Category: Russia

The latest addition to my website is Boris Poplavsky‘s Аполлон Безобразов (Apollon Bezobrazov).
The book was written in the 1930s but only a few chapters were published in an émigré magazine, till 1992, when it was serialised in a Russian magazine and finally published in book form in 1993. It was intended to be part of a multi-volume work but only one other in the series was published (not translated), also in 1993.The narrator is Vasya,a young Russian exile living (badly) in Paris. He meets and becomes close to the decidedly strange Apollon Bezobrazov. Apollon Bezobrazov can spend his time doing absolutely nothing or he can be a whirlwind of activity. He seems indifferent to his poverty and enjoys his bohemian existence. They are joined by Tereza, daughter of a religious fanatic, who has left a monastery where it seemed she was having an affair with the abbot. The three, joined by a Siberian son of an Old Believer live first in a mansion on the outskirts of Paris and then in a castle in Switzerland. Tereza believes Apollon may well be the devil and there is some evidence for that, though he may just be the typical Russian holy fool/devilish character. It is certainly an unusual book and a fascinating one as Apollon is very unpredictable.

The latest addition to my website is Yuz Aleshkovsky‘s Николай Николаевич (Nikolai Nikolaevich) and Маскировка (Camouflage), published in the same volume in both Russian and English. Both are distinguished by vicious anti-Soviet satire and the extensive use of obscenities. Николай Николаевич (Nikolai Nikolaevich) is about the eponymous hero, a former prisoner, who finds work first as a laboratory assistant and then as the laboratory guinea pig, which requires him to masturbate every day, with his semen to be used to create a new race of humans to be sent into space. Unfortunately the laboratory gets caught up in the Lysenkoism issue and is closed down.

Маскировка (Camouflage) is about a fictitious town where nuclear arms are secretly made. The activity has to be disguised so camouflagers are used to pretend to be normal Soviet citizens, which is what the US spy satellites will see. Being a normal Soviet citizen means being permanently drunk and Fyodor Milashkin, our hero, does that very well, till he and the other members of his brigade are found by the police one morning having being anally raped. While mocking the Soviet drink culture, Aleshkovsky goes on to eavesdrop on a meeting of the Politburo Brezhnev, Kosygin and Co – and mercilessly mocks them. Both books are very funny, very obscene and very anti-Soviet,

The latest addition to my website is Sergei Lebedev‘s Гусь Фриц (The Goose Fritz). We follow Kirill, a Russian living in the contemporary period, who, under the influence of his grandmother, becomes interested in his ancestors, who were of German origin. He tracks down their stories, going back to the late eighteenth century, how they coped, seen as Germans, with German names, and how they were, despite their best efforts, never quite fully Russian. Lebedev give us a highly colourful account of how they were involved in many of the key events of Russian history, from the Napoleonic Wars to the Stalinist purges and how they just about survived (though many did not, dying premature deaths, often violently). Cannibalism, the various wars, rebellions and revolutions in Russia, epidemics, insanity, and love and (lots of) death are seen though the eyes of those who want to be insiders but never manage it. It is a brilliant book and confirms Lebedev as one of the foremost contemporary Russian novelists.