by Janet Fitch
THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, institutions, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2019 by Janet Fitch
Cover design by Allison J. Warner
Cover photographs: church © Sergey Borisov / Alamy; woman © Richard Jenkins
Author photograph by Cat Gwynn
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All of the Russian poems used in this book are original translations created for this volume by Boris Dralyuk, coeditor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2015) and editor of 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution (Pushkin Press, 2016), except for the following: “The Bronze Horseman” by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Stanley Mitchell, used by permission, Stanley Mitchell estate. “Twilight” by Fyodor Tyutchev, translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky in Modern Russian Poetry: An Anthology, in the public domain. “My Talent Is Pitiful, My Voice Not Loud” by Evgeny Baratynsky, translated by Peter France, used by permission. “The Gypsies” by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Antony Wood, used by permission. Passages from Notes of an Eccentric by Andrei Bely are original translations for this volume, contributed by Brendan Kiernan, PhD, and used by permission. Passages from Trotsky’s speech “The Fight for Petrograd” from Leon Trotsky’s Military Writings, volume II, speech to the Soviet, October 19, 1919, New Park Publications Ltd. Translation from the Russian by Brian Pearce. Used by permission.
Civil War Russia map by Jeffrey L. Ward
ISBN 978-0-316-51006-6
E3-20190514-DANF
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Cast of Characters and Notes
Maps
Part I: Iskra, the Spark 1 Tikhvin
2 The New Soviet Woman
3 The Future of the Family
4 Stepan Radulovich
5 Dom 13
6 The Barefoot Bride
7 Agitprop
8 On the Red October
9 Izhevsk
10 Angels and Devils
11 Iskra
12 Antonina
13 Chess
Part II: Petrograd 14 My Petrograd
15 Out in the Cold
16 The Astoria
17 Hotel Europa
18 Shpalernaya Street
19 Night Shift
20 Chieftains and Untouchables
21 The Devil’s Name
22 A Night Journey
23 The Sandman
24 Death and the Maiden
25 The Annunciation
26 The Petrograd Card
27 Vintovka
Part III: The House of Arts 28 Number, Please
29 From Petersburg
30 59 Moika Embankment
31 The Towers of Ilium
32 The Golden Fleece
33 The Thaw
34 The Flea
35 A Visit
36 The Fortress
37 The Spy
38 Gorky
39 This Transparent Hour
40 The Spacemen
41 Music, When Soft Voices Die
42 The ABC of Communism
43 House of Arts
44 Zapad
45 On the Embankment
46 The Argonaut
47 The Guest
48 Moscow
49 Masquerade
Part IV: The Kronstadt Revolt 50 Soviets Without Communists
51 Pushkin Days
52 The Third Revolution
53 A Visit from Moscow
54 Sea Ice
55 ROSTA
56 The Kronstadt Card Is Covered!
57 The Turn of the Tide
Part V: Little Apple 58 Pashli
59 Summon the Ravens
60 Famine
61 The Poet, Blok
62 The NEPman
63 Secrets
64 Spilled Blood and Roses
65 The Call
66 Hey, Little Apple
67 The Émigré
68 The Wolf
Acknowledgments
Also by Janet Fitch
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We’ll meet again in Petersburg,
As if we had buried the sun there,
And for the first time we will utter
The blessed, senseless word…
—Osip Mandelstam,
“We’ll Meet Again in Petersburg,”
November 1920
Cast of Characters and Notes on Events
from The Revolution of Marina M.
The Makarovs
Marina Dmitrievna Makarova: Poet. Born 1900, daughter of a prominent Petrograd intelligentsia family. Breaks with family October 1917, joins a circle of radical poets. Marries poet Genya Kuriakin 1918. Her various aliases include Marusya, the deaf-mute, and Misha, boy hooligan and railway apprentice. Pregnant by estranged lover Kolya Shurov, she has just fled the cult of Ionia, February 1919.
Dmitry Ivanovich Makarov: Marina’s father. Jurist and Kadet member of the Provisional Government. Presently in Siberia, joining forces with anti-Bolshevik groups. Named Marina a Bolshevik spy rather than risk endangering his movement.
Vera Borisovna Makarova: Marina’s mother. Artistic society matron, a spiritualist seeker. Aristocrat. Currently the mystical figurehead of a cult based at her estate at Maryino.
Sergei (Seryozha) Dmitrievich Makarov: Marina’s beloved, artistic younger brother. Died in the defense of the Moscow Kremlin, October 1917, as a military cadet, a post secured by his father against Marina’s protests.
Vladimir (Volodya) Dmitrievich Makarov: Marina’s older brother. An officer of the tsar’s army, now fighting with the Volunteers (Whites) under Denikin in the Don.
Avdokia Fomanovna Malykh: Elderly nanny to the Makarov children, and to Vera Borisovna before them.
Ginevra Haddon-Finch: Marina’s governess. Returned to England after the October Revolution.
Basya: The Makarovs’ housemaid. Clever and vengeful. Becomes chairman of the apartment house committee (domkom) on Furshtatskaya Street, a position of power, from which she persecutes her former mistress.
Nikolai (Kolya) Stepanovich Shurov: Marina’s first and great love. Former officer, Volodya’s best friend. Speculator and adventurer. Their relationship ruptured following his infidelity with a peasant woman, Faina. Unaware Marina is pregnant.
Varvara Vladimirovna Razrushenskaya: Marina’s brilliant school friend, a radical Marxist and committed Communist, later a Cheka officer. Ruined Marina’s relationship with her family by revealing her to have spied on her father for the Bolsheviks. Briefly Marina’s possessive lover. Marina abandons her to run away with Kolya.
Wilhelmina (Mina) Solomonovna Katzeva: Marina’s childhood best friend. Chemistry student at university. Forced to leave school when her photographer father dies. Now running his studio. Briefly Kolya’s lover. Hires Marina, as “Misha,” to be her photographer’s assistant. Marina abandons her for Kolya during the first anniversary of the revolution.
The Katzev Household
Both Seryozha and Marina, as well as Marina’s poet circle, are close to the Katzev family.
Solomon Moiseivich Katzev: Mina’s father. A well-known Petrograd photographer. Championed Seryozha. Dies from the hardships following the revolution.
Sofia Yakovlevna Katzeva: Mina’s mother. A kind woman with a soft spot for the Makarov children.
Uncle Aaron and Aunt Fanya: Solomon Moiseivich’s elderly brother and his wife. Anarchists. Formerly lived in America.
Darya (Dunya) Solomonovna Katzeva: Mina’s younger sister. In love with painter Sasha Orlovsky.
Shoshanna (Shusha) Solomonovna Katzeva: Mina’s youngest sister. A great admirer of Marina’s.
Roman Osipovich Ippolit: Mina’s fiancé. Medical student.
The Poets
The Transrational Interlocutors of the Terrestrial Now, many of whom lived together in a loose collective called the Poverty Artel on Grivtsova Alley.
Gennady (Genya) Yurievich Kuriakin: Marina’s lover, later husband. Futurist poet, Bolshevik. Charismatic center of the poets’ circle. Departs for Moscow with Zina Ostrovskaya to act in films after breakup with Marina. Creates a radical theatrical group.
Anton Mikhailovich Chernikov: Leader of the Transrational Interlocutors, editor of the journal Okno, Genya’s best friend and mentor. Difficult and critical of Marina. The sole legitimate tenant of the Poverty Artel.
Zina Ostrovskaya: Radical poet. In love with Genya Kuriakin. Creates an opportunity for Genya to move with her to Moscow.
Gigo Gelashvili: Georgian poet, slightly mad.
Sasha Orlovsky: Constructivist painter. Friend of Genya’s. In love with Dunya Katzeva.
Galina Krestovskaya: Actress and would-be poet. Benefactor of Anton, Okno, and the Poverty Artel. Her apartment was the gathering place for the poetry circle.
Andrei Kirillovich Krestovsky: Galina’s husband. Owner of theater snack bars in Petrograd, source of the funding for the Poverty Artel. Killed during Red Terror, 1918.
Petya Simkin: Poet, university student, musician.
Oksana Linichuk: Poet, university student. Brought flowers to Marina’s wedding.
Arseny Grodetsky: Poet, young disciple of Genya Kuriakin’s.
The Criminals
Baron Arkady von Princip, the “Archangel”: Petrograd crime boss during the revolution. Unstable and brilliant, obsessed with Marina and with Kolya, who double-crosses him in a deal involving Dmitry Makarov’s counterrevolutionary conspiracy. Holds Marina captive in an apartment on Tauride Street before she escapes him during a meeting of the counterrevolutionaries.
Akim, the “Kirghiz”: Arkady’s lieutenant. Tends Marina while she is in captivity on Tauride Street. Discovering her working as “Misha,” he informs her that the Archangel has become unhinged.
Gurin: Arkady’s driver.
Borya, “Saint Peter”: The muscle in Arkady’s gang.
The Counterrevolutionary Conspirators
Dmitry Makarov’s colleagues, planning the uprising of the Czech Legion, 1918. Met with Von Princip in a dacha in the woods near Pulkovo, where Dmitry accused Marina of being a Bolshevik spy.
Ivan Karlinsky: SR Party, leader of the conspiracy.
Viktoria Karlinskaya: Karlinsky’s wife and Dmitry Makarov’s mistress. Insists that Von Princip “get rid of” Marina, considering her a Bolshevik spy. Marina reveals Karlinskaya’s identity to Varvara while in Cheka custody.
Commander Fielding Brown, the “Englishman”: a British military attaché.
Konstantin, the “Odessan”: a famous English spy.
The Five
Astronomers at Pulkovo Observatory, where Marina sought refuge as the deaf-mute Marusya.
Aristarkh Apollonovich Belopolsky, the “First Ancient”: Astronomer, director of the observatory. Discovered the nature of the rings of Saturn.
Boris Osipovich Bondarin, the “Second”: Astrophysicist.
Nikolai Gerasimovich Pomogayush, the “Third”: Chemist and astrobotanist. Marusya’s mentor.
Valentin Vladimirovich Tipov, the “Fourth”: Astrophysicist.
Ludmila Vasilievna Bredikskaya, the “Fifth”: The starushka. Physicist and spectrum analyst.
Rodion Karlovich Mistropovich: Young astronomer. Returns to the observatory with his sick wife and children during the height of the Petrograd cholera epidemic, spring 1918.
The Aristocratic Communards
Princess Elizaveta Vladimirovna Gruzinskaya: The “white mouse.” Elderly aristocrat cultivated by Kolya Shurov. Foresaw collectivization of Petrograd grand apartments and preemptively formed a “collective” of her aristocratic friends, Emilia Ivanovna Golovina, Viktor Sergeevich Golovin, and Pavel Alexandrovich Naryshkin.
The Ionians
Spiritualist cult at Vera Borisovna’s family estate at Maryino—rising from the ashes of a failed experiment, the Laboratory, a large commune in Petrograd. Vera Borisovna lives in seclusion there as the “Mother,” the spiritual figurehead of the cult.
Taras Ukashin, the “Master”: Charismatic leader of the cult of Ionia. Following his teaching of inflowing, taking energy in through the skin, his followers nearly starve.
Andrei Ionian: The “intelligent.” Ukashin’s court jester. Formerly the publisher Andrei Alexandrovich Petrovin, a friend of Vera Borisovna’s and one of the founders of the spiritualist group before it was overtaken by Taras Ukashin and moved to Maryino. Commits suicide.
Other Ionians: Magda Ionian, the “gypsy”; Bogdan Ionian, former dancer at the Mariinsky Theater, Marina’s friend; Natalya Ionian, former dancer, Marina’s friend; Katrina Ionian, singer, object of Ukashin’s desire, secret lover of Pasha Ionian; Gleb, Pasha’s rival; Ilya, Lilya, and Anna Ionian.
The Maryino Villagers
Lyuda: Avdokia’s niece and Marina’s girlhood companion, whom she taught to read, married to the blacksmith and currently representing the village at the regional soviet. Protecting Ionia from the Cheka.
Olya: Avdokia’s half sister, instrumental in Marina’s escape from Ionia.
Part I
Iskra, the Spark
(March 1919–September 1919)
1 Tikhvin
I WAS RISEN, risen from the dead. I had escaped the house of snow and lies, I had been spared.
An icy fog obscured the road the day I left Novinka on the back of the old man’s sledge piled with logs, heading for the market town Tikhvin. The countryside revealed itself in the foggy gaps, opening and closing like curtains. The load shifted dangerously underneath me, wooden runners jolting in the ruts. The old man smoked his pipe while I made plans that blew away like snowflakes, into the drifts and gone.
Five days we rode, stopping in villages, sleeping in straw, the child alive and moving within me. It was stubborn, like its mama. My celestial egg. Gathering strength for the jailbreak.
And out rushed oceans
Himalayas
Krakatoas,
warring nations…
Rocketing red and fiery across the dazzled brow
of Nothingness
/> Till Nothing itself became a memory.
At last, we descended into Tikhvin, a crossroads for centuries, with its river and its railroad, the point of arrival and departure where I’d last left my one and faithless love. His tears had run, but I had not been moved. That vain girl, walking around with her eyes shut tight, thinking that life should be straight and good, that she could pick and choose, like plucking stones out of a handful of rice. But now I was five months along with his child unborn, and had learned that imperfection was part of the weave of the world. I would return to him if I could, and pick up the stitch I had dropped.
Tikhvin was a substantial town of some twenty thousand souls—a number I once thought negligible. Now it was dizzying. So many streets, people, houses, fences, and carts…The giant Uspensky Monastery loomed with its five-towered carillon, its ancient fortress walls, which had once protected the entire population from Swedish invaders. Now Russian soldiers held the town in their grip, hanging about on street corners in their greatcoats, with their rifles and grisly bayonets. A gang of recruits marched toward a barracks, accompanied by shouts and curses. This was the current reality, the sound of the year 1919, the crash and clang of war. Time was bringing me into its brazen dance, leading me by the hand.
After days of nothing more urgent than snowbound forest and the bony rump of the horse, Tikhvin’s sprawl and energy unnerved me, and the child recoiled inside me. Like a country simpleton, I marveled at every small sight—the town seemed a metropolis, a terrifying wonder. Every sound amplified, every movement a jolt. I flinched at a carter banging crates to the ground, startled at a shout from a doorway. Now I understood the peasant’s terror when he encountered mighty Petersburg for the first time—the din of Nikolaevsky station, the bustle on Nevsky Prospect.