Christa Wolf
Dylan and Kamala
was quickly blacklisted hasn't yet appeared on my home account. "Quickly"
is accurate maybe on the grand scale of history, but otherwise not. In
fact, Prokofiev fell from favor in the general purge of "formalists" in
1948, after well over a decade of professional and artistic success as a
Soviet artist under papa Stalin. Although it's true that my Kobbe's guide
lists foreign or partial or posthumous premieres for most of his operas, so
all was not entirely rosy.
Furthermore, my dictionary of composers says he returned to Russia in 1933,
not 1935 as Galina Vishnevskaya writes in her (lively! read it!)
autobiography and as I faithfully reported to the group. I am inclined to
trust the scholars over the soprano.
Dylan
=dbd=
Anja Beuter
>Has anyone read Christa Wolf? [...] In particular, I am looking for responses
>to her 1980 novel, "Cassandra" which is a retelling of the grecian myth from a female's
>perspective.
Yes, I read 'Cassandra' couple of years ago. Found its theme interesting, but
that was about it. I don't particularly like her style, for me her writings are
way too intellectual. And I mean that in the sense that (in contrast to other
intellectual writers e.g. such as George Eliot or Woolf) her intellectualism is
devoid of any emotional backing. Her works seem so constructed that they are,
well, pretty boring to my mind. Her characters lack - soul. :-(
Regards
Anja Beuter
-----
abe...@gmx.de
"'Is it about a bicycle?' he asked." -Flann O'Brien, Third Policeman
Paul Ilechko
>Her works seem so constructed that they are,
>well, pretty boring to my mind. Her characters lack - soul. :-(
What else would you expect from a Stasi shill ?
***************
Paul Ilechko
http://www.transarc.com/~pilechko/homepage.htm
Anja Beuter
>: What else would you expect from a Stasi shill ?
>Precisely. It's interesting, though, that nobody wanted to see what was
>plain to see before the Stasi connection came out -- the woman can neither
>write nor think.
Well, although I'm definitely not a fan of Wolf's (just the contrary), I believe
that this judgement is a bit too harsh. She's not a good writer, d'accord. But
she cannot think? Hugh, I think I wouldn't go as far as that.
And BTW - this is addressed to Paul -, I think that in judging a writer's work
one shouldn't mix up the question of literary talent with that of political
point of view. Where will it possibly lead us? Where's the insight?
What has Wolf's Stasi-connection have to do with the way she designs her
characters and with her way of constructing a plot? Take for example, Monika
Maron. She's also suspected of having worked for the Stasi, and does that
disqualify her as a reasonably good writer? Or, we could also go back in
history. Fontane's political position wasn't free from a certain amount of
antisemitism, and Thomas Mann didn't win any medals for the way he acted during
the Nazi-regime. Does this tell us anything about the literary quality of these
two writers?
I don't want to start a discussion about Stasi - and, no, I'm not from Eastern
Germany, if you may have come to think so -, but to my mind, almost 10 years
after reunification, we should stop thinking in black-and-white. And I don't
mean to forget everything that has happened, no way. But it's always easy for
those who see a dictatorial regime from the outside to say, well, I would have
stood up against the repressors. I'm not too sure about that...
Paul Ilechko
>And BTW - this is addressed to Paul -, I think that in judging a writer's work
>one shouldn't mix up the question of literary talent with that of political
>point of view. Where will it possibly lead us? Where's the insight?
Actually, I haven't read any Wolf. In fact, I'm miserably badly read
in modern german literature, with the exception of Grass. However, I
think that the kind of mentality that collaborates may be the kind of
mind that is, how shall I say this, lacking in poetry ? And there is a
big difference between doing what is necessary to survive in a
totalitarian environment and actively taking advantage of it.
Paul.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
>
>
>>And BTW - this is addressed to Paul -, I think that in judging a writer's work
>>one shouldn't mix up the question of literary talent with that of political
>>point of view. Where will it possibly lead us? ...
In Wolf's case it led to socialist realist dreck.
J. Del Col
--
CHROME NUDE
Our lady of the highways, Untarnished daughter of Eve,
pose for us sinners. return our desire,
Grant us what mercy metal allows. icy outline of concupiscence.
Douglas Clark
I read all Christa Wolf. And will read the new one when it arrives
in paperback. She is interesting.
--
Douglas Clark voice: +44 1225 427104
69 Hillcrest Drive, mailto: D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
Bath, Somerset, BA2 1HD, UK Lynx: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
Francis Muir
>
> I read all Christa Wolf. And will read the new one when it arrives
> in paperback. She is interesting.
Hey Duggy, welcome back. In good health I hope?
Francis
Anja Beuter
>Actually, I haven't read any Wolf. In fact, I'm miserably badly read
>in modern german literature, with the exception of Grass.
Shame on you! ;-)
>However, I
>think that the kind of mentality that collaborates may be the kind of
>mind that is, how shall I say this, lacking in poetry ?
Fair enough. Would you care to convince me with some examples?
>And there is a
>big difference between doing what is necessary to survive in a
>totalitarian environment and actively taking advantage of it.
Agreed. But at the same time it's a highly difficult question to distinguish
between these two. There's only a very thin line (or no line at all, since the
difference is gradual rather than binary), and whether Wolf can be accused of
being guilty of the former or the latter remains an open question.
Paul Ilechko
>>However, I
>>think that the kind of mentality that collaborates may be the kind
>>of mind that is, how shall I say this, lacking in poetry ?
>Fair enough. Would you care to convince me with some examples?
Well, you could take the art of the Soviet Union pre and post Stalin,
as an interesting contrast. The early revolutionary days saw a
flowering in the arts in many fields, particularly the visual arts.
But once art became subservient to the political message, it
deteriorated incredibly.
>>And there is a
>>big difference between doing what is necessary to survive in a
>>totalitarian environment and actively taking advantage of it.
>Agreed. But at the same time it's a highly difficult question to distinguish
>between these two. There's only a very thin line (or no line at all, since the
>difference is gradual rather than binary), and whether Wolf can be accused of
>being guilty of the former or the latter remains an open question.
I don't know enough to comment on that.
Dylan Bryan-Dolman
>>>However, I
>>>think that the kind of mentality that collaborates may be the kind
>>>of mind that is, how shall I say this, lacking in poetry ?
> you could take the art of the Soviet Union pre and post Stalin,
> as an interesting contrast. The early revolutionary days saw a
> flowering in the arts in many fields, particularly the visual arts.
> But once art became subservient to the political message, it
> deteriorated incredibly.
I don't know that this is a consistent rule. Seems to me that the problem
was less control of art by ideology than that the ideology in question was
anti-intellectual. Much of that early revolutionary art was as subservient
to the political as anything produced under Stalin. Many artists rushed to
make the Party their muse, and it drew excellent work from them, sometimes
their best. The problem didn't begin until Stalin starting imposing, not
political ideas, but aesthetic ones, in the big denunciation of formalism
for instance, that destroyed Prokofiev and drove Shostakovich's true art
into the closet for decades. While used for the political purpose of
instilling general terror and providing Stalin with something to purge, the
ideas behind this bullying were no more political in themselves than Samuel
Goldwyn's injunction to Andre Previn that there be "no minor chords" in the
soundtracks to his movies.
Many tyrants have been smart enough to get the best artists around to work
on their propaganda, fortunately for art, since it meant more artists were
clothed and fed. It just happens to be the misfortune of the twentieth
century that so many of our grandees have subscribed to the foolish error
that the most socially powerful art is lowest-common-denominator populism.
Dylan
=dbd=
Douglas Clark
I never went away. But I read less here nowadays as I have many other
things to do. And I miss Vance.
Paul Ilechko
wrote:
>I don't know that this is a consistent rule. Seems to me that the problem
>was less control of art by ideology than that the ideology in question was
>anti-intellectual. Much of that early revolutionary art was as subservient
>to the political as anything produced under Stalin. Many artists rushed to
>make the Party their muse, and it drew excellent work from them, sometimes
>their best. The problem didn't begin until Stalin starting imposing, not
>political ideas, but aesthetic ones [snip]
Not sure I agree with you here. Based on my reading, it seems that
during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
sense of liberation from Tsarist opression, and that is what produced
their best work, not subservience to bolshevik dogma. Of course, it is
no longer acceptable to think that ANYTHING good came out of the
russian revolution.
Anja Beuter
> >>However, I
> >>think that the kind of mentality that collaborates may be the kind
> >>of mind that is, how shall I say this, lacking in poetry ?
>
>>Fair enough. Would you care to convince me with some examples?
>
>Well, you could take the art of the Soviet Union pre and post Stalin,
>as an interesting contrast. The early revolutionary days saw a
>flowering in the arts in many fields, particularly the visual arts.
>But once art became subservient to the political message, it
>deteriorated incredibly.
Yes, agreed, it seems to be a historical fact that times of radical change on
the political level cause a golden age of the arts. The Weimar Republic in
Germany can be counted as another example for a time in which artists were
highly productive. Everyone knows that this productiveness ended rather abruptly
in 1933...
But the problem with Christa Wolf seems to lie somewhere else: not her _art_ was
meant to support the political message of the DDR's leaders - rather the
contrary -, but she as a person seemed to have been subservient to the Stasi.
After the Gauck institution opened its gates for the people to read the Stasi
documents, suddenly one became aware of the fact that Christa Wolf - *that*
writer who had always presented herself as a critical voice in the DDR - had
worked for the people she pretended to criticise all along. That was a blow in
the face of many people.
And they didn't forgive Wolf her double face. In retrospect, the fact that she
spoke on one of those huge demonstrations shortly after the wall had come down
and played her role as a rebel against dictatorship so well, was felt as a sheer
mockery. Wolf went to Santa Barbara to escape the critical questions. And when I
saw her at a reading in Cologne a few years ago, there was an atmosphere
(established by the presenter's way of introducing her and of course by herself)
that made it pretty clear that questions about her Stasi past weren't on the
agenda. In her typical distant attitude she told the audience right away that
she wasn't going to talk about any of this...
So what are we supposed to do with her? How are we supposed to treat her as a
writer? Her writings and her actual work for the Stasi seem rather incompatible.
And that's what confuses most. And - to come back to my original point -
therefore it's impossible to judge her writings by taking her political past
into consideration.
maureen scobie
....
> So what are we supposed to do with her? How are we supposed to treat her as a
> writer? Her writings and her actual work for the Stasi seem rather incompatible.
> And that's what confuses most. And - to come back to my original point -
> therefore it's impossible to judge her writings by taking her political past
> into consideration.
I'm not going to comment on Wolf since I haven't read her books. There
is book which might provide some perspective: Timothy Garton Ash's _The
File: A Personal History_. The book includes conversations Garton Ash
had with people who had informed on him. He is more compassionate
toward people he felt were pressured into informing than he is to those
who set the policy.
There is also a review of Garton Ash's book: Noel Annan, "Secret
Sharers," _The New York Review of Books_ September 25, 1997.
I think that "confusion" is an understandable state to be in.
Maureen.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
Nobody pressured Wolf. She was an enthusiastic beneficiary of DDR largess
and then whined about being fingered as a Stasi spy.
Anyone interested in an insightful analysis of the role of the
compliant artist in a repressive state ought to read Miklos Haraszti's
--The Velvet Prison.--
Francis Muir
>
> Nobody pressured Wolf. She was an enthusiastic beneficiary of DDR
> largess and then whined about being fingered as a Stasi spy.
>
> Anyone interested in an insightful analysis of the role of the
> compliant artist in a repressive state ought to read Miklos Haraszti's
> --The Velvet Prison.--
You could probably say exactly the same thing about Giovanni di
Fiesole, the Blessed Angelic Brother, who simultaneously sucked
up to Cosimo de Medici and the Church. In the case of the former,
blasphemously, since he painted Cosimo's face on a Good Guy at
the foot of the Cross. Check this out in the Convent of St. Mark, but
be aware that generation after generation of fucking Fiorentini have
"improved" the orginal slight works beyond recognition.
RAB seems to have joined the national media in a stone-casting
frenzy. Not one person, for example, has ever stated exactly what
information the poor Christa Wolf is supposed to have passed on to
the Stasi, nor have any of them any idea of the pressures that were at
work in those grey times. RAB of all places should not indulge in this
dreadful business, and if it continues, or becomes an integral part of
the RAB psyche, I for one shall fold my tent and depart to happier
climes.
Francis Muir
Jeffrey A. Del Col
"Proletcult" literature is simply embarrassing to read, even Lenin
thought so ( his tastes ran to 19th C. realism)
Mayakovsky is best passed over in silence.
Even before Stalin's ascent to power the truly talented were aware
that things had gone horribly wrong.
Read Mandelstam's "Fourth Prose," Babel's "1920 Diary,"
Bulgakov's letters and diaries.
The tenets of Socialist Realism were cooked up by Gorky, largely out
of a naive, perhaps desperate, belief that it offered a way to
salvage the tradition of Russian literary realism from the demands that
literature serve merely as propaganda.
Stalin knew better.
Ted Samsel
: Jeffrey A. Del Col:
So are all of those academics who have ever accepted a Fulbright (and
you know who you are..) running dog lackeys of the silk-hatted
Wall Street tycoons (a la the little guy in the MONOPOLY game)?
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, fra...@stanford.edu (Francis Muir) says:
>Jeffrey A. Del Col:
>>
>> Nobody pressured Wolf. She was an enthusiastic beneficiary of DDR
>> largess and then whined about being fingered as a Stasi spy.
>>
>> Anyone interested in an insightful analysis of the role of the
>> compliant artist in a repressive state ought to read Miklos Haraszti's
>> --The Velvet Prison.--
>
>You could probably say exactly the same thing about Giovanni di
>Fiesole, the Blessed Angelic Brother, who simultaneously sucked
>up to Cosimo de Medici and the Church. In the case of the former,
>blasphemously, since he painted Cosimo's face on a Good Guy at
>the foot of the Cross. Check this out in the Convent of St. Mark, but
>be aware that generation after generation of fucking Fiorentini have
>"improved" the orginal slight works beyond recognition.
>
Read Haraszti; he covers similar ground.
>RAB seems to have joined the national media in a stone-casting
>frenzy. Not one person, for example, has ever stated exactly what
>information the poor Christa Wolf is supposed to have passed on to
>the Stasi, nor have any of them any idea of the pressures that were at
>work in those grey times. ...>
>
"Halcyon times" would be a much better description of Ms Wolf's
tenure as the the DDR's sanctioned scribbler. She was the eager
recipient of every prize, award, remuneration and other perquisite
the state could bestow. In return she churned out reams of crap
praising the system and it toadies (read her essays; they're throughly
appalling). She was a faithful Stasi snitch until the day when she was
shocked--shocked-- to discover that the Stasi was keeping its eye
on her as well. After the collapse of the DDR she adopted the pose
of a victim and switched from socialist realism to its current
incarnation, feminist realism. If she deserves contempt; it's her
own doing.
Larisa
:
:
: >On 13 Oct 1998 22:37:00 GMT, "Dylan Bryan-Dolman" <dy...@slipspam.net>
: >wrote:
: >
: >
: >>I don't know that this is a consistent rule. Seems to me that the problem
: >>was less control of art by ideology than that the ideology in question was
: >>anti-intellectual. Much of that early revolutionary art was as subservient
: >>to the political as anything produced under Stalin. Many artists rushed to
: >>make the Party their muse, and it drew excellent work from them, sometimes
: >>their best. The problem didn't begin until Stalin starting imposing, not
: >>political ideas, but aesthetic ones [snip]
: >
: >Not sure I agree with you here. Based on my reading, it seems that
: >during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
: >sense of liberation from Tsarist opression, and that is what produced
: >their best work, not subservience to bolshevik dogma. Of course, it is
: >no longer acceptable to think that ANYTHING good came out of the
: >russian revolution.
:
:
:
: "Proletcult" literature is simply embarrassing to read, even Lenin
: thought so ( his tastes ran to 19th C. realism)
: Mayakovsky is best passed over in silence.
:
: Even before Stalin's ascent to power the truly talented were aware
: that things had gone horribly wrong.
Agreed, though I'd make an exception for Mayakovsky; his wordplay can be quite
ingenious at times, if not very translatable. I think that if it weren't for
Stalin, though, the "Socialist Realism" idea would have been just a fad and
would have mercifully disappeared soon enough, just like most other embarrassing
fads. What kept it going was Stalin's enforcement of it and suppression of
other literature.
--
Larisa
l...@leland.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~lvm
Ken MacIver
>Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>: Jeffrey A. Del Col:
>: >
>: > Nobody pressured Wolf. She was an enthusiastic beneficiary of DDR
>: > largess and then whined about being fingered as a Stasi spy.
>: >
>: > Anyone interested in an insightful analysis of the role of the
>: > compliant artist in a repressive state ought to read Miklos Haraszti's
>: > --The Velvet Prison.--
>
>: You could probably say exactly the same thing about Giovanni di
>: Fiesole, the Blessed Angelic Brother, who simultaneously sucked
>: up to Cosimo de Medici and the Church. In the case of the former,
>: blasphemously, since he painted Cosimo's face on a Good Guy at
>: the foot of the Cross. Check this out in the Convent of St. Mark, but
>: be aware that generation after generation of fucking Fiorentini have
>: "improved" the orginal slight works beyond recognition.
>
>: RAB seems to have joined the national media in a stone-casting
>: frenzy. Not one person, for example, has ever stated exactly what
>: information the poor Christa Wolf is supposed to have passed on to
>: the Stasi, nor have any of them any idea of the pressures that were at
>: work in those grey times. RAB of all places should not indulge in this
>: dreadful business, and if it continues, or becomes an integral part of
>: the RAB psyche, I for one shall fold my tent and depart to happier
>: climes.
>
>So are all of those academics who have ever accepted a Fulbright (and
>you know who you are..) running dog lackeys of the silk-hatted
>Wall Street tycoons (a la the little guy in the MONOPOLY game)?
And, what about all of those NEA grant recipients, not to mention the
overseas governmental reps in the Peace Corps?
K.
Dylan Bryan-Dolman
> "Dylan Bryan-Dolman" <dy...@slipspam.net> wrote:
> >I don't know that this is a consistent rule. Seems to me that the
problem
> >was less control of art by ideology than that the ideology in question
was
> >anti-intellectual.
>
> during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
> sense of liberation from Tsarist opression, and that is what produced
My own reading here is spotty, but I'm confident of at least a few cases.
The explosion in the Russian arts -- dance, opera, poetry -- preceded the
Bolshevik revolution by more than a decade, during the years of brutal
repression that followed 1905 -- so political freedom was not required to
get the artists jumping. After the October Revolution, some major writers
-- who had not suffered terribly for lack of an audience or the freedom to
practice their art -- eagerly put themselves at the service of party
ideology. I am thinking in particular of Blok, Bely and Mayakovsky in
poetry. Whether these writers were "really" only excited by the turmoil of
the revolution and had no real intellectual loyalty to Bolshevism --
Mayakovsky seems to have responded to political ideas on a totally sub- or
super-rational level -- the fact remains that in works like Blok's The
Twelve it was the party's ends they served.
Much later, in 1935, the composer Prokofiev, who had fled Russia in 1918,
willingly returned to become a part of the great experiment -- only to find
himself rapidly blacklisted. Stalinism was an attractive and inspiring
idea until you got too close to it.
I had not realized that Gorky formulated the tenets of social realism
himself. What a shame.
Dylan
=dbd=
Can Love not keep a Maytime vow in cities?
Fades it as the Rose cut for a rich display?
--Ann Trulove, "A Rake's Progress"
Jeffrey A. Del Col
Prokofiev's letters have just been published in English--very interesting
look at art and life under socialist realism.
Gorky drew some of his notions from the "Left Front Art" manifestoes,
but socialist realism as it was codified by Zhdanov and the Union of Soviet
Writers in 1934 was largely Gorky's work.
Gorky naively thought it would save Russian realism.
Stalin had other ideas.
Ken MacIver
wrote:
>Paul Ilechko <pile...@NOSPAM.transarc.com> wrote:
>> "Dylan Bryan-Dolman" <dy...@slipspam.net> wrote:
>> >I don't know that this is a consistent rule. Seems to me that the
>problem
>> >was less control of art by ideology than that the ideology in question
>was
>> >anti-intellectual.
>>
>> Not sure I agree with you here. Based on my reading, it seems that
>> during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
>> sense of liberation from Tsarist opression, and that is what produced
>> their best work, not subservience to bolshevik dogma. [...]
>
>My own reading here is spotty, but I'm confident of at least a few cases.
>The explosion in the Russian arts -- dance, opera, poetry -- preceded the
>Bolshevik revolution by more than a decade, during the years of brutal
>repression that followed 1905 -- so political freedom was not required to
>get the artists jumping. After the October Revolution, some major writers
>-- who had not suffered terribly for lack of an audience or the freedom to
>practice their art -- eagerly put themselves at the service of party
>ideology. I am thinking in particular of Blok, Bely and Mayakovsky in
>poetry. Whether these writers were "really" only excited by the turmoil of
>the revolution and had no real intellectual loyalty to Bolshevism --
>Mayakovsky seems to have responded to political ideas on a totally sub- or
>super-rational level -- the fact remains that in works like Blok's The
>Twelve it was the party's ends they served.
In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
ObBook: Solzhenitsin "Archipelag GULAG"
Ken MacIver
Michael Kagalenko
]On 16 Oct 1998 17:24:13 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
Dylan Bryan-Dolman
> In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
> Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
> body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
> Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
> work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
Well, I wasn't arguing that actually getting purged was a good thing for an
artist. Paul Ilechko was claiming that subservience to a political
ideology was necessarily opposed to the spirit of poetry, which I don't
think is true -- I think it was in part the rigor and anti-humanism of
Bolshevik communism that poets like Blok and Mayakovsky responded to so
powerfully.
Dylan
=dbd=
Paul Ilechko
wrote:
>Well, I wasn't arguing that actually getting purged was a good thing for an
>artist. Paul Ilechko was claiming that subservience to a political
>ideology was necessarily opposed to the spirit of poetry, which I don't
>think is true --
Neither do I - I think you have extended what I said in ways beyond
what was ever intended. The word I used was "collaborate", which to my
mind has very different connotations to anything based on ideology. In
fact, collaboration is the subservience of ideology to
self-motivation.
{aul,
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <3627c590...@news.tiac.net>
>]On 16 Oct 1998 17:24:13 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
>]Kagalenko) wrote:
>]
>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <36274df1...@news.tiac.net>
>]>]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
>]>
>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
>]
>]And???
>
> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
BTW, My "and???" referred to your statement that 1921 was the time of
the Leninist purges. So what? What did you mean by that in the
context of this discussion?
Ken
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) says:
>>]
>>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <36274df1...@news.tiac.net>
>>]>]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
>>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
>>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
>>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
>>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
>>]>
>>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
>>]
>>]And???
>>
>> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
>> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
>> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
>
>I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
>
>BTW, My "and???" referred to your statement that 1921 was the time of
>the Leninist purges. So what? ....
The notion that the troubles for Russian lit can all be blamed
on Stalin is historical nonsense. The ideology and apparatus for
the suppression of non-official art were in place and functioning
before Lenin's demise. Stalin didn't invent the system, he perfected it--
that's so what. In one of Aleshkovy's novels, --Kanagaroo-- I think
the narrator refers to Lenin as "that bald-headed devil." It's about
right; Molotov thought Lenin was crueler and more ruthless
than Stalin. Vladimir Ilych has benefited from a whitewash job by
revisionists afflicted with nostaligic amnesia.
Anatoly Vorobey
Jeffrey A. Del Col <br...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
[Paul Ilechko writes:]
>>Not sure I agree with you here. Based on my reading, it seems that
>>during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
>>sense of liberation from Tsarist opression, and that is what produced
>>their best work, not subservience to bolshevik dogma.
The Tsarist oppression of artists is largely a myth. Certainly it
wasn't anything nearly as horrible as the Soviet oppression of
artists.
>>Of course, it is
>>no longer acceptable to think that ANYTHING good came out of the
>>russian revolution.
Andrey Platonov's prose.
>"Proletcult" literature is simply embarrassing to read, even Lenin
>thought so ( his tastes ran to 19th C. realism)
>Mayakovsky is best passed over in silence.
Nonsense. Early Mayakovsky is some of the best Russian poetry of early
20th century. Late Mayakovsky is mostly, but not always, very bad.
>Even before Stalin's ascent to power the truly talented were aware
>that things had gone horribly wrong.
Not all of the truly talented did.
>The tenets of Socialist Realism were cooked up by Gorky, largely out
>of a naive, perhaps desperate, belief that it offered a way to
>salvage the tradition of Russian literary realism from the demands that
>literature serve merely as propaganda.
Gorky, on the other hand, *is* best passed over in silence.
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mel...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
Anatoly Vorobey
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>RAB seems to have joined the national media in a stone-casting
>frenzy. Not one person, for example, has ever stated exactly what
>information the poor Christa Wolf is supposed to have passed on to
>the Stasi, nor have any of them any idea of the pressures that were at
>work in those grey times. RAB of all places should not indulge in this
>dreadful business, and if it continues, or becomes an integral part of
>the RAB psyche, I for one shall fold my tent and depart to happier
>climes.
Milan Kundera writes on "the spirit of the trial" in _Testaments
Betrayed_. Some excerpts:
The Trial Against the Century
For nearly seventy years Europe lived under a trial-regime. From
among the great artists of the century, how many defendants... I shall
mention only those who had some significance for me. Starting in the
twenties, there were those hounded by the tribunal of revolutionary
morality: Bunin, Andreyev, Meyerhold, Pilnyak, Veprik [...], Mandelstam,
Halas [...]. Then there were the quarry of the Nazi tribunal: Broch
(he gazes at me, pipe in mouth, from a photo on my worktable), Schoenberg,
Werfel, Brecht, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Musil, Vancura (the Czech writer
I love most), Bruno Schultz. The totalitarian empires and their bloody
trials disappeared, but the _spirit of the trial_ lingers as a legacy,
and that is what is now settling scores. Thus the trial strikes at: those
accused of pro-Nazi sympathies: Hamsun, Heidegger (all Czech dissident thought,
Patoka most notably, is indebted to him), Richard Strauss, Gottfried Benn,
von Doderer, Drieu la Rochelle, Celine (in 1992, a half century after
the war, a indignant official refused to designate his house a historical
monument); supporters of Mussolini: Malaparte, Marinetti, Ezra Pound [...];
the Munich appeasers: Giono, Alain, Morand, Montherlant, St.-John Perse
(a member of the French delegation to the Munich conference, he was closely
involved in the humiliation of my native country); then, the communists
and their sympathizers: Mayakovsky (who today remembers his love
poetry and his amazing metaphors?), Gorky, Shaw, Brecht (who is thereby
undergoing his second trial), Eluard (that exterminating angel who used
to decorate his signaure with a drawing of crossed swords), Picasso, Leger,
Aragon [...], Nezval [...], Sartre. Some of these people are undergoing
a double trial, first accused of betraying the revolution, then accused
for services they had rendered it earlier: Gide (in the old communist
countries, the symbol of all evil), Shostakovich (to atone for his
difficult music, he manifactured rubbish for the regime's needs; he maintained
that for the history of art a worthless things is null and void; he
didn't know that for the tribunal it is the worthlessness itself that
counts), Breton, Malraux (accused yesterday for having betrayed
revolutionary ideas, accusable tomorrow for having held them), Tibor Dery
[...].
[...] To be a true poet and at the same time to support [...] an uncontestable
horror is a _scandal_ - in the sense of an unjustifiable, unacceptable event,
one that contradicts logic and yet is real. We are all unconsciously tempted
to dodge scandals, to behave as though they don't exist. That is why we prefer
to say that the great cultural figures tainted with the horrors of our century
were _bastards_; but it isn't so; if only out of vanity, aware that they are
seen, looked at, judged, artists and philosophers are anxious to be decent
and courageous, to be on the right side, to be right. That makes the scandal
still more intolerable, more inexplicable. If we don't want to leave this
century just as stupid as we entered it, we must abandon the facile moralism
of the trial and think about this scandal, think it through to the bottom, even
if this should lead us to question anew all our certaintuies about man as such.
[...] And as the abyss of time windes between judges and defendants, it is
always a lesser experience that is judging the greater. The immature sit
in judgement on Celine's erring ways without realizing that because of
these erring ways, Celine's novels contain existential knowledge that,
if they were to understand it, could make them more adult. Because therein
lies the power of culture: it redeems horror by transforming it into
existential wisdom. If the spirit of the trial succeeds in annihilating
this century's culture, nothing will remain of us but a memory of its
atrocities sung by a chorus of children.
[...] Man proceeds in the fog. But when he looks back to judge people of
the past, he sees no fog on their path. From his present, which was their
faraway future, their path looks perfectly clear to him, good visibility
all the way. Looking back, he sees the path, he sees the people proceeding,
he sees their mistakes, but not the fog. And yet all of them - Heidegger,
Mayakovsky, Aragon, Ezra Pound, Gorky, Gottfried Benn, St.-John Perse,
Giono - all were walking in fog, and we might wonder: who is more blind?
Mayakovsky, who as he wrote his poem on Lenin did not know where Leninism
would lead? Or we, who judge him decades later and do not see the fog that
enveloped him?
Mayakovsky's blindness is part of the eternal human condition.
But for us not to see the fog on Mayakovsky's path is to forget what
man is, forget what we ourselves are.
Michael Kagalenko
]On 16 Oct 1998 20:07:47 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
]Kagalenko) wrote:
]
]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <3627c590...@news.tiac.net>
]>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <36274df1...@news.tiac.net>
]>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
]>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
]>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
]>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
]>]>
]>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
]>]
]>]And???
]>
]> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
]> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
]> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
]
]I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
I enjoy them less then earlier cycles, such as "Carmen." It is less political,
less programmatic. Yes, Blok did welcome revolution. But he also welcomed
WWI, at least, until he got his first-hand experience of it.
]
]BTW, My "and???" referred to your statement that 1921 was the time of
]the Leninist purges. So what? What did you mean by that in the
]context of this discussion?
I would ask in turn what did you mean when you chose to point out that he
died before the beginning of Stalinist purges. Do you believe that
Lenin's purges were somehow more benign ? Anyways, there was some speculation
that Blok's death is attriubtable to the starvation due to his being spurned
by Lunacharski's establishment. I can certainly believe this; one of articles
by Rozanov from the same period has an open plea for food, even as much
as a single chicken egg.
Michael Kagalenko
]
] I enjoy them less then earlier cycles, such as "Carmen." It is less political,
] less programmatic.
Where "it" refers to blok's pre-revolutionary work.
tejas
> >>]>]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
> >>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
> >>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
> >>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
> >>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
> >>]>
> >>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
> >>]
> >>]And???
> >>
> >> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
> >> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
> >> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
> >
> >I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
> >
>
> The notion that the troubles for Russian lit can all be blamed
> on Stalin is historical nonsense. The ideology and apparatus for
> the suppression of non-official art were in place and functioning
> before Lenin's demise. Stalin didn't invent the system, he perfected it--
> that's so what. In one of Aleshkovy's novels, --Kanagaroo-- I think
> the narrator refers to Lenin as "that bald-headed devil." It's about
> right; Molotov thought Lenin was crueler and more ruthless
> than Stalin. Vladimir Ilych has benefited from a whitewash job by
> revisionists afflicted with nostaligic amnesia.
ObBook: LENIN'S BRAIN
--
TBSa...@richmond.infi.net (also te...@infi.net)
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <362966d8....@news.tiac.net>
>]On 16 Oct 1998 20:07:47 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
>]Kagalenko) wrote:
>]
>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <3627c590...@news.tiac.net>
>]>]On 16 Oct 1998 17:24:13 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
>]>]Kagalenko) wrote:
>]>]
>]>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <36274df1...@news.tiac.net>
>]>]>]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
>]>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
>]>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
>]>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
>]>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
>]>]>
>]>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
>]>]
>]>]And???
>]>
>]> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
>]> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
>]> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
>]
>]I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
>
> I enjoy them less then earlier cycles, such as "Carmen." It is less political,
> less programmatic. Yes, Blok did welcome revolution. But he also welcomed
> WWI, at least, until he got his first-hand experience of it.
I am unfamiliar with "Carmen" (sounds like a knockoff). I do like his
earlier stuff, particularly the "Snow Mask." I meant only that his
revolutionary and post-revolutionary work was not, IMO, diminished by
his support for the revoluton nor by the state somehow taking
advantage of him.
>]
>]BTW, My "and???" referred to your statement that 1921 was the time of
>]the Leninist purges. So what? What did you mean by that in the
>]context of this discussion?
>
> I would ask in turn what did you mean when you chose to point out that he
> died before the beginning of Stalinist purges.
Someone had used his name in connection with those purges, the
implication being that he was one of the victims. I thought to set
the record straight, so to speak.
Ken
Paul Ilechko
wrote:
>[Paul Ilechko writes:]
>
>>>Not sure I agree with you here. Based on my reading, it seems that
>>>during the early years of the revolution many artists felt a heady
>>>sense of liberation from Tsarist opression...
>The Tsarist oppression of artists is largely a myth.
I hadn't meant to imply that artists were being specifically
repressed, merely that society in general was repressive under the
Tsar.
Michael Kagalenko
]On 18 Oct 1998 21:25:32 -0400, mkag...@lynx02.dac.neu.edu (Michael
]Kagalenko) wrote:
]
]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <362966d8....@news.tiac.net>
]>]On 16 Oct 1998 20:07:47 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
]>]Kagalenko) wrote:
]>]
]>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <3627c590...@news.tiac.net>
]>]>]On 16 Oct 1998 17:24:13 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
]>]>]Kagalenko) wrote:
]>]>]
]>]>]>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote in article <36274df1...@news.tiac.net>
]>]>]>]In the case of Blok, this may be a chicken & egg thing. I thought
]>]>]>]Blok, who wrote of the revolution in October, 1917, "With all your
]>]>]>]body, with all your heart, with all your mind - listen to the
]>]>]>]Revolution," did in fact support the revolution, did some of his best
]>]>]>]work then, and died in 1921, well before the Stalinist purges.
]>]>]>
]>]>]> 1921 was the time of Leninist purges.
]>]>]
]>]>]And???
]>]>
]>]> And BTW, what do you mean when you say that Blok "did some of his best
]>]> work then" ? Except "The Twelve" which I don't find particularly good myself,
]>]> what post-1917 works you have in mind ?
]>]
]>]I also enjoy "The Scythians" and parts of "Retribution."
]>
]> I enjoy them less then earlier cycles, such as "Carmen." It is less political,
]> less programmatic. Yes, Blok did welcome revolution. But he also welcomed
]> WWI, at least, until he got his first-hand experience of it.
]
]I am unfamiliar with "Carmen" (sounds like a knockoff).
It isn't. It is one of his cycles with heavy mystical overtones.
] I do like his
]earlier stuff, particularly the "Snow Mask." I meant only that his
]revolutionary and post-revolutionary work was not, IMO, diminished by
]his support for the revoluton nor by the state somehow taking
]advantage of him.
My impression is different.
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
Sure you don't mean musical?
>
>] I do like his
>]earlier stuff, particularly the "Snow Mask." I meant only that his
>]revolutionary and post-revolutionary work was not, IMO, diminished by
>]his support for the revoluton nor by the state somehow taking
>]advantage of him.
>
> My impression is different.
Your impression of what?
K.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
Ken MacIver
Del Col) wrote:
And, how do you know such things?
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]On 20 Oct 1998 11:20:35 GMT, br...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A.
]And, how do you know such things?
Perhaps, because he read more Blok.
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
I'm afraid you seem to have mixed up the poet with the outfit that
does your taxes. As for the character that jumped in, what I was
asking was how he knew what you thought (made it up or a little side
e-mail?), to the extent you do such a thing.
K.
Michael Kagalenko
]On 20 Oct 1998 17:56:47 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
A longer version of the explanation offered above would be that Del Col
made reasonable conjecture based on what he knows, and you don't, about
the cycle "Carmen."
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
I had already, in my initial response, said that I was unfamiliar with
"Carmen," which is not in my Blok anthology (the one I thought
contained selections from all of his works). Not for a moment
thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
Carmen work?
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]On 20 Oct 1998 19:59:26 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
Therefore, it might have been good idea to pause and allow for the possibility
that Jeffrey knows more then you.
] Not for a moment
]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
]Carmen work?
"All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
Hey, it's your thing you got going with Jeffrey. I don't have a
problem with that.
>
>] Not for a moment
>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
>]Carmen work?
>
> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]On 21 Oct 1998 18:14:00 -0400, mkag...@lynx02.dac.neu.edu (Michael
Apparently, Mr.McIver, reading comprehension isn't your forte either.
]>
]>] Not for a moment
]>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
]>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
]>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
]>]Carmen work?
]>
]> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
]
]And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
Are you on drugs, Mr.McIver ?
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
The man says he knows what you think; who am I to get into that?
Anybody who even guesses what you think is fairly scary.
>]>
>]>] Not for a moment
>]>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
>]>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
>]>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
>]>]Carmen work?
>]>
>]> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
>]
>]And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
>
> Are you on drugs, Mr.McIver ?
Ah, at last, the typical Kaklenko resort to the cheap insult. You get
some credit though; usually, you trash folks from jump street. Good
work, sort of.
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]On 22 Oct 1998 16:54:00 -0400, mkag...@lynx02.dac.neu.edu (Michael
Amongst people who posess the ability to read it is not uncommon to grasp
the thought of an author of a text.
]>]>
]>]>] Not for a moment
]>]>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
]>]>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
]>]>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
]>]>]Carmen work?
]>]>
]>]> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
]>]
]>]And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
]>
]> Are you on drugs, Mr.McIver ?
]
]Ah, at last, the typical Kaklenko resort to the cheap insult. You get
]some credit though; usually, you trash folks from jump street. Good
]work, sort of.
My insults are usually worth no less then a person they are directed at.
Ken MacIver
Kagalenko) wrote:
Amongst people who possess the ability to think it is not uncommon to
grasp the thought that comments on an author's thinking are but that.
>
>]>]>
>]>]>] Not for a moment
>]>]>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
>]>]>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
>]>]>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
>]>]>]Carmen work?
>]>]>
>]>]> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
>]>]
>]>]And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
>]>
>]> Are you on drugs, Mr.McIver ?
>]
>]Ah, at last, the typical Kaklenko resort to the cheap insult. You get
>]some credit though; usually, you trash folks from jump street. Good
>]work, sort of.
>
> My insults are usually worth no less then a person they are directed at.
Your capacity for self delusion is boundless. This thread has become
so boring that I imagine we two are the only ones left. So, good day
to you, Mikey; see you on another thread.
Ken
Michael Kagalenko
]On 23 Oct 1998 18:37:00 -0400, mkag...@lynx01.dac.neu.edu (Michael
Another of those non-sequiturs that prompted my question below.
]>]>]>
]>]>]>] Not for a moment
]>]>]>]thinking that you had mistaken Blok for Georges Bizet or Prosper
]>]>]>]Merimee, I believed you had confused my man with your [tax] man & am
]>]>]>]still unsure about this. Which edition do you have that has this
]>]>]>]Carmen work?
]>]>]>
]>]>]> "All-world literature Library" ("Библиотека Всемироной Литературы")
]>]>]
]>]>]And, what did old !@#$%^&*()+ tell you to pay on October 15th?
]>]>
]>]> Are you on drugs, Mr.McIver ?
]>]
]>]Ah, at last, the typical Kaklenko resort to the cheap insult. You get
]>]some credit though; usually, you trash folks from jump street. Good
]>]work, sort of.
]>
]> My insults are usually worth no less then a person they are directed at.
]
]Your capacity for self delusion is boundless. This thread has become
]so boring that I imagine we two are the only ones left. So, good day
]to you, Mikey; see you on another thread.
Another point worth making is that the above is not insult, but genuine
question, prompted by seemingly bizzare non-sequiturs that purport to be
replies to my points. So, please, clarify; are you using any mind-impairing
substances while reading Usenet ?