Reading Russian Classics after Trump’s Triumph
Take pity on that poor hipster Uncle Vanya. He could have been a somebody; an Artist! A great philosopher! Or so he proclaims while stumbling about his rotting country manner and passive-aggressively pining for his beautiful friend-zone crush Yelena. Vanya’s one friend is Dr. Astrov, the well-to-do alcohol-abusing professional who espouses lengthy monologues on the need to save the environment and limit the pull of Russia’s logging industry. I can easily imagine Vanya and Astrov sharing a joint in San Francisco’s Dolores Park or chugging cans of PBR in Brooklyn, all the while discussing the hollowness of inauthentic life. It seems that “Uncle Vanya”, Chekhov’s 1890s play, still remains relevant. Its missing element is relevant as well; the peasants, hidden away and never mentioned, who till the fields and sharpen their sickles while Uncle Vanya whines and complains. How could Chekhov have predicted that in less than 20 years peasants would rise-up and slit poor Vanya’s throat; splattering his ideals in blood? Chekhov couldn’t have know this, but all the signs were there; a pale unease about the coming future pealing the boundaries of his play. We also couldn’t have known that Trump’s election was imminent, until our maps turned blood-red one dark Tuesday.
Perhaps, instead we should have turned to Dostoevsky, whose pessimistic fury much better prophesied what was coming. In Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”, the decadent and well-to-do brother Dmitri is brought to trial for allegedly murdering his father. Dmitri is a sensualist, wasting his rubles on gypsy music, beautiful women, and wine, but he is innocent of that alleged terrible crime. Fortunately, Dmitri’s defense attorney is the well-renowned intellectual Fetyukovich, who has travelled from the glitzy city of Moscow to see that justice is done in Karamazov’s backwater town. Fetyukovich gives a rousing closing statement at the conclusion of the trial. He calls on lofty principles and ideals to justify the defendant’s freedom. The courtroom breaks in loud rambunctious cheers as Fetyukovich finishes speaking. The humble country prosecutor bows his head in silence; Dmitri’s acquittal is all but assured.
The peasant jury takes an hour to reach its verdict; guilty on all counts. Dmitri’s lover Grushenka cries out in horror. Yet the decision is irreversible, and Dostoevsky proclaims, “Our peasants have stood up for themselves.” The peasants were disgusted by Dmitri’s upper-class ways, and Fetyukovich’s elitist big-city arguments only helped to throw more fuel onto that fire. By voting to convict, the peasants asserted their deep displeasure at the values of the out-of-touch elites, even though that vote was immoral and a travesty of justice. A few decades later, the peasants of Russia would once again “stand up for themselves”, leaving their nation bloodied and broken.
It was under these circumstances, as he watched his fellow citizens descend into madness, that the great author Bulgakov sat down to write. His novel “Heart of a Dog” describes the tribulations of a certain Professor Preobrazhensky in the years immediately following the Revolution. At first the Professor attempts to ignore his Country’s collective insanity by filling his apartment with an atmosphere of civility and decorum. He distracts himself by focusing all attention on groundbreaking scientific experiments. One such experiment involves the surgical transfer of the brain and sexual organs from deceased drunkard into the body of a stray dog. Shockingly, the surgery causes an immediate metamorphosis of the dog into an actual human being. This human styles himself as “Comrade Sharikov”. Sharikov is a politically active animal, who rants in equal measure against the intellectual elites and also against the illegal stray cats in Moscow’s streets. Preobrazhensky first tries to be cordial with Sharikov, with whom he is now forced to share his city apartment. This is quite difficult, because the Dog-Man treats the Professor’s reasonable views as hopelessly elitist while proclaiming that his own simple, brutish political slogans are equally as valid, if not more so. “Its quite simple,” grunts the Dog. “Some people have everything. Others have nothing. We must seize and share it all.”
Maybe the Professor and the Dog-Man could still have come to terms if only Sharikov was not a sexual predator. First, Sharikov tries to rape the professor’s maid. Later, he uses his new-found connections in Russia’s proletarian government to try and coerce a woman into sex (she’ll face political consequences if she refuses). This willful violation of basic humanity persuades the peaceful Professor to finally take action. The Professor drags Comrade Sharikov into his lab and forcefully undoes the surgery. The ruthless, hateful man with the heart of a dog again reverts to being a friendly, fuzzy canine. As the professor learned; there are limits to tolerance. Certain behaviors cannot be condoned.
What am I trying to say here? I honestly don’t know. We are undergoing a dark time for our country; things seem hopeless. Perhaps in such foul times we ought-to turn to the Giants of Russian literature. Remember, they’ve lived through this all before; and there is wisdom to be gleamed from their heartfelt stories.
