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SEER, Vol. 72, No. 2, April I994
THE topic of the intelligentsia's role in Russia during and since the
Stalin years is understandably a sensitive one for writers. Authors who
trod the difficult and narrow line between conformism and caution
during the post-Thaw era have chiefly expressed their thoughts on this
theme through the intense preoccupation since the I96os with the
urban anti-hero, or morally compromised man. Trifonov, Tendriakov,
Zalygin, Dudintsev, Granin and lesser writers have all dealt with the
theme of the intelligentsia's Oblomovism, writing what critic Anatolii
Bocharov has called 'ispovedal'naia proza', in which characters
express their moral laxity, responsibility for the compromises they have
made, and guilt.' Tat'iana Tolstaia and Liudmila Petrushevskaia have
taken up this theme in different ways in their recent work, as has
Vladimir Makanin, whose series of texts depicting the ineffectuality of
the intelligentsia are a striking contribution to this topic in terms of
both style and theme.
His recent texts, such as Utrata and Otstavshii (both published in
i987), have an almost Gogolian quality. Makanin possesses a great
stylistic flexibility, being able to combine a cold, prosaic tone with
forays into myth, parable, the surreal and dystopia; his prose is
hypnotically compelling and strangely powerful.2 Time and place are
significant components of his texts; his characters live not only in
dreary urban landscapes but also in tunnels and wildernesses, places
where the dividing lines between time present and past seem thin and
distorted, as do the boundaries between man's sophistication and his
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 2I9
Like Trifonov, Makanin is particularly interested in place. His texts, however, encom-
pass a greater variety of locales than Trifonov's non-historical works, which are usually set
in cramped Moscow flats. As Lev Anninskii has stated, Makanin's world is also that of the
'poselok' and the 'barak', where people who live under such conditions 'become accustomed
to anything'. Lev Anninskii, 'Struktura labirinta' in V. Makanin, Izbrannoe, Moscow, I987,
pp.3-I8 (p. I7) (a republication of an article in Znamia, I986, I2, pp.2I8-26, also
republished in Lokti i kryl'ia, Moscow, I 989, pp. 238-58). This point has been disputed. Irina
Rodianskaia argues that Makanin's Moscow is not Trifonov's 'little rodina of the Muscovite,
but a "bol'shoi gorod", in its laws brutally opposing the worldly and ethical experience of
the envoy from the Russia of the barrack and housing estate'. See I. Rodianskaia,
'Neznakomye neznakomtsy. K sporam o geroiakh Vladimira Makanina' (hereafter 'Nez-
nakomye neznakomtsy'), Novyi mir, I986, 8, pp. 230-48 (233). Makanin is also interested in
tunnels, as his texts Utrata and Laz show; and in 'empty places', as in the story 'Pustynnoe
mesto', in which Makanin states: 'a deserted place calls and entices; inviting, it promises us
something' (Izbrannoe, p. 152).
4 See the dialogue between T. Tolstaia and K. Stepanian (p. 82). Tolstaia also speaks of
the feeling of existential loneliness of man (p. 84), before suggesting that Makanin's theme is
the opposition between the individual and the collective (p. 88). V. Kamianov in a recent
article claimed rather cryptically that Makanin is interested in 'the event of dark enlight-
ment'. See V. Kamianov, 'V tesnote i obide, ili novyi chelovek na zemle i pod zemlei', Novyi
mir, I99I, 12, pp. 2I9-30 (226). I. Zhukov, in 'Mera otvetstvennosti' in V. Makanin, Mesto
pod solntsem, Moscow, I984, pp. 3-7, claimed that there is one motif which runs throughout
Makanin's work; that of 'personal responsibility' (p. 3). This is the nearest critics have come
to noting Makanin's interest in guilt, although Rodianskaia has noted a little vaguely that
'[Makanin] lives under the sign of integral guilt [integral'noi viny], the source of which is at
times unclear to himself', 'Neznakomye neznakomtsy', p. 240.
5 Critics often divide Makanin's work into two periods: I967-79, and 1979 to present, his
pre-i979 texts being regarded as of lower quality. For articles on Makanin's work, see
A. Ageev, 'Istina i svoboda. Vladimir Makanin: vzgliad iz I 990 goda', Literaturnoe obozrenie,
I990, 9, pp. 25-33; A. Bocharov, 'Rozhdeno sovremennost'iu', Novyi mir, 1981, 8, pp. 227-47
(242-43), and also his Chem zhiva literatura?, Moscow, I986, pp. 209-33; V. Bondarenko,
'Vremia nadezhd', Zvezda, I986, 8, pp. 114-23; A. Dedkov, 'Ironiia vmesto analiza' and
V. Kamianov, 'Tselebnost' edkogo slova', both in Literaturnaiagazeta, i i August I982, p. 4-
N. Ivanova, 'Ochen' predvaritel'nye itogi: Vladimir Makanin', Literaturnaia ucheba, 1980, I,
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220 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 221
10 A. Bocharov likens 'Chelovek svity' to Trifonov's Dom na naberezhnoi, and also, oddly, to
Rasputin's Pozhar, in Literatura i vremia, p. 336. In a recent article I. Murav'eva has argued
interestingly for Makanin's likeness to Leskov; see 'Sloistyi pirog vremeni', Kontinent, 6I,
I 989, pp. 353-66 (355).
11 As his narrator states in 'Grazhdanin ubegaiushchii': 'People never have searched for
something and aren't searching now - they are simply running away from their own traces,
from their own previous acts of destruction', Izbrannoe, p. 21.
12 Otstavshii appeared in translation as Left Behind in Glasnost': An Anthology ofLiterature Under
Gorbachev. A translation of Makanin's Kliucharev i Alimushkin has- appeared in the latest
edition of Glas; two works have been translated into French, appearing as La ou' le ciel rejoignait
les collines ( I 988) and La breche ( i 99 I ). Since I 983, seven of Makanin's books have appeared
in German translation, issued by Neuer Malik: Stimme, Romancollage (1983), Der Wunderheiler
(1984), Menschenbilder( (987), Der Verlust (i 989), Moskau 1985 (a collection of texts, i99i), Das
Schlupftoch (1992), and Der Nachzigler (1992).
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222 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 223
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224 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
In the first of these two works Makanin can be seen still groping
towards - and failing to find - an individual approach to the subject
of the intelligentsia. In his I978 Portret i vokrug he pinpoints a major
problem for the intelligent; namely, his inability to recognize his guilt.
Portret i vokrug revolves around a 'man of the sixties', Starokhatov, a
man who abuses his position as a well-known scriptwriter and producer
to sign his name to scripts written by novice authors. Starokhatov is no
monster (he is capable of generous, even noble acts), but his ability to
create a false, successful self-image through his plagiarism points not
only to his lack of ethics, but to his lack of identity. Identity is a major
problem for the main character in this novel, Igor' Petrovich, who
becomes involved in the Starokhatov case when a friend asks him to
help create a 'portrait' of the man. Igor' uncovers evidence of Staro-
khatov's theft of scripts but finds himself unable to take any action
against the man. This is not only due to an intelligent's ineffectuality;
Starokhatov tells Igor' that he 'sees himself' in Starokhatov, whose
criminality he has exposed. Starokhatov suggests one possible motiva-
tion for Igor"s inability to act; for Igor', laying charges against this
man would be like indicting himself; and he cannot accept his own
criminality.
In this early work Makanin has little that is particularly new to offer
in his depiction of moral laxity and the difficulties of facing the truth
about oneself. Nine years later, however, he published a text in which
the character of Igor' Petrovich appeared for the second time. The
theme in this, the I987 text Odin i odna, is again that of the guilt of the
shestidesiatniki, that generation capable of doing good, and yet somehow
unable to do so. Whether one accepts the argument of Natal'ia Ivanova
that this story is a 'dethroning' of the generation of the shestidesiatniki, or
that of Alla Latynina, who has claimed it is an apologia for them,23 it is
clear that Makanin has moved on in fact from discussing passivity and
guilt. He is now concerned primarily with the theme of punishment,
producing thus a far starker, even chilling, text. For the intelligenty who
were unable to act on their liberal principles, isolation is the punish-
ment. They are cut off from the collective, doomed to a lonely old age,
as Makanin describes with a laconic lack of sentimentality.
In Odin i odna Makanin's shestidesiatniki are Gennadii Goloshchekov
and Ninel', two idealistic people who were involved in student politics
during the I 950s, and who could never bring themselves to kow-tow to
the regime ('prosit' silnykh', p. I55), people who realized that 'the
intellect and conformism are two incompatible things, Salieri' (p. 76).
They are depicted as innately honourable, but the harsh spotlight of
Makanin's prose shows them also to be pathetic and even farcical.
23 N. Ivanova, 'Ochen' predvaritel'nye itogi' (n. 5 above), p. 33; A. Latynina, 'Fo
paradoksal'nogo', Literaturnoe obozrenie, I 983, 1 0, pp . 3 2-36.
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 225
24 Izbrannoe, p. 292.
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226 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
25 Critics have as yet paid little attention to Otstavshii. See, however, the comments of
Tolstaia and Stepanian in '... Golos letiashchi'ii v kupol', pp. 87-89, 9I; and A. Karpov,
'Preodolenie ochevidnosti' (n. 5 above), p. 4.
26 V. Makanin, Otstavshii, Znamia, 1987, pp. 6-59 (9). All further references to the text are
taken from this edition; page numbers will appear in parentheses after the quotation.
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 227
tale sets an apologetic tone in certain sections and links the text to
Trifonov's Obmen (I969), in which the main character, Dmitriev, also
feels he has 'missed the train' in failing to take advantage of
opportunities.
Makanin takes the motif of falling behind on to a philosophical level.
'Falling behind' is part of the author's interest in how man interacts
with time, and the themes of death, eternity, of disappearance and of
leaving a 'trace' all appear in the text. Man can 'combine' various time
lines. Serezha realizes that he is the 'point of contact' between two
generations, those of his father and his daughter; he becomes 'a simple
point of contact between these two mutually opposite signals from the
past and the future' (p. 7). This theme again shows the strong link
between Makanin's work and that of Trifonov's; the latter dealt with
the idea of 'inheriting' morality from one's ancestors, as if through the
genes, in Drugaia zhizn'. For Trifonov's hero, Sergei, 'combining time'
is primarily an ethical concept; for Makanin it is something more.
When Makanin deals with the concept of 'genetic time', that is, racial
memory, he suggests that Serezha is linked to his distant ancestors and
to his entire culture, part of which is, presumably, the story of Lesha, a
sequence of events which has become a cultural myth.
The story of the boy Lesha, a iurodivyi with childlike blue eyes,
naivete, white hair and scarred, crooked hands, is a paradoxical tale.
Lesha has a rare and dangerous ability; he can find gold, a talent which
comes into play whenever he 'falls behind'. Constantly battling to keep
up with the group of prospectors who abuse him and his talent
unmercifully, and who deliberately outstrip him, so that he will lag,
Lesha's path is sure to coincide with a lode. Attempting to belong -yet
failing to do so - is for Makanin a situation which is both terrible, yet
serendipitous. To Serezha, battling with his own feelings of falling
behind, the story has considerable significance. He, like Lesha, 'fell
behind' during liberal, less cruel times. Now that the times are more
brutal, perhaps his continuing to 'fall behind' is a more fortunate mode
of existence?
The meaning of the title, 'otstavshii', centres on this paradox.
Serezha blames himself for his dilatoriness, yet finds comfort in the fact
that desiring to keep up with one's time is indicative of a desire to
conform. What else motivates Lesha, but a desire to belong to a group,
a desire which is exploited for monetary gaiii? The desire to 'combine
one's own time with the time of one's society' (p. 55) is a dangerous
desire, one which places ideological certainty higher than honest
doubt. Serezha states:
The spiritual aspect of every kind of 'falling behind' probably suggests a
norm; it suggests that somewhere there is defined and there exists a norm
which doesn't allow any doubts, that the essence and meaning lie in that
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228 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 229
It appears that the guilt of the intelligentsia for the parlous state of
Russia is symbolized by the hero carrying the bloody corpse of a dead
animal through a wintry street. He cannot rid himself of this bloody, icy
burden of guilt; from this stems his fear, and at the same time, his love.
The story 'Jeroglif' can be defined as an apologia, something in the
manner of Iurii Trifonov's much more personal admission of his failure
to speak out against Stalin which was expressed in the story 'Koshki ili
zaitsy?' (i 98I) .29 In the latter it is dead cats, not a frozen cow, which for
Trifonov symbolize the Stalinist atrocities about which he, as a writer,
should have spoken out. Makanin's story, although it uses the same
motif of dead meat, is more powerful, and more comic, than Trifonov's.
The farcical depictiQn of Igor' Petrovich's dismay when he discovers
this strange find, and his dithering as he tries to decide what to do,
remind the reader of Gogol"s creation of characters who are not really
human, but merely comic moments created to offer insights into man's
bestial nature.
The theme of the beast appeared in Makanin's two dystopian texts
also published in I 99 I. In Dolog nash put' Makanin used the image of a
carcass to suggest that men are driven by their survival instinct to prey
on one another, or on animals, which they require for food. The image
of the swarm, or 'roi', was chosen by Makanin in Odin i odna (and used
again in Laz) intentionally, to indicate to the reader that man is
inherently an animal and a pack member. Dolog nash put' focuses
strongly on the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood, describing a
supposedly perfect future world without war, disease, famine; a world
in which no species preys on the other: 'For a hundred years already no
bird, fish or anything alive has been turned into food, what humanism!'
(p. 5) .30 Or so the idealistic, unnamed and rather one-dimensional
29 See Iu. Trifonov, 'Koshki i1i zaitsy?', Novyi mir, I 98 I, 7, pp. 58-87 (58-64).
30 V. Makanin, Dolog nash put', Znamia, I99I, 4, pp. 3-47 (5). Further page references from
this edition will appear in the text.
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230 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
31 V. Makanin, Laz, Novyi mir, 1991, 5, pp. 92-133 ( ii 6- i 8). Future quotations refer to this
edition.
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MAKANIN AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA 23I
people as a dark mass. Makanin points to the only way out of this
dilemma. The text ends with an episode of brotherhood, of mutual
assistance, suggesting that civilized feelings are not completely dead;
men must, however, conquer their desire to exploit one another, to feed
off one another, in order to create a brave new world. Belonging to the
brotherhood of man is again a concern which absorbs Makanin, and
which he uses as the background to his theme of man's difficult and
violent interrelationships, particularly the relationship of the intelligenty
to their time and place, and to the people.
'Belonging' is also the theme of four texts which appeared in Znamia
in 1992 under the general heading of Siuzhet usredneniia. These four short
pieces are meditations on literature and on the theme of the Russian's
desire to 'rastvorit'sia v liudiakh', to dissolve into, become one with, the
crowd or narod.32 We meet Igor' Petrovich again; standing in one of the
eternal Moscow food queues, he admits to fear: fear that others in the
queue will 'recognize him' - more specifically, will 'identify' ('opoz-
naiut') him (p. I 3). Igor' is reticent on the point of whether it is to be
identified as a writer, an intelligent, or simply to be 'singled out', which
he fears. There is comfort in 'usrednenie', and Makanin makes the
point that man desires to lose his individuality even without the
pressure of the regime ('bez usilii sistemy', p. I I 2). To lose oneself, to
abnegate individual responsibility, to be unnoticed in the crowd, this is
Igor"s desire. The theme of belonging crops up again as Makanin hints
at the intelligentsia's desire to be one with the people, tojoin with them.
Do his protagonists desire to join with their time, or their people, from
motives of expiation, to eradicate their guilt 'before the people' ('Sku-
chaiushchie shofera', p. i I8), or do they wish comfort, and to hide? If
they do learn how to belong, will they in fact achieve anything, or
continue to be ineffectual intelligenty? In 'Jeroglif' Igor' picks up the
haunch of meat, the bloody symbol of collective guilt, and attempts to
take it somewhere. However, the story ends with him dropping the
haunch; he falls into a snowdrift. Lying there, he mutters:
'I'm getting up ... I'm already getting up', I humbly vindicated myself,
pitifully and eagerly reporting before someone who was sternly watching
me from the side. (p. I 24)
32 'Skuchaiushchie shofera', Siuzhet usredneniia, Znamia, 1992, I, pp. 107-13 (0og). Further
references to the four stories published under this general title are taken from this edition.
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232 SALLY DALTON-BROWN
from the people, from the collective. Makanin's career, it seems, has
entered a new phase since I987, in which his vision of man's ability to
act inhumanely has been expressed in various stylistic ways - the
dystopia, the surreal, the myth, parable, and in stark urban prose. The
texts Otstavshii, Odin i odna, Utrata and Laz are major achievements in
which Makanin has worried at that symbolic haunch of frozen meat,
attempting to exorcize, painfully and bloodily, the ghost of the past -
the guilt of the intelligentsia. His short stories are undoubtedly of less
merit, for in them Makanin allows message to mangle form, but they
have value as accompanying pieces to the major works.
Makanin has now explored the guilt of the intelligentsia in many
ways, depicting the inability to recognize guilt (Portret i vokrug), the
punishment that follows from apathy (Odin i odna), the desire to belong
and the panic engendered by a feeling of falling behind (Otstavshii,
Siuzhet usredneniia), and the withdrawal to an underground, privileged,
yet doomed world (Laz). In 'Jeroglif' he provides us with a succinct
image; the intelligent, Igor' Petrovich, is not a man, but an hieroglyph of
fear, love and pain. Only when he has excised his guilt will he find his
identity as a person. Makanin's future texts may offer more visions of
man's cruelty and bestiality, or may introduce new characters. The
breadth of his style suggests an endless creative possibility which has
barely been exploited and which will ensure that Makanin will con-
tinue to be well to the fore amongst contemporary Russian prose
writers.
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