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Inhabitants of the Funny Cemetery, a novel by Andrei Ivanov (2019)
Rights sold: Estonia - VARRAK, Russia - EKSMO
Winner of the 2019 Estonian Cultural Endowment’s Russian Author Award
Inhabitants of the Funny Cemetery is a panoramic novel which vividly brings to life the worlds of three generations of Russian émigrés in Paris. To recap, the Russian emigration began with the October Revolution and continued apace for two decades, meaning that by the start of the Second World War almost 80,000 Russians had established themselves in France. Paris quickly became the capital of the Russian emigration, not to be replaced by New York until the middle of the century.
The novel contains multiple voices, including three first-person protagonists, whose voices start to overlap, to intertwine, and set off unexpected echoes. The novel’s main narrator is the Soviet émigré Viktor Lipatov (not necessarily his real name), a former dissident who spent several years in psychiatric detention, fled to America, and then arrived in Paris at the beginning of 1968, where he found work in the editorial offices of a Russian émigré newspaper.
The second first-person narrator is Alexandr Krushchevsky, a doctor who was born to first generation Russian émigrés in Belgium, served as a volunteer in the Belgian army during the Second World War, was captured by the Germans, fled, and then lived in Saint-Ouen in France, where he mixed in French avantgarde art circles, before turning up again in Paris in 1968.
The main protagonist of the novel, who brings the diverging stories together, is the multitalented Alfred Morgenstern, also a first-generation Russian émigré who was born in Moscow in 1896 before leaving with his family for Paris in 1906. A doctor by profession, he is also a pianist, an actor, a model, and an obsessive writer. Morgenstern and Krushchevsky are good friends, they are united by several shared experiences, and they share a secret which adds a subtle element of crime-fiction to the novel.
The colourful lives of the Russian émigrés are portrayed from the perspectives of these three characters. We learn about the difficulties they have acclimatising, the traumas inflicted on them by war, their struggle against Communism, and their homesickness. In this world, real-life and fictional characters mingle freely; at the risk of oversimplification one can argue that there are three types of characters in the novel: fictional characters, characters inspired by real-life people, and real-life historical figures.
The three main protagonists are examples of the first type, embodying certain general features of the Russian émigrés, but lacking any specific historical counterparts. There are several ancillary characters who serve as examples of the second type: Ilja Gvozdevich, who is based on the émigré artist Ilja Zhdanevich (1894-1975), Sergei Shershnyov, a character inspired by the émigré writer and artist Sergei Sarshun (1888-1975) and Anatoly Igumnov, whose real-life counterpart was the Russian émigré historian, publicist and politician Sergey Melgunov (1879-1956). A whole gallery of historical figures feature in the novel, including Nikolay Berdyaev, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Théodore Fraenkel, Charles de Gaulle, Pavel Milyukov and Boris Poplavsky.
It could be said that the city of Paris is the fourth character in the novel. Ivanov makes Paris almost physically tangible, and does so for all three of the historical periods which the novel covers. At the start of the novel, the author gives a captivating description of Paris life, through the words of the character Morgenstern. To provide a flavour this, I quote at length: ‘Paris whips you on, kicks you up the backside, sprinkles you with rain, splashes you in puddles, plays pranks on you, spits swearwords at you, whispers gossip in your ear, grabs at coat hems and shopfronts, pulls you close, kisses you on both cheeks, fishes cash out of your pocket, waves its hat at you, looks you longingly in the eye, and then embraces you in its dark, satin night.’ (pg. 44).
Ivanov has gone to great lengths to ensure that all of the historical details are correct, including the physical environment (it’s clear that he has visited all of the novel’s locations), and the historical events. He has taken inspiration from a range of Russian émigré memoires and diaries, including those of Boris Poplavsky, Ivan Bunin, Felix Yusupov, Teffi (Nadezhda Lohvitskaya) and Anna Kashina-Yevreinova.
In addition to the richness of historical detail, The Inhabitants of the Funny Cemetery is a homage to the art of the novel. Ivanov has found space for the majority of his literary influences here. There are multiple references to Dickens, in particular the Pickwick Papers, to Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, while Celine and Joyce interact in intriguing ways, as do Bunin and Nabokov. One can detect the stylistic influence of Mikhail Bulgakov, traces of Cormac McCarthy’s approach to form, as well as the influence of Goncharov’s Oblomov.
But the greatest appeal of ‘The Inhabitants of the Funny Cemetery’ lies in Ivanov’s command of language. No one else writes quite like Ivanov. Literary scholars Eneken Laanes and Daniele Monticelli have fittingly described his style as ‘hysterical realism interspersed with epiphanic revelations (Keel ja Kirjandus, 2017, nr. 1)’. Ivanov’s writing grabs the reader and pulls her into its embrace, wraps her in multiple narrative strands, leads her through labyrinths, providing intermittent flashes of light and relief, before dragging her back into its depths.
Irina Belobrovtseva and Aurika Maimre have compared Ivanov’s style to rock music (Ivanov is a devoted fan): ‘It has a discernible rock rhythm, with all its crazy energy and drive, it grabs hold of you and pulls you along, releasing you from your physical surroundings.’ (Language and Literature 2015, nr. 1).
Ivanov creates entrancing literary worlds, he gets under the reader’s skin, conjuring up colours, smells, emotions; he dictates the pace, providing a cathartic experience which is almost physically tangible.
Inhabitants of the Funny Cemetery is Ivanov’s first full-length symphony, a work in which he demonstrates his talents in every literary form, and on every instrument. It is one of the most brilliant achievements in Estonian literature of the last few decades.
(from a review by Marek Tamm)
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Agnessa, by Mira Yakovenko (NF)
Rights sold: Czech Republic - MARATON, Poland - ZNAK
The recorded oral memories of Agnes Mironova (1903-1982) is a must book for anybody who wants to know what was a personal life like under Stalinism. For the first time ever, Agnes’s notes open the secret door into living rooms and boudoirs of Stalin's "hangmen", top-ranked Soviet secret police officers during the purges of 1930-40ies. However, anyone who reads this book with the intention to better understand the past, will also discover an outstanding female character, a gorgeous bitch, a proud predator, who reveals all truths about herself frankly and without keeping anything back. A life story of this unique woman, so beautiful and repulsive at once, has developed during the most terrible and bloody period of modern history.
She has always shaped her own destiny in line with XIXth-century model of aggressive female personality in search of perfect husband. Her acumen and self-centeredness are reminiscent of the strong character and high degree of self-interest of Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. There’s no bigotry or hypocrisy in Agnes’s life ideology, she is too proud and self-assured in her own attractiveness and her feminine power over men. At certain moments of her life, she demonstrates a highest degree of determination mixed with filibusterism.
One of Agnes’s husbands, ‘the main love of her life’ as she dubbed him, was ambitious and energetic NKVD officer Sergei Mironov. Thanks to his extremely fast and successful career, Agnes got to the very top society of the Stalin era. Later, after Mironov was arrested and executed, Agnes began a new life with a new husband. We follow the amazing trajectory of her life full of most drastic contrasts: first she talks with Stalin at the New Year celebration party in Kremlin, and next freezes in some Gulag camp lost in cold Kazakh steppes; first she lives alone with her husband in a huge mansion once belonging to the royal governor of Siberia, and next in a miserable pigeonhole in communal apartment in Moscow; first she travels in a luxury saloon cars and limos, and next is a prisoner of the NKVD jail.
Aged Agnes has shared her life story with a younger friend; she definitely wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy or compassion, but rather to revive the memories of the bright and happy days when she was so victorious, beloved, beautiful, and nicely-dressed.
The memories of Agnes Mironova is more than just an interesting biography with rich historical background; it’s a fascinating text with exactly grasped conversational tone that conveys something that no archive document can revive: everyday life, ordinary characters, ideas, and finally, the mythology of the past.
Oral memories of Agnes Mironova recorded by Mira Yakovenko were first published in 2008 by Memorial Society. In 2012, Irina Sherbakova, the head of Moscow Memorial Society, has prepared an extensive commentary, a preface to Agnes’s book, and the index of all historical figures mentioned in the book. Available also a collection of photos from Agnes’s personal archive.
Technical details: 89.837 words, 499.782 symbols with spaces in the translated manuscript + 8.317 words, 56.953 symbols with spaces in the introductory article + аcollection of photos from family album
- There are many fine works that offer harrowing accounts of the fate of Stalin's innocent victims. This book is different. Agnessa was the beautiful, strong-willed, frivolous, and loving wife of a regional boss of Stalin's secret police who shut her eyes to the murderous activities of her husband. She offers a unique account of what it was like to be the wife of a high-ranking member of the Soviet elite, enjoying fine food, high fashion, 'ladies-in-waiting,' and lavish holidays at a time when millions were starving or being worked to death. Her gripping story provides insight into the thuggish world of cronyism, backstabbing, and intrigue that typified the Stalinist elite, a world in which the guilty feared they would meet the same sticky end as that to which they had condemned millions of innocent people. Agnessa's life would be marked by tragedy, and she would rise to its challenges. But it is her partial complicity in the world of which she is a part, the fact that she is a very flawed heroine, that makes her account so compelling.--S.A. Smith, All Souls College, Oxford
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