Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

by Lodge, Kirsten; Rosen, Margo Shohl; Dashevsky, Grigory

  In “The Story of Sergey Petrovich” (1900), Andreyev applies his skill in describing a character’s psychological vacillations to an ordinary man who happens to have read some of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. We have heard a lot about men who read Nietzsche and think they are supermen, but what about those who realise they are part of the herd? As Andreyev wrote in his diary about the story, Nietzsche teaches Sergey Petrovich to rebel against injustice—against nature and humanity.

  Some of the writers featured in this collection had some hope for the future, though not necessarily for themselves. They sensed the imminent collapse of the culture they represented. In his programmatic 1894 poem “Children of Night,” Dmitry Merezhkovsky, speaking for the generation writing at the turn of the century, proclaims that there is hope—but not for us. This generation will perish beneath the first rays of the sun that will shine for the new era that will replace it. Similarly, in the classic poem “The Coming Huns” (1905), Briusov’s lyrical “I” welcomes the “barbarians” that are destined to destroy contemporary civilisation just as they had once razed Rome. The belief that history was cyclical was prevalent at the time: civilisations, it was believed, are born and age like human beings, only to die and be replaced by healthy fledgling societies. Contemporaneous civilisation awaited its “barbarians” with mixed feelings, as they represented both its death and the panacea for its “sickness.” The speaker of Briusov’s poem is resigned to his fate, prepared to collect the fragments of high culture and attempt to preserve them for future generations, retreating with them to caves like the early Christians. Briusov composed this poem at a critical juncture in Russian history, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 and the failed 1905 Revolution. After Russia’s catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, in his correspondence Briusov likened the Japanese to the barbarians who brought down Rome, and this may be one reason the barbarians in this poem come from the East (the phrase “over Pamirs as yet unexplored” refers to the steppes between Mongolia and southern Russia). Another reason for their eastern origin is that the Mongols who ravaged Rus’ in the thirteenth century had also invaded from the East. In the 1903 essay “The Triumph of Socialism,” Briusov compared the revolutionary masses to barbarians as well; this is thus another significant subtext of “The Coming Huns.”

  In “The Last Martyrs” (1906), Briusov sets the victory of the revolutionaries, whom one of the characters explicitly calls “barbarians,” in the future. In this story there is a clear division between the representatives of high culture and the “barbarian” revolutionaries. The narrator belongs to a sect that worships mysterious “Symbols,” a detail that suggests the group is modelled on the Symbolist movement. Briusov’s over-the-top description of their final orgiastic rites in the face of death, however, may be read as a parody of certain Symbolists’ views, particularly those of Vyacheslav Ivanov, with his ideal of mystical communion through Dionysian celebration. The sectarians, like typical decadents, are highly sensitive, refined individuals who have dedicated their lives to luxury and the cultivation of their souls. In one character’s words, they are “the hothouse flowers of humanity.” In the view of the emissary of the revolutionaries, however, they are mere degenerates, and as such they must be mercilessly cut out of the body of society. The emissary thus reiterates Nordau’s proposed solution to the problem of degeneration: the extermination of all those who are infected and thus weaken society. With great prescience Briusov condenses the cruel rhetoric of power against those it deems undesirable, a rhetoric strikingly similar to that of later Soviet and Nazi campaigns against those they labelled “degenerate.”

  Is it to this sort of violence that Briusov is referring when, in “The Republic of the Southern Cross” (1905), he mentions that the government takes “decisive measures in a timely fashion” to prevent the spread of the epidemic outside of the capital city? Indeed, such is the solution that Whiting and his followers attempt to implement in Star City. In any case, “The Republic of the Southern Cross” warns us that the advance of civilisation, even if it does not lead to its collapse at the hands of barbarians, may lead to barbarism nonetheless. Star City’s overemphasis on reason, order and regulation, combined with its luxury and debauchery, contributes to the outbreak of a disease called “contradiction.” The government’s attempt to place total control over the population leads to the eruption of the repressed irrational, and in the end people are dancing around bonfires like cavemen, indulging in orgies and at each other’s throats. This breakdown of order is reflected in a disintegration of style from an objective, distanced language typical of newspaper reporting throughout most of the work, to a more emotional and literary style in the description of the loss of the last vestiges of morality and law. Like Andreyev in “The Abyss,” Briusov depicts the brute instincts of humanity lurking beneath the veneer of culture.

  Alexander Kondratiev tells very different tales of aggression and rape. Unlike Briusov and Andreyev, he treats violation not as an act of brutality, but as a natural part of the mythical pagan world of gods and goddesses, who behave like satyrs and nymphs. His tales are comparable to the decadent writings of the French author Pierre Louÿs, whose novel Aphrodite was a bestseller in 1896, and whose work Kondratiev translated into Russian. Both Kondratiev and Louÿs are remarkable for their playful depictions of the sensuality of the ancient world. The decadents were attracted to the pagan gods because they associated them with the body and sensuality, free and naïve before Christianity fettered the passions. Just as Sologub’s story “The Poisoned Garden” offers the reader a retreat from reality into the fantastic and beautiful world of the fairy tale, Kondratiev’s myths draw the reader into a finely crafted and subtly perverse created world.

  The stories and poems included here will give the reader an overview of decadence in Russian literature at the turn of the twentieth century, with its prominent themes of perversity, despair and collapse. Despairing of the state of society, wavering in their hope for a miracle, the Russian decadents had a vague presentiment of impending perdition. They expressed their sense of futility in stories of madness and suicide, and they took egoism to extremes in fantasies of sexual aberration. They found solace in art, which they worshipped as a cult, and they had a particular predilection for highly stylised, timeless genres such as the fairy tale and myth. The importance of Russian decadence has been underestimated, and it is hoped that this anthology, which includes many works never before translated into English, will bring it the recognition it deserves.

  The Last Martyrs

  Valery Briusov

  An Undelivered Letter,

  Consigned to Flames by the Executioner

  Preface

  This letter was written to me by my unfortunate friend, Alexander Athanatos, several days after his miraculous rescue, in response to my insistent urging that he should describe the astounding scenes of which he was the sole surviving witness. The letter was seized by agents of the Provisional Government and destroyed as subversive and immoral. Only after my friend’s tragic death, when his remaining belongings were delivered to me, did I find among his papers a draft of this account, and still later I learnt what had happened to the letter itself.

  I believe that this faithful and—as far as I can judge—dispassionate narrative of one of the most distinctive events of the beginning of that momentous historical movement now called by its adherents the “World Revolution” ought not to be consigned to oblivion. Of course, Alexander’s notes cast light on just a small fraction of what happened in the capital city on the memorable day of the uprising, but nonetheless, for future historians they will remain the only available source of certain facts. I believe that awareness of this circumstance compelled the author to weigh his words with special care and, despite his rather florid style, to remain within the bounds of strict historical accuracy.

  In conclusion, I cannot but express my gratitude to the country that gave me refuge and my joy that there exists a pla
ce on earth where freedom of the printed word has been preserved, and where it is possible to boldly proclaim one’s opinions without being obliged to extol the Provisional Revolutionary Governments.

  I

  You know that I, like so many others, was completely unprepared for the outbreak of revolution. True, there had been vague rumours that a general uprising was planned for New Year’s Day, but the recent anxious years had taught us not to believe too much in such threats.

  The events of that night took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t planning to celebrate the New Year, and was peacefully at work in my room. Suddenly the electricity went off. By the time I got a candle lit, I could hear the wooden crackle of gunfire outside the window. We were all familiar with those sounds by then, and there was no mistaking it.

  I got dressed and went out.

  In the pitch darkness of the winter night I more divined than saw a heaving crowd of people on the street. The air was one continuous din of movement and voices. The nearby gunfire had not abated, and it seemed to me that bullets were hitting the wall just above my head. After each volley, joy at having escaped death flooded my heart.

  But my desire to see for myself what was transpiring was greater than my fear. I hovered in the doorway of my building with a clutch of other dumbfounded spectators like myself. We exchanged terse questions. Suddenly, like a flood from a breached dam, a mass of people swept towards us, bowling along in panic-stricken horror with shouts and cries. I had no choice but to be swept along with them, or else be trampled.

  I saw myself on Glory Square. The town hall was burning, and the light of its flames illuminated the surrounding area. It reminded me of a line from Virgil: dant clara incendia lucem.1 You know how big that square is. And now it was so full of people that one could hardly move. I think there must have been several hundreds of thousands of people there. Their faces, lit up by the flickering red flames, were strange, unrecognisable.

  I asked many people what had happened. It was amusing to hear all the contradictory and absurd answers. One man said that the workers were slaughtering the wealthy. Another, that the government was exterminating all the poor to put an end to the revolutionary movement. A third, that all the buildings had been mined and were being blown up one by one. A fourth tried to convince me that this wasn’t a revolution at all, but that there had been a terrible earthquake.

  It was just then, when a good one quarter of the city’s population was gathered on the square in front of that flaming building, talking, exclaiming and fretting, that the terrible event you read about in the paper took place. We heard the hollow rumble of a gun volley, a fiery line cut through the darkness, and a shell crashed down into the thick of the crowd. Wails rose above every other noise, immediately deafening, like a physical blow. But just at that moment a second shell exploded. Then another, another, and another…

  A panicked ministry had ordered the commander of the Central Fortress to shoot into any crowds that gathered.

  Once again the senseless stampeding began. Amidst the careering shrapnel of grenades, under the threatening rumble of gunfire pierced by the heart-rending cries of the wounded, people were rushing madly among the stone walls, trampling the fallen, beating anyone in their way with their fists, scrambling up onto windowsills, onto lamp-posts, again falling down and in their frenzy sinking their teeth into the legs of whoever was nearby. It was horror and chaos, a maddening hell. How it was that I finally ended up on Northern Boulevard, I don’t know.

  Here I met with a detachment of revolutionaries.

  There weren’t all that many of them, about three hundred, not more, but they were an organised army within the tumultuous crowd. They were able to recognise one another by the red armbands they wore. Their measured movement put a stop to the flow of people. The mad flight ceased, and the crowd quietened down.

  In the light of pitch torches that made the surroundings look strange and archaic, a man climbed onto the base of the statue of the North and signalled that he wanted to speak. I was standing rather far away, pressed up against a tree, and could catch only the general sense of his speech. The individual words died away before reaching me.

  The speaker called for calm. He announced that the normal flow of life would not be disturbed and that no citizen was in any kind of danger. That what was occurring in the capital was occurring at that hour throughout the country: everywhere power was temporarily in the hands of militia units. That only a small number of people were to be executed—all who belonged to the overthrown government, “equally hateful to all of us,” and that those people had already been sentenced by the Secret Tribunal.

  In conclusion, the orator said something about the day that had been awaited for thousands of years and about the freedom of the people having finally been won.

  In general the speech was of the most ordinary kind. I thought the crowd was going to throw that windbag to the ground, drive him away like a buffoon making jokes in a moment of danger. But instead I heard vehement shouts of approval from all around. The people, who a moment before had been wavering, confused and timid, were suddenly transformed into a whole army of irrational and self-sacrificing insurgents. They lifted the speaker onto their shoulders and began to sing a revolutionary hymn.

  Then I suddenly felt I needed to be not in this crowd, but with people who thought as I did, with my closest friends. The image of the Temple arose in my heart, and I realised that the place of every believer that night was close to those Symbols our generation had made sacred.

  I ran off down the boulevard as quickly as I could through the moving crowd. Everywhere militiamen, preferring not to turn the electricity back on for the present, were lighting torches. Patrols went by, establishing order. Here and there I saw little rallies like the one at which I had been present.

  Occasional volleys stuttered somewhere in the distance.

  I turned onto dark Court Avenue, and finding my way among the labyrinth of old streets almost by intuition, arrived at the entrance to our Temple.

  The doors were locked. The area was deserted.

  I gave the pre-arranged knock on the door, and I was let in.

  II

  The stairs were weakly lit by a lamp.

  Like shades in one of the circles of Dante’s Inferno, people clustered and moved slowly up and down. The semi-dark made people speak in half-whispers. And beneath the low murmur of voices the presence of something terrifying could be felt.

  I made out some familiar faces—Hero was there, and Irina, and Adamantius, and Dimitrius, and Lycius—everyone was there. We exchanged greetings. I asked Adamantius, “What do you think of all this?”

  He answered, “I think it is an ultimatum. It is, finally, the collapse of that new world, which, counting from the Middle Ages, has existed now for three millennia. It is an era of new life, which will unify our entire epoch into a single whole with the Russo-Japanese War and Charlemagne’s campaigns against the Saxons. But we, all of us who are caught between the two worlds, will be ground into dust on those gigantic millstones.”

  I went upstairs. The barely illuminated temple sanctuary seemed more enormous than ever. The far corners melted away into infinity. The Symbols of our service loomed mysteriously and eerily out of the murk.

  Groups of people were scattered here and there in the half-light. From somewhere came the sounds of women hysterically sobbing.

  Someone called me. It was Anastasia. She was sitting on the floor. I sat down next to her. She took my hands, and she who had always been so reserved, even in the hours of our saturnalia, fell sobbing upon my neck, and said, “And so, all is finished, all of life, all possibility of living! Generations, dozens of generations have gone into the cultivation of my soul. Only amidst luxury am I able to breathe. I have to have wings, I can’t crawl. I have to be above other people, I suffocate when there are people around me. My whole life is in those delicate, refined emotions that are possible only in the heights. We are the hothouse flowers of humanity; exposed
to wind and dust, we’ll perish. I don’t want it, I don’t want your freedom, your equality! I’d rather be your perfidious slave than a comrade in your brotherhood!”

  She sobbed and made vague threats, clenching her little fists. I tried to soothe her, saying that it was too early yet to despair, that it was irrational to trust a first impression. The revolutionaries, naturally, were exaggerating their victory. Perhaps tomorrow the government would gather its forces and overthrow them. Perhaps the revolt had not succeeded in the provinces … But Anastasia wouldn’t listen to me.

  Suddenly there was a general stir. Many people stood up, others raised their heads. There was a gleam of light, and Theodosius appeared before the altar.

  Two deaconesses in white surplices carried tall lamps before him, as always. He wore a snow-white tunic, with his long locks of dark hair flowing loose, and a calm, severe expression.

  He took his place at the pulpit, raised his arms in blessing, and began to speak. His voice penetrated like wine to the depths of our souls.

  “Sisters and brothers!” he said. “Behold the breaking of a joyous day for us! Our faith cannot die, for it is the eternal truth of being, and our approaching executioners themselves harbour its truth in their very essence. Our faith is the last Mystery of the world, to whom all bow equally through all centuries and on all planets. But now the time has come for us to confess our faith before the ages and all eternity. It is given to us to take the communion of the supreme passion, the final communion before death. Remember how many times we whipped our bodies in a frenzy of sensuality, and how the pain doubled the pleasure of receiving communion. The death-blow will triple our ecstasy; it will magnify it ten times over. The death-blow will throw wide the gates of rapture, such rapture as you have never experienced, and it will dazzle you beyond anything you have ever known. Sisters! Brothers! The moment of our last union will penetrate our entire essence like a bolt of lightning, and our last breath will be a cry of untold happiness. O, last of the faithful, last martyrs for faith, I see it, I see crowns of glory upon your heads!”