Re: Juenger/Pasternak

[Gary Kern <gkern@alumni.Princeton.EDU>]

Ulrich Oswald wrote:
> 
>Jesli ty khotchesh' my mog by diskutirovat' po-russki nad - if you
> wish we could have a discussion in Russian on - Boris Pasternak who
> shows remarkable parallels (or at least possible comparisons) to Jünger
> concerning the relationship of an author to his totalitarian state.
> Being raised in a bourgeois family in St.Peterburg - his mother being an
> actress and said to be in CLOSE relationship with Rilke - Pasternak
> started with classical lyrics and prose, as well as translations from
> Goethe, thus becoming member of the faculty and, after the revolution,
> joined the "official" avantgarde circles of Soviet literarians (mind
> you: not the OBERIU around Daniil Charms), writing hymns and eclectic
> tirades on Lenin. In the thirties he was invited by Stalin who expected
> likely literary celebrations on himself. One hushed that every time he
> shook hands with Stalin one of his literary comrades was sent to the
> Gulags. Anyway, after the great purifications he was the only one left.
> After the war he started to write Dr. Zhivago, a novel which is widely
> known through the soundtrack of the film by David Lean (which is indeed
> the best of the whole Zhivago affair). In 196x he was appointed to the
> Nobel prize for this thing. Khrushtchev made him choose either accepting
> the prize or leaving the country. Of course, Pasternak chose the
> fatherland and died forgotten a few years later.
> 
> What has this to do with Jünger? Nothing. I am just angry on Pasternak
> and I didn't sleep tonight
******************************
Dear Ulrich:

To tell the truth, I don't see much in common between Pasternak and
Jünger.  Pasternak was very much a dreamy, otherworldly poet.  He
survived largely by chance, like anyone else who survived the Stalin
period.  But he did have some tactics.  First, he wrote a few poems in
praise of the tyrant--they are generally forgotten today.  Second, he
turned to translation, away from current literature, and worked on
Shakespeare, favored (off and on) by the regime.  Third, he produced
extremely vague statements in favor of the government's literary policy
etc., statements that seemed positive and lofty, but which upon
examination proved meaningless or even contrary.  He could easily have
been extinguished, but somehow drifted through, perhaps on Stalin's
whim.

There was a curious moment in his life, when he answered a phone call
from Stalin and spoke in favor of fellow poet, Osip Mandelstam, then in
prison.  The statement was bizarre and indirect, excusable under the
circumstances, but it did the trick and got Mandelstam freed.  Later,
however, Mandelstam went back into prison and perished there.  Stalin
liked to determine people's fates by whim, so that no one could tell if
he was safe or not.  The story of the phone call is told by Clarence
Brown in THE PROSE OF OSIP MANDELSTAM (Princeton Univ. Pr., 1965),
17-19.  Probably it's in Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs as well.

The DOCTOR ZHIVAGO affair was a dark episode in Soviet literature. 
Published in Italy, the book won the author the Nobel Prize, but he
couldn't leave Russia to receive it, though Sholokhov could receive his
prize for THE QUIET DON.  The Writers Union, filled with flunkeys and
backstabbers, denounced Pasternak in vicious statements.  Solzhenitsyn
later stood up for Pasternak.  There was a lot of intrigue involving
Pasternak's mistress, prototype for Lara, who was both persecuted and
worked for the Secret Police.  The novel was one of the very few to give
a full picture of the Soviet regime up to that time, but here, too, very
dreamy, very 19th century and even mystical.

Jünger, it seems to me, was always much involved in his time, even with
his emotional desinvolture.  That is, he had a firm grasp of reality, a
practical sense and a superior understanding that he used to his own
advantage.  Maybe Pasternak had these too, but they manifested
themselves as a dreamy unconcern and disconnection with the iron law of
the state.  Unlike Jünger, he had a strange religiosity, a Christianlike
character, a mystical yearning.  That's why so many Russians revere him
and regard him as a saint.

There's room for both types in our world, don't you think?  I don't know
why you would lose sleep over Pasternak.  But as an insomniac, I think I
understand.

The Soviet figure closest to Jünger, I think, was Evgeny Zamyatin.  But
he was lucky.  His courageous letter to Stalin and Gorky's intercession
enabled him to leave just before the worst purges.

GK