ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3 Bogeymen in fairytales repres.docx

ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3
Bogeymen in fairytales represent our fears, and the
protagonists, often represented by children, face any
number of obstacles and challenges in order to defeat them.
This narrative arc—moving from a state of
innocence to a state of experience, or moving from the naivety
of childhood to the skepticism of
adulthood—is ultimately about gaining knowledge, specifically
knowledge about ourselves, and this
newfound experience is what defeats the bogeys in the end: by
facing the unknown head on, the
protagonists take away the bogeys’ power (fear) and achieve
their goals.
This might be why fairytales so prominently highlight the
dangers of curiosity: curiosity to learn and
experience is what initially sets the hero on her journey; it’s
what drives her past the threshold of her
comfort (her youth) in order to learn more about her fears
(adulthood). The journey is dangerous, the path
is uncertain, and the outcome is different for each hero.
However, while knowledge is simply given to the

protagonist in some stories—or given to the reader in the form
of a moral—we know that being told to
overcome our fear is never enough. In order to truly succeed,
the protagonist must face challenges herself,
and while this path may prove rocky, the long-term benefits, the
battle scars she collects on the way,
make the experience more poignant.
Angela Carter’s stories in The Bloody Chamber remix fairytales
to capitalize on the hero’s journey from
innocence to experience. We meet the protagonists at the
threshold of their youth, fearful about the
transition into adulthood, curious, specifically, about the
forbidden knowledge of experienced women
(knowledge, say, of marriage, sex, menstruation and childbirth).
This curiosity sets the protagonists on
their journey to defeat the unknown in order to become adults.
For your third essay, I’d like you to
define what the protagonists ultimately learn about themselves
in Carter’s stories in order to
explain how their hard-won lessons might offer an example for
other young girls on the threshold
of becoming women.
Note: Please highlight or underline your thesis when you
turn in your final draft!

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European
Languages
Werewolves and Vampires, Historical Questions and Symbolic
Answers, in Petr
Aleshkovsky's "Vladimir Chigrintsev"
Author(s): Valentina Brougher
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 45, No. 3
(Autumn, 2001), pp. 491-505
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and
East European Languages
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086366
Accessed: 07-12-2017 19:01 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,
researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information
technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected]
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the
Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European
Languages is collaborating
with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Slavic and East European Journal
This content downloaded from 207.62.236.135 on Thu, 07 Dec
2017 19:01:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRES, HISTORICAL
QUESTIONS AND SYMBOLIC ANSWERS, IN PETR
ALESHKOVSKY'S VLADIMIR CHIGRINTSEV
Valentina Brougher, Georgetown University
Petr Aleshkovsky is one of the most promising Russian writers
of the young
generation -those who debuted at the end of the 1980s and the
beginning
of the 1990s. He has drawn critical attention not because he has
shocked
literary sensibilities, like Vladimir Sorokin, or produced
experimental post-
modernist fiction, like Zufar Gareev.1 Rather, he has impressed
critics by
demonstrating a talent for writing traditional, realistic prose
which never-
theless acknowledges the multi-layered nature of reality and
the human
experience. According to the well-known Russian critic Mark
Lipovetsky,
Aleshkovsky is one of the Russian "postrealists" who are
"rooted in the

realistic tradition but .. . [have] learned from the experience of
postmod-
ernist art" (243). Given his affinity for mixing the daily and the
mundane
with the unusual and the fantastic, it is also tempting to
describe Alesh-
kovsky as a "fantastic realist," in the tradition of Nikolai
Gogol.
Aleshkovsky's first povest' or novella, Chaiki (Seagulls, 1992),
was set in
the mythical provincial town of Stargorod and revolved around
the theft of
icons, freedom of the arts, and other issues of contemporary
life. Several
key scenes reflected world mythology as well as old Russian
beliefs about
death and the soul. Aleshkovsky's cycle of thirty short
narratives, Star-
gorod: Golosa iz khora (Old Town: Voices from a Chorus,
1995), offered
brief vignettes from the lives of Stargorod's gallery of colorful,
eccentric
characters; these vignettes included references to witches,
village sorcerers
and healers, miracle-working icons and the like, which
suggested that be-
lief in the occult forms a vital dimension of contemporary
village life. The
novella, Zhizneopisanie khor'ka (1993; translated as Skunk: A
Life, 1997),
which brought Aleshkovsky almost instant fame and was short-
listed for
the Booker Russian Novel Prize in 1994, was structured on the
physical and
spiritual journey of Danilka, nicknamed Khoryok, who is both

antisocial
and amoral. Aleshkovsky portrayed his moral awakening as the
hypnotic
SEEJ, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2001): p. 491-p. 505 491
2017 19:01:03 UTC
492 Slavic and East European Journal
effect of icons depicting sinners, talk of the Second Coming
and Anti-
Christ, a priest's discourse on the role of paganism, magic and
miracle in
religious belief and, most important, Danny's own mystical
experiences
lying on a rock which is venerated by the local folk.
Vladimir Chigrintsev (1995, journal version; 1997, book
edition), short-
listed for the Booker Prize in 1996, confirms that
Aleshkovsky's writing is
rooted in the classical tradition but enriched by use of the
irrational, the
mystical and the supernatural- the occult in the broad scheme
of things.
The latter dimension of Aleshkovsky's art, it should be noted,
is in concert
with the literary dynamics and thematic preoccupations of
Russian writers
in the 1990s. One need only consider the prose of such writers
as Oleg

Ermakov, Aleksandr Vernikov, Georgy Petrov, Zufar Gareev,
Dmitri
Lipskerov, Aleksei Slapovsky, Viktor Pelevin, Aleksandr
Borodynia, Olga
Slavnikova, Maria Rybakova, Alla Bakholenko, Aleksei
Varlamov, Via-
cheslav Pietsukh, Mikhail Kuraev, Mark Kharitotov, Anatoly
Kim, Liud-
milla Petrushevskaia, Nina Sadur, and Tatiana Tolstaia to
conclude that
interest in the "other" world, different levels of reality,
demonology, black
and white magic, folk beliefs, apocalypses, mystical systems of
thought and
esoteric teachings characterizes much of the literature
published today.2
The occultist complexion of Russian prose in the 1990s is part
of the
counter-culture that developed in response to seventy years of
Soviet rule
and the emphasis on the visible, material world and the
rationality of life.
Writers today are taking advantage of the new freedoms to
mine all areas
of the occult that now constitute Russians' spiritual space. They
are discov-
ering in the world of the occult a rich source of literary
devices, metaphori-
cal language and philosophical perspective as they address
basic questions
about the nature of reality and human life in general. Some
writers incor-
porate elements of the occult into their prose as they strive not
only to
answer ontological and metaphysical questions, but also to

capture the
essence of history, politics and culture in Soviet, post-Soviet
and even pre-
revolutionary times. Viktor Pelevin, in Zheltaia strela (The
Yellow Arrow,
1993) and Chapaev i Pustota (Chapaev and Emptiness, 1996)
interprets
human life and the Soviet experience through a Buddhist prism;
Yuri
Buida offers his novel Boris i Gleb (Boris and Gleb, 1997) as
an alchemi-
cal manuscript in which he identifies the basic "ingredients" or
"elements"
of "Russianness," various Russian tsars, historical periods and
cultural
phenomena; and Tatiana Tolstaia, in her recently published
first novel,
Kys' (Kys, 2000),3 looks to both changes and constants in folk
beliefs,
mythology, and language to capture the character of Russian
life, politics
and culture-past, present and future. Aleshkovsky's Vladimir
Chigrin-
tsev very much belongs among these works.
In his collection of brief essays on noteworthy works of
Russian litera-
ture which appeared in the 1990s, Andrei Nemzer (27)
introduces Petr
2017 19:01:03 UTC

Answers 493
Aleshkovsky's novel, Vladimir Chigrintsev, as writing
representative of a
generation of writers who are deeply involved in posing
questions and
providing answers. In his critical look at the work, Nemzer (28)
also men-
tions the presence of a volkudlak, vurdalak (werewolf) and
upyr' (vam-
pire) in key moments in the novel.4 His comments, however,
suggest a
weariness with the occultist complexion of Russian literature in
the 1990s
and do little to illuminate the philosophical, cultural and
political implica-
tions of Aleshkovsky's artistic vision. In my view, the occultist
preoccupa-
tion in Aleshkovsky's work transcends mere fashion. As this
article will
show, Aleshkovsky uses folk beliefs, legends and myths to
provide sym-
bolic answers to historical questions about Soviet rule, the
nature of real-
ity, and the creative imagination.
Much of the structural complexity and thematic richness of
Alesh-
kovsky's Vladimir Chigrintsev is owed to the portrayal of the
folk belief in
two types of the unclean undead: the werewolf and the vampire.
It should
be noted at the start, however, that Aleshkovsky often does not
distinguish
between the two categories, instead allowing them to merge in

the reader's
mind.5 A thoughtful reading of the novel reveals that various
"truths"
about Russian history, human creativity, and the nature of
reality in general
are locked in an intricate "set of relations . .. connected
through their
intersection"6 in the folkloric notion of werewolf/vampire.7 As
we shall see,
in Vladimir Chigrintsev Aleshkovsky contextualizes an
"appearance" of a
werewolf or vampire in different periods of Russian life and
history, endow-
ing the notion with various suggestions, associations, and
meaning as the
novel progresses. The werewolf/vampire becomes not only the
binding
thread but the central metaphor in the novel. On a broader
level, the
werewolf/vampire plays a key role in the philosophical
underpinnings of
the novel, in the "questions and answers" that anchor
Aleshkovsky's work.
A fruitful approach to identifying these "questions and
answers" is first to
explore the role of the werewolf/vampire in the work and then
to consider
its broader implications.
Vladimir Chigrintsev opens in the 18th century with a
description of the
genesis of a local legend about a werewolf. The first few pages
of the novel
describe the end of the siege of Orenburg and Emelian
Pugachev, the leader
of the peasant rebellion in Catherine the Great's time, fleeing

for his life. As
his supporters flee as well, one man, who tries to elude the
horsemen
pursuing him through the steppe, finds himself confronted by
Prince Der-
betev. He begs for mercy, but the Prince - tired, wounded and
angry at the
"traitors"- pierces him with his sword. As the man lies dying,
he vows to
come back as a werewolf (volkudlak). This threat comes to
haunt genera-
tions of Derbetevs, and various tales, not only of the
supernatural but also
of hidden treasure, come to be associated with the Derbetev
estate,
Pylaikha.8 It seems that the "man" had been entrusted to
deliver a small
2017 19:01:03 UTC
chest of semi-precious jewels to Pugachev's "empress" for
safekeeping, and
that Prince Derbetev became the unexpected owner of this large
treasure.
The werewolf, of course, "was known to the ancient Greeks and
Ro-
mans, and exists in the folk beliefs of peoples on every
continent in the
world" (Funk & Wagnells 1170). Since literary works with

supernatural
themes were popular in Catherine the Great's time (Berry 5-18),
Alesh-
kovsky's placement of the werewolf curse during Pugachev's
rebellion ac-
quires a certain legitimacy. Aleshkovsky signals, however, that
the notion
of a folkloric werewolf is of vital importance to the dynamics
of the whole
work, and not simply a Gothic touch for his novel, by taking
great care to
legitimize the man's vow to return as a werewolf. To this end,
he utilizes
details and elements that reflect common Russian folk beliefs.
Russian folklore offers a variety of explanations of how
werewolves
come into being. According to the 19th century scholar of
Russian folklore,
S. V. Maksimov (90-91), one magic ritual called for a knife to
be stuck into
a smooth tree stump and then for the person to jump over it.
For a were-
wolf to revert back to human form, the ritual called for jumping
over the
knife in the opposite direction. However, if anyone took out the
knife
before the person had a chance to revert back to human form,
that person
would remain a werewolf for the rest of his existence.
Aleshkovsky's narra-
tive suggests that, by literally "nailing" Pugachev's follower to
the ground
with his sword and then removing the weapon and pushing the
body into a
ravine, Prince Derbetev unwittingly performed a variation on

this ritual,
thus giving validity to the man's threat to return as a werewolf.
The empha-
sis Aleshkovsky places on Prince Derbetev's passionate view of
the man as
a "robber" (razboinik) and "traitor" (izmennik) dovetails with a
common
peasant belief that, as V. I. Dal (52-53) has observed, a
werewolf repre-
sented an apostate whose soul was not allowed to enter into
"the other
world" but was forced to wander this world and do mischief. In
setting the
genesis of his werewolf legend in Pugachev's time and
incorporating the
idea of treasure, Aleshkovsky exploits effectively the
association of folk
heroes with treasures in popular lore (Zabylin 440-447). Last
but not least,
the popular belief that hidden treasure was guarded by unclean
forces
(Zabylin 439) prepares for the involvement not only of the
"Derbetev
werewolf" but the demonic in general.
That the Prince's actions may have introduced supernatural
forces into
his life is suggested by the fate that befalls him. He is found
hanging from
an aspen tree in a ravine. According to folk belief, the aspen
was an
effective means of "fighting the unclean spirit, witches,
sorcerers" and
other beings of this kind (Slavianskaia mifologiia 293). Thus,
one possible
interpretation is that the Prince's death came at the hands of

peasants,
because of his rumored involvement with chernye muzhiki, or
sorcerers
and practitioners of black magic. Another interpretation is that
the fol-
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Answers 495
lower of Pugachev whom the Prince had killed and robbed of
treasure had
indeed "come back" as a werewolf, just as he had threatened:
after killing
him, Prince Derbetev had thrown the man's body into a ravine,
and it is in
a ravine that Prince Derbetev himself is found hanging. A
white dog was
spotted there and pronounced a shape shifter (oboroten') by the
local folk,
a term sometimes applied to a werewolf. It is also noteworthy
that the
violent nature of the death of Pugachev's follower had made
him a
zalozhnik, someone in folk belief who has died "an unnatural
death" be-
fore his time and thus become part of the world of the demonic.
The
zalozhniki "often show themselves to people and almost always
harm
them," according to D. K. Zelenin (40).

In tracing the life of the werewolf curse, which in turn
contributes to the
myths and legends which shroud the Derbetev estate,
Aleshkovsky places
special focus on the mysterious death, after the Bolshevik
revolution, of one
of the descendants of Prince Derbetev. Sergei Pavlovich
Derbetev does not
die at the hands of peasants enraged at their old master, as was
often true of
the times, nor is he purged as an "old bourgeois" element
hostile to the
revolution. Forced to give up the family estate of Pylaikha to
the Soviets, he
stayed on as its watchman. In 1921 he was found barely alive
in snowy,
freezing weather, just outside the door of a storeroom; people
wondered
why he had not taken shelter inside. Adding to the mystery, he
complained,
as he lay dying in the priest's hut, that he seemed to see
unclean spirits in the
hut's fume-filled, smoky air.9
Sergei Pavlovich came to be remembered as a man who was
drawn to the
night, standing guard with rifle in hand and staring
melancholically at the
full moon, "as if practicing witchcraft" (107). Given the story
of the Der-
betev werewolf, one suggestion is that Sergei Pavlovich might
have been
guarding against, or apprehensively anticipating, yet another
appearance
of the werewolf. The reader is left with the possibility that the

latter killed
him. Noting, however, the occultist coloration of the
description of his
behavior and the time frame, i.e., the apocalyptic early 1920s,
the reader is
also left with the suggestion that Sergei Pavlovich might have
sensed that
evil and demonic forces were about to manifest themselves.
This possible
reading is suggested toward the end of the work.
The main portion of the novel focuses on the role of the
werewolf legend
in the 1990s, when the last direct descendent of Prince
Derbetev, a profes-
sor of history, Pavel Sergeevich, lies dying of cancer. While
claiming not to
believe the tales about a werewolf and treasure connected with
Pylaikha
and the Derbetevs, he warns Volia Chigrintsev, a distant
relation, to "be-
ware only of a white-necked dog" (53) and, in his last hours, in
delirium,
the professor seems to see a werewolf.
Volia lives in Moscow, has studied history, and makes good
money as an
illustrator of fairy-tales. In some ways, he is a man of his time:
he enjoys
2017 19:01:03 UTC

being well paid for supplying a "cultured capitalist" (kul'turnyi
kapitalist)
with illustrations to the tales of Pushkin. The latter sell well in
a time when
people long for a return to the classics. However, he is not
entirely satisfied
with this well-regulated existence. A strong sense of curiosity
and a need to
rediscover familial roots eventually take Volia to Pylaikha,
there to experi-
ence life's fairytales as opposed to those he illustrates. The
professor's
warning as well as the stories of hidden treasure and the
supernatural that
Volia has heard in connection with the estate lead to a clear
dichotomy in
his anticipation as he heads for the village where the estate is
located.10 He
wonders if he will find "buried treasure, a terrible werewolf, a
witch on a
fiery stick or [emphasis mine] simply mushrooms, hunting and
fishing"
(145). In Aleshkovsky's conception of the world, however,
Volia is fated to
discover that reality is not a simple matter of "either/or" but a
blend of the
"real" and the fantastic, the rational and irrational.
Volia's sojourn in the countryside leads to a renewed
application of the
variety of trees, grasses, insects, smells and sounds that abound
in the won-
drous world of nature. His visits with a friend's family remind

him of the
rural idyll that village life can be: the hut permeated with the
strong smell of
fragrant herbs, mushrooms, garlic, and freshly baked bread.
There is a grim
underside to this reality, too: alcohol is consumed in huge
quantities, rob-
bing people of time, energy and emotional health.
Volia also discovers that myths about the supernatural and
various be-
liefs about countering the power of the "dark forces" are very
much part of
village life and mentality. The grandmother of his friend
Nikolai repeats
local lore about a vampire (upyr') biting the former master
(Sergei Pav-
lovich) of Pylaikha at night and driving him to madness. When
Volia de-
cides to visit the estate, she presses on him an amulet of garlic
tied with
herbs. Garlic, of course, "is widely credited with the power to
drive away
evil, whether demons, witches or vampires" (Funk & Wagnells
441). He
finds himself unconsciously holding the amulet in his fist after
becoming
frightened at the sight of a dog with a white spot on his neck
and an old man
who appears suddenly and disappears just as quickly. Although
Volia's
reflex as an educated city man and a man of reason is to
dismiss these
"visions" as "delirium" (bredni) and "nonsense" (chush'), deep
down he is
no longer so categorically certain.

That his intuition or subconscious in fact sensed something that
was not
necessarily visible is suggested in what is revealed later about
the old man.
The narrator comments that the latter served in the NKVD.
Believing that
prisoners in the gulag were all "scum and enemies of the
people," he felt no
remorse in "suffocating" or "strangling" them (dushil gadov
193). The use
of the verb dushit' by association reminds the reader of the
"vampire" that
was said to have suffocated Sergei Pavlovich in the 1920s
(zadushil ego ...
upyr' 108). Moreover, the sudden appearance and disappearance
of the old
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Answers 497
man mimics the ability of a shape shifter to do exactly that at
will
(Slavianskaia mifologiia 279-280). By drawing on such
associations, Alesh-
kovsky suggests that the old NKVD man was, metaphorically
speaking, a
vampire, a demonic creature that attacks and destroys human
beings.

The portrayal of the old man shows that Aleshkovsky does not
restrict
his werewolf/vampire references simply to the level of folk
mythology. This
is even more vividly borne out in Volia's surrealistic dream one
night on the
old Pylaikha estate. As a man of the 1990s, Volia has had to
confront
various revelations about Soviet history and life. He has also
moved in the
society of students and professors of Soviet history. If a
person's dream is
displayed to him "from the thoughts of his own heart" (Bloom
91), and if a
dream is "little else than a resurrection of the past" (Bergson
114), then
Volia's dream can be read as his interpretation of Soviet life
and an ex-
tended metaphor for the course of Soviet history.
In the dream Volia sees all of the village men sitting at a long
table. On
something that resembles a combination of a "tribunal for a
Party speaker
and an Egyptian chair" lies a pillow. On it sits a statue-like,
"large but thin,
black dog with a white neck." There is a bowl of kut'ia, or
sweet rice,
before him. "The dog is not looking at anyone in particular, but
it is clear
that he is shepherding everyone - his whole look is full of
significance and
malice" (182). The dog sticks his snout in the rice, while the
village chair-
man invites those present to eat by beginning to chew on a
sharp steel bar;

they follow his example, swallowing chains, screws, nuts and
bolts; Volia
chews on a rusty pipe. A hunt follows, accompanied by the
dog's melan-
choly and malicious howling, as he sits on a high post with a
commanding
view of the activities.
This stream of images immediately evokes the specter of
Stalin. The
presence of a dog combined with a reference to an Egyptian
chair brings to
mind Anubis, an Egyptian deity of death represented as a dog-
or jackel-
headed man. In her study of Egyptian mythology, Veronica
Ions (85) points
out that although Anubis had various functions, "most
important of all, he
supervised the weighing of the soul . .. His judgment was of
vital impor-
tance, for it was accepted in turn by Thoth, Horus and Osiris,"
the major
deities. By parallel association, Stalin was raised to the status
of a deity for
the Soviet people and his decisions not only affected the lives
of millions,
but were accepted unquestioningly by his associates and
subordinates.
Kut'ia, "a food characteristic of funeral meals" (Ivanits 8),
serves as an
effective symbol and potent reminder of Stalin's role in the
death of mil-
lions. The dog "shepherding," or guarding and carefully
watching over his
guests brings to mind the Stalin hailed as "Captain of the
Country," "The

Wise Helmsman," and "The Boss,"11 while the dynamics
between the dog
(the look full of significance and malice) and his guests
parallels Stalin's
love of long dinners at which he exercised total control. The
peasants
2017 19:01:03 UTC
chewing on metal parts can be interpreted as a reference to
Stalin as "the
man of steel" and his campaign of forced industrialization of
the whole
country. Volia's chewing a rusty pipe serves as a reference to
his car acci-
dent, which forced him to deal with the mafia for precious auto
parts, as
well as a general symbol of Russia's industrial decay. Volia's
passing judg-
ment on the dog as a shape shifter (oboroten') becomes an act
of divination
on the subconscious level on his part. But the dream also
"transcends the
psyche of the individual dreamer" (Bloom 123), because the
reader intuits
the higher truth: the werewolf in Volia's surrealistic dream is
Stalin. Tell-
ingly, days after his dream, Volia calls Stalin "a vampire,
murderer and
scoundrel" (195).

The dream does not end here, but continues to unfold: peasants
begin
dancing in cranberries, making a "bloody kisel' (kissel)." The
dog with the
white neck drives the peasants deeper into the forest, chasing
anyone who
falls behind. There follows not a witches' but a dogs' sabbath.
Then the dog
with the white neck turns into a common mongrel who
continues to run
across the field after the other dogs.
The "bloody kissel" and peasants being driven ever deeper into
the
forest can be read as a reference to Stalin's bloody regime
which included
dekulakization and collectivization and an extensive system of
camps deep
within Russia. The "dogs' sabbath" suggests the madness and
political orgy
that were the purges. The detail of the transformation of the
black dog with
the white neck into a common mongrel fits nicely the parallel
image of the
discredited, demythologized Stalin. And finally, the mongrel
with the white
neck running after the other dogs suggests that Stalin has not
been
exorcized from Russian life but is a still-demonic force
pursuing or propel-
ling others. Thus the dream has an "admonitory aura," to
borrow a phrase
from Bloom (98).
As we can see from the care with which Aleshkovsky crafts the

symbolic
texture of his novel and especially Volia's dream, the central
"question and
answer" at the philosophical core of Aleshkovsky's Vladimir
Chigrintsev
concerns Soviet rule, and Stalin's regime in particular. How
should Rus-
sians assess this part of their past, now that a different era has
dawned?
Through Volia's interest in history and the political changes in
post-Soviet
Russia, and particularly the surrealistic dream that troubles his
sleep,
Aleshkovsky argues that, metaphorically speaking, Stalin
represented a
combination werewolf-vampire in Russian history. Just like the
folkloric
werewolf-vampire, he preyed on the living and brought death;
moreover,
just like the psychic werewolf-vampire in Jan Perkowski's
study (55), he
fed, and continues to feed, on others emotionally. It does not
escape the
reader's notice that Aleshkovsky insistently juxtaposes this
view of Stalin
and the regime he represented to that of some members of the
older
generation (for example, the old man Volia meets) who in the
1990s still
2017 19:01:03 UTC

Answers 499
argue that Stalin was "a real father" (nastoiashchii batiushka)
of the Rus-
sian people.
It is also noteworthy that Aleshkovsky's assessment of Stalin's
rule in-
cludes a warning: since both the werewolf and the vampire are
types of the
unclean undead against which rituals and remedies must be
employed to
render them powerless, Aleshkovsky suggests that Stalin's
presence will
haunt Russia and pose a threat until he is ritualistically
eliminated or exor-
cised from Russian life. That exorcism or ritual, the writer
suggests, lies
within the power of historians. As Volia concludes, with the
passing of the
older generations (represented by Professor Derbetev in the
novel) who had
served Stalin's cause, willingly or not, Stalin's power is losing
its hold on the
Russian nation, and historians are being left with "documents
and a state of
overpowering excitement (kaif), deeply personal excitement
connected with
[their] reading of the legend" (270). The "legend" is
undoubtedly a reference
to Stalin and his time. Aleshkovsky is suggesting that
historians now have the
freedom to study the cult of personality seriously, including the
role of
intellectuals in making Stalin a figure venerated by the masses,

a tsar and god
combined in one. Moreover, given the inclusion of references
to the
Pugachev Rebellion as well as to the relations between the
peasants and the
landowners in Vladimir Chigrintsev, historians also face the
task of re-
examining the roots of the Russian revolution, including the
extent of histori-
cal blame the tsars and the aristocracy must bear for the
revolution of 1917.
It is interesting to note that Volia's recognition of Stalin as a
werewolf
completes the cycle that began with Prince Derbetev in the 18th
century.
The Prince's actions led to the werewolf curse on the
Derbetevs; a descen-
dent, Sergei Pavlovich, after the Bolshevik revolution
seemingly intuited
the coming of the demonic; and Volia, in the 1990s, was able to
assign a
concrete identity to the demonic force that destroyed human
life in Russia
in the 20th century: Stalin. What began as a curse in a time
when the
supernatural and the fantastic was a fashionable part of the
literary land-
scape takes on a seriousness, a connection to real life and
Russian history
in the 20th century.
Volia's dream also brings us to another important "question and
answer"
that anchors Aleshkovsky's novel: what is the nature of reality?

Is it bound
only to the visible, material world or are there other planes of
reality that
are part of the human experience and just as legitimate? It is
true that the
symbolic texture of Volia's dream has an "otherworldly aura"
(24) and
reveals "dimensions of experience beyond the everyday"
(Barasch 17). But
his dream also brings to the surface insights which resided on
Volia's sub-
conscious level. The revelations that are imbedded in the
dream's symbol-
ism come to play a transformational role in Volia's life: he can
never look at
Soviet history in the same way. Thus, in the significance with
which he
invests Volia's dream, Aleshkovsky, as many writers and
thinkers before
2017 19:01:03 UTC
him, suggests that dreams belong to a different level of reality
that must not
be dismissed. Dreams draw from an individual's everyday life,
as well as
the collective subconscious of a nation, and, transcending the
daily, ordi-
nary matrices of time and space, they reveal the hidden
mysteries and

truths locked therein.
Further evidence of Aleshkovsky's definition of reality as a
complex
interweaving of many strands can be found in Volia's
adventures in the
countryside. There is reality that consists of the recognizable
everyday
world, accessible to human reason and normal sensory powers.
There is
also reality that exists beyond the range of reason and the
human senses
and includes different levels of existence and consciousness.
Volia's experi-
ences toward the end of his stay near Pylaikha reflect these
different levels
of reality, privileging now one, now another level of reality. To
offer some
examples, Volia discovers a treasure in the bricks of the
Russian stove of
the estate church12: packets of currency from the 18th century
and the years
1924 and 1931.13 The "unclean spirits" and "witches" that
people--
including the professor and his wife - saw flying out of
chimneys and pipes
on the estate would seem to reflect the popular belief that there
is a
connection between demonic forces and hidden treasure. Volia,
however,
suffers no harm, perhaps because there are no demonic spirits
or perhaps
because the money is no longer valuable or a treasure. In an
unexpected
twist, however, Volia encounters the ghost of the 18th century
Prince Der-

betev, dressed in old finery, who questions Boria about the
harvest and hay
and starts giving orders. Boria, who lives in the countryside
and has accom-
panied Volia on the outing, interprets the ghost's appearance to
mean that
Volia is now one of the select: "If the master (barin) has
appeared to you, it
means that he considers you one of his own" (294). Boria, it is
important to
note, cautions Volia not to say anything in Moscow about this
apparition
because "they won't believe you, and what's even worse, they'll
send a
commission" (294). Here, as in the writing of Aleshkovsky's
contemporar-
ies, such as Alla Barkholenko, Oleg Larin, and Vladimir
Sokolovsky, 4 the
city is presented as the domain of non-belief in anything
occult.
Given Volia's experiences in the countryside and on the old
estate,
Aleshkovsky suggests that reality is a mixture of the visible,
material world
and the invisible, the irrational and the supernatural. Those
who place their
trust only in the former (as Volia does before he visits
Pylaikha), subscribe
to a simplistic, impoverished view of reality. However, those
who come to
appreciate the latter (like Volia after his stay at Pylaikha), who
accept, at
least to some extent, the folk beliefs, legends and superstitions
that are part
of the culture and character of village life, appreciate the

multi-layered
richness of reality and the human experience. Simply put,
Aleshkovsky is
arguing for restoring to reality the complexity, mystery and
ambiguity that
Soviet ideology had tried to ignore and even eliminate.
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Answers 501
The third important "question and answer" connected with the
novel's
key metaphor, the werewolf/vampire image, revolves around
the writer
and the creative imagination. It is significant that Volia's
characterization
of Stalin as a werewolf (in his dream) and a vampire (in
arguments with the
older generation of Stalin admirers) becomes interconnected
with Profes-
sor Derbetev's earlier use of the werewolf image to characterize
his life.
Before his death, the professor admitted to Volia that he had
written "fairy
tales [his] whole life and lived as in a fairy-tale" (238), an
indirect admission
that he tailored his studies of history to the ideological
demands of the time
and lived in a world that belonged to the stuff of fantasy and
invention, not

real life. Moreover, the professor suggested that he was a
victim of forces
beyond his control by reciting for Volia a line of poetry he
associated with
his youth: "Mne na plechi brosaetsia vek-vurdalak" (The
werewolf century
is hurling itself onto my shoulders). Although the name of Osip
Man-
delstam is not mentioned directly, Volia quickly identifies the
poet in his
mind and points out to the professor, without naming the poem,
that
Mandelstam had employed volkodav (wolf-hound) rather than
vurdalak in
that particular line of poetry. The professor defends his choice
by suggest-
ing that the more ominous and life-threatening image of a
werewolf better
encapsulates the essence of Soviet rule under Stalin. This
image, the reader
understands, serves as a powerful evocation of Stalin not only
as someone
who preyed on the living but also someone who exacted a
heavy emotional
toll. He is both a "folkloric" werewolf/vampire and a "psychic,"
one, to
repeat categories from Perkowski's (55) study.
Fittingly, Professor Derbetev's recitation of a line of poetry
from Man-
delstam, albeit with some imprecision, serves to remind the
reader of a
great poet who was one of Stalin's many victims. That
particular line of
poetry is from Mandelstam's "Za gremuchuiu doblest'
griadushchikh

vekov" ("For the sake of the future's trumpeting heroics"), a
poem which,
according to Anna Akhmatova (101), was unearthed by NKVD
investiga-
tors and shown to Mandelstam when they arrested him. The
professor's
insistence, however, on substituting Pushkin's vurdalak for
Mandelstam's
volkodav, immediately adds Pushkin to an ever expanding
system of inter-
connections between different writers, historical periods, and
the reading
public. Moreover, the interconnections do not become
exhausted with the
reference to Pushkin, although the professor claims that the
latter "in-
vented" the image of the werewolf and thus credits him with
creating a
literary version of the supernatural being. Pushkin's
"Vurdalak," however,
is one of the poems found in his cycle "Songs of the Western
Slavs" ("Pesni
zapadnykh slavian")15 which, as Ernest Simmons (352)
explains, were
"drawn from Prosper Merimee's La Guzla, an excellent forgery
of Serbian
songs [to which] Pushkin added a few other songs and cast in
the meter of
the Russian folk epic."
2017 19:01:03 UTC

If the foregoing intertextual dynamics (Mandelstam, Pushkin,
Merimee,
Serbian culture) are taken into account, Aleshkovsky's artistic
intention is
fairly clear. He wants to draw the reader's attention to the
"common arche-
typal pool of mythic consciousness" (Kolakowski 8) about
which Carl Jung
and Mercea Eliade wrote with such conviction and eloquence.
He also
wants the reader to appreciate that this pool "manifests itself ...
in cultur-
ally designated specifics" (Kolakowski 8), as both Jung and
Eliade also
believed. Aleshkovsky had already illustrated this by selecting
the belief in
werewolves and vampires that is part of so many cultural
traditions and
then looking to traditional Russian folk beliefs to explain the
appearance
and subsequent "life" of his werewolf/vampire.
Aleshkovsky can even be said to add himself to the symbiotic
relation-
ship and system of interconnections which he suggests exist
between cre-
ative minds, nationally and globally. It is not without interest
that Alesh-
kovsky chooses to open his novel with an episode set in
Pugachev's time.
The latter brings to mind the immediate association with
Pushkin, a Rus-
sian literary icon who is remembered, among other things, for
two works

on Pugachev's rebellion (the historical treatise The History of
Pugachev,
1833, and the novel The Captain's Daughter, 1833-1836).16 Of
particular
importance is the Pushkinian spectral scene in the last
paragraphs of
Vladimir Chigrintsev. Aleshkovsky takes the key ingredients of
Pushkin's
famous poem "Demons" ("Besy," 1830) -based on folklore
beliefs about
snowstorms, witches and demonic spirits--and creates a prose
variation
on Pushkin's imagery. And he goes even further: he subverts
the thrust of
Pushkin's poem by recasting Volia's reactions to the
snowstorm. The lat-
ter, unlike Pushkin's barin (landowner or gentleman), is not
overcome
with fear, but rather experiences a "joyous unbelievable feeling
of free-
dom" (303). This sense of freedom comes from being away
from the city
and in a world of nature, where folklore, which he has come to
appreciate,
plays an integral part. The "purposeful reversal" (Rodari 35) of
Pushkin's
poetic intention serves as Aleshkovsky's playful illustration
that the cre-
ative artist inevitably taps into the pool of imagery and ideas
created
before him but, in his individual way, heeds his own Muse.
Last but not least, Aleshkovsky's "questions and answers"
about the
"uniqueness" of the creative imagination and the image of
national writers

in a global context is pointedly illustrated in what Volia learns
about an-
other of Pushkin's works. Thanks to a dealer in antiques, Volia
comes to
appreciate the poet's "The Golden Cockerel" ("Zolotoi
petushok," 1834)
not simply as a uniquely Russian fairy-tale but also as an old
Arab legend,
"in its European variant at that," which Pushkin "sharpened,
simplified
and reworked according to the needs of the time" ("zaostril,
uprostil i
obrabotal dlia nuzhd vremeni" (259). Aleshkovsky is clearly
one of those
writers who, to borrow some phrases from J. Bierlein (xiv),
appreciates
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Answers 503
"the fascinating parallels that exist among the myths [and
stories] of widely
separated cultures." After all, he himself chooses the belief in
werewolves
and vampires that is part of world mythology and "explores and
reworks"
this belief to fit the needs of his time, a time of "questions and
answers."
NOTES

*I would like to thank Helen Sullivan and the staff of the
Slavic Library at the University of
Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Yaroslava Zelinsky of the
Library of Congress, and my col-
league Svetlana Grenier for their assistance in locating sources;
my colleague Valery
Petrochenkov for giving me generously of his time whenever I
had questions relating to
Aleshkovsky's text; Mark Lipovetsky and the two anonymous
readers for their comments and
advice; and Irene Masing-Delic for her suggestions and
guidance.
1 I have in mind Sorokin's Serdtsa chetyrekh (1994),
Tridtsataia liubov' Mariny (1994) and
Goluboe salo (1999), as well as Gareev's Mul'tiproza (1992).
2 See V. G. Brougher, "The Occult in Russian Literature of the
1990s," and Brougher and
Helene N. Wolff, "The Demonic in the Short Stories of Grigorii
Petrov, Anatolii
Kurchatkin, and Oleg Ermakov."
3 Kys', one of the writer's neologisms in the novel, is a
mythological bird of prey in which
people in Tolstaia's world believe and which they fear all their
lives. Myth and legend
holds that the people it attacks either die or never fully recover
from the physical and
psychic scars it leaves. The novel is filled with historical,
political and literary allusions,
and "kys"' may stand for the essence of various ingredients that
make Russia unique. A
reader familiar with Vasily Aksenov's prose will be reminded
of his novella Stal'naia ptitsa

(The Steel Bird, which first appeared in the U.S.A. in 1979 in
an English translation
published by Ardis Press and was included in vol. 2 of his
Sobranie sochinenii v piati
tomakh, Moscow, 1995) in which the main character,
Popenkov, whom people call the
"Steel Bird," symbolizes Stalin and his regime.
4 Slavnikova notes a connection between a wolf hound and a
werewolf in the work but
ignores any references to a vampire. She dismisses Volia's
dream, which I believe is an
important key to appreciating Aleshkovsky's novel, as a
"superfluous, tiresome jumble"
(181). Clearly not interested in the occultist complexion of the
work, Slavnikova focuses
on the novel as a chronicle of a family history that ends with
Volia's discovery of a
worthless treasure at Pylaikha.
5 Ivanits (121) writes that "the categories of vampire and
werewolf did not merge" in
Russia. Aleshkovsky merges the two categories to indicate that
people in the 20th century
often confuse these two types of the unclean undead because
both ultimately represent a
demonic force that destroys human life. For the frequent
contamination of the vampire
with the werewolf in the Balkans, see Jan Perkowski's engaging
study, particularly Chap-
ter Three, "Vampire or Werewolf?"
6 Monroe C. Beardsley, as quoted in Ricoeur (93).
7 Perkowski (54) divides the "general vampire. .. into a
quarterly subset: the folklore

vampire, the psychotic vampire, the psychic vampire, and the
literary vampire." Alesh-
kovsky finds his metaphor in "the folkloric vampire ... a being
with imputed supernatural
characteristics [Perkowski's emphasis] . . . which functions
within the belief structure of a
given people and varies from culture to culture."
8 The estate takes its name from the village of Pylaikha near
which it is located. Pylaikha
has the same stem as pyl (fervor, ardor) and pylat' (to flame,
blaze). No information is
2017 19:01:03 UTC
given as to when and why the village was so named although a
fire in the area influencing
the choice of name is a reasonable assumption.
9 The fumes are from the Russian stove.
10 The latter elements, incidentally, bring to mind
Schmemann's fascinating account of the
history of his family's estate, Echoes of a Native Land,
especially the myths and legends
about hidden treasure that became part of the legacy.
11 For a succinct but excellent description of the cult of
personality as well as Stalin's

nicknames, aliases, and official titles, see Rappaport, 58-63 and
263-267.
12 By Schmemann's account, "in the sixties, workers
dismantling a chimney of the burned-
down manor house found an urn full of letters and photos,
presumably concealed there by
the Osorgins" (6). It is intriguing to note that the histories of
Aleshkovsky's Pylaikha and of
Schmemann's Osorgin estate have many elements in common.
There is a good possibility
that Aleshkovsky is familiar with the story of the Osorgin
estate and adapted it to his needs,
which would be consistent with his artistic philosophy (see
discussion below).
13 Lenin died in 1924. Collectivization was at its height in
1931. This was also the year that
Stalin ordered the magnificent Cathedral of Christ the Savior in
Moscow to be dynamited
and demolished to make way for the Palace of Soviets (which
was never built).
14 See Svetilo maloe dlia osveshcheniia nochi by Alla
Barkholenko; "Ekhala derevnia mimo
muzhika" by Oleg Larin; and "Oblako, zolotaia polianka" by
Vladimir Sokolovsky
(1997), a work published some fifteen years earlier in a small
provincial journal and
finally noted by the critics in the 1990s, with the publication of
the anthology.
15 For Pushkin's use of vurdalak, see also "Marko Iakubovich"
in his "Pesni zapadnykh
slavian."

16 In an interview conducted by Setiukova, Aleshkovsky
mentions his deep interest in
Pushkin and history and notes that his father, "a rather well-
known historian," had a
great influence on him.
WORKS CITED
Akhmatova, Anna. Selected Prose. My Half Century. Ed.
Ronald Meyer. Ann Arbor, MI:
Ardis, 1992.
Aksenov, Vasilii. The Steel Bird and Other Stories. Trans. Rae
Slonek, et al. Ann Arbor:
Ardis, 1979.
Aleshkovskii, Petr. Chaiki. Druzhba narodov 4 (1992): 9-83.
Skunk: A Life. Trans. Arch Tait. Moscow: Glas, 1997.
. Stargorod: Golosa iz khora. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo imeni
Sabashnikovykh, 1995.
Vladimir Chigrintsev. Moscow: Vagrius, 1997.
Barasch, Ian. Healing Dreams. New York: Riverhead, 2000.
Barkholenko, Alla. Svetilo maloe dlia osveshcheniia nochi.
Ural 1; 2-4; 5-6; 1998.
Bergson, Henri. Mind-Energy: Lectures and Essays. Trans. H.
W. Carr. Westport: Green-
wood P, 1975.
Berry, Thomas E. Spiritualism in Tsarist Society and
Literature. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe
Society, 1985.
Bierlein, J. F Parallel Myths. New York: Ballantine, 1994.
Bloom, Harold. Omens of Millenium. The Gnosis of Angels,

Dreams, and Resurrection. New
York: Riverhead, 1996.
Brougher, V. G. "The Occult in Russian Literature of the
1990s." Russian Review 56.1 (1997):
110-24.
Brougher, V. G. and Helene N. Wolff. "The Demonic in the
Short Stories of Grigorii Petrov,
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Answers 505
Anatolii Kurchatkin, and Oleg Ermakov." Canadian Slavonic
Papers 41.2 (1999): 143-
156.
Buida, Jurii. Boris i Gleb. Znamia 1 (1997): 8-49; 2 (1997):
106-157.
Dal', V. I. O poveriiakh, sueveriiakh i predrassudkakh russkogo
naroda. Sankt-Peterburg:
Izd. "Litera," 1994.
Funk and Wagnells Standard Dictionary of Folklore,
Mythology and Legend. Ed. Maria
Leach. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1984.
Gareev, Zufar. Mul'tproza: povesti. Moscow: Ob"edinenie
"Vses. molodezhnyi knizhnyi

tsentr" and Knizhnaia red. "Stil'," 1992.
Ions, Veronica. Egyptian Mythology. Middlesex: Hamlyn,
1968.
Ivanits, Linda J. Russian Folk Belief. New York: M. E. Sharpe,
1989.
Kolakowski, Leszek. The Presence of Myth. Trans. Adam
Czerniawski. Chicago: U of Chi-
cago P, 1989.
Larin, Oleg. "Ekhala derevnia mimo muzhika." Novyi mir 8
(1997): 3-31.
Lipovetsky, Mark. Russian Postmodernist Fiction: Dialogue
with Chaos. New York: M. E.
Sharpe, 1999.
Maksimov, S. V. Nechistaia, nevedomaia i krestnaia sila. 1903.
Sankt-Peterburg: TOO
"Poliset," 1994.
Nemzer, Andrei. Literaturnoe segodnia. 0 russkoi proze. 90-e.
Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe
obozrenie, 1998.
Pelevin, Viktor. Chapaev i Pustota. Moscow: Vagrius, 1996.
The Yellow Arrow. Trans. Andrew Bromfield. New York: New
Directions, 1996.
Perkowski, Jan L. The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic
Vampirism. Columbus, OH: Slavica,
1989.
Pushkin, Aleksandr. Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh. Vol.
1. Moscow: "Pravda," 1969. 6

vols.
Rappaport, Helen. Joseph Stalin. A Biographical Companion.
Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO,
1999.
Ricoeur, Paul. The Rule of Metaphor. Toronto: U of Toronto P,
1984.
Rodari, Gianni. The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to
the Art of Inventing Stories.
Trans. and intro. Jack Zipes. New York: Teachers and Writers
Collaborative, 1996.
Schmemann, Sergei. Echoes of a Russian Village: Two
Centuries of a Russian Village. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Setiukova, Mariia. "Skromnoe oboianie realizma."
Literaturnaia gazeta 16 March 1994: 4.
Simmons, Ernest J. Pushkin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1937.
Slavianskaia mifologiia: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar'. Ed. V. Ia.
Petrukhin, et al. Moscow: Ellis
Lak, 1995.
Slavnikova, Ol'ga. "Mezhdu volkodavom i vurdalakom." Ural
10 (1996): 179-181.
Sokolovsky, Vladimir. "Oblako, zolotaia polianka." Antologiia:
Sovremennaia ural'skaia
proza. Cheliabinsk: Izd. "Avtograf," 1997.
Sorokin, Vladimir. Goluboe salo. Moscow: Izd-vo. "Ad
Marginem," 1999.
Serdtsa chetyrekh. Nezavisimyi literaturnyi al'manakh 5
(1994): 5-116.
.Tridsataia liubov' Mariny. Moscow: Izdanie R. Elinina, 1994.

Tolstaia, Tatiana. Kys'. Moscow: Podkova Inostranka, 2000.
Zabylin, M. Russkii narod: Ego obychai, predaniia, sueveriia i
poeziia. 1880. Moscow:
Sovmestnoe sovetsko-kanadskoe predpriiatie "Kniga
Printshop," 1990.
Zelenin, D. K. Izbrannye trudy: Ocherki russkoi mifologii:
Umershie neestestvennoiu smertiiu
i rusalki. Moscow: Izd. "Indrik," 1995.
2017 19:01:03 UTC
Contentsimage 1image 2image 3image 4image 5image 6image
7image 8image 9image 10image 11image 12image 13image
14image 15Issue Table of ContentsSlavic and East European
Journal, Vol. 45, No. 3, Autumn, 2001Front Matter [pp. 490 -
538]Gender and Power in the Balkan Return Song [pp. 403 -
430]Metacommunism: Kazantzakis, Berdyaev and "The New
Middle Age" [pp. 431 - 450]Russian Minimalist Prose: Generic
Antecedents to Daniil Kharms's "Sluchai" [pp. 451 - 472]The
Orthodox Christian Subtext of Trifonov's Allusions to
Chekhov's "The Student" in Another Life [pp. 473 -
489]Werewolves and Vampires, Historical Questions and
Symbolic Answers, in Petr Aleshkovsky's "Vladimir
Chigrintsev" [pp. 491 - 505]A New Perspective on Teaching
Russian: Focus on the Heritage Learner [pp. 507 -
518]Teaching the Russian Heritage Learner: Socio- and
Psycholinguistic Perspectives [pp. 519 - 530]Review
ArticleRussian Philosophy as Ideology [pp. 531 -
537]Reviewsuntitled [pp. 539 - 541]untitled [pp. 542 -
543]untitled [pp. 543 - 545]untitled [pp. 545 - 547]untitled
[pp. 547 - 548]untitled [pp. 548 - 550]untitled [pp. 550 -

[pp. 564 - 565]untitled [pp. 565 - 566]untitled [p. 567]untitled
598]Back Matter [pp. 599 - 602]

ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3 Bogeymen in fairytales repres.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3 Bogeymen in fairytales repres.docx

Similar to ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3 Bogeymen in fairytales repres.docx (11)

More from SALU18

More from SALU18 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

ENGLISH 110, ESSAY PROMPT #3 Bogeymen in fairytales repres.docx