The appearance of the literary almanac Metropol in January, 1979, represented a major development in the continuous struggle between the Soviet literary establishment and writers seeking to loosen the state’s strict censorship policies. The contributors to this anthology tried to circumvent the official censorship system by releasing their volume at a public reception in a Moscow café, but the authorities anticipated the event and closed the café for sanitary purposes on the scheduled reception day. Nevertheless, two copies of the almanac were smuggled to the West, and other copies circulated in manuscript form throughout intellectual circles in the Soviet Union. The significance of this collection stems from the fact that it was meant to be an open publication, not merely one more in a long series of guarded samizdat works circulated secretly among Soviet dissidents. As such, it posed a challenge to the tightly controlled channels of the official Soviet press.
Among the contributors were several writers who had achieved a certain reputation in the literary establishment itself, including Vasily Aksyonov, Fazil Iskander, and Andrei Voznesensky. The Soviet authorities were thus faced with a difficult decision: how to reprimand the contributors without provoking an open breach in the Writers Union, to which several of the contributors belonged. After months of pressure, the authorities achieved their purpose: Some of the contributors have emigrated to the West, others have had publishing projects held up, and two—Viktor Yerofeyev and Yevgeny Popov—lost their membership in the Writers Union.
The collection itself survives, however, and it stands as a testament to the creative vitality and diversity of literature in the Soviet Union today. Short stories, poems, literary essays, drawings, and a theatrical piece all appear in the anthology, and all have been included in the Norton edition, with the exception of an excerpt from John Updike’s novel The Coup (1978) which was translated into Russian in the original volume. The Russian editors emphasize that the participants were independent figures, not bound by any specific political or aesthetic ideology. What united them was their recognition that certain types of literature have been homeless in the Soviet Union. They therefore sought in the Metropol anthology “a convenient shelter, a hunter’s cabin in the capital, situated above the best ’metro’ in the world.” This characterization, with its pun on the word “metro,” alludes subtly to the existence of a Soviet literary “underground,” and the title Metropol further evokes both the metropolis of Moscow—a center of progressive cultural life in the Soviet Union—and the hotel Metropole—a favorite meeting place for cultural figures in Moscow.
While the contributors do not subscribe to a common ideology, certain recurring concerns crop up in their work. Most fundamental is a shared concern for the basic well-being of the individual in a society that places enormous emphasis on the collective. Vasily Aksyonov’s contribution, “The Four Temperaments: A Comedy in Ten Tableaux,” illustrates this concern in allegorical terms. The gifted author of the novels Ostrov Krym (1981; The Island of Crimea, 1983) and The Burn (1984) has here chosen a theatrical format to convey his apprehension concerning the suppression of individual human emotions for the sake of a grand ideal. Introducing four characters with such names as “Chol Erik” and “Melan Cholik,” Aksyonov depicts how the four are enlisted to participate in a vague but lofty experiment promising to usher in “the future of mankind with its unlimited possibilities.” As it turns out, this “Great Experiment” endeavors to transform fallible human beings into cyber people without cares, dreams, or desires. The dehumanizing experiment founders, however, when a woman enters the laboratory and captivates all the men, including the cyber machine overseeing the experiment. The breakdown in the planned experiment is mirrored by the total collapse of the set on which the drama is enacted. This in turn may be an ironic commentary on a system which strives to project a certain image to the world but which often finds its illusions undermined by the lack of such simple materials as the nuts and bolts meant to hold the set together. Aksyonov’s stylized work reminds the reader of Samuel Beckett’s plays, and it reflects his continuing search for innovative forms of expression.
Very different in tone, but similarly rich in emotion is Viktor Yerofeyev’s story “A Creation in Three Chapters.” Primarily known in the West for his surrealistic novel of an alcoholic’s delirium, Moskva-Petushki (1977; Moscow to the End of the Line, 1980), Yerofeyev takes a more traditional approach in the present work, which illuminates the conflict faced by a young professor torn between his desire to further his career through political intrigues at the university and his impulse to pursue an affair with a female student. Yerofeyev skillfully conveys the role of influence in Soviet society: “Pull can make money into mere paper if it pleases, open any door, force people to smile, to bow, and to fear . . . it turns all ’prohibitions’ into ’permission granted,’ any ’forbidden’ into ’go right ahead.’” Igor, the professor, uses this pull to aid him at the university, and he frankly admits to the lure of privilege in the Soviet Union. As he tells his lover, Nina, “Complete equality is just a sick fantasy of illiterate utopians.” Igor’s desire for complete self-indulgence, however, fails when Nina is killed in an accident. Even here, the pervasive system of clandestine pull plays a role, for Igor must bribe a bystander to avoid involvement in the ensuing investigation. Yerofeyev’s work sensitively illustrates the interrelationship between personal conflicts and societal constraints in the Soviet Union.
Disenchantment with the life-style and preoccupations of contemporary society inform many other works in the anthology, and several of the authors reveal a longing for deeper spiritual fulfillment in life. In particular, Fridrikh Gorenshtein and Viktor Trostnikov explore the relevance of religious inspiration in the modern world. Gorenshtein’s story “Steps” follows the rambling meditations of a mentally troubled doctor about Christianity and human goodness. Though convinced of the need for eternal good in the cosmos, Gorenshtein’s hero fears that humanity will never undertake the necessary changes in life; eternal good will only come to Earth when mankind disappears. Countering Gorenshtein’s sober view, Trostnikov suggests that spiritual development can be a source of rich satisfaction. Writing as a physicist who has become disillusioned with the arid achievements of objective, scientific thinking, Trostnikov states that there is a “realm of the immaterial which governs material processes.” He caps his refutation of the materialist underpinnings of modern society with his new conviction that God exists and that “love is the striving of the soul toward God.”
Other writers represented in Metropol eschew abstract philosophical discussions and focus on the problems faced by average citizens in daily life. Yuri Karabchiyevsky seems to sum up the essence of such works in his poem “Elegy,” when he discovers in his own life “instead of grace—the garlic and the pepper of materialism.” These tales of everyday life paint a picture that diverges significantly from the official portraits of Soviet society. Pyotr Kozhevnikov’s “Two Diaries,” which records the experiences of two teenagers establishing a mutual friendship, dramatically refutes the standard image of Soviet youth as optimistic builders of the future. Instead, the diaries provide a dark mosaic of pervasive drunkenness, drug abuse, impersonal sexual activity, hypocrisy in the workplace, and even suicide. The frank, colloquial flavor of Kozhevnikov’s language adds vividness and verisimilitude to this unusual picture of modern life.
Among the other writers whose narratives of everyday life deserve mention are Yevgeny Popov and Boris Vakhtin. Popov, who contributed thirteen brief stories to the collection, proves himself a talented heir to the long comic tradition in Russian literature: Echoes of both Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Zoshchenko resonate in his work. Zoshchenko’s impact is particularly clear in the idiosyncratic narrative voice heard in Popov’s tales. This vernacular or skaz style adds pungency to Popov’s treatment of people who have marital troubles, drink too much, dream too much, and otherwise try to evade the restrictions of their society. Popov’s humor belies a sober understanding of the difficulties faced by idealists in the philistine world of everyday life.
Nikolai Gogol’s legacy can also be seen in Vakhtin’s work. His tale “The Sheepskin Coat” may be read as an updated version of Gogol’s masterpiece “The Overcoat.” Like Gogol’s work, Vakhtin’s tale records the misadventures of a conscientious bureaucrat whose secure but dull career is drastically disrupted by the acquisition of a new overcoat. Vakhtin’s hero, like Gogol’s, has un unlikely name—Philharmon Onushkin—and his story is related by a vague and unreliable narrator. Vakhtin, however, has modernized Gogol’s plot: Onushkin receives his coat not through frugality and hard work but through the efforts of a black marketeer. Vakhtin’s chronicle provides the same kind of coldly ironic view of life on the left in the Soviet Union as “The Overcoat” did of Saint Petersburg life in the nineteenth century.
While writers such as Popov and Vakhtin provide whimsical visions of Soviet life, two other contributors move into the realm of the surrealistic. The accomplished poet Bella Akhmadulina is represented in Metropol by a prose work “The Many Dogs and the Dog.” She introduces her protagonist, Shelaputov, with the comment, “It’s not known who he was. And was he indeed Shelaputov? Where is he now and did he ever exist in fact?” Akhmadulina’s narrative is filled with evocative imagery and tantalizing hints of meaning, but a clear view of Shelaputov’s identity and fate ultimately eludes the reader. Arkady Arkanov’s two stories are less lyrical, but he too is at home with the absurd. In one tale, he describes the marriage of a woman to a sophisticated talking horse, and in the other he depicts a man who apparently has been condemned to die merely because he possesses a sense of humor. He can only keep alive by exhausting his executioners with debilitating jokes. A dark lining shimmers ominously through the light fabric of Arkanov’s narrative.
Similar configurations of light and shadow emerge from the collection’s poetry selections, which blend sardonic wit with raw anguish. The twenty lyrics by the well-known balladeer Vladimir Vysotsky exhibit his characteristic subtlety and humor. Together with his study of human misunderstanding along the Russian border (“In No-Man’s Land”), he has included such satiric works as “The Crescent Beach Is No More,” in which the magical setting of Alexander Pushkin’s Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820; Ruslan and Liudmila, 1974) has been devastated by drunkenness, violence, and ecological destruction. Another popular poet, Andrei Voznesensky, contributed a half-dozen brief lyrics and an unusual graphic figure—the word “mother” repeated several times in a circle.
Less well-known in the West are such poets as Yevgeny Rein, Inna Lisnyanskaya, Semyon Lipkin, Genrikh Sapgir, and Yuri Kublanovsky, yet as a group they have provided a series of works which depict memories of intimate loss, aspirations dreamed but not attained, and instants of suddenly perceived beauty. Moments of sheer triumph are few in this poetry, but when one occurs, it takes on a transcendent quality. Thus, in Lisnyanskaya’s “Blind Man,” the poet describes a blind man whose writing was regarded as a threat by some but whose “Word” lived beyond him, for “he had learned to write/ With a pine needle/ In an aerial notebook.” At times, these poems illuminate personal emotions in unusual settings. The novelist Yuz Aleshkovsky, for example, has written three poems about the vicissitudes of life in a prison camp, and his vision of the unique priorities of the camp world have a powerful impact.
Amid the original works of fiction are several critical essays. Of paramount concern to these essayists is the need for renewal, innovation, and freedom in the arts. Mark Rozovsky directs his call for renewal to the sluggish theatrical practices of the Soviet stage, and he seems mindful of Western experiments with the Theater of the Absurd when he writes: “Nonsense is not merely part of the performance, but the root of the magic.” Leonid Batkin advocates neither approval nor rejection of specific art forms, but he pleads for “the occurrence of dialogue.” Finally, in a discussion of the Russian avant-garde, Vasily Rakitin makes a statement that may well be true of the majority of contributors to Metropol: “The avant-garde regards revolution as the absolute freedom of the individual.”
The most eloquent plea for liberation and renewal, however, is not found in any of these essays, but rather in the poem “Fetters,” which was written by Sapgir and illustrated by Anatoly Brusilovsky. The piece occupies the final position in the anthology, and its message of liberation cannot be confined to any narrow reading, be it political, social, artistic, or cultural. Its affirmative message encompasses them all. Sapgir concludes:
To break the bonds
is to be born again.
He alone is free
who frees himself.
Despite some unevenness and errors in a few of the translations, the current publication of Metropol commemorates a magnificent impulse of courage and independence. Faced with hostility from the Soviet literary establishment, the Metropol contributors completed a major step in the ongoing search for artistic liberty and self-determination in the Soviet Union.