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Prostakov-Skotinin et al. in LATH
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Pushkin's Scene from Faust (1825), in which Mephistopheles compares himself to an harlequin, was inspired by Goethe's Faust. In 1914-16 Andrey Bely (the author of The Harlequinade) participated in the construction of the Goetheanum, the world center for the anthroposophical movement in Dornach (Switzerland). The "tasteless and absurd" idea to build "the temple of universal wisdom" in such an inappropriate place is criticized by Mandelshtam in his devastating review of Bely's autobiographical Zapiski chudaka (An Eccentric's Notes, 1922):
В книге можно вылущить фабулу, разгребая кучу словесного мусора: русский турист, застигнутый войной в Швейцарии, строит Иоаннов храм теософской мудрости, швейцарцы, обратив внимание на подозрительного иностранца, высылают его, и, преследуемый шпиономанией, он вполне благополучно возвращается через Англию и Норвегию в Россию... Что за безвкусная нелепая идея строить «храм всемирной мудрости» на таком неподходящем месте?
Mandelshtam begins his article with the comparison of Russian symbolism to wreathing Python (a serpent slain by Apollo):
Русский символизм жив. Русский символизм не умер. Пифон клубится. Андрей Белый продолжает славные традиции литературной эпохи, когда половой, отраженный двойными зеркалами ресторана «Прага», воспринимался как мистическое явление, двойник, и порядочный литератор стеснялся лечь спать, не накопив за день пяти или шести «ужасиков».
The allusion is to Pushkin's epigram "Luk zvenit, strela trepeshchet..." ("The Bowstring sounds, the arrow quivers..." 1827) in which Python dies, wreathing:
Лук звенит, стрела трепещет,
И, клубясь, издох Пифон;
И твой лик победой блещет,
Бельведерский Аполлон!
Кто ж вступился за Пифона,
Кто разбил твой истукан?
Ты, соперник Аполлона,
Бельведерский Митрофан.
The target of this epigram is the minor poet Andrey Murav'yov (1806-74) who in Princess Volkonski's salon broke the arm of Apollo Belvedere (a copy of the Vatican statue) and wrote lame verses on the statue's pedestal. Bel'vederskiy Mitrofan in the epigram's punch line hints at the hero of Fonfizin's comedy Nedorosl' ("The Minor", 1782). In Fonvizin's comedy Mitrofan is the son of Mrs Prostakov, born Skotinin. In LATH Vadim mentions a critic who was nicknamed by his rival "Prostakov-Skotinin":
I smoked my pipe and observed the feeding habits of two major novelists, three minor ones, one major poet, five minor ones of both sexes, one major critic (Demian Basilevski), and nine minor ones, including the inimitable "Prostakov-Skotinin," a Russian comedy name (meaning "simpleton and brute") applied to him by his archrival Hristofor Boyarski. (1.11)
In Pushkin's poem Poet i tolpa ("The Poet and the Crowd", 1828) the Poet mentions kumir Bel'vederskiy (the Belvedere idol):
Тебе бы пользы всё — на вес
Кумир ты ценишь Бельведерский.
Ты пользы, пользы в нём не зришь.
"You need only benefit, by weight
you value the Belvedere idol.
You don't see any practical use in it."
When the Crowd asks the Poet to give it bold lessons, "while we shall listen to you" (a my poslushaem tebya), the Poet (who doesn't want to be a moralist) angrily replies:
Подите прочь — какое дело
Поэту мирному до вас!
В разврате каменейте смело,
Не оживит вас лиры глас!
Душе противны вы, как гробы.
Go away!...
You are repulsive to my soul, like coffins.
According to Pushkin's Poet,
Не для житейского волненья,
Не для корысти, не для битв,
Мы рождены для вдохновенья,
Для звуков сладких и молитв.
Not for the wordy agitation,
Not for the gold or bloody ways,
We have been born for inspiration,
For charming sounds and for prayers.
(transl. E. Bonver)
Belvedere has Bel (Vadim's name for his daughter Isabel) in it. In fact, Belvedere + motto = Bel + Everett + mood/doom
(Everett - Charlie Everett, alias Karl Vetrov, Bel's husband with whom she elopes to the USSR)
While Everett reminds one of Mount Everest, Charlie Everett's new name Vetrov comes from veter (wind). In Poet i tolpa the Crowd compares the Poet's song to veter:
"Как ветер, песнь его свободна,
Зато как ветер и бесплодна:
Какая польза нам от ней?"
"His song is free, like the wind,
but, like the wind, it is futile:
what good will it do for us?"
Bel'vederskiy rhymes with Ezerski, the eponymous hero of an unfinished poem (written in the Onegin stanza) by Pushkin. Here is stanza XIII of Ezerski (1832) in the original followed by VN's translation:
Зачем крутится ветр в овраге,
Подъемлет лист и пыль несёт,
Когда корабль в недвижной влаге
Его дыханья жадно ждёт?
Зачем от гор и мимо башен
Летит орёл, тяжёл и страшен,
На чёрный пень? Спроси его.
Зачем Арапа своего
Младая любит Дездемона,
Как месяц любит ночи мглу?
Затем, что ветру и орлу
И сердцу девы нет закона.
Гордись: таков и ты поэт,
И для тебя условий нет.
Why does the wind revolve in the ravine,
sweep up the leaves and bear the dust,
when avidly on stirless water
wait for his breath the galleon must?
From mountains and past towers, why
does the dread heavy eagle fly
to a seas stump? Inquire of him.
Why does young Desdemona love
her blackamoor as the moon loves
the gloom of night? Because
for wind and eagle
and maiden's heart no law is laid.
Poet, be proud: thus you are too:
neither is there a law for you.
Orlov (Oleg Orlov, a worthless poet and Soviet spy who stealthily accompanies Vadim Vadimovich in his trip to Leningrad) comes from oryol (eagle), a bird mentioned, along with veter (wind) and gory (mountains), in this stanza of Ezerski. Ezerski comes from ezero (obs., lake). Bel's mother Annette Blagovo (Vadim's second wife) and her friend Ninel (Lenin backwards) drown in the lake near which their pretty cottage (swept away by a tornado) stood (4.2).
When Vadim tells his first wife, Iris Black, in dramatic detail of his escape from his country, mentioning great exiles of old (Ovid, Dante, Pushkin, one presumes), she listens to him "like Desdemona" (1.5). Iris Black is shot dead by a White Russian, Wladimir Blagidze, alias Starov (1.13). In the first week of January, 1822, Pushkin had a pistol duel near Kishinev with Colonel Starov.
Speaking of Goethe, some think that harlequin and Erlkoenig (Wer reitet so spaet durch Nacht und Wind?) are related words. Others believe that harlequin has something to do with Alichino mentioned by Dante in La Divina Commedia:
"Tra’ti avante, Alichino, e Calcabrina",
comincio elli a dire, "e tu, Cagnazzo;
e Barbariccia guidi la decina" (Inferno, Canto XXI)
In his review of Zapiski chudaka Mandelshtam (the author of Razgovor o Dante, "The Talk about Dante", written in 1933, first publ. in 1967) contrasts Bely (who, having no sense of measure and tact, also lacks taste, and the absence of taste is the first sign of falsehood) to Dante (for whom suffice was to have one significant event in his inner life):
Отсутствие меры и такта, отсутствие вкуса — есть ложь, первый признак лжи. У Данта одного душевного события хватило на всю жизнь.
To a Russian ear, d'Anthes (an harlequin in his own right) sounds rather like dantist (dentist), but Dante (or, say, Danzas) is also close enough.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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В книге можно вылущить фабулу, разгребая кучу словесного мусора: русский турист, застигнутый войной в Швейцарии, строит Иоаннов храм теософской мудрости, швейцарцы, обратив внимание на подозрительного иностранца, высылают его, и, преследуемый шпиономанией, он вполне благополучно возвращается через Англию и Норвегию в Россию... Что за безвкусная нелепая идея строить «храм всемирной мудрости» на таком неподходящем месте?
Mandelshtam begins his article with the comparison of Russian symbolism to wreathing Python (a serpent slain by Apollo):
Русский символизм жив. Русский символизм не умер. Пифон клубится. Андрей Белый продолжает славные традиции литературной эпохи, когда половой, отраженный двойными зеркалами ресторана «Прага», воспринимался как мистическое явление, двойник, и порядочный литератор стеснялся лечь спать, не накопив за день пяти или шести «ужасиков».
The allusion is to Pushkin's epigram "Luk zvenit, strela trepeshchet..." ("The Bowstring sounds, the arrow quivers..." 1827) in which Python dies, wreathing:
Лук звенит, стрела трепещет,
И, клубясь, издох Пифон;
И твой лик победой блещет,
Бельведерский Аполлон!
Кто ж вступился за Пифона,
Кто разбил твой истукан?
Ты, соперник Аполлона,
Бельведерский Митрофан.
The target of this epigram is the minor poet Andrey Murav'yov (1806-74) who in Princess Volkonski's salon broke the arm of Apollo Belvedere (a copy of the Vatican statue) and wrote lame verses on the statue's pedestal. Bel'vederskiy Mitrofan in the epigram's punch line hints at the hero of Fonfizin's comedy Nedorosl' ("The Minor", 1782). In Fonvizin's comedy Mitrofan is the son of Mrs Prostakov, born Skotinin. In LATH Vadim mentions a critic who was nicknamed by his rival "Prostakov-Skotinin":
I smoked my pipe and observed the feeding habits of two major novelists, three minor ones, one major poet, five minor ones of both sexes, one major critic (Demian Basilevski), and nine minor ones, including the inimitable "Prostakov-Skotinin," a Russian comedy name (meaning "simpleton and brute") applied to him by his archrival Hristofor Boyarski. (1.11)
In Pushkin's poem Poet i tolpa ("The Poet and the Crowd", 1828) the Poet mentions kumir Bel'vederskiy (the Belvedere idol):
Тебе бы пользы всё — на вес
Кумир ты ценишь Бельведерский.
Ты пользы, пользы в нём не зришь.
"You need only benefit, by weight
you value the Belvedere idol.
You don't see any practical use in it."
When the Crowd asks the Poet to give it bold lessons, "while we shall listen to you" (a my poslushaem tebya), the Poet (who doesn't want to be a moralist) angrily replies:
Подите прочь — какое дело
Поэту мирному до вас!
В разврате каменейте смело,
Не оживит вас лиры глас!
Душе противны вы, как гробы.
Go away!...
You are repulsive to my soul, like coffins.
According to Pushkin's Poet,
Не для житейского волненья,
Не для корысти, не для битв,
Мы рождены для вдохновенья,
Для звуков сладких и молитв.
Not for the wordy agitation,
Not for the gold or bloody ways,
We have been born for inspiration,
For charming sounds and for prayers.
(transl. E. Bonver)
Belvedere has Bel (Vadim's name for his daughter Isabel) in it. In fact, Belvedere + motto = Bel + Everett + mood/doom
(Everett - Charlie Everett, alias Karl Vetrov, Bel's husband with whom she elopes to the USSR)
While Everett reminds one of Mount Everest, Charlie Everett's new name Vetrov comes from veter (wind). In Poet i tolpa the Crowd compares the Poet's song to veter:
"Как ветер, песнь его свободна,
Зато как ветер и бесплодна:
Какая польза нам от ней?"
"His song is free, like the wind,
but, like the wind, it is futile:
what good will it do for us?"
Bel'vederskiy rhymes with Ezerski, the eponymous hero of an unfinished poem (written in the Onegin stanza) by Pushkin. Here is stanza XIII of Ezerski (1832) in the original followed by VN's translation:
Зачем крутится ветр в овраге,
Подъемлет лист и пыль несёт,
Когда корабль в недвижной влаге
Его дыханья жадно ждёт?
Зачем от гор и мимо башен
Летит орёл, тяжёл и страшен,
На чёрный пень? Спроси его.
Зачем Арапа своего
Младая любит Дездемона,
Как месяц любит ночи мглу?
Затем, что ветру и орлу
И сердцу девы нет закона.
Гордись: таков и ты поэт,
И для тебя условий нет.
Why does the wind revolve in the ravine,
sweep up the leaves and bear the dust,
when avidly on stirless water
wait for his breath the galleon must?
From mountains and past towers, why
does the dread heavy eagle fly
to a seas stump? Inquire of him.
Why does young Desdemona love
her blackamoor as the moon loves
the gloom of night? Because
for wind and eagle
and maiden's heart no law is laid.
Poet, be proud: thus you are too:
neither is there a law for you.
Orlov (Oleg Orlov, a worthless poet and Soviet spy who stealthily accompanies Vadim Vadimovich in his trip to Leningrad) comes from oryol (eagle), a bird mentioned, along with veter (wind) and gory (mountains), in this stanza of Ezerski. Ezerski comes from ezero (obs., lake). Bel's mother Annette Blagovo (Vadim's second wife) and her friend Ninel (Lenin backwards) drown in the lake near which their pretty cottage (swept away by a tornado) stood (4.2).
When Vadim tells his first wife, Iris Black, in dramatic detail of his escape from his country, mentioning great exiles of old (Ovid, Dante, Pushkin, one presumes), she listens to him "like Desdemona" (1.5). Iris Black is shot dead by a White Russian, Wladimir Blagidze, alias Starov (1.13). In the first week of January, 1822, Pushkin had a pistol duel near Kishinev with Colonel Starov.
Speaking of Goethe, some think that harlequin and Erlkoenig (Wer reitet so spaet durch Nacht und Wind?) are related words. Others believe that harlequin has something to do with Alichino mentioned by Dante in La Divina Commedia:
"Tra’ti avante, Alichino, e Calcabrina",
comincio elli a dire, "e tu, Cagnazzo;
e Barbariccia guidi la decina" (Inferno, Canto XXI)
In his review of Zapiski chudaka Mandelshtam (the author of Razgovor o Dante, "The Talk about Dante", written in 1933, first publ. in 1967) contrasts Bely (who, having no sense of measure and tact, also lacks taste, and the absence of taste is the first sign of falsehood) to Dante (for whom suffice was to have one significant event in his inner life):
Отсутствие меры и такта, отсутствие вкуса — есть ложь, первый признак лжи. У Данта одного душевного события хватило на всю жизнь.
To a Russian ear, d'Anthes (an harlequin in his own right) sounds rather like dantist (dentist), but Dante (or, say, Danzas) is also close enough.
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/