fazil' iskander: from 'petukh' to "pshada"

Fazil' Iskander: From 'Petukh' to "Pshada"Author(s): Lesley MilneSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Jul., 1996), pp. 445-463Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212146 .

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SEER, Vol. 74, No. 3, JuY 1996

Fazil' Iskander: From 'Petukh' to

Pshada

LESLEY MILNE 51 HOHYA, ITO He 1YTbI CyieCTBYIOT

HpH KopoaeBCKHX ABopax, a KOpO-

AeBCKHe ABOpbI HpH ulyTax.

I realized that jesters are not appendages of royal courts; it is the royal courts that are the appendages of their jesters.

Fazil' Iskander, 'The Cockerel' ('Petukh')

FAZIL' ISKANDER started his literary career in the 195os as a poet. In the I960s he emerged as a prose-writer and since then has continued to practise both genres. By the end of the I96os a critic had concluded that Iskander was 'a good poet' and 'an excellent prose-writer'.' A recent critic made a similar comparative judgement: 'He has written good poems, but they are nowhere near as good as his prose.'2 This is an evaluation with which most readers would instinctively agree. Iskander's short stories have appeared over the past three decades to the delight of readers and critics alike, and they can now be seen as falling into cycles, or even 'novels', structured according to a process that Laura Beraha has called 'compilation'.3 The stories set in Iskander's native Abkhazia in the fictitious mountain village of Chegem have grown into the three-volume novel, Sandro from Chegem (Sandro iz Chegema).4 The stories of a childhood spent in the sea-side town of Mukhus, a transparent pseudonym for the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi, have merged into one narrative that reveals itself to be an account of the Stalinist I930s as seen through the eyes of a child. This process of accretion speeded up during glasnost' when the new freedoms allowed publication in Russia of previously banned works, for example some of

Lesley Milne is Reader in Modern Russian Literature in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham.

1 N. Atarov, 'Korni talanta', Novyimir, I969, I,pp. 204-05. 2 Vladimir Solov'ev, 'Fazil' Iskander v okruzhenii svoikh geroev', Literaturnaia ucheba,

I990, 5,p. II2.

Laura Beraha, 'Compilation in the Art of Fazil' Iskander and as a Key to Sandro iz Chegema', PhD Dissertation, McGill University, I990.

4 First published in uncomplete and censored form in Novyi mir, 8- I I, 1973. Published as a separate volume (Moscow, I977). First published in uncensored form in two volumes by Ardis (Ann Arbor, I979 and I98I). The most complete edition to date was published in 3 volumes in Moscow in i 989.



446 FAZIL' ISKANDER

the stories from the Sandro epos and the satirical allegory Rabbits and Boa-Constrictors (Kroliki i udavy).5 In the 'compiled' novella 7The School Waltz or The Energy of Shame (Shkol'nyi val's ili Energiia styda), previously published stories were now embedded in a newly explicit historical and autobiographical context.6 Each individual story was thus enhanced and amplified and, simultaneously, so was Iskander's reputation as a prose-writer.

The only recent critic to find space for sustained attention to Iskander's poems is Natal'ia Ivanova.7 Ivanova, however, deals mainly with the content of the poems in relation to the prose. Laura Beraha noted an 'aphoristic bent' in all Iskander's work, from his earliest poems to his most recentfeuilletons, and mentioned 'the straightforward declarative orientation of Iskander's prose (and indeed verse)'.8 Apart from these brief remarks, however, there has been no examination of the formal kinship between the two genres as practised by Iskander. The higher esteem generally accorded to Iskander's prose may have inhibited the raising of this question. Because Iskander 'began' as a poet but 'is better' as a prose-writer, the prose is assumed to have left the poetry behind. Stanislav Rassadin probably expressed a commonly- held view among Russian critics when he stated that Iskander writes 'a prose-writer's prose' rather than typical 'poet's prose'.9 Among Anglo- American critics the question barely arises because they concentrate on the prose to the exclusion of the poetry. The Western critical consensus on Iskander's prose style is that it is 'chatty'10 and 'relaxed'.1' At the same time, however, Deming Brown noted that it is 'witty, barbed and aphoristic';12 and Beraha has referred to Iskander as the 'master aphorist' who 'never once truly relaxes control'. 13 EdwardJ. Brown, in one of the earliest Western critical responses to Iskander, encapsulated the formal precision of this writer's informality: 'Iskander has mastered,

' The hitherto censored Sandro text was published in I 988 in Znamia, 9, pp. 13-75 and i o, pp. 59-122. Kroliki i udavy was first published in Russia in lunost', 9, I 987, pp. 20-62.

6 Published under the title 'Staryi dom pod kiparisom' in Znamia, I987, 7, pp. 3-85. Subsequent editions have borne the title Shkol'nyi val's, ili Energiia styda. This povest' contains such previously published stories as 'Zapretnyi plod', 'Dolgi i strasti', 'Moi pervyi shkol'nyi den" and 'Vremia po chasam'.

Natal'ia Ivanova, Smekhprotiv strakha ili Fazil' Iskander, Moscow, 1990, pp. 30-68. 8 Beraha, p. I 36 and p. i 8. 9 Stanislav Rassadin, 'Pokhvala zdravomu smyslu ili Piatnadtsat' let spustia', Iunost', I 978,

2,p. 82. 10 Beraha, p. xv; Helen P. Burlinghame, 'The prose of Fazil Iskander', Russian Literature

Triquarterly, 1976, I 4, p. I 62. " Beraha, p. I2; Margot Frank, 'Fazil Iskander's view of Muslim Caucasia', World Literature

Today, I 986, Part 6o, p. 26 I; Deming Brown, Soviet Russian Literature Since Stalin, Cambridge, I 978, p. 207; Deming Brown, The Last Years of Soviet Russian Literature, Cambridge, 1993, p. 6o.

1 Deming Brown, Soviet Russian Literature Since Stalin, p. 207. 13 Beraha, p. xv.



LESLEY MILNE 447

no doubt by taking great pains, a very casual style.'"4 It is one purpose of this article to illustrate the craft of Iskander as wordsmith by reference to his poetry as well as his prose and to suggest that the prose is more 'poetic' than is commonly thought. The second purpose is to show that the characteristic devices of what might be called this 'wordmanship' can be felt as habits or constraints from which Iskander's prose has of late tried to free itself.

Iskander himself drew attention to the 'poetic' element in his prose in an interview in I987. Here he gave the following account of the moment when he, an established poet, first turned his hand to prose:

B Tpi4iAaTb AeT 1 HaricaA CBOBHr HepBbIH paCCKa3. 3To 6bIA <<eTyX?).

BHemHHM -Ke TOAqIKOM, MHe KawKeTC3, HOCAYACHAO 3HaKOMCTBO C KHHiroH a6eAq. Ero MHorO AeT He H34aBaAH, a Tor4a KaK pa3 BbiEJleA O4HOTOMH1K. H MeH1 BOCXHTHAa HroTH'1HOCTb 6a6eAeBCKoHi npo3bI,

HOa3THIHOCTb B CMbICAe npe;Kme Bcero HeBepOATHOH 3KOHOMI414

CAOBeCHOrO MaTepHiaAa. 1 B,4pyr HO-1yBCTBOBaA, qTO Hpo3aHiMeCKaYl 4pa3a MOweT 6bITb HaCbIWeHa KaK no9TH4leCKaq CTpOKa.

I wrote my first story at the age of thirty. It was 'The Cockerel'. I think that the external stimulus came from discovering Babel'. He had not been published for many years and it was just then that the one-volume collection appeared. And I was entranced by the poetic quality of Babel"s prose, poetic in the sense of incredible economy of words. I suddenly realized that a phrase of prose could be as concentrated as a line of poetry. 15

This statement is not historically accurate. Iskander's first story was in fact 'My First Errand' ('Pervoe delo'), published in I956 in Pioner (i i,

pp. 4I-46), when he was twenty-seven.'6 He then published no more stories until 'The Cockerel' and 'A Story of the Sea' ('Rasskaz o more') appeared in the journal Iunost' in I962 (io, pp. 69-75). Iskander had been publishing his poems since I 953 and by I 962 had published four volumes of poetry; it is therefore not surprising that 'My First Errand' should be elided in its author's memory by his otherwise entirely poetic output of that period. He did not disown the story, however, including it in his first major collection of prose Forbidden Fruit (Zapretnyi plod) (Moscow, I966); it also formed the title story of two subsequent collections (Moscow, I 972 and I 977). But Iskander's statement in I 987 that his 'first story' was 'The Cockerel' contains a truth. This is the

14 Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution, revised edition, New York and London, I969,p. 329.

15 Fazil' Iskander, 'Potrebnost' ochishcheniia', interview by Evgenii Shklovskii, Literaturnoe obozrenie, I987, 8, pp. 33-34.

16 See the invaluable bibliography compiled by Z. B. Mikhailova, Fazil' Iskander: Biobibliograficheskii ukazatel', Ulianovsk, I982. This, unless otherwise stated, is the source of bibliographical references for Iskander's published work before I 982.



448 FAZIL' ISKANDER

story in which his distinctive prose voice appears and appears all at once, in its full range, tone and agility.17

The setting of 'The Cockerel' is, in retrospect, immediately recognizable as the Abkhazian mountain village that is to acquire the fictional name of Chegem. The first paragraph of the story promises a remembered encounter between the first-person narrator as a boy and a 'voinstvennyi petukh' (war-like cockerel), with an indication that the clash will end in 'krovoprolitie' (p. 3; bloodshed). This establishes one of the metaphors that will run through the story: the metaphor of warfare. The boy is charged with looking after the house and yard while the adults are at work; this makes him in the eyes of the cockerel a usurper in whose presence the bird feels 'na okkupirovannoi territorii' (p. 7; on occupied territory). The eponymous cockerel is not the only aggressor: there is the hawk which on its raids shows off its aeronautical acrobatics, 'pikiruia' (diving) and coming in low 'na breiushchem polete' (p. 4; on hedge-hopping flight). This spectacle is so enthralling that the boy allows the hawk an occasional chicken as booty. With the cockerel, however, no accommodation is possible. At this point a subsidiary metaphor enters: the cockerel is described as 'pyshnyi i kovarnyi, kak vostochnyi despot' (p. 5; magnificent and crafty, like an oriental despot).

The comparison of the bird to an oriental pasha with a harem of hens allows for an extension to the metaphor: the sexual politics of the harem become a comic allegory of political despotism. The cockerel displays both personal bravery and empty bravado when the hawk appears, but uses fear of the hawk for his own purposes in order to keep his harem in a state of nervous submissiveness by constantly disturbing them with false alarms. When he finds some delectable morsel he uses it to attract his favourite; this enterprise usually ends in 'nasilie' (violence), after which he looks around, 'pobedno i syto' (p. 5; triumphant and sated). Frequently his summons of a favourite to a feast are pure deception, and the hens know this, but they are always let down by their own 'izvechnoe zhenskoe liubopytstvo' (p. 6; eternal female curiosity).

After this digression, the story returns to the main metaphor of battle and the day of the first engagement (p. 6). The cockerel mounts a furious attack which the boy wards off with a stool 'kak rimlianin shchitom' (like a Roman with his shield), and the bird falls 'kak poverzhennyi drakon' (like a conquered dragon), whereupon the boy's chest hums 'kak telegrafnyi stolb' (p. 7; like a telegraph pole). The boy's elder brothers, finding out about the 'bataliia' (affray), begin to organize

17 Page references will be to the collection Fazil' Iskander, Prazdnik ozhidaniia prazdnika. Rasskazy, Moscow, I986, pp. 3-9. The text has been checked against the first publication in Junost', I0, I 962, pp. 73-75.



LESLEY MILNE 449

daily 'turniry' (tournaments), and both combatants bear the scars and bruises; the cockerel's arrogance, however, is undiminished (p. 7). To sap his confidence the boy starts feeding the hens, and here the comic allegory of political power re-enters the narrative. The hens abandon the cockerel with his blandishments in favour of the boy with his handfuls of maize:

34ecb, KaK H Be34e, OTBAeqeHHaAI nporiaraHua AerKO nocpamHAacb A1BbIO BbIroAbI.

Here, as everywhere, abstract propaganda was easily discredited by real evidence of advantage. (p. 7)

After this digression the narrative moves back to another clash, with the boy now wielding his stick 'kak trezubtsem' (like a trident) and feeling the impact of the bird's body through the stick 'kak elektricheskii tok' (p. 8; like an electric current). Finally the boy manages to pin the bird down, grab it by the feet and lift it up, to roars of laughter from his brothers and his aunt. But the triumph is short-lived. If he lets the cockerel go it will attack him again, and he cannot hold it forever. An unsuccessful attempt to throw the bird over the fence results in an attack of such force that the adults have to intervene and the decision is taken that the cockerel will have to be killed.

At this point the narrative changes key. Up till now it has been humorous. All the metaphors of warfare have been mock-heroic, their parodic nature emphasized by the archaic word batalija, the anachro- nisms of Roman shields and tridents juxtaposed with medieval dragons and tournaments, against the background of the hawk's twentieth- century aeronautical acrobatics, the present-day landscape of telegraph poles and electric current and, of course, the fact that the warriors are a boy and a farmyard fowl. And all the accoutrements of the 'ancient heroes' metaphorically mock the moment when the youngster turns to run away, uttering the 'drevnii spasitel'nyi krik ubegaiushchikh detei' (the ancient cry for help of fleeing children), which is, of course, 'Ma- ma!' (p. 8). But now that the bellicose enemy has been defeated, he evokes sympathy, he is 'bedniaga' (the poor fellow). More, he gives the boy a look of melancholy reproach for resorting to 'predatel'stvo' (treachery) and being unable to sustain a 'chestnaia muzhskaia voina' (p. 9; an honest war, fought man to man). A second later the bird's throat is cut, amply fulfilling the promise of 'bloodshed' in the story's opening paragraph. The accusation of treachery that the boy read into the bird's gaze casts an unexpected sadness over his victory, however, even though this sadness is dispelled by the very good meal that the cockerel provides when cooked and served with a spicy walnut sauce.

The memory of the sadness and the need to understand it is implicit in the story's final paragraph. What the adult narrator has come to



450 FAZIL' ISKANDER

realize is that his childhood adversary was a throwback to a bygone age of valour:

Tenepb fl HOHHMaio, 'ITO 9TO 6bIA 3aMeIaTeAbHbIH 6oeBoii HeTyX, HO OH He BOBpeMi pOAHAC3I. 3noxa i-ieTyIHHbIx 6oeB 4aBHO pomAa, a BOeBaTb C AIO4bMH nponaigee AeAO.

Now I realize that he was a splendid fighting cock, but born out of his time. The era of cock-fights is long since past, and fighting with humans is a lost cause. (p. 9)

These two measured statements form an antithetically balanced conclusion in which the events with the cockerel make sense in some larger scheme of things.

This is not the first antithetically formulated judgement of the story. The first was in fact the aphorism on jesters and royal courts quoted as an epigraph to this article. A similar antithetical formulation gave edge to that comment on 'abstract propaganda' as against 'real evidence of advantage'. Later, when the boy turned to flee, we were told:

HaAo 6brTb HAH O'4eHb rAynbIM, HAH oxIeHb Xpa6pbIM, WTO6bI HOBO-

paxIHBaTbCA CHHHOH K Bpary.

You have to be either very stupid or very brave to turn your back on a foe. (p. 8)

Antithetical word-play was also used to describe the narrator reading a book 's nachala do kontsa, s kontsa do nachala, i dvazhdy po diagonali' (p. 4; from beginning to end, from end to beginning, and twice across the diagonal), where the antithesis is crowned by a witty extension.

Having thus read the story forwards for metaphor and back again for antithetical formulations, let us now try two readings 'across the diagonal'.

The first such reading would note the descriptive detail of the narrative when it sets the scene of the house and yard, with the boy sucking the eggs from the hens' nesting baskets, feeling himself 'odnovremenno bagdadskim vorom i udachlivym lovtsom zhemchuga' (simultaneously like the thief of Bahgdad and a lucky pearl fisher) as he 'nalivalsia sokom, kak tykva na khorosho unavozhennom ogorode' (filled with juice like a pumpkin in a well-manured vegetable garden) and, in sum: 'Zhizn' kazalas' osmyslennoi i prekrasnoi' (p. 3; Life seemed to have meaning and beauty). With its glowing similes, the picture painted here is of a harmonious natural world in which the boy at the centre has total confidence.

The second 'diagonal' reading concerns the author's grand purpose, concealed under many layers of irony but discernable none the less in the adult narrator's account of his boyhood reaction to a volume of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies. The tragedies were to him



LESLEY MILNE 45I

perplexing and meaningless, but the comedies 'polnost'iu opravdali zaniatiia avtora sochinitel'stvom' (p. 4; entirely justified their author's decision to become a writer). This humorous concession (that Shakes- peare had not, after all, been wasting his time by writing plays) leads into the aphorism onjesters and royal courts, crucial for understanding Iskander's self-appointed role as a Soviet writer. This aphorism inverts the accustomed hierarchy by placing the jester above the monarch. Such an inversion of hierarchies is a literary commonplace with reference to the artist living under a despotic regime: Moliere at the court of Louis XIV; or, most potent image in the Russian literary tradition, Pushkin in the reign of Nicholas I. Iskander thus embarked upon his career as a prose-writer with a coded declaration of intent which placed as high a value on the jester and the jest as on the poet and poetry. His underlying promise was: 'My comedies will justify this decision.' And, after three decades, one can see that the promise was indeed kept, starting from 'The Cockerel' itself, triumphantly comic in its witty formulations, its ingeniously extended metaphors and its harmonious resolution of conflict in a sunny, generous world.

The mock-heroic tone of 'The Cockerel' is continued in the Sandro stories. 'Sandro from Chegem', the first publication of which dates from i 966, introduces us to the hero.18 Sandro's 'rytsarskie dostoinstva' (chivalrous attributes) are mentioned several times in these first few pages but with reference exclusively to his amorous prowess (pp. 7- I o). The story 'The Gamblers' (Igroki), first published in 1970,'9 is a sustained mock-epic in which Sandro's exploits are parodic echoes of 'ancient times'. Like the cockerel, Sandro is a hero from a bygone age, but unlike the cockerel he wastes no time fighting lost causes; instead he uses his native wit and adapts his traditional skills for the current historical market. Behind the quicksilver figure of Sandro stands the village of Chegem, bedrock of a patriarchal way of life that is inexorably being eroded. As the Sandro epos grew, so did the significance of 'Chegem' until it became, as Iskander put it in his author's introduction to the novel, a way of presenting an account to the future: 'vot, chto my teriaem, a chto ty nam daesh' vzamen?' (p. 6; this is what we are losing; what are you giving us in return?). Viewed in retrospect, 'The Cockerel' can be seen to contain the embryo of the Sandro epos: a vanishing way of life caught in a childhood memory and recorded with ironic distance that simultaneously mocks and holds up for admiration.

It is quite startling to return from 'The Cockerel' of I 962 to 'My First Errand' of 1956. The earlier story was also set in an Abkhaz mountain

18 'Sandro iz Chegema', Nedelia, I966, 6-I2 February, pp. 22-23. Page references in the text are to Sandro iz Chegema, vol. i, Moscow, I 989. 19 In Sel'skaia molodezh', I 970, I0, pp. 22-26.



452 FAZILL ISKANDER

village seen through the eyes of the narrator as a child.20 Here the boy is given the task of loading the donkey with two sacks of maize, taking them down to the mill by the river, and returning with the maize now milled into flour. Successful completion of the task brings reward in the form of a new red shirt. The two stories recognizably share the same harmonious, fruitful world, but the style of 'My First Errand' is much plainer. The detail in the description of the task and the journey is self- sufficient. The very few figures of speech are simple and direct: for example, a path 'khrabro popolzla' (crawled bravely) down a mountain (p. I6); the donkey's short mane is a 'ezhik' (p. I 3; crew-cut). The child's perspective is communicated directly, without any 'subsequent understanding' of events, and the only generalization is of limited scope: the child reflects that all animals apart from goats, but especially horses, dislike and fear walking across bridges (p. i 6). If 'The Cockerel' is compared with 'My First Errand', the most striking difference is in the saturation of the narrative in 'The Cockerel' with the devices of simile, metaphor, aphorism and philosophical generalization. These are, however, not features of a 'relaxed' prose manner. They are, on the contrary, devices of extreme verbal concentration. Not surprisingly, they are devices favoured also by Iskander the poet.

The device of metaphor is also, of course, a powerful generator of comedy. Bergson in his essay 'Laughter' (I900) gave a classic example: if it is said of someone that he is 'always chasing a joke', the truly witty rejoinder to this is not simply 'He won't catch it', but 'I'll back the joke'.2' Metaphor is also identified by Freud as a technique of jokes.22 The comic metaphor in Iskander concentrates the narrative by conjuring up suggestions of possible scenes, as with the following example from the novella The Goatibex Constellation (Sozvezdie kozlotuy), published in I966, the work that fixed Iskander's reputation as prose- writer once and for all. The narrator is trying to make the acquaintance of a girl he has spotted on the promenade. We are told that she is wearing a simple blouse and a full skirt.

I06Ka 3Ta ceiHiac nAecKa1Aacb BoKpyr ee Hor IHHpOKO H4 CBo6o4Ho, KaK )Aar He3aBHCHMO4, XOT54 H BHOAHe MHpoAio6HBoH AepAKaBbl.

This skirt was now flapping widely and freely round her legs, like the flag of an independent, although quite peaceable, sovereign state.23

20 Page references in the text are to the collection Fazil' Iskander, Pervoe delo, Moscow, I 978. 21 George Meredith, An Essay on Comedy. Henri Bergson, Laughter, introduced by Wylie

Sypher, New York, I956, p. I36. 22 Sigmund Freud, jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, The Pelican Freud Library,

vol. 6, London, 1976, pp. 122-25. 23 Sozvezdie kozlotu7y in Fazil' Iskander, Derevo detstva, Moscow, I 974, p. 344.



LESLEY MILNE 453

All further extension of this metaphor (diplomatic overtures culminat- ing in alliance?) is left to the reader's imagination. Introduction of the girl herself at this point is one of the novella's numerous digressions from the main plot, the rise and fall of the hybrid 'goatibex' of the title. This meandering, branching, looping, digressive narrative line is a hallmark of Iskander's prose and is what creates the effect of a 'relaxed', 'chatty' and 'casual' style by evoking the impression of the story-teller's immediate presence and spontaneous creativity. Within these frequent digressions, however, the verbal structures are often very tightly organized. Antitheses and parallels, repetitions with variations, philosophical generalizations and metaphor or simile mean that the narrative is constantly inviting the reader to counterpose, weigh judgement, recall, reflect, imagine and recognise similarity.

The communication of a similarity is something in which Iskander takes such particular delight that he even writes poems about it. In 'The Jugs' ('Kuvshiny', I963) he draws attention to the moment of being struck suddenly by a likeness between two things: 'Ia ostanavli- vaius' vdrug,/Vnezapnym skhodstvom porazhennyi' (pp. 68-69).24 In the poem 'Artists' ('Khudozhniki', I964), the analogy is between a quince and a lion's face: 'Na mordu l'va pokhozhaia aiva' (p. 76). The poet is proud of having noticed this similarity and his creative joy is further enhanced when he is able to communicate this perception to others, who will repeat it after him. Here the simile functions also as the prompt to a generalization: 'My sviazany. Priroda takova.' (We are linked. Such is nature.)

This movement from a particular object or event towards a moralizing generalization is characteristic of Iskander's poetry. For example in 'Brambles' ('Ezhevika', I 960) the bramble bush clinging to a rock produces fruit that smells not of stone but of earth and sun, and this is presented as a parable of human life (pp. 7-8). In 'Ode to an Orange' ('Oda apel'siny', I966) the orange globe with its golden segments is protected from the ice and rain ofJanuary in Moscow by the armour of its peel:

TaK MbI XpaHHM OT >KH3HH XMYPOH

HaAeA4bI CAaAoCTHbI4 MOTHB, CBoeio co6CTBeHHoIo lKKypOHI

Bcio ropeqb 6bITa HpoieAH4B.

Thus we protect from sullen life /The sweet tune of hope /By straining the bitterness /Through our own skins. (p. I o8)

24 Page references in the text to Iskander's poems are from Fazil' Iskander, Put', Moscow, I 987. The publication dates are taken from Mikhailova's bibliography, see note i 6.



454 FAZILI ISKANDER

Sometimes these generalizations are expressed through parallels and antitheses as in 'The Conquerors' ('Zavoevateli', I966), where succes- sive waves of conquerors take the fortress in order 'khristian omusulmanit'/ Okhristianit' musulman' (to Muslimize the Christians / And Christianize the Muslims) (p. 122). The antithesis can also be humorous, as in the poem 'A Light' ('Ogon"), which is about approaching people on the street to ask for a light for one's cigarette: the poet notes, with reference to people in a hurry, that there is a 'Tendentsiia nesovestimosti/Dinamiki i dobroty' (p. 22I; An incompatibility/ Of kinetics and kindness). Given Iskander's love of the moralizing antithesis, it is no wonder that he finds a kindred poetic spirit in Kipling and has translated into Russian 'The Ballad of East and West' and 'If' (pp. 258-66).

'He is possessed by a passion for generalizations', said Sergei Ivanov in i 989 in an article on Iskander's prose.25 Indeed he is. A decade earlier Vladimir Osinskii had also remarked in a review of collected prose by Iskander that almost every story concludes with a maxim or moral.26 As can be seen from the above examples, the statement applies also to Iskander's poetry. In prose his passion is for antithetically formulated generalizations with a measured pace that can make the concluding lines of a story look like the 'last verse' of a poem. A rhythmically summarizing conclusion was noted in the last paragraph of 'The Cockerel' and is equally marked at a key moment in 'A Story of the Sea', which appeared as the companion piece to 'The Cockerel' in Iunost' in i962.27 The narrator again recounts an episode from his boyhood, this time set in a sea-side town recognizable as 'Mukhus', although not yet bearing that fictional name. The tale is of how the narrator learned to swim and nearly drowned but was saved by a young man who, while busy paying court to his girlfriend, none the less noticed the boy's plight and jumped into the sea to help him. One sentence of the story, which is set as a separate paragraph, stands out like the verse of a poem:

TaK OH H ymJeA HaBcerAa co CBoelI AeByLUKoH, ymeA, MHMOXOAOM

BepHYB MHe 2KH3Hb.

And so he left forever with his girl, left but in passing had given me back my life. (p. 25)

The antithesis here is between the nonchalance of the giver and the value of the gift. In the I962 Iunost' publication this paragraph was

25 Sergei Ivanov, 'O "maloi proze" Iskandera, ili chto mozhno sdelat' iz nastoiashchei mukhi',Novyimir, I989, I,p. 252.

26 Vladimir Osinskii, 'Smeshnoe ne tol'ko smeshno', Literaturnaia Gruzija, I979, 3, p. 113.

27 Page references will be to the collection Fazil' Iskander, Prazdnik ozhidaniia prazdnika: Rasskazy, pp. 20-25.



LESLEY MILNE 455

followed by a moralizing digressive conclusion which compared the attitudes to the sea of two different men: an ambitious bureaucrat and the son of a poor widowed postmistress. In the text published in I986 in the collection Prazdnik ozhidaniia prazdnika, however, this banal comparison is omitted and the story ends with that verse-like paragraph, thereby emphasizing its function as a poetically summarizing 'last verse'.

A similar device is to be found at the end of the story 'Broad-brow' ('Shirokolobyi'), first published in i984.28 In the last paragraph the dead Broad-brow, a mighty buffalo sold to the abbatoir, is being towed back to the shore after having escaped into the sea. To a detached bystander it might look as if the buffalo is swimming behind the boat, trying to catch up with it.

Ho co CTOpOHbI HeKOMy 6bIAO CMOTpeTb, Aa 14 HeT B 3TOM MHipe CTOpOHHH4X.

But there was no one standing by, and anyway in this world there is no such thing as a bystander. (p. 479)

This final sentence (which is also the last words of the collection Prazdnik ozhidaniiaprazdnika) displays both aphoristic symmetry and pronounced rhythm. In terms of content it echoes the poem 'Artists', with its idea that 'we are linked', and the ending of 'Story of the Sea', where the narrator owes his life to the young man's intervention.

Just as the delight in simile became the subject of a poem, so the pleasure of aphoristic formulation becomes an object of comment in Iskander's prose. In the povest' The Sea Scorpion (Morskoi skorpion), published in I976,29 the hero Sergei has much in common with the author, not least his literary style. Sergei is an academic, a classicist who has written on ancient Greece and Rome. In his writings he displays a strong predilection for the aphorism:

BAaCTb, 3TO TaKOMH CTOA, 143-3a KOTOpOFO HH4KTO A06pOBOAbHO He BCTaeT.

Power is a table which no one leaves voluntarily. (p. I 4 1)

THpaH, ripanBAbHO HoAaraY, qITO y HerO HeT HaCTOfIlHIHX Apy3eH,

AymaeT, ITO y Hero 4OAZKHbI 6bITb HaCTORme BparH, KaKOBbIX MOWeT H4 He 6bITb.

A tyrant, correctly thinking that he has no real friends, thinks he must have real enemies, which is not necessarily the case. (p. 222)

28 Iunost', I 984, I, pp. 42-53. Page references will be to Fazil' Iskander, Prazdnik ozhidaniia prazdnika: Rasskazy, pp. 443-79.

29 Morskoi skorpion, first published in Nash sovremennik, I 976, 7, pp. 3-56 and 8, pp. 71-13 I . Page references will be to Morskoi skorpion in the collection Fazil' Iskander, Pod sen'iu gretskogo orekha, Moscow, I 979, pp. I I 7-344. For the 'compilation history' of this povest' see Beraha, pp. 360-62.



456 FAZIL ISKANDER

On two separate occasions we are told that when Sergei finds the precise verbal formulation of an idea, this improves his mood (pp. 295 and 339). Sergei exercises his talent not only in his scholarly writings, where the ancient world provides material for coded commentary on contemporary history and society, but also in his diary and in his thoughts as recorded by the author. Here the effect is sometimes comic generalization, as where Sergei reflects that when girls meet a couple in the dark they look to see who is with whom but men in the same circumstances look to see how far the relationship has gone (p. 170). Sergei also has a gift for the comic simile, as when, zipping up his girlfriend's dress, he feels 'srednevekovym strazhnikom, zapiraiushchim na noch' gorodskie vorota' (p. I48; like a medieval guard closing the city gates for the night). However, the verbal devices in this povest' are deployed only infrequently in the service of humour, and mainly in the sections where Sergei recalls his youthful amours. The narrative in which these are embedded as flashbacks is of particular interest in any study of the development of Iskander's prose for, as was noted on its first appearance, it marks an attempt at a change of tone.30 Iskander was, it seemed, trying to escape from the tyranny of humour that he had, humorously, described in the story 'The Beginning' ('Nachalo'):

LHTaTeAb HaxIHaeT MHe HaBJq3b1BaTb pOAb lOMOPHCTa, H X1 yKe cam KaK-To HeBOAbHO AOHFpbIBaio ee. CTOHT MHe B513aTbCq 3a xITO- HH6YAb cepbe3HOe, KaK A1 BWKY AH14O MIHTaTeA5, C BbIpa3KeHMem Ao6poAeTeAbHoro TeprieHHA Y AyLJero, KorA aA HaKOHeLg HaliHy ripo cMeLuHoe.

51 KpenlAiOCb, HO 3TO BblpwKeHie Ao6poAeTeAbHorO TepCHeHH5 Bce-TaK4 MeH5A HO,4TanHBaeT, H X1 Ho Aopore nepecTpaHBaIocb H

AeAaIO BHA, MTO ripo cepbe3Hoe X Ha1aA rOBOP1Tb HapOMHO, IITo6bI 1OTOM 6bIAo ewe cMeMHeH.

The reader begins to impose on me the role of humorist and I can feel myself playing up to these expectations. Whenever I start talking seriously I can see the face of the reader, waiting with virtuous patience for me to say something funny.

I try to stand firm, but this expression of virtuous patience undermines my resolve and along the way I change my tone, pretending that I only began to talk seriously so as to be even funnier later on.31

As with many statements based on antithesis, this could be reversed. It could be argued that Iskander is in fact a rigorous moralist who only begins to talk humorously the better to put across his serious point later on. The writing of poetry in this context offers an escape from any obligation to be funny; it imposes a formal discipline which, as Iskander

30 Inna Varlamova, 'Tsena dobytoi istiny', Literaturnoe obozrenie, 1977, 2, pp. 3I-32. 31 Fazil' Iskander, Prazdnik ozhidaniia prazdnika: Rasskazy, p. I 85.



LESLEY MILNE 457

has observed, 'priuchaet k bolee strogomu otnosheniiu k slovu' (trains the writer to be stricter in the use of words).32 A by-product of this formal exercise may of course in turn be the humour that uses similar devices of verbal economy.

The Sea-Scorpion in I 976 was Iskander's first sustained prose narrative to disturb the ratio of humour to seriousness that the reader had come to expect. Inna Varlamova said of Iskander at the time: 'on napisal pechal'nuiu, pokaiannuiu veshch' pro sovest" (he has written a sad, repentant tale about conscience).33 A decade later, after the advent of glasnost', Ivanova could make explicit the parallels between Iskander the writer and Sergei the scholar in the mid I970s:34 both are confronted with the dilemma of where and how far to compromise in order to publish their ideas at a time when censorship is becoming ever more restrictive and what was possible, just, five years previously, is now out of the question (Morskoi skorpion, pp. I63-66). The painful sting of the sea-scorpion symbolizes the sting of conscience as Sergei confronts the causes of his own self-dissatisfaction. The sense of being trapped in a dead-end in his professional life is only briefly referred to, but emerges in the end as a fundamental cause of his irritability. Sergei, having perceived the world as a cruel chaos of fortuitous events (pp. 29I--92), needs to feel that it has meaning. With the maximalism of this demand for a 'meaning' to life, Sergei is reminiscent of Levin in Anna Karenina; and, as with Tolstoi's novel, The Sea-Scorpion indicates some kind of crisis in the author. The conclusion of the povest' leaves Sergei's problems unresolved and unrelieved, a far cry from the harmonious moral universe of 'The Cockerel'.

'The Cockerel' and The Sea Scorpion each reflect the era in which they were written. In I 962 the post-Stalin Thaw had not yet begun to freeze back over; the young writers of Iunost' could with reason believe in a happy future for their socialist motherland and have confidence in their creative ability to contribute to it. By the latter half of the I970S such optimism had been obliterated: the options had been reduced to conformism, compromise, confrontation and exile, none of them conducive to creativity. The Sea Scorpion expresses the desperate pointlessness of all this without ever stating it directly. Had it done so, it would not have passed the censor.

In the late 1970s Iskander adopted other strategies to circumvent the censor. He was among the editors and contributors of the I 979 almanac Metropol' (The Metropolis) which publicly claimed the freedom to bypass the censor and, when this freedom was denied, was publicly issued for further dissemination in samizdat. The same year Iskander

32 Fazil' Iskander, 'Potrebnost' ochishcheniia', p. 34. 3 Varlamova, 'Tsena dobytoi istiny', pp. 3I-32, 34 Ivanova, Fazil' Iskander ili Smekh protiv strakha, pp. 292-93.



458 FAZIL' ISKANDER

began to publish in America the complete uncensored text of the stories that thus far had been written for the novel Sandrofrom Chegem.

The composition of the satirical allegory Rabbits and Boa-Constrictors belongs to this period in the mid- to late I 970s, which Iskander admits to have been one of deep depression.35 However, in this novella (first published, of course, outside the Soviet Union) the author transcends his despair to produce an elegant fable which, though sombre, gives great pleasure with its apt inventiveness and the brilliance of its comic detail. Interestingly, the plot of the novella sprang from an aphorism. One day Iskander found a phrase running through his mind with reference to the agents of state control: 'Nash strakh -ikh gipnoz, ikh gipnoz nash strakh' (Our fear is their hypnosis and their hypnosis is our fear).36 Pursuit of the implications of this aphorism generated the metaphor that generated the plot, where the kingdoms of the rabbits and the boa-constrictors function as parodic analogies of governmental systems of control. In Rabbits and Boa-Constrictors parody and extended metaphor provided a perfect vehicle for Iskander's aphoristic energies.

But aphorism unleavened by humour can become sententious. When, in the collection of stories that make up the povest' Moorings (Stoianka cheloveka) Iskander invented a new hero, Viktor Maksimovich Kartashov, he gave him a biography quite different from his own.37 Although he has lived most of his life in Abkhazia, Viktor Maksimovich is a Russian nobleman by origin; he fought in the War as an air-force pilot and has experienced imprisonment in the camps. This biography provides a new experience through which to focus stories and a new voice in which to tell them: Viktor Maksimovich provides the author with an escape from humour; he is not expected to be funny. But (as his patronymic suggests) he is another maximalist with a love of aphorisms: they occupy an entire chapter of Moorings entitled 'Conversations with Viktor Maksimovich' (pp. 221-29; 'Besedy s Viktorom Maksimov- ichem'). But what works in humour or satire as a wittily harmonious verbal construct expressing a germ of truth and engaging the reader, or what works as a 'poetic generalization' inviting the reader to draw the implications of an event, can alienate when offered in dogged sequence.

35 The memory of this depression was recalled by Iskander in October I994 in a personal interview with me.

36 From an interview in Moskovskii komsomolets, 21 May i 989, quoted here from S. A. Biguaa, 'Pisatel' kak publitsist. Fazil' Iskander' in Sposobnost' k dialogu, Part II, Moscow, I 993, pp. 261, 271.

37 The first 'Viktor Maksimovich' story to be published was 'Serdtse', Literaturnaiagazeta, 7 January I98I, p. 7. Stoianka cheloveka was first published in Znamia, I989, 7 (pp. 8-54), 8 (pp. 6--47) and 9 (pp. 49-79). Page references will be to Fazil' Iskander, Stoianka cheloveka. Povesti i rasskazy, Moscow, I 99 I.



LESLEY MILNE 459

A similar problem arises with the next literary personage to carry the author's word, Jura Zvanba in Surroundings (Chelovek i ego okrestnosti).38

Surroundings is another novel structured according to the principle that Beraha has called 'compilation': each chapter is a separate short story, most of which have been published previously. In the chapter/ story 'The Rapier' ('Rapira') we are introduced to lura Zvanba, whose nickname is 'the Mystical Philosopher' (p. 44). lura is a research fellow in the Mukhus Institute of Ethnography, and, while Jura is talking, the narrator feels so reassured that he falls asleep: 'Po-vidimomu, ia pochuvstvoval, chto, poka zhiv lura, mir v nadezhnykh rukakh' (p. 70; Apparently I felt that as long as Jura was alive the world was in safe hands). There is not a trace of intentional irony in this statement: it is a complete endorsement of lura's views, which are consistent with those expressed by the narrator himself in the previous story-chapter 'Lenin in the Amra' ('Lenin na Amre'). Here the narrator, who is indistinguish- able from the author, struggled with large questions that in the West would be considered the preserve of political philosophers, historians and theologians: the question of ravenstvo (equality); Lenin's thought; Lenin's personality; the personality and teachings of Christ. Through the story there runs the thread of a comic idea which re-emerges in the final story/chapter 'Lenin and Uncle Sandro' ('Lenin i diadia San- dro').39 It is a wonderful historical fantasy, created in the mind of a madman who imagines himself to be Lenin and recounted to the narrator in the summer cafe of the Amra restaurant. The Lenin who died in I 924 and whose body was placed in the Mausoleum was not the real Lenin, but his double: the real Lenin went to Germany, was deep- frozen in Hamburg, has since been defrosted and has appeared in Mukhus. The Stalin who died in I953 was also not Stalin, but one of his doubles (he had two: the second to keep an eye on the first). The real Stalin was deep-frozen in Spain by Franco and then after Franco's death sold to America, where he is now kept deep-frozen in the Pentagon. This wonderful farrago is spun with the absolute and unassailable logic of the madman. The text of Surroundings published as a separate volume includes two delicately poignant stories describing the problems with which the lives of children and young lovers were burdened during the Stalinist period ('The Beauty of the Norm or A Boy Waits for a Man'; 'The Light of Sombre Youth'['Krasota normy, ili Mal'chik zhdet cheloveka'; 'Sumrachnoi iunosti svet']). Yet another story, 'Oceans of Charm' ('More obaianiia') is purest humour in its evocation of a scholarly rogue conducting a scientific experiment to

38 First published in Znamia, I992, 2 (pp. 3-33), 6 (pp. 100-47), II (pp. 3-I7). Page references will be to Fazil' Iskander, Chelovek i ego okrestnosti. Roman, Moscow, I 993.

39 These two chapters were first published as one story, 'Lenin na Amre', Znamia, I 992, 2,

PP. 3 -33.



460 FAZILI ISKANDER

produce shell-less eggs.40 These story-chapters and the comic fantasy of the historical 'doubles' offer relief from the heavy philosophical- historical preoccupations of the author-narrator and Iura Zvanba. But the reader is left with a strong sense that the ideas are too large to tackle with the tools available and that the author, having achieved his escape from humour, is trapped in a literary habit of aphoristic didacticism.

An occasional suspicion can also arise in the reader's mind that the author is on auto-pilot with regard to the structure of his story. In Surroundings the 'typically Iskanderian' digressions sometimes appear so unmotivated as to create an impression of slackness. The narrator in 'Lenin in the Amra' appears to be aware of this:

1IHTaTeAb MO,eT CIpOCcHTb: KaKOe 3TO MmeeT OTHOmeHHe K TOMy,

xITO fl co6Hpalocb paCCKa3aTb? OTBe'iy KOpOTKO, AaKce orpbl3Hycb: pa3 HaHHCaAoCb, 3Ha'IHT, HMeeT.

The reader may ask what all this has to do with what I am about to relate. I shall answer in brief, I shall even snap back at the reader: since it's been written, then it has some connection. (p. I 9)

This suggests that there may be justice in the imagined reader's response and, at heart, the writer knows it. Rather than laying bare the literary device, the paragraph can be read as a concealed admission of the author's tiredness and a tendency to fall into the automatism of habit.

Then in 1993 Iskander published the povest' Pshada.41 This signals a complete escape from the 'typically Iskanderian' style. The verbal devices of both humour and sententiousness are banished in favour of plain narrative prose. The structure makes use of flashbacks but there are no digressions. The story-line is subjugated entirely to the reader/ listener's ancient desire to know 'how it happened' and 'what happened next'. The narrative is not coloured by the narrator's presence. The story does, however, belong to a moral universe that is recognizably 'Iskander'.

Over the thirty pages of the story there is one single aphorism, to the effect that if you hold the keys to all the prisons you can easily make people think that you hold the key to history (p. 3I). This thought occurs to the hero, the Abkhazian general Mamba, as he struggles in the I 990S to reconcile his present perception of the Stalinist period with his very different perception of the period when he lived it. This is the device of 'subsequent understanding' that was used in 'The Cockerel' and features often in Iskander's stories of childhood. In Pshada the 'then-now' tension stretches across the ideological force-field of Russian history from the I 930S to the present day.

40 First published in Iunost', I988, 2, pp. 2-42. 41 Znamia, 1993, 8, pp. 3-36.



LESLEY MILNE 46I

General Mamba becomes representative of a whole generation. He is a decent, brave, thoughtful man who was once massively deluded and has since tried honestly to come to terms with that delusion but now finds himself in a deeply alienating environment: the commercial swagger of post-Soviet Moscow. Iskander's descriptions of the Moscow street-scene as perceived by the general fix the contemporary urban landscape very precisely (pp. i i and 3 I). But there is one incident in the general's past, described in the story's opening pages, which he never subjects to his own honest scrutiny. He never re-examines the justification that he gave to himself at the time. This gives rise to the story's central metaphor.

The metaphor extends throughout the story but surfaces in the, text at only three points. We are told that in the past few months the general has been disturbed by the memory of that scene with which the story starts: his killing of two German officers, prisoners of war. The general is also now disturbed by the fact that, after long military service in Russia, he has forgotten his native Abkhaz language. He has a vague sense that these two things, seemingly unrelated, might be linked in some way (p. 5). When he first realized that he had forgotten his Abkhazian, this was vaguely annoying, but did not cause him any great unease (p. 6). Then, at the end of the story, his native tongue returns to him in a great explosion, 'kak s razmakhu razbityi arbuz' (like a water- melon smashed with great force): this is the heart attack that kills him (p. 34). The release of the native tongue releases a memory of his childhood in Chegem, and the memory turns into a reproach that explodes his justification for killing the German officers (p. 35). Although it is never stated openly in the text, the return to him of his native tongue signifies the re-awakening of his conscience. As long as he was suppressing his conscience, General Mamba's native language deserted him.

What facilitates access to this language is a brief encounter he has on a Moscow street with a young girl who hands him a pamphlet. If he had realized that it was a pamphlet about the Bible, he would probably have refused it, but he does not wish to offend the girl. So he takes the pamphlet and, waiting his turn in a hairdressing salon, begins to read it. He has not until then been particularly interested in the Bible and mistrusts the contemporary fashion for religion. But he opens this pamphlet at a page that speaks directly to his childhood experience: John I5, which begins with the words 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman'. The metaphor is familiar to a man who grew up in a vine-growing region and whose own father tended vines. Towards the end of the chapter there is a section about sin that he does not understand, but he folds the pamphlet up and puts it in his pocket to read and think about later. The words that Mamba cannot



462 FAZIL' ISKANDER

understand are not given in the text of the story; to find them the reader has to go to a Bible, and adapt the moral to the General's own situation. The message that the General cannot understand is that human actions are a sin if they are committed in a knowledge of right and wrong. And what the General finally confronts in the moment of death is that his killing of the German officers violated a moral code which was part of his childhood upbringing but which he chose to ignore. None of this work at drawing out the moral is done in the text of Pshada. The author entrusts the task to the reader.

The reader also has to work at decoding the significance of the story's title. Pshada is a place-name; in a windy land, Pshada is a sheltered place where no wind blows; people whose nerves are aggravated by the wind go to Pshada at the weekend to relax (p. 7). General Mamba has heart trouble, which first manifested itself as 'nerves' (p. 7). His heart trouble can therefore be read as another metaphor for his suppressed conscience. And Pshada, the place where no wind blows, is a metaphor for the place where conscience is at peace. Varlamova's description of The Sea Scorpion fits Pshada perfectly: it too is 'a sad, repentant story about conscience'. But the word 'conscience' is never used. The idea is carried entirely in metaphors and the interpretation of these metaphors is left entirely to the reader. Iskander has found a way of moralizing in prose without sententiousness.

Pshada throws off stylistic habits that were in danger of becoming automatized the digression and the paraded aphorism and develops a role for the metaphor as implicit aphorism which has to be formulated by the reader: in this case 'the language of conscience is the language of Chegem'. 'Chegem' in its turn is a metaphor for a society with firm moral codes, within which it is easier for humankind to recognize the dictates of 'conscience'. But 'Chegem' is a vanished world: the close-knit patriarchal agricultural community of the Abkhaz- ian mountain village can not be transplanted into modern urban society. Pshada is feeling its way towards the idea that the moral codes of 'Chegem' can be transmitted through a religious parable.

Is this an idea which Iskander held previously but was unable to express because of Soviet censorship? The answer appears to be 'no'. According to Iskander, the repressive Soviet regime was such a clear enemy that the struggle against it consumed all energies. It was assumed that it was enough to remove the ideological repression and all the problems would disappear. But then the Soviet regime collapsed and a whole new complex of problems sprang up. It was at this point that the idea of religion began to look more important than had hitherto appeared.42

42 This is the account given to me by Iskander in October I 994 (see note 26).



LESLEY MILNE 463

In this context, the crisis that can be sensed in The Sea Scorpion is different from that of Surroundings. In T1he Sea Scorpion it is despair that the situation shows no signs of ever improving. In Surroundings the crisis is the need to find moral bearings in the new uncertainties. Finally the plot of Pshada works out a harmonious resolution which sets down the new moral markers. But Iskander, like his Abkhazian general, is mistrustful of 'religion' as a current fashion and these new markers do not announce a dramatic conversion; they are simply an extension of former ideas. In Russian literature Tolstoi set the pattern for great shuddering 'spiritual crises', but Iskander shows no signs of following Tolstoi's example by renouncing his former art. Shortly after the publication of Pshada three examples appeared, one a continuation of the cycle of childhood stories,43 another an Abkhazian moral tale,44 and the third a wryly humorous account of that very difficult period in Iskander's life when he was being 'punished' for his part in the almanac Metropol'.45

Iskander has always been a moralist for whom art is the language of conscience. This was the basis for his role as jester at the Soviet court. Pshada is a successful artistic solution to the problem of the ageing jester's role when the court ceases to exist. The povest' creates for author and reader alike an escape from the pressures of didactic aphorism and allows them to do their thinking together in the more open form of plot as metaphor. But the relationship of metaphor to jest leaves open the possibility that Iskander will continue to take his own earlier advice to himself:

flpnc41Ab AKe Ha o6AOMOIK AU43HHI

14 HanrimH eiwe XOTb pa3 AA5 HeyAbI6qHBOi?I OT'IH3HbI

I0MOp14CTHItIeCKHiE4 paccKa3. 46

43 'Strashnaia mest' Chika', Znamia, I994, 2, pp. I0-20. 44 'Zvezdy i liudi', Obozrevatel', I994, 2, pp. 70-80. 45 '0, moi pokrovitel", Stolitsa, I 994, 28, pp. 56-62. 46 'So sit down on the stump of life/ And at least once more/ Write a humorous story/For

your unsmiling land' ('Natruzhennye vetvi lomki. . .', Fazil' Iskander, Put', p. 23 I).



fazil' iskander: from 'petukh' to "pshada"

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