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Melnikov-Pechersky: Romancer of Provincial and Old Believer Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas H. Hoisington
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The nineteenth-century Russian writer Melnikov-Pechersky is not well known in the West. Yet this contemporary of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy is a major literary figure who produced a series of fascinating sketches, stories, and tales about Russian provincial life as well as two epic-length novels concerned with Old Believers, In the Forests (V lesakh) and On the Hills (Na gorakh). How does one account for the relative obscurity of so important a writer outside his native land? First of all, very few translations of his works (no English ones whatsoever) have appeared in the West. Thus little biographical and critical material on Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov, who signed all his mature fiction “Andrei Pechersky,” is available in languages other than Russian. Second, in the USSR, as in prerevolutionary Russia, both general and scholarly assessments of Melnikov are frequently clouded by extraliterary considerations. In other words, the reception traditionally accorded him has been ambiguous, or at best lukewarm.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 1974 , pp. 679 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1974

References

1. In the Forests was translated into French and German in the nineteenth century and only recently retranslated. On the Hills has only been translated within the past twenty years.

2. As a government official, Melnikov devoted many years to persecuting the very religious dissenters he ennobled in the two novels. This volte-face toward Old Believers has sparked controversy among Russian literary specialists for years, causing many to view Melnikov’s writing unfavorably. Such is the case in the following studies: Bogdanovich, A. I., “Polnoe sobranie sochinenii P. I. Mel'nikova,” Gody pereloma: 1893-1906 (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 261–72Google Scholar. Ezhov, I. S., “Predislovie,” in Mel'nikov- Pechersky, P. I., V lesakh, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955), 1: 3–10 Google Scholar. Ianchuk, N. A., “P. I. Mel'nikov (Andrei Pecherskii),” Istoriia russkoi literatury XIX veka, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1908-10), 4: 194–207 Google Scholar. Skabichevsky, A. I., Istoriia noveishei russkoi literatury: 1848-1892 gg., 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 218–23Google Scholar. Vengerov, S. A., “Pavel Ivanovich Mel'nikov,” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar1, vol. 37 (St. Petersburg, 1896), pp. 46–49 Google Scholar. Vinogradov, G. S., “Fol'klornye istochniki romana Mel'nikova-Pecherskogo V lesakh,” in Mel'nikov- Pechersky, P. I., V lesakh, 2 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1936), 1: viii—lxvii.Google Scholar

3. For a concise study of the genre with emphasis on its role in Russian literature see Roboli, T. A., “Literatura puteshestvii,” in Eikhenbaum, B. M. and Tynianov, Iu. N., eds., Russkaia prosa: Sbornik statei (Leningrad, 1926), pp. 42–73.Google Scholar

4. In Robert O. Crummey's recent study of the Vyg Old Believer community, The Old Believers and the World of Antichrist (Madison, 1970), for example, Melnikov’s Report is cited frequently.

5. Melnikov’s other short works are either derivative—A Godforsaken Place (Medvezhii ugol, 1857), which is imitative of Turgenev; The Permanent Assessor (Ncpremennyi, 1857) and The Nameday Pie (Imeninnyi pirog, 1858), which are reminiscent of Gogol—or, like At Makar'e (U Makar'ia, 1859), In Chudovo (V Chndove, 1862), and the later vignette, A Benefactress (Blagodetel'nitsa, 1863), semifictional in nature. One additional work, People from Across the Uzola (Zauzol'tsy, 1859), is actually a highly condensed early version of the first novel, In the Forests, and is important as a “prenovel” rather than a separate short story.

6. Melnikov even attracted attention abroad thanks to the Travel Notes, large portions of which were published in the Stuttgart journal Das Ausland ( “Reisenskizzen aus dem Gouvernment Perm,” 1840, nos. 150-53).

7. According to Lowrey Nelson, Jr., these are the two defining characteristics of that well-known type of romance, the Gothic novel. See “Night Thoughts on the Gothic Novel,” Yale Review, 52 (Winter 1963): 253.

8. The freshness of subject matter of both The Krasilnikovs and Poiarkov elicited the immediate acclaim of progressive critics. I. I. Panaev, a minor writer better known as coeditor with Nekrasov of Sovremennik, praised the earlier story. See “Zametki i razmyshleniia novogo poeta po povodu russkoi zhurnalistiki,” Sovremennik, 33, no. 5 (1852): 126. And Poiarkov received a brief but highly laudatory review, again in Sovremennik, from the young radical Chernyshevsky. See Chernyshevsky, N. G., Polnoe sobranic sochinenii, 16 vols. (Moscow, 1939-53), 4: 735–36.Google Scholar

9. The definition is based on the one in the New English Dictionary.

10. Cf. Railo, Eino, The Haunted Castle (London, 1927), pp. 270–81.Google Scholar

11. Mel'nikov-Pechersky, P. I., Sobranie sochinenii, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1963), 1: 68.Google Scholar

12. There have been six separate editions of In the Forests (1875, 1880, 1928, 1936, 1955, 1958) and four of On the Hills (1881, 1901, 1956, 1958) in addition to the original publication of both novels in Russkii vestnik and to their appearance as part of the three editions of Melnikov's collected works (1897-98, 1901, 1963).

13. In the relatively compact 1963 edition of Melnikov’ś collected works, In the Forests occupies 1, 191 pages, On the Hills 1, 159.

14. See Miller’s, Orest Russkie pisateli posle Gogolia, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1906), pp. 63–130.Google Scholar

15. The Soviet scholar D. A. Markov has studied the use of language in In the Forests and has compiled and published an invaluable dictionary to the novel based on his findings. See Markov, D. A., “Osobennosti leksiki romana P. I. Mel'nikova-Pecherskogo V lesakh,” Uchenyc zapiski Moskovskogo pedagogicheskogo instituta im. N. K. Krupskoi, 102 (1961): 3–623.Google Scholar

16. See, for example, reviews of On the Hills which appeared in Severnyi vestnik, 1877, no. 49, and Otechestvennyia zapiski, 257, no. 4 (1881): 204-9, as well as V. G. Avseenko’s analysis of the two novels, “Opiat' o narodnosti i o kul'turnykh tipakh,” Russkii vestnik, 122 (1876): 362-87. For recent works see M. P. Eremin’s “P. I. Mel'nikov (Andrei Pecherskii): Kritiko-biograficheskii ocherk,” in P. I. Mel'nikov-Pechersky, Sobranie sochinenii (1963 ed.), 6: 377-418, and Levin, F. M., “Epopeia P. I. Mel'nikova (Andreia Pecherskogo),” in Mel'nikov-Pechersky, P. I., Na gorakh (Moscow, 1956), 1: 3–28.Google Scholar

17. [P. I. Mel'nikov], “Vstupitel'noe slovo k chteniiu nachala romana Na gorakh v Obshchestve Liubitelei Russkoi Slovesnosti” (Moscow ?, 1875), MS, Pushkinskii Dom (IRLI), fond 95, op. 1, no. 4.

18. Usov, P. S., “Etnograf-belletrist,” Istoricheskii vestnik, 18 (1884): 589–90Google Scholar. Some of the proofs of On the Hills are in the Pushkinskii Dom (IRLI) manuscript collection (fond 95, op. 1, no. 5). It is evident from them that Melnikov was fond of making a large number of small, last-minute stylistic changes. My thanks to Kamsar Nersesovich Grigorian, assistant director, for aiding me in obtaining this and other Melnikov materials in Pushkinskii Dom.

19. Avseenko, V. G., “Khudozhestvennoe izuchenie raskola,” Russkii vestnik, 109 (1874): 377.Google Scholar Vinogradov, “Fol'klornye istochniki,” p. viii, and L. Iaroslavtseva, “Roman P. I. Mel'nikova (Andreia Pecherskogo) V Iesakh” (candidate's diss., Potemkin Institute in Moscow, 1948), pp. 378-80. Lotman, L. M., “Mel'nikov-Pecherskii,” Istoriia russkoi literatury, 10 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1941-56), vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 210.Google Scholar

20. See, for example, Avseenko, “Khudozhestvennoe izuchenie raskola,” pp. 356, 377; Ezhov, “Predislovie,” p. 8; Izmailov, A. A., “Bytopisatel' ‘vzyskuiushchikh grada, ’” Ezhcmesiachnyc literatumye i popularno-nauchnye prilozheniia k zhurnalu ‘Niva’ na 1908 g., 1 (1908): 456 Google Scholar; Levin, “Epopeia,” p. 3; and Lotman, L. M., “Roman iz narodnoi zhizni,” Istoriia russkogo romana, 2 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1962-64), 2: 410Google Scholar. On style see Lotman, “Mel'nikov-Pecherskii,” p. 223, and “Roman iz narodnoi zhizni,” p. 406; D. A. Markov, “Osobennosti leksiki romana P. I. Mel'nikova-Pecherskogo V lesakh” (doctoral diss., Moscow State University, 1962), pp. 22, 516, and Vinogradov, “Fol'klornye istochniki,” pp. x-xiii.

21. For more on the subject of character histories in In the Forests and On the Hills see Iaroslavtseva, “Roman P. I. Mel'nikova,” pp. 378-86, and Lotman, “Roman iz narodnoi zhizni,” pp. 408-9.

22. Lotman examines this aspect of Melnikov’s novels in some detail. See her “Roman iz narodnoi zhizni,” p. 410.

23. It is also significant that Melnikov subtitled the separate 1875 edition of In the Forests “Told by Andrei Pecherskii” ( “Rasskazano Andreem Pecherskim” ).

24. Chase, Richard, The American Novel and Its Tradition (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), p. ix.Google Scholar

25. Fiedler, Leslie, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York, 1966), pp. 135, 139-40Google Scholar. The same observation is also made by Railo, Haunted Castle, pp. 57, 63, 66, 69-72, 326-27.

26. Levin, Harry, The Gates of Horn: A Study of Five French Realists (New York, 1963), p. 1963.Google Scholar

27. Eikhenbaum, B. M., “O proze Kuz'mina,” Skvoz' literaturu (Leningrad, 1924), pp. 196–97.Google Scholar