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Sandro of Chegem, collected novellas by Fazil Iskander (1973, 1977)
Published by: Bosnia - Buybook (2007), Bulgaria - Народна култура (1967), Czech Republic - Vysehrad (1986), Estonia - Eesti raamat (1976), Loomingu (1987), France - Ledrappier (1987), Germany - Volk und Welt (1983), S. Fischer (1978, 1987, 1988, 1989), Italy - Einaudi (1998), Japan - KOKUSHO (1985, 2002), The Netherlands - deGeus (2000), Poland - Czytelnik (1976), Spain - AUTOMATICA, Sweden - AWE/Gebers (1983), Turkey - Milliyet Yayinlari (1997), UK - Cape (1983), USA - ARDIS (1981), Vintage Books (1983, 1984), NLS (1983, Braille edition), Penguin Books (1985)
This book had something of a chequered history. It is basically a collection of stories about the title character. It was first published in Novy Mir magazine in 1973. Other stories were published separately. Then it was published in book form (but with a large amount cut) in the Soviet Union in 1977. Ardis, the US publishers, published a fuller version in 1979. It was translated into English in 1983. The complete version was finally published in Russia in 1989.
The book tells a series of stories - not in chronological order - about Sandro of Chegem. It is narrated by someone who refers to him as Uncle Sandro, though not necessarily a nephew or niece. Sandro is now eighty years old and has therefore lived through both Czarist and Soviet systems. He has been a good Bolshevik, as we will see, but, like many of his fellow Abkhazians, he remains fiercely independent and Iskander/Sandro is not averse to criticising the Soviet system where he finds it wanting. More importantly for us readers, he is a lovable rogue, larger than life, always ready to stand up for himself and for his fellow Abkhazians, fiercely loyal but also always on the lookout for the main chance. The stories that Iskander tells about Sandro are generally very funny and mock his fellow men, the high and mighty and the authorities, whether Czarist or Soviet, and show the inevitable superiority of the Abkhaz people and their way of life.
Sandro has, of course, had numerous adventures and we follow many of these. Indeed, the book opens by telling us that many people have tried to kill him, all, obviously, unsuccessfully. The stories we are initially told about his brushes with death concern his love life. However, we soon see that he has had brushes with death fighting the Mensheviks for the Bolsheviks. He is not afraid of the Mensheviks nor, indeed, of anyone, and is happy to stand up to them and anyone else opposed to him. We see this even in the pre-Soviet period when the local prince has him hauled in for beating up a security guard who had the temerity to blow a raspberry (or, perhaps, fart) at him. Sandro's clever way with words and trickery not only gets him off the charge but he even manages to get himself a pair of very fine binoculars as a reward, which he will use to spy on the Mensheviks in a later story.
Sandro is often in trouble and, on one occasion, he gets off when he is sent to join a dance troupe, as he is a fine dancer. He does so well in the troupe that they entertain Stalin himself. We get to meet Stalin and Beria and, course, Sandro tries a risky dance manoeuvre which he has practised on his own but never before his fellow dancers, which very nearly gets him into trouble but, once again, his charm gets him out of trouble. This sense of invention and imagination helps his gambling friend, who is losing all his money to a rich merchant. Sandro decides to frighten the merchant by riding his horse around the room where the two are gambling and even jumps his horse over the table. The merchant is so put out that he starts to lose and his friend, an Armenian tobacco dealer, wins. It does not help as the Mensheviks will drive him out. Iskander has apparently said that he does not like Latin American magic realism but he is not averse to using a touch of it in this book. He resorts frequently to Abkhazian lore and legend and this naturally includes an element of magic. We see this in a story about a prayer tree, which seems to tell Sandro's father to join the local collective, which he does. When the tree is partially burned (at the orders of the local Soviet authorities) some human bones and a kettle mysteriously appear and disappear. We eventually get a prosaic explanation for these events.
Iskander clearly has a great gift for story telling as he keeps us amused and entertained throughout these stories. Sandro is such a wilful but lovable character that we cannot help but sympathise with all his travails and share in his triumphs. He is also a survivor, still unafraid at the age of eighty of those more powerful than him and still respected and feared by all and sundry. Iskander wrote most of his stories in Russian, so they are all readily accessible and, fortunately, quite a few are available in English and well worth reading.
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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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