) and
C(1) (проф.) (nom. pl. корректора, gen. pl. корректоров)
кратер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
крейсер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
крекер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
крем Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
крендель Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
крепость Pl. крепости (неправ. крепостя), крепостей (устаревающее крепостей)
кузов Variation between C(1) and pattern a
кульман Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
купол Variation between C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a
кучер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
лайнер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
лацкан (неправ. лацкан). Variation between pattern a and (не рек.) C(1).
лекарь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. лекари, gen. pl. лекарей) and C(1) (nom.
pl. лекаря, gen. pl. лекарей)
лектор Variation between pattern a and (не рек.) C(1)
лемех (устаревающее) лемех; variation between pattern C(1) and (устаревающее)
pattern b
лихтер Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
лоцман Variation between pattern a and C(1) (в речи моряков)
маклер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) pattern C(1)
141
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
марсель Variation between pattern a and C(1) (в речи моряков)
мать Nom. pl. матери (неправ. матеря)
мессер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
местность Pattern a; (неправ.) C(1) pl. местностя, местностей
месяц Pattern a; (допуст.) C(1)
мех «волосяной покров животного» - pl. меха, мехов; «приспособление для
нагнетания воздуха» - pl. мехи and (допуст.) меха, мехов
миксер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
минус Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
мичман Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
модуль Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
мол Pl. молы, молов and (допуст.) молы, молов; (неправ.) C(1)
монтёр Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
мощность Pattern a (неправ. nom. pl. мощностя, gen. pl. мощностей)
муфель Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
невод Variation between pattern C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a
нефтепромысел Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
низ Variation between pattern b (?) and pattern C(1)
ниппель Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
область Pl. области, областей (неправ. областя, устаревающее областей)
обод Pl. ободья, ободьев (устарелое ободы, ободов) (прост. обода, ободов)
образ «вид, облик» - pl. образы, образов; «икона» - pl. образа, образов
обруч Variation between pattern a and C(1) (прост.) (обруча, обручей)
овод Variation between pattern a and C(1) (допуст.)
окорок Variation between pattern C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
округ Variation between pattern C(1) and pattern a (устаревающее)
омут Variation between pattern a and C(1) (допуст.)
орден «знак отличия» - C(1); «организация» - pattern a and C(1) (реже)
ордер «документ» - C(1); «архитектурная композиция» - pattern a and C(1) (реже)
о стов Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. о стовы, gen. pl. о стовов) and (неправ.)
C(1) (nom. pl. остова, gen. pl. остовов)
о стров Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
отмель Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
отпуск Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
142
Word Variation
отрасль Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
отрок Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
отруб Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
офицер Variation between pattern pattern a and pattern C(1)
очередь Pl. очереди (неправ. очередя), gen. pl. очередей and очередей (очередей must
be an error)
очерк Variation between pattern a and (не рек.) C(1)
паз Variation between gen. sg. паза and паза; pl. пазы (неправ. паза)
пай Prep. sg. в паю and в пае; nom. pl. паи (неправ. пая)
палтус Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
парикмакер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
парус Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
пастор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
пастырь Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
пахарь Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
пекарь Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. пекаря, gen. pl. пекарей) and pattern a
(nom. pl. пекари, gen. pl. пекарей)
пеленг Variation between pattern a and C(1) (в речи моряков, летчиков)
перепел Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
писарь Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устаревающее)
площадь Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.) (nom. pl. площадя)
плуг Nom. pl. плуги/плуги (не рек. плуга), gen. pl. плугов
плюс Variation between pl. плюсы, плюсов and (неправ.) C(1) (плюса, плюсов)
повар Variation between C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a
погреб Variation between C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a
полоз «часть саней» - pl. полозья, полозьев/(допуст.) C(1); «змея» - pl. pattern a,
полозы, полозов
полость Pl. полости (неправ. полостя), полостей/полостей
полутон Variation between pattern a and C(1) (usually C(1) referring to ‘colour’)
польдер Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
полюс Variation between pattern a and C(1) (допуст.)
поршень Pl. поршни (неправ. поршня), поршней/поршней
по сох Variation between pattern a and C(1) (не рек.)
постав Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
потроха Variation between потроха, потрохов/(устарелое) потрохи, потрохов
143
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
почерк Variation between pattern a and C(1) (допуст.)
пояс Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое). Variation in movement of
stress on to preposition from noun: за пояс/за пояс, по пояс/по пояс
пресвитер Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
претор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
прибыль Variation between pattern a and C(1) (прост.)
привод «действие по глаголу приводить» - pattern a; «устройство» - привод (pattern
a) and (допуст.) привод (pattern a and C(1) (проф.))
приговор Pattern a; (не рек., проф.) приговор (pattern C(1))
приз Pl. призы, призов (неправ. приза)
прииск Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
примус Variation between pattern a and C(1)
пристав Variation between pattern a and C(1)
пристань Pl. пристани (неправ. пристаня), пристаней (допуст. пристаней)
провизор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (неправ.)
прожектор Variation between pattern and C(1)
пролог «церковная книга» - пролог (pattern a and C(1)); «вступительная часть
книги» - пролог (pattern a)
пропеллер Variation between pattern and C(1) (неправ.)
пропуск «что-либо пропущенное» - pattern a; «документ» - C(1)/pattern a (устарелое)
проректор Variation between pattern a and C(1) (прост.)
профессор Variation between pattern C(1) and pattern a (устарелое)
профиль профиль (устарелое); variation between pattern a (pl. профили, профилей) and
C1 (проф.)
пудель Variation between pattern a and C(1) (допуст.)
пульман Variation between pattern a and C(1) (проф.)
радиорупор Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
рапорт (устарелое, проф.) рапорт; variation between pattern a and (допуст.) pattern
C(1)
рашпиль Variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
редактор Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
редуктор Variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
рейдер Variation between pattern а and (в речи моряков) C(1)
рейсмус Variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
рекрут (устарелое) рекрут; variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
144
Word Variation
ректор Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
репер Pattern a; (проф.) репер (pattern C(1)
репродуктор Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
рефлектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. рефлекторы, gen. pl. рефлекторов) and
C(1) (проф.) (nom. pl. рефлектора, gen. pl. рефлекторов)
рефриджератор Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
ригель Variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
рокер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
роллер Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
ротор Variation between pattern а and (проф.) C(1)
румпель Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. румпели, gen. pl. румпелей) and C(1) (в
речи моряков) (nom. pl. румпеля, gen. pl. румпелей)
рупор Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
руслень Variation between pattern а and (в речи моряков) C(1)
рыбинспектор Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) pattern C(1)
саван Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
санинспектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. санинспекторы, gen. pl. санинспекторов)
and pattern C(1) (nom. pl. саннинспектора, gen. pl. санинспекторов)
санинструктор Variation between pattern a and C(1)
сверхприбыль Variation between pattern a and C(1)
светофор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
свингер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
свитер Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
сговор (устарелое свовор); variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
сейнер Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
секатор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
сектор Variation between pattern a and C(1)
сенатор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
сепаратор Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
сеттер Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
скальпель Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1); (неправ.) скальпель
скобель Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
скорость Pl. скорости, скоростей (неправ. nom. pl. скоростя)
скрепер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
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ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
скруббер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
скульптор (устарелое) скульптор; variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
скутер Variation between pattern a and C(1)
слесарь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. слесари, gen. pl. слесарей) and (допуст.)
C(1) (nom. pl. слесаря, gen. pl. слесарей)
снайпер Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
снасть Pl. снасти (неправ. снастя), снастей and снастей
соболь Pl. соболи, соболей and соболя, соболей
сорт Pl. C(1) (неправ. сорты)
соус Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
спектр Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
спонсор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
стакер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
стаксель Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
стапель Variation between pattern a and C(1)
статор Variation between pattern a and(прост.) C(1)
степень Pl. степени, степеней (неправ. степеня)
стог Prep. sg. в стоге and в стогу; pl. стога, стогов (устарелое стоги, стогов)
столяр Pattern b (неправ. столяр); (прост.) C(1)
стопор Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
сторож Pattern C(1) (устаревающее pl. сторожи, сторожей)
стрингер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
струг Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
суппорт Pattern a (проф. C(1)); (устарелое) суппорт
табель Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
табор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
талреп Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
танкер Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
тендер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
тенор Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a and C(1)
ток «движение жидкости» - pattern a; «площадька для молотьбы» - C(1)
токарь (устарелое) токарь; pattern a (допуст. C(1) токаря, токарей)
том Pattern C(1); (устарелое) pattern a
тон «музыкальный звук» - pl. тоны, тонов; «цветовой оттенок» - C(1)
146
Word Variation
тонкость Pattern a; (неправ.) pl. C(1) тонкостя, тонкостей
тонус Pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
тополь Pattern a and pattern C(1)
топсель Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
тормоз «устройство для замедления движения машины» - C(1); «помеха» - pattern a
торо с (не рек.) торос; variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
торс Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
торт Variation between pattern a, (не рек.) pattern c and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
торф Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
то стер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
тракт Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
трактор Variation between pattern a and C(1)
тралер Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
транзистор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
транспорт «грузовое судно» - транспорт (pattern a; (не рек.) C(1)); «перенос суммы на
другую страницу» - транспорт
трап Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
траулер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
тренер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. тренеры, gen. pl. тренеров) and (прост.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. тренера, gen. pl. тренеров)
трензель Variation between pattern a and C(1)
триер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
трос Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
трюк Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
трюм Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
трюфель Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
туер Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a and C(1)
туес Variation between pattern a and C(1)
турбокомпрессор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) C(1)
турман C(1); турман (pattern a)
унтер Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) pattern C(1)
унтер-офицер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
учитель Nom. pl. C(1) учителя; «глава учения» - pattern a (учители, учителей)
147
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
факел Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. факелы, gen. pl. факелов) and (неправ.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. факела, gen. pl. факелов)
факир Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. факиры, gen. pl. факиров) and (неправ.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. факира, gen. pl. факиров)
фактор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. факторы, gen. pl. факторов) and
(неправ.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фактора, gen. pl. факторов)
фельдегерь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фельдегери, gen. pl. фельдегерей) and
(прост.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фельдегеря, gen. pl. фельдегерей)
фельдфебель Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фельдфебели, gen. pl. фельдфебелей) and
(прост.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фельдфебеля, gen. pl. фельдфебелей)
фермер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фермеры, gen. pl. фермеров) and
(неправ.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фермера, gen. pl. фермеров)
феьдшер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фельдшеры, gen. pl. фельдшеров) and
(допуст.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фельдшера, gen. pl. фельдшеров)
фидер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фидер, gen. pl. фидеров) and (проф.) C(1)
(nom. pl. фидера, gen. pl. фидеров)
фильтр Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фильтры, gen. pl. фильтров) and (прост.)
pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фильтра, gen. pl. фильтров)
фининспектор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фининспекторы, gen. pl.
фининспекторов) and (допуст.) pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фининспектора, gen. pl.
фининспекторов)
флагман Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. флагманы, gen. pl. флагманов) and (в
речи моряков) C(1) (nom. pl. флагмана, gen. pl. флагманов)
флигель Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. флигели, gen. pl. флигелей) and C(1)
(nom. pl. флигеля, gen. pl. флигелей)
фломастер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фломастеры, gen. pl. фломастеров) and
C(1) (nom. pl. фломастера, gen. pl. фломастеров)
флюгер Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. флюгера, gen. pl. флюгеров) and pat-
tern a (nom. pl. флюгеры, gen. pl. флюгеров)
форвард (неправ.) форвард; variation between pattern a (pl. форварды, форвардов) and
pattern (не рек.) pattern C(1) (pl. форварда, форвардов)
фрайер Variation between pattern C(1) (nom. pl. фрайера, gen. pl. фрайеров) and pat-
tern a (nom. pl. фрайеры, gen. pl. фрайеров)
фрезер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. фрезеры, gen. pl. фрезеров) and (проф.)
C(1) (nom. pl. фрезера, gen. pl. фрезеров)
148
Word Variation
хедер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. хедеры, gen. pl. хедеров) and (проф.) C(1)
(nom. pl. хедера, gen. pl. хедеров)
хоппер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. хопперы, gen. pl. хопперов) and (в речи
горняков) C(1) (nom. pl. хоппера, gen. pl. хопперов)
хутор Variation between pattern C(1) (pl. хутора, хуторов) and pattern a (pl. хуторы,
хуторов)
цензор Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. цензоры, gen. pl. цензоров) and C(1)
(прост.) (nom. pl. цензора, gen. pl. цензоров)
цех Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) C(1)
циркуль Variation between pattern a and (прост.) C(1)
цоколь Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. цоколи, gen. pl. цоколей) and (проф.)
C(1) (nom. pl. цоколя, gen. pl. цоколей)
череп Variation between pattern C(1) and (устаревающее) pattern a; pl. черепья -
прост.
шарф Pattern a (неправ. pattern b/C(1))
швеллер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
шибер Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. шиберы, gen. pl. шиберов) and (проф.)
C(1) (nom. pl. шибера, gen. pl. шиберов)
шинель Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1) (шинеля, шинелей)
шкентель Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
шкипер Variation between pattern a and (в речи моряков) C(1)
шницель Variation between pattern a and (допуст.) pattern C(1) (шницеля, шницелей)
шомпол Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
шофёр (неправ.) шофер; variation between pattern a and (прост.) pattern C(1)
шпатель Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. шпатели, gen. pl. шпателей) and (проф.)
C(1) (nom. pl. шпателя, gen. pl. шпателей)
шпиндель Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
штабель Variation between (устаревающее) pattern a and pattern C(1)
штекер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
штемпель Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
штепсель Variation between pattern a and pattern C(1)
штихель Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
штопор Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
шторм Variation between pattern a and (проф.) C(1)
штурман Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. штурманы, gen. pl. штурманов) and (в
речи моряков) C(1) (nom. pl. штурмана, gen. pl. штурманов)
149
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
шурф Variation between pattern a (nom. pl. шурфы, gen. pl. шурфов) and (проф.)
C(1) (nom. pl. шурфа, gen. pl. шурфов)
эвакого спиталь Variation between pattern a and (не рек.) pattern C(1)
эркер Variation between pattern a and (неправ.) pattern C(1)
юнкер Variation between pattern C(1) and pattern a
юпитер Variation between pattern a and (проф.) pattern C(1)
Table 1. Nouns with C(1) variation
Word Variation
день Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: изо дня в день and
(устаревающее) изо дня в день
десять Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за десять/за
десять, на десять/на десять
дом Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: до дому and до
дома (дома), из дому and из дому (дома), за дом and за дом, на дом and на
дом
земля Acc. sg. землю (неправ. землю). Variation in movement of stress on to preposi-
tion from noun: на землю vs. на землю
зима Acc. sg. зиму (устарелое зиму). Variation in movement of stress on to preposi-
tion from noun: за зиму vs. за зиму, на зиму vs. на зиму
коса «волосы» - acc. sg. косу (допуст. косу); variation in movement of stress on to
preposition from noun: usually за косу; «орудие, мыс» - acc. sg. косу (реже
косу)
лёд Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по льду and по
льду
лес Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: из лесу and из
леса, по лесу and по лесу
лето Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за лето and за
лето, на лето and на лето
лоб Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по лбу and по лбу,
на лоб and на лоб
луг Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по лугу and
(устаревающее) по лугу
море Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за море vs. за
море, на море vs. на море, по морю vs. по морю
мост Variation between stem and ending stress in sg. Pl. мосты, мостов. Variation in
movement of stress on to preposition from noun: на мост vs. на мо ст, по мосту
vs. по мо сту/мосту
небо Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: на небо/на небо,
на небе/на небе, по небу/по небу
150
Word Variation
нос Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: из носу vs. из
но су (течёт), за нос vs. за но с (схватить)
ночь Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: до ночи vs. до
ночи
пол Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: до полу/до полу,
на пол/на пол, об пол/об пол, по полу/(реже) по полу
полдень Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за полдень/за
полдень
поле Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по полю/(допуст.)
по полю, на поле/на поле, (в народно-поэтической речи) во поле
пояс Variation between C(1) and pattern a (устарелое). Variation in movement of
stress on to preposition from noun: за пояс/за пояс, по пояс/по пояс
пять Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за пять/за пять, на
пять/на пять
река Acc. sg. реку and реку; dat. pl. рекам and (устаревающее) рекам, prep. pl. о
реках and (устаревающее) о реках; variation in movement of stress on to
preposition from noun: за реку/за реку; на реку; на реку
рот Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: изо рта/изо рту
сад Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: из саду/из саду;
по саду/по саду
семь Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за семь/за семь,
на семь/на семь
сердце Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за сердце/за
сердце, на сердце/на сердце, по сердцу/по сердцу
след Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по следу/по следу
слово Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: ловить на слове
(допуст. на слове)
смерть Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: до смерти/до
смерти; на смерть/на смерть
снег Pl. снега, снегов (устарелое снеги, снегов); variation in movement of stress on
to preposition from noun: по снегу/по снегу, до снегу/до снегу
сорок Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за сорок/за сорок
спина Pattern d´; acc. sg. спину (неправ. спину); variation in movement of stress on to
preposition from noun: за спину (не рек. за спину), на спину (не рек. на
спину), об спину (допуст. об спину)
стена Pattern d´; (неправ.) acc. sg. стену; (устаревающее) pl. стенам, стенами.
Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за стену/за стену,
на стену/на стену, об стену/об стену
сто Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за сто/за сто, на
сто/на сто, по ста/по сто, в сто раз/(устаревающее) во сто раз
151
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
стол Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по столу/по столу
сторона Pattern f´; (неправ.) acc. sg. сторону. Variation in movement of stress on to
preposition from noun: на сторону/на сторону
толк Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: без толку and без
толку
угол Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за угол (допуст. за
угол)
усы Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за ус and за ус; на
ус and на ус
ухо Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: по уху and
(допуст.) по уху
цепь Variation in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: на цепь vs. на
цепь (посадить), по цепи (допуст. по цепи)
щека Pattern f (устаревающее acc. sg. щеку, dat. pl. щёкам, prep. pl. щёках). Varia-
tion in movement of stress on to preposition from noun: за щеку and за щёку
Table 2. Nouns with stress variation on preposition
Word Variation
абордаж gen. sg. абордажа and (неправ.) абордажа
арбитраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. арбитража and арбитража (неправ.))
бандаж gen. sg. бандажа and (устарелое) бандажа
блиндаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. блиндажа vs. (устарелое) блиндажа)
вираж «поворот» = pattern b; «химический раствор» = pattern a and (допуст.) pattern
b
витраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. витража vs. (устарелое) витража)
вольтаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. вольтажа vs. (допуст.) вольтажа)
вояж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. вояжа, неправ. вояжа)
демонтаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. демонтажа vs. (устаревающее)
демонтажа.)
дренаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. дренажа vs. (устаревающее) дренажа)
дубляж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. дубляжа vs. (проф.) дубляжа)
зондаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. зондажа vs. (устаревающее) зондажа)
инструктаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. инструктажа vs. (допуст.) инструктажа)
каботаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. каботажа vs. (неправ.) каботажа)
камуфляж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. камуфляжа vs. (неправ.) камуфляжа)
картонаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. картонажа vs. (неправ.) картонажа)
километраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. километража vs. (допуст.) километража)
152
Word Variation
коллаж (неправ.) коллаж
корсаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. корсажа vs. (неправ.) корсажа)
кураж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. куража vs. (устарелое) куража)
листаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. листажа (устарелое листажа)
литраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. литража (устарелое литража)
массаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. массажа vs. (проф.) массажа)
метраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. метража vs. (устарелое) метража)
мираж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. миража vs. (устарвевающее) куража)
монтаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. монтажа vs. (устарелое) монтажа)
муляж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. муляжа vs. муляжа)
патронаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. патронажа vs. (не рек.) патронажа
пейзаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. пейзажа vs. (неправ.) пейзажа)
пикетаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. пикетажа vs. (не рек.) пикетажа
пилотаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. пилотажа vs. (не рек.) пилотажа)
плюмаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. плюмажа vs. (не рек.) плюмажа)
саботаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. саботажа and (не рек.) саботажа)
саквояж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. саквояжа and (неправ.) саквояжа)
сенаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. сенажа and (устаревающее) сенажа)
сенофураж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. сенофуража and (устарелое)
сенофуража)
стеллаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. стеллажа and (устарелое) стеллажа)
такелаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. такелажа and (не рек.) такелажа)
типаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. типажа and (устарелое) типажа)
тираж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. трельяжа and (не рек.) трельяжа)
трельяж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. трельяжа and (не рек.) трельяжа)
тренаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. тренажа and (устарелое) тренажа)
трикотаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. трикотажа and (неправ.) трикотажа)
фиксаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. фиксажа and (не рек.) фиксажа)
фотомонтаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. фотомонтажа and (устарелое)
фотомонтажа)
фураж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. фуража and (устарелое) фуража)
фюзеляж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. фюзеляжа and (не рек.) фюзеляжа)
хронометраж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. хронометража and (не рек.)
хронометража)
шантаж Pattern a/pattern b variation (gen. sg. шантажа and (устарелое) шантажа)
153
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
этаж Variation between pattern b and (устарелое) pattern a
Table 3. Nouns with the suffix - ж/- ж
Word Variation
автаркия автаркия
автократия (неправ.) автократия
агония (не рек.) агония (встречается в речи медиков)
агрономия (не рек.) агрономия
антонимия (устарелое) антонимия
апоплексия (в речи медиков) апоплексия
аристократия (устарелое) аристократия
асимметрия (устарелое) ассиметрия (sic)
афазия (в речи медиков) афазия
бижутерия (допуст.) бижутерия
буржуазия (устарелое) буржуазия
ветеринария ветеринария
гастрономия (проф.) гастрономия
гомеопатия (неправ.) гомеопатия
гравиметрия (допуст.) гравиметрия
дактилоскопия (устарелое) дактилоскопия
деспотия (устарелое) деспотия
дизентерия дизентерия
динамометрия (допуст.) динамометрия
диоптрия диоптрия
жакерия жакерия
идиосинкразия (неправ.) идеосинкразия
иерархия (неправ.) иерархия
индустрия индустрия
каталепсия (в речи медиков) каталепсия
кинематография (не рек.) кинематография
колориметрия (проф.) колориметрия
кулинария кулинария
логопедия (в речи медиков) логопедия
метонимия (неправ.) метонимия
154
Word Variation
метталургия металлургия
мизантропия (неправ.) мизантропия
микрометрия (допуст.) микрометрия
мимикрия (устарелое) мимикрия
моногамия (неправ.) моногамия
неврастения (устарелое) неврастения
нимфомания (в речи медиков) нимфомания
омонимия (неправ.) омонимия
ортопедия (в речи медиков) ортопедия
палеография (неправ.) палеография
панагия (неправ.) панагия
пандемия (устарелое) пандемия
паремия паремья
парономазия парномазия
патриархия (не рек.) патриархия
перипетия (устарелое) перипетия
полиандрия (допуст.) полиандрия
полигамия (устарелое) полигамия
полиграфия (допуст.) полиграфия
полифония (не рек.) полифония (проф.)
рентгеноскопия (устарелое) рентгеноскопия
сахариметрия (в речи медиков) сахариметрия
светометрия (проф.) светометрия
симметрия симметрия
симпатия (устарелое) симпатия
синонимия (устарелое) синонимия
скумбрия (неправ.) скумбрия
спектометрия (допуст.) спектометрия
стеклография (не рек.) стеклография
стенография (не рек.) стенография
стенотипия (не рек.) стенотипия
стереография (не рек.) стереография
стереометрия (неправ.) стереометрия
стереотипия (не рек.) стереотипия
155
ROBERT LAGERBERG
Word Variation
стереофония (неправ.) стереофония
телепатия (не рек.) телепатия
токсикомания (неправ.) токсикомания
топонимия (не рек.) топонимия
фанаберия (неправ.) фанаберия
феерия (не рек.) феерия
филантропия (неправ.) филантропия
фобия (в речи психиатров) фобия
фотометрия фотометрия
фототипия (проф.) фототипия
эвфония (устарелое) эвфония
эмпирия (устарелое) эмпирия
эпилепсия (в речи медиков) эпилепсия
Table 4. Nouns with the suffix -и
Word Variation
антрополог (устарелое) антрополог
археолог (устарелое) археолог
астролог (устарелое) астролог
биолог (устарелое) биолог
диалог (устарелое) диалог
идеолог (устарелое) иделолог
каталог Variation between каталог and (не рек./проф.) каталог
минералог (допуст.) минеролог (sic)
монолог (неправ.) монолог
невролог (устарелое) невролог
некролог (не рек.) некролог
палеонтолог (устарелое) палеонтолог
пролог «церковная книга» - пролог (pattern a and C(1)); «вступительная часть
книги» - пролог (pattern a)
синолог (устарелое) синолог
физиолог (устарелое) физиолог
филолог (устарелое) филолог
хронолог (устарелое) хронолог
156
Word Variation
этнолог (устарелое) этнолог
Table 5. Nouns with the suffix -лог
157
ROBERT LAGERBERG
REFERENCES
Lexicographical Sources
Gorbačevič 2000 = Горбачевич К.С.: 2000, С оварь трудностей произношения и

ударения в современном русс ом язы е: 12 000 с ов, St Petersburg.
ORD 1993 = The Oxford Russian Dictionary, edited by Falla P., Wheeler M. &
Unbegaun B., Oxford University Press, 1993.
Zaliznjak 2010 = Зализняк, А.А. 2010. Граммати ес ий с оварь русс ого язы а:
С овоизменение. О о о 110 000 с ов, 6th (stereotype) edition, Moscow.
Other Sources
AG 1980 = Русс ая граммати а. І: Фонети а. Фоно огия. Ударение.

Интонация. С овоо разование. Мор о огия, Академия наук СССР, ред.
Шведова Н.Ю., Moscow, 1980.
Bybee, Joan, L.: 2006, Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language, Oxford
University Press.
Comrie, Bernard et. al.: 1996, The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century, Ox-
ford, Clarendon Press.
Cubberley, Paul: 2002, Russian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University
Press.
Fedjanina 1982 = Федянина Н.А.: 1982, Ударение в современном русс ом язы е,
2nd ed., Moscow.
Gorbačevič 1978a = Горбачевич К.С.: 1978, Нормы современного русс ого
итературного язы а, Moscow.
158
Gorbačevič 1978b = Горбачевич К.С.: 1978, Вариантность с ова и язы овая

норма, Leningrad.
Lagerberg, R.J. (2005), ‘Towards a comprehensive account of the stress of Russian
nouns containing the combining form -log’, Russian Linguistics, 29, 383-393.
Lagerberg, Robert: 2010, ‘Stress variation and frequency in Russian nouns of the гу а
(f) pattern’, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, 24/1-2, 125-137.
Lagerberg, Robert. 2011. Variation and Frequency in Russian Word Stress. Mu-
nich/Berlin: Verlag Otto Sagner.
Ryazanova-Clarke, L. and Wade, T.: 1999, The Russian Language Today, London &
New York.
Stankiewicz, E.: 1993, The Accentual Patterns of the Slavic Languages, Stanford
University Press, Stanford.
Superanskaja 1968 = Суперанская, А.В.: 1968, Ударение в заимствованных
с овах в современном русс ом язы е, Moscow.
Ukiah, Nick: 1998, ‘Stress retraction in phrases of the type на день, за соро , не ы
in modern Russian’, Russian Linguistics, 22, 287-319.
Ukiah, Nick: 2000, ‘Mobile stress in the four-part paradigms of modern Russian verbs
and adjectives’, Russian Linguistics, 24, 117-147.
Voroncova 1979 = Воронцова В.Л.: 1979, Русс ое итературное ударение XVIII-
XX ве ов: ормы с овоизменения, Moscow.
Zaliznjak 1985 = Зализняк А.А.: 1985, От прас авянс ой а центуации русс ой,
Moscow.
159
REVIEWS
Harai Golomb, Presence Through Absence: A New Poetics of Chekhov’s Plays, Sus-
sex Academic Press, 2011. 448 pp.
Chekhov’s The Seagull opens with two minor characters discussing the colour
of the dress the woman is wearing:
Medvedenko: Why do you wear black all the time?

Masha: I’m in mourning for my life, I’m unhappy.
Later Konstantin, the budding playwright, lays a dead seagull at the feet of Nina, the
young actress. In Act 3 Nina presents the writer Trigorin with a medallion inscribed
only with his initials on one side and a reference to a quotation from his book ‘Days
and Nights’, which he looks up later.
The initial stage directions to Three Sisters specify:
Ol´ga, wearing the regulation dark-blue dress of a high-school teach-

er… Masha, in a black dress... Irina, in a white dress...
Later Masha whistles and hums a tune and then recites the cryptic opening
lines of Pushkin’s Ruslan and Lyudmila. Before long Solyony gives up on verbal dis-
course altogether:
[In a high-pitched voice, as if calling chickens] Chuck, chuck, chuck.
ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 161-164

REVIEWS
When Masha and Colonel Vershinin finally declare their love for each other,
they sing not words but rhythms:
Masha: Tram-tam-tam…
Vershinin: Tam-tam.
Masha: Tra-ra-ra?
Vershinin: Tra-ta-ta. (Laughs)
Most of these non-verbal, or semi-verbal ‘speech acts’ are on what Golomb

calls the ‘inner or fictional’ plane (communication between characters), whereas the
communication of dress colour, architecture and music (on or off-stage) belongs on
what he distinguishes as the ‘outer or rhetorical’ plane (communication between
playwright and audience), like the famous closing stage direction of The Cherry Or-
chard:
[A distant sound is heard. It seems to come from the sky and is the
sound of a broken string...]
The ‘basic principles of Chekhov’s poetics’ defined and analysed by Golomb

are the related notions of Presence through Absence and Unrealised Potential. Thus,
the father of the three sisters, General Prozorov, who is central to Ol´ga’s opening
speech (‘It’s exactly a year ago today since father died – on the fifth of May, your
name-day, Irina.’) is absent physically, but his influence is powerfully present
throughout the play: in attitudes to education and Ol´ga’s career as a small-town
school-teacher, Masha’s piano playing, Irina’s knowledge of languages and in the
grand house they inherited and their status in the community. But set against this per-
vasive positive ‘presence’ is Andrei’s incompetence at work and marriage, the yearn-
162
REVIEWS
ing all four siblings have to return to Moscow, the inability of the sisters to use their
skills and capacity to love – even the upbringing of Andrei’s children –, all signs of
unrealised potential.
Golomb not only represents the best of Israeli structuralist poetics, bringing
his own musical talent to his task, but expands his universe to criticise, and, I would
say, virtually destroy, the validity of traditional and current genre labels. All of these
extended engagements with literary history and theory might seem to some readers to
be digressions from his poetics of Chekhov’s plays, but they are all germane to
Golomb’s argument – which is not linear, but structural, not arithmetical, but algebra-
ic.
Readers who enjoy relating the aesthetic with the biographic will find a wealth
of reference in Golomb’s ‘Chapter Notes’ which are kept separate from his main ar-
gument and run to four or five pages per chapter of encyclopaedic commentary on the
theatre, dramatic and narrative fiction, relevant moments in Chekhov’s biography and
correspondence: the whole literature of ‘Chekhovism’.
One aspect of Chekhov’s life which Golomb refers to, but does not give theo-
retical credit to, is the author’s career and vocation as a doctor. When doctors meet
their patients, they note – for the most part unconsciously and through practice – the
stance, gait, gestures, gender, non-verbal utterances, dress-style and colour, home cir-
cumstances and family relations of the person consulting them. As Golomb shows,
many of these attributes of Chekhov’s characters and their interactions are accounted
for in his exceptionally detailed stage directions and the very shape of their speeches,
cross-talk and interruptions, but surely this preoccupation of Dr. Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov is a crucial ingredient of Chekhovism.
The strength of Golomb’s book is its combination of semiotic rigour, its insist-
ence on keeping Chekhov’s actual texts in focus as he moves between theoretical is-
163
REVIEWS
sues and their illustration in the scenes and dialogues of the four plays, and the sheer
readability of his own text. Just as the playwright gently satirises those of his charac-
ters who indulge in lengthy speeches about the future of mankind, Golomb makes his
case for the greatness of the Russian playwright with a light and ironic touch, but with
a wealth of textual evidence. The universals that he has discovered in those four great
plays (Presence through Absence and Unrealised Potential) work both thematically
and compositionally:
The positive component is both absent from the play (like General
Prozorov, the late father of the three sisters) and present in it: absent
because not there, but constantly generated in our minds. It has to be
viewed dynamically along the time axis of the play’s unfolding. It is
no single detail, but networks of structure that carry Chekhov’s mean-
ings. (p. 7)
The same is true of Golomb’s unique exposition of structuralist poetics.
Michael O’Toole
Murdoch University, Perth
164
Notes on Contributors
Andy Byford is Senior Lecturer in Russian at Durham University in the United King-
dom. He is currently completing a book on the history of child science in Russia
across the late tsarist and early Soviet era, a topic on which he has published widely.
Further details about this project can be found at: https://www.dur.ac.uk/
russianchildscience/.
Robert Lagerberg is the convenor of the Russian Program in the School of Lan-
guages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne and is the main editor of
ASEES. His research interests are mainly in Russian linguistics, in particular the study
of word stress. He has several publications in this area including a monograph entitled
Variation and Frequency in Russian Word Stress (Sagner: Berlin/Munich, 2011).
Henrietta Mondry is Professor in the Department of Global, Cultural and Lan-

guage Studies at the University of Canterbury, and a member of the New Zealand
Centre for Human-Animal Studies. She has published widely and her latest book is
Political Animals: Representing Dogs in Modern Russian Culture, Brill, 2015.
John McNair heads the Russian Program in the School of Languages and Cultures at
the University of Queensland, and is a former editor of ASEES. Most of his recent
publications have been in the area of Russian-Australian cultural contact.
Marko Pavlyshyn is Professor of Ukrainian Studies at Monash University in Mel-

bourne, Australia. He is the author of Olʹha Kobyliansʹka: Prochytannia (Kharkiv:
Akta, 2008), Kanon ta ikonostas (Kyiv: Chas, 1997) and numerous articles and chap-
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
ters on modern and contemporary Ukrainian literature. He is a Fellow of the Austra-

lian Academy of the Humanities.
Alexandra Smith is Reader in Russian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is

the author of two books – The Song of the Mocking Bird: Pushkin in the Work of Ma-
rina Tsvetaeva (Peter Lang, 1994) and Montaging Pushkin: Pushkin and Visions of
Modernity in Russian Twentieth-Century Poetry (Rodopi, 2006). She has also pub-
lished numerous articles on Russian literature, film and theatre. Alexandra Smith is
currently preparing two books for publication: she is the co-editor of a book on the
post-Soviet revision of the 20th-century poetic canon in Russia (to be published by
Open Books Publishers, Cambridge, in 2016) and co-author of a book on the post-
Soviet poetic canon and Russian national identity (to be published in 2017).
166

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Australian Slavonic and East

Volume 29, Nos. 1-2

Editor: Dr Robert Lagerberg, University of Melbourne

ASEES is a refereed journal which publishes scholarly articles, review articles

Published by the School of Languages and Linguistics,

ASEES © The Publishers and each contributor, 2015

ASEES is currently accepting articles for Volume 30 (2016). An electronic

President: Dr Marika Kalyuga, Macquarie University

Ofﬁce bearers of the Australian Association of Communist and Post-Communist

President: Assoc. Prof. Roderic Pitty, University of Western Australia

Harai Golomb, Presence Through Absence: A New Poetics of Chekhov’s

Notes on Contributors .............................................................................................. 165

TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS:

ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 1-30

and did advance ‘self-recognition in a national collective’. They also contributed to a

Other translators – Markian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych and Yakiv

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!

Несонним сонечко ти, зіронько мутная!

Бессонного солнце, в тумане луна!

О солнце тех, кто не вкушает сна,

О Солнце глаз бессонных! Звездный луч,

kozlow_i_i/text_0110-1.shtml>, accessed 10 October 2011.

Сопутник мглы, блестящий страж ночной,

O Sun of sleepless eyes! / Starry beam, / How tearfully you tremble

Peterburg: A. F. Marks, 1912), 2: 185.

Hebrew Melodies in that language, it is also possible to use it to write

29 See V. L. Smiliansʹka’s annotations to Tvory (1990), 1: 520-23.

to say, then, that one of Kostomarov’s nation-building objectives, the construction of

Чи ще сіонську пісню він [ізраїль] почує?

If challenged to decode the Ukrainian analogy for the Babylonian captivity,

У тій землі, де Бог наш панував,

There is no evidence that in 1840 Kostomarov thought of the Russian Empire,

The lover’s experience of love by the beloved is elucidated by three comparisons,

Kostomarov, Tvory (1990), 1: 521.

Melodies’, Neophilologus, 75.4 (1991): 626-36.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Над всіх дівчат гарніш, миліш

More beautiful and sweet than all others / Is my Israelite maid, / A

І стане серце у мене

Чого ж, голубочко моя,

The foreigners indiscriminately / Mock your people and hold them in

А кревні? Кревнії твої

Твій рід на срібло проміняв

Вони погані, ти чиста

Так часто бачиш: по лісах

Istoricheskie proizvedeniia. Avtobiograﬁia (Kyiv: Lybidʹ, 1990), 494-495.

then, Kostomarov was prepared to grant credence to stereotypes inherited through

LEV TOLSTOY IN THE AGE OF KINOGLASNOST: MIKHAIL SHVEITSER’S THE

ASEES, Vol. 29, Nos. 1-2 (2015): 31-61

Russian texts are mine, unless speciﬁed otherwise. [A.S.])

sonal satisfaction, responding thereby only to physiological needs. Shveitser explains

on May 9, 2010, http://faces.ng.ru/ﬁgures/1999-11-26/5_othertime.html

University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, p. 5.

kul´turnye i politicheskie otnosheniia Slavianskogo mira k Germano-Romanskomu, St Petersburg: Tipograﬁia

According to Barthes, Beethoven’s music is placed in the revolutionary cate-

London, Anthalone Press, 2000, pp. 54-78, see p. 66.

37/3, 1985, 193-232, see p. 194.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 85-177, see p. 96.

23 Coetzee, ‘Confession and Double Thoughts’, p. 195.

285, see p. 282.