If all the chapters of Sandro iz Chegema (Sandro of Chegem) were available in one book, they would rival Voina i mir (1865-1869; War and Peace, 1886) in length. As it is, the peculiarities of Soviet publishing have caused some installments to appear at home, others abroad. Soviet censors released parts of the manuscript for publication 1973, while a full Russian-language version of the chapters completed by 1978 was printed in the United States, Sandro iz Chegema (1979). When additional chapters were ready in 1981, the same thing happened: Moscow selected a small part, leaving the entire supplementary edition to American publishers, Sandro iz Chegema: Novye glavy (1981). Until the publication of Sandro of Chegem, English-language readers had access to only an occasional Sandro story through Russian-literature anthologies. The eleven chapters contained in this book are not Fazil Iskander’s most recent additions to the epic, but they are an excellent example of its overall flavor and style; they have since been supplemented by a second selection from the ongoing epic, published under the title The Gospel According to Chegem (1984). Sandro of Chegem is a picaresque novel; Iskander himself in a brief foreword refers to it as a gentle parody of the picaresque novel. The various chapters are loosely connected by the folk hero of the title and a narrator, but as far as the plot line is concerned, each section relates an event largely independent of the whole.
Though Sandro of Chegem is Iskander’s magnum opus, he is by now known to English-language readers through Sozvezdie Kozlatura (1970; The Goatibex Constellation, 1975), Forbidden Fruit and Other Stories (1972), and The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules (1978), the latter two selected by Moscow for translation. The Goatibex Constellation anticipates the parody of Soviet-imported progress present in Sandro of Chegem. In the earlier novel, a madcap scheme of improving animal husbandry through crossing a goat with an ibex satirizes the excesses of Socialist competition. In Sandro of Chegem, the ways in which a small non-Russian ethnic group adapts to various aspects of modern Soviet times find equally amusing expression. Iskander himself is a native of Abkhazia, now an administrative unit within the Soviet Republic of Georgia, but once known as the ancient kingdom of Colchis. Through centuries of subsequent Islamic domination, imperial Russian occupation, and Soviet incorporation, Abkhazians have endeavored to preserve a semblance of native culture. In this they are generously aided by Iskander, but his Abkhazia is not a historically accurate reproduction. Rather, he has created a largely fictional setting which incorporates traditional Abkhazian life-styles, much as William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County embodies Southern mores. Iskander interweaves historical, tribal, and legendary Abkhazian components with elements of his own invention, thereby creating Abkhazian culture as much as preserving it. Though Iskander writes in Russian, is Moscow-educated, and has lived in Moscow since the early 1960’s, the Abkhazians, numbering about sixty-five thousand, seem delighted that their famous native son has brought them international fame. Iskander’s place within contemporary Soviet literature is assured, but he must occasionally tread carefully. His collaboration on the banned anthology Metropol (1979; Metropol, 1983) raised censorial eyebrows, and Iskander’s impatience with Soviet publishing practices is no secret. Nevertheless, despite the fact that several of his works, delayed at home, have found their way into print abroad—a practice that sometimes brings offical reprisals and expulsion—Iskander remains an acknowledged and published major writer in the Soviet Union.
Iskander’s style is largely responsible for his ability to insinuate politically sensitive references into print. His lighthearted humor has the effect of muting controversial allusions. In addition, much of his subtle parody is directed at native Abkhazian foibles and incongruities. Because the latter include generous doses of ferocity reflecting the custom of blood vengeance and clan loyalty, innuendos about revolutionary violence and about Stalin era injustices do not stand out as exceptions. The relaxed and rambling method of narration and the inevitably happy ending to each episode leave an impression of a basically benign or at least tolerable world. All the same, there is an undertone of seriousness, a certain recognition that the small triumphs of traditionalist ways are Pyrrhic victories, but these nuances only modify, not obliterate, the feeling of entertaining writing.
The bulk of the narrative deals with personal relationships between Abkhazians and with the latter’s instant bonding together when outsiders enter the picture. Within the Abkhazian community, life is characterized by hospitality, trickery, personal rivalry, and a nonhurried pace in the daily routine. The recreation of the latter results in occasional flat places for the non-Abkhazian audience. There are lovingly extended but uneventful descriptions of what Sandro’s compatriots wear, eat, how they prepare food, feed animals, tend plots, and meander through the day. To be sure, these regional charmers have a certain universal appeal when encountered in small doses, but the accumulation of such detail in a lengthy collection tends to tax reader patience. Fortunately, there are enough lively and informative interludes to keep up interest. Thus, in the chapter “Chegemskie spletni” (“Chegem Gossip”), one sees that blood-feud quarrels gradually turn into ritual confrontations. Pistols and knives are still liberally wielded, but actual bloodshed has been largely replaced by threats of it and by wars of nerves. The same is true of Abkhazia’s Islamic customs regarding women. When Sandro’s daughter elopes with an outsider considered unworthy of marrying an Abkhazian—in the section “Tali, chudo Chegema” (“Tali, Miracle of Chegem”)—the family’s love for the girl gradually relegates the threats of revenge to the rhetorical level.
Sandro is not a wholly admirable epic hero. His actions are firmly guided by tribal custom and group loyalty. He exhibits the daring, predatory, and self-glorifying mettle expected of a colorful folk figure. The reader gets to know Sandro through the eyes of the rather naïve, young, already Soviet-educated narrator-journalist, whose half-innocent, half-critical judgments prevent Sandro from becoming a moral voice for his people. To underscore this, Iskander’s ironic original title was Zhitie Sandro Chegemskogo (The Hagiography of Sandro of Chegem). The word zhitie is used by the Russian Orthodox Church to denote a saint’s life. As epic hero, Sandro engages in romantic outrages, legendary feats of horsemanship, and other bold exploits involving both fellow ethnics and, more often, other minorities of the region. A particular thorn in Abkhazia’s side is a fictional tribe, Enduria, labeled after the Russian root dur-, meaning “fool,” but clashes with other, actually existing groups also figure heavily in Sandro’s activities. These confrontations expose Sandro’s ethical blindness where outsiders are concerned. In the lead episode “Sandro iz Chegema” (“Sandro of Chegem”), the title figure treacherously joins political expropriators by stealing an ox from a hapless Armenian who had called on Sandro for protection. On the other hand, when Abkhazians are challenged from the outside, even when they are murderous outlaws, Sandro selflessly engages in their defense. Iskander’s Abkhazians reserve a special animosity for the Georgians, the dominant ethnic group in the area. In these sections, the author’s inferences reflect historical accuracy. Soviet times have exacerbated the ancient conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. After the Revolution, the latter enjoyed autonomous republic status until it resisted Joseph Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture. Stalin, a native oGeorgia, responded by stripping Abkhazia of its prerogatives and later purged its leaders. The fact that Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s police chief from 1938 to 1953, came from Abkhazia’s rival clan, Mingrelia, also introduces a political dimension into the interethnic rivalry. Iskander’s sundry references to Beria are all unflattering.
Although the political notes are buried in storytelling, they nevertheless strike the reader’s eye. The milder allusions involve the revolutionary struggle between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, as in “Bitva na Kodore” (“The Battle of the Kodor”), where two alien ideologies clash in Abkhazia, whose natives are victimized by both and supporters of neither. Several Stalin-era references, featuring the dictator himself, are unusually sarcastic and forceful and have contributed to Soviet publication denials. One telling section, “Piry Valtasara” (“Belshazzar’s Feasts”), describes an imaginary banquet in the region, attended by Stalin and several Politburo members, at which Sandro and his Abkhazian Song and Dance Ensemble provide the entertainment. The tale centers ostensibly on Sandro’s daredevil-dance solo with which he hopes to impress the dictator, but the background chatter chronicles Stalin’s manipulation of his tablemates. Stalin is depicted as playing one political crony against another, sarcastically cajoling, threatening, deciding fates with the wave of a hand. The others come across as terrified puppets, desperately trying to guess each mood of the tyrant and to humor him. Additional allusions to Stalin’s insidiousness are sprinkled throughout the narrative, sometimes mentioned only in passing, but always making their point, especially in the asides about purge arrests, deportations, religious persecution, and their implied association with the “Big Mustache.” Even the political comments in the lighter vein leave an impression. For example, in “Istoriya molel’nogo dereva” (“The Story of the Prayer Tree”), the crafty Sandro, as guardian of the tree, reaps personal benefits from gullible villagers, and the tale focuses on these hilarious dealings. When Soviet authorities, however, in an attempt to root out Abkhazian superstition, fail to demolish the tree, they decide to remove Sandro by incriminating him for murder. Even though Sandro’s cunning outwits the authorities in the end, the official harassment and injustice temper the comic frame. Iskander sometimes distances the narrator and Sandro from mention of controversial items by shifting the narrative voice to animals. The mule of Sandro’s father in “Rasskaz mula starogo Khabuga” (“The Tale of Old Khabug’s Mule”) observes many a treachery, among them young Sandro’s greedy attempt to appropriate for himself a deported urban merchant’s dwelling. Iskander’s resolution to this affair is typical of the way he ends an episode: Sandro’s father shames the young man into renouncing the plan by reciting the age-old Abkhazian honor code to him and takes him home to the village for good.
The various episodes are not presented in chronological order—events occurring before or during the Revolution are casually interspersed into later periods—nor does the order of presentation appear to have a thematic or stylistic purpose. Iskander’s narrative style is straightforward and does not present unusual translation difficulties, although his stories do include a sprinkling of untranslatable Abkhazian words, which Susan Brownsberger has left in the original, providing a glossary in the appendix. Transitions between and within sections tend not to be sophisticated. Typical of Iskander’s linking method is the following: The above-mentioned mule rejoices when catching sight of a colt, and this reminds the animal of previous colt encounters that are then related at great length. The author’s method of ascribing human feelings to beasts lends a somewhat sentimental nineteenth century flavor to these descriptions.
Within the context of Soviet literature as a whole, Iskander repeats, albeit in a style all his own, the sentiments of other non-Russian writers whose native regions have changed as a result of Russification and modernization. Like them, Iskander regrets the passing of tradition, yet he realizes its inevitability. In his works he not only preserves a version of that past but also chronicles the ways and pains of adjustment to a new age. He does this not through moralizing or accusations but through innocuous-seeming parody, which brings outsider and native alike down to the same rascally level. In this lies much of his appeal.