Oleg Menshikov – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

RE-READING ZHIVAGO.

It is not just a love story, nor an historical account and still less an anti-Soviet diatribe. How to understand Pasternak’s enigmatic masterpiece?

`Doctor Zhivago` can be found on the shelves of more people than there are who have read it. A weighty work without a clear plot and set in a time and place few know much about, its readership tends to be restricted to aficionados of Russian literature or history.

The two main associations that the novel evokes are that it played a symbolic role in the Cold War and the other is that it spawned one of the top grossing films of all time – David Lean’s glitzy blockbuster from 1965.

Still from David Lean’s celebrated screen version from 1965 [IMDB}

Related to that last one is that the novel is sold as `One of the greatest love stories ever told` (from the Daily Mail) – an epigram which seems designed to disappoint legions of readers.

A fresh look.

Ploughing through `Doctor Zhivago` for the third time has been rewarding. It helped that I used the definitive translation to date. Produced in 2010 this is by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, a married couple whose translations of Dostoevsky have won them awards. Their work supplants the previous Hayward-Harari variant which is infamous for having been done in haste.

Superstar Swansong.

Pasternak, a Jewish Muscovite from a rarefied background, was already a celebrity poet before he embarked on the ten-year slog it took to produce his first and only novel.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak 1890 -1960 [m.u2.ru]

When social upheavals threatened the Pasternak dynasty most of them upped and fled for Europe (indeed, a large part of the Pasternak family still reside in Oxford to this day). Boris was the one who chose not to follow them.

After the revolution Pasternak became a member of the prestigious Writer’s Union. This fact afforded him many privileges not available to the average Soviet citizen. He could fly to Georgia on a regular basis – a land that he loved – and had a dacha in leafy Peredelkino, just outside his beloved Moscow.

During the Second World War the government kept him safe. Along with other writers considered important for the war effort, he was moved away from where any fighting might be expected to Chistopol in the Tartastan region.

Meanwhile Pasternak’s bread and butter came through translation work. His best hope for getting his magnus opus published in full lay with Noviy Mir a publication with a reputation for being willing to try new things. They, however, sent his manuscript back with a lengthy explanation as to why (also published in the press). This centred on Pasternak’s non-partisan account of the role of the Bolsheviks during the civil war and revolution in Russia.

The author sitting in Pasternak’s study at his former house in Chistopol, 2012.

Subsequent mythology suggests that the novel went to print in the West in spite of aghast opposition from Communists. The real story is that `Doctor Zhivago` first saw light in Italy following interventions by two members of the Italian Communist Party.

Renegade reds to the rescue.

Sergeo D’Angelo, an Italian journalist who had been working for Radio Moscow for a year by 1957, was a fluent Russian speaker as well as a member of the Italian Communist Party of some twelve years standing. He heard about `Doctor Zhivago` from a Soviet radio report. He then arranged to meet Pasternak in Peredelkino. There the author gave his manuscript to the journalist who arranged to have it squirrelled out of the country. The USSR authorities were not too impressed by this deed and sent D’Angelo packing (Komsomolskaya Pravda, March 4^th 2023).

In Italy the masterpiece fell into the hands of the larger-than-life Giangiacomo Feltrinell – another Communist who had served in the Italian resistance in Mussolini’s time, set up his own paramilitary organization in 1969 and founded a library dedicated to labour and socialist movements. It would be him who organized the novel’s translation and put it on the market – which earned him expulsion from the Italian Communist Party (Iatlia Magazine, April 4^th 2021).

It is sometimes assumed that the subsequent winning of their Nobel Prize for Literature by Pasternak in 1958 was a political statement on the part of Western Europe. This, however, fails to explain the fact that Mikhail Sholokov got the same prize seven years later for And Quiet Flows the Don (1940) which was approved enough in the Soviet Union to have the Stalin prize bestowed on it in 1941.

What is true though, is that having this prize conferred on it cemented the novel’s reputation as being anti-Soviet. Pasternak was free to pick up the prize but only if he left the Soviet Union for good (which he had no intention of doing). Meanwhile, the state newspaper Pravda had this to say of the `literary weed`:

`…in actuality he is a petty bourgeoise proprietor, disguising his fetal interests with a pompous array of old-fashioned verbiage` (Pravda, 26^th October 1958).

The C.I.A were prompt in finding ways to circulate microfiche copies of the novel throughout countries behind the Iron Curtain (Lit Hub, April 12^th 2019).

A Singular work.

Pasternak’s prose is not all that complex. He aims at `states of mind translated into drama` (as quoted by Nekrasov in his 1990 film about Pasternak). So, we get a rich broth of descriptive prose, vignettes, anecdotes, reportage, dream sequences, aphorisms, and all served up served up in an historical romance – of sorts. It confounds those who approach it as a naturalistic novel. The closest comparison to any other novel I can think of is to Louis- Ferdinand Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night (1932).

The novel meanders through the life and times of Zhivago the poet turned physician and his acquaintances from the intelligentsia, from the early Twentieth Century to the late twenties – and beyond.

About a quarter of the novel is taken up with the extramarital affair between Zhivago and Lara, a wild woman of great allure. There are also prolonged sequences set on train journeys – calling to mind such novels as The Lady Vanishes and Murder on the Orient Express.

Promotional for a British TV serialisation of the novel from 2002 [IMDB]

The story continues beyond the early death of Zhivago from heart failure and takes us to the Fifties in post-Stalin times where it closes on an optimistic note as old friends of his remember him.

Again, those who come to all this expecting an historical testimony may find themselves exasperated. The plot is held together by a bewildering array of coincidental chance encounters pointing to the subjective nature of the narrative.

I would be hard pressed to tell people what `Doctor Zhivago` is about. Apart from all the historical stuff it also muses on the natural world, the intelligentsia, philosophy and religion, antisemitism, love, psychology and well…life itself. (The name `Zhivago` contains echoes of the word `life` in Russian).

With this in mind it is hard to see an anti-Soviet or anti-Communist message in the novel. True enough, `Doctor Zhivago` defies Socialist Realism, the accepted propagandistic style of writing in the Stalin years, but nor is there a clear conservative agenda at work.

The Bolshevik firebrand Strelnikov, for example, is portrayed with dignity and a little sympathy and shown to be multifaceted. On the other hand, the closest person the novel has to a villain is the lawyer Komarovsky. He is a self-serving representative of bourgeoise and the kind who rises to the top in any scene, including Soviet society.

Self-indulgence?

I feel old enough to levy some criticisms of the novel. Some of the dialogue has a stilted and unnatural aspect and I am not sure if the blame for this rests with the translators.

Then there are some passages where I feel that Pasternak may be indulging himself a bit. Some of the theological musings seem as extraneous as they are obscure. Some of the expressions of love for Lara are a bit sickly-sweet. Then we have the verse. Supposed to be the poems of Zhivago these are all parked at the end of the novel. They might have been more effective if they had been interspersed within the action.

The tragic error.

The publication of `Doctor Zhivago` in the West – and more so the flawed screen version which followed – reminded people in the West, at a time when the cold War was at its height, that Russians were human too. The Soviet Union’s refusal to accept and honour the novel counts as a singular example of their petty-mindedness. Furthermore, it was a case of the `Barbara Streisand effect` writ large. None other than Nikita Kruschev himself seemed to have gathered this in the autumn of his years. Writing in his diary he said:

`We shouldn’t have banned it. I should have read it myself. There is nothing anti-Soviet in it` (Taubman, 2003, p-628).

A word to the reader.

For those donning their helmets and clutching pick axes ready to climb mount `Doctor Zhivago` here are my own bits of advice:

*To be up-t-date read the Pevear/Volokhonsky version.

* Pace yourself. There is no hurry to finish it. This is a novel you should live alongside.

* Read some of the footnotes provided in the Vintage Classics version. Some of these give valuable background information.

* Do watch some of the television adaptations. If your Russian is up to it try to find Oleg Menshikov’s 2005 attempt or check out Andrew Davies 2002 serialisation. These have inevitable faults but do help put some shape into what you are reading.

* Above all, let the novel speak for itself instead of projecting your own expectations onto it.

The version referred to is: Pasternak, Boris Doctor Zhivago Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (London: Vintage Classics, 2011)

The lead image is Oleg Menshikov as Zhivago in a 2005 Russian TV adaptation directed by Menshikov himself.

TEARS OF A CLOWN: An iconoclastic revival of the British play LOOK BACK IN ANGER by Ermolova Theatre.

John Osborne’s classic is often seen as a play of dissent concerning class differences and religious hypocrisy. How would such a play fare in Russia’s stifled atmosphere?

For some it was Catcher in the Rye, for me it was Look Back in Anger. That is to say a piece of writing which captured us in our youth and never let us go.

In my case this seems quite hard to account for. The seventeen-year-old that caught a revival of the play on the radio one summer was not working-class, nor a jazz fan, was not married nor in love and – at that time! – was not living in a flat in the Midlands.

It was the play’s double whammy of tone and eloquence that cut through.

Against all odds.

Look Back In Anger constitutes the third stage play by a 27 year old London touring actor called John Osborne. It was a domestic melodrama and the Royal Court theatre in Sloane Square took it on in 1956 whereupon it was met with a polite disavowal – that is until one Kenneth Tynan, an influential critic from The Observer newspaper penned an enthused description of it as a generation defining piece. Then a TV showing of some of it followed and a new audience flooded in to see the whole thing. The play has been viewed as representing a stylistic trendsetter – towards greater contemporary realism and outspokenness on certain issues ever since. The play even made it to Moscow a year later. The role of Jimmy Porter – the so called `Angry Young Man` – has since become a popular script used for auditions for aspiring young male thespians.

So how would a Russian theatre of the twenty twenties serve up this hoary old classic to a Russian theatregoer?

The great adaptors.

A visible presence on Tverskaya street these last several years, Ermolova theatre was set up in 1933 and was named after the revered actress Maria Nikolaeva Ermolova (1853 – 1928). Today, the role of artistic director is filled by Oleg Menshikov (the military father in the films Attraction and Invasion). Under his auspices the company seems to be pushing at the boundaries somewhat. At the time of writing they are showing a rendering of Glukhovsky’s Text and also something called Russian Psycho which is not from the film of the same name but a tribute to Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. Indeed, some of their reworkings of established drama standards have discomfited audiences and critics alike – and Oglyanis Vo Gneve (Look Back In Anger) is nothing if not an established drama standard.

Nothing is sacred.

The clearest rupture with the original play is the defiance of naturalism. With its dinghy one room flat and above all, its ironing board, Look Back In Anger brought the punch of realism to an audience that had grown accustomed to mannered performances which wee at several removes from the worlds they lived in themselves.

In this revival, nevertheless, we discover the players in a rather commodious and stylish abode. There are wall lamps fixed to the walls and what can only be called French windows at the back of the stage (those emblems of pre-`Kitchen sink` theatre!) Old black and white antique looking pictures are festooned around the place and there are cushions on the floor. This is no bedsit in a Midlands town (although it might serve as a symbolic comment on the attachment to an Edwardian past that bedevils Jimmy).

Then – in a nod to Osborne’s subsequent play The Entertainer – the action gets interrupted by the arrival onstage of a clown- costumed Jazz troupe who seem to comment on the proceedings with their songs. This theatre of the Absurd-cum-circus element represents a thoroughgoing new realization of the play.

Misfit.

Resplendent in bright yellow socks, Andrei Martinev, who plays Jimmy Porter portrays him as very much the romantic-poetic archetype (his mannerisms put me in mind of the young Anthony Andrews). It was difficult to see this oddball adolescent as any kind of generational spokesman, however, still less imagine him running a sweet stall. His loyal sidekick Cliff Lewis – played by Makar Karyagin -is chunky, with blonde-haired clean-living looks that together with his braces make him look like a preppy young American more than a Welsh scruff. He spends a lot of time plucking guitar strings and bursting into song.

Not only is this version of the play vaudevillian in this way but it also seemed to be afflicted with ADHD! The players always had to be doing something as they spoke – unpacking something, fiddling with something – the script was never enough. There was also a fair bit of distracting drumming on tables with it all.

Stuck with the essentials.

What the production remained faithful to was the bare bones of the plot. Jimmy is a malcontent who is married to Alison (Polina Sinilnikova) , a woman from a higher class background than himself (this providing material for him to taunt her with) and Cliff is the more straightforward Welsh working-class friend who looks on as their marriage seems to teeter on the edge.

Enter into this `menagerie` Alison’s actress friend, the more dynamic Helena, come to stay for a week. Regarding her as a `natural enemy` Jimmy clashes with her, but not before she has arranged for his wife (who we learn earler is pregnant) to flee the scene.

Jimmy and Helena, in the classic attraction of opposites, fall into each other’s arms leaving a dismayed Cliff to also later vacate the household. All seems blissful, until the return of Alison, minus the baby….

All of that was there but the dialogue had been shuffled around and some scenes seemed to have been hollowed out: Cliff nursing Alison after she has burnt her arm on the iron, Jimmy shouting at the church bells and the final reconciliation scene between Jimmy and Alison.

It was disconcerting to find that Jimmy and Alison’s game of bears and squirrels – the very thing that keeps their relationship alive in tense – moments had gone. So had Jimmy’s pipe smoking (although we do see a cheeky reference to it when Alison momentarily has one in her mouth). Most of all, the visit from Alison’s father – Colonel Redfern -had been cut, leaving no one to counterpoint all the bohemian chaos.

The stand off between Jimmy and Helena however not only remained but had been placed at the centre of this piece and was played to dramatic perfection. Osbone gained a reputation as a `misogynist`, but the fact remains that he wrote some great roles for women and Helena Charles is one of them. Veronkia Safonova projected a credible take on her as a statuesque, Amazonian Alpha-girl and it was not difficult to envisage how even a despiser of phonies like Jimmy could succumb to her charms.

Overall, this production made the play less like a one-man show than more faithful versions of Look Back In Anger have seemed.

What does it mean here?

The stress on this play was somewhat on the `affairs of the hearts` end of things and it was all viewed through a veil of sadness and tears. What of the sociopolitical undercurrent that made the play notorious? What would a – say – manager from Yugo Zapadnaya – make of the depiction of life in a Midlands town in the Fifties? Or of the subtle, but all too real, distinctions between Working and middle-class culture? Or of Cliff’s Welshness? Or of the mention of Britain’s former imperial role in India?

All of this would be somewhat hard to translate into Modern Muscovite but what would not be lost on a contemporary Russian is the ethos of anticlericalism and antimilitarism that runs through this play.

Likewise, as a man born out of his time and unable to find anything the present scene to fire up his ideals, Jimmy Porter could be viewed as a Superfluous Man, if there ever were one. I am not so sure if anything of this came out in this production though.

Overcooked.

The acting was strenuous but the overall aesthetic was camp, without being effete. Osborne himself might even have approved. However, the `anything-goes` approach to the staging left us with something cluttered and frenetic, with the cabaret aspects of it detracting from the theatrical tension. Sound-wise, there seemed to be too many scores vying for our attention: Jazz, chanson and modern classical.

Osborne’s plays often seem to ruffle people’s feathers. These spectators left bemused and maybe a little dazed but not otherwise indignant. I did, however, notice a lack of laughter (for this is a funny play, for most British people). It might be telling that the only appreciative chuckle came when a theatrical joke was made about passing Lady Bracknell the cucumber sandwiches.

For myself I was just as unsettled as when I watched a play calling itself A Clockwork Orange a few years back. Their production set my mind into gear, however, and I am still processing it all.

Lead image: Ermolva.ru