Shklovsky: Witness to an Era
SERENA VITALE
TRANSLATED BY
JAMIE RICHARDS
Contents
Title Page
OTHER WORKS BY SERENA VITALE IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Preface to the First Edition
New Preface, or A Preface Not about the KGB
The Interviews
December 23
ON THE INFINITY OF THE NOVEL. ART HAS NEITHER BEGINNING, MIDDLE, NOR END. EPILOGUES ARE CLOYING LEFTOVERS. ART DEALS ALWAYS AND ONLY WITH LIFE.
December 24
THE MEMORIES BEGIN. CHILDHOOD IN PETERSBURG. HOW TO EAT BLINTZES. DIGRESSION ON THE DRAWBACKS OF HAVING A SECRETARY. SHKLOVSKY MEETING MAYAKOVSKY, HE DOESN’T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHEN; THE BEGINNING OF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. THE FUTURIST EVENINGS—THE TECHNIQUE OF SCANDAL. BAUDOUIN DE COURTENAY. POETS SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO DIVORCE. SEMINARIANS AND CARPENTERS DUKING IT OUT ON THE ICE.
December 26
YOUNG PHILOLOGISTS MEET AND DISCUSS LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PETERSBURG. THE BIRTH OF FORMALISM. LEV JAKUBINSKY. YEVGENI POLIVANOV. POETRY AND TIME: “THE BRONZE HORSEMAN.” POETRY AS THE “DEEP JOY OF RECOGNITION.” SHKLOVSKY, SAYS BLOK, UNDERSTANDS EVERYTHING. YURY TYNYANOV. BORIS EIKHENBAUM. HOW TWO EX-FORMALISTS ARGUED THE DAY AKHMATOVA DIED. DERZHAVIN’S ARRIVAL SPELLS THE END OF FORMALISM. MAN’S DESTINY IS THE MATERIAL OF ART. WHICH HAS TO BE SHAKEN UP ONCE IN A WHILE, LIKE A CLOCK THAT STOPS TICKING. ON THE FUTILITY OF LOOKING AT FLAGS.
December 27
KHLEBNIKOV, FILONOV, AND A PAINTING THAT REFUSES TO HANG ON THE WALL. MALEVICH’S SQUARE. FEBRUARY 1917. MEMORIES OF WAR. A STOMACH WOUND. A KISS FROM KORNILOV. RUSSIA AND ASIA. RUSSIA AND EUROPE. ESENIN IN VALENKI. MAYAKOVSKY HAS THE LAST WORD: THE PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO DRINK.
December 28
CIVIL WAR IN PETROGRAD, DEAD HORSES IN THE STREETS. THE “SHIP OF FOOLS.” THE SERAPION BROTHERS: LOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE, SOME IN THEIR TEENS. REVOLUTION = DICTATORSHIP OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. MEYERHOLD, THE OLDEST DIRECTOR IN THE WORLD. HIS ARCHIVES SAVED BY EISENSTEIN. TWO INSPECTORS GENERAL. ZOSHCHENKO TURNS ON SOME DISCONCERTING LIGHTS. BERLIN. A MISTREATED HAT. AN UPLIFTING SONG.
December 29
THE BIRTH OF SOVIET CINEMA IS COMPARED TO THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. THE LETATLIN: A DREAMING MACHINE. THE WEAPON OF PATIENCE. MAYAKOVSKY DIDN’T WANT DEBTS. DIGRESSION ON PASTERNAK’S POETRY, BULGAKOV’S NOVELS. SHKLOVSKY BEGINS TO WORK IN CINEMA, HE WRITES INTERTITLES AND THEN SCRIPTS. HE MEETS EISENSTEIN. WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF DISHES IN THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION? SOME FILMS SHKLOVSKY WROTE: BY THE LAW, BED AND SOFA, MININ AND POZHARSKY. SHKLOVSKY TEARS APART TARKOVSKY’S ANDREI RUBLEV. AN UNUSUAL EDITING JOB. AN EVEN MORE UNUSUAL WRITING JOB.
December 30
TOLSTOY BEGINS TO WRITE. “A HISTORY OF YESTERDAY.” FOR SOME REASON SHKLOVSKY TORE UP THE FIRST VOLUME OF TOLSTOY’S COMPLETE WORKS. THE YOUNG TOLSTOY LEFT FOR THE CAUCASUS WITH AN ENGLISH DICTIONARY, A FLUTE, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, AND A SAMOVAR. AN ANCESTOR OF OURS LEFT OUT OF ZOO, OR LETTERS NOT ABOUT LOVE. FRIGHTENING, POETIC DREAMS. WHAT DOES REALISM MEAN?
January 2
THE WORD. POETRY OF WORDS AND POETRY OF LETTERS. MAYAKOVSKY LOVED THE RADIO. AN UGLY, STUPID BOX. ONE MUSTN’T FEAR THE FUTURE. TOLSTOY GETS EDITED. THE OLD SCHOLASTICISM AND THE NEW. THE LIVING RUSSIAN WORD.
Notes
Glossary of Names
Timeline of Works
Film Scripts
About the Author
Copyright
OTHER WORKS BY SERENA VITALE IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Pushkin’s Button
OTHER WORKS BY VIKTOR SHKLOVSKY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Literature and Cinematography
Knight’s Move
Sentimental Journey: Memoirs, 1917-1922
Zoo, or Letters Not about Love
Theory of Prose
Third Factory
Mayakovsky and His Circle
Leo Tolstoy
Bowstring
Energy of Delusion
The winter of 1978, in Russia, was among the coldest of the century. That late December in Moscow, no one spoke of anything else—on the metro, in the offices, in the shops. Little old men and women, emerging from their capsules of frozen vapor, discussed it incessantly: when had it ever been this cold? In 1915, ’17, ’25?
This was a question I could put to Viktor Shklovsky, to his eighty-six-year-old memory, witness to so many climates, meteorological and otherwise, as I told myself on my way to his house for the first time.
I wait a few minutes in his book-crammed study, one of the two rooms that make up the writer’s home. On a massive walnut table, haphazardly stacked, Plato, Mayakovsky, Tolstoy, books on semiotics, on structuralism. Finally, preceded by the remarkably kind and ever attentive lady of the house, Serafima Gustavovna (Shklovsky’s second wife), the “patriarch” makes his grand entrance, swathed in a stately, impeccable robe, outfitted with a beret for the cold and a cane for support—his steps are a bit labored, but there’s a twinkle in his eye.
We introduce ourselves. Then, the formalities: I begin reading the publisher’s contract, which Shklovsky has to sign for the interviews. He listens attentively to my translations of the usual clauses, and, with sublime naïveté, seriously considers each one. After a few minutes he begins to roar: Why should he grant rights for fifty years? Who are these alleged “heirs” it talks about? What “television or film use” would ever be made of this book? How can anyone write a book in ten days (the amount of time I had proposed)? After a while of this, his
