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The Art of Andrei Siniavsky

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Deming Brown
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Extract

The imprisonment of Andrei Siniavsky in 1965 stilled, in mid-career, the most original and enigmatic voice in contemporary Soviet literature. At the time of his arrest he was known in the USSR solely as a gifted, liberal literary critic and scholar. Abroad he was known as Abram Tertz, a mysterious Russian author—possibly not even a resident of the Soviet Union—who had written a brilliant, devastating critique of socialist realism, two short novels (The Trial Begins and Liubimov), six short stories, and a small collection of aphorisms (Unguarded Thoughts).

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1970 , pp. 663 - 681
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1970

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References

1. Alfreda, Aucouturier, “Andrey Sinyavsky on the Eve of His Arrest,” in Labedz, Leopold and ward, Max Hay, eds., On Trial : The Case of Sinyavsky (Tertz) and Daniel (Arshak) (London : Collins and Harvill, 1967, p. 343.Google Scholar

2. Professor Assya Humesky has suggested to me that this passage may be a reference to a popular parody of the prologue to Pushkin's Ruslan i Liudmila which circulated in the Soviet Union in the 1920s as an ironic protest against the new regime's attacks on romanticism. In quoting from the works of Siniavsky I have used the following translations, altering them occasionally on the basis of my own interpretation of the original Russian : Abram Tertz, Fantastic Stories (“You and I” and “The Icicle,” trans. Max Hay ward, “Graphomaniacs, “ “At the Circus,” and “Tenants,” trans. Ronald Hingley) (New York : Pantheon Books, 1963); “Pkhentz,” trans. Jeremy Biddulph, in Peter Reddaway, ed., Soviet Short Stories, vol. 2 (Baltimore : Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 214-63; Abram Tertz, The Trial Begins, trans, by Max Hayward (New York : Pantheon Books, 1960); “Thought Unaware“ [Unguarded Thoughts], trans. Andrew Field and Robert Szulkin, The New Leader, July 19, 1965, pp. 16-26.

3. This may also be a reference to Lermontov, who uses the same term in A Hero of Our Times.

4. The author wishes to express his indebtedness to three of his seminar students, whose interpretations are reflected in this article : Ray J. Parrott, Jr. (“Pkhentz“), Susan Wobst (“At the Circus“), and the late Guy W. Carter (Liubimov).