Free The Naked Year by Boris Pilnyak Page B

aborigines. European culture is a cul-de-sac. The rulers of Russian during the past two centuries, since Peter, have wanted to adopt this culture. Russia languished in a stifling, utterly Gogolian atmosphere. And the Revolution set Russia against Europe. And furthermore. Immediately after the first days of the Revolution, Russia, in its way of life, customs and towns–returned to the seventeenth century. On the border of the seventeenth century there was Peter…”
    (“Petra, Petra!” –the priest corrects him)
    â€œâ€¦ there was a native Russian art, architecture, music, tales about Juliana Lazarevskaya. Peter came along–and Lomonosov became an unbelievable clod, with his ode about glass, and genuine folk art disappeared…”
    (“It was on a Sabbath day!” –the monk again crooned in the heat)
    â€œâ€¦ in Russia there was no joy, but now there is… The Russian intelligentsia did not follow October. And it couldn’t. Since Peter, Europe hovered over Russia, but below, under the rearing horse, lived our people, like a thousand years ago, but the intelligentsia are the true children of Peter. They say that the father of the Russian intelligentsia was Radishchev. Not true–Peter. After Radishchev the intelligentsia began to repent , repent and seek out their mother, Russia. Every member of the intelligentsia repents, and every one grieves for the people, and every one knows nothing of the people. But revolutions were unnecessary for popular rebellion–alien. –Popular rebellion is the seizing of power and creation of their own genuine Russian truth–by genuine Russians. And this is a blessing!… The whole history of peasant Russia is the history of sectarianism. Who will win this struggle–mechanized Europe or sectarian, orthodox, spiritual Russia?…”
    The sun scorches. Gleb is silent, and the priest speaks hurriedly.
    â€œSectarianism? Sectarianism, you say? But sectarianism didn’t come from Peter, but from the Schism!… A popular rebellion, you say?– –pugachovshchina, razinovshchina?–but Stepan Timofeevich was before Peter!… Russia, you say?–but Russia–is fiction, a mirage, because Russia is the Caucasus, the Ukraine and Moldavia!… Great Russia–Great Russia, it must be said–is Poochye, Povolzhe, Pokamye!–are you my grandson or nephew?–I’ve mixed up everything, everything!.. You know what words have arrived: gviu, guvuz, gau, nachevak, kolkhoz–it’s an illusion. I’ve mixed up everything!”
    Soon only the priest is speaking, the Archbishop Sylvester, the former prince and cavalry officer. The bald pate, like the lid of a coffin, bends towards Gleb, and the eyes look out sternly from the beard.
    â€œHow was our Great Russian state founded?–the beginnings of our history lie in the destruction of Kiev Rus–hiding from the Pechenegs, the Tatars, from the princes’ out- and in-fighting in the woods, face-to-face with the Vyess and the Finns–our government was formed out of a fear of institutionalized government–they ran away from institutionalized government as from the plague! So there! And then when authority arrived, they rebelled, split up into sects, ran away to the Don, to the Ukraine to the Yaik. Did Great Russia not put up with Tatar barbarianism then German barbarianism because she was unnecessary to them, to herself in her native inability to govern herself?–and in her ethnography?–unnecessary… They ran away to the Don, to the Yolk–and from there went in rebellion to Moscow. And now–they’ve reached Moscow, seized their own power and have begun to build their own state–and they will build it. They’ll build it in such a way so as not to interfere with or encroach on each other, like mushrooms in a wood. Just look at the history of the peasants: like a forest path–for a