BORIS PASTERNAK AND THE "BOGEYMAN OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE" CHRISTOPHER BARNES In the years of his artistic maturity Boris Paster- nak did his best to overcome and forget his earlier Futurist phase. In fact, few of his recorded comments on the Futurists - both at the time of his association with them and later on - lead one to suppose that his involvement with the movement was either wholehearted, or that it left any deep and indelible impression. At the time of his Futurist associations, the internecine struggles and polemics within the movement before the Revolution and his reaction against them in the nine- teen-twenties sometimes forced Pasternak into false or unnatural positions, so that even his early written pronouncements tended to understate or distort his re- cognition of much of the Futurist achievement. And in later years, when Pasternak had outgrown or forgotten his debt to his early literary associates, he feigned a scorn or indifference which again misrepresented the facts and circumstances of his artistic debut. Further- more, a number of recent critics have followed Paster- nak's own lead, and have attempted to exculpate him from any profound or prolonged involvement with the Russian modernist movement. ~ But Pasternak's apprenticeship in the Futurist ranks and his association with some of the movement's cele- brities remain literary and historical facts which can- not be ignored. His first steps in literature were made as a member of the moderate Futurist group called Centrifuga. An article he wrote in 1914 identified as the one true Futurist none other than Chlebnikov 2, and his own poems such as "Cygane", "Mel'chior" and "Ob Ivane Velikom" showed the strong influence of Chlebni- kov and Aseev and came close to the extremes of Cubo- Futurist experimentation. 3 In the years 1914-15 some of Pasternak's poetry registered the powerful impact of Majakovskian Futurism , and as Vladimir Markov ob- serves~ in Poverch bar'erov (1917) "the abundance of
Transcript
BORIS PASTERNAK AND THE "BOGEYMAN OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE"
CHRISTOPHER BARNES
In the years of his artistic maturity Boris Paster- nak did his best to overcome and forget his earlier Futurist phase. In fact, few of his recorded comments on the Futurists - both at the time of his association with them and later on - lead one to suppose that his involvement with the movement was either wholehearted, or that it left any deep and indelible impression. At the time of his Futurist associations, the internecine struggles and polemics within the movement before the Revolution and his reaction against them in the nine- teen-twenties sometimes forced Pasternak into false or unnatural positions, so that even his early written pronouncements tended to understate or distort his re- cognition of much of the Futurist achievement. And in later years, when Pasternak had outgrown or forgotten his debt to his early literary associates, he feigned a scorn or indifference which again misrepresented the facts and circumstances of his artistic debut. Further- more, a number of recent critics have followed Paster- nak's own lead, and have attempted to exculpate him from any profound or prolonged involvement with the Russian modernist movement. ~
But Pasternak's apprenticeship in the Futurist ranks and his association with some of the movement's cele- brities remain literary and historical facts which can- not be ignored. His first steps in literature were made as a member of the moderate Futurist group called Centrifuga. An article he wrote in 1914 identified as the one true Futurist none other than Chlebnikov 2, and his own poems such as "Cygane", "Mel'chior" and "Ob Ivane Velikom" showed the strong influence of Chlebni- kov and Aseev and came close to the extremes of Cubo- Futurist experimentation. 3 In the years 1914-15 some of Pasternak's poetry registered the powerful impact of Majakovskian Futurism , and as Vladimir Markov ob- serves~ in Poverch bar'erov (1917) "the abundance of
48 Christopher Barnes
violence and antiaestheticism in his imagery would suffice to put him next to Kru~enych and David Bur- ljuk". 5 After the revolution Pasternak's association with Futurism continued. He was for a time connected with LEF, and he was also consulted by the Leningrad literary group "Levyj flang", which included Tufanov, Charms and Vvedenskij and was a direct descendant o~ the Cubofuturist movement. 6 And in the late nineteen- twenties Pasternak figured as a member of the "Society of Chlebnikov's Friends" (Gruppa druzej Chlebnikova), which existed from 1928 to 1932 in order to assist the assembly and publication of Chlebnikov's works and al- so included among its members Nikolaj Aseev, Osip Brik, Kamenskij, Kru~enych, Ole~a, Dmitrij Petrovskij, Sel'- vinskij, Tynjanov and ~klovskij. 7
Yet despite Pasternak's Futurist connections both before and after the Revolution, and the fact that some of his ~oetry was "hardly less avant-garde than Kru~enych's ''~, the idea of some direct association between Pasternak and Kru~enych has never been seri- ously considered, nor is it immediately obvious. Cer- tainly, there is little to suggest any direct influen- ce of Kru~enych on Pasternak, or vice versa, and there were aspects of Kru~enych's personality, both as a writer and a human being, which would have militated against a very close relationship between the two men. But like the images in Pasternak's poetic metaphor, an association of personalities is sometimes created through contrast and the attraction of opposites as much as through similarity and sympathy. And just such a relationship was implied in the two short articles on Kru~enych which Pasternak wrote in the middle of the nineteen'twenties. The first was composed as the preface to a collection of articles on Kru~enych,pu- blished in Moscow in 19259 , and the second was an in- troduction to Kalendar', a volume of verse by Kru~enych,
i0 which appeared the following year. Kru~enych had been one of the leading theorists and
practitioners of Russian Futurism almost since the movement's inception. And even in a literary school which prided itself on its iconoclasm and contempt for tradition Kru~enych's extremist positions quickly es- tablished him as the enfant terrible of the movement. After his return to Moscow in the early nineteen-twen- ties he was able further to enhance his reputation: Chlebnikov died, David Burljuk emigrated, and Maja- kovskij and some of the LEF Futurists were losing their earlier brilliance and extremism in the attempt to be- come "establishment Futurists". But as poet andtheo- rist, Kru~enych was unchanged and unrepentant, and he
Pasternak and Kru~enych 49
still defended his doctrinal positions with unrelenting vigour. By 1925, however, Pasternak's own polemical sting had been drawn, and he was now little interested in literary disputes as such. It is therefore not sur- prising that, although admiring Kru~enych's fanatical dedication to the modernist cause, he still found his polemics to be his "weakest side", often more banal and routine than the academism and tradition he was campaigning against. II Kru~enych's fanatical persis- tence apparently also extended to his personal dealings, and this is hinted at in the second of Pasternak's short essays, clearly solicited by Kru~enych and writ-
ten half-reluctantly:
v Dear Krucenych, what do you want this introduction for? You don't need any recommendation. It is rather late to start convincing people, who are not aware already . . 12
But in order fully to understand Pasternak's criti- cal remarks about Kru~enych as a poet, one must first of all distinguish the different principles operating in the two men's work. Writing in 1924, Tynjanov des- cribed the Futurist dislocation of language in the fol- lowing terms:
The revolt of Chlebnikov and Majakovskij shifted the literary language from its place, discovering in it the possibility for new coloration. But together with this their revolt shifted the word extremely far away . . . The word in revolt was torn away, it shifted from its object . . . The word became free, but it became too free, it ceased to strike its target. Hence arose the attraction of the former Futurist nucleus towards objects, the naked objects of everyday life, hence the "negation of verse" as the logical out- come . . From here there comes another attraction: to aim the word at the object and somehow to turn both word and object so that the word would not hang in the air, and the thing would not be naked, to reconcile them and cause them to fraternise . . . Here is the mission of Pasternak . . 13
At all stages of his career Pasternak's poetry could indeed be regarded as an organic unity, the result, in Tynjanov's words, of "an actual wandering of the verse among things, its birth among them". I~ In this poetic universe words and objects coalesced in ways, which differed greatly from those of everyday human speech and vision, but they had their own vitality and metaphoric raison d'etre, which took no account of normal Euclidean geometry or any simple one-to-one
50 Christopher Barnes
correspondence between the verbal sign and the seman- tic object.
But in the work of themore extreme Futurists, and particularly in Kru~enych's writings, there was a ten- dency to polarise and separate out the formal and se, mantic elements of poetry. At one extreme there was the cult of the "word as such", liberated partly or wholly from any semantic function, and leading to the crea- tion of abstract zaum , or "transmental language", which had no easily decipherable meaning. ]5 But at other mo- ments - sometimes within one and the same poem - the poet would attempt to ignore any notions of formal and acoustic order, and administer a sudden semantic shock. This was achieved by the introduction of horrifying, unsavoury or obscene images and themes. In other words, in order to "~pater le bourgeois" and outrage good taste and formal coherence, the poet would aim to jolt the reader into a new awareness by presenting a crude display of Tynjanov's "naked objects of everyday life". 16
Kru~enych's escape from the stranglehold of semantic ties and real objects, and his flight into a new world of acoustic expressivity, onomatopoeia and zaum were welcomed by Pasternak in the first of his essays:
He is an enviable fanatic, and taking the responsibility on him- self, he pays for the world's materiality with a sonorous verse. How does the zudesnik differ from the sorcerer (kudesnik)? 17 In the same way as the physiology of the fairy-tale from the fairy- tale. In places where everyone else simply names a frog, Kru~enych, forever astonished at the staggering and shuddering of nature in the raw, will set out to galvanise the noun till he achieves the
18 illusion that the world is growing paws.
As Pasternak admitted in his preface to Kalendar', Kru- ~enych's creations revealed to his audience "a multi- tude of things impossible in canonic art ''19, and if "the idea of form containing content (polo~enie o so- der~atel'nosti formy)" were "heated up to a fanatical
. v
brilliance", then one had to admit that Krucenych was "more full of content (8oder~atel'nee) than anyone else,,. 20
On the other hand, Kru~enych did not operate con- sistently in the sphere of acoustic and formal experi- ment. His work was characterised more by rapid shifts between the formal and the semantic, objective polari- ties, and this inconsistency did not escape Pasternak's critical notice:
The world selected by Kru~enych forms an obligatory part of any
Paste'rnak and Kru~enych 51
poetic world. This element is often voluntarily suppressed by the artist. Kru~enych is aware of this, but his awareness has a mala- rial and intermittent character. 21
In his introduction to Kalendar' Pasternak recalls the author's own impressive reading of poems contained in the book. Yet there is a note of implied criticism in the comment on Kry~enych's theatricality and his in- ability to sustain an artistic illusion:
The illusion of literature vanished. One's recollection of mean- ing died away like the memory of some amusing and quickly with- drawn pretention. There was a very slight whiff of theatre, but this was the theatre as a form of circus. All categories slipped away. There remained only the piquancy of a general excellence, naturalistic and lasting two minutes, as displayed by talented impersonators. Fluent, fragmented observation made us laugh in places devoid of direct comedy, and through this laughter there emerged in one's consciousness broad and typical pictures of nature, one after another, evoked by a quick gesture, almost like that of a conjurer, and related to the basic element of art, which is deception. 22
Thus, interspersed between bouts of zaum and acoustic experiment, one discovers Kru~enych's excursions in the opposite direction, towards the "naked objects of everyday life". And Pasternak's introduction to Kalen- dar' contains reservations about Kru~enych's failure to integrate this semantic aspect with the acoustic and metaphoric structure of the poem. With typical and fascinating elusiveness - he was once allegedly called "bo~estvennyj licemer" by Achmatova - Pasternak con- trives to praise Kru~enych's boldness while at the same time calling in question the value of his work as literature:
Your role in {art} is both curious and edifying. You stand on its very edge. One step sideways and you are outside it, i.e. in raw philistinism, which has more whims than people think. You are a living part of art's conceivable frontier. Even its crudest form- ula, the formula of effect (striking action) is broader than the area, which you have reserved for yourself. The instantaneousness of risqu~ stage-props and the instantaneousness of unprepared in- spiration are indivisible one from another in the lyrical device. It is one lightning-quick entirety. But even this seems too nar- row for you, and you completely throw out the second, inspiration- al element from this elementary pair. 23
Pasternak had in fact already attacked the misconcep- tion described here some years earlier, and somewhat
52 Christopher Barnes
more bluntly, in his article "~ernyj bokal" (1916). It was not a case of trying to rescue poetry from an in- volvement with the real world (this, in Pasternak's view was the mistake of much Romantic and Symbolist art 2~, and it also explained why he failed to respond to some of Chlebnikov's merits). 2s But for Pasternak the importance of the creative act lay in the artist's "subjective originality", which could transform raw objects observed in nature by involving them in meta- phor 26, i.e. a vital role belonged to the "inspiration- al element", which could give poetic coherence to raw material. In the antiaesthetic cult of vulgarity prac- tised by Kru~enych, or in its Marinettian obsession with the machine, the Futurist movement had brought to Russian poetry a wealth of new thematic possibilities, but, as Pasternak maintained, the novelty of these raw materials could not be taken as guarantee of the qua- lity of the completed artefact. Or, as he put it in "~ernyj bokal": "Aristotelian mimesis cannot serve as a vindication in defence of the ape ,,.2~
Since he was appearing as a guest contributor to Kru~enych's book, Pasternak afforded his host relative- ly mild treatment. Nevertheless, the remarks in his two introductions make clear the reasons for Paster- nak's critical attitude to Kru~enych's work, and a comparison of the two men's poetry is evidence that Kru~enych's "malarial" bouts of alternating zaum and antiaesthetic thematic crudity are far removed from the organic unity of Pasternak's style. Yet, although in the case of Majakovskij, Aseev and himself Paster- nak still saw the relevance of asking "I8 this still art, or a long established and alluring banality?", Kru~enych's own self-assurance and intransigence made it unnecessary for Pasternak to answer the riddle of whether he belonged in the realm of art or "raw phi- listinism". 28 As Pasternak concluded: "You still cling so firmly to creativity in its initial stage, that you
,, 2 9 need fear no transitions. There will not be any . For Pasternak in the middle of the nineteen-twenties
Kru~enych thus represented a curious monument of the literary past, still faithfully practising the extre- mist doctrines of pre-Revolutionary Futurism. But be- cause of its extremism and exclusivity Kru~enych's art had divorced itself from any vital forces of change and evolution, and it was in any case shortly destined to disappear from the field of published literature when once the authorities made it clear that Futurism had no place in Soviet literature. Nevertheless, a form of diffident literary friendship still existed between Pasternak and Kru~enych. It was not one con-
Pasternak and Kru~enych 53
ducive to a genuine fertilisation or inspiration of either poet, but it did lead both to produce a further handful of works which, though they will never figure on the literary fairway, still deserve rescuing from the oblivion of the archivist's bunker.
Both before the Revolution and in the nineteen- twenties Kru~enych was a prodigious publisher of his own and other people's writings. Some of his first productions had been the early Futurist almanacs. These were written out entirely by hand, mimeographed and hand-bound, and they appeared all in relatively small editions. 3° Kru~enych's output of publications conti- nued during his stay in Baku and Tiflis during the Ci- vil War and after his return to Moscow in 1921. In the nineteen-twenties, in addition to his own Futurist verse and prose, Kru~enych brought out bibliographies, memoirs, anthologies, collections of critical and po- lemical articles, etc., and the majority of these were now printed in larger editions by more sophisticated typographical methods.
The last of Kru~enych's typographically produced books appeared in 1928, by which time it was clear that the days of Futurism as a public literary move- ment were numbered. Although Kru~enych's publishing activities continued for several more years, and al- though he became a member of the Union of Soviet Writ- ers, he was forced to revert to his earlier method of handwritten and mimeographed publication. These later books appeared in small editions and usually they were only distributed among Kru~enych's private circle of friends.
One of Kru~enych's small privately produced and circulated editions appeared in fact in 1928: a book- let printed in a hundred copies only, and entitled Turnir po~tov (Poet's Tournament). 31 Its eighteen mi- meographed pages were entirely handwritten and con- tained facsimile autograph contributions by Valentin Kataev, Semen Kirsanov, Boris Pasternak, Igor' Teren- t'ev and Tat'jana Tolstaja. The following year a slight- ly modified version appeared in an edition of 150 co- pies. There were almost no changes in the text as such, but different "facsimilators" were used, and Kirsanov's "Obedennyj spit" now appeared written in the hand of Jurij Ole~a. Further slightly altered and
54 Christopher Barnes
revised editions also came out in 1930 and 1934. ~2 A central feature of all the various versions of Turnir po~tov was a competition between the poets of Moscow for the most original rhymes on Kru~enych's own sur- name~ The promotion of such a competition was typical of Kru~enych's talent for self-publicity, and also of his interest in word-plays and puns - a by-product,per- haps,of his Futurist preoccupation with the formal structure of the word. aa
In the 1930 edition of the booklet Kru~enych announc- ed and introduced the tournament, giving a brief account of its history and background:
Typ~up nosmoe, pe~op¢ pu~ c npuaeua~u~u sapu~oea~o2o Y HaC HMe~TCR BcepoccH~CHHe (H ~a~e BCeMHpH618) wax-
MaTHble H wawe4Hbre MaTHH, HOHHypc61 w a p a A , s a F e , o H , p e - ~yCOB, H TO~6NO nOgTaM He Be3eT - cOpeBHOBaHHR TyT He H~yT ~a~bwB H3Mbl3FaHHOFO ~ypz.Lt,43 Ha 3 a A B o p s a x y H 6 , ~ o - ~ y p - Ha~OB.
CaMaR H y ~ 6 T y p H a s HFpa - [] HaHdOn6WeM 3aFOHeJ XOT8~OC6 ~61 n o B e p H y T b Ho~ecHHH HCTOpHH H OTHp61T6
HaCTOR~HM HOHHypCOM p a r O~eCTR~HX TpHyM@Om pH@M, C'O- peBHOBaHHA p e 4 e T s o p q e 8 [ . .
- YHH yUeHblX] - CHa3a~ HpyHBH61X.
B.Maa~oec~u~ 1922 2. 3TH CTpOKH " ~HOnpOMT, 3anHCaHH61e MaRHOBCHHM B MOeM an6- OoMe, noc~ywMnH TOnHHOM H Aan6HeAweA pH@MOBaHHOA 3 a O a a e . P a 3 y M e e T C R , B3BO~HM~e Ha MeHA MHOFOHpaTH6~e O~BHHeHHR - TO#6HO Hcpa CnOS.
HOHHypc pH@M O0~SaHn B . H a T a e 8 , 3 a n H c a s w H ~ S MOeM a ~ 6 - OoMe, c o p e e H y S C MasHoBCHMM, c~eAym~ym WyTHy:
Ay~uo~ pu~a YTOHyBWHA e ~p~o~ax A n e ~ c e A EnHceH4 Kpy~e~x
P e ~ 4 a A w a s pH~Ma! B e ~ H 4 a A w H e 3 y 6 p 6 , C~OMa~M ceOe Ha STO~ A e ~ e 3y06~. H TaH pHOMOBa~H H 9TaH. A s n p o c T o s a - pH~Mosa~ - H 5 a c T a . HTO ~y4we?
Banenmun Kamaee ~a~bHSHWHe 3anHcH - ~HCRpOMT61RBHZHC60TBBTOM Ha
3 4 9TOT BOnpOc.
After these preliminaries came the various entries from Semen Kirsanov, A.Olsuf'eva, Vera Inber, Sergej Tret'jakov, Nikolaj Aseev, E.Lunev 35, Tat'jana Tolstaja, Ii'ja Sel'vinskij, Sergej Gorodeckij, N.Sakonskaja and Leonid Leonov. Most of the entries were short - some- times only a couplet. It may be of interest to quote a few of them for their curiosity value. Aseev's con- tribution was:
Pasternak and Kru~enych 55
3~b~X m a ~ s u m w e m H ~ 8 B H e H O K n o HOSaM m a u e n H p y u e m b l x .
From Tret'jakov came:
5 a n e p H H b l X Hmp ymeHb~X 0bi~ He u y m ~ H H p y u e H b l X . 36
Gorodeckij wrote:
CpeAs Bcex HepTeQ HenpHp~ueHHSlx O C T a ~ C £ ~HH OAHH H p y H e H B I X . ~
Leonov's item, presumably composed in a tramcar (I), was more elaborate:
OnbiT T p a M B a H H O F O T B O p H B C T B a : B O - O e p S b l X - H ~ b M e C R q . ~ e n a T b HSHSFO. B O - S T O p b l x :
Ha HOmHaX TOHBHb~X n o p o ~ B H a ~ b C O H a X ~ e ~ H T ~ O C H a . OHAHT H p y H e H b I X - ~ o p o A ~ e a OHblX B m ~ a a a x T o c ~ a . 38
But Boris Pasternak's contribution to the competition was of much greater length and originality. In fact, his eighteen-line poem only appeared in full in the final 1934 edition of Turnir po~tov. In earlier edi- tions the first six lines only were printed. 39 The complete text of this poem, which has not been repub- lished since 1934, is given below. ~° It was prefaced by a note from Pasternak, explaining the joke about animals in the later part of the poem:
R o H a MHe pH@MSl 5S,~H a n e p s o y u H H y , R 6H~ Kp~WOH n o HHM H n e H A p a H e H b l . 6b l~O~ M y H H T e R b HX H HbIHe MyHeHHH C K O p ~ R ~ 0 HHX: CnHHa H COHH8 n p H H p y U e H H b l X , H He 3 a T e M T a ~ y HX H3 p e H p y T U H H b l , H T 0 6 B p e H p y T b l C ~ a B a T b T e 6 e , H p y u e H b l X !
~ e H K H e M y ? H e F ~ 6 H O e H ~OMHOe
56 Christophe r Barnes
BceMy CHOHpCHO8 npHSBaH68 nOMXO~, 41 ~OR~CTHM, R C ~SCRTOH "48WHO8" CHOMHa~, Ry~y " 0 a p u o H H a " , RpHn~eTy. "ABBHeHOH"
HeT, TyT ( - a HaHOBbf TO ~bl~H 0pOHXHH!) ~ 2 3a~oxc~ 5 CaM 6eccMepTHSI~ "apanUOHOH"
NpHTOM He XHTpOCTb MHp 3Bepe~ 3aTpOHyBWH PyHHBIX, paBHO HaH H HenpHpyUeHHSlX, NpO~THCb C TO00~ no ~HHHH ~eTeHbIWeH. (ToF~a Hcuepnas CHOTHHHH AO AOHb~WeH) Hc4"epnas CHOTHble ABOp61 ~O ~OHblWeH Ha "HOHBXB" -~6 COW~HCB ~61M61, HpyueHb~X?
5. I . 28. B.RacTepHaH 43
The success of Pasternak's poem, even in its fore- shortened version, and the challenge suggested by the closing words of his prefatory note evoked responses both from Kru~enych and a number of others. In a sec-
w tion entitled "Podarki i otdarki ucastnlkam konkursa" in the 1930 edition of Turnir po~tov Kru~enych re- plied with a quatrain of his own:
Ha BopHca RacTepHaKa? He ~paHHCA, MacTep, Ha - Hal 3ByHOB WyM • • nacTH Mpas 4~ H~eT pH@My nacTop HaF . •
A further rejoinder came from Igor' Terent'ev, involv- ing inversion of the letters of Pasternak's and Kru- ~enych's names. This produced in the first case an ab- stract "transmental" cancrizans, and in the second - an onomatopoetic figure representing the call of a swan:
NOTOMy 4TO HAHPETCAR CBO~O~HBH 8My, 48M HaO~OpOT, H OH ~op~cb HaH ~e6eA6 pBeTCS B o ~ a s a 4yp XblHO XblHOHyBH
BCRKHQ pa3 AO3T eMy O~HH HpyueH61x HMBHHO nO3TOMy
HaTypa~bHblA Hp~U~HS, X BHycHe~ ~HWBHblX #5
And in the 1934 edition the following couplet by Aseev appeared as one of a whole series about various Soviet poets which was printed under the heading "Krat~aj~ij putevoditel' N.Aseeva po sovremennoj po- ~zii (1929)":
Pasternak and Kru~enych 57
0omeMy mecmep Har? ~OTOMy: OH OacmepHaH! ~
Jurij Ole~a also rose to the challenge of Pasternak's name in the 1934 edition, with the following "Eksprom- ty":
HsoOpe~ npHs~Bmy Oacmep Ham. ~O~H Tbl C 8 0 8 He 8 p a F H8 C M O T p H n o C T O p O H a M ,
nepecmpoAc~, 0acTepHax! ~7
YmOHyBWHA s 0b, CTpHH~X 0apaxTaemcm 0acTepHaH.
In view of its light-hearted context and content it would be incongruous to provide Pasternak's poem to Kru~enych with a weighty critical apparatus. In addi- tion to the bulk of his genuinely inspired, serious lyrics Pasternak occasionally wrote light or humorous poetry - his verses for children "Karusel'" and "Zveri- nec", for instance, and other short vers de circonstan- ces, inscriptions and dedications. 48 Nevertheless, this particular poem is testimony to Pasternak's great virtuosity and inventive rhyme technique, and it alone would explain why he was regarded along with Majakov- skij and Aseev as one of the arch-innovators in modern Russian rhyme. ~9 The poem contains numerous examples of "modern", inexact rhyme, compensated by acoustic similarities preceding the stressed ending; dactylic rhymes such as: pervou~inu/mu~enik/rekrut~inu; lomkoe/ pomchoju/skomkaju; bronchii/zatronuv~i/deteny~ej/dony- ~ek (some of which are closer to assonance than to ge- nuine rhyme); and truncated feminine rhyme: dra~eny/ Kru~enych. There is also a hint of internal rhyme with- in the second line of the poem: "Ja bil krju~on po him i pek dra~eny".
~iv Kru~enych, Kalendar' and Turnir po~tov were not KruSenych's only publishing ventures to involve Boris Pasternak. In 1933 he published a small brochure en-
58 Christopher Barnes
titled Knigi Borisa Pasternaka za 20 let. This was a booklet of eight pages, published in a private edition of one hundred copies to celebrate the twentieth anni- versary of Pasternak's literary debut. 5° It contained a brief introduction by Kru~enych, a list of Paster- nak's books published to date, and the text of two of his earliest published poems, "Jav m~sl' gluchuju o sebe " and "Sumerki slovno oruzenoscy roz ." which had not been reprinted since their appearance in the almanac Lirika in 1913. The brochure also made men- tion of another work planned by Kru~enych with the title ~revo Pasternak. This book was also scheduled for 1933, but it never finally appeared. The nature of its contents has never been publicised, although a copy of the text is apparently preserved in the Majakovskij Museum in Moscow. sl
In 1934, however, Kru~enych produced a further book of Pasternakiana. As a note on the cover announced, this was the 244th of Kru~enych's private "productions" (produkcii) and the fifth in his series called "Bjuro zlych nadpisej". The mimeographed typescript pamphlet consisted of six pages and carried the title Vybro~ennyj Pasternak. There was no indication of the size of the edition. A brief note from Kru~enych, dated January 1933, explained, that he was publishing some of Paster- nak's little known works which had apparently been re- jected by the author himself. There then followed the text of three items. The poem "Ve~erelo. Povsjudu/ kur~avjas'/retivo " which subsequently went into Vtoroe ro~denie (1932) was given in its first, short manuscript version, consisting of only twenty-four lines. "Poka my po Kavkazu lazaem . . ", which was also included in Vtoroe ro~denie, was printed in an earlier version taken from the magazine Novyj Mir, 1931, No.12. And a selection of the earlier, magazine variants of the verse novel Spektorskij completed Kru~enych's miscella- ny of "rejected Pasternak".
Kru~enych's final publishing venture on Pasternak's behalf was a mimeographed typescript edition of his translation of Shakespeare's Othello. This private edi- tion had been organised by Kru~enych for a body called the "Vsesojuznoe upravlenie po ochrane avtorskich prav", one of whose functions was apparently to provide the- atres, etc., with private editions of texts for study and reading, etc. This edition appeared in 1945, the same year as the official public edition of Pasternak's translation appeared, published by Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo chudo~estvennoj literatury. It seems strange that an organization which was supposed to pro- tect authors' rights had not troubled at least to seek
Pasternak and Kru~enych 5~
the translator's permission before reproducing his work! And Pasternak's own reaction to this private e- dition - and to Kru~enych's part in its publication - was recorded in a laconic but expressive inscription written on a copy of the work,which Kru~enych one day showed to the translator:
CHaCT~HBblH HpyHeHbIX (eCnH aTO C H a C T b e ) , S H He R o ~ o a p e - BaR o cy~SCTBOBaHHH TaHOFO #HTOFp. {a~HHSCHOFO} H3~aHHR.
5.F1.
3a C O C T O R H H 8 T S H C T ~ H 8 O T B S H a ~ , RepeBHpa~H 083 M S H R . 5 2
In addition to the poem in Turnir po#toV Pasternak produced two other poems dedicated to Kru~enych. Both were preserved in Kru~enych's archive until their owner died in 1968,and neither has been published in full.From a technical and artistic point of view they are less
J
distinguished and memorable than the earlier poem, but they form an interesting comment on Pasternak's rela- tionship to Kru~enych and also throw light on his ge- neral mood and attitudes during the war years. The first poem in fact deals with two literary personali- ties with whom Pasternak had dealings at this time:
BMeCTe C A~eweQ B o 6 ~ e c T s e My3 • HSHSm x o p o w e ~ He H a x s a n ~ c b .
H noA pysy c Mopo3osb, M - BeprH~eM B a~y, - Bce W~By B CBeTe poaoeoM H S o c s p e C e H b £ m~y.
8 a s r y c T a 1943 r.
The first verse is a polite compliment to Kru~enych and a simple expression-of pleasure in his company to- gether with the "muses". The second stanza perhaps re- quires more explanation. The Morozov referred to is Michail Michajlovi~ Morozov (1897-1952), the theatric- al scholar, critic and Shakespeare specialist. Paster- nak corresponded with him in the early war years in connection with his Shakespeare translations 5s, and
50 Christopher Barnes
the somewhat tense nature of their collaboration is hinted at in the poem. s~ Their disagreements had aris- en over the new translation of Shakespeare which Pas- ternak was preparing for Detgiz publishers. Pasternak's translation method permitted what Anikst has called "deviations in detail from the original", and produced not a "literal copy" but a "creative reconstruction" of the original text. ss This contrasted with Morozov's scholastic demand for closeness to the original, and his preference for a more literal translation, s6 Evi- dently Pasternak's expectations of "resurrection" (see line 8) were not quickly realised: Morozov had his own way on most of the disputed points; the texts approved by him were published repeatedly in the nineteen-for- ties and-fifties, and it was not until 1968 that an- other version of one play, Hamlet, was published. This used the Goslitizdat edition of 1953 with Pasternak's own manuscript corrections. The result was a text close to that of the original edition of 1941, which had most nearly satisfied the translator's wishes, sT
The last of Pasternak's poems to Kru~enych was writ- ten some two and a half years later, to greet him on his sixtieth birthday. (Kru~enych was born on February 9th {New Style 21st} 1886.)
Ane~ce~ KpyueN~x (BMecTo n o a A p a B ~ e H H a )
R n p e B p a ~ a m c 6 B c T a p ~ H a , A T 6 1 A e H 6 0 T O ~HR BC~ H p a w e . 0 O o z e , HaK MHe ~ a ~ e ~ a HaHFpaHHaR 60~pOCT6 eawa !
Ho ~ H e n p a a co BCeX CTOpOH. YnpeH Te6e HeOOOCHOBaH: ~aH A, T61 pOHOM NO~a~BH, TeM, 4TO cyAbOoQ He ~ a O a ~ o a a H .
H O~aHH~ npaeH~aM MOHM, HaH BO§s 4TO COT6 Ha CaMOM ~ e ~ 8 , - ~ a e a ~ - H a op~eH y 4 p e ~ M RpaB~HBO~ WHaH~ 8 4epHoM T e ~ e !
~ 0 3 B 0 ~ 6 Q o 3 ~ p a B H T 6 0 T ~yWH Te6s H n o ~ e ~ a T 6 B H a r p a ~ y
Pasternak and Kru~enych 61
H BnpeAb ~BeCTH. MeHTaA, nMWH H HaC CBOHm np~mepoM paAyA.
21 ~ e B p a ~ 1948 r .
In the first stanza Pasternak speaks of his difficulty in sharing Kru~enych's apparent buoyancy and energy. The external circumstances of Pasternak's life at this time in fact gave little reason for optimism. If Kru- ~enych had been reduced to silence for his unrepentant adherence to extremist literary doctrines, Pasternak also had, in his own phrase, not been "spoiled by fate". Although he had begun again to write and publish during the war years, for some years prior to that the unfav- ourable political climate, as well as a difficult trans- itory phase in his own internal, artistic evolution, had caused Pasternak to turn increasingly to transla- tion work for a livelihood, and his publication of ori- ginal verse and prose had virtually ceased in the late thirties. Yet, as Pasternak writes in the second stan- za, any rebuke to Kru~enych is "unfounded": by silenc- ing them Providence had perhaps saved both Pasternak and Kru~enych from a worse fate in the Stalinist t@r- ror, and it is presumably to this circumstance that Pasternak alludes in his poem. Furthermore, at the actual time of composing his birthday greeting to Kru- ~enych,Pasternak's morale as a creative artist was at a low ebb. The dramatist Aleksandr Gladkov cites the first twelve lines of the poem in his recently publish- ed memoirs 58, and he goes on to explain:
Future biographers of Pasternak will probably call these years - 1945 and 1946 - the period of his deep spiritual crisis. Presuma- bly the events of his inner life took place as follows: a sharp and tormenting awareness of having reached an artistic impasse (lack of success with his long poem and the theatres), extreme dissatisfaction with himself and a decision to return, as an es- cape, to the novel in prose which he had begun long ago, but abandoned. 59
But although this birthday poem contains suggestions of his differences with Kru~enych, and also a rather dubious compliment to the "pravdivoj V.zlznl. v ~ernom tele", Pasternak ends on a note of generous apprecia- tion of the sexagenarian Futurist. Ultimately the two men perhaps had little in common either on an artistic or a human plane; reportedly Pasternak's attitude to Kru~enych was always tinged with mockery; and it would be unfair to suggest that the items reviewed in the present article are anything other than curiosities of
62 Christopher Barnes
the literary hedgerow. Nevertheless, they are worth valuing as intriguing novelties. Like the figure of Kru~enych himself, they can, in Pasternak's words, "gladden us with their example".
Pasternak and Kruzenych 63
NOTES
See V.Veidle (Wladimir Weydle), "Boris Pasternak i modernizm", in: Boris Pasternak, SoEinenija, Ann Arbor, 1961, ~01.1, pp. xxxv-xliv; also I.N. Bugman, "0 rannej lirike Pasternaka", in: Sbornik statej, posvjas'Eennych tvorEestvu Borisa LeonidoviZa Pasternaka, Miinchen, 1962, p. 209. "Vassermanova reakcija", in: Rukonog, Moskva, 19.14, p. 34; re- printed in: V.Markov, Manifesty i programmy russkich futuris- tov, Miinchen, 1967, p. 113. This aspect is noted in: N.Chard%ev, "Majakovskij i Chlebni- kov“, in his and V.Trenin's PoBtiEeskaja kul'tura Majakovsko- $70, Moskva, 1970, p. 318, and it was discussed at some length in C.J.Barnes,, The Poetry of Boris Pasternak with Special Re- ference to the Period 1913-1917, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 244 f. See C.J.Barnes, op. cit. pp. 274 f. V.Markov, Russian Futurism: A History, London, 1969, p. 270. The manuscript department of the Institute of World Literature (IMLI) in Moscow contains a letter to Pasternak of April 3rd, 1926, from Daniil Charms and Aleksandr Vvedenskij, and a fur- ther letter of the same year from Aleksandr Vasil'eviz Tufanov, who also appended a plan of his "Osnovy zaumnogo miroo&%?%e- nija" and "Deklaracija zaumnikov" for Pasternak's inspection. Tufanov's letter was published in: Milan Djurzinov, "Neizvest- noe pis'mo k Pasternaku", Annuaire de Za FacuZte' de PhiZoso- phie de Z'Universit& de Skopje, 1971, vol. 23, pp. 435-440. I am grateful to Dr..L. Fleisman for this and a number of other useful bibliographical references. See V.Markov, The Longer Poems of Velemir ChZebnikov, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962, pp. 20 and 206. See also his "Mysli o russkom futurizme", NOUyj iurnal, 1954, no.38, p. 176. Some new light on Pasternak's relationship to the Futurist movement is shed in L. Fleigman, "Istorija'Centrifugi'", Stat'i o Pas- ternake, Bremen, 1977, pp. 62-101; also Michel Aucouturier, "Ob odnom kljuze k Oehrannoj gramote" , paper delivered at the Colloque Boris Pasternak, Cgrisy, France, September 1975. V.Markov, Russian Futurism: A History, p. 270. "Kru~enych" in: ziv K.Y%Eenych, Moskva, 1925, pp. 1-2. This book was in effect a second edition of Buka russkoj Ziteratury, Moskva, 1923, the only real difference being the addition of Pasternak's preface and the change of title. "Buka russkoj li- teratury" (Bogeyman of Russian Literature) was in fact the title of Sergej Tret'jakov's essay printed in the collection. The book was part of Kruzenych's perennial self-advertisement campaign and had started life as a series of papers read at literary gatherings in Tiflis (see V.Markov, Russian Futurism: A History, pp. 349-350). It also contained contributions by David Burljuk, vi.;.
Tat'jana Tolstaja(-Vezorka) and Sergej Rafalo- Pasternak's preface was reprinted in his Sozinenija, vol.
III,- pp. 155-156.
Christopher Barnes 64
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
"Vzamen predislovija" in: A.Kruzenych, Kalendar', Moskva, 1926, pp. 3-4; reprinted in: A.E.Kruzenych, Izbrannoe, edited and introduced by V.Markov, Miinchen, 1973, pp. 353-354. See also Vladimir Markov, "Publikacii po russkomu futurizmu", Russian Literature, 1971, No.1, pp. 5-7. This article was first dis- cussed in K.Pomorska, Russian FormaZist Theory and Its Poetic Ambience, The Hague, 1968, pp. 29 and 108. SoEinenija, vol. III, p. 156. See also the editors' commenta- ry, ibid., pp. 257-258. Kruzenych seems to have h.ad a reputation for importuning people with requests and suggestions. Even later on, when he had ceased publishing himself, he maintained an energetic thumb in numerous literary pies. Aleksandr Gladkov describes one of Pasternak's play-readings in Moscow as attended by "the inevi- table A.E.Kruzenych". See A.Gladkov, Vstrezi s Pasternakom, Paris, 1973, p. 117. For other fleeting mentions of Kruzenych, see ibid., pp. 84 and 128. Ju.Tynjanov, "Prome&tok" (19241, in his Archaisty i no??atoryr Leningrad, 1929, pp. 562-563. See also in Ju.N.Tynjanov, Poe'tika. Istorija literatury. Kino, Moskva, 1977, p. 182. Ibid., p. 563. The most famous example of this is still perhaps Kruzenych's poem:
Lblp '5~~7 wn YBWYP
CHyrl BM co 6y
p J-l 33 See KruEenych, Pomada, Moskva, no date, reprinted in his Iz- brannoe, p. 55. A typical example of this is Kru?enych's Utinoe gnezdyzko dur- nych S~OV, Moskva, 1913, which is described by Markov: "Images of nonsense, ugliness, violence, and coarseness pervade the book: stench, an executioner, a plague, cannibalism, hanging nipples, a dead worm, spit, vomit, an idiot, and belching are among them." See V.Markov, Russian Futurism: A History, p. 205. The same polarisation of form and content within one man's opus also occurred in Futurist excursions into the visual arts. Compare, for instance, Larionov's semi-abstract "Rayon- nist" paintings (Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art 1863-1922, London, 1962, plates XI, 76, 77, 79) with his "soldier" and other primitivist compositions (ibid., plates VI, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74). Zudesnik was the title of one of Krusenych's books,published in MOSCOW in 1922. The word is Kruzenych's own derivation from
kudesnik (sorcerer) and the verb zudit' (to itch, irritate) and its related compounds. Kruzenych's work contains several further derivatives from the root zud. For details of these, see in H.L.Pasternak, La Reazione di Wassermann: saggi e ma- teriaZi suZZ'arte, introduction and notes by Cesare G. de Mi-
Pasternak and Kruzenych 65
chelis, Padova,l970, pp. 175-116. I8 Sodinenija, vol. III, p. 156. I9 Izbrannoe, p. 353. " Ibid., p. 354. " SoFinenija, vol. III, p. 156. 22 Izbrannoe, p. 353. Pasternak had already inveighed against the
theatrical tendency in much post-Revolutionary poetry in "Ne- skol'ko poloienij", Sozinenija, vol. III, p. 152. This thea- tricality was due in large measure to the example of Majakov- skij, and one of the poems in Kruzenych's KaZendar', "Vesna s dvumja ugo;Eenijami", opens in a strongly derivative, Maja- kovskian manner. See Izbrannoe, p. 355.
23 Izbrannoe, pp. 353-354. 24 See his letter of 22nd December, 1959 to Jacqueline de Proyart
in the latter's book, Pasternak, Paris, 1964, p. 238. 25 "Ochrannaja gramota", So?&zenija, vol. II, pp. 276-277. 26 "Eernyj bokal", SoEinenija, vol. III, p. 149. 27 Ibid., p. 148. *' One more recent commentator has been less reticent: "Kruzenych,
Russia's Greatest Non-Poet" is the title of Vladimir Markov's introduction to the reprinted miscellany of Kruzenych: See Izbrannoe, pp. 7-12.
*' Ibid., p. 354. 3o Eg. Igra v a&, Starinnaja Zjubov' and Mirskonca, all publish-
ed in Moscow in 1912. 31 Turnir poe‘tov, Moskva, 1928. A list of the intended recipients
of the copies appeared on page 2. There names are given as: N.Aseev, G.Bebutov, 0. and E.Beskin, L. and O.Brik, E.Byvalov, Artem Veselyj, S.Vasil'Eenko, N.Vengrov, G.Vinokur, V.Vol'pin, V.Inber, V.Kataev, S.Kirsanov, I.Kljun, M.Kozyrev, N.Kogan, A.Kontoroviz, E.Lunev, V.Majakovskij, A.Meksin, A.Mironov, P.Neznamov, E.Nikitina, Ju.OleEa, A.Olsuf'eva, B.Pasternak, V.Percov, D. and M. Petrovskij, F.Raskol'nikov, G.Rogal', N.Sakonskaja, I.Sel'vinskij, V.Serov, Ju.Solnceva, N.Stepa- nov, F. Suvorov, I.Terent'ev, S.Tret'jakov, T.Tolstaja, Ju. Tynjanov, V.Tronin, Ju. Tynjanov (sic - his name appears twice), I.IJrazov, Vera Chlebnikova, N.&zak, A.?.izerin, G. Cvetkov, V.gklovskij, B.Jarogevskij, and others.
32 The 1930 edition appeared in 150 copies; the 1934 version - in one hundred.
33 The technical programme of the 'Hylaea' Futurists,published in 1913,had included the development of inventive rhyme as one of its items. See V.Markov, Manifesty i progranony russkich futuristov, p. 52. Kruzenych himself had already appeared as compiler and publisher of other men's puns and ambiguities, both intentional and accidental. See, for instance, his 500 novych ostrot i kalamburov PuZkina, Moskva 1924 and Zaumnyj jazyk u SejfuZZinoj, Vs.Ivanova, Leonova, BabeZja, I.SeZ'vin- skogo, A.VeseZogo i dr., Moskva, 1925. The latter was republ- ished in 1927 under the title Novoe v pisateZ'skoj technike.
66 Christopher Barnes
34 tirnir pOe‘tOV, Moskva, 1930, pp. 2-3. The book contained a number of extra items "hors contours"; these were pieces by Aseev, A.Ostrovskij, Kirsanov, M.Pustynin and Chlebnikov. In view of the rarity of the editions of Turnir Poztov and the fact that even some of the prose texts contain untranslatable word play, all quotations are given in the original Russian.
35 This name is most probably one of Kruzenych's own pseudonyms. See V.Markov, Russian Futurism: A History, p. 391.
36 Turnir poe’tov, Moskva, 1930, p. 4. 37 Ibid., p. 5. 38 ibid., p. 8. 3g In the 1930 edition a footnote on page 9 explained: “nepeoiia-
a0Topom 6bmo Taume HanMcauo K HeMy npeAkicnoekie, rAe meHAy
npO~MM, 8bLuyrMsanaCb CObCTBeHHaR $IaMMnMR.” In the 1928 and 1929 editions the poem appeared (the first six lines only) in a facsimile of Pasternak's own handwriting. Only this abbre- viated text has ever been reprinted. It appeared, for instan- ce, in facsimile, in Zauka i fizn', 1969, no. 6, p. 130, where it was printed along with some other extracts from tir- nir poe'tov. It was also reproduced in La Reazione di Wasser- mann, p. 64..
ho The poem appeared neither in the Michigan edition of Paster- nak's works ~So8inenija~~,, nor in the Soviet "Biblioteka po&za" edition of StichotvorenzJa i po&?g, Moskva-Leningrad, 1965.
It1 rioryxoD - nomexola. (Pasternak's footnote) 42 I.e. Pugkin. 43 Turnir poe'tov, Moskva, 1934, p. 6. 44 Turnir poe'tov, Moskva, 1930, p. 17; also reprinted in La Rea-
zione di Wassermann, p. 173. 45 Turnir poe‘tov, Moskva, 1930, p. 9. Immediately after Terent'ev's
item, on the same page, there appeared the "Zaklju~itel'noe slovo V.Kataeva": “A BCe-TaKM MOR pki@Ma flyWE EceX. nOflpOLL!V
BCTaTb! tiOHHyPC KOHCleH. R er0 OTHpbln, fl er0 M 3aHpblBaiQ. Banew
TMH HaTaee. ”
46 Turnir poe'toV, Moskva, 1934, p. 3. 47 Ibid., p. 5. The fourth line here seems to be an allusion to
the remarks by communist critics on Pasternak's writings. In the previous three years Pasternak's Spektorskij,Ochrannaja gramota and Vtoroe rozdenie had all attracted several hostile reviews from critics who, while.acknowledging Pasternak's ta- lent, condemned his failure to escape from his earlier "idea- lism" and "subjectivism" and emerge as a socially aware poet. It was pointed out that if he were to justify himself as a Soviet poet, Pasternak must change his outlook, or "perestro- it'sja".
4* A further example of the latter is an unpublished dedication by Pasternak to another participant in Turnir poktoV, and one of Kruzenych's associates from the 'early post-ReVOlUtiOnarY days in Baku,- the novelist and poetess Tat'jana Vladimirovna
Pasternak and Kruzenych 67
Tolstaja-Vezorka. In 1933 she presented Pasternak with an in- scribed copy of her novel Bestuiev-MarZinskij, Moskva, 1932. In return for this Pasternak sent her his VozduSnye puti, Mos- kva, 1933, with the following inscription: Tamwne BJraduMupoarte Toxmoc qeM HesacnytueHHee YeCTb,
TIM 3HaH ee gw Hat ceqeHHeil.
BcB 3TO 0 npekl36blTKe eCTb
!‘i 9 BaweM ReCTHOM nOCBR~eHb!d.
6naroAapw. rOpNyCb M paA
flOllaCTb nO,lJ EaLU npoTeHTopaT. 6.~1.33 Mocma
For two further examples of this genre, see below Pasternak's other two poems dedicated to Kruzenych.
4g See V.Brjusov, "0 rifme" (1924) in his Izbrannye so&zenija, Moskva, 1955, vol. II, pp. 345-348.
5o tiuzenych published a similar bibliography of Aseev's work the following year: linigi N.Aseeva za 20 Jet, Moskva, 1934.
:: see La Reazione di Wassermann, p. 173. This copy was acquired from Kruzenych by a private collector in Moscow and it remains in the latter's possession. His col- lection also contains one other item connecting Kruzenych‘and Pasternak. This is an edition of Pasternak's Izbrannye stichi, Moskva, 1929, with a brief, undated dedication on the title page: Aneue
M36pmme cw {printed text of title page} M nyrwafl @oTorpa@iR
6. ilacTepkiaH
.In addition to his Pasternak publications Kruzenych also made an album of photographs of Pasternak - both portraits and group photos, showing him together with Aleksandr Prokof'ev, Il'ja Sel'vinskij and others. This album, entitled "B.Paster- nak" and containing materials from the period 1925-1948, is preserved in CGALI, fond 379. See CGALI. PutevoditeZ'. Li- teratura, Moskva, 1963, p. 347.
53 Pasternak spent a large part of the war together with other evacuated writers in Eistopoll. Here he worked mainly on his translations of Shakespeare, and also on an original drama of his own. See "K perevodam gekspirovskich dram (is perepiski Borisa Pasternaka) *I, Masterstvo perevoda, sbornik gestoj, Moskva, 1970, p. 349 fn. See A.Gladkov, op.&t., for a memoir account of life in the writers' community in Eistopol'.
54 The second stanza was apparently an impromptu composition by Pasternak, and was quoted by Morozov as a complete poem in it- self. In Morozov's rendering the first line of the quatrain read: "Ja pod ruku s Morozovym . . ". See A.Gladkov, op. cit., p. 102.
55 A. Anikst, introduction to Vil'jam sekspir (William Shakespeare), Tragedii - sonety, Moskva, 1968,. pp. 21-22.
68 Christopher Barnes
56 In a letter of May 23rd, 1942, to Anna Osipovna Naumova, chief editor and assistant director of Detgiz, Pasternak wrote: "His {Morozov's) advice reduces,me to despair. I do not know the origin of this constraint which makes him accept a translation which is quite alien to him and which in its essence remains incomprehensible . . He condescendingly considers it to be quite close and only wanted to increase its accuracy, whereas my own pretensions never went so far . . I completely deny contemporary views on translation. The works of Lozinskij, Radlova, Margak and Eukovskij are remote from me and seem artificial, shallow and soulless. I share the point of view of the last century, when they saw in translation a literary task which comprehended this at a spiritual level and left no place for linguistic enthusiasms." See "K perevodam gekspirov- skich dram (iz perepiski Borisa Pasternaka)", 20~. cit., p. 342.
s7 V.sekspir, GomZet, prim datskij, Moskva, 1941. 58 A.Gladkov, op. cit., pp. 102-103. 5q Ibid., p. 103.
