Article

Name: EMPLOTTING METALITERARY REBUS: MIKHAIL KUZMIN, A FORGOTTEN HARBINGER OF MODERNIST PROSE

Authors: L. G. Panova

The University of California, Los Angeles, USA

In the section

Abstract: Boris Eikhenbaum began his 1920 essay on Mikhail Kuzmin’s prose with the observation that still remains true: “Kuzmin’s prose has not become a part of the tradition – all the more interesting it is to speak about it.” Following Boris Eikhenbaum’s insight from the same essay – “if it seems that Kuzmin is «portraying», do not believe him; in fact, he offers a rebus from modern life” – the paper discusses one possible way of reading Kuzmin’s highly intellectual prose, namely, by puzzle solving. The paper demonstrates Kuzmin’s witty send-ups of Russian classics (Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol’, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Leskov and above all Leo Tolstoy) in his short stories, “Kushetka teti Soni” [Aunt Sonya’s Sofa] (1907) and “«Lektsiia Dostoevskogo»” [«Lecture by Dostoevsky»] (1913). Both engage the reader in a detective-like activity, i.e. in discovering a key figure of the nineteenth-century prose hidden in a cluster of words and motifs. The two short stories then read as playfully testing this writer’s art against the challenges of modernity. By doing that, Kuzmin arrives to the following conclusion: in order to keep pace with the epoch it is important to part with the family novel tradition represented by his predecessor and to turn to essentially twentieth-century family dramas. The monographic analysis of the twin short stories also reveals invariants of Kuzmin’s poetic world: the motif of an object interfering with the life of its owner; the puzzle design with deliberate flaws providing clues for the sophisticated reader; the conversion of a family saga into a metaliterary message; and rich intertextuality, cementing the plot as well as skillfully combining old meanings with new ones. If literary critics have missed the hidden content and exquisite design of these short stories, perhaps, creative writers did not? Be that as it may, Kuzmin clearly anticipated several characteristically innovative techniques in the evolution of the twentieth-century story-telling: Vladimir Nabokov’s metatextual cryptography; Daniil Kharms’ absurdist anecdotes about literary giants; and the little known novel Po tu storony Tuly [Beyond Tula/ Thule] by Andrei Nikolev (Egunov). Demonstrating Kuzmin's precedence in those issues was one of this paper's tasks.

Keywords: mikhail kuzmin's intellectual prose, rebus-like plot, story and discourse (fabula and siuzhet), deliberate flaws as device, intertextuality, metatextuality, reflections on the new prose, monographic analysis of a literary text, fathers-and-sons topos, fam

Bibliography:

Akhmatova Anna. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works]: In 8 vols. Vol. 5. Moscow: Ellis Lak, 2000/2001. 800 p.

Alekseeva T. V. Vladimir Lukich Borovikovskiy i russkaya kul'tura na rubezhe 18–19 vekov [Vladimir Borovikovsky and the Russian culture at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries]. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1975. 424 p.

Andreevich [Solov'ev] E. A. L. N. Tolstoy. Monografiya [Leo Tolstoy. A Monograph]. St. Petersburg: Izdanie A. E. Belyaeva, 1905.

Barnstead John. Stylization as Renewal: The Function of Chronological Discrepancies in Two Stories by Mixail Kuzmin // Studies in the Life and Works of Mixail Kuzmin / Ed. John E. Malmstad. Wien, 1989. Pp. 7–16.

Bers S. A. Vospominaniya o grafe L. N. Tolstom (v Oktyabre i Noyabre 1891 g.) [Reminiscences about Count Leo Tolstoy (in October and November 1891)]. Smolensk: Tipo-litografiya F.V. Zel'dovicha, 1893. 81 p.

Bershtein Evgenii. An Englishman in the Russian Bathhouse: Kuzmin’s Wings and the Russian Tradition of Homoerotic Writing // Panova Lada, Pratt Sarah (eds.) The Many Facets of Mikhail Kuzmin / Кузмин многогранный. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2011. Pp. 75–87.

Bogomolov N. A. Mikhail Kuzmin: stat'i i materialy [Mikhail Kuzmin: Papers and Materials]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1995. 368 p.

Bogomolov Nikolay, Malmstad John. Mikhail Kuzmin. Iskusstvo, zhizn', epokha [Mikhail Kuzmin: His Art, Life, and Epoch]. St. Petersburg: Vita Nova, 2007. 696 p.

Bryullov K. P. Al'bom reproduktsiy [Album of Reproductions]. Ed. by V. N. Petrov. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo izobrazitel'nogo iskusstva, 1960. 25 p.

Burmakina Ol'ga. M. Kuzmin i F. Dostoevskiy: tvorcheskie so- i protivopostavleniya [M. Kuzmin and F. Dostoyevsky: Creative Juxta- and Oppositions]. M.a. dissertation... Russian literature. Tartu: Tartuskiy universitet, Kafedra russkoy literatury, 2003. 100 leaves.

Chudo rozhdestvenskoy nochi: svyatochnye rasskazy [The Christmas Night Miracle: Christmas Tales]. Ed. by Elena Dushechkina and Henryk Baran. St. Petersburg: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1993. 704 p.

Dostoevskiy F. M. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works]: In 30 vols. Vol. 24. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982. 520 p.

Peterburgskiy svyatochnyy rasskaz [St. Petersburg Christmas Tales]. Dushechkina E. V. (ed.). Leningrad: Petropol', 1991. 176 p.

Dushechkina E. V. Russkiy svyatochnyy rasskaz: Stanovlenie zhanra [Russian Christmas Tales: The Creation of the Genre]. St. Petersburg: SPbGU, 1995. 256 p.

Eykhenbaum B. O proze M. Kuzmina [On M. Kuzmin’s Prose]. In: Eykhenbaum B. O literature [On Literature]. Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel', 1987 [1920]. Pp. 348–351.

Fet Afanasiy. Vospominaniya [Memoirs]: In 3 vols. Vol. 1. Pushkino Moskovskoi oblasti: Kul'tura, 1992. 452 p.

Field Andrew. Mikhail Kuzmin: Notes on a Decadent's Prose // Russian Review, Vol. 22, iss. 3, 1963. Pp. 289–300.

Gershenzon M. Mudrost' Pushkina [Pushkin’s Wisdom]. Moscow: Knigoizdatel'stvo pisateley v Moskve, 1919. 229 p.

Gil'debrandt O. N. M. A. Kuzmin [M. A. Kuzmin]. In: Kuzmin M. A. Dnevnik 1934 goda [1934 Journal]. Ed. by G. Morev. St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbakh, 2007. Pp. 148–155.

Grammofon i fonograf. Serpukhov, 1908, № 2 (1 fevralya).

Granoien Neil. Mixail Kumin: An Aesthete’s Prose. A PhD dissertation. Los Angeles: UCLA, 1981. 387 leaves.

Gogol' N. V. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works]: In 7 vols. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1977. Vol. 3. 446 p.

Gumilev Nikolay. M. Kuzmin. Pervaya kniga rasskazov. K-vo Skorpion, M., 1910. Ts. 1 r. 50 k. (1910) [M. Kuzmin. The First Books of Short Stories. Scorpio Publisher. Moscow, 1910.

Price: 1 ruble 50 kopecks]. In: Gumilev Nikolay. Sochineniya [Works]: In 3 vols. Vol. 3. Ed. by R. D. Timenchik. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1991 [1910]. Pp. 173–174.

Harer Klaus. Michail Kuzmin. Studien zur Poetik der frühen und mittleren Schaffensperiode. Műnchen: O. Sagner, 1993. 306 p.

Interv'yu i besedy s L'vom Tolstym [Interviews and Conversations with Leo Tolstoy]. Ed. by V. Ya. Lakshin. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1986. 525 p.

Ivanov Georgiy. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works]: In 3 vols. Ed. by E. V. Vitkovskiy et al. Vol. 3. Moscow: Soglasie, 1994. 480 p.

Kenworthy John Coleman. Tolstoy: His Life and Work. NY: Haskell House, 1971 [1902]. 255 p.

Kirsanova R.M. Kostyum v russkoy khudozhestvennoy kul'ture [Costume in the Russian Arts Culture]. Moscow: Bol'shaya rossiyskaya entsiklopediya, 1995. 383 p.

Kobrinskiy A. A. Kuzmin i Pushkin ili Kem i dlya chego byl sovershen "Nabeg na Barsukovku"? [Kuzmin i Pushkin, or Who Made “A Raid on Barsukovka" and Why?]. In: Kobrinskiy A.A. O Kharmse i ne tol'ko [On Kharms and More]. St. Petersburg: SPGUTD. Pp. 209–217.

Kuzmin Mikhail. Dnevnik 1905–1907 gg. [1905–1907 Journal]. Ed. by N. A. Bogomolov, S. V. Shumikhin. St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbakh, 2000 (b). 608 p.

Kuzmin Mikhail. Proza [Prose]: In 12 vols. Ed by V. Markov et al. Berkeley: Berkeley Slavic Specialties, 1984–2000.

Kuzmin Mikhail. Stikhotvoreniya [Poems]. Ed. by N.A. Bogomolov. St. Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt, 2000 (a). 832 p.

Kuzmin Mikhail. Stikhotvoreniya. Iz perepiski [Poems. From the Correspondence]. Ed. by N. A. Bogomolov. Moscow: Progress-Pleyada, 2006. 490 p.

Lazurskiy V. F. Vospominaniya o L. N. Tolstom [Memoirs of L. N. Tolstoy]. Moscow: Tipografiya V. M. Sablina, 1911. 102 p.

Leskov N. S. Sobranie sochineniy [Collection of Works]: In 11 vols. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1956.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Ego zhizn' i sochineniya. Sbornik istoriko-literaturnykh statey [Leo N. Tolstoy. His Life and Works. A collection of Literary-Historical Essays]. Ed. by V. Pokrovskiy. Moskva, 1905.

Lifar' Sergey. Diaghilev i s Diaghilevym [Diaghilev and with Diaghilev]. Moscow: Vagrius, 2005 [1939]. 592 p.

L. N. Tolstoy i khudozhniki. Tolstoy ob iskusstve: Pis'ma, dnevniki, vospominaniya [Leo Tolstoy and Artists. Tolstoy on Art: Letters, Diaries, Memoirs]. Brodskiy I. A. (ed.). Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1978. 375 p.

Malmstad John E., Bogomolov Nikolay. Mikhail Kuzmin. A Life in Art. Cambridge, MA, London, Eng.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Markov Vladimir. Beseda o proze Kuzmina [A Conversation on Kuzmin’s Prose]. In: Kuzmin Mikhail. Proza [Prose]: In 12 vols. Ed by V. Markov et al. Vol. 1. Berkeley: Berkeley Slavic Specialties, 1984. Pp. vii–xviii.

Maugh II Thomas H. Earliest Recordings Preceded Edison’s // Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2008, A 11.

Zhivye slova nashikh pisateley i obshchestvennykh deyateley [Our Writers and Public Figures Live]. Mitropol'skiy I. I. (ed.). Vol. 1. Moscow: Tovarishchestvo tipografii A. I. Mamontova, 1910.

Møller Peter Ulf. Postlude to The Kreutzer sonata: Tolstoj and the Debate on Sexual Morality in the 1890s / Translated by John Kendal. Leiden, NY, København, Köln: E.J. Brill, 1988. 346 p.

Morev G. A. Polemicheskiy kontekst rasskaza M. A. Kuzmina «Vysokoe iskusstvo» [Polemical Context of M. A. Kuzmin's Short Story “High Art”]. A. Blok i russkiy simvolizm: problemy teksta i zhanra. Blokovskiy sbornik [A. Blok and Russian Symbolism: The Problems of Text and Genre. The Blok Collection]. Vol. X. Tartu 1990 (a). Pp. 92–116.

Morev Gleb. Zametki o proze Kuzmina ("Vysokoe iskusstvo") [Some Notes on Kuzmin’s Prose (“High Art”)]. Russkaya mysl' [Russian Thought]. Literaturnoe prilozhenie, № 11, 1990 (b). P. v.

Ostrovskiy A. N. Sobranie sochineniy [Collection of Works]: In 10 vols. Vol. 1. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennoy literatury, 1959. 424 p.

Panova L. G. Diskurs «veshchelyubiya» v Serebryanom veke: zametki o Kuzmine, Akhmatovoy i Mandel'shtame [The Silver Age Discourse of Objectofilia: Mandel'shtam Against the Background of Kuzmin and Akhmatova]. Etkindovskie chteniya. VIII, IX [The Etkind Readings. VIII, IX]. Ed. by V. E. Bagno et al. Moscow: Rudomino, 2018 (forthcoming).

Panova L.G. Russkiy Egipet. Aleksandriyskaya poetika Mikhaila Kuzmina [Russian Egypt. Mikhail Kuzmin's Alexandrian Poetics]. In 2 vols. Vol. 1. Moscow: Vodoley Publishers, Progress- Pleyada, 2006. 679 p.

Panova Lada, Pratt Sarah (eds.) The Many Facets of Mikhail Kuzmin/ Кузмин многогранный. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2011. 318 p.

Panova Lada. «Portret s posledstviyami» Mikhaila Kuzmina: rebus s klyuchom [Mikhail Kuzmin's “A Portrait with Consequences”: A Puzzle with a Key]. Russkaya literatura [Russian Literature], 2010, Vol. 4. Pp. 218–234.

Panova Lada. «Vyshe stropila...»: o brachnoy gipogramme doma v stikhotvoreniyakh Kuzmina i Akhmatovoy [Rise High the Roofbeam...: On the Nuptial Hypogram of House in Mikhail Kuzmin and Anna Akhmatova's Poems]. Wiener Slawisticher Almanach, vol. 79, 2017 (forthcoming).

Panova Lada. A Literary Lion Hidden in Plain View: Clues to Mikhail Kuzmin’s “Aunt Sonya’s Sofa” and “Lecture by Dostoevsky” // Panova Lada, Pratt Sarah (eds.) The Many Facets of Mikhail Kuzmin / Кузмин многогранный. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2011. Pp. 89–139.

Panova Lada. Mnimoe sirotstvo: Khlebnikov i Kharms v kontekste russkogo i evropeyskogo modernizma [An Imaginary Orphanhood: Velimir Khlebnikov and Daniil Kharms in the Context of Russian and European Modernism]. Moscow: Vysshaia shkola ekonomiki, 2017 (b). 608 p.

Panova Lada. Cherchez la femme: Lev Tolstoy v proze Mikhaila Kuzmina [Сherchez la femme: Leo Tolstoy in Mikhail Kuzmin’s Prose]. Lev Tolstoy v Ierusalime: Materialy mezhdunarodnoy nauchnoy konferentsii «Lev Tolstoy: posle yubileya» [Leo Tolstoy in Jerusalem: Papers of the International Academic Conference: “Leo Tolstoy: After the Jubilee”]. Ed. by E. D. Tolstaia. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2013. Pp. 354–379.

Panova Lada. Voyna polov, gomoseksual'noe pis'mo i (post-)sovetskiy literaturnyy kanon: «Forel' razbivaet led» (1927) [War Between the Sexes, Homosexual Writing and the (Post)Soviet Literary Canon: “The Trout Breaks the Ice” (1927)]. Russian Literature, vol. 87–89, 2017 (a). Pp. 61–122.

Polonsky Rachel. English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 249 p.

Pushkin A.S. Sobranie sochineniy [Collection of Works]: In 10 vols. Vol. 2. Moscow: GIKhL, 1959. 400 p.

Puzin N. Dom-muzey L. N. Tolstogo v Yasnoy Polyane [L. N. Tolstoy Museum at Yasnaya Polyana]. Tula: Izdatel'skiy dom «Yasnaya Polyana», 2005. 138 р.

Riffaterre Michael. Semiotics of Poetry. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978. 213 p.

Rylkova Galina. The Archaeology of Anxiety: The Russian Silver Age and its Legacy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008. 270 p.

Scheijen Sjeng. Diaghilev. A Life / Translated by Jane Headley-Prôle and S.J. Leiinbach. Profile Books Ltd, 2009. 552 p.

O Tolstom. Mezhdunarodnyy tolstovskiy al'manakh [On Tolstoy. Internatiotional Tolstoyan Almanach]. Sergeenko P. (ed.). Moscow: Kniga, 1909. 350 p.

Shilov Lev. Golosa, zazvuchavshie vnov'. Zapiski zvukoarkhivista-shestidesyatnika [The voice that Sounded Again. Notes of the Sound Archivalist from the Sixties]. Moscow: Al'daon, RUSAKI, 2004. 368 p.

Shklovskiy Viktor. O teorii prozy [On the Theory of Prose]. Moscow: Federatsiya, 1929. 265 p.

Skonechnaya O. Lyudi lunnogo sveta v russkoy proze Nabokova. K voprosu o nabokovskom parodirovanii motivov Serebryanogo veka [Moonlight People in Nabokov’s Russian-language Prose. On the Issue of Nabokov’s Parodying of Some Silver Age Motifs]. Zvezda [Star], 1996, vol. 11. Pp. 207–214.

Starygina N.N . Svyatochnyy rasskaz kak zhanr [Christmas Tale as a Genre]. Problemy istoricheskoy poetiki [The Issues of Historical Poetics]. Petrozavodsk, 1992. Vol. 2. Petrozavodsk: Izd-vo PetrGU, 1992. Pp. 113–128.

Steiner Edward A. Tolstoy the Man. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005 [1904]. 310 p.

Timenchik R. D., V. N. Toporov, T. V. Tsiv'yan. Akhmatova i Kuzmin [Akhmatova and Kuzmin]. Russian Literature, vol. 6, iss. 3, 1978. Pp. 213–305.

Timofeev A. G. Rasskaz M. Kuzmina «Kushetka teti Soni» [M. Kuzmin’s Short Story “Aunt Sonya’s Sofa” ]. In: Timofeev A.G. Rabochie tetradi M. Kuzmina kak literaturnyy i biograficheskiy istochnik [M. Kuzmin’s Working Papers as a Literary and Biographical Source.]. Diss. na soiskanie... k.f.n. St. Petersburg: Institut literatury (Pushkinskiy dom), Rossiyskaya Akademiya Nauk, 2005. Pp. 270–284.

Tolstoy L. N. "Kreytserova sonata". Tolstaya S. A. "Ch'ya vina?", "Pesnya bez slov". Tolstoy L. L. "Prelyudiya Shopena" [Tolstoy L. N. “The Kreutzer Sonata”, Tolstaya S. N. “Whose Fault Is It?”, “A Song Without Words”, Tolstoy L. L. “Chopin’s Prelude”]. Ed. by V. B. Remizov et al. Moscow: Porog, 2010. 354 p.

Tolstoy L. N. Sobranie sochineniy [Collected Works]: In 14 vols. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1951–1953.

Tolstoy v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov [Tolstoy as Remebered by his Contemporaries]: In 2 vols. Ed. by P. M. Fortunatov. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1978.

Vygotskiy L. S. Psikhologiya iskusstva [The Psychology of Art]. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965. 380 p.

Zholkovskiy A. K. «Legkoe dykhanie» Bunina-Vygotskogo sem'desyat let spustya [«Light Breathing» by Bunin-Vygotskii 70 Years Later]. In: Zholkovskiy A. K. Bluzhdayushchie sny: Stat'i raznykh let [Wandering Dreams. Essays Old and New]. 3rd ed. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, Azbuka-Attikus, 2016. Pp. 63–80.

Zholkovskiy A. K. Malen'kiy metatekstual'nyy shedevr Leskova [Nikolai Leskov's Metatextual Gem]. In: Zholkovskiy A. K. Ochnye stavki s vlastitelem: Stat'i o russkoy literature [Confronting Power Figures: Essays on Russian Prose]. Moscow: RGGU, 2011. Pp. 175–195.

Zholkovskiy Aleksandr, Panova Lada. Carpe mortem: «Sladko umeret'…» Mikhaila Kuzmina [Carpe mortem: «Sweet It is to Die…» by Mikhail Kuzmin]. In: Zholkovskiy A. K. Novaya i noveyshaya poeziya [Modern and Recent Russian Poetry]. Moscow: RGGU. 2009. Pp. 13-34.