Teffi in Paris.
By Emily Erdmann
Havighurst Center Colloquium students recently welcomed Dr. Polina Barskova, an associate professor of Russian literature at Hampshire College, for a discussion on “The Theme of a City in the Poetry of Russian Emigration.” Through the lens of literature, Barskova painted the duality of a divided life in exile, torn between the new and the old “home.” There are two conclusions in particular that I took away from the discussion: the first being that the dualism of exilic writing reflects the author’s perspective on their own nostalgia, and the second that this duality plays into Barskova’s own writings on Leningrad—even the ones about the Siege of Leningrad.
Barskova discussed two different kinds of duality, one geographical and one temporal, that are embodied in texts such as Nadezhda Teffi’s “A Small Town on the Seine,” Sasha Chorny’s “Coiffeur de chiens,” Vladimir Nabokov’s “A Guide to Berlin,” and Josef Brodsky’s “Venetian Stanzas.” Geographical duality, she argued, was the domesticating or foreignizing of the diasporic landscape abroad, as compared to the home city back in Russia. Teffi’s comedic prose overlays St. Petersburg on Paris. She notes that “the inhabitants started calling the river [the Seine] ‘their little Nevka,’” in reference to the Neva River that flows through St. Petersburg. By applying familiar terms to a foreign environment, the emigres are slowly adapting to their new environment and attempting to process their growing nostalgia. Chorny’s poem about the dog groomer is emblematic of the temporal duality discussed by Barskova. Here, “An old man with the features of a poet” is displaced from his literary life and forced to make a living in a different way. And yet, these features of the past carry over to the present where the components of two separate lives coincide like oil and water; the past is always recognizable from the present as the emigres cannot live completely independently from their past selves.
The way these dualities play out can show how the author is processing his or her nostalgia. Foreignizing may indicate the writer’s rejection of this new land as profoundly different and harsher than the homeland, while domesticating may suggest a certain degree of openness to the transition as well as an effort to assimilate. However, in her chapter on “A Tale of Two Cities: Ancient Rome and St. Petersburg in Mandelstam’s Poetry,” Zara Torlone argues that it is easy to idealize cities of antiquity such as Venice (106), thus domesticating in Brodsky’s (and others’) case may be temporary denial as he is slowly in the process of coming to terms with his displacement.
Towards the end of her talk, Barskova conceded that she herself writes of her city in a similarly nostalgic way. Although, she differs from the poets she studies in that she went on to write a piece about her city in a time period during which she herself was not present: The Siege of Leningrad. Despite having promised herself that she would do no such thing, she relented after years of looking at her city as a “Written City.” This nostalgic palimpsest writing attempts to reconcile two distinct parts that can never be made whole again. The geography is different and even for those exiled in their own city, the era they know to be familiar has passed. After a while, thus, I wonder if such a writing is alienating to the extent that one may look at their city as simply a subject to be studied deeply. This one step of further removal may then enable Barskova to poeticize the Siege of Leningrad after a lengthy period of in-depth research and analysis, even though she did not personally experience it.
In short, the duality of exilic literature speaks to the author’s point of transition in their bereavement of the lost home—the land itself and the time period. The attitude towards the new setting can therefore be interpreted as an indication of the author’s psychological stage of loss.
Bibliography
Chorny, Sasha. “Coiffeur de chiens. » Poslednie novosti, 18 June 1930.
Teffi, Nadezhda. “A Small Town on the Seine.” The Small Town, Paris, N.P. Karabasnikov,
1927.
Torlone, Zara. “A Tale of Two Cities: Ancient Rome and St. Petersburg in Mandelstam’s
Poetry.” Preserving Petersburg: History, Memory, Nostalgia, edited by Helena Goscilo
and Stephen M. Norris, Indiana University Press, 2008, pp. 88–114.