Boris Eikhenbaum
Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLiterature and the Writer\u201d [Literatura i pisatel’] was originally published as the second of a trio of articles in Boris Eikhenbaum\u2019s book My Chronicle<\/em> [Moi vremennik] (Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo pisatelei v Leningrade, 1929). The three articles in order are \u201cThe Literary Environment\u201d [Literaturnyi byt], \u201cLiterature and the Writer,\u201d and \u201cLiterary Domesticity\u201d [Literaturnaia domashnost’]. Irwin Titunik\u2019s translation of the first article, \u201cThe Literary Environment,\u201d appeared in the 1971 volume Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views<\/em>, ed., pref. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska, intro. Gerald Bruns (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971, 56-65); the other two articles in the three-article section appear in English translation for the first time in this issue of Lingua Franca<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two levels of notes to this article: author\u2019s notes (i.e. Eikhenbaum\u2019s own notes) and translator\u2019s notes by Nora Seligman Favorov. Author\u2019s notes appear with no additional designation, while translator\u2019s notes are followed by (translator\u2019s note). In author\u2019s notes, abbreviations for cities have been expanded and translated (for example, M is expanded and translated to Moscow). Titles are given in translation, followed by the transliterated Russian title at first occurrence. Italics used for emphasis in the original are preserved in the translation. Square brackets are used for the translator\u2019s brief in-text clarifications. All translations of quoted material are by Nora Seligman Favorov unless otherwise indicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can\u2019t you see that the spirit of our literature partially depends on the status of its writers? Pushkin\u2019s question, as well as his entire argument with Bestuzhev and Ryleev, is still relevant today.1<\/sup><\/a> The current times have placed before us a whole series of similar questions that have served as the topics of debates and newspaper articles: \u201cthe writer and the reader,\u201d \u201cthe writer and the publisher,\u201d \u201cliterature and the social commission [sotsial’nyi zakaz],\u201d \u201cthe literary profession,\u201d and so forth \u2014 all components of one big question, one big topic: literature and the writer<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no such thing as a unified literature, settled and monolithic, always produced based on the same chemical formula. Literary fact and literary eras are complicated and capricious concepts, since the relationships between the elements comprising literature are capricious, as are their functions. One day literature is a coterie of dilettantes getting together to read their verse or inscribing it in the albums of \u201ctheir lovely countrywomen\u201d; the next it is a thick \u201cliterary and social-commentary\u201d journal with an editorial board and accounting department. One day it is lofty \u201cservice to the muses,\u201d2<\/sup><\/a> diligently shielded from the bustle of the street, and the next it is a small-time press, a furor-of-the-day feuilleton, a cartoon. And, finally, there are times when, in place of literature, only its sign [znak] remains, and the question of \u201chow to write\u201d is eclipsed by the question of \u201chow to be a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As varied and capricious as the very concept of literature can be, its so-called \u201cliterary crises\u201d are equally varied in terms of their historical meaning. The entire evolution of literature could, if you like, be understood as a continuous series of crises, insofar as the very sign<\/em> [znak] of literariness<\/em> is continually changing and switching from one set of elements to another, although the evolutionary significance of these crises is always different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are indeed going through one of these crises now, it is distinguished by new and particular historical features. The crisis of literature is currently complicated by the crisis of literary byt<\/em> and, first and foremost, of the literary profession.3<\/sup><\/a> The contemporary writer is faced with the question of the very \u201cbusiness of literature<\/em>\u201d (Gogol’\u2019s expression):4<\/sup><\/a> Must the writer be a professional, and if so \u2014 in what sense? What should writers\u2019 attitude be toward various forms of \u201cthe commission\u201d [zakaz], and how should this term be understood? In what sense should the writer be \u201cindependent\u201d? V. Shklovskii\u2019s book Technique of Writing Craft<\/em> [Tekhnika pisatel’skogo remesla] opens with a slogan that is noteworthy in this regard: \u201cDon\u2019t be in a rush to become a professional writer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing new about these questions in and of themselves; during the nineteenth century alone, they were raised and discussed many times. What is new is the situation in which they are currently being posed; what is new is their evolutionary role. It\u2019s as if early twentieth-century literature never came face to face with these questions the way we have. If they were discussed, it was on an academic level. Rather than professionals, writers of this era tended to see themselves as the foremost representatives of \u201cthe intelligentsia,\u201d as unfettered philosophers. They didn\u2019t worry about attracting readers \u2014 literature occupied a lofty position and was content serving a small and select circle. Journals scraped by with \u201csecond class\u201d fare and were of no literary importance \u2014 literature was concentrated in almanacs and poetry anthologies. The literary profession\u2019s social problem (its \u201cstatus\u201d [sostoianie], to use Pushkin\u2019s term) was solved by the close connection between the writer and the intelligentsia, its economic problem by support from the enlightened patrons that were typical at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This situation began to noticeably change even before the revolution. Futurism was a violation not only of literary traditions, but of the traditions of literary byt<\/em>. The writer went out \u201cinto the street,\u201d literary readings began to look more like a raucous free-for-all, the influence of print gave way to the influence of the spoken word. New writers appeared under a different sort of social sign [znak] \u2014 they were not and had no desire to be \u201cthe intelligentsia.\u201d This very word took on an ironic meaning. Futurists were, first and foremost, people of a new behavior, new manners. They came out onto the stage with the intention of insulting readers\u2019 accustomed tastes, of demonstrating their scorn for them. The question of professionalism seemed to be beside the point \u2014 the futurists at first acted like new dilettantes who had come to mock the \u201coracles of art\u201d and the \u201cintelligentsia\u201d that worshipped it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The upheaval that early futurism caused in literary byt<\/em> had enormous significance. The questions confronting us today had already arisen during this initial period \u2014 the revolution simply gave them a particular socioeconomic urgency and accordingly changed how they were framed. This was when the foundations were laid for what would be the \u201cproductivist\u201d theory of art, which later, in simplified form, became the main item of the LEF platform.5<\/sup><\/a> The central, albeit hidden, meaning and thrust of this item related to literary byt<\/em>: writers used it to assert their new professional position and justify their labor \u2014 \u201cthe business of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This solution was natural for the revolution\u2019s early years, when literature\u2019s very existence was open to question. Today, it sounds archaic. Today, literature needs to be built rather than saved. Today, it\u2019s not a matter of adapting literature or defending literary ground, but of capturing literary positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life has confronted us with a new theoretical question: how important are the facts of literary byt<\/em> to the evolution of literature? This question, which has by now been somewhat befogged by polemics and public debates, must be taken seriously \u2014 material must be collected; facts must be assembled. It is difficult to make generalizations based on current evidence \u2014 we must summon the past for analogies. By its very essence, this problem demands rigorous historical research, especially as literature is a social rather than individual phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this article, I limit myself to the question of literary professionalism and have chosen the two historical moments richest in analogs and therefore particularly relevant to us: the late twenties to early thirties and the early sixties. Pushkin stands at the center of the first, Tolstoi at the center of the second. Evidence from these eras should help us, if not directly answer today\u2019s questions, at least frame them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pushkin wrote in \u0430n 1831 draft memorandum: \u201cTen years ago in our country a rather small number of amateurs was engaged in literature. They saw it as a pleasant and noble exercise, but not yet a branch of industry.\u201d He repeats this in a later letter to Barante6<\/sup><\/a> (1836, in French): \u201cLiterature has been a significant branch of industry in our country for only about twenty years. Before that it was viewed merely as an elegant and aristocratic pastime. In 1811, Madame de Sta\u00ebl remarked: \u2018In Russia, a few noblemen are engaged in literature.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be noted, however, that an attempt was made in the late eighteenth century to liberate literature from its dependence on the court and make it more autonomous and professional. I have in mind Karamzin, who strove to solidify \u201cauthorship\u201d as a profession, transplanting to Russian soil the forms of Western journals and almanacs and vigorously propagandizing them within what was then a very limited community of readers. But all that was precarious and uncertain, and he ultimately had to abandon not just publishing journals but literature itself. Moscow Journal<\/em> [Moskovskii zhurnal] lasted just two years (1791-92) with 300 subscribers. In a special appeal to readers, Karamzin lamented his position: \u201cIf I had 500 rather than 300 subscribers for this year, I would have tried the following year to make the journal\u2019s appearance more pleasing to the reader\u2019s eye… But as 300 subscribers barely compensates me for the printing of twelve issues, in this instance I cannot contemplate either the ordering of type or plates.\u201d He went from one plan to another, from the journal to the almanac, and at one point even worked on putting together a \u201cmedley\u201d (feuilleton) for Moscow Bulletin<\/em> [Moskovskie vedomosti]. Finally, disillusioned by his failures, he wrote to Dmitriev in 1798,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your idea of living off translations made me laugh. Russian literature wanders the world like a beggar, with sack and staff: it\u2019s a meager living!.. If economic circumstances were not forcing me to deal with the printing press, after placing a hand on the altar of the Muses and shedding bitter tears, I would swear never again to serve them through either writing or translation. It\u2019s a strange business! We have the Academy, the University, but literature is a barefoot stepchild…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Literature was receding into byt<\/em> \u2014 it was becoming an intimate, domestic affair, increasingly residing in letters, album inscriptions, petits jeux<\/em>. This is the same form Pushkin was recalling. It is interesting that even the journals of this era were tinged with domestic informality and a certain cheekiness. Such, for example, was the typical journal of the time, A.E. Izmailov\u2019s The Well-Intentioned<\/em> [Blagonamerennyi], which was interesting specifically as a separate homespun literary form. This was an utterly domestic undertaking, akin to a tiny shop, and its proprietor saw it as his own private business [chastnoe delo], palming off all sorts of goods on the reader, whatever was at hand: Khvostov\u2019s poetry that he himself poked fun at and the tragedies of the merchant Ganin, whom he bamboozled and forced to subscribe to fifty copies. Izmailov explained himself to his readership with utter familiarity; in advertisements for subscriptions, for example, he justified himself as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone with experience of how hard it is for one man who has other occupations on top of literary ones \u2014 such as an entire office on his hands in one of the ministerial departments, not to mention a wife and children and loads of relatives and friends \u2014 to publish between eight and ten press sheets per month will surely be forgiving if, among many worthwhile articles, several weak ones will be found, placed not for personal indulgence, but out of necessity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n If an issue was late, Izmailov blamed the pre-Lent festivities, or the fact that he had to deliver his daughter to boarding school, or had to see off his relatives moving to a distant province, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the mid-twenties, the situation began to change. Literary dilettantism was showing a tendency to stray beyond domestic circles and salons \u2014 new plans were made for journals and almanacs based on European models; the problem of attracting readers began to be discussed; and the question of paying writers a fee was raised. Ryleev and Bestuzhev\u2019s Polar Star<\/em> [Poliarnaia zvezda] almanac (1823) enjoyed great commercial success, and Pushkin\u2019s Fountain of Bakhchisarai<\/em> [Bakhchisaraiskii fontan], which came out a year later, prompted a heated polemic not only about romanticism, but also about the fee, and about the relationship between the writer and the publisher or bookseller. This was prompted by the fact that Pushkin received three thousand rubles for The Fountain of Bakhchisarai<\/em> from booksellers, while Prisoner of the Caucasus<\/em> [Kavkazskii plennik] (1822) had been purchased from him by N.I. Gnedich for just five hundred.7<\/sup><\/a> The controversy broke out as soon as the verse tale was released. The Russian Invalid<\/em> [Russkii invalid] reported that Moscow\u2019s booksellers \u201cpurchased the new verse tale The Fountain of Bakhchisarai<\/em>, a composition by Pushkin, for three thousand rubles. That comes to five rubles per line. This is proof that it is not just England and not just the English that pay for exquisite works of poetry with a generous hand.\u201d Bulgarin\u2019s journal Literary Pages<\/em> [Literaturnye listki] proclaimed: \u201cThe Fountain of Bakhchisarai<\/em>, Pushkin\u2019s verse tale, has been drawing a multitude of customers to bookshops. This fountain<\/em> brings to life the fable of Jupiter\u2019s golden rain, the only difference being that instead of beautiful Dana\u00eb, it is Russian booksellers who are benefitting from its precious droplets. Most likely, this lovely composition will soon be sold out.\u201d Next it was the booksellers who spoke out \u2014 an odd polemic began \u201cabout The Fountain of Bakhchisarai<\/em> not from a literary perspective\u201d that, for us, is now also of literary interest. A \u201cyoung bookseller\u201d in an argument with an \u201cold bookseller\u201d draws a picture of what was then the usual informal relationship between writer and bookseller:<\/p>\n\n\n\n [O]ur booksellers, of whom there are very few in all of Russia, very rarely have commercial relations with the producers<\/em>, that is the writers; they buy the works in manuscript form very rarely and are instead content to sell books on commission. As soon as a new book appears in the world and customers begin to ask for it in shops, one of our confreres immediately pays the writer or publisher a call and offers him profitable terms<\/em> \u2014 to give the shop ten copies on commission allowing twenty percent for the effort, in other words for taking the books from the writer\u2019s home to the bookseller\u2019s shop. The money is paid to the writer only when another five copies are needed; if that is not the case, the proceeds go toward a different transaction. (Literary Pages<\/em>, 1824, nos. 11-12)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The year 1825 indisputably took literature out of its past insularity. In Moscow, the new journal The Moscow Telegraph<\/em> [Moskovskii telegraf] began publication with the close involvement of P. Viazemskii; in Petersburg, Bulgarin\u2019s Northern Bee<\/em> [Severnaia pchela] appeared. Lines were drawn between the literary camps and a polemic developed that often touched on questions involving literary byt<\/em>. This was the year of Pushkin\u2019s argument with Bestuzhev and Ryleev on the status of the writer in Russia \u2014 or to put it in contemporary language, on the literary profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pushkin was one of the first to set out on the path of literary professionalism, and he did so decisively, although he understood it somewhat differently than Bulgarin and his camp (\u201cthe shopkeepers of literature,\u201d as Pushkin expressed it). For him, the main question was how to achieve \u201cindependence<\/em>\u201d [emphasis in the original]. His situation was complicated: he was fighting on two fronts \u2014 against both the literary hucksters heeding the public\u2019s tastes and against the court grandees who continued to see literature as a \u201cpleasant exercise.\u201d The word \u201cindependence\u201d turns up frequently in his letters during 1823-25. Especially representative are the letters, including rough drafts, to Kaznacheev, director (in 1824) of the chancellery of Count Vorontsov, on whose whims Pushkin\u2019s fate largely depended during that period:8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For seven years I have not been engaged in government service, have not written a single document, have not dealt with a single superior. These seven years, as you know, have been lost for me. It would be out of place for me to complain. I blocked my own path and chose a different aim. For God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t think that I have regarded the writing of poetry with the childish vanity of a rhymester or as a form of relaxation for the man of sensibility: it is simply my trade, a branch of private industry that has afforded me a living and domestic independence. I do not think that Count Vorontsov would want to deprive me of either of those.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In another draft (in French), he is even more explicit: \u201cSince my literary pursuits can make me more money, it is utterly natural on my part to sacrifice my work in government service for their sake. You speak to me of patronage and friendship (apparently on the part of Vorontsov) \u2014 two concepts that, in my opinion, are incompatible… I strive solely for independence.\u201d Around the same time he wrote to Viazemskii,<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you are saying about a journal has been fermenting in my mind for a long time. The problem is that Vorontsov can\u2019t be counted on. He is cold toward everything that is not him; and patronage has gone out of fashion. None of us wants the magnanimous patronage of an enlightened grandee<\/em>. That grew old back with Lomonosov. Today\u2019s literature is and must be nobly independent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, in his argument with Bestuzhev and Ryleev, Pushkin, from a purely professional perspective, defends the system of patronage or \u201cencouragement,\u201d but under different social conditions, given a different class relationship. Raising objections to an article where Bestuzhev with great emotion and in his usual florid manner argues that \u201cencouragement can invigorate only ordinary talents,\u201d Pushkin cites evidence: \u201cAs encouragement<\/em>, Derzhavin and Dmitriev were made ministers. Catherine\u2019s age was the age of encouragement: that does not make it worse than any other. Karamzin, it seems, was encouraged; Zhukovskii cannot complain, nor can Krylov… The only unencouraged I see are myself and Baratynskii \u2014 and I don\u2019t say \u2018Thank God.\u2019\u201d9<\/sup><\/a> He goes on to cite instances of patronage toward Tasso, Ariosto, Shakespeare (\u201cbased on Elizabeth\u2019s commission\u201d), Moli\u00e8re, Voltaire. \u201cDerzhavin was shown patronage by three tsars.\u201d The crux of the matter, as Pushkin saw it, was not patronage in and of itself, but the nature of the relationships:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, writers are drawn from society\u2019s highest class \u2014 aristocratic pride mixes in them with authorial vanity; we do not want to be patronized by our equals. This is what that scoundrel Vorontsov fails to understand. He imagines that the Russian poet will show up in his vestibule with a dedication or ode \u2014 instead the fellow shows up demanding to be respected as a nobleman with a six-hundred-year lineage \u2014 a devil of a difference.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In response to Ryleev\u2019s reproaches (\u201cYou\u2019ve cast yourself as an aristocrat; that makes me laugh. Are you really one to boast of a five-hundred-year noble lineage?\u201d), Pushkin writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are annoyed with me for boasting of a six-hundred-year noble lineage (NB: my line is older). Can\u2019t you see that the spirit of our literature partially depends on the status of its writers? Our writing cannot cater to grandees as we consider ourselves their equals by birth. This leads to pride, etc. Russian writers should not be judged the way foreign ones are. There, they write for money, and here (other than me) they write out of vanity. There, they can make a living on poetry, and here, Count Khvostov has run through his living on it.10<\/sup><\/a> There, if you\u2019re going hungry \u2014 write a book; here, if you\u2019re going hungry \u2014 go into service and don\u2019t write. My dear friend! You\u2019re a poet and I\u2019m a poet, but I am more prosaic in my reasoning and therefore am probably right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n What is particularly noticeable in this argument is the fact that Pushkin sees the promoting of his \u201cnobility\u201d as an essential principle of professional self-defense under the specific conditions of the \u201cstatus\u201d of writers in Russia at the time. He insists on the idea that, unlike others, he writes \u201cfor money\u201d and that his reasoning is \u201cmore prosaic\u201d \u2014 in other words, more professional. Where he differs from the \u201cshopkeepers of literature\u201d is that, rather than defining professionalism as serving the public, he demands \u201cindependence\u201d as a mandatory condition. In a later article, written after Bulgarin\u2019s bitter feud with the \u201cliterary aristocracy,\u201d Pushkin plainly stated a preference for the system of patronage preserved in the customs of English literature (Crabbe dedicating his poem to \u201cHis Grace the Duke,\u201d etc.) over the huckstering Russian journal system. He returns to the earlier argument and introduces new ideas into his response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, writers cannot seek charity and patronage from people they consider to be their equals and cater their writing to grandees and the wealthy in the hope of getting five hundred rubles or a gem-studded ring from them. What does that mean? That today\u2019s writers are more noble in their thinking and sensibilities than the thinking and sensibilities of Lomonosov and Kostrov? Permit me to have my doubts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This is followed by a portrayal of Russian literary mores (particularly interesting in the draft text) full of bile and indignation, after which Pushkin asserts: \u201cFurthermore, for some time now, literature has been a profitable trade here, and the public is in a position to offer more money than his Highness such-and-such or his Excellency someone-or-other. Be that is it may, I repeat, that forms have no meaning\u201d (Thoughts on the Road<\/em> [Mysli na doroge], ch. 3).11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n All this material (here I have included only a small part of it) shows what a huge role the issues and interrelations of literary byt<\/em> played during this era (approximately the decade from 1825 to 1835), in particular the question of what constituted literary professionalism. Aspects of literary byt<\/em> made their way into the evolutionary process itself and determined a great deal in the literary struggle and, at times, in the literary works. The Bulgarin camp, Bulgarin first and foremost, walked the simple path of \u201chackwork\u201d \u2014 directly fulfilling the reader\u2019s \u201ccommission\u201d at a time when the main reader was the \u201cmiddle estate,\u201d which occupied a low cultural level. The bookseller Ovsiannikov says of the twenties: \u201cThe only thing that kept sales up was the mere fashion of having libraries in aristocratic and wealthy houses. Prosperous merchants read nothing at all, the middle estate read little, and the aristocracy read exclusively foreign books.\u201d Bulgarin used any means to lure readers and thereby vanquish his enemies, the literary \u201caristocrats,\u201d for whom the concept of \u201cthe commission\u201d was much more complicated. The division into these two camps mirrored the division of the day\u2019s literature into prose and poetry: in the Bulgarin camp, which catered directly to the reader, it was prose that reigned supreme, while among the \u201caristocrats,\u201d it was poetry. Pushkin could see the declining interest in poetry and understood the importance of prose as a way of strengthening the very position of literature (which explains why he was constantly talking about prose in his letters to Viazemskii, Bestuzhev, and Pogodin), but he felt that Russian literary language had not yet attained the precision and conciseness the language of prose should have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this regard, the year 1829 was a milestone \u2014 the year Bulgarin\u2019s Ivan Vyzhigin<\/em>, Pushkin\u2019s Poltava<\/em>, and Zagoskin\u2019s Iurii Miloslavskii<\/em> came out. Vyzhigin<\/em> was a huge commercial success \u2014 everyone was reading it. In A. Shakhovskoi\u2019s farce Mercury Again, or Novels Masquerading<\/em> [Eshche Merkurii, ili romannyi maskarad] (1829), characters from currently fashionable Russian and translated novels paraded before the audience \u2014 including Vyzhigin, who recommended himself as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Pushkin to Ryleev<\/em>, 1825<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n1<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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