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The Suitcase

Page 11

by Sergei Dovlatov


  p. 24, Yuri Gagarin, Mayakovsky, Fidel Castro: Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin (1934 – 68), Soviet cosmonaut and the first man in space, who received the most prestigious award in the USSR, “Hero of the Soviet Union”; Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930), Russian Futurist poet and Soviet propagandist, often seen as the exemplar of Soviet art; Fidel Castro (b.1926), leader of the Cuban revolution and subsequently First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba.

  p. 28, Lomonosov: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711 – 65), pioneering Russian grammarian, poet, scientist and founder of Moscow State University.

  p. 37, Pushkin Hills: An area in the Pskov Oblast named after Russia’s most celebrated poet, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799 – 1837), who spent a period of exile and wrote some of his best-known works in the region.

  p. 37, Léger: Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955), French painter and sculptor, who joined the Communist Party in 1945.

  p. 39, Komsomol: The Communist Party’s youth wing.

  p. 40, pelmeni: Meat dumplings, a traditional Russian dish.

  p. 42, Mikhail Rodzyanko… Trotsky, Lazar Kaganovich and Andrei Andreyev: Rodzyanko (1859 – 1924) was a key politician in pre-Communist Russia. Trotsky (1879 – 1940) was second to Lenin in the early days of the Revolution; Kaganovich (1893 – 1991) and Andreyev (1895 – 1971) were fervent supporters of Stalin.

  p. 43, Heroine Mother: A title and the name of a medal awarded to mothers of ten or more children.

  p. 45, people’s assessors: In the Soviet legal system, a people’s assessor had a role similar to that of a magistrate. Particularly in Soviet films, people’s assessors would have towed the party line in their verdicts.

  p. 50, Misha Baryshnikov: Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov (b.1948), widely regarded as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the twentieth century. He defected from the Soviet Union in 1974 whilst touring in Canada.

  p. 69, Peter Brook, Fellini and De Sica: All luminaries of the film or theatre worlds: Peter Brook (b.1925), English theatre and film director; Federico Fellini (1920 – 93), Italian film director; Vittorio De Sica (1901 – 74), Italian film director and actor.

  p. 69, Shostakovich, Mravinsky, Eisenstein: Again, all extremely influential Soviet cultural figures: Dmitry Dmitryevich Shostakovich (1906 – 75), Russian composer; Yevgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky (1903 – 88), Soviet conductor; Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898 – 1948), ground-breaking Soviet film director.

  p. 76, Nikolai Gumilyov: Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov (1886 – 1921), Russian Acmeist poet.

  p. 76, Yesenin, Zoshchenko and Vysotsky: Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (1895 – 1925), one of Russia’s best-known lyrical poets, committed suicide at thirty. Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (1895 – 1958) was one of the foremost figures of Soviet satire, and was persecuted by the authorities towards the end of his life. Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (1938 – 80), known as a bard in Russia, was one of the most popular and respected singer-songwriters of his country.

  p. 77, Raykin: Arkady Isaakovich Raykin (1911 – 87), well-known Soviet humorist.

  p. 77, Sartre, Yves Montand: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980), French existentialist philosopher; Yves Montand (1921 – 91), Italian-born French actor and singer.

  p. 78, Proust, Galsworthy, Feuchtwanger… she loved Pasternak and Tsvetayeva: The first three are all “foreign” authors: Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922), French author of In Search of Lost Time; John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933), English novelist and author of The Forsyte Saga; Lion Feuchtwanger (1884 – 1958), German-Jewish novelist and playwright. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890 – 1960) and Marina Ivanovna Tsvetayeva (1892 – 1941) were both celebrated Russian writers.

  p. 85, Solzhenitsyn’s portrait: Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008), Russian writer and notable dissident.

  p. 85, Tolya Gladilin… Vasya Shukshin… Bellochka: Here Dovlatov uses the diminutive versions of the writers’ first names to emphasize his connection with them. All were prominent writers born in the late 1920s or 1930s.

  p. 85, Tarkovsky’s movies: Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (1932 – 86), acclaimed Russian film director whose work was highly lyrical and often spiritual. Ivan’s Childhood was Tarkovsky’s first feature film and won him widespread acclaim.

  p. 86, friendly greetings from Goryshin, a drunken bear hug from Wolf, a quick chat with Yefimov or Konetsky… Even Daniil Granin knew my face: Gleb Alexandrovich Goryshin (1931 – 98), editor for the literary journal Aurora; Sergei Evgenyevich Wolf (1935 – 2005), a poet and prose writer from St Petersburg; Igor Markovich Yefimov (b.1937), novelist and author of a number of samizdat publications; Viktor Viktorovich Konetsky (1929 – 2002), writer and screenwriter; Daniil Alexandrovich Granin (b.1919), award-winning novelist and documentary writer.

  p. 86, Kornei Chukovsky, Nikolai Oleynikov… Daniil Kharms, and so on: Chukovsky (1882 – 1969) was an influential children’s poet, critic and translator. Oleynikov (1898 – 1937) and Kharms (1905 – 42) both belonged to the absurdist OBERIU group in the 1920s, which was later seen to conflict with Soviet aesthetics. The former was shot at the height of Stalin’s purges; the latter died in a psychiatric ward in Leningrad after being arrested for treason.

  p. 86, Yevgeny Yevtushenko: (b.1933) Hugely popular Russian poet and critic of Stalinism.

  p. 90, Virgin Soil Upturned: A reference to a Soviet classic by Mikhail Sholokhov (1905 – 84), commonly thought of as rather dreary, and required reading in schools.

  p. 93, a picture of the actor Yakovlev: Yury Vasilyevich Yakovlev (b.1928), a well-known film and theatre actor.

  p. 95, Ceauşescu: Nicolae Ceauşescu (1918 – 89), General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party.

  p. 107, Gostiny Dvor: The largest and most famous department store in St Petersburg.

  p. 114, And soon the foe… field of blood: From Pushkin’s ‘Poltava’, English translation by John Coutts.

  p. 117, Chuk and Gek: a children’s story written by Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (1904 – 41), about two young brothers who leave Moscow to visit their father, who is on a remote expedition.

  p. 119, Chursina… Tenyakova: Lyudmila Alexeyevna Chursina (b.1941) and Natalya Maximovna Tenyakova (b.1944) both famous, award-winning Russian actresses.

  1. James Hanley, Boy

  2. D.H. Lawrence, The First Women in Love

  3. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

  4. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

  6. Anton Chekhov, Sakhalin Island

  7. Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, Sonnets

  8. Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation

  9. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

  10. Jane Austen, Emma

  11. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

  12. D.H. Lawrence, The Second Lady Chatterley’s Lover

  13. Jonathan Swift, The Benefit of Farting Explained

  14. Anonymous, Dirty Limericks

  15. Henry Miller, The World of Sex

  16. Jeremias Gotthelf, The Black Spider

  17. Oscar Wilde, The Picture Of Dorian Gray

  18. Erasmus, Praise of Folly

  19. Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy

  20. Cecco Angiolieri, Sonnets

  21. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Humiliated and Insulted

  22. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

  23. Theodor Storm, Immensee

  24. Ugo Foscolo, Sepulchres

  25. Boileau, Art of Poetry

  26. Kaiser, Plays Vol. 1

  27. Émile Zola, Ladies’ Delight

  28. D.H. Lawrence, Selected Letters

  29. Alexander Pope, The Art of Sinking in Poetry

  30. E.T.A. Hoffmann, The King’s Bride

  31. Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

  32. Prosper Mérimée, A Slight Misunderstanding

  33. Giacomo Leopardi, Canti

  34. Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron

  35. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, The Jew’s Beech

  36. Stendhal, Life of
Rossini

  37. Eduard Mörike, Mozart’s Journey to Prague

  38. Jane Austen, Love and Friendship

  39. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  40. Ivan Bunin, Dark Avenues

  41. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

  42. Sadeq Hedayat, Three Drops of Blood

  43. Alexander Trocchi, Young Adam

  44. Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

  45. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

  46. Sadeq Hedayat, The Blind Owl

  47. Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jealousy

  48. Marguerite Duras, Moderato Cantabile

  49. Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus

  50. Alain Robbe-Grillet, In the Labyrinth

  51. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

  52. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

  53. Ivan Bunin, The Village

  54. Alain Robbe-Grillet, The Voyeur

  55. Franz Kafka, Dearest Father

  56. Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

  57. A. Bierce, The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter

  58. F. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions

  59. Bram Stoker, Dracula

  60. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  61. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities

  62. Marguerite Duras, The Sailor from Gibraltar

  63. Robert Graves, Lars Porsena

  64. Napoleon Bonaparte, Aphorisms and Thoughts

  65. J. von Eichendorff, Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing

  66. Adelbert von Chamisso, Peter Schlemihl

  67. Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, The Three-Cornered Hat

  68. Jane Austen, Persuasion

  69. Dante Alighieri, Rime

  70. A. Chekhov, The Woman in the Case and Other Stories

  71. Mark Twain, The Diaries of Adam and Eve

  72. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

  73. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

  74. Gottfried Keller, A Village Romeo and Juliet

  75. Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style

  76. Georg Büchner, Lenz

  77. Giovanni Boccaccio, Life of Dante

  78. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

  79. E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil’s Elixirs

  80. Claude Simon, The Flanders Road

  81. Raymond Queneau, The Flight of Icarus

  82. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

  83. Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of our Time

  84. Henry Miller, Black Spring

  85. Victor Hugo, The Last Day of a Condemned Man

  86. D.H. Lawrence, Paul Morel

  87. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Life of Monsieur de Molière

  88. Leo Tolstoy, Three Novellas

  89. Stendhal, Travels in the South of France

  90. Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

  91. Alain Robbe-Grillet, Erasers

  92. Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, Fosca

  93. D.H. Lawrence, The Fox

  94. Borys Conrad, My Father Joseph Conrad

  95. J. De Mille, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

  96. Émile Zola, Dead Men Tell No Tales

  97. Alexander Pushkin, Ruslan and Lyudmila

  98. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground

  99. James Hanley, The Closed Harbour

  100. T. De Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

  101. Jonathan Swift, The Wonderful Wonder of Wonders

  102. Petronius, Satyricon

  103. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on Credit

  104. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

  105. W.B. Yeats, Selected Poems

  106. Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double

  107. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

  108. Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

  109. Leo Tolstoy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth

  110. Guido Cavalcanti, Complete Poems

  111. Charles Dickens, Hard Times

  112. Baudelaire and Gautier, Hashish, Wine, Opium

  113. Charles Dickens, Haunted House

  114. Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children

  115. Dante Alighieri, Inferno

  116. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

  117. Alexander Trocchi, Man at Leisure

  118. Alexander Pushkin, Boris Godunov and Little Tragedies

  119. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  120. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

  121. Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

  122. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

  123. René de Chateaubriand, Atala and René

  124. Mikhail Bulgakov, Diaboliad

  125. Goerge Eliot, Middlemarch

  126. Edmondo De Amicis, Constantinople

  127. Petrarch, Secretum

  128. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

  129. Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

  130. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

  131. Luigi Pirandello, Plays Vol. 1

  132. Jules Renard, Histoires Naturelles

  133. Gustave Flaubert, The Dictionary of Received Ideas

  134. Charles Dickens, The Life of Our Lord

  135. D.H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl

  136. Benjamin Constant, The Red Notebook

  137. Raymond Queneau, We Always Treat Women too Well

  138. Alexander Trocchi, Cain’s Book

  139. Raymond Roussel, Impressions of Africa

  140. Llewelyn Powys, A Struggle for Life

  141. Nikolai Gogol, How the Two Ivans Quarrelled

  142. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  143. Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants

  144. Dante Alighieri, Purgatory

  145. Mikhail Bulgakov, A Young Doctor’s Notebook

  146. Sergei Dovlatov, The Suitcase

  147. Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murat

  148. Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books

  149. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

  150. A. Pushkin, The Queen of Spades and Other Short Fiction

  151. Raymond Queneau, The Sunday of Life

  152. Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  153. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Fatal Eggs

  154. Antonia Pozzi, Poems

  155. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister

  156. Anton Chekhov, The Story of a Nobody

  157. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Poor People

  158. Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

  159. Dante Alighieri, Vita nuova

  160. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Tragedy of Korosko

  161. Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family and Editors

  162. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

  163. Erich Fried, Love Poems

  164. Antonin Artaud, Selected Works

  165. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

  166. Sergei Dovlatov, The Zone

  167. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Guignol’s Band

  168. Mikhail Bulgakov, Dog’s Heart

  169. Rayner Heppenstall, Blaze of Noon

  170. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Crocodile

  171. Anton Chekhov, Death of a Civil Servant

  www.oneworldclassics.com

  CHEMODAN (The Suitcase)

  Copyright © 1986 by Sergei Dovlatov

  Translation © Antonina W. Bouis, 1990, 2011

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction.

  The Suitcase first published in Russian as Чемоdан by Эрмumahc in 1986 This translation first published in the US by Grove Weidenfeld in 1990

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  978-1-58243-733-0

  COUNTERPOINT

  1919 Fifth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710
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  eISBN : 978-1-582-43883-2

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  Distributed by Publishers Group West

 

 

 


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