The Mythologeme of Siberia

On the Concept of a Siberian Motif in Russian LiteratureValerii Tiupa, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow

Translated from the Russian by Elena McDonnell

This article deals with the literary image of Siberia in nineteenth- andtwentieth-century Russian literature. Siberia became more than just alocale in both Russian literature and in the public consciousness: it be-came a particular concept, a complex idea. Traditionally associated withsevere weather, long dark winters and later the proverbial place of penalservitudes, Siberia as a topos began to be unconsciously interpreted asthe mythological “land of the dead.” The author analyzes a wide rangeof examples from texts by Ryleev, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Tol-stoy, Chekhov, Erofeev and others, and illustrates that by placing theircharacters in Siberia, Russian writers follow the old archetypal plot ofinitiation. Surviving in Siberia is hence interpreted as coming back fromthe dead – a social, psychological or emotional rebirth.

By the nineteenth century not only was Siberia developed by the Russian Empiregeopolitically: it was also adopted in Russian culture as a particular concept.Siberia – with its history of penal servitude, transit prisons, exiles, and, at thesame time, seekers of fortune (settlers) – mythologized in the national perceptionand became the property of a doxa,1 a chronotopic image comprehensible to ev-erybody, of a particular expression of man’s presence in the world.

One piece of evidence that supports this is, for instance, this phrase from aprivate correspondence of the 1830s: “… Caucasia here in Russia is reputed worsethan Siberia.” Neither in regard to climate, nor to aesthetics (in the same letterthe beauty of “gloomy Caucasia” surprising any “ardent imagination” is men-tioned) could Caucasia seem “worse” than Siberia. It could have been saidmeaning only one thing – the mortality of this topos. In another private letter ofthe same period the author says about himself: “your Melmoth is alive even inCaucasia”; and further: “I shall not fail to inform you about myself, whether aliveor killed.” This phrase mythologically normalizes the state of death in Caucasia,as if it were the land of the dead.

Orbis Litterarum 61:6 443–460, 2006Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved

This comparison of Caucasia and Siberia is not accidental; it was Siberia thatacquired the characteristics and qualities of the mythological country of the

dead in Russian cultural perception, from the dead commander’s2 conquest ofruins of dead civilizations to the absurdist echoes of the Siberian mythologemein the prose poem Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedict Erofeev:

— A где же он теперь, твой Евтюшкин?— А кто его знает, где? Или в Сибири, или в Средней Азии. Если он приехал вРостов и все еще живой, значит он где-нибудь в Средней Азии. А если до Ростоване доехал и умер, значит, в Сибири...— Верно говоришь, — поддержал я ее, — в Средней Азии не умрешь, в СреднейАзии можно прожить <...>— А в Сибири?— А в Сибири — нет, в Сибири не проживешь. В Сибири вообще никто неживет, одни только негры живут. Продуктов им туда не завозят, выпить имнечего, не говоря уж «поесть». Только один раз в год им привозят из Житомиравышитые полотенца — и негры на них вешаются... (Erofeev 1990, p. 81)

(“And where is he now, your Evtushenkin?”“Who knows, where? Either in Siberia or in Central Asia. If he got to Rostov and is

still alive, that means he’s somewhere in Central Asia. But if he didn’t get to Rostovand died, that means he’s in Siberia.”

“You’re right,” I backed her up, “you won’t die in Central Asia, it’s possible to livein Central Asia.” …

“And in Siberia?”“And in Siberia no, you’ll die. In general nobody lives in Siberia, only black people

live there. Products are not transported in, there is nothing to drink, not to speak of a‘meal.’ Only once a year from Zhitomir, in the Ukraine, embroidered towels are broughtin and the blacks hang themselves with them.”) (Erofeev 1980, 100)

The blackness of the imaginary Siberian “blacks” is a manifest allusion to deadbodies that do not need any food or water, but do require ritual decoration. If thedead there continue to “live,” they need the systematic renewal of this decoration.

The chronotopic image of Siberia in Russian classic literature presents it asthe land of cold, winter, night (moon) – that is death in its mythological under-standing. Even though on that side of the Urals the three summer months arepredominantly very hot, in literary landscapes of Siberia summer and sun areusually ignored. At the same time Siberia is the land of uninhabited and infinite(the symbol of cosmic eternity) space. As Chekhov writes in his studies From

Siberia: «Сила и очарование тайги не в деревьях-гигантах и не в гробовойтишине, а в том, что разве одни только птицы перелетные знают, где она

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кончается» (Chekhov 1978, 36) (“The fascination of the taiga lies not in gianttrees or in silence, but in the fact that perhaps the migratory birds alone knowwhere it ends”; Chekhov 1969, 267.)

However, with all its fundamental grave-like nature – in the same studies weread: «Иртыш не шумит и не ревет, а похоже на то, как будто он стучит усебя на дне по гробам» (Chekhov 1978, 19) (“The Irtysh neither booms norroars, but seems to knock on the lids of coffins down at the bottom”; Chekhov1969, 284) – Siberia is abundantly populated by wild animals – again, in From

Siberia: «Зато никогда в жизни не видал я такого множества дичи» (Chek-hov 1978, 7) (“But never in my life have I seen such an abundance of game”;Chekhov 1969, 267). It is by no means an infernal chronotope of final and un-alterable death, but a place, pleasing to God, of temporary death – a liminal(threshold) chronotope of mortal trial. For: «Сибирский тракт – самаябольшая и, кажется, самая безобразная дорога на всем свете» (Chekhov1978, 28) (“The Siberian highway is the longest and, it seems to me, the ugliestroad in the whole world”; Chekhov 1969, 295), and «все смотрят ссожалением, как на покойника» (Chekhov 1978, 29) (“Everybody looks …pityingly, as at a dead man”; Chekhov 1969, 296) at the author who follows it.

In ethnographical research, as is well known, the liminal phase of the initiationrite is the phase of the symbolic death of the initiated (cf. Gennep 1960) – thevisit to the land of the dead, the master of which is usually a totemic animal. Itis noteworthy that Chekhov calls taiga «зеленым чудовищем» (Chekhov 1978,36) (“[a] monster of a forest”; Chekhov 1969, 305). The youth who has suc-cessfully stood the trial of death, after contact with (often being devoured by)the bestial forefather (or foremother, represented in tales by Baba Yaga) comesback to life reborn into the new social status of an adult, that is a warrior, hunter,and marriageable man.

The landscape of the marginal topos of penal servitude, exile, and life indifferent kinds of “communitas,” 3 with its woods and rivers making an impres-sion on any imagination (crossing a river and going deep into woods are thetraditional components of an initiation rite), and with its half-year-long winterand polar nights in northern regions, turned out to be a fertile field for actual-ization of one of the most archaic cultural models. The unique overlapping ofgeopolitical, cultural, historical, and natural factors resulted in the mythologizingof Siberia as the land of liminal half-death, which opens a problematic possibility

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 3

of personal rebirth in new quality and the corresponding renewal of life. Thereis a remarkable supposition by Chekhov that on the banks of the Enisei «жизньначалась стоном, а кончится удалью» (Chekhov 1978, 35) (“life began with amoan, but it will end with such prowess as we haven’t even dreamed of”; Chek-hov 1969, 304).

We are, of course, not talking about the Russian cultural figures, and aboveall writers, who consciously and deliberately use the mythological complex ofinitiation motifs. This mytho-poetic undertext, as any other, is a phenomenon ofthe meaning-generating mechanism of transhistoric cultural memory, “an artisticform of implicit mythologism, whose prolifigacy was witnessed a number oftimes in the process of development of Russian realistic literature.”4

The text of Archpriest Avvakum’s Life is one of the earliest conceptualizationsof Siberia as a liminal chronotope in Russian literature. Voluntarily or not, theSiberian exile in Avvakum’s writings acquires some symbolic quantitative char-acteristics: «Таже послали меня в Сибирь с женою и детьми ... три тысящиверст недель с тринадцать волокли» (Zhitie 1934, 83) (“So they sent me thento Siberia with my wife and children … it was a journey of 3000 versts, and forsome thirteen weeks we dragged along”; The Life 1963, 59). While the spatialdimension “three” has a positive sacred connotation, the temporal dimension“thirteen” (characterizing the human actions) has a negative, demonic one. Sentfrom Tobolsk to the Lena and setting his hopes for Christ (whose death andresurrection are analogous to the initiation rite), Avvakum says: «...ожидаюмилосердия Его и чаю воскресения мертвым» (Zhitie 1934, 86) (“I confi-dently await His mercy and I believe in the Resurrection from the dead”; TheLife 1963, 63). The hardships of the coming Christ-like initiation (the ones whoare punished become God’s sons as opposed to “bastards”) are foreshadowed:«...яко многими скорбми подобает нам внити в царство небесное» (Zhitie

1934, 89) (“We must, through much tribulation, enter the Kingdom of God”; The

Life 1963, 67).The factology of Avvakum’s own real sufferings is abundant in the symbolism

of the rite of passage:Стало у меня в те поры кости те щемить и жилы те тянуть, и сердце зашлось,

да и умирать стал ... Наутро кинули меня в лодку и напредь повезли. Егдаприехали к порогу, к самому большему — Падуну ... меня привезли под порог ...льет вода по брюху и по спине ... Из лодки вытаща, по каменью скована околпорога тащили. Грустно гораздо, да душе добро ... Посем привезли в Брацкий

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острог ... И сидел до Филиппова поста в студеной башне; там зима в те порыживет. (Zhitie 1934, 90–91)

(Then my bones began to ache, my veins to grow rigid, my heart to palpitate, verily,I was dying … In the morning they flung me on to a small craft5 and carried me away.Then we came to the great rapids6 of the Padun7…. They brought me into the rapids… the water flowed over my belly and my spine.8 …They took me out of the raft and,skirting the rapids, they dragged me over the stones in fetters.9 Verily I was in a sadplight, but with my soul it was well.10 … And after that they brought me to the fortressof Bratsky.11 … And there I lay till Advent,12 in a freezing tower; these are the seasonswhen winter reigns.) (The Life 1963, 68–69)

At the end of his sufferings in Siberia Avvakum exclaims: «Ну, слава Христу!Хотя и умрешь после того, ино хорошо» (Zhitie 1934, 98) (“Now glory toChrist! Even if you die the minute after, it will be well with you”; The Life 1963,78–79). For this kind of (“Siberian”) death promises or even guarantees the res-urrection.

The mythologizing of Siberia as a liminal space in Russian culture was finallyaccomplished thanks to the Decembrists’ condemnation to penal servitude,which became a paradigmatic phenomenon in Russian history. However, thecorresponding chronotopic image of the behind-the-Ural expanses of coloniza-tion, where the death of the body can become a pledge of the spiritual rebirth,started forming long before this historic event.

In a prophetic poem “Voinarovskii,” by Konstantin Ryleev, Siberia is shownas «страна мятелей и снегов» (“wild land of storms and snows”; Relaieff13

1879, 27). Here «всегда сурова и дика ... угрюмая природа» (“all is gloomy,nature here / an aspect wears both sad and drear”; Relaieff 1879, 27), in themiddle of which, like a chthonic monster, «ревет сердитая река» (“streams withhoarse and angry cry / rumble terrific”; Relaieff 1879, 27). The mytho-poeticsof the poem is constructed in such a way that only the nocturnal landscapes areshown. For instance:

Погасло дневное светило;Настала ночь ... Вот месяц всплыл,И одинокий и унылыйДремучий лес осеребрилИ юрту путникам открыл.

(Scarce now appeared the heaven’s sheen,The night had come, and o’er the sceneThe sad moon lonely in the sky

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 5

Shone in her silvery majesty,And covered “oort” and barren wild…) (Relaieff 1879, 36)

A yurt (an ancient form of dwelling), in the middle of the primeval forest, fitsperfectly the traditional construction for the initiation rite. Voinarovskii’s ap-pearance is compared to

Как в час глухой и мрачной ночи,Когда за тучей месяц спит,Могильный огонек горит.

(as at nightThrough the surrounding murky gloomWhen slumbers all the tempest’s mightThere burns a fire upon the tomb.) (Relaieff 1879, 31)

As for the normal, (living) people, Ryleev says about them:

Никто страны сей безотрадной,Обширной узников тюрьмы,Не посетит, боясь зимы.

(To this wild country’s barren plainsNone come save those condemned to chainsWhile the dark winter’s chilling forceDrags out its long and weary course.) (Relaieff 1879, 27–28)

Since winter comes regardless of the place, here it obviously becomes somethingelse, that is a mytho-poetic personification.

Both Voinarovskii and his wife – who foreshadowed the asceticism of theDecembrists’ wives – die in Siberia. However, the initiated in the poem is notthe freedom-loving Cossack himself, but the representative of the author – thescientist Müller, who comes into contact with Voinarovskii (as with a culturalhero-forefather). The main character himself had already undergone his symbolicdeath (and simultaneously found his wife – the appropriate result of the trans-formation rite) in the Ukraine:

Все было тихо ... Лишь могилаУныло с ветром говорила.И одинока и бледна,Плыла двурогая лунаИ озаряла сумрак ночи.Я без движения лежал;Уж я, казалось, замирал;

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Уже, заглядывая в очи,Над мною хищный вран летал.

(Deep silence reigned; about the moundScarce did the wind’s sad moaning sound,Soon lighting up the shades of nightThe crescent moon appeared to sight,Swimming athwart the silent skies,All still and motionless I layLike one whose soul had passed away,Above me gloating o’er my eyes –Full o’er my doom’d eyeballs view –The carrion crow impatient flew.) (Relaieff 1879, 44–45)

The “crescent” moon (“two-horned” in the original Russian text), especiallyaccompanied by “the carrion crow,” can easily be read as an image of thechthonic deity of the nocturnal land of the dead. All the more so, as the characterbecomes “motionless” on the mound, which “talks” to the wind. Finally, afterthe saving interference of the future wife of the character, his postliminal trans-formation occurs: «Я обновленный встал с одра» (“From my sick bed I roseat length, / My force renewed, restored my strength”; Relaieff 1879, 47). Theritual and the mythological complex of motifs of the initiation rite and the imageof cold and nocturnal Siberia as the marginal land of the dead in Ryleev’s poem,are still not combined in one connotative whole, but are already in position.

Thus formed, and fixed in intertextual repetitions, mytho-poetic context ap-pears to be a significant key to a number of Russian classic texts. In particular,to Pushkin’s well-known message to Siberia (1827), where after the three-timesrepeated (in three stanzas) poetic euphemism of the grave of those buried alive«глубина сибирских руд» (“deep in the Siberian mine”), «мрачноеподземелье» (“under-darkness dumb”), and «каторжные норы» (“your prisonburrows,” or, as Avrahm Yarmolinsky puts it in his translation, “your galley-beds” (Pushkin 1964, 62, 63)), the bravura suddenly sounds in the final stanza:

Оковы тяжкие падут,Темницы рухнут – и свободаВас примет радостно у входа,И братья меч вам отдадут.

(The heavy-hanging chains will fall,The walls will crumble at a word;

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 7

And Freedom greet you in the light,And brothers give you back the sword.) (Pushkin 1964, 63)

It would be naïve to think that Pushkin is hoping for a more successful attemptof the coup d’état. More likely, the poet, as in The Stanzas (1826), proceeds fromthe historic parallel between the Emperor Nikolai and Peter I. In the poem “Pol-tava” (1827–1828) Peter realizes who really cared about the good of the father-land:

С брегов пустынных ЕнисеяСемейства Искры, КочубеяПоспешно призваны Петром.Он с ними слезы проливает.Он их, лаская, осыпаетИ новой и честью и добром.Мазепы враг, наездник пылкий,Старик Палей из мрака ссылкиВ Украйну едет в царский стан.

(Back from the wastes of Yenisei,The exiled kin of KochubeyAnd Iskra are brought home, reprieved:Tsar Peter joins them in weepingAnd renders wry atonement, heapingNew land and rank on the bereaved.Mazepa’s foe, fierce old commanderOf raids, rides up to Peter’s standard,Paley, from penal exile spared:Rebellion quakes as if uprooted.) (Pushkin 1984, 363)

Something similar could have happened to the Decembrists, should Nikolay ap-preciate their «гордое терпенье», «скорбный труд», and «дум высокоестремленье» (“Patience proud,” “bitter toil” and “rebel thought”; Pushkin 1964,62). This model, explicit in the poem, and desired by Pushkin for the return ofthe Decembrists to a new status as national heroes, is nothing but the last phaseof the initiation rite.

The significant stages of the build-up of the Siberian motif in Russian literaturewere marked in the works of Nikolai Nekrasov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy,and Anton Chekhov.

In the poem “Russian Women,” besides the descent of “the angel” (PrincessVolkonskaya) to “hell” (the underground city of “shadows”), Nekrasov presents

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a series of scenes of liminal nature, easily perceived as traditionally Siberianlandscapes:

... Мороз сильней, пустынней путь,Чем дале на восток;На триста верст какой-нибудьУбогий городок,Зато как радостно глядишьНа темный ряд домов,Но где же люди? Всюду тишь,Не слышно даже псов.

…Направо — горы и река,Налево темный лес...

…Пропали горы; началасьРавнина без конца.Еще мертвей! Не встретит глазЖивого деревца.

…Но хуже, хуже в руднике,Глубоко под землей!...Там гробовая тишина,Там беспросветный мрак...Зачем, проклятая страна,Нашел тебя Ермак?

…Луна плыла среди небесБез блеска, без лучей,Налево был угрюмый лес,Направо — Енисей.Темно! Навстречу ни души,Ямщик на козлах спал,Голодный волк в лесной глушиПронзительно стонал …

(The further East the more severeThe frost has hourly grown,Three hundred versts again … What’s here?A wretched little town!But even that is good to see:A row of houses dark,But where can all the people be?Not e’en a watch-dog’s bark …

… On the rightThe river and the mountains frown,

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 9

The forest, black as night,Lies on the left …

The mountains vanish. She can seeA plain on either hand,Entirely dead. No living treeUpon its bosom stands …

But oh – the mines, the mines are worse,Deep down beneath our feetNo ray can pierce that stifling dark,No sound can bring relief,Accursed land! Why did YermakReveal thee to our grief? ...

The moon was sailing overhead,‘Twas dull, and threw no ray,To left the gloomy forest spread,To right the Yenissey.How dark! No living soul they meet,The driver slumbers on his seat,In forest depths as they go byA wolf sets up a famished cry.) (Nekrasov 1977, 11–15)

Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead is an obvious chronicle of the life of“communitas” (in Turner’s understanding), existing beyond life and awaiting theright to return there. It is even more interesting to focus on the liminal motifs ofthe epilogue of Crime and Punishment, which starts with the words: «Сибирь.На берегу широкой, пустынной реки стоит … острог. В остроге уже девятьмесяцев заключен…» (Dostoevsky 1957, 557) (“Siberia. On the banks of abroad solitary river stands … a fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In theprison the second-class convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for ninemonths”; Dostoevsky 1956, 479). The number of months – among other things,divisible by three – is, of course, not accidental. It signals the approaching birth(rebirth) of the character. The miracle of this resurrection («Как это случилось,он и сам не знал, но вдруг что-то как бы подхватило его и как бы бросилок ее ногам» (Dostoevsky 1957, 573) (“How it happened he did not know. Butall at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet”; Dostoevsky1956, 492) happens after Raskolnikov’s long and painful illness – a frequentimage of a symbolic death – on the bank of the Siberian river. It is there that hiscertain rebirth occurs: «…все каторжники, бывшие враги его, уже глядели

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на него иначе. Он даже сам заговаривал с ними, и ему отвечали ласково… но ведь так и должно было быть: разве не должно теперь всеизмениться?» (Dostoevsky 1957, 573) (“…all the convicts who had been hisenemies looked at him differently; he had even entered into talk with them andthey answered him in a friendly way … it was bound to be so. Wasn’t everythingnow bound to be changed?”; Dostoevsky 1956, 492).

A split second before the peculiar act of initiation that is happening to him,Raskolnikov looks at the other side of the river, as if he were looking beyondthe liminal border:

С высокого берега открывалась широкая окрестность. С дальнего другого берегачуть слышно доносилась песня. Там, в облитой солнцем необозримой степи …была свобода и жили другие люди, совсем непохожие на здешних, там как бысамое время остановилось, точно не прошли еще века Авраама и стад его. (Dostoevsky 1957, 572)

(From the high bank a broad landscape opened before him, the sound of singing floatedfaintly audible from the other bank. In the vast steppe … there was freedom, thereother men were living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand still,as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed.) (Dostoevsky 1956, 491)

Gloomy Siberia turns out to be the threshold that places the character on the edgeof the eternal (biblical) and, for the first time, sunny life after which the story ofthe “renewal of a man,” “his passing from one world into another” (Dostoevsky1956, 493) has to begin.

In his creation of a novel about a similar spiritual transformation of the fallencharacter, in part three of his Resurrection, Leo Tolstoy fully uses the mytho-poetic resource of liminal symbolism accumulated by the Siberian text ofRussian literature. We will address only the most significant episodes.

In Siberia, Katusha Maslova undergoes spiritual initiation: «– Вот плакала,что меня присудили, – говорила она. – Да я век должна Бога благодарить.То узнала, чего во всю жизнь не узнала бы» (Tolstoy 1964, 409) (“‘Therenow, and to think that I cried when I was sentenced!’ she would say. ‘Why, Imust thank God for it to the end of my days. I have learned things I should neverhave heard of in a whole lifetime otherwise’”; Tolstoy 1966, 471). In particular,she learned from Simonson that «все в мире живое, что мертвого нет» (Tolstoy1964, 412) (“everything in the world is alive; there is no inert body”; Tolstoy1966, 474), and from Nabatov that «ничто не кончается, а постоянно

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 11

переделывается от одной формы в другую … так и человек неуничтожается, но только изменяется» (Tolstoy 1964, 439) (“nothing ceasesto exist but is continually being transformed from one thing into another … soman does not perish but only undergoes a change”; Tolstoy 1966, 504). Thesethoughts are easily read as liminal experience of death-birth.

Those who work in Siberia speak about themselves as if they were grave-diggers, or mortuary workers: «Живешь в этой Сибири, так человекуобразованному рад-радешенек. Ведь наша служба, сами знаете, самаяпечальная» (Tolstoy 1964, 427) (“Living as we do here in Siberia,14 it warmsthe cockles of one’s heart to come across an educated man. There is no need totell you how dreary our work is”; Tolstoy 1966, 491). At the same time thegovernor in the novel calls Siberia «тридевятое царство» (“the thrice ninthkingdom,” “the kingdom of far away”), that is, a place where the characters of amagic tale, as was shown by Vladimir Propp, undergo trial by death, based onthe initiation rite, and thus obtain some new quality. The last chapters of the novelshow how this rite affects Nekhludov. On the eve of the conclusive transforma-tion of the main character he, as well as Raskolnikov, is granted the opportunityto see the sun, which, as mentioned earlier, is a rarity for “literary” Siberia. Fur-ther the allusion to Elysian Fields overshadowed with mountain peaks andsymbolizing (along with the sunrise) the coming spiritual ascent, is introduced:

На половине перегона лес кончился, и с боков открылись елани (поля),показались золотые кресты и купола монастыря. День совсем разгулялся, облакаразошлись, солнце поднялось выше леса, и мокрая листва, и лужи, и купола, икресты церкви ярко блестели на солнце. Впереди направо, в сизой дали, забелелидалекие горы. (Tolstoy 1964, 464–465)

(When they were about half-way to the next halting-station the forest ended, fieldsopened on either side and the gilded crosses and cupolas of a monastery appeared inthe distance. The day had turned quite fine, the clouds had dispersed, the sun had risenabove the forest, and the wet leaves, the puddles, the cupolas and the crosses of thechurch glistened bright in its rays. In the blue-grey distance ahead on the right15 therewas a gleam of white mountains.) (Tolstoy 1966, 532)

However, before the renewal Nekhludov enters his symbolic death: «Погодапеременилась. Шел клочьями спорый снег и уже засыпал дорогу, и крышу,и деревья сада» (Tolstoy 1964, 481) (“The weather had changed. Snow wasfalling in heavy flakes and already lay thick on the road, the roof, the trees in thegarden”; Tolstoy 1966, 550). After the canonic “Siberian” winter weather had

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set in, Nekhludov felt «что страшно устал от всей жизни. Он … закрыл глазаи мгновенно заснул тяжелым, мертвым сном» (Tolstoy 1964, 484) (“terriblytired of living. He … closed his eyes and instantly fell into a deep slumber”;Tolstoy 1966, 554). In the next chapter, he follows the guide in the prison(Dostoevsky’s “house of the dead”) «как во сне, не имея силы отказаться иуйти, испытывая все ту же усталость и безнадежность» (Tolstoy 1964, 487)(“as in a dream, lacking the strength to excuse himself and go away, and withthe same feeling of weariness and hopelessness”; Tolstoy 1966, 558). Next hecomes to the mortuary, where it seems to him «что ничего нет, кроме смерти,и ему сделалось дурно» (Tolstoy 1964, 490) (“that there was nothing butdeath,16 and he felt faint”; Tolstoy 1966, 561). Unconsciousness and faintness,as well as sleep, is a reduced image of death.

Only in the final chapter, with the words from the Gospel that tell him to“become like little children” (an allusion to birth), does the character have hisliminal discernment: «… восторг охватил его душу. Точно он после долгоготомления и страдания нашел вдруг успокоение и свободу» (Tolstoy 1964,495) (“his soul was swept by an ecstasy … It was as though, after long piningand suffering, he had suddenly found peace and liberation”; Tolstoy 1966, 566).

The finale of the novel sounds almost like a paraphrase of the finale of Crime

and Punishment:

« …Так вот оно, дело моей жизни. Только кончилось одно, началось другое.»С этой ночи началась для Нехдюдова совсем новая жизнь не столько потому,что он вступил в новые условия жизни, а потому, что все, что случалось с ним сэтих пор, получало для него совсем иное, чем прежде, значение. Чем кончитсяэтот новый период его жизни, покажет будущее. (Tolstoy 1964, 496)

(“This then must be my life’s work. One task is completed and another is ready to myhand!”

That night17 an entirely new life began for Nekhludov, not so much because he hadentered into new conditions of life but because everything that happened to him fromthat time on was endowed with an entirely different meaning for him. How this newchapter of his life will end, the future will show.) (Tolstoy 1966, 568)

Chekhov’s short story “In Exile” absorbed all the liminal Siberian motifs thatwere established by his predecessors. But Chekhov gave them a different twist.The scene of action in the story is the ferry (the liminal motif of the first impor-tance) on the “dark, cold river,” which makes everything around “damp andcold” (Chekhov 2000, 161, 162). On the far bank, like symbols of hell,

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 13

«змейками ползли огни» (Chekhov 1977, 42) (“lights crawled snakelike”;Chekhov 2000, 161). One of the characters says: «Оно, конечно, тут не рай… вода, голые берега, кругом глина и больше ничего» (Chekhov 1977, 42)(“It’s sure no paradise here … water, bare banks, clay everywhere and nothingelse”; Chekhov 2000, 161). Here even the sky is different, not as it is above theterritory of life – “at home” (Chekhov 2000, 162).

Not only does the view of the ferry unfold the motif of the river separating therealms of life and death, it also hints at Baba Yaga’s dwelling. We can see only«кусты тальника на воде и зыбь, а назад оглянуться – там глинистый обрыв,внизу избушка, крытая бурою соломой» (Chekhov 1977, 47) (“the osier bush-es in the rippling water … and, looking back, there was the clay cliffside, the hutroofed with brown straw below”; Chekhov 2000, 166). In the same passage it ismentioned that “the cocks were already crowing”; casting on the hut the semanticreflection of “hen’s feet.” The crowing, which is supposed to scare away the evilspirits, here only intensifies the corresponding motif – «хватай черта захвост,» (“catch the devil by his tail”; Chekhov 2000, 166, 168), says the old man.

At the same time the hulk of the ferry looks like some threatening animal,probably a totemic one: «Было в потемках похоже на то, как будто людисидели на каком-то допотопном животном с длинными лапами и уплывалина нем в холодную унылую страну, ту самую, которая иногда снится вовремя кошмара» (Chekhov 1977, 48) (“In the darkness it looked as if peoplewere sitting on some antediluvian animal with long paws and floating on it to-wards some cold, gloomy land such as one sometimes sees in nightmares”;Chekhov 2000, 167). The motifs of a nightmare and dark, gloomy cold are highlysignificant for the actualization of the mythologeme of the land of the dead. Thereis a hint of the endlessness of the Siberian dead season – winter: «Святая давноуже прошла, а на реке лед идет, и утром нынче снег был» (Chekhov 1977,42) (“Easter’s long past, but there’s ice drifting on the river, and it snowed thismorning”; Chekhov 2000, 161). The snow continues to fall during the wholestory.

The antagonistic characters on the ferry are called “the old man” and “theboy,” and the former says about the young Tatar that he is “not dry behind theears” (Chekhov 2000, 162). This generational antinomy, obviously, contributesto the activation of the complex of life-death motifs. Remarkably, the old manalso calls the youth his brother (as all “communitas,” they are related through

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their belonging to the liminal chronotope). The nobleman exiled to the gloomySiberian river also «с братьями что-то там не поделил» (Chekhov 1977, 43)(“quarreled with his brothers over something”; Chekhov 2000, 163), and he callsthe ferryman «брат Семен» (“brother Semyon”). And the young Tatar, likeIvanushka from a Russian folk tale, is the youngest of three brothers (and themost innocent of them, too).

At first sight, the old man advocates initiation as transformation, which wasstandard for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy: «Вы старое-то бросьте, забудьте, какбудто его вовсе не было, будто снилось оно только, а начинайте житьсызнова» (Chekhov 1977, 44) (“Give up the old things, forget them as if they’dnever been, as if it was only a dream, and start a new life”; Chekhov 2000, 163).However, in Siberia he believes it to be impossible. He says about thenobleman’s daughter: «Кровь играет, жить хочется, а какая тутжизнь?» (Chekhov 1977, 45) (“her blood is high, she wants to live, and whatkind of life is there here?”; Chekhov 2000, 164). And further: «Все равнопомрет. Помрет она всенепременно» (Chekhov 1977, 46) (“She’ll die any-way. She’s absolutely sure to die”; Chekhov 2000, 165).

The ideological argument in the story is whether people “live” (in darknessand dampness, like in a grave) or do not “live” in Siberia. The grounds for thissomewhat unusual question, as we can see, were predetermined by all the pre-vious “Siberian” texts. However, Chekhov claims that there is no one mytho-poetic universal answer: it depends on one’s existential position.

The old Explainer, in a sense the ideologist of the “lifeless” existence, is likea dead man: «ничего не надо! Нету ни отца, ни матери, ни жены, ни воли,ни двора, ни кола! Ничего не надо» (Chekhov 1977, 43) (“need nothing! Nofather, no mother, no wife, no freedom, no bag, no baggage! You need nothing,damn it all!”; Chekhov 2000, 162). On the contrary, the Tatar boy believes that«лучше один день счастья, чем ничего» (Chekhov 1977, 46) (“better a singleday of happiness than nothing”; Chekhov 2000, 165). Scared of being buried inthe “cold, rusty earth” and standing up for Vassily Sergeich, he shouts to theferryman in his Siberian realm of death: «Барин хорошая душа, отличный, аты зверь,18 ты худо! Барин живой, а ты дохлый … Бог создал человека, чтобживой был, чтоб и радость была, и тоска была, и горе было, а ты хочешьничего, значит, ты не живой, а камень, глина!» (Chekhov 1977, 49–50)(“Gentleman a good soul, excellent, and you a beast, you bad! Gentleman alive

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 15

and you dead … God created man for be alive, for be joy, and be sorrow, and begrief, and you want nothing, it means you not alive, you stone, you clay!”; Chek-hov 2000, 168). Further in the text the symbolic confirmation of this verdict ispresented:

Все улеглись. Дверь отворилась от ветра, и в избушку понесло снегом. Встать изатворить дверь никому не хотелось: было холодно и лень.— А мне хорошо! — проговорил Семен засыпая. — Дай Бог всякому такойжизни.— Ты, известно, семикаторжный. Тебя и черти не берут. (Chekhov 1977, 50)

(They all lay down. The wind forced the door open, and snow blew into the hut. Nobodywanted to get up and shut the door: it was cold and they were lazy.

“And I’m fine!” Semyon said as he was falling asleep. “God grant everybody sucha life.”

“We know you, a convict seven times over. Even the devils can’t get at you.”)(Chekhov 2000, 169)

The old man, having become accustomed to the grave-like topos of winter, stone,and clay, is not a stranger for the devils. He himself rejects the possibility of theresurrection, whereas the Tatar’s crying resembling a dog’s howling (the anti-thesis to the wild “beast,” the Explainer) proves that he belongs to the realm oflife. It is not accidental, that he echoes the gentleman’s “howling,” who wanted“to live by [his] own labor” and later “he revived” (Chekhov 2000, 163, 165) –escaping the symbolic death.

The series of examples discussed above of the actualization of the liminalmythologeme of Siberia in literary texts seems to provide evidence of the pres-ence of a goup of texts in Russian literature that are connected not only themat-ically but also mytho-poetically, and represents the main argument for theexistence of a particular “Siberian” theme running through the literature.

NOTES

1. I kept the original usage of the Greek word doxa meaning “opinion, reputation,glory.” (E. M.)

2. It was commonly believed that, killed in the battle with Siberian Tatars, Yermak (Ermak)had taken over the whole of Siberia.

3. Victor Turner uses this term to denote a group of social outcasts being in a state of “tran-sient humility and modelessness,” unstructured social relations, and actualizing the“essential and generic human bond, without which there could be no society” (Turner1995, 97).

4. My translation of the author’s quote from Markovich 1982, 22. (E. M.)

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5. Craft crossing (the reaching of the land of the dead) is one of the most significant motifsof the initiation rite.

6. The reaching of the liminal border.7. The Russian padun means “the falling one.” Falling is one of the symbolic synonyms of

death (cf. the phraseologic “to fall victim,” “to fall dead”).8. This is an analog of the funeral ablution.9. Analog of the funeral procession.

10. A hint at the resurrection that is getting closer with the funeral rite.11. The name of the fortress has a root brat (“brother”), which would be a good name for the

fortress for the initiated, because originally all of them were brothers, the youths of thesame tribe.

12. Fasting is one of the symbolic forms of death.13. The 1879 publisher of Ryleev transliterates his name as Relaieff, based perhaps on the

phonetic principle.14. “Living in Siberia” sounds in this context like a latent oxymoron.15. Positive direction according to mytho-poetic symbolism.16. Anti-discernment, as opposed to that of Katusha Maslova.17. Cf. “The day had turned quite fine” in the above-quoted fragment as the promise of the

coming “resurrection.”18. This animal-like character says about himself “I can sleep naked on the ground and have

grass for my grub,” compares himself to “pike and white salmon,” and wishes death to“a shaggy lapdog on the sofa.” He can definitely be interpreted as a parody figure of thehalf-animal predecessor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chekhov, A. 1969, “Across Siberia” in The Unknown Chekhov: Stories and Other Writings,trans. A.Yarmolinsky, Funk & Wagnalls, New York.

Chekhov, A. 1977, Polnoe sobranie sochineniy i pisem v 30 tomah, vol. 8, Nauka, Moscow.Chekhov, A. 1978, Polnoe sobranie sochineniy i pisem v 30 tomah, vols. 14–15, Nauka, Mos-

cow.Chekhov, A. 2000, “In Exile” in Stories, trans. R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky, Bantam Books,

New York.Dostoevsky, F. 1956, Crime and Punishment, trans. C. Garnett, Random, New York.Dostoevsky, F. 1957, “Prestuplenie i nakazanie” in Sobranie sochinenii v 10 tomah, Gosu-

darstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, Moscow.Erofeev, V. 1980, Moscow to the End of the Line, trans. H. W. Tjalsma, Taplinger, New York.Erofeev, V. 1990, Moskva – Petushki, Vagrius, Moscow.Gennep, A. 1960, The Rites of Passage, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.1963, The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself, trans. J. Harrison and H. Mirrlees, Archon,

Hamden.Markovich, V. 1982, I. S. Turgenev i russkiy realisticheskii roman XIX veka, Izdatel'stvo

Leningradskogo universiteta, Leningrad.Nekrasov, N. 1977, “Russian Women” in Poems, trans. J. M. Soskice, Hyperion Press, West-

port.

The Mythologeme of Siberia in Russian Literature 17

Pushkin, A. 1964, “Deep in the Siberian mine…” in The Poems, Prose and Plays of AlexanderPushkin, ed. A.Yarmolinsky, Random, New York.

Pushkin, A. 1984, “Poltava” in Collected Narrative and Lyrical Poetry, Ardis, Ann Arbor.Relaieff, K. 1879, Voinarofskyi and Other Poems, trans. T. Hart-Davies, Thacker, Calcutta.Tolstoy, L. 1964, Sobranie sochineniy v 20 tomah, vol. 13, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo

Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, Moscow.Tolstoy, L. 1966, Resurrection, trans. R. Edmonds, Penguin, Baltimore.Turner, V. 1995, The Ritual Process: Structure and Antistructure, Aldine de Gruyter, New

York.1934, Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, Academia, Moscow-Leningrad.

Dr Valerii Tiupa is a professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow,and a head of the Department of Theoretical and Historical Poetics. He has a PhD in Literature.Dr Tiupa specializes in theory of literature, historical aesthetics, rhetoric and theory ofcommunication. He is the author of 133 works, including The Aesthetics of Self-Consciousnessof Russian Culture, Theory of Literature, and The Analytics of the Artistic: Introduction toLiterary Analysis.

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