Techniques of Satire: The Case of Saltykov-Šcedrin 9783110875928, 9783110126242

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Techniques of Satire

Humor Research 2

Editors

Victor Raskin Mahadev Apte

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Techniques of Satire The Case of Saltykov-Scedrin

by

Emil A. Draitser

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1994

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Draitser, Emil, 1 9 3 7 Techniques of satire : the case of Saltykov-Scedrin / by Emil A. Draitser. p. cm. — (Humor research ; 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. 3-11-012624-9 (alk. paper) 1. Saltykov, Mikhail Evgrafovich, 1826-1889 - Criticism and interpretation. 2. Satire, Russian — History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. PG3361.S3Z64 1994 891.73'3 —dc20 93-43693 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Draitser, Emil Α.: Techniques of satire : the case of Saltykov-Scedrin / by Emil A. Draitser. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1994 (Humor research ; 2) ISBN 3-11-012624-9 NE: GT

© Copyright 1994 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

To my children, Alina, Max, and Svetlana. May laughter never leave your life.

Why has my heart become so sad? It is strange. It is a pity that nobody noticed one honest character in my play. Yes, there was one honest, noble character who acted throughout my play. This honest, noble character was - Laughter. Noble because he decided to step forward despite the low esteem in which the world holds him. [...] Nobody stood up for Laughter. I am a comic writer, I have served him honestly, and that is why I must defend him. No, Laughter is more meaningful and profound than people are accustomed to think. Nikolai Gogol, "On departing the theater after performance of a new comedy."

Preface

This study derives from my longstanding interest in the nature of the comic in satire. For a number of years I have been contributing satirical columns, short stories, and sketches to various periodicals in the Soviet Union and the United States. Therefore, my observations on the phenomenon of satirical laughter are rooted in both theory and practice. Depending on the kind of reader, this book could be read in different ways. Chapter one is not characteristic of the book; its sole purpose is to introduce a Russian satirist less known to Western readers, by presenting a short summary of his life and work. Thus, the general public, by and large unfamiliar with Russian literature or to whom Saltykov's name does not tell much, should read the whole book in the sequence offered. As far as specialists are concerned, the book is aimed at two major groups of such readers: humor researchers and literary scholars. Those humor researchers who are generally familiar with nineteenth century Russian literature and for whom Saltykov is generally known, may want to glance through Chapter one before proceeding to Chapter two and then moving to any of the other chapters depending on what Saltykovian techniques interest them the most. Specialists in Russian literature for whom Saltykov is a household name can safely skip Chapter one and begin their reading from Chapter two. Those readers who are neither specialists in humor research nor in Russian literature, but are generally interested either in satire as a genre or the phenomenon of literary laughter, are not obliged to read Chapter one at all since many of Saltykov's techniques are generic. They can obtain an in-depth knowledge of the making of a comic text regardless of their versatility in Russian literature. Those who do not belong to any of the above groups and picked the book up from a shelf by mistake, should put it back and have a nice day. In this book I adhere to the European, one character-plus-diacritics system of transliteration of the Cyrillic alphabet. For those names and the very few book titles that have traditionally a different transliteration in British-American literature, I give both transliterations in the name index. Also, unless otherwise noted, all italicized emphases in

quotations from Saltykov's work are mine. Chapters two through seven were originally written in Russian and subsequently translated, with my collaboration, by Adrienne Anne Shirley. I thank her for her strenuous efforts to find the most adequate rendition of Russian, especially where Saltykov's text is concerned. Chapter one of this book was written in English, with editorial help from Nancy Moore and Ms. Shirley. While accepting full responsibility for shortcomings of this work, I wish to express my gratitude to any individuals who helped me in the course of this study. I must mention, first of all, Professor Michael Henry Heim of the University of California at Los Angeles, who read the manuscript passage by passage and assisted me in overcoming the differences in style between Russian and Anglo-American scholarly discourse. I am also indebted to Professors Kenneth Harper and Thomas Eekman for commenting on the manuscript in progress. Professors Victor Raskin of Purdue University and Mahadev L. Apte of Duke University have my gratitude for their editorial suggestions, and Professor Alexander Meystel of Drexel University for his continuous moral support. Professor Michael Kreps who read the manuscript in Russian has helped me to put my work in a proper perspective. I am also grateful to my colleagues, Professors Elizabeth Beaujour of Hunter College, Amy Mandelker of the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and Regina Grol-Prokopczyk of Empire State College, who read large portions of this manuscript and offered me valuable feedback and encouragement. My special thanks go to my son, Max, and Marianne Steiger who proofread the manuscript and to Mikhail Varfolomeev who helped to shape it in its final form. I gratefully acknowledge the Research Foundation of the City University of New York grant which enabled me to prepare this manuscript for publication. I hope this book will contribute to the readers' enjoyment of satire in general and Russian satire in particular as well as shed some new light on the magic of the comic in a literary work. New York City October 15, 1992 Emil

Draitser

Contents

Preface Note on citations Foreword Chapter one Targets of satire 1. Provincial sketches (1856-1857) 2. Innocent tales (1857-1863), Satires in prose (1859-1862) 3. Pompadours and pompadouresses (1863-1874) 4. History of a town (1869-1870) 5. Gentlemen of Tashkent (1869-1872) 6. The diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg (1872) 7. Loyal speeches (1872-1876) 8. The Golovlyovs (1875-1880) 9. The sanctuary of Monrepos (1878-1879), The year around (1879), Abroad (1880-1881) 10. In the environment of moderation and accuracy ( 1874-1880), Contemporary idyll ( 1877-1883) 11. Letters to my auntie (1881-1882), Motley letters (1884-1886), Fairy tales (1869-1886), Stories of Posexon'e (1885), Trifles of life (1887), The old time in Posexon'e (1887-1889) Chapter two The problem of the comic 1. Saltykov's fate in literary criticism 2. The confusion of the concepts "humor" and "satire" 3. The double nature of laughter 4. Defining the concepts "humor", "satire", "wit" and "the comic" 5. Methodology and tasks of this study

ix xiv xv

1 3 5 7 9 11 12 14 15 18 20

22

25 25 29 32 38 41

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Techniques of satire

Chapter three Satirical characterization: Non-metaphoric denigration 1. Infantilization 2. "Stupefication" 2.1. Disruptions in the logic of thought and speech 2.2. Disruptions in the logic of behavior 3. Physiologization 3.1. Physical appearance, attractive and unattractive 3.2. Gluttony 3.3. Scatological effects 3.4. Intoxication 3.5. Sexual pleasure

64 66 70 72 74

Chapter four Satirical characterization: Metaphoric denigration 1. The human being as animal 2. The human being as an object 3. The human being as doll 3.1. People as dolls 3.2. Dolls as people 4. The human being as plant

79 79 87 90 91 96 98

Chapter five The comic in language 1. Plays on the forms of words and set phrases 1.1. Neologisms 1.2. The transformation of set phrases and set word combinations 1.3. Grammatical rupture and macaronics 1.4. Repetition 2. Plays on the semantics of words and set phrases 3. Plays on style 3.1. Stylistic dissonance

45 48 51 53 58 64

101 103 103 107 109 110 115 122 122

Contents

3.2. Stylization, travesty, and parody

xiii

125

Chapter six Special cases of the comic 1. Exaggeration and the grotesque 2. Comic names 3. "Apocryphal" appearances of known literary characters

135 135 144 153

Chapter seven Conclusion

157

Notes

169

References

189

Index of Saltykov's works

199

Name index

201

Subject index

207

Note on citations

Citations of Saltykov in the text refer to Saltykov-Scedrin: Sobrante socinenij ν dvadcati tomax [Saltykov-Scedrin: Collected works in t w e n t y volumes] published in Moscow by the "Xudozestvennaja literatura" House (1965-1977). Throughout this book, the first number in parentheses is that of the volume, the second that of the page. Volumes 15, 16, 18, and 19 are split into t w o books; references to these volumes will place the book number (1 or 2) in brackets following that of the volume.

Foreword

Satire has attracted scholarly minds for a long time. Thanks to their efforts, a great deal is known about that strange and fascinating literary animal. Numerous studies trace its origins, explicate its modes of operations, and consider its functions, motives, forms, plots, and typical devices. Although the phenomenon of literary satire has been scrutinized quite extensively, by and large scholars took a macroapproach to analyses of its mechanisms. It is well known that a satirist disturbs his readers by showing the world in a distorted mirror - that is, presenting it as looking strange. But it seems that there is not enough knowledge about the satirist's extra-fine job of bending the surface of the mirror that he presents to a society. His technique still makes it possible for people to see themselves and yet makes them laugh at their own image. While studying the art of satire of individual writers, some scholars attempt close textual analyses of the satirical devices. Few took a step further into analyses of a satirist's use of the power of laughter. One such work is Paul Lewis' book, Comic effects: Interdisciplinary approaches to humor in literature. Others concentrated on a satirist's skill to achieve a particular comic effect in his work. 1 This study represents an attempt to undertake a comprehensive examination of satirical mechanisms and to discuss their comic faculties in the light of existing theories of the laughter. For instance, when analyzing satirical characterization, it is, of course, not this researcher's discovery that a satirist may use a device of presenting a human being as an animal. In fact, satirists have used such a device from the time of the satire's very start as a special brand of literature. It is of greater interest to this researcher to discover how this device contributes to the comic effect as a satirist's conscious objective: to make his readers laugh. This was certainly the case with Saltykov-Scedrin, not only, perhaps, the greatest Russian satirical genius, but a world-class satirist whose creative power has not been adequately presented to the Western reader. One task of this book is to better acquaint Western readers with the nineteenth-century Russian satirist. Since Saltykov

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inherited, directly and through his great predecessor Nikolai Gogol, the art of the comic from many Western satirists from Rabelais to Dickens and used many of their comic discoveries, a study of Saltykov's comic devices in essence is a study of the devices employed by many satirists who are widely known to contemporary readers. The western public's belief that the great works of nineteenth-century Russian literature are invariably somber and even grim is well known and possibly even justified. Indeed, in the great novels of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy one finds little gaiety; excursions into the realm of the comic are sporadic. This is not the case, however, when one turns to works of Russian satire, a genre of the Russian literary scene that has long suffered from a lack of respect. Western scholars sometimes fail to notice Russia's longstanding satirical tradition. In the nineteenth century, critics as radical as Alexander Dobroljubov and as conservative as Vasilij Rozanov noted that Russian literature not only began with satire, but during certain periods was to a considerable extent dominated by it. Indeed, it is well known that modern Russian literature began with the satires of Kantemir and Sumarokov. The imitative, Boileau types of satire were soon replaced by satirical works deeply rooted in Russian soil. From then on, the tailoring of borrowed French and English satirical models to the Russian scene (the literary movement known as "sklonenie na nasi nravy" 'adaptation to our mores') took place in the satirical plays of Lukin, Fonvizin, Kapnist and Krylov. The names Griboedov,' Gogol, Saltykov-Scedrin, A. K. Tolstoy, and Suxovo-Kobylin are enough to remind us of the achievements in the satirical genre in nineteenth-century Russian literature. The genre picked up again in the early twentieth century with the satirical verse and prose of the Symbolists and the publication of the widely acclaimed journals Satirikon

[Satiricon] and Novyj Satirikon

[The n e w satiricon]. Under

the new social order in the 1920s, satire not only survived but definitely dominated the Russian literary scene. The names Zoscenko, Il'f and Petrov, Olesa, Bulgakov, Èrenburg, and Kataev alone are enough to prove the prominence of satire. Russian satire has traditionally exhibited a highly attractive feature which is sometimes missing in its Western counterpart - it is predominantly comic. Indeed, if one looks back to the early days of

Foreword

χ vi i

Russian satire, one finds that practically all major Russian satirists produced works that made their readers laugh. This is the case with the plays of Fonvizin and Kapnist, Griboedov and Gogol, the plays and fables of Krylov, the prosaic works of Gogol, Saltykov-Scedrin, early Cexov, and the verses of A. K. Tolstoy and Koz'ma Prutkov. The tradition of "funniness" in satirical works carried through to this century. The truly biting and at the same time funny verses and stories of Sasa Cernyj, Dorosevic, Avercenko, and Teffi represent satire in the years preceding the 1917 revolution. The same quality is also highly characteristic of Soviet satirists of the 1920s. Not only Zoscenko, Bulgakov, Il'f, Petrov, and Kataev but also scores of minor satirists produced works highly varied in form but all having one common feature - they were all imbued with the comic spirit. Thus, when the acknowledged master of Soviet satire of the 1920s, Mixail Kol'cov, stated that if a satirist's work is not funny it should be discarded as unsuccessful, it was not merely an expression of personal taste but a statement about the Russian satirical tradition. Nevertheless, literary scholarship has paid very little attention to the comic side of the works of Russian satire. There have been very few individual studies on the technique of the comic in Russian literature. Besides a slim volume of Slonimskij's, Texnika komiceskogo u Gogolja [Gogol's technique of the comic], published in the 1920s, in which the author primarily deals with the philosophy of Gogol's humor rather than with textual and linguistic analysis of the phenomenon, only a few works on the subject have appeared. There are several reasons for this. First, although satire is a genre known since the time of Aristotle, satire that evokes laughter has frequently been wrongly assessed. The "funniness" of Gogol's and Saltykov's work led to a misreading of their works by both enemies and admirers. The theoretical basis for dealing with the problem of laughter in a literary work was developed quite slowly due to the complexity of psychological, linguistic, and methodological problems one must deal with in studying "funny" satire. This theoretical basis has been laid in a relatively recent period with advances made by Bergson, Freud, Koestler and other distinguished researchers. Due to the inability of Soviet scholarship to accept the works of the aforementioned theoreticians for ideological reasons (Soviet opposition to Freud is especially notorious), Soviet studies of satire

xviii

Techniques of satire

have shown a tendency to accentuate the ideological. Russian scholars have avoided a more formal approach to the studies of the techniques of the comic in satire. However, the work of satire is funny not because of who is attacked but because the satirist deliberately chooses to imbue his work with laughter. Bakhtin's profound work on Rabelais occupies a special place in studying laughter. However, as Bakhtin himself repeatedly warned, the study of laughter in this work is limited to its carnivalesque forms of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Although Rabelais strongly influenced comic writers of the following epochs - Saltykov is definitely among them - the role of laughter in purely satirical works is distinct from the role of laughter in Rabelais. Therefore, while examining Saltykov's comic devices, references will be made to Bakhtin's discoveries wherever appropriate, but the art of the comic in Saltykov will primarily be examined insofar as it is purely satirical - a definition which undoubtedly applies to Saltykov's work. Saltykov is the least fortunate of the great Russian classic writers of the nineteenth century. His reputation in the West rests primarily on the strength of his family chronicle, The Golovlyovs. Although it is impressive and deserves to be considered a classic of world literature, the novel, one of the gloomiest and most depressing novels about the moral and physical decay of a gentry family, ill represented Saltykov's talent as a comic writer to the Western reader. In his native land the author of The Golovlyovs enjoys quite a different reputation. He is widely accepted and revered by his compatriots as one of the funniest Russian writers of all times - the "Russian Swift," as he is often called. 3 The question is why works so widely appreciated by educated Russians were so difficult to transplant to a foreign soil. One explanation has to do with the fact that the bulk of Saltykov's work consists of satirical sketches and observations on the social and political events of his time. In his excellent introduction to a collection of Saltykov's writings, I. P. Foote (1977: 1) explains that the lack of interest in Saltykov in the West is that he is "too literary for the historian and too historical for the student of literature". Indeed, the satirist himself remained rather skeptical about the value of his work for future generations of readers because it is "so steeped in the present time".

Foreword

xix

He felt that his writings, so full of hints, allusions, and other devices for eluding the censor's knife, could only be appreciated by readers with a considerable knowledge of Russian history. This artistic maneuver, labeled by him "Aesopian (or slavish) language", is also difficult to convey to a foreign reader not familiar with the sociopolitical atmosphere of Saltykov's time. Nevertheless, time has proved him wrong. As has happened more than once in the history of literature, the virtues of Saltykov's works have saved them from oblivion and ensured that time would not erode but rather preserve them. A certain amount of erosion in meaning is, of course, inevitable. But, just as contemporary readers of Swift enjoy his works without knowing the details of British history of Swift's time, Saltykov is widely read and appreciated by his compatriots despite the fact that they are not always able to identify many specific circumstances about which Saltykov wrote. 4 Saltykov was much more than a simple chronicler of his time. As Foote (1977: 9) rightly assessed, Saltykov did manage not just to satirize, but to penetrate deeply into the underlying causes of Russian problems, as no other Russian writer had before and, perhaps, after him. Saltykov, as many of his contemporaries confirm, had a thorough first-hand knowledge of his country; he was not only a satirist ridiculing the shortcomings of Russian life, but also a psychologist and sociologist with keen insights into the root causes of these shortcomings. Maxim Gorky considered Saltykov's works invaluable for understanding Russian history in the second half of the nineteenth century. He once said that Saltykov had an "almost prophetic vision" of Russia. What he meant by this is that Saltykov was able to foresee how Russia was to develop in the years immediately following the appearance of his work. Further historical developments on Russian soil throughout this century have proven an even greater longevity for Saltykov's in5

sights. The fundamental traits of the Russian national character, developed through centuries of oppression, backwardness, and the imposition of violence as a legitimate means of controlling human lives, traits which Saltykov ridiculed so mercilessly, have survived to the present day. This is why his satires are still widely read in his native land. His work demonstrates a profound knowledge of the mentality of the Russian people and a keen understanding of the

XX

Techniques of satire

relationship between state and individual as it developed in Russia. The depth of Saltykov's vision of the Russian nation has made him especially popular in the last twenty years; as deficiencies of the Soviet system have become more and more obvious, Russian liberal intelligentsia have often turned to Saltykov in their attempts to discover root causes of national problems. It is not by chance that in the late 1960s a play version of the Contemporary idyll, Balalajkin i kompanija [Balalajkin and his company] was staged at Moscow's "Sovremennik theater" and enjoyed tremendous popularity among theatergoers; the opportunism and servility as the prevailing traits of Russian social life of the time described in the Idyll were easily recognizable to the Russian public a hundred years later. In 1977, a film based on Saltykov's book and under the same title, Posexonskaja starimi [The old time in Posexon'e], was produced in the USSR and also enjoyed popularity with the public. The new historical developments in Russia have not outdated Saltykov. In 1989, in his film entitled Orto [It] director Sergej Bocarov used the satirical images of History of a town to clearly state that the heritage of tyranny, mismanagement and inefficiency of the Russian rulers of the past has been well preserved by the Soviet rulers, be it Stalin, Khruschev, or Gorbachev. The second reason why Saltykov has had a hard time "getting through" to the Western reader lies in his strength as a writer, in the linguistic complexity of his writing. A supreme innovator and master of Russian language, he enriched the language with many neologisms and expressions. His comic takeoffs, parodies of various styles, and sophisticated use of a rich linguistic apparatus to achieve his comic effects present formidable tasks to the translator. Thus, the topicality of his work and the difficulty of his linguistic style are the two chief obstacles to Saltykov's reaching a Western reader. The situation, however, is gradually improving. Besides The Golovlyovs, his History of a town and fairy tales have appeared in English. The most recent addition to this list is another of Saltykov's masterpieces, The pompadours. The following investigation is intended to draw further attention to the work of this great Russian satirist, and to show Western readers his comic achievements and the virtuosity of his artistry in evoking satirical laughter.

Foreword

xxi

What is true for Saltykov is in most cases true for other satirical writers as well. While this study primarily concentrates on Saltykov, I have attempted to consolidate into a more general approach the task of defining the devices a comic writer may use. The strategy of scrutinizing a satirical work from the point of view of its comic devices may be applied to many other literary texts for the purpose of a similar literary analysis. One will find, then, throughout this study, numerous references not only to Gogol, but also to other outstanding Russian comic writers: Sumarokov, Fonvizin, Krylov, and Griboedov, to name a few. This work is divided into six chapters and a conclusion. Chapter one, rather uncharacteristic for this book, has a sole purpose to acquaint those readers who are unfamiliar with Saltykov's life and works with the various targets of his satire. Chapter two demonstrates how a lack of knowledge about the nature of the comic and concomitant difficulty in assessing "funny" satire led to a considerable misunderstanding of Saltykov's work. In this respect, he has shared, to a considerable extent, the plight of Gogol, possibly the general plight of the comic genius - he is usually either misinterpreted or taken too lightly by his contemporaries. A comparable complaint has been made at various times by widely varying comic geniuses of such distinct and diverse types as Chekhov, Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen. Because there is considerable disagreement among scholars as to the definitions of satire, humor, wit, and the comic, Chapter two clarifies this terminology as applied in this study and establishes the methodology of the study. While in the realm of the comic a work in hand quite often presents a mixture of satire, humor, and wit, the following definitions are suggested and used here as they concern a literary work: The comic is an element of a text that is capable of evoking a smile or laughter (if the overall mood, attitude, or other conditions on the part of a writer and reader do not impede this emotion). Satire is a genre of literature whose goal is not only to point out a social vice but to make it clear that this vice is intolerable; in modern works of satire the comic element is usually present to some degree, but is not absolutely necessary. Humor is a genre of literature in which shortcomings and contradic-

XX i i

Techniques of satire

tions of human nature are exposed, but their presence is shown as an incurable part of human beings that the author accepts as unavoidable. Any attempts to eradicate these shortcomings are deemed fruitless by the author. The presence of the comic element is obligatory. Wit is the discovery of paradox in the realm of words and ideas. In its pure form, wit is ideologically neutral, although it is often associated with satire and humor. Laughter is a physiological reaction to the comic element. Depending on the conditions and purpose of its evocation, laughter varies widely in volume and quality, from a smile to boisterous laughter, and from a good-hearted and sympathetic laughter (humor) to vicious and intolerant laughter (satire). Chapters three and four are devoted to Saltykov's main satirical device, that is, denigration, in both its non-metaphoric and metaphoric forms. Following Gogol in this respect, Saltykov's use of this device was an inspiration to the next generation of Russian satirists. One need only consider Bulgakov's The heart of a dog to see how Saltykov's comic ideas were further developed. Chapter five deals with the more formal techniques of the comic, namely linguistic comic effects. Concepts developed here to assess Saltykov could be used to study similar devices of other Russian writers known for linguistic play, such as Leskov and Platonov. Most special instances of the comic discussed in Chapter six are not unique to Saltykov. Thus, the concepts of exaggeration and the grotesque could be applied to a discussion of similar devices, for example, those in Bulgakov's Fatal eggs or Diaboliad. The analysis of the technique of comic naming, which we discuss in conjunction with a similar device in Gogol's work, could be extended to the comic stories of Cexov or II'f and Petrov. One finds the Saltykovian device of the "apocryphal" appearance of famous literary heroes in Bulgakov's work, as in his story "Cicikov's adventures". One important warning: it is natural for the reader of a book devoted to the comic to expect to derive a direct enjoyment from the samples given of the artist's work. In this case the reader might find himself or herself disappointed. Most of the samples may not seem funny at all. As discussed in Chapter two, "funny" and "comic" are not the same. While all samples of Saltykov's work used in this study are

Foreword

xxiii

comic to one degree or another (sometimes very slightly, as in the case of most of Saltykov's neologisms discussed in Chapter five), it does not necessarily mean that one would find them funny. The reasons for this are numerous and are addressed in great detail in Chapter two (see the section on the double nature of laughter). In addition, in contrast with a humorous work, assessment of the funny elements in satire is difficult when a sample is taken out of context, as must be done in a study. One-liners, for example, encapsulate the comic to such a degree that an elaborate setup is rarely necessary. To enjoy the comic element of a larger text, more information is needed. For instance, in the price list for expected insults which appears on the face of one of Saltykov's characters, Ociscennyj of Contemporary idyll, one needs to know much more about him. Only then can the comic qualities of the list itself be fully appreciated. In addition, one should keep in mind that the term "satirical laughter" does not by and large mean that the work is overtly funny. Laughter in satire is usually not joyful; "embittered" and "poisonous" are the two of most frequent epithets that are applied to satirical works. For this reason, I have deliberately tried to avoid the word "funny" wherever possible.

Chapter one Targets of satire

Alan Thompson's conclusion that "great ironists do not merely use irony: they live ironically", 1 is quintessentially true for Mixail Efgrafovic Saltykov (1826-1889), who wrote under the pen name "N. ácedrin". 2 He was a landlord who was considerably well off, yet he attacked in print the unjust distribution of wealth. A professional bureaucrat for a good part of his life (he rose through the ranks to become vice-governor of several provinces), he wrote some of the most violent satires on bureaucracy known to world literature. Having reached a considerable position in the government hierarchy, he tried to improve, through his personal efforts, a system that he himself denounced and ridiculed as archaic and inhuman. He ardently believed that human life must be devoted to higher matters, yet he tolerated the vanity and worldly pleasures that his wife introduced into their family life. In his work, he showed a sincere concern for the present and future of Russian society and expressed longing for a society where people would create a kind of brotherhood. Yet, he was reclusive and difficult both in friendships and in his attitude towards others throughout his life. Although many of his contemporaries attest to his kindness as a man, his rough manner of expression and constant irritability were more apparent. 4 He owed the success of his career as a government official to his strict observance of law and innumerable governmental regulations. Silent, gloomy, and irascible for most of his life, as many of his contemporaries remember him, nevertheless he was able to sustain a playful mind capable of producing grotesque images, and he produced writing that often provoked fits of laughter. His ideological convictions, along with his personal virtues 5 - his forthright manner, intolerance of lies and human foibles, industriousness, devotion to writing, high esteem for the position of the Russian writer, feeling of civic duty - all made him a satirical institution for a quarter of a century of Russian life. While the course of his life was similar to that of many of his famous literary predecessors, by virtue of his personality and literary

2

Techniques of satire

talent Saltykov became the most prominent Russian satirist of the nineteenth century. He is often called "the Russian Swift", and his works are classics of Russian satire. Saltykov took to heart the demand made by Vissarion Belinsky and Nicholas Chernyshevsky, prominent critics of his time, that a Russian writer be not only destined but obliged to serve society by focusing on the most painful questions of contemporary life. Within the parameters of an autocratic rule that allowed practically no channels for the expression of public opinion, a writer of fiction would create an arena for public debate with his artistic imagery.6 Practically everything that Saltykov wrote was taken directly from life; he observed with a vigilant eye all aspects of the ongoing Russian public scene. There is no layer of contemporary Russian society that Saltykov did not ridicule or mock in one way or another. Statesmen and journalists, noblemen and peasants, liberals and conservatives, members of the newly born middle class and intelligentsia - all were attacked by Saltykov at various points in his writing career. A contemporary critic did not at all exaggerate when he gave Saltykov the nickname Procurator of Russian public life. There is practically no contemporary event of note that is not integrated into his passionate writing. He was born on January 15 (27), 1826, to a family of established gentry stock on his father's side. His mother came from a Moscow merchant family. Saltykov was educated first at home with the help of hired teachers, then at the Moscow Gentry institute, whose alumni included Vassily Zhukovsky, one of the best lyric poets of his time, the playwright Alexander Griboedov, and the poet and novelist Mixail Lermontov. Saltykov continued his education at the most privileged Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo, which prided itself on having educated Alexander Pushkin. Upon completing his education, Saltykov began his government service in St. Petersburg. There, like Dostoevsky, his future political and literary adversary, he participated in the Petrashevsky circle, the group of radical young men who studied and analyzed works of French Utopian socialists St. Simon and Fourier. The ideals of social equality and protest against social injustice discussed in the circle permeated his first novels, Protivorecija [Contradictions] (1847) and

Targets of satire

3

Zaputannoe delo [A confused case] (1848). Saltykov was prosecuted for publication of the latter and exiled from the capital, as both Pushkin and Lermontov had been in their time. He was assigned to government service in Vjatka. The years spent in administrative exile in Vjatka (where another of his great contemporaries, the journalist and memoirist Alexander Herzen, had earlier been forced to remain by the tsarist government) turned out to be very valuable to the young writer. They gave him a profound understanding of Russian life in the provinces. As an official for special assignments in the governor's office, Saltykov traveled extensively around the province, thus acquiring first-hand knowledge about the life of all social strata. Saltykov grasped once and for all the depth and complexity of the Russian situation. Upon return from exile, Saltykov wrote Gubernskie ocerki [Provincial sketches], signing his work for the first time with the pen name "N. Scedrin". The book gained immediate and widespread prominence; its author was hailed as the new Gogol.

1. Provincial sketches (1856-1857) Full of satirical portraits of Russian life, Provincial sketches was a perfect work for this most pivotal time in modern Russian history. The defeat of the tsarist army in the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the ascension to the Russian throne of the more liberal Alexander II brought hope that ways of life that had remained intact for centuries might now be changed. It was a time of increased public awareness and the formation of public opinion through the press; though still censored by the tsarist government, it was now allowed to express a greater variety of views, including liberal and radical ones. The advanced members of society lived in anticipation of a drastic change in Russia's stagnant life. The overall mood of dissatisfaction with life was inviting to satirical literature. One of the most salient issues of the time was the corruption that pervaded Russia's bureaucracy. Public attacks on this corruption became very popular. Provincial sketches is set in a small Russian town, Krutogorsk ("Sharphill"), and depicts the whole provincial bureaucracy, from petty clerk to governor. As did Gogol in The inspector general and Dead

4

Techniques of satire

souls, Saltykov here attacks bribery, the embezzlement of state funds, extortion, idleness, slander, and moral degradation. New in Saltykov's work, as compared to Russian liberal "mud-raking" literature of the time, was his treatment of bribery not as a separate evil but as a result of the entire sociopolitical system. Saltykov depicts practically unlimited corruption, a corruption taken for granted in all official business. With the absence of any structures of legal accountability and an entrenched tradition that all subordinates would bribe their superiors, officials were given free rein to "collect their harvest" in any way they saw fit. In "Pervyj rasskaz pod"jacego" [The first tale of a scribe] from Sketches, the narrator recalls the many tricks used to extort bribes. For example, he tells with admiration the story of a truly inventive briber, a stateappointed provincial doctor. He would demand that local peasants, assigned to help him , hold parts of dissected corpses in their hands. Fearful and disgusted, they would pay the doctor to escape this unpleasant task. In Sketches, Saltykov not only gives a colorful description of the system of bribery and extortion that permeated provincial life, but he also analyzes the bureaucratic psyche and demonstrates that petty officials were themselves victims of the system, that they were forced to "bend the law" in order to survive. Compelled to live on a miserably low salary, Filoveritov, the narrator of the story "Nadorvannye" [The overtaxed], is always half-hungry. Therefore, he is eager to accept his boss's offer to be "always embittered and always follow orders enthusiastically and maliciously." He is even somewhat proud to be nicknamed "the hound." (Saltykov's treatment of human beings as animals as an effective satirical device is addressed in Chapter four, section 1.) Already a renowned writer, Saltykov continued his career in government. With the death of Nicholas I in 1855, he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg and was offered a position as an official for special assignments in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In March of 1858, he assumed the position of vice-governor of Rjazan province, and in 1860 was transferred to Tver', where he acquired an estate and became a landlord of substantial means.

Targets of satire

5

2. Innocent tales (1857-1863), Satires in prose (1859-1862) As a high-ranking official of the tsarist government, Saltykov took part in preparations for the emancipation of the serfs. He succeeded in creating many enemies among the gentry through his unabashed commitment to the protection of peasant interests. His observations from before the abolition of serfdom (1861) through its aftermath served as material for his next two volumes. Nervinnye rasskazy [Innocent tales] (1857-1863) and Satiry ν proze [Satires in prose] (1859-1862) do not represent a new stage in Saltykov's art, but rather they introduce characters other than the low- and middle-rank officials who populate Sketches. Here Saltykov targets those in power, such as Governor Udar-Erygin and General Zubatov, as well as the landlords. He describes the mood and actions at various levels of society and state administration on the eve of the reforms and the initial reaction to it. The writer attacks the ideology, psychology, and social practices of the bureaucracy and gentry. In the story of a stubborn landlady, "Mistress Padejkova" (from Satires), rumors about the forthcoming emancipation of serfs reach the heroine; she can find no better way to express her feelings about the anticipated change in her life than by admitting to herself that she feels like flogging all her peasants. Padejkova strongly believes that "a deep moral and didactic sacrament is contained in a birch rod" (3, 298). She is convinced that "nothing works better to correct the lazy and encourage the ardent than a stroke given at the right moment and sensibly" (3, 296). Ignorant and full of prejudices, the landlady imagines the forthcoming emancipation as a simple role reversal and is horrified that from now on, it would be she who would cook for her serfs, as well as dress and wash them. In Satires, Saltykov included a series of sketches of the "Glupovian cycle" united by the idea that the defenders of serfdom had outlived their time. Saltykov shows their loss of political power, their moral and physical degradation. The name of the imaginary town, Glupov 'Stupidville', illustrates Saltykov's opinion of their attempts to resist history. (The analysis of the device of "stupification" of his characters is given in Chapter three, section 2.) Meanwhile, Saltykov found himself at odds with his class. His roles of attacking the gentry in the press and serving the government as a

6

Techniques of satire

high official finally required him to make a choice. In 1862, he left the government service to devote himself solely to literature. He planned to start his own journal, Russkaja pravda [Russian truth], but as a recent political exile, he failed to receive official permission. He then joined the editorial board of The contemporary, the leading radical journal of the time, edited by the poet Nicholas Nekrasov and the literary critic and publicist Nicholas Chernyshevsky. When the latter was arrested in 1862, Saltykov replaced him as the chief literary critic. He also wrote a column of current affairs in The contemporary under the headline "Nasa obscestvennaja zizn'" [Our social life], and renewed the journal's satirical supplement called Svistok [The whistle] (previously edited by the publicist and critic Nikolaj Dobroljubov), where his sharp satirical columns (or feuilletons, as they were called in Russia) started to appear under his pen name ZmievMladencev [Snake-Infant]. Saltykov found himself in the middle of fierce literary controversy, attacked both by the left in the ultra-radical journal Russkoe slovo [Russian word] and the radical critic Dmitrij Pisarev, and by the right in the Dostoevsky's journal, Èpoxa [Epoch]. (Chapter two, section 1, will discuss the crucial role of Pisarev's famous article "Cvety nevinnogo jumora" [The flowers of innocent humor] denouncing Saltykov's writing as pure entertainment and thus establishing the literary reputation of Saltykov as an "innocent humorist" among most of his contemporaries, a reputation that contributed to the misreading of his work). Saltykov had to deal with conflicts not only with other political groups and journals but also within his own circle. While his satirical writings had made him a "black sheep" among the aristocracy, his membership in the upper class created considerable tension between him and the staff of Sovremennik [The contemporary], most of whom were of middle-class origin. His devotion to the radical cause was constantly under suspicion. In addition, Saltykov's income from his estate had dropped significantly. As a result of these circumstances, he returned to government service; from 1865 to 1868 he was chairman of the treasury in Penza, Tula, and Rjazan. Saltykov again often came into conflict over business matters with his superiors and colleagues; his uncompromising manner and unbending belief in his infallibility finally brought on an official request that he retire from

Targets of satire

7

service. In 1868 he left the government for good and joined Nekrasov in editing Otecestvennye zapiski [Notes of the fatherland], which continued the radical line of The contemporary. Saltykov remained the journal's joint-editor (and after Nekrasov's death in 1877 its sole editor) to its last days in 1884. The main body of his writing was published in the journal, the offices of which became his second home.

3. Pompadours and pompadouresses

(1863-1874)

Saltykov witnessed the "Great Reforms" of the 1860s that abolished serfdom, introduced trial by jury into the Russian judicial system, and provided for the representation of all classes in the local governing bodies called zemstva. Following implementation of the reforms, the ideals nurtured by the Russian intelligentsia in their years anticipating them gradually degenerated. Saltykov's satirical observation of the changes that Russian society experienced in the post-reform time appeared in the form of sketches and essays that later were published in book form: PriznaM. vremeni [Signs of the time] (1863-1871), Pis'ma iz provincii [Letters from the province] (1868-1870), and Itogi [Summing up] (1871). The most colorful representation of Saltykov's disillusionment with the reforms and their superficial effects, however, was a series of satirical sketches entitled Pompadury ipompadursi [Pompadours and pompadouresses]. The book contains a psychological analysis of the higher ranks of administration and bureaucracy as they were affected by the new times. The word "pompadour" proved to be a highly successful euphemism. It permitted Saltykov to avoid naming his satire's target - provincial governors - in a more direct way and made it possible for him to interpret the satire in wider terms. The term implied that membership in the power elite did not reflect any meritocracy but rather resulted from court connections and skillful maneuvering, as had been the case at the French court of Louis XV. The whims of Louis' all-powerful favorite, the Marquise de Pompadour, were often the only reason for appointment or dismissal of the country's statesmen and thus the nickname served to represent the capriciousness of Russian government.

8

Techniques of satire

The euphemism quickly gained popularity and enriched the Russian language: it sounds like a composite of two Russian words that characterize the kind of officials ridiculed by Saltykov: pompeznyi 'pompous' and samodur 'willful and stupid person'. (Saltykov's use of neologisms as an effective satirical device is addressed in Chapter five, section 1.1). Saltykov's pompadours are caught at the turning point of their careers and lives, forced to watch their more fortunate successors handle the new sociopolitical situation. Here the satirist shows his deep understanding of the psychology of provincial bureaucrats, those who "make it" through servility, then use their power arbitrarily. Their high position conceals their spiritual misery. The reforms, though long anticipated, catch them unprepared. With merciless irony, Saltykov exposes one pompadour who is crushed to learn that there is some kind of law that even he must now obey. "Then what are we for, we pompadours?" he asks in dismay. (Saltykov's use of disruptions in the logic of thought and speech for satirical purposes is analyzed in Chapter three, section 2.1) They are all there in Saltykov's satire - those who cope with the situation with the help of evasive demagoguery (such as liberal'stuujuscij 'the somewhat liberal' Miten'ka Kozelkov) and those who stand firm for a more militant course of action (such as the reactionary pompadour bor'by 'pompadour of the struggle' Feden'ka Krotikov). Saltykov, however, makes no secret about the reactionary essence of all pompadours - their main preoccupation is not the well-being of the provinces entrusted to them, but their own privileges and power. His irony reaches its peak in his portrayal of the Utopian "kind pompadour." Here the satirist implies that if only the pompadours would simply stop controlling and administering, the province would flourish - a devastating commentary on the amount of government really needed for the good of the country. In Saltykov's view, the organizing idea of the Russian state machine is not the welfare of the people but the necessity for sheer suppression, for violence against them. In writing Pompadours and pompadouresses Saltykov came to realize that the core of the Russian problem lay much deeper than the mere inefficiency and inflexibility of the government apparatus. Raised on the ideas of the Enlightenment, he grew disillusioned with

Targets of satire

9

the results of the "Great Reforms" of Alexander II and increasingly pessimistic about Russia's prospects for overcoming its inertia and stagnation. He interrupted Pompadours and pompadouresses to explore the roots of Russia's problems in his next book, Istorija odnogo goroda [History of a town], which was to become perhaps his greatest masterpiece.

4. History of a town (1869-1870) The initial idea for this book arose much earlier, while Saltykov was writing Satires in prose. He came to realize that the whole history of Glupov (read: Russia) was "uninterrupted, endless fear", and wrote this "history of fear" in the form of recently recovered archives from the town of Glupov between the years 1731 and 1826. Playing with three "artistic times" - that of his book, that of the historical commentaries which he parodied, and that of the chronicles on which the parodie comments were written - Saltykov was able to talk about contemporary events, disguising them as past. 10 (The analyses of Saltykov's use of such literary devices as stylization, travesty, and parody are addressed in Chapter five, section 3.2). The result is the History, a two-fold satire that simultaneously attacks the inept and oppressive mode of Russian administration and the mentality of the Russian nation. It is an account of the rule of despotic mayors who can be distinguished from each other only by the degree of their incompetence and tyranny. Their actions are made incomprehensible by their complete lack of common sense. Thus, one mayor set fire to thirty three villages in order to get two and a half roubles of unpaid taxes. To show his military valor, another mayor took by storm the very town, Glupov, that he was entrusted to rule. Many mayors seek to indulge themselves in food and are licentious. (Gluttony and sexual pleasure as the main preoccupation of Saltykov's characters is addressed in Chapter three, section 3, where it is discussed as a part of the device of denigration through physiologization of a character). Of special note are such eccentrics as Brudasty, whose head contains a little music box that produces threatening utterances; Prysc 'Pimple' whose head turned out to be stuffed like a sausage; and Dju-Shario,

10

Techniques of satire

who, at the end of his rule, was discovered to be female. Also memorable is Ugrjum-Burceev whose wooden, unsmiling face with jaws always ready "to crash or bite through" makes the town's inhabitants tremble with horror. 11 Ugrjum-Burceev does not accept the existence of anything that he could not count on his own fingers. His ideal is the homogenization of the whole population: he permits inhabitants to marry only if they are of the same height and complexion. (Exaggeration and the grotesque as special cases of the comic are addressed in Chapter six, section 1). Accused by some critics of distorting and ridiculing Russian 12 history, Saltykov insisted that he was not concerned with the past 13

but with the present, and historical form was only a useful vehicle. History is not a satire on a person, on the inadequacy of individual rulers, but a satire on the whole Russian state and the very spirit that pervades the Russian way of life: mismanagement, needless oppression, pointless tyranny. However, Saltykov's prime target was not only the Russian manner of governing. The inhabitants of the town (read: Russian people) are portrayed as unfavorably as are the Glupovian mayors. Unlike the stories in Satires in prose, where the characters are primarily landowners of the old stock who are resistant to change, in History all layers of the town's population cling to the old ways: those who resort to flogging for no apparent reason and those who prefer to see wisdom in the fact that they are flogged. Instead of cooperating to solve the crisis, in times of despair the Glupovians fight each other and drown their own citizens. When one mayor replaces another, Glupovians routinely congratulate and kiss each other and cry for joy, whether they actually like the mayor or not. Saltykov's love for Russia was unquestionable, 14 and he undoubtedly felt pain from the tragedies of Russian life. He made no secret of his contempt for the many national traits he considered insults to human dignity. Wholeheartedly loving Russia, he mercilessly mocked its longstanding history of oppression, its low cultural standards, provincialism, and servility. Saltykov attacked the Russian people for their astonishing passivity toward their own fate, for their meek acceptance of violence and oppression.

Targets of satire

11

5. Gentlemen of Tashkent (1869-1872) As much as Saltykov disapproved of the old Russia, the new Russia also disappointed him. He felt that the old days of ineptness and authoritarian rule had to go, but he was not at all delighted with what he saw replacing it. Observing new phenomena in Russian life, such as the rapid advancement of capitalism and deterioration of the existing class structure, Saltykov perceived that the very quality of life had changed to include a new element of insatiable rapaciousness. No longer would he speak of individual Russians as representatives of their class but rather as representatives of a psychological type. At that time, he was especially preoccupied by one in particular - the predatory type. Cospoda taskentcy [Gentlemen of Tashkent], a series of essays and sketches subtitled "A portrait of mores", was inspired by Saltykov's observations of the tsarist government's expansion into Central Asia in 1867-1868. Tashkent was one of the cities that fell to the Russian forces, becoming a Russian "Klondyke". Controlling newly acquired provinces required a number of military and civilian officials. Thousands rushed to the scene: retired military officers, landowners who had lost their fortunes, and people from all walks of life who wanted to make a fast rouble through extortion and suppression of the local population. Saltykov saw that the new motivating force that he discerned in Russian society with the advent of capitalism was pure unashamed greed. Beyond a rouble, the eyes of the gentleman of Tashkent did not see. All actions of this gentleman were characterized by the satirist in one word: "Zraf" 'Feed me'! In the name of satisfying this base instinct, the gentleman was ready to commit any act of violence, lawlessness, or tyranny. He was an obedient executor of the reactionary government, its "master of flogging". Saltykov treated the city of Tashkent as much more than a symbol of Russian expansionism and greed. It was a symbol of the entire reactionary regime. Saltykov called Tashkent a country that "lies wherever they knock your teeth out". He also ventured a satirical attack on those in Russian society who justified the action in Central Asia as the inherent right of the Russians to bring enlightenment to

12

Techniques of satire

less developed nations. Saltykov ridiculed the very idea of Russians having any right over other people's fate. He mocked the notion of the so-called "special gift" that Slavophiles and the pocvenniki 'those close-to-the-soil' claimed for the Russians. In his attack on the anti-western ideology of the Slavophiles and the messianic theory of "the new word" that the Russian people, presumably, were destined to tell the world, Saltykov polemicized with Dostoevsky and his colleagues grouped around the journal Epoch. With great irony, Saltykov wrote of those who talked about the moral disintegration of the West. The satirist insisted that such a vision of the West was a result of fantasy, not of real facts, for "it is known that nothing inspires fantasy more than the absence of facts" (10, 18). Such opinions, Saltykov charged, could be held only by people who are thoroughly ignorant, like Mitrofan, the central character of Fonvizin's satirical play Nedorosl' [The minor] (1782). (The use of borrowed characters as Saltykov's favorite satirical device is discussed in Chapter six, section 3.) Saltykov warned that this ignorance in Russian life is not an innocent one, that it presents domestic dangers and dangers to the world at large. A self-deceptive and self-assured ignoramus is easily discouraged if things do not go his way. As Russian history shows, at the first failure he immediately blames "mutinies and deceptions" and resorts to suppression. Saltykov asks bitterly: "What else, besides suppression, has our talent produced for the whole of its age-old and quite unchallenged existence?" (10, 13).

6. The diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg (1872) The modernization of Russia, undertaken by Alexander II, had created a social upheaval that unleashed a whole range of human brutality. Saltykov felt that these new developments in Russian life did not significantly change the overall atmosphere of decline; they simply replaced an old evil with a new one. As an aristocrat, Saltykov especially detested the spirit of profiteering, with its concomitant moral corruption and the hypocrisy of playing a progressive role in society while really looking for personal gain. In his novel, Dnevnik prcrvindala ν Peterburge [The diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg],

Targets of satire

13

an attempt to create a new type of novel, "the social novel," Saltykov painted the transitional post-reform period as a time when the ideals of the past were still alive, but the aims of today were vague, and the difficulties of adjustment led many to feelings of emptiness and despair. In a departure from his usual satirical observation of life, written from his own point of view, Saltykov introduces a character who observes events through the prism of his own perceptions and expectations. A certain Provincial ("I", or the first-person narrator of the story), a soft and naive nobleman, who was brought up in the liberal traditions of the 1840s, heads for the capital to lead a dissipated, epicurean life while he still has some funds available. He meets an insolent and pushy landowner Prokop, a man of no aristocratic background, a rising capitalist entrepreneur. To compensate for the losses he has endured in connection with freeing his serfs, Prokop has rushed to the capital to grab his share of fortune in the form of either a railroad concession or a profitable position in government. The two heroes meet business people of shady reputation, corrupt officials, landowners, conservatives, and members of the newly developed liberal intelligentsia. Saltykov shows the true nature of the last by tagging them with a satirical term penskosnimateli 'cream gulpers'. (Saltykov's virtuosity in playing with the forms and semantics of words and set phrases is demonstrated in Chapter five, sections 1 and 2). Despite their liberal beliefs, the satirist warns, the new breed of lawyers, journalists, and scholars does not produce anything good for society, but under the cover of eloquence and liberal phraseology, they just "skim the cream", that is, enrich themselves by justifying the predatory element of contemporary life. Thus, the Provincial who came to the capital in search of new ideals, hoping to see "the advancement of human thought in reality", encounters predators: landlords, entrepreneurs, adventurers, opportunists, crooks, and swindlers of all sorts who have gone mad in their pursuit of "the golden calf". But the Provincial is not only an appropriate observer of the mores of the St. Petersburg society, he is an object of Saltykov's satire as well. This liberally minded and dreamy nobleman of the 1840s gradually succumbs to the prevailing spirit of the time - the common and vulgar attitude toward life.

14

Techniques of satire

7. Loyal speeches (1872-1876) Saltykov further explores the contemporary state of Russian society in a cycle of sketches, Blagonamerennye reci [Loyal speeches]. The book is a satirical chronicle of contemporary life which, while portraying a whole array of characters, focuses on "the new people" on the historical scene, the bourgeoisie who come from ruined gentry families, the lower middle classes, and the peasantry. Saltykov draws a series of portraits of the "new people" of an enterprising nature: the kulaks 'rich peasants', brokers, tavern-keepers, and mortgagers. In public, they all speak sweetly in praise of the cornerstones of the society - the institutions of the property, the family, and the state. In fact, they are committing crimes against these very institutions. Thus, one of the new bourgeois, Derunov, starts his fortune by robbing a deceased merchant. He ruins hundreds of peasants, forcing them to sell bread for next to nothing, and at the same time cheats the state by selling it the same bread at a high price. Derunov makes his own family miserable by forcing his daughter-in-law to commit adultery with him, thus driving his own son to drinking. Yet, Derunov considers himself a pillar of society and protector of "the property, the state, and the family". Saltykov also portrays representatives of the declining gentry who 17

are morally corrupt and sinking further. Such is captain Terpibedov, who under serfdom led a life of luxury but was financially ruined by the reforms. Then, for monetary gain, he began hunting down "unreliable elements", that is, revolutionaries. Two landowners, Gololobov and Golozadov, likewise ruined by the reform, as their 18

names imply, are not much better. (Saltykov's extensive use of comic names is discussed in Chapter six, section 2.). After the reform, Gololobov plans his land in such a way that no matter where a peasant steps, he'll pay a fine to the landlord. Golozadov brings numerous law suits against peasants, driving some of them to suicide.

Targets of satire

15

8. The Golovlyovs (1875-1880) Until the second half of the 1870s, Saltykov had levelled his main satirical attack at the two pillars of Russian society, private property and the state. He referred to the third pillar, the family, only sporadically - in his play Smert' Pazuxma [The death of Pazuxin] (1857), in several of the final chapters of Gentlemen of Tashkent, and in several sketches from Loyal speeches. But gradually, while analyzing the problem of how the new generation had been raised a problem sharpened by the advent of capitalism, with its inevitable clash between the private property and the family - Saltykov began to find it necessary to examine this last stronghold of society more closely. 19 20

The novel, Gospoda Golovlevy [The Golovlyovs], his masterpiece, is a study of the institution of the family as cornerstone of society, in all its intricate interrelationships. Saltykov set himself a complex artistic task: to show the inner mechanism of a gentry family as it destroys itself. Indeed, the novel reads like a casualty list of the Golovlyovs. From episode to episode, the reader witnesses the moral and physical decline of practically every member of its three generations. One by one they try to escape the gloomy and suffocating atmosphere of the "nest of gentry", only to perish in the outside world. Unlike his previous works, which locate the source of family unhappiness in financial ineptitude - landlord families are ruined as they struggle to adjust to post-reform Russia with its new economic conditions - the Golovlyovs, from the family matriarch, Arina Petrovna, on, successfully overcome the new challenges and become richer than before. As Saltykov shows, however, prosperity does not prevent the disintegration of the family; it actually accelerates it. The thirst for greater and greater profits poisons the family atmosphere. The relationship between its members vacillates between contemptuous indifference and condescending nagging. The novel is not only about the family but also about the society that is reflected in that family. Saltykov embodied the most despicable traits of this society in Arina Petrovna's son, Porfirij Petrovic. It is his hypocrisy, the discrepancy between his words and actions, that Saltykov considered a sign of a gravely ill society; he calls hypocrisy its "pus, ulcer, gangrene." If in his previous works the satirist treats

16

Techniques of satire

hypocrisy in comic terms, in The Golcrvlyovs he resorts to psychological ahalysis, especially in describing Porfirij Petrovic, nicknamed luduska 'Little Judas', whose treacherous behavior toward his nearest 21

relatives is a matter of daily business. Saltykov strongly believed in the decisive role of environment in forming human types (as he often noted, "the swamp breeds the demons, not the demons the swamp"), and he shows how the tyrannic rule of Arina Petrovna, Porfirij's mother, made a monster out of her own son. Out of fear, to escape the punishment meted out for even the most minor deviation from the rules prescribed by his despotic mother, Porfirij learns to survive by lying and ingratiating himself with her. Thus, from his early days he is trained in hypocrisy and gradually becomes the embodiment of this human defect (which Saltykov could not forgive in anyone and which stood in direct contrast to his own forthright character). Language is Porfirij's main weapon against everyone around him. He is intoxicated with his own words and believes completely in what he says. Feebleminded, ignorant, and tongue-tied, Porfirij drowns himself in his own gibberish, ceaselessly beating the air with his drawn-out speeches. (An in-depth analysis of the character's language is given in Chapter five, section 4). He is petty, worthless, and deathly boring. A compulsive money-grabber, he combines the most appalling qualities of both bourgeois and landlord. Porfirij believes that he acts toward his family members "as a relative", in a pious manner, according to the law. At the same time everyone lives in fear of him: he dominates them, alternating between trying to win them over and crushing them, one by one, to death. Saltykov compares him to a spider (for that matter, Porfirij is called a "bloodsucker" behind his back), ceaselessly spinning a web with bits of phrases, nauseating in their emptiness and shallowness. Three basic themes of Porfirij's conversations are God, family, and dreams of the household riches. For him, God is either a rich relative personally benevolent to Porfirij or an almighty persecutor of those who dare not follow his own good advice. He often speaks of family feeling, but the only form such feeling takes is that of reproaching other members for not obeying their elders and for violating parental goodwill and trust. Not unlike Gogol's old-time landowners, he constantly describes his vision of a good life in the form of lists of delicious meals. His vision of the outside world is ridiculously

Targets of satire

17

limited, a world reduced to the puny desires of an undisturbed vegetative existence. (A satirical device of presenting a human being as plant is discussed in Chapter four, section 1.4.). Thus, Saltykov creates a character for whom one can hardly find a parallel in world literature. In contrast to gloomy, empty Iuduska who is horrifying in his absolute shallowness and lifelessness, Moliere's Tartuffe, a hypocrite often compared to Porfirij, is a life-affirming and cheerful character. Saltykov thus proves that a comic writer is capable of entering the realm of the tragic. The novel is relatively poor in the comic element that he had considered necessary to his previous work. The Gogolian hatred of life's trifles, the kind that suck human life into emptiness and spiritual death, achieve a tragic depth in Saltykov's description of Porfirij. If it had been treated superficially, Porfirij's hypocrisy could have made him a comic figure more like Tartuffe. One is able to laugh at the latter only because his hypocrisy is conscious - he is aware of what he is doing. The figure of Porfirij becomes tragic because he fully believes that he is telling the truth as he lies, that he sincerely wants the best for another human as he poisons him or her with his despicable touch. Distrustful of his family members, Porfirij drives everyone away, only to exclaime in bewilderment at the end: "Where is everyone?" (13, 261). He tries to fill the void with a voluptuous avarice meant to increase his already considerable fortune at the expense of others. This does not prove to be enough, and, in an atmosphere of hopeless gloom, he finally turns to drink. At the end of the novel, all his relatives are dead or fallen into oblivion: his mother, his father and two brothers, his sons and nieces. Only Porfirij is left lingering on as a "living ghost". A truly tragic figure, he ends his days in a world of horrifying emptiness and cold. As Porfirij reaches the rock bottom of his misery, he goes to beg forgiveness at his mother's grave. There, 22 with only a dressing gown on, Porfirij freezes to death.

18

Techniques of satire

9. The sanctuary of Monrepos (1878-1879), The year around (1879), Abroad (1880-1881) While exploring the principle of family in The Golovlyovs, was also writing Ubezisce Monrepo Kruglyj

Saltykov

[The sanctuary of Monrepos] and

god [The year around], in which he further explored the

Russian institution of state as it functioned during this period of complex

relationships

between

old

and

new,

progressive

and

reactionary. In Monrepos, which is highly pessimistic in tone, he turned to the problems of the gentry. Saltykov attributed its decay and degradation to the landowners' inability to relinquish their numerous privileges and parasitic way of life. Drawing in part on his own experience as a landowner, he showed their failure under the new economic conditions. Saltykov exposed the lack of practical skills, the daydreaming and the absence of any work ethic in their lives, all of which contributed to their inevitable failure. While scorning the gentry, Saltykov expressed true disgust toward the class to which the gentry was yielding its position - the growing bourgeoisie. These "new predators," triumphant in Russian life, were the constant target of Saltykov's satire in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Saltykov had a deep contempt for their thirst for profit as their sole aim in life, and he relentlessly mocked the advent of the enter-

23

prising cumazye 'dirty ones', as he nicknamed the "new predators". T h e writer showed that all three cornerstones of Russian society had fallen victim to the "dirty ones", who were known for "an unheard of theft and colossal adultery". For the "new predators", the state was "just a pie that should be swallowed, piece by piece". Saltykov argued that the bourgeoisie would be bad for Russia even in the long run; unlike the French, they would not create a new Russian intelligentsia, because they were "infinitely ignorant" and unable even to pursue their own good. Saltykov turned again to the problems of the new conditions of the Russian state in his book, Kruglyj god [The year around], a chronicle of social and political life in Russia in the year 1879. Here he introduced dialogues between several characters who served as vehicles for the satirist's v i e w on current events. These included a young careerist, Feden'ka Negodjaev, and his liberal uncle, from

Targets of satire

19

whose point of v i e w many chapters w e r e written. T h e uncle considers his nephew a hero, for "in these weak times, one must possess undoubted heroism in order not to snatch a large sum of m o n e y which is easy to snatch, especially if the sum is really large" (13, 440). T h e r e is also Feden'ka's mother, Nathalie, "this little f o r t y - f i v e year old sugar doll", who has no interest whatsoever in Russian l i f e as long as her estate allows her to indulge in spending sprees w h i l e traveling in Europe. (Saltykov's skill in presenting his characters as dolls or puppets is dicussed in Chapter four, section 3.) W h i l e exposing the opportunism and parasitism of the heroes, Saltykov also ridicules the radical populists for their "walking to the p e o p l e " 'xozdenie

ν narod'.24

I n The year

around,

Saltykov

character-

izes these populists' actions as naive and immature. One of the chronicle's characters, the thirteen-year old Sasa Nenarocnyj, puts on peasant's pants and a false beard and goes to a neighboring v i l l a g e "to agitate people". Caught by the police and consequently f l o g g e d by his father, he " f o r e v e r m o r e refused to get involved in internal politics". For this renunciation, he exemplary

citizen.

is hailed by the establishment

(Saltykov's

device

of

infantilization

as an of

his

characters is analyzed in Chapter three, section 1). Saltykov equally disapproved of the populists' later terrorist tactics. In his v i e w , such tactics solved nothing but only

invited

harsh

repressions of liberties granted by the reforms, such as the r e l a t i v e 25

relaxation of censorship. In 1875-1876 and then in 1880, overworked and ill, Saltykov took t i m e from his strenuous work at the journal and made trips to Germany, France, and Switzerland. Za ntbezom [ A b r o a d ] is a series of sketches that reflect his impressions of these trips. It is both an observation of the behavior of Russian people abroad and a discourse on European bourgeois reality. Just as he was not fond of h o m e g r o w n capitalists,

he

also

found

the

French

and

German

bourgeoisie

repulsive in their self-importance and extravagant self-indulgence. Emblematic of his attitude is the conversation b e t w e e n an imaginary German "boy in pants" and Russian "boy without pants" in Abroad. T h e German boy, well fed and well dressed, turns out to be a docile, smug, and self-satisfied philistine, while the Russian boy, though hungry and often abused, is a free spirit. As Saltykov noticed, the only true difference between them is that the German boy "sold his soul

20

Techniques of satire

to the devil" for money, and the Russian boy for nothing. In the end, both are far from being ideal, both having sold out to the capitalists. Russian capitalists, unlike the German ones, fooled the Russian boy's parents, bringing them no prosperity. Saltykov feels that, nevertheless, the Russian boy is morally superior to the German, because he was not motivated by greed. Thus, some room is left for a final optimistic outcome for the Russians.26 Abroad also relates an imaginary dialogue between "a Triumphant Swine" and "the Truth". The swine stands for Russian conservatism and narrow self-interest of philistine well-being, which, in Saltykov's view, are the archenemies of progress. The satirist exposes the treachery of the self-satisfied who, to gain "the pleasure of lying in their own manure", sold out the truth to the oppressive regime.

10. In the environment of moderation and accuracy (1874-1880), Contemporary

idyll (1877-1883)

A satirist's positive ideal, in the name of which he attacks the foibles of society, can customarily be deduced from that which he portrays as undesirable. This method, however, has its drawbacks. As Feinberg (1963: 254) showed, a satirist might passionately attack some negative social trait yet not be ready to embrace its opposite. 27

Saltykov's ideal is equally vague. He approved of the abolition of serfdom and most of the corresponding reforms of Alexander II, but he found them too mild and the progress toward a more just society too slow. He loathed the existing system and incessantly attacked its present-day shortcomings, but he equally disapproved the radicals' vision of Russia's future. In his series of sketches and essays, V srede umerennosti i akkuratnosti [In the environment of moderation and accuracy], he attempted to discover the secret of Russian society's lack of initiative. T o this end, he took a close look at the new character type that was appearing on the historical scene: "the man of the crowd", the so-called average man, a type that could be found in practically every layer of the society. He exposed the egocentricity of the man of the crowd, his lack of concern for the well-being of society, his obsequiousness and shady manner of doing business, his talent for making a profit on

Targets of satire

21

behavior that was "moderate and accurate". His credo was "Live and get pleasure out of it, don't be concerned about what is going on in the world." It is a kind of collective philistinism that Saltykov hated passionately and treated, to one degree or another, in many of his previously created types, such as the gentleman of Tashkent. This mood of self-protection and the unwillingness "to get involved" in the struggle for progress are at the center of Saltykov's novel, Sovremennaja idillija [Contemporary idyll]. The title is ironic in its judgment of the time, since the period was hardly an idyll from any point of view. The political situation was that of uncertainty for those in power, gloom for those who hoped for positive change, and despair for those who could not see any hope in the radical reaction of the late 1870s and early 1880s. A crisis was created by the intensified revolutionary propaganda of radicals who treated the reform as a worthless, token action. Their dissatisfaction was expressed most dramatically by terrorist action against the regime (several attempts were made - one successfully - on Alexander II's life). The tsarist government met the terrorism with a severe reaction harshly suppressing the freedoms conceded at the time of the reform. The government immediately crushed any trace of dissent. It imposed restrictions on the press and largely rescinded educational reforms aimed at encouraging scientific studies. The autocracy judged elements of society only from the point of view of whether they were loyal or disloyal and applied repressive measures against the latter. In such an atmosphere, the safest course of action was to abstain from any activity lest it be interpreted in the wrong way. Contemporary idyll captures the mood of the time and aims at awakening the civic consciousness of the nation. The two central 28

characters of the novel, the narrator and Glumov, are representatives of the liberal intelligentsia of gentry origin, quite akin to the hero of the Diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg, the "gregarious man", who lacks will. In the realm of social life and ideas, they have no political principles. They are spineless and inclined to unscrupulous compromise and maneuvering. Saltykov shows that people of this type fear repression, because their political reputation at the time of the reform makes them the subject of suspicion. To avoid arousing any thoughts that they are now disloyal, the heroes of the novel decide to "take it easy". They withdraw from

22

Techniques of satire

playing any active role in society and resolve to lead an existence that is cowardly and philistine. To be on the safe side, they decide that by committing an ordinary crime they will provide themselves with a cover to protect themselves from political suspicion. To this end, they contemplate such acts as forgery, the forceful Christianizing of a Jew, bigamy, and the establishment of a bogus joint-stock insurance company. The novel takes the form of a travelogue, but it is patchwork in style, incorporating such genres as the fairy tale, the newspaper report, and literary parody. (Saltykov's plays on style are discussed in Chapter five, section 3.). Through a chain of adventures, Saltykov brings his heroes into contact with people from various social levels of the capital and the provinces, with police officials, lawyers, merchants, landowners, judges, noblemen, spies, press representatives, and people of lower social status. In Contemporary idyll, a satirical attack is aimed not only at the liberal intelligentsia but also at many other social targets. The nascent Russian capitalists are also ridiculed, portrayed as ruthless swindlers, unscrupulous bribe-givers and bribe-takers. The press is depicted as venal, lawyers as corrupt. The latter profession is exemplified in the character of Balalajkin, a thoughtless chatterbox, cynical and ready for anything that might promise him the money necessary to indulge his comforts. The repressive regime itself is 29 represented by the figures of police officials of various ranks. As in The Gotovlyovs, by the end of the novel the heroes are ashamed of their actions. Saltykov had a difficult time accepting the absence of shame even in the most worthless people, and he made their remorse an essential element in his story.

11. Letters to my auntie (1881-1882), Motley letters (1884-1886), Fairy tales (1869-1886), Stories of Posexon'e (1885), Trifles of life (1887), The old time in Posexon'e (1887-1889) On March 1, 1881, the members of the radical group "The people's will" finally succeeded in assassinating Alexander II. The immediate result of this act was a severe cutback of freedoms and reforms by the new tsar, Alexander III. Strict censorship was again imposed on all publications that were suspected of sympathizing with the radical

Targets of satire

23

cause. Saltykov's writing, more than ever, had to resort to circumlocutions which he himself nicknamed Aesopian (or slavish) language. He had used such language throughout his whole career, but now it became all-pervasive. Pis'ma teten'ke [Letters to my auntie], written at that time and devoted to the problems of the day, is especially full of euphemisms and allusions. For example, "auntie" stands for "Russian society" (or rather "Russian intelligentsia"), "silence" for the time of repressions, "ravings" for liberal ideas. The work consists of fifteen letters (their form actually recalls a sketch or feuilleton) written immediately after the assassination and the resulting imposition of repression. While chastising the tsarist government for its harsh police actions, Saltykov aims at the growing antiliberal mood in the country. Most well-known is the third letter, in which he attacks the secret organization of volunteers who fight the revolutionaries. This organization, the so-called Holy Squad, which Saltykov nicknamed "The Society of Private Initiative for Salvation." was set up with the new tsar's knowledge. It is no wonder that the letter was seized by the censors. 30 The period of a relatively relaxed press was over. Saltykov had more and more difficulties with the authorities. Under these perilous circumstances, he wrote and published in his journal a series of sketches that later (in 1885) appeared as a separate volume under the title, Posexonskie rasskazy [Stories of Posexon'e]. These stories aimed to dispel the myth of the idyllic "old times" of serfdom and to attack public apathy and indifference. Finally, in 1884 Saltykov, now the sole editor of Notes of the fatherland, was forced to close the journal. That was a severe blow to him personally: it deprived him of what he considered his true home. Often ill, with family problems that ran deeper and deeper, he grew more and more despondent and even contemplated suicide. He kept writing, however, for the liberal journals The Russian record and The European herald. Here he published his series of satirical essays, Pestrye pis'ma [Motley letters] (1884-1886), and Skazki [Fairy tales]. Although he had begun writing the latter as early as 1869, he created most of them during the years 1883 through 1886; they number thirty two in all. The Fairy tales should more properly be called fables in prose. They portray a society torn by the inner contradictions within and between all its layers and classes. The tragic and the comic are interwoven;

24

Techniques of satire

the Tales show the satirist's sympathy to the downtrodden and his anger at oppressors who appear in all guises: as officials ("A bear in charge"), military men ("How one peasant fed two generals"), landlords ("A wild landlord"), merchants ("Faithful Trezor"), and rich peasants ("Neighbors"). Their images are often those of predatory animals or birds of prey, that is, wolves, foxes, hawks, pikes. (The extensive use of the "zoological motiF' by Saltykov is addressed in Chapter four, section 1.). "The carp-idealist" is about naive, isolated seekers of truth who have Utopian hopes of pacifying predators and despots. Saltykov warned them not to listen to the predators' promises and sweet talk, because their rapaciousness would never disappear. One of his most famous tales is "How one peasant fed two generals", in which parasitic and idle generals, bound to perish, are saved by a peasant, who, afraid of their power even on a desert island, meekly helps them to survive. The events of the 1880s, when reaction hit hard at the Russian middle class and intelligentsia, producing fear and despair, inspired Saltykov's fables poking fun at the behavior and psychology of "the average man" fearful of government persecutions (such as "The liberal", "The selfless hare", "The dried roach"). In one of his most widely read fables, "The wise gudgeon," the fish, which symbolizes a fainthearted member of the intelligentsia, panics when a pike (representing government reaction) approaches - and pays for his panic with his life. "The selfless hare" mocks slavish psychology and submissiveness; an attempt of popular liberalists to change the tsarist regime through modest reforms is ridiculed in "A common sense hare". In 1887, Saltykov published a collection of his sociological essays Meloci zizni [Trifles of life]. In this book, he presented a wide range of characters drawn from various social classes and groups. At the center of his attention was the social psychology shaped by the new reality of Russian capitalism. At the end of the book, Saltykov turned to his own life and work, offering a rather biased and pessi-mistic appraisal of them. He considered his social influence "non-ex-istent" and assessed his personal life as characterized by negligence. He scorned himself for the idealism of his young years and saw nothing for himself in coming years but loneliness and abandonment. Saltykov's last years were marred by illness. He wrote one more work, Posexonskaja starino, [The old time in Posexon'e] (1887-1889), as a fictionalized, autobiographical account of his early years on his parents' estate before the abolition of serfdom. His death on April 28 (May 10) 1889 brought him relief from his suffering.

Chapter two The problem of the comic 1. Saltykov's fate in literary criticism It is well known in literary history that contemporaries may underestimate a writer's works: it suffices to remember the reception of Dostoevsky's works by critics of his time. Saltykov must be numbered among such writers; his creative work did not find adequate recognition in his own lifetime. This of course does not mean that Saltykov was not widely known. On the contrary, there is much evidence of his popularity with both readers and critics: Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Chekhov all recognized Saltykov's talent without reservations. Saltykov was underrated from another point of view. Although his works have been read voraciously for over a century, opinions about their nature have sharply diverged. One group of critics emphasized his satiric bent, another - encompassing individuals with conservative, liberal, and even radical tendencies - denied him the name of satirist, casting him as a mere amusing humorist, an author of entertaining stories. Pisarev laid the foundation for the latter designation in his article "Cvety nevinnogo jumora" [The flowers of innocent humor] (1864), and, to the very end of his life, Saltykov proved unable to free himself from this reputation completely. Renowned for his extreme radical views, an apologist for positivism in literature, Pisarev was a fervid opponent of the "art for art's sake" trend. For him, Saltykov was just another champion of this despised literary tendency, another hidden adversary. Ironically calling Saltykov "the leader of our satirical literature", Pisarev (1959: 190) concludes that Saltykov "may be called with full justice the purest representative of pure art in its new variant". What most irritated Pisarev about Saltykov was his "aimless and pointless laughter" (1959: 191-192). Satirical literature, in Pisarev's opinion, should always be serious. He cites Pisemsky's work as a model for imitation, for it "inspires in each unprejudiced reader a much more thoughtful hatred and serious repulsion for our life's ugliness than do the satires and stories of Mr. Saltykov" (p. 193). The very fact that Saltykov's work provokes laughter strikes Pisarev

26

Techniques of satire

as completely inappropriate when the matter at hand is society's fate. In his opinion, Saltykov's "simpleminded merriment" is the equivalent of thoughtlessness (p. 194). Pisarev was convinced that Saltykov's ultimate goal is that of making the reader laugh. Pisarev states that in order to achieve this goal, Saltykov "not only sets into motion grammatical and syntactical salti mortali, but even intentionally distorts the living and everyday truth of his stories" (p. 191).1 Pisarev cites examples to demonstrate that Saltykov "judges important matters... in an unduly familiar, wanton, and simple-minded way" (p. 198). Pisarev's verdict has an annihilating ring: "To corrupt the minds of our young people with the 'animalistic [nutrjanoj] laugh of Ivanuska the Fool' is just as reprehensible as to tickle their nerves with the resonant senselessness of lyric poetry" (p. 205). The Pisarevian tendency to reproach Saltykov for the "chronic innocence of [his] fruitless laughter" (p. 207) long remained the fashion for much of the literary criticism of Saltykov. In 1873, an editorial in the radical journal Iskra [The spark] bitterly asserted: "Since Pisarev, in his 'The flowers of innocent humor', found Saltykov to be an empty joker, aimlessly scattering the flowers of wit for the sake of laughter alone, without any serious goals, the opinion of Mr. Saltykov in the cyclops' circles devoted to the tendencies of Delo 2 [Business] has remained constant". The spark reminded its readers that, in his own time, even Gogol was considered to be a lightweight writer. Nikolaj Polevoj, for example, found nothing in the works of Gogol "but trivial little tales for the sole purpose of pointless laughter" (Gorjackina 1959: 237). Another ten years passed, and critic V. Kunickij ([1905]: 85) wrote in the journal Vek [The century]: "Who today will not agree with Mr. Pisarev? Who will not say with him that Mr. Saltykov's laughter frequently has not the slightest justification beyond the desire to provoke the reader's laughter at any cost?" It would be incorrect, however, to assert that this attitude toward Saltykov was universal. Such literary critics, as Alexander Skabicevskij, Konstantin Arsen'ev, Evgenij Solov'ev, and Nikolaj Mixajlovskij, among others, came to his defense at various times. But even among his advocates there were those who reproached him for a certain superficiality. Thus, Mixajlovskij (1959: 447) saw "a pointless laughter" in "The first evening", from Stories of Posexon'e, one of Sal-

The problem of the comic

27

tykov's last works. In "On the complete collection of Saltykov's works", published in 1900, literary critic Mixail Ol'minskij concludes: "A strange fate has befallen this writer! There is nothing surprising in the fact that the opposing literary camp has treated him as a quick-witted feuilletonist. It is much more striking that even many of Saltykov's admirers have been unable to grasp his significance" (p. 485). It is noteworthy that Ol'minskij (1959: 12) himself, in another article, upholds Pisarev: "It has become acceptable to refer to Pisarev's famous article, 'The flowers of innocent humor', with unreserved condemnation. The article is indeed curious in many ways. But its fundamental idea is sound." What Ol'minskij has in mind is Saltykov's early political attitudes, his attraction to the "magnanimity of the strong will", i.e., his belief that the abolition of serfdom would change life in Russia for the better. Beginning with Ol'minskij's works, first in Russian criticism and later in Soviet criticism as well, more and more attention was given to Saltykov's world view and less and less to him as a comic writer, as an artist. The case of Gogol was repeated, Gogol (1959: 268), who bitterly claimed that the main hero of his works - laughter - went unnoticed. The comic side of Saltykov's creative work long remained on the periphery of critical and literary studies. As Russian scholar Gural'nik ( 1976:368) observed, Saltykov was seen by prerevolutionary critics "primarily as an eminent publicist; the specificity of his artistic gift was not understood". This holds equally true for a significant portion of Saltykov scholarship in the Soviet period. The vast majority of Marxist scholarship on Saltykov consists of studies that present the writer as a critic of the political system of Russia and bourgeois Europe; they focus on Saltykov's sociopolitical and legal views. Such, for example, are the monographs of Kirpotin, Pokusaev, Levita, and others. Even Jakov Èl'sberg's book Stil' Saltykova [Saltykov's style] pays attention not so much to Saltykov's style as to his "denunciations" and "dethronings". The few works entirely devoted to the artistic aspects of Saltykov's writing suffer from faults of a different kind. Thus, Alexander Efimov's book on the language of Saltykov's satire is dominated by a one-sided, linguistic approach to Saltykov's work; the strategy of the comic and the satirical devices are hardly discussed at all. In the course of the last three decades there have been attempts to

28

Techniques of satire

show greater critical appreciation of Saltykov's artistic side. One might cite as an example E. P. Tolstov's article (1957) in which Saltykov's Aesopian language is examined not as evidence of the truculence of tsarist censorship (something that obsessed Soviet critics), but as proof of Saltykov's inventiveness, of his exquisite artistry. Alexej Busmin's book, Xudozestvennyj mir Salty kova-Scedr i n a [The artistic world of Saltykov-Scedrin] (1987), investigates the various genres that Saltykov utilized in his work, his narrative technique. It clarifies the roles of artistic hyperbole, of realistic fantasy (realisticeskaja fanstastika), and of Aesopian language in the writer's general aesthetic system. Dmitrij Nikolaev's book, Smex Scedrina:

ocerki

satiriceskoj

poètiki

[ S c e d r i n ' s l a u g h t e r : s k e t c h e s of

satirical poetics] (1988), is devoted to the structure and variety of Saltykov's images, the method of their creation; the specificity of plots and basic types of plots, the manner, form, and narrative devices. Yet, the mechanism of the comic has been hardly touched upon so far by Saltykov scholars. Thus, while talking about the "inner comism" of Saltykov's characters, Nikolaev neither defines it nor discusses it from any theoretical point of view. Thus, the specificity of the comic element, Saltykov's mastery in provoking laughter as such, has been treated as marginal by literary scholars. His brilliant technique of making his reader laugh has not been fully explored. The main reason for such a regrettable omission seems to be the theoretical unpreparedness of Soviet literary critics because they lacked access to the modern theories of the comic denied to them for ideological reasons. Published very recently, and previously both unobtainable and condemned by the Soviet regime, the works of Freud, Bergson, Koestler, and other theoreticians of the comic had not been incorporated in Russian literary scholarship. Thus, if many of Saltykov's contemporaries underestimated his significance as a satirist, considering him simply an entertaining writer, other scholars in the Soviet era have been inclined to see him above all else as a virulent denouncer of the tsarist system, and have paid little attention to the comic features of his works. There are two basic reasons for this: (1) literary theory in Saltykov's time had not developed sufficiently to deal with such a complex category as "funny" satire; and (2) the reader's reaction to the comic side of satirical works is a

The problem of the comic

29

complex and contradictory response. Each of these points will be discussed in more detail.

2. The confusion of the concepts "humor" and "satire" What strikes one immediately in reading literary criticism from Saltykov's time is its obvious inability to define a clear boundary between "humor" and "satire". The two concepts are used interchangeably, one is mistaken for the other, the qualities of the one are attributed to the other. The confusion often arises from the fact that, in their textual incarnations, humor and satire are often similar in form and the comic element is often present in both. This situation was not new. A few decades before Saltykov's time, Belinsky (1959: 156-157) had thought that there existed two types of humor, "goodnatured" and "merciless". Things did not improve with time; the word "humor" was treated just as broadly in the articles of Saltykov's contemporaries, where one repeatedly finds oxymorons such as "caustic humor" (Annenkov 1959: 171) "abusive humor" (p. 174), "serious and cruel humor" (Turgenev 1959: 579) and "malicious humor" (p. 580). One must admit that Saltykov himself did not differentiate precisely among such concepts as wit, humor, and satire. In his article "Our social life", for example, he wrote of "the energetic, merciless wit of great humorists like Fonvizin and Gogol - wit related to the object in the name of a whole system of conceptions and ideas, a system standing in opposition to the thing described" (6, 99). This confusion of concepts, this lack of precision in the definition of satire in contrast to humor, is typical not only of Saltykov's contemporaries. Later investigators of Saltykov's work also often obscure the issue by inappropriately discussing "humor" where this is least expected. Lunacarskij (1959: 562), who for the most part has a keen understanding of the nature of satirical work, nonetheless confuses definitions and writes of Saltykovian laughter as being "full of a disdain that is often transformed into humor". Even today humor and satire are often considered to be the same concept, especially in Soviet literary scholarship. Thus, Èl'sberg (1940: 417) almost always treats "humor" as the equivalent of "satire",

30

Techniques of satire

"laughter", and so on. For example, he writes of Saltykov's "humor in exposing all kinds of falsity". Elsewhere we read that "his humor possesses a mercilessness and a consistency" (p. 426). Another Saltykov scholar, Kirpotin (1957: 517), also attributes to humor the characteristics of satire: "Humor may be not only condescending; it includes not only merriment, but also hatred and rage; laughter falls upon and attacks an irredeemable malice which refuses to surrender; in [this kind of humor] resounds the voice of revenge and a call to battle." Quite in the spirit of Belinskij, the critic speaks of an "annihilating humor" and a "conciliating humor". "Of all the forms of the comic, humor is the richest in ideological content," Kirpotin writes (p. 505). He further states that "two opposing points of view on the world's imperfections are expressed with especial force in humor - the tendency to reconcile oneself to that which exists, to adapt to the actual state of things, and a non-conciliatory tendency, which searches for a solution in the radical transformation of those circumstances which provoke hatred and laughter" (p. 506). Kirpotin not only confuses satire with humor, but he also believes one may be a part of the other. Unable to see the general ground that gives rise to both satire and humor (and this is precisely the comic), he writes that humor may be used "in satire, comedy, and in the other main 4 genres - prose, poetry, and drama" (p. 508). Saltykov's comic genius attracted many of his contemporaries and is evidenced not only in the criticism of his time, but also in the opinions of such authoritative admirers of Saltykov's talent as Turgenev and Tolstoy. In an introduction to the English edition of History of a town, Turgenev (1959: 579) wrote: "I saw people, listening to a reading of Saltykov's sketches, [who] often laughed themselves into a colic." "You have...that quality which calls forth merry laughter", wrote Tolstoy (1959: 589) in a letter to Saltykov. While decisively repudiating the opinion that he was a writer with no thoughtful points to make, "as to the comic part", Saltykov recognized that "a whole sea of merriment is necessary for [his] work" (18 [2], 275) and that in his works "the humorous element appears to be the predominant one" (13, 541). Saltykov uses a broad technical arsenal for the creation of comic effects. In his vision, the funnier his satire, the more aggressive it is and the greater its capacity to strike its targets: "This weapon is very powerful, for

The problem of the comic

31

nothing discourages a vice so much as the consciousness that it has been found out and has already given rise to much laughter" (13, 509). In rereading the literary pronouncements of Saltykov's contemporaries it becomes clear that one cause of the misunderstanding of Saltykov's true intentions is to be found in the conflict between the comic, or laughter, and the serious role traditionally entrusted to satire from the time of Juvenal on. The reader's laughter may interfere with the clear perception of social vice, so that a conflict often arises between the work's comic nature and the non-comic (i.e. satirical) task of exposing vice. One answer to this problem lies in the place that Saltykov occupies in the history of laughter. That all-encompassing and life-affirming laughter of the medieval carnival that is manifested in Rabelais's work, as Baxtin (1986: 75-76) shows, had gradually fallen out of grace in changing historical conditions. During the Enlightenment the ambivalence of laughter tended to be ignored; only the element of denial, the satirical element, that which appealed to the mind, was thought worth preserving. Thus, already in Voltaire's satire, laughter is reduced to pure mockery (Baxtin 1986: 130-131). The same holds true for laughter in Saltykov. What Baxtin says about Voltaire fully applies to Saltykov as well - that the strength and depth of his laughter lies in the "radicalism of his denial" and that the positive lies not in his laughter, as is the case with Rabelais, but outside of it, in the form of an abstract idea (p. 131). In the eighteenth century, the "literature of laughter", as it was known at the time of Rabelais, had finally been broken down into two basic kinds: satirical and entertaining. Merry laughter began to be associated only with the latter and came to be considered contemptible and low because it did not appeal to intellectual ideas. By the nineteenth century, the breakdown of laughter into two distinct elements - the denying, satirical one and the life-reaffirming one - had been fully accomplished: on the one hand there was the notion of purely satirical laughter, serious and didactic, "laughterless rhetorical laughter", in Baxtin's (1986: 59) terms, and on the other purely entertaining laughter, thoughtless and harmless. This dichotomy became firmly established in the minds of literary critics. Thus, one of Saltykov's contemporaries, a critic affiliated with the journal

32

Techniques of satire

Kroristadtskij vestnik [The Kronstadt herald] expressed the following point of view: In our opinion, satire, in order to achieve its goals of rousing society and making it examine itself, can never resort to lampoons or caricature. [...] Perhaps it will be objected that the famous French satirist Rabelais also stooped to caricature and exaggeration, but we must not forget the times and the public for which Rabelais wrote. In our time caricature and cartoons call forth the laughter of those whom, perhaps, even the author did not count on whipping. 5 Another contemporary critic wrote that Saltykov "suddenly produces a caricature instead of satire [!]: reality reveals fantastic lines which indeed provoke a smile, but at the same time weaken the satire's meaning". 6 Hence, these critics underestimated Saltykov not out of any desire to disparage his satiric talent, as is claimed by Soviet literary criticism till the early 1970s, but for mere "objective" reasons. As Russian scholar A. A. Zuk (1976: 149) points out, the difficulty Saltykov's contemporaries had in defining the essence of his works is explained by how novel many of his creative devices were, how impossible it was to contain them within the bounds of the "naturalist" satires that preceded him. At issue here, therefore, is the contradictory nature of the phenomenon of "funny satire". Those who consider laughter and merriment inappropriate to any treatment of society's vices (e.g., Pisarev) often deny to this phenomenon the name of satire. Laughter often dissipates high civic spirit and therefore seems without aim. Thus, it does not always function productively in satire. When and under what conditions does laughter become unproductive?

3. The double nature of laughter Let us look at the nature of laughter as represented by various theorists - psychologists, philosophers, and critics of literature and art. The problem of laughter is complex. There exist not only several kinds of laughter [according to Propp (1976: 124)], for example, there

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33

is mocking, malicious, cynical, joyful, kind, ritual, and rakish laughter], but also a number of intraspecific nuances. It is also necessary to distinguish between laughter as a reaction to a comic work and everyday laughter. All existing theories of the comic can be conditionally divided into three basic groups: theories of perceived dissimilarity, social-behavioral theories, and psychoanalytic theories (Cf. Raskin 1985: 31; Levine 1969: 2). Here they will be described briefly; in the following chapters they will be discussed at greater length. To the first group belongs, for example, the theory of incongruity. Kant (1790: 177) first argued for this theory with his comment that laughter derives from the sudden transformation of strained expectation into nothing at all. Schopenhauer (1819: 76) expresses this at greater length; the reason for laughter, he asserts, is the sudden perception of some commonality in two incongruous things. Laughter is the expression of this incongruity. Adherents of this theory use such terms as the mixing of the unmixable, incongruity, and paradox. Along with an emphasis on the inappropriateness of the component elements of the comic whole, these theorists note that disparate components turn out to be in some way connected or synthesized, that they give at least the impression of similarity. Freud (1905: 41) commented that for a long time the popular definition of the capacity for joking was the ability to find a similarity between dissimilar things, i.e., to uncover their hidden similarity. One can conditionally relegate Bergson as well to the incongruity-theory group. Bergson considers all laughter to be a manifestation of a subconscious corrective force, a signal that the infinite flexibility of the ideal system, by which the human being adapts to society or to the environment, has been violated. Thus, according to Bergson, a person who walks down the street lost in thought and trips on a stone produces a comic impression governed by the law that laughter signals a deviation from the norms of human behavior (in the given case the appropriate reaction to obstacles). To the second group - social-behavioral theories of the comic - can be assigned those theories that see the comic as grounded in the feeling of superiority, hostility, maliciousness, or aggressiveness: the comic, then, is an attempt to degrade the object of laughter. Thomas Hobbes, who is considered the founder of this theory of superiority,

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states: "Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is caused... by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves" (Woodbridge 1903: 156). Modern adherents of this theory add nothing essential to it; rather, they apply to it a modern, psychological knowledge of human nature. Thus, Koestler (1964: 54) claims that this feeling of superiority (genuine or imagined) arises from the human need for self-affirmation. By degrading our rivals or our enemies, we exalt ourselves. More often than not, we experience this laughter-provoking superiority on a subconscious level, through our identification with a positive character or with the author, both of whom stand in a superior position to the character targeted for ridicule. These critics also argue that laughter comes into full force only when the object of mirth is some eminent personage (e.g., Bain 1876: 257). The loudest laughter resounds when an idol is thrown from its pedestal; the higher the pedestal and more degrading the fall, the louder the laughter. The importance of the character exposed to ridicule can be defined according to a formal position in a social hierarchy (monarchs, ministers, politicians), or in a spiritual or intellectual one (priests, philosophers, authors, scholars). Naturally, the particular status of the object of mirth varies from society to society and from epoch to epoch. At the same time one may laugh at the depiction of a lower stratum as well. For decades, sleepy street sweepers, drunken plumbers, and inefficient factory guards served as targets of the official Soviet satirical magazine, Krokodil [Crocodile]. Various versions of the third type - psychoanalytic theories of the comic - were promoted by Spencer (1863), Kline (1907), Gregory (1924), Eastman (1937), and others. The most famous is that of Freud, which goes significantly farther than the others. The basic tenet of these theories is the belief that laughter results from the discharge of intellectual, nervous and psychic energy, through which - after a battle, a tense situation or one of constraint - the psyche's stability is achieved. Adherents of the "discharge theory" assert that people in modern society are constantly under the pressure of imperatives - to be logical, to think clearly, to impart sense to one's speech. According to Freud (1905: 174), it is much easier to deviate from a line of thought once begun than to adhere to it. When logic is sharply

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35

violated, the tension of this constant internal effort to restore logic is discharged in laughter. Nevertheless, on the whole, while the history of research into the nature of the comic is full of stubborn battles of opinions, with loud declarations and counter-declarations, examples and counter-examples, the theories that belong to these three groups are not all that contradictory. Much disagreement arises from mutual misunderstandings, from a failure to grasp another's theoretical position, or from a confusion in terminology. All three approaches to the essence of the comic give full and adequate descriptions of this complex phenomenon; they just examine it from different angles. More often than not, these theories complement each other rather well (Raskin 1985: 30). In investigating the problem of the comic in Saltykov's work, a glance at the theoretical assumptions that Russian literary scholars bring to this problem is instructive. The position taken by the critic Kirpotin (1957: 500) is typical: Laughter's relation to the class struggle, the moving force of history, to the sociopolitical problems of the century, advances one question to the fore when evaluating laughter as an aesthetic category, as a means for creating art: the question of whether the laughter contains within itself an element conciliatory with the depicted reality or invokes an irreconcilable, hostile relationship with it. Further, Kirpotin (p. 501) writes: Thoughtless mockery cannot serve as the basis for satire. Long noses, fat stomachs, deformed accents in pronunciation, slaps in the face, brawls, double entendres [...] invariably provoke laughter both on the stage and in books - this was and is well known to authors of all times and peoples, but these devices lead to the ridiculing of the externals, to scoffing, not to satire. It is true that mockery in and of itself is not the basis of satire. But with regard to the comic devices mentioned by Kirpotin, these are invariably present in a multitude of classical satirical works from Aristophanes to the present day. The most frequently used device for

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creating satire in Saltykov's work is that of denigration, and the mockery of physical, external inadequacies plays no minor role in this device. Not rare, either, are slaps in the face and brawls. It is enough to recall the oft-beaten Ociscennyj in Contemporary idyll whose face bears the menu of how much he will charge for each type of physical abuse. In Saltykov's works one finds both sexual allusions and double entendre of all kinds, which will be discussed in detail later in this study. The ridiculing of a character's external inadequacies may thus be just as productive a satiric device as the ridiculing of inner ones. The difficulty of the problem of laughter in literary works derives as well from the complexities of this expression of human emotion. As laughter sometimes confuses and distracts one from the message, one and the same comic work may provoke laughter in one cultural context and leave people indifferent in another. Laughter cannot be predicted from environment to environment and epoch to epoch: it often depends on a perception of the reality and understanding the problems of a given place and time. A few literary works, however, have passed the test of time although the accent of laughter may have shifted. Centuries have passed, and the reader still laughs at the escapades of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, even if we do not know that Cervantes wrote his novel as a parody of the chivalric romance. The complexity of this phenomenon derives from the conflict between laughter and its target which is not always completely clear (Gogol's character in The inspector general exclaims, "Nad kem smeetes'? Nad soboj smeetes'" ["Who are you laughing at? You're laughing at yourself!"], with the salient task of satire - that of exposing the concrete social vices and inadequacies. As a result, various readings of satire arise. One section of the reading public sees "funny satire" as the most extreme, hostile type of criticism, another, on the contrary, tends to consider this kind of satire close to humor. The divergence can be explained by the peculiarly ambiguous nature of the expression of human emotion in laughter. Aggressive laughter accomplishes two functions: it both sublimates hostility and, at the same time, discharges it. This symbiosis of aggression and catharsis, the struggle in laughter between two subconscious principles, is not always predictable nor always within the author's control; thus various and frequently conflicting perceptions of satire arise. If the reader's reception of a text is marked by a preponderance

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of catharsis over aggressiveness, then the work will be perceived as humorous; if, on the contrary, a more sharply expressed aggressiveness is present, the comic text will be perceived as satiric. Satire becomes a form of aggression which takes on an aesthetic form and directs itself against the moral defects of society or of society's representatives. Thus, "funny satire" is the apogee of both catharsis and aggression. Whether a given text is perceived as satire will be determined by the factors that prevail in the reader's consciousness: the psycho-social principles dominating a given society at a given time on the one hand, and the specifics of one's personal perception (the emotional and socio-psychological traits of one's own personality), on the other. It is well known that Gogol's The inspector general met with various responses. If some of the public saw it as a desecration of Russia, Tsar Nicholas I felt no sedition in it; by his own admission, he simply laughed from the bottom of his soul. (On the evidence of his contemporaries, however, he later came to his senses and announced: "Everybody was stung [by the play] and most of all myself" (Vol'f 1877: 43, 50; quoted in Vojtolovskaja 1971: 247). Such ambiguous, frequently unforeseen reactions to "funny satire" characterized the public reception of several other works as well. Laughter in the novels of Il'f and Petrov, The twelve chairs and The golden calf, those satires of the Soviet petty bourgeoisie and the Russian intelligentsia (not of Soviet power itself, as a number of scholars have shown: e.g., Bolen 1968: 2; Belinkov 1976: 195), at the time of their first presentation provoked a prohibition to reprint these works. The correlation between laughter and satire is not always easy to assess even today. Thus, theater critic Milton Shulman of London's Evening standard thinks that medieval monks were right when they cautioned against the corrupting influence of comedy on the population. Shulman was outraged by Brecht's comic representation of Nazism in his Career of Arthur Ui\ he claimed that by presenting Hitler as a small-time mafioso, Brecht misinterpreted the history of the fall of Weimar Republic "as crudely as [had] Goebbels's propaganda, a trick degrading both to the victims of Nazism and to Western democracy". 9

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4. Defining the concepts "humor", "satire", "wit", and "the comic" Before one begins the investigation of the comic in Saltykov's work, it is necessary to try to define what is meant by "humor", "satire", "wit", and "the comic". As we have already seen, the literary theory of Saltykov's time was not yet ready to suggest any acceptable formulation of these concepts. Today, equipped with tools of modern criticism, an attempt can be made to answer this question with a certain degree of definitiveness. It should be approached with a great deal of care: as has been already said, no universal, generally accepted theory of the comic exists. Theories either repeat their predecessors or simply complement each other. Regarding the comic, it is possible that the very goal of creating a universal theory may turn out to be unfruitful. Clearly Dante's Divine comedy, Shakespearean comedies, such as Twelfth night and Neil Simon's Rumors have little in common. This general theoretical instability is also evident in the status of the basic terminology. In his introduction to Semantic mechanisms of humor Victor Raskin (1985: 8) remarks: Still another blow humor deals to its researchers is the terminological chaos created by an abundance and competition of such similar and adjacent terms as "humor", "laughter", "the comic", "the ludicrous", "the funny", "joke", "wit". While most authors, if they use more than one of these or similar terms, try to distinguish between or among them, often offering a taxonomy of humor based on those distinctions, there is no terminological agreement among different researchers, and one man's "humor" may be another man's "laughter", and so on and so forth. Because of the terminological confusion in current scholarship on the comic, those working definitions have been chosen that most clearly delimit the concepts related to satire. The complex interrelations of such conceptions as humor, satire, and wit seem confusing partly because, more often than not, scholars use them without paying attention to the fundamental communicative qualities of distinct genres. Any literary work is a means of communication between the writer and the reader; one may therefore

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attempt to discern the goals of each act of communication, the sphere of its action, the methods and means to which the author resorts, and, finally, the audience to which the author appeals. Scholars have noted that humor, satire and wit can be differentiated on the basis of several features: the author's internal motivation, the domain of the author's focus, the fundamental method of affecting the reader, and no less important - the type of reader to which it appeals. 10 The author of a humorous work attempts to reveal contradictions, eccentricities, or weaknesses in human nature (such as conditions, moods, habits, or inclinations). The humorist's approach is that of an observer, an empirical scientist. His or her audience consists of readers capable of dealing sympathetically with weak or incongruous sides of human nature. It is as if the author-humorist were inviting us all to laugh together at life's absurdities. Satire's act of communication is different. In the focus of the satirist's observation are the morals and mores of society; he or she turns the attention of the public to its defects and corruption. Satire's method is that of the caustic accentuation of social vice. The readers to whom the satirist turns are, primarily, the more conscious members of society. The satirist attempts to create and by writing contributes to an intolerance of vice. The mocking of vice amounts to its punishment. Wit as such deviates in essence from humor and satire (although both satirists and humorists may resort to it). Neither the investigation of human psychology (as in humor), nor the denunciation of vice (as in satire) motivates wit; rather, wit attempts simply to illuminate ideas and words from an unusual angle. In its pure form, wit counts on the educated reader interested in the play of words or ideas, and one who derives an aesthetic pleasure from such play (punning for the sake of punning, playing with words without any clear-cut goal, that which Russians call radi krasnogo slovca 'for the sake of the beautiful word'). When wit is integrated into a humorous or satiric work, however, it takes on meaning, becomes ideologically charged, and is applied to the object of mockery, whether good-natured (as in humor) or disparaging (as in satire). If satire is often confused with humor, and humor with wit, then it becomes crucial to discover that particular element of a literary text that most easily yields to identification. This is the comic element.

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It is a more reliable element for investigation in that, textually perceived, it allows for stricter observation than does laughter. To a large degree, one expects humor to be funny. It is not mandatory that wit call forth laughter; a quick, new, unexpected turn of a phrase or idea gives the reader an aesthetic pleasure that may or may not express itself physically in a chuckle of satisfaction. At the same time, wit and the comic often use the same devices. The element of the unexpected is important for both; both make use of paradox. Humor employs the inconsistency of human behavior, whereas pure wit focuses on the paradoxical nature of abstract ideas or on a play on words. More complex is the comic's role in satire. While Shakespearean tragedies, such as Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, contain the comic element, not all satires do. After all, the satirist's inner motivation (the correction of social vice), his or her focus (morals and mores), or the method of affecting the reader (the turning of attention to vice) do not necessarily call for the comic. The traditional satires of Juvenal, for instance, burned with pathos and rage but were poor in the comic element. Only in later developments within the genre did the comic penetrate into satire, from which was born the complex phenomenon of "funny satire". The laughter provoked by a work of humor and satire is the psychological effect of comic elements on the human psyche. Just as a certain critical amount of uranium is necessary to produce an atomic explosion, so only a certain saturation of a text with the comic element can provoke a smile or laughter. If Bakhtin (1979: 192) speaks of "the traces of laughter" in the work of Dostoevsky, what he means in fact is that the comic element is present in the text but is weak and dissipated; it does not detonate into laughter. Saltykov's early prose, which was less saturated with the comic element than his later works, provoked no adverse criticism in the journals of his time. His Provincial sketches were greeted with great enthusiasm. Saltykov was valued as a critical writer whose works adhered to the spirit of the naturalist school. The reason for this is not only that almost to the end of 1860 he "adhered to the moderation of satiric portrait", in the expression of Zuk (1976: 156), nor that, as critics maintained, after Provincial sketches there occurred a period of an essential enriching of "the elements of hyperbole and the

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fantastic which usually goes with it" (Busmin 1959: 512). In fact, a brief glance at his works of those years (Innocent tales, Satires in prose) is enough to see that fantastic elements are quite rare in them; as to hyperbole, it is generally inherent in the comic and occurs in almost all of Saltykov's works. The reason for this change in Saltykov's creative work derives from the noticeable increase in the degree of "comic saturation" in his texts.

5. Methodology and tasks of this study

Within the boundaries of this investigation, the comic is that which has the potential to provoke laughter. This is done above all from the vantage point that the comic is more easily identified and may be related to stable categories. Laughter, on the other hand, as it was already mentioned, depends by nature on factors some of which lie within the literary text and some outside its boundaries. The comic element in the literary text is the basic trigger for laughter. For the psycho-physiological reaction of laughter to take place, however, a whole series of accompanying factors must be examined, the most important of which is the element of recognition. At the same time, laughter may derive from comic devices that do not require recognition. For example, the repetition of the same series of sounds may create a comic effect. Situations and characters become funny through the creation of a certain kind of imagery; the author's use of certain technical devices which give the text a comic coloration. At the same time, these devices by themselves do not guarantee a comic effect. As the work of Koestler and others has shown, the devices themselves can be neutral; the successful effect of a device is due to the emotional climate created by the author. Koestler goes so far as to assert the presence of three closely interrelated, adjacent spheres - the comic, the poetic, and the scientific - that use the very same devices. For example, a poetic metaphor using an animal, the denigrating comparison of the human being to an animal in a comic work, and the observation of animals in order to gain a medical understanding of human physiology - all this, for Koestler, is one and the same device of transferring animal qualities to human beings. In the appropriate

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emotional climate, this method can be poetic, comic, or scientific (Koestler 1964: 27). A comic work should contain some signal that prepares the reader for the comic reception of a text. For clarity's sake, let us take an everyday situation of encountering a dog. If the dog throws itself at us and wags its tail, one instinctively understands that it does not really intend to attack us: even though it may show its teeth, growl, or attempt to bite, one knows this is just a game. The same thing happens in a literary text. The author usually gives the reader some hint, some clue as to how the work should be received. Like the signature of a musical key, this signal properly attunes the reader. There are many types of authorial hints such as an epigraph from another comic work or a funny name. Sometimes a hint can take the form of the mere reputation of an author as satirist or humorist. When one comes across a text by Art Buchwald or Woody Allen, one subconsciously attunes oneself to a comic perception of the text. If such a signal is not expressed in a sufficiently clear way or surfaces in a text otherwise none-satirical, misunderstandings may occur like those described by Victor Sklovskij (1922: 58). According to him, Blok's famous poem "Neznakomka" [The stranger] was perceived as a satiric work and accepted for publication in the satirical journal Adskaja poeta [The hellish mail]. In this poem, the phrase "drunkards with rabbit-eyes" may have served as the misinterpreted signal. Satire's use of the comic may thus throw the reader off: it both wags its tail and bites. This is why reactions to "funny satire" can be ambivalent. In selecting texts for this study, the basic criterion has been the degree to which they are saturated with the comic element. As demonstrated by the critical response of many of his contemporaries, Saltykov was often seen as a "funny" writer; elements of comedy are found in almost all of his works. Those works that concentrate these elements to the highest degree will be at the focus of this study. The basic genre of Saltykov's work is the satiric sketch, often either completely plotless or with a purely conventional movement of the plot. For example, in both History of a town, in which the episodes are not even chronologically connected, and Contemporary idyll, where the adventures of the heroes are subordinated to chance, plot is nothing but a convenient way of satirically illuminating a particular

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social vice. In this sense Saltykov's satire is typical. As Highet (1962: 206) noted, a satirist is often much more interested in exploring one and the same satiric idea from various takes than in developing an intriguing plot. Because, by gift and disposition, the satirist does not perceive the world as ruled by common sense and reason, gaps in plot and its inconsistencies are quite frequent in his or her work. By the same token, unlike protagonists in serious prose who usually undergo certain development and change, satirical characters either do not change at all (the satirist's message: vice is incorrigible!) or undergo instantaneous transformations (more often than not for the sole purpose of emphasizing a satiric idea). As a result, satirical works often take the form of a series of loosely connected episodes which can be shuffled without much loss of satiric effect (p. 208). Events in satire are therefore often strung together as a matter of convenience; such as, for instance, a satirist's employment of the principle of the travelogue. The classic examples of this are Swift's Gulliver's travels, Gogol's Dead souls, or Il'f and Petrov's The twelve chairs. Saltykov's various devices have been studied by other scholars. For example, Busmin (1987: 47) discusses Saltykov's dolls and puppets as a device of romantic poetics. The doll, according to Busmin, represents a person who is led by a foreign inhuman force that controls people and turns them into marionettes. Efimov's book, Jazyk satiry Saltykova [The language of Saltykov's satire], analyzes linguistic innovations of the satirist. Some of Saltykov's main satirical concepts are also discussed by Nikolaev in his book, Scedrin's laughter. Scholars, however, have hardly attempted to see how Saltykov's satirical devices contributed to his oft-admitted efforts to make his work invariably funny. How exactly did he go about creating that "sea of merriment" that he often spoke of, about making his readers not only despise his characters but laugh at them as well? In the following chapters, Saltykov's work will be examined bearing in mind that the tasks of satire and those of the comic often coincide, and the very devices Saltykov used as a means of satirical denunciation, as is often the case with satirists, are comic from the point of view of reader's perception. In view of this approach, some of Saltykov's general satirical concepts discussed by scholars will be

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reexamined from the point of view of the comic. For instance, the main opposition "humans-nonhumans", suggested by Nikolaev, is seen in this work as both the satirical and the comic concept of denigration that is realized in Saltykov's work on a large scale of artistic devices, described in detail in Chapter four. In making laughter an inalienable part of his work, Saltykov followed Russian tradition. In Russian literature, invective satire occurs primarily in medieval literature (in individual passages from the Life of Awakum, for example, or in Ivan the Terrible's correspondence with prince Kurbskij). The history of modern Russian satirical literature begins with Kantemir's invective satires (written between 1729 and 1739, published in 1762). Since the second half of the eighteenth century, however, the Russian tradition has been predominantly that of mocking satire. Its foundation was laid by Fonvizin and the Russian satirical journalists of his time (Novikov, Culkov, and others). Since that time, pure accusatory satire has been quite rare in Russian literature; the most significant satirical works - Fonvizin's The minor, Kapnist's Slander, Griboedov's Woe from wit, and Gogol's The inspector general - have invariably blended laughter with denunciation. However, Saltykov not only combined the achievements of Russian comic literature but also creatively assimilated and grafted onto Russian soil the poetics of comic West European satirists: Swift, Rabelais, Cervantes, Dickens, Diderot, and others (Èl'sberg 1940: 110-126). Thus, a comprehensive study of his art as a satirist allows one to draw some conclusions as to the mechanisms of literary satire in general. In fact, this study of Saltykov's techniques may be considered a study of typical devices that many satirists employ. Most often one finds that many of Saltykov's devices are generic for the "mercilessly mocking," Swiftian type of satirists. Hence, the task is to evaluate, in terms of existing theories of the comic, the ways in which such satirists make their readers laugh, to unveil the working tools of a comic writer and, by doing so, to gain insights into that special creative act - the act of making readers laugh.

Chapter three Satirical characterization: Non-metaphoric denigration

Although Hobbes is considered to be the source of the theory of the subject's superiority to the comic object (see Chapter two), long before him Plato (1975: 47-50) noted that malice or envy lies at the root of the comic and that we laugh at people who have fallen into misfortune - because this has happened to them and not to us. For Aristotle, the subject of comedy is "men worse than we are"; and "the ludicrous mask is something ugly or distorted" (Telford 1961: 4, 10). Cicero (1942, 2: 58), as well, considered the comic to be closely bound up with low or deformed phenomena. A modern theorist of the comic, Albert Rapp, suggests that the oldest form of the comic is that of mockery. Rapp argues that prehistoric man must have laughed at the failures of others perhaps because these failures evidenced an opponent's defeat in the struggle for survival. The next phase in the development of laughter was mockery as a form of displacement, as a way of sublimating a physical struggle; this was also a way in which the people who had been defeated, if not reconciled with their defeat, could dispute the enemy's victory. Laughter also served as a cause for conflict, as a challenge to battle (Rapp 1951: 42-43). The theorist Ludovici (1932: 74) went even further in emphasizing the hostile nature of laughter. Working from Darwin's comment about a hidden design behind our showing our teeth when we laugh, Ludovici concludes that all laughter expresses a superiority in adapting to the environment. Most modern theorists of the comic, however, are not inclined to see laughter as a simply hostile phenomenon. First of all, they assert, a person of our time is capable of laughing only at the rather insignificant misfortunes of others. Second, over the centuries civilization and culture have come to restrain open displays of hostility. These arguments make sense in some, but not all, instances. Most theorists of the comic (Bergson 1970: 398, for example) indicate that the inadequacies that trigger laughter must be small ones; that failures that become an object of laughter must be less than lifetreatening (e.g., Rapp 1951: 37).1 In practice, these conditions for the

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comic do not always hold. "Dark" humor takes serious, even incurable illness as an object for joking. In contemporary Russian urban folklore, there are anekdoty 'jokes' about heart failure, dystrophy, and physical disfigurement. Jokes about people condemned to death - "gallows humor" - have been popular since the Middle Ages. Under certain circumstances, death itself may become funny (see Chapter six, section 1). Bain and later Bergson describe the sphere of the comic more exactly. They suggest that laughter arises only when conditions do not provoke other intense emotions (e.g., strong anger or deep compassion). The evocation of certain emotions depends, however, not only on conditions, but also on the moral system a given group uses to evaluate a situation. For example, in the famous passage from Gogol's Taras Bul'ba (chapter IV), Dnieper Cossacks drown a group of Jews amidst general approving laughter. At issue here are not conditions, but the Cossacks' attitude toward a group "outside" their moral structure - the Jews. The Cossacks' laughter would most likely not have arisen if the victims had not been Jews but domestic animals - dogs or, better yet, horses. In the latter case, compassion would have blocked any comic perception of the event. The Cossacks' merriment results from the fact that one group feels overwhelmingly superior to another, in a way that transgresses the bounds of generally accepted human moral standards. On the other hand, Stendhal ([1968], 5: 30-31) attests that, in order to be able to laugh at a person, one has to have some respect for him or her. If a person, the target of laughter, is much inferior to the onlooker in moral sense, contempt blocks a comic perception of that person's behavior. The satirist, appealing to the most socially conscious people in society, to all those capable of sharing indignation at vice, must be attentive to the moral and evaluative structures shared by these people. In order to emphasize the depth of the hero's degradation, the writer must use all available strategies for lowering or denigrating the object of laughter. Denigration, therefore, is the most widespread comic device in satirical works. Saltykov, one of the most consistent satirists in Russian literature, is no exception to this rule. One can conditionally divide all of Saltykov's devices for comic denigration into two basic groups: (1) those devices that denigrate by primitivizing (by demonstrating

Satirical characterization:

Non-metaphoric denigration

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a character's intellectual limitations, by lowering human activity to the level of simple satisfaction of physiological needs) - that is, nonmetaphoric denigration; (2) those devices that suggest that the object of mockery is something non-human (in most cases an animal or thing) - that is, metaphoric denigration.2 In this chapter, the first group of denigrating devices will be examined. V. V. Gippius (1966: 300) has justly considered "the depiction of human figures in Saltykov's caricatures [to be] often based on the principle of the primitive". The following types of denigration, ranked according to a gradual intensification of the primitivizing element, may be found in Saltykov's work: (1) infantilization; (2) "stupefication" 'ogluplenie'·, (3) physiologization. Of course, the division suggested here is tentative; it is introduced simply to facilitate analysis. In Saltykov's writing two and three comic motifs may occur simultaneously. In History of a town, for example, golovotjapy 'the bunglers' search for a prince to rule them - and find what they seek: "Right before them sits a real prince - but what a stupid one! He sits and eats decorated cookies" (8, 272). If one takes into account that it is children who usually eat pisanye prjaniki 'decorated cookies', then here, in one image, are all three of the types of non-metaphoric denigration - a stupid and child-like character who indulges in eating. Fundamental to all three types of non-metaphoric denigration is the comic motif of "stupefication". The boundary between it and infantilization is relative. A stupid or silly person and an adolescent may perform exactly the same "ridiculous" act but for differing reasons: the first lacks the necessary intellectual capacities, the second lacks experience. Infantilization, then, may be considered a subcategory of "stupefication". Because it is a comparatively independent subcategory, it will be examined it separately. In addition, several things occur in the execution of this device that isolate it· in a purely technical way. "Physiologization" strips a character of all intellectual capacity; human complexity is reduced to the simple satisfaction of animal instincts - hunger and sexual appetite.

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1. Infantilization In satire, childishness is in most cases an oblique representation of or paraphrase for mental immaturity, for insufficient intellectual development. Saltykov will often explicitly name important officials either gosudarstvennye mladency 'government infants' (13, 432) or gosudarstvennye podrostki 'government adolescents' (11, 206); both represent denigrating takeoffs of the journalistic cliche gosudarstvennye miài 'statesmen'. Saltykov uses the satirical term mal'ciki 'boys' as well, by which he designates the aristocratic "golden youth": "If we consider more closely the so-called idea of a caste of boys, then we will find that their principle and dominant idea consists in exactly the fact that the main thing is to have no ideas at all, the main thing is to have no discipline" (6, 311). Saltykov also calls officials sorvancy 'madcaps, hoydens' and ozorniki 'mischievous children'. In "Our Glupovian business", from Satires in prose, the storyteller ironically calls them sorvancy ispolnitel'nosti 'madcaps of obedience' for their superzealous adherence to rules. At the same time those officials who do not take their responsibilities seriously, those who treat their duties as if they were a child's game, are shown as children. In Gentlemen of Tashkent they play at holding a court; in The year around, at being a committee. Saltykov often compares his characters' vacuous activities with a game like birjul'ki.4 Infantilization is also achieved through the use of diminutive, affectionate forms of names of highly-placed characters. The pompadour (read: governor) Kozelkov is most frequently called Miten'ka (from Dmitrij), General Utrobin - Peten'ka (from Petr), and the liberal Sobackin is "known to all Semiozersk" as simply Kolja (from Nikolaj). Saltykov resorts as well to a more refined device of infantilization: he describes a feature of a character's behavior as having a "childish", immature aspect. Here as elsewhere, one can observe Bergson's law of comic effects at work: the comic aspect of physical appearance is made an equivalent for the comic in the character's spiritual and intellectual life. In Pompadours and pompadouresses one reads that the representative of the conservative "strong-head" party (krepkogolemye), Pravednyj, "had a childish voice; when he got angry, his anger was displayed in something like sniveling" (8, 87). The pompadouress (read: governor's mistress) Nadezda Petrovna is strikingly primitive

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in her childish way of showing emotion: "Having caught a glimpse from her window of her infatuated pompadour, [she] laughed the quiet, happy laugh of an infant being lightly tickled on her little belly" (8, 46). Furthermore, the pompadouress's lexicon does not correspond to her age. "You're yucky, pompadouruska! You were naughty and you left!" (8, 45), she says, recalling "the old pompadour" who has been forced to retire from service. The phrases "protivnyj ty" (translated here as "you're yucky") and "nasalil" (here, "you were naughty") and the diminutive-affectionate suffix -iisk- (one finds glupuska 'little silly one' as well) make Nadezda Petrovna and the old pompadour seem more like children than adults. "The new pompadour" (read: the newly appointed governor) is shown to be a child as well. He is infatuated with "the old pompadouress" but, although there are no obstacles to this, for no reason at all he fears to confess his love. What is more, the whole town is following the romance and promoting it in every possible way. Nonetheless, the pompadour behaves not like an all-powerful dignitary, but like a shy boy, expressing his heartfelt sympathy in extravagant escapades. At a dinner party: while she looked on, he stole a pear from the table, put it in his pocket, and, after dinner, gave it to Nadezda Petrovna, saying in desperation: "Eat this!" "What do I need this for?" said Nadezda Petrovna, astounded. "Just like that, eat it!" he almost screamed, as if the theft of the pear tore his heart apart. And then he began to neigh, so stupidly that the old pompadouress could not help but think: "Good Lord! What a silly-billy he is!" (8, 56). The hint that the intellectual level among Glupovian mayors is no higher than that of elementary school children is already made in the introduction to History of a town: "[...] as documents of proof, several children's notebooks had been appended to it [the chronicle], notebooks which contained original exercises on various themes of administrative-theoretical content" (8, 266). Characteristically, one of the exercises ("on the salutary features of suppression") is illustrated "with pictures" like a child's textbook. One

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Techniques of satire

also reads about the doodles (karakuli) scattered throughout the chronicle of Glupov. Saltykov uses the reverse device as well: his children imitate the adult world. What is comic here is the lack of correspondence between the character's youth and his or her behavior. In describing the routine of a thirteen-year-old boy, Grisa Mlado-Smorckovskij,5 (for whom "the reading of the authorities' directives was a favorite pastime" ["Spoiled children"; 7, 367]), Saltykov uses a simile to imply that this is no child's game but rather exactly the life of adults. Grisa is writing of himself in the third person: In general this young person's day was divided up as follows: at 6 o'clock in the morning wake up and wash in cold water a la Suworoff... At twelve o'clock the young person, having returned to his room, like all military gentlemen, would say: "ugh, I'm dog-tired!" and allow himself to doze for half an hour (7, 367). Another boy, Sereza, who eavesdrops on conversations and tells others what he has heard, is praised as otkrovennyj mal'cik 'an open boy'. A general visiting the town advises him to become "a professional open boy". Of course, what is described here has little to do with children and everything to do with the recruitment of secret informants; this is made apparent in the condition the boy demands of the general: "that [his] openness be concealed". The composition "A kind campaigner (from my memoirs)", also written by the adolescent Grisa, is another expression of "playing at being adult". This is how the boy describes himself to the reader: "Thus lived Mlado-Smorckovskij, arousing envy in the old councillors of the governor's offices and being an object of astonishment for the war-worn vice governor" (7, 367). Describing the imagined "rifle maneuvers", the marches and commands of "bare the sabers!", Grisa notes that here "there was always the presence of several playmates, who represented inner enemies, i.e., the town-dwellers" (7, 368). In Sereza's composition "playing the province" is depicted, one that has nothing in common with playing or games (7, 389). The image one receives is not one of children who act like adults but one of adults themselves who are no more intellectually developed than children. This is intensified through the composition's marginalia. These comments, quite serious

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in tone, are written in by the teacher Sapientov, who corrects and approves of our adolescent author's comments. The teacher's intellectual level turns out to be no higher than that of his pupil.

2. "Stupefication" If infantilization entails more or less "mild" primitivization, Saltykov has sharper, more direct and ferocious ways of attacking a character's intellect. One such strategy, "stupefication", that is, making the character look foolish, is one of Saltykov's most common comic devices. It occurs so often that the town of Glupov in History of a town begins to swell beyond its geographic boundaries. Saltykov's world is a great marketplace of human stupidity. The fool as object of laughter has appeared in art from time immemorial. The image of the fool pervades not only Russian folklore. In Russian everyday tales (bytovye skazki) stupidity is mercilessly ridiculed. Stock characters include a stupid old woman and a stupid young brother. The old woman, for example, is too stingy to feed a soldier who begs shelter from her. The soldier pretends that he is cooking a soup (in other variants, a kasha) from an axe and in so y doing entices from the old woman various necessary ingredients. "The stuffed fool" (nabityj durak), in the tale of the same name, carries on his back a door that has been commended to his care. The fool of folklore can be either a negative or a positive figure. Propp comments that in Russian magic tales Ivan the Fool behaves stupidly only at the beginning of the story, where he is shown to be naive, easily deceived and manipulated by his clever brothers. But he then successfully performs exploits and receives as a reward the tsarevna as his bride. As Propp (1976: 90) notes, the reader's sympathies are on the fool's side for he "possesses moral virtues, [which are] more important than the possession of shallow intellect". Stupidity may be benign and forgivable, but it is comic. The awkward babblings of a child usually provoke a smile, as do the disconnected speech and absurd actions of the infatuated. In satire, unlike the carnivalesque world, stupidity is not ambivalent; it is not jolly, but serious; it is not "wisdom in reverse", as Baxtin (1986: 283) calls it, and it does not manifest "a free-spirited festive wisdom, free

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from all the norms and limitations of the official world, as well as from its worries and its seriousness". In post-Renaissance satire, stupidity is rarely taken lightly; in fact in satires human stupidity sometimes can dominate whole works. It is enough to remember Brant, who represented the human race as a ship of fools, or Erasmus of Rotterdam with his ironic panegyric in honor of human folly. In Russian literature the compositional device of making an entire city look foolish is used in both The inspector general and Dead souls. As a rule, stupidity appears in satire not as pathological, but rather as a kind of social malady. Jurij Tynjanov (1965, 1: 426) thinks that stupidity "is not just the absence of mind, but it is a kind of mind". In satire it appears not so much as the inability to understand the real world, but as a psychological refusal to accept that world. Thus, stupidity may be a symptom of an inner resistance to change, a clinging to one's comfortable social position. Many of Saltykov's characters demonstrate strikingly limited intellects when confronted with psychologically and socially inconvenient situations. They are unable to understand the simplest things. Being used to unrestricted power in the pre-reform times, the "doubting pompadour" of Pompadours and pompadouresses is incapable of explaining to himself what "law" is, because for him law "is nothing else but a dithyramb composed for the advantage and encouragement of pompadours" (8, 124). For him, law is nothing more complicated than "the bound books standing in the cabinet" (8, 123), which have no relation to him whatsoever. In the comedy "The agreement" (Satires in prose) the landowner Antonova does not believe that serfdom has been abolished. When another landowner, rather surprised, asks: "Don't you believe in the document?" Antonova insists: "I won't even believe the document... because it's not natural" (3, 317). Frightened by the very word "constitution", the officials of "Spoiled children" imagine it to be nothing else but the "first four rules of arithmetic" (7, 385). Thus, it is not so much that Saltykov's fools cannot understand, but that they do not want to understand what is not in their interest, what threatens it. For Saltykov, the "kind of mind" that stupidity represents is the voluntary and deliberate donning of the fool's cap. Comic stupidity perfectly exemplifies Bergson's view that laughter is a reaction to rigidity in the social organism. Basically Bergson sees

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laughter as simply a signal to society that the chain of relations between people, the chain which ideally should be infinitely flexible, has been broken; that the possibility of mutual understanding among members of society has been destroyed. An action becomes funny when intellect, which should promote social reciprocity, does not "win out", and is disgraced. Just as an absent-minded person who trips and falls provokes laughter, a person who "trips" intellectually, that is, who has said or done something foolish, is equally funny. One symptom of rigidity in the social organism is distorted communication among the members of society. This is most frequently manifested in a character who speaks or acts against generally accepted logic and common sense. A speech or act that disrupts logic may be intentional or unintentional. In satire the unintentional distortion of logic predominates; that is, the character remains by and large unaware that logic has been disrupted. T h e intentional distortion of logic in order to reveal inner ideological contradictions forms the basis for wit, several devices of which coincide with the devices for creating a comic effect. One fundamental difference between wit and the comic is found in the role of the authorial "I". A purely witty expression sharply defines the position of the author as a mere observer of the phenomenon. T h e authorial "I" of comic narrative, on the other hand, strives to "get close" to his or her characters and often takes on their point of view. Thus the narrator of History of a town has no pretensions to wit. On the contrary, he describes events with complete seriousness, during which he lets drop "involuntary" comic mistakes. The narrator's selfinitiated denigration through "stupefication" (ogluplenie) is in fact the mask of the fool. Saltykov puts on this mask to be able to speak of fools in the language of fools, that is, by ignoring, as do his heroes, g logic and common sense. Let us examine Saltykov's use of "stupefication" in both the language of his narrator and the language and actions of the characters themselves.

2.1. Disruptions in the logic of thought and speech Stupidity is, then, a kind of logical illiteracy, an inability to distinguish cause from effect, premise from conclusion, the central point

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from the peripheral, the important from the unimportant. Saltykov's heroes repeatedly demonstrate their confused thought processes. However, the writer exposes not intellectual insufficiency per se, but rather a character's moral shortcomings. Thus, self-denigration, meager self-respect, and a lack of patriotic fervor seem to characterize the "Russian on a spree abroad" in Signs of the time. Every move of this Russian seems to say: "I am a Russian, therefore, I am a fool, therefore, I stink" (7, 87). Submission and fear rule the Glupovians in "Our Glupovian business" (Satires in prose)·, instead of trying to avoid beatings, they prefer to discuss on what part of the body it is best to receive the blow: "'He smacked me in the teeth, but why not on the nose?' asks the offended Glupovian. A Glupovian's teeth hurt, but a nose is the glory of God; it follows, then, that it is more profitable for him to be smacked on the nose" (3, 499). Saltykov's characters quite often make deductions on the basis of insufficient grounds, grounds completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Thus, our Glupovian narrator states: "There were kind governors, and there were evil ones; but there were no stupid ones - because they were the bosses!" (3, 485). In Gentlemen of Tashkent this device is used to expose incompetence, thoughtlessness, dilettantism, and other faults of the various representatives of the satirical type, "the gentleman of Tashkent": "A person who has seen a code of laws on a bookshelf will consider himself a jurist; one who has learned what a bank note is will call himself a financier; one who has seen a naked woman will announce his desire to become an gynecologist" (10, 9). The Glupovian evaluation of their "new ruler" (History of a town) is also based on insufficient grounds: he "should be given preference simply on the basis of the fact that he is new" (8, 280). In Contemporary idyll a facial expression by itself "justifies" very serious conclusions. Implying that there are repressions by the government and an atmosphere of constant spying for dissidents, the narrator admits: "At that time a downcast air [of a person] played a crucial role in human life: it signified dissatisfaction with the existing order and an inclination to the shaking of foundations" (15 [1], 30). "Gaining weight and developing heartburn" were also under suspicion as signs of insufficient loyalty and internal turmoil. The shift of emphasis from the main qualities necessary for a

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Non-metaphoric denigration

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superior onto secondary and peripheral ones is another expression of stupidity and is used by Saltykov to mock servility in his characters. In History of a town Glupovians recall "with tears" their previous mayors, "all friendly, and kind, and handsome - and all of them in uniform!" (8, 281). In some instances the comic effect is created by an unjustifiable opposition of concepts that in another context would be quite congruous. It is said of the Glupovian mayor Ferdyscenko that "although possessed of a not quite vast mind, [he] was also tongue-tied" 'pri ne ves'ma obsimarn urne, byl kosnojazycerí (8,278). In Pompadours and pompadouresses a "tax-farmer and publicist" fervently recommends a new pompadour to the narrator: '"He is such a man!' he cried, 'such a man! he doesn't know geography, doesn't know arithmetic, but still will let anybody's blood! A real jewel!'" (8, 259). This treatment of nonequivalent statements as equivalent ones (achieved through syntactic parallelism) creates the comic effect in the narrator's speech (in "Gegemoniev",Innocent tales): "They spoke of the wisdom of Providence in giving to one man beauty, to another wealth, to a third wit, and to a fourth nothing" (3, 9-10). The startling absence of any gift in the fourth place, where some kind of gift would be expected, creates the comic effect here. 10 The violation of the reader's expectations also increases the comic element in History of a town, where the stupid prince whom muddlers (golovotjapy) invite to rule over them tells what price he expects in exchange: '"Whoever [among muddlers] happens to get a penny should break it into four pieces: he should give one piece to me, the next to me also, the third again to me, and the fourth he can keep himself" (8, 275). The source of the comic element here is the same: it is the gap between the logic of the content (or lack thereof) of a speech and the speech's syntax. 11 The stupid prince pretends to judge wisely and justly, but it is only the syntax of his speech that expresses that wisdom and justice. The prince's stupidity echoes the stupidity of his listeners. To understand what the prince is telling them, they should be capable of a kind of logical thinking which they lack. When something is divided into four parts one logically expects four recipients. In the text there are only two (the prince and the group of muddlers), and there is no equality whatsoever between them. This device - that of lulling the listeners with coherent syntax into

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accepting inner semantic contradictions - appears in the speech of the Brigadier Baklan as well (History of a town): "'Onslaught,' he said, 'and in addition, swiftness; leniency, and in addition, sternness. And in addition, prudent firmness'" (8, 282). Concepts of onslaught and swiftness make up a logical pair; leniency and sternness, on the other hand, are far from self-evident, harmonious coexistence. At the root of the comic, here, lies a logical contradiction. Comic disruptions of logic may occur through the uniting of nonequivalent concepts that belong to different planes of importance. As if speaking of a series of equally significant contributions, the reader is informed that the mayor Dvoekurov in History of a town "paved the streets Bol'saja and Dvorjanskaja, initiated the fermenting of beer and honey, introduced mustard and bay leaves, collected arrears, patronized science, and petitioned for the establishment of an Academy in Glupov" (8, 278). Beer and an academy, science and bay leaves. Saltykov leaves us in no doubt about the "seriousness" of Dvoekurov's concern for enlightenment. Another Glupovian mayor, Lamvrokakis, is ridiculed in the same way: it is said that he "traded in Greek soap, sponges, and nuts; above all, he was an advocate of classical education" (8, 277). The disruption of logic in characters' judgements is frequently accompanied by a general incoherence or muddleheadedness of speech. Characters are often completely unable to focus on one main issue; instead they pile up factors of varying importance or string together insignificant and empty phrases. For example, one Glupovian (,Satires in prose) writes in his diary: "Every night I am visited by apparitions, and by day I suffer from forebodings. I went to see Ivan Fomich to talk about some waste ground called 'Dun'ka's Swamp', and quarrelled with him. In the evening a fiery pillar was visible in the sky" (3, 509). There is also the muddleheaded old woman Cepceulidzeva (Pompadours and pompadouresses), who never finishes a thought. She starts talking for no apparent reason and refers to people whose existence her listeners are not quite aware of: "But that Danilyc, he was one of the simple people! Well, yes: the deceased grandmother had said that she herself once saw him [go up] to the deceased great princess Sofija Alekseevna... And how handsome Xovanskij was! The deceased tsaritsa

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Tamara herself told me, that once at a ball at Matrena Balk's..." (8, 60).

When two characters converse, more often than not they are unable to reach any logical end to their conversation. They circle around one 12 and the same place, with a complete absence of logical progression. In the story "Our Glupovian business" the Glupovians "are unable to come to an agreement even about a bridge across the stream", a bridge that had collapsed long ago: "It is simply, brothers, a worthless business!" say the Glupovians, collecting in a crowd beside the bridge and waving their hands. "Things are rotten, that's what they are!" assert other Glupovians. "But this way then, perhaps, you have to take a five verst detour?" the first Glupovians noted ponderously. "To me, I would demolish it completely!" "Let's do it, guys!" "Or maybe we should build a new bridge?" "Well, then, folks, we'll build such a great bridge that, you know, a line will go through the whole thing!" And, upon chatting a bit about it, they all went home... (3, 506).

Characteristically, Glupovians do not argue; they agree with each other in every possible way but refuse to see any logical connection between words and actions. Similarly, Sila Terent'ic and Terentij Silyc, the two town dwellers of the same story also agree with each other, say "yes" to each other repeatedly, but nevertheless easily lose the logical thread of the conversation. One will suddenly raise an objection to a point completely peripheral to the conversation, and in so doing will transform the rest of the conversation into a bunch of aimless phrases. Terentij Silyc is at first completely willing to agree to Sila Terent'ic's lamentations about the abolition of serfdom: "They've started a bad business!" When Sila Terent'ic first makes his point, the direction of their thought is clear:

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"Well, then again, we just aren't used to it. We've blazed our own road for ourselves, and we will walk it to the very end of our days!" "Exactly! We're not used to it!" "It's like this: my black horse is out of sorts - it used to go right into the traces, well, but now even the devil can't drag him into the shafts... That's what!" (3, 493). In this place a rupture in logic occurs, which throws them completely off the subject. The result is a useless rending of the air: "Well, if it comes to that, you can drag it in!" says Terentii Silych, smiling pensively. "It goes without saying - if I want to drag it in, I'll do it!" agrees Sila Terent'ich. "Yeah, it can be done! We'll do it!" "But our fathers, on the other hand... Please understand me, my friend!" "It's true, our fathers were much stronger!" "They were real men!" And then, for hour after hour, the conversation expanded on this very same theme and finally arrived at such delirium, that except for "oh, Lord!" and "much stronger", it was impossible to discern anything at all (3, 493-494).

2.2 Disruptions in the logic of behavior Disruptions in the logic of thought are often accompanied by disruptions in the logic of behavior. Saltykov is highly inventive here as well and uses this device to expose his heroes' true nature. To demonstrate that Glupovian mayors only pretend to desire enlightenment (History of a town), he has his chronicler narrate: "[Borodavkin] petitioned for the establishment of an academy in Glupov, but, upon receiving a refusal, built a precinct for pre-trial detention" (8, 278). Behavioral logic is violated; one governor's action follows quickly upon another, leaving no time for a logical pause. It is immediately clear to the reader that Borodavkin is acting on the principle "yes is fine and no is also fine". If not an academy, then a police lock-up: no

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big difference. The satirist's thought is clear - Borodavkin's striving toward enlightenment, like that of all the other mayors, is only for show; the slightest obstacle will divert a Glupovian mayor from this 13

attempt. This lack of correspondence between actions can appear in many different forms. The mayors of Glupov, despite their high social status, occupy themselves with whatever comes to hand, as long as it is not their direct duty. Their high position is thus contrasted with the low prestige of their activities. The mayor Klementij cooks macaronies; Lamvrokakis, as it has already been mentioned, "traded in Greek soap, sponges, and walnuts", and Dvoekurov writes a composition "Lives of most notable apes". In Pompadours and pompadouresses, one of the pompadours "was not only a refined connoisseur of the genre [frivolous ditties], but could himself do quite a cute rendition of the most impressive plays of the burlesque type" (8,245). If some satirical characters evade their duties and divert themselves with mindless activities, others, on the contrary, take to work too assiduously. Disruptions in logic here derive from disproportions between efforts and goals. The dull-witted high school student Xmylov (Gentlemen of Tashkent) applies such efforts to copying over a composition that it begins to resemble heavy manual labor: "His whole body had unnaturally strained itself somehow and sloped off to one side; his tongue was sticking from the corner of his mouth, and big drops of sweat appeared on his forehead" (10, 123). The officials in Pompadours and pompadouresses devote many hours of meetings to questions like "is it necessary to consider the unplugging of plugs as a sign of breaking and entering" (8, 154). The Glupovian mayor Borodavkin "set fire to thirty three villages and, through these measures, recuperated arrears in the amount of two roubles fifty kopecks" (8,278). Saltykov often takes the disproportion of efforts and goals to extremes, to the point of achieving the opposite result. Thus, in The year around, officials who wish to eradicate evil "little by little... eradicated everything: both that which embittered the authorities and that which served as a consolation to them" (13, 433). The disruption of the logic of heroes' behavior manifests itself in another technique as well. Characters may speak and act quite rationally, but in inappropriate places and under inappropriate conditions. In Pompadours and pompadouresses the cornet Beren-

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deev and the ensign Solonina take an occasional trip to Petersburg "in order to present themselves as steadfast conservatives at all the brothels" (8, 151). In Contemporary idyll the informer Ksepsicjul'skij makes inquiries of the yard-keeper: "Will there soon be a revolution in apartment four [the narrator's apartment]?" (15 [1], 24). The narrator's response to this is just as illogical. He takes the informer by the collar and drags him to the apartment, saying: "Just take a look!" - as if a revolution could take place within four walls. In Saltykov's work, the incoherence of actions does not occur due to lack of thought only. Stupidity is often just a paraphrase for servility, for a worship of the powerful. It is said of one pompadour that "he was one of those who spark inextinguishable fire in the grateful hearts of the inhabitants by receiving visitors on scheduled days, not neglecting dinner parties and social evenings, hiring and dismissing district police officers when it is time to do so, and, with angelic patience, signing the papers given to them" (8, 44). Thus the most usual and even trivial acts of the authorities evoke delight and tender emotion in their subordinates. When the dominant atmosphere becomes one of fear, however, the subordinates resort to self-humiliation and self-flagellation. Fearing reprisals against pseudo-liberal actions "in the form of an investigation of official data", officials become gloomy (Pompadours and pompadouresses). They take what they think are appropriate measures to escape what they consider to be inevitable punishment. Some of them "with trembling voices" rehearse the loyal hymn "Let the thunder of victory sound!"; "others stand for hours on end, saluting" (8, 163). In other instances, however, Saltykov hints that it makes no difference how small or trivial the fault of the officials is: "before the strong the weak are always guilty". In Contemporary idyll the disproportion between crime and punishment is driven to grotesque extremes. By order of the authorities, a teacher of Latin is turned over to the courts because he "confused a gerund with a supine" (15 [1], 50). He is tried "for disseminating among the young false conceptions about supines and gerunds, and also for shaking the foundations of Latin grammar" (15 [1], 50). The judge's sentence is quite suited to the accusations: "that the Latin grammar composed by [the guilty teacher] be burned in the presence of Latin teachers from both capitals" (15 [1], 50).

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Typical of satire are characters who behave accordingly to the principle of contrast: instead of shame they have pride; instead of disgrace, honor; instead of punishment, praise. The official Blamanze, the husband of the pompadour's mistress, not only feels no discomfort at his compromised position, but he is even proud of it. Accordingly, local society is not only far from despising him, but it even likes him, for he "bore the title of husband of the pompadour's woman without impudence and without undue familiarity, but only to show that [the title] made him extraordinarily happy" (8, 41). When the old pompadour goes away, Blamanze suffers along with his wife; he crawls around on his knees, comforting her. He is also the first to congratulate his Nadezda Petrovna on the arrival of a new pompadour and tries in every way to promote the "new love". In Contemporary idyll Glumov and the narrator are invited for a cup of tea to the police station. Although an open connection to the police was considered shameful at the time, they behave quite like police officers themselves: "[They] walked around all day with such a proud step, as if they had each been given a rouble on review for vodka" (15 [1], 25). In "A tale of a zealous boss" incorporated into the novel it is said that "among the bosses there was this rule: to try to cause harm, as much of it as possible; and, by so doing, the commonweal will then emerge by itself' (15 [1], 192). A comic effect may derive from the violation of logical connections between a character's actions and speech. Saltykov uses this device in attacking corporal punishment. To emphasize the authorities' passion for flogging, Saltykov repeatedly describes such events as a mechanically performed ritual, at which those administering the flogging do not even "become bitter." It is said that several Glupovian mayors (History of a town) did indeed flog people, but "always managed to say something pleasant while doing so" (8, 281). In addition, those who had been flogged either "trembled with the understanding that [they were flogged] for their own good", or "rose [in their spirit] to a point of trembling through an excess of trust [in those under whose orders they were flogged]" (8, 266). Saltykov often uses a discrepancy between a character's emotions and actions to expose insincerity or an attempt to dramatize one's emotional state. The abandoned pompadouress Nadezda Petrovna is beside herself with grief: '"Leave me alone! You're disgusting to me!

62

Techniques of satire

Everything is horrible! Everything is repulsive!' she screamed at him [her husband]" (8, 45). She seems barely able to contain her anguish. Nevertheless, when she breaks dishes, she does not destroy everything that comes to hand (which one might logically expect), but carefully chooses only "some knickknacks". Saltykov also uses precisely the opposite comic device: he has his heroes act in complete oblivion of common sense while in the throes of a passion. Possessed by a mad valor, the Glupovian mayor Urus-Kurus-Kil'dibaev of History of a town "once took even his own town by storm" (8, 277). In his unbearable thirst for action another mayor, Ugrjum-Burceev, without any apparent need, "destroyed the old city and built another in a new place" (8, 280). In a time of internal conflict, the Glupovians, in a fit of perturbation, drown dozens of randomly caught "favored Glupovian citizens". The writer is especially successful in using this device to deride the tsarist administration's unrestrained passion for senseless, obviously superfluous rules, laws and decrees. Such is "A decree on the kindheartedness of town mayors", by Benevolenskij (History of a town), in which the following advice is given: '"Any mayor, upon seeing an inhabitant occupied with his business, should let him go about it without hindrance'" (8, 433). The "decrees on the decent behavior of inhabitants in their lives", composed by the heroes of Contemporary idyll, strike a similar note: "Article the Third: All town squares in general, streets, and lanes are at the disposal of the public; and for this reason inhabitants are not prohibited from visiting them, either for walks or for other necessities" (15 [1], 93). The composers of this decree proceed not only to meticulously define what may be spoken between two people when they meet, but also to state that they "may part without having finished the matter they have begun, for which no punishment will be incurred" (15 [1], 94). The lawmakers stipulate everything, even forbidding when entering the bathhouse, "any disrobing before the inhabitant enters the hall" (15 [6], 96). The complete superfluousness of most of these stipulations borders on the absurd. Saltykov depicts totally impossible situations in the course of exposing petty tyranny, arbitrariness, and unlimited power over subordinates. According to Saltykov, those in power believe that feelings and thoughts of their subordinates could not be in any way spontaneous; rather these feelings and thoughts must submit to out-

Satirical characterization:

Non-metaphoric denigration

63

side authority. One pompadour, for example, "even thought that [inhabitants] should not dare not to be happy" (8, 135). Another draws up a "plan for the dissemination of appropriate emotions among the people" (8, 8). A retired pompadour, "in a rage at the regional government, ordered all its members to die" (8, 44). Saltykov mocks not only the petty tyranny of bosses, but also the submissiveness of subordinates. Although the authorities behave in total contradiction to common sense and logic, as a rule, they never really surprise their subordinates. Out of servility and fear, they do not question the most absurd demands placed on them. Thus, the heroes of Contemporary idyll are happy to announce: "If it be commanded that we change our way of thinking on a given subject, we will not refuse to do this as well!" (15 [1], 33). Perhaps, the most frequent use of the motif of absurd behavior takes place in the History of a town. The slant-bellied ones (kosobrjuxie) "poured the flour out of the bags and tried to catch a little sun with the bags" (8, 271). The muddlers (golavotjapy) "had a habit of slapping their heads against everything that they came upon" (8,270). When muddlers feel it necessary "to bring order into their house" (read: their state), they act incongruously, that is, contrary not only to the apparent goal of achieving some order, but also to any logic whatsoever; here the absurd behavior reaches its apogee: It began with them mixing oat flour into the Volga to make dough. Then they dragged the calf to the bathhouse. Then they cooked kasha in a bag. Then they drowned the billy-goat in the malt dough. Then they bought a pig thinking it was a beaver, and killed a dog thinking it was a wolf. Then they lost their bast sandals and looked for them in all the courtyards: there had been six bast sandals, and they found seven. Then they greeted a crawfish with a bell ringing, then drove a pike away from the eggs, then they walked for seven versts to catch a mosquito, but the mosquito was sitting on the nose of someone from Posexon'e. Then they exchanged a priest for a dog, then caulked a jail with pancakes, then riveted a fly to a chain, then they sold a demon into the army, then propped up the sky with stakes; finally they got tired and began to wait to see what would come of all this (8, 271).

64

Techniques of satire

3. Physiologization If infantilization and "stupefication" mock the intellectual side of a character, physiologization ignores intellect as if it did not exist at all. Λ, character's behavioral motives are displaced from the rational sphere to a sphere of low, animal instincts; the character appears in all his animal nature. After physiologization, the next logical step on the scale of denigration, then, is to represent the character as an actual animal - the "zoological" motif of denigration. Thus, physiologization is denigration taken to its most extreme point within the bounds of non-metaphoric, "human" denigration. The "physiologized" character is represented as a primitive: all personal concerns are completely circumscribed by an all-absorbing involvement with the body and its demands.

3.1. Physical appearance, attractive and unattractive Correspondence between a person's inner world and his or her physical appearance has long been a convention of art in general and of literature in particular.14 This is why the human body is so often a target of satire's mockery. Whether consciously or not, physical imperfections tend to get easily translated into spiritual or mental ones. According to Bergson, the true object of laughter is never the exterior but rather the interior, moral side of personality. Physical ugliness is subconsciously seen as moral ugliness.15 A fat person may be perceived as funny because fatness may be taken as evidence of insufficient will.16 Thus, when one of Saltykov's characters is contemptible as to his inner qualities, that character will also turn out to be highly unattractive in a physical way. One learns about Zinovij Zaxaryc (in "Gegemoniev", Innocent tales), "driven from his job as pod"jacij 'an official's assistant', that "in [his] appearance [he was] thin, small, all eaten out by gall" (3, 9). The inner ugliness of this character who introduces a young police officer to the arts of bribe-taking, servility, and the oppression of the weak and defenseless is revealed by the narrator's description: "His whole figure was shapeless and ugly and

SatìricaI characterization:

Non-metaphoric

denigration

65

exemplified a model of a broken line" (3, 9). Even before one learns of the reprehensible acts of Glupov's high officials ("Our Glupovian business", Satires in prose), their unpleasant exterior, contrasting sharply with their high bureaucratic position, suggests that they are "good-for-nothing", totally insignificant on a human plane: During the happy time I spent in Glupov, the governor there was balding, the vice-governor was balding, the public procurator was balding. The department manager of government property still had all his hair, but his physiognomy was so strange that at first and even at last glance he seemed to be balding" (3, 486). As Saltykov uses physical inadequacies to depict his satirical targets, he also often applies an inverse device. Physical attractiveness, when portrayed as the most important feature of a character, also serves to primitivize characters. The fact that social success is based not on intelligence and skills, but only on an impressive exterior, does not speak well of society: such is the point behind Saltykov's use of this device. In Provincial sketches he comments: "I know a great deal of people who have gone quite far with nothing but a proud bearing" (2, 262). In Innocent tales ("Gegemoniev") he displays this satirical idea in a scene: The general, possessing among other virtues the ability to figure people out at first glance, figured out Potancikov. As he walked past the young collegiate registering clerk, he glanced at him with a swift and penetrating look and immediately said in a low voice to the vice governor: "What do you think...that young man...could one make a fine police officer out of him?" [...] "But stand, my dear fellow, a little closer to the light!" continued his Excellency, turning to Potancikov. Potancikov obeyed. The general placed his hands behind his back and again gazed with that searching look and, after executing a quite detailed external inspection, was apparently satisfied with his capacity to figure people out.

66

Techniques of satire

"Hrn...Yes, he is quite a promising young man!" he uttered (3, 7). By stressing physical merits, instead of mental, Saltykov implies his characters' spiritual limitations and their narrow-minded view of the world. He uses the same satirical device to describe the adherents of the "strong-headed", a conservative party (Pompadours and pompa17 douresses), about whom he notes that: [they] were numerous, and famous for their wild inflexibility of opinion, the capaciousness of their stomachs, the gigantic backs of their heads, their unusually huge fists, and their capacity to engage in any loud manifestation, that is, to bring in [billiard] balls on a plate, to scream "hurrah", and to make opponents tremble with their stentorian voices (8, 83). Especially noteworthy is Saltykov's use of zatylok 'the back of the head' as a métonymie symbol for a character's physical might and, at the same time, his mental "cachexia". One representative of the "strong-headed" is "muscular, tall, broad-boned, and gifted with an expansive and fat back of the head" (8, 87). The idle, satiated, and spiritually limited people of the town are also described in a métonymie way, with the words "back of the heads" again accentuated by the use of two epithets as opposed to only one with other métonymie units: "Ruddy cheeks, fat Adam's apples, round and spacious backs of the head, remarkable hats - this was the spectacle 18

presented in the town's streets from morning till night" (8, 82).

3.2. Gluttony Not only physical appearance, but also primitive physiological urges become a source of the comic in Saltykov's depiction of character. Among these urges first place is occupied by gluttony. In Saltykov's satire the images of gluttony are stripped of their life-affirming and life-celebrating qualities they possess in the literature of the carnival (Baxtin 1986: 302-328). These images serve as a means of denigration only. In both fictional and nonfictional works one finds repeatedly the

Satirical characterization: Non-metaphoric denigration

67

comic device of replacing noble spiritual activities with a striving for gastronomic pleasure and the gratification of the stomach. For many characters, not civic duties and responsibilities, but abundant and refined food is the main object of thought and concern. Miten'ka Kozelkov, whose duties as pompadour require him to inspect various institutions, transforms his schedule into a series of "snacks": "... the same morning Miten'ka went to visit a jail; there he ate cabbage soup with beef and buckwheat porridge with butter, drank a mug of kvas [...] Then he visited a town hospital, ate some soup and milk gruel" (8, 68). The governor of "Spoiled children" displayed, in the eyes of the leader of the nobility, that quality which could be compared with nothing else: he had the best cook in the whole province and fattened at his house absolutely incredible suckling pigs" (7, 362). Most of Glupovian mayors are portrayed as gourmets, connoisseurs of fine foods (History of a town). Dju Sario "regaled himself with frogs" (8, 279); Dvoekurov "brewed beer and mead, introduced mustard and bay leaves" (8,278); Ferdyscenko, who "loved to eat boiled pork and goose with cabbage", finally died from overeating. In the place of spiritual interests there is only gluttony: such is the motto of the heroes of Contemporary idyll. Glumov and the narrator decide to follow the advice of their friend Molcalin "to wait", that is, to forget the epoch's spiritual problems for a time: "Get into eating," suggests Molcalin. The narrator comments: Never before had I eaten such tasty things... We ate in freedom, without any political considerations, "without grief, without fateful thoughts", bearing in mind that nothing stood before us but food. Each bite was therefore chewed in the appropriate manner, and therefore went to the stomach in a form fully agreeable with the demands of medical science (15 [1], 19). The primitivization of the two heroes increases from page to page, until finally both "had so disciplined their natures that they felt desire only for satiation" (15 [1], 22). When the two of them turn up in a police precinct, the question "of the immortality of the soul" posed by the chief of police to test their loyalty sends the narrator into complete confusion:

68

Techniques of satire

It was a critical moment and I admit I flunked it. I had so long revolved exclusively in the sphere of edible provisions that the very concept of the soul had become completely alien to me. I began to sort things out mentally: the soul...immortality...what, now, was such a thing? But, alas! I couldn't remember a thing, except for: yes, there had been something...somewhere in there... (15 [1], 27). In Signs of the time, whatever aesthetic pleasures and curiosity a Russian traveling abroad might have had, more often than not they are dominated by an obsessive and all-absorbing interest in food. Characterizing the traveling Russian, Saltykov notes: "Everything is new to him, everything frightens him, for of all the forms of European life, only one has he wholly grasped: the art of eating artichokes without tearing the mouth and that of eating oysters without swallowing the shells" (7, 86-87). This comic effect is intensified when characters try to conceal their base pleasure in food. The wife of the leader of the nobility in Pompadours and pompadouresses "ate...soup with such grace, as if she were just playing with the spoon" (8, 71). However, when a character does not have to hide his gluttony anymore, one almost hears a sigh of relief, and an unmasked gorging ensues. Thus, one of the dismissed pompadours, for example, "upon growing a little paunch, ordered himself a roomy suit, [and] ate with such relish and appetite that his lips started swelling and became lustrous" (8, 147). Saltykov shows that constant search for the opportunity to fill oneself beyond limits with free and delicious food as manifestation of greed which strikes not just individuals; the whole town goes into frenzies of gluttony (e.g., in Pompadours and pompadouresses: 8, 102-103). In "Spoiled children", universal gluttony is depicted as the whole province's lifestyle: In general this province is quite unusual. As soon as you cross its borders you already sense that it smells of edible supplies, and you hear around you a resonant munching. Everyone is eating, or is resting from eating, or is again dreaming about food. Each estate is regaled with the dainties peculiar to it. Horned cattle are fattened abundantly with grain and sweet

Satirical characterization: Non-metaphoric denigration

69

grass; in good years the peasants eat bread and on holidays kasha with butter; the merchants and the petty bourgeoisie are partial to pies. The nobles satiate themselves on beef, veal, and suckling pig; they drink kvas, vodka, and home-made liqueur. The clergy find consolation in fish; officials add to all the above truffles and fine French wines. The results of such a social system are not hard to guess: there is a stuffiness in the air, a torpidity in the citizen's eyes, and loosening of family bonds (7, 385). 19 As food is the object of such extreme interest for many characters, Saltykov gives frequent descriptions of dinners, feasts, and banquets. 20

Here, in the Gogolian tradition,

the quantity of food consumed

strikingly exceeds the capacities of those feasting. T o imply that the food and not the man in honor of whom a banquet is given is the primary interest of the invited guests, the menus of banquet dinners are thoroughly described; the reader is struck with the excessive number of dishes, as well as with their variety and delicacy. Here is one example from

Pompadours and pompadouresses:

Offered at dinner were: sterlet soup and soup à la reine (with small pies and seven or eight kinds of pirozki 'little pies'), then:

the hugest roast beef, salade de homards et de dove de lotte,

épigramme de chevreuil, punch glacé, roasted pheasants and quail, fonds d'artichauts à la lyonnaise, and in conclusion three or four kinds of pastries (8, 152-153). Often the abundance of the dishes is in sharp contrast to the meager excuse for the banquet. In the carnival world of Rabelais, food is usually accompanied by joy, where "there is no such a thing as a sad 21

feast"; in Saltykov's satire, on the other hand, the motive behind a banquet can be not only insignificant but even thoroughly cheerless. For example, the lamentable event of one pompadour's departure from his post comes in contrast to exquisite food, food that would usually accompany a celebration; the mood of personal defeat clashes with triumphant gastronomic images:

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Techniques of satire

Full of the thought of the frailty of all worldly things, he [the dismissed pompadour] bent over his bowl and dropped an involuntary tear into the sterlet soup (8, 144). On a special table were served luxurious appetizers, but the agitated pompadour could hardly bring himself to touch them, and only irrigated a gorgeous Strasburg pâté with a tear (8, 152). Denigration through gluttony is also effected through the use of satirical and formulaic metaphoric expressions. One such formula depicts the predatory nature of the "gentleman of Tashkent: "What did the [gentlemen of Tashkent] want? - this question is resolved in a single word: Zrat'! 'Feed me': "Feed me no matter what, at whatever cost!" (10, 25). Thus, gluttony here is not merely a replacement of the spiritual world with the material, as in many of Saltykov's other characters, but an act of violence and aggression. That is why the voraciousness of the "insatiable proprietors" is treated by the satirist literally as excesses of physiological absorption.

3.3. Scatological effects Related to the gluttony motif in Saltykov's work is the use of scatol22

ogical effects. Fond of scatological expressions in his private life, Saltykov was also prone to use them for satirical purposes in his work. Bringing forth the anal functions of the body serves as a denigrating device to reduce a character to his most primitive animalistic urges. Thus, in his novel, The Golovlyovs, two generations of a gentry family are characterized as receiving enemas (Proffer 1977: xxxii). In his fairy tale, "Hyena", a satire against the "human predator", people as treacherous and repulsive as hyenas, Saltykov recommends that decisive forceful action be taken to domesticate them and render them harmless. Citing the famous nineteenth-century German zoologist Alfred Edmund Brehm, whose book on animal life had been widely popular in Russia at the time, he writes: Domesticated in that way [by beating them and bathing them in cold water] as soon as they would see Brehm, the hyenas

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71

would jump up with a joyful cry, start to jump around him, put their front paws on his shoulders, sniff all over his face, and finally stretch their tails up into the air and extend their rectums, inside-out, one and a half to two inches from the anus. In a word, the human being [the tamer] triumphed here as anywhere else; only the outstretched rectum was too much... But then again, to see a hyena's joy... is, in its way, also satisfying for a human being... [16 (1), 196-197] [Saltykov's emphasis]. Here, the denigrating effect of scatological image is amplified by presenting the rectum as the hyena's [read: people-predators] ultimate source of joy. This explicit scatological reference was possible only because the character is an animal. In speaking of people, Saltykov's scatological tendencies are much more restrained. Due to the Victorian restrictions of his time and censorship, Saltykov followed the Rabelaisian tradition of referring to various human body functions 23

mostly through his allusions and euphemisms. In the sketch "Our Glupovian business" (Satires in prose) scatological references are ubiquitous. The traveling German druggist is surprised at the calm that rules in Glupov: "[He] began to listen to this silence. Strange night sounds were flying past his ears. Hearing them, the German blushed and quickly began to prepare for his journey, and the citizens, watching him with their sleepy eyes, said: 'What's healthy for the Russian is death for the German!"' (3, 484). Glupovians explain to the druggist that the reason for the town's quietness is the fact that its inhabitants "are unable to stir, for... they have grown heavy" (3, 484). In their discussion of what constitutes a "good person", the connection between the two comic elements, gluttony and scatology, is made clear: "A 'good person' had patriarchal habits. He had dinner early and loved to dedicate his after dinner time to an hour or two of gastric dreams, accompanying this occupation with all possible hissing noises which teem in the nether regions of Glupovian stomachs" (3, 489). Saltykov's scatological euphemisms may vary. Sometimes he literalizes expressions. For example, the French expression air fixe means 'a distinctive trait'. Saltykov introduces it to the reader as if it meant 'a stable smell'. He further develops this comic idea:

72

Techniques of satire It is impossible to deny that a true Glupovian aborigine is not without his own smell; it is also indubitable that if a Glupovian enters a room full of Umnovians [from the Umnov town; urn 'intelligence'] he will immediately sense this; but it is also indubitable that this smell, as penetrating as it may be, does not make up the entire Glupovian and that, with the help of some effort and exposure to the winds, it can not only change, but also be totally annihilated... T h e Glupovian smells, but he also... thinks (3, 502-503).

Some of Saltykov's scatological euphemisms derive from folklore. Alluding to the character of Ivan the Fool of Russian fairy tales whose favorite pastime is lying on the warm stove, the financier Guboslepov, scolds one of his hangers-on, a retired pompadour: "'What kind of star do you have?' says Guboslepov [to the ex-pompadour]. 'He [the e x general] has three! Yes, and he's a fearless man, who has conquered several provinces - and you! You lie on the stove and shoot without gunpowder!'" (8, 148). Scatological allusions may also appear as denigrating

comparisons. Thus, a speech

on the occasion

general's departure from his post is compared to an physiological

function. T o speak "even when others are

comments the narrator in Pompadours

of a

indelicate silent",

and pompadouresses,

is

"almost the same thing as to perform a reprehensible function when others around you are not performing any kind of reprehensible function" (8, 17).

3.4. Intoxication A s with gluttony, intoxication during a feast in Saltykov's work is not a celebration of life, as in the world of Rabelais, but a denigrating device, a sign of a character's moral corruption and absence of any higher interests. In addition to the satirical effect of exposing a character's intoxication

downfall

due

funny by

to

drunkenness,

employing

a comic

Saltykov theme

makes

of "the

this small

misfortunes of others". One of the most simple illustrations of this theme

is to be found in the primitive but irrefutably e f f e c t i v e

strategies of circus clowns: the sudden falls, slaps in the face, and

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73

other physical abuse caused by other actors or, better, by the clown himself. As far as self-inflicted pain is concerned, theorists of the comic have noted that the laughter is more intense if the one who suffers the misfortunes is also the one who caused them. A drinking bout as a voluntary act with unpleasant consequences falls into this category. The consequences, however, may not be of a serious sort; they should at least not be fatal. All other misfortunes of a drunkard are usually comic. The retired clerk Bogolepov in History of a town is driven from his job "because of the shaking of his right hand, the cause of which consisted in beverages" (8, 315). A t one banquet in Pompadours andpompadouresses the chancellery head drinks himself into such a state that "he no longer shuddered but was completely covered with violet spots - an obvious sign that he was close to violence" (8, 22). The comic behavior of a tipsy person may also constitute a transgression of social norms. Scandalous escapades while "under the influence" serve as another strategy for satirical rendering of characters. Blamanze, the husband of the pompadouress Nadezda Petrovna, enjoys the respect of society, "for everyone still had fresh in his memory the husband of the previous pompadouress, the cornet Otletaev, who not only would smash wine shops, but also once, while naked, galloped on his horse through the whole town with a banner in his hands" (8, 42). The counselor of the treasury department Xranilov while intoxicated "poured red wine onto the table and sprinkled the w e t expanse with salt, arguing that with such a precaution any laundrywoman could easily wash out any kind of spot from the tablecloth" (8, 22). Eastman (1936: 272) argues that laughter emerges from situations that, by violating behavioral norms, thus arbitrarily or accidentally 24

unmask real human motives.

A perfect example of this kind situ-

ation can be found in Pompadours

and pompadouresses.

Although

public exposure of one's own base motives is not acceptable behavior, at a solemn evening in honor of a pompadour "the operator of the doctor's division (who had already gotten a bit drunk) stubbornly refused to take his place at the far end of the table for then only the bad bits [of food] would reach him" (8, 18).

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3.5. Sexual pleasure In their relentless pursuit of pleasure, Saltykov's characters do not limit themselves to the consumption of alcohol and gourmet dishes. Sexual enjoyment is often the main interest for many of Saltykov's characters, one that blocks all other interests in life; they are often unable to conceal the lust that dominates them. Although the comic 25

device of sexual allusion has long been known to literature, the ambivalent quality of "sexual laughter" in Saltykov's satire is also strictly denigrating, in contrast to that of Rabelais' work. Saltykov sees sexual desire not as life-affirming, but as mere physiological distraction, as a strictly self-centered interest of the lowest order. As is the case with gluttony, sex is often the only interest for characters who, according to their social position, should occupy themselves with concerns of a higher kind. In "A project of modern ballet" (Signs of the time) Saltykov, ironically noting that "ballet...elevates the minds and hearts of man", shows precisely what it is that absorbs his characters: The conservatives love to float in the highest spiritual spheres and feel their hearts swell at the sight of fluttering ballerinas; they love to be transported to transcendental realms by the sight of those short little gauze skirts; they love to feel touched in spirit at the sight of those little legs which rise...and rise... (7, 115-116). One also might think that all-powerful pompadours (read: governors) would above all be concerned with administrative duties. But the pompadour Kozelkov is mostly preoccupied with seeking fulfillment of his sexual appetite. He looks out his office window at a gathering of guests in the house opposite his: "He was especially attracted to the gorgeous Baroness von Canarct. Oh, what things I would do with her...' he began, but didn't finish his thought, because his breath was taken away by imagination alone" (8, 79). In the chapter "Opinions of famous foreigners about pompadours," Prince de-lja-Kassonad recalls his meeting with the pompadours and writes:

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75

In another city a pompadour took me to a bath house, where there was a very skillfully made opening in the wall dividing the men's section from the women's, and forced me to look through. I, a sinful man, gazed with pleasure, but could not, however, keep myself from the question: What possible relation could all this have to administrative affairs? (8, 244). In History of a town, the reigns of several Glupov mayors are also marked by sexual extravagance. Dvoekurov, "being of a strong constitution, had in sequence eight lovers" (8, 278). Mikaladze, "a descendant of the sensual princess Tamara", "had a seductive appearance and was such an admirer of the female sex that he increased the population of Glupov to almost twice its original size" (8, 279). Immediately after seizing power, the female mayor Klemantinka de Burbon "locked herself up with her soldiers and indulged in delicacies of morals and manners" (8, 296). Even characters of lesser social standing express their sexual urges and keep them at the forefront of their wants. "I cannot endure the raging of the flesh," sings the tutor Argentov "in a resonant bass", making sure that the object of his desire, the mistress of the house, hears him (Gentlemen of Tashkent·, 10, 104). Another "gentleman of Tashkent", Pierre, "had never known anything but bodily exercises" (10, 101) - and the context makes it clear exactly what kind of "exercises" Saltykov has in mind. The junior captain Val'jaznyj ("The puppet business people" in Fairy tales), while interrogating the dollmaker Izuverov as to why he did not want to be intimate with his own wife, reproaches him, alluding to the enormous possibility of sexual enjoyment that, in his view, is hidden in Izuverov's spouse: "And such a woman... She recently visited my office... Large and hot like a stove... Now I, with such a woman... there is no limit to this kind of woman! But you! Oh, you, oh!" (16 [1], 92). Just as, in Saltykov's world, an imposing physical appearance grants the possibility of making a career in government service, success in high society depends not so much on spiritual and intellectual qualities of an individual, but on the sexual appeal of the women and the sexual prowess of the men. In Gentlemen of Tashkent a high society's woman, Ol'ga Sergeevna Persianova's little boy "became an object of all kinds of admiration": a future "man of the world" is

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growing up here. Saltykov alludes to just that "feature" which is the main object of worry for the mother: "In the mornings a special children's doctor would come to him, examine him, poke him, attend his bath, and every time without fail would repeat one and the same phrase: Oh! this young man will go far!"' (10, 87). The fact that he is speaking of the boy's genitals is made clear in Ol'ga Sergeevna's constant reply: "Ah! mais saves-vous, docteur, qu'il devient déjà polisson!" (10, 87). Ol'ga Sergeevna's own sexual attractiveness is the primary concern of her nearest relatives. When, distraught over her husband's death, she grows thin, her uncle comments: "My friend, I understand full well the importance of your loss," answered mon oncle, "mais ce n'est pas une raison pour maigrir, mon enfant. Remember that you are a woman and have a responsibility to society. Don't you dare, don't grow thin, otherwise I'll get mad at you and stop loving my little doll (10, 87). In Abroad "a modern cultured woman" is occupied with nothing but "how to make her clothes cover her curves as little as possible" (14, 26

68). Using the euphemism, pojasnica 'a small of the back', to indicate the woman's buttocks, Saltykov remarks: "To have a high bosom and vydajuscajasja pojasnica 'a protruding small of the back' was the ultimate goal of her self-respect" (14, 69). In Pompadours and pompadouresses, one reads about the town temptress Nadezda Petrovna: She was one of those luxurious women past which not one man in a commanding position could walk without trembling. Her step had a particularly irritating effect, and when she carried her small of the back stretched out and did not so much walk but rather swooped down the street, the pompadour, without himself being aware of it, would begin to jump up and down. Many attempted to withstand the stupendous effects of this gait, but none succeeded in doing so (8, 45). On several occasions, Saltykov uses other euphemisms in the place of "small of the back." In The Golovlyovs, Evprksejuska, Porfirij's lover,

Satirical characterization:

Non-metaphoric denigration

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has a "back like a stove". There is also a woman's otlet, which might be rendered in English as "the part that stands by itself (literally, otlet means "the part that is flying away"). In The diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg, for example, the narrator, being tipsy, imitates the body movements of a female restaurant singer: "I bent my head and pushed my chest forward, and with the remaining part of my body I tried to depict otlet 'the part that stands by itself" (10, 284). Saltykov resorts to various euphemisms and hints alluding to sex itself; the pleasure one feels in recognizing the meaning of a hidden allusion intensifies the comic effect of the device: Upon the return from the ball that so-called family happiness would begin and would continue right up to the morning, when the young couple would perform the toilet necessary for making or receiving visits (10, 83). Galja [Mrs. Sal'vioni] ran out and waved her hands to signal that she had an old husband who would only sleep and would not comfort her, Galja, at all (7, 117). Alluding to rough (read: passionate) sex Saltykov resorts to numerous risque double entendres. It is said about the old pompadouress that she "had inscribed on her body every escapade of his [the pompadour]!" (8, 44; in Russian, the phrase na svoem tele 'on [one's] own body' in this context is commonly used in a metaphoric sense only; of course, Saltykov hints at more). Mourning her pompadour's departure, Nadezda Petrovna "was unable to look at herself in the mirror without seeing everywhere...everywhere the tracks of her pompadour!" (8, 44). When all the Don Juans of the province attempt to woo her, she responds without fail: '"No! Will you please forget about that! All that belongs to my dear pompadour!' ...It was as if she had said to each and every one: 'See how soft, nice, juicy, and fluffy I am! And how happy your superior must be with me!'" (8, 43). As the comic motifs of gluttony and sex play the same role of exposing moral squalor, they are often found together. Thus, in Signs of the time Saltykov responds to the accusation that Russians are cosmopolitan: "This cosmopolitanism is gastronomo-sexual, having as its objects bloody roast beef, [Parisian restaurants], and jolly girls of

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all lands" (7, 89). In Abroad, he looks at a Berlin street and recalls St. Petersburg "at around five o'clock, before dinner": Here is that fop, a railroad official, who rushes past as fast as his trotter can go - why does he look so preoccupied? what high thoughts is he thinking? Alas! he thinks the most simple thought, just this: either how to overeat so much that his pants would split (hitherto he had, for some reason, been unable to achieve this effect), or how to disfigure "that scamp Al'fonsin27

ka" so that afterward she would not be able to sit for a whole month (14, 50-51). Here, two kinds of physiological denigration, gluttony and unrestrained sexual appetite, are presented as interchangeable comic devices. The examination of the motif of sexual pleasure concludes the analysis of non-metaphoric denigration, that is, of those devices in which a satirical character, no matter how degraded, remains within the sphere of the human. Let us now turn to the metaphoric devices of denigration, that is, to those cases in which the tropes of denigration lead that character across the boundaries of the human.

Chapter four Satirical characterization: Metaphoric denigration

Metaphoric denigration in Saltykov's work forms a kind of "table of ranks". In order of their distance from the human ideal, one finds characters depicted as: (1) a kind of fauna; (2) a mechanical doll or marionette; (3) a kind of flora; (4) an object. This "table" does not reflect the frequency with which each device appears. The two extremes, the zoological motif and the motif of "human being as thing" appear in Saltykov's works most often. A doll bears an external resemblance to a human being and may under certain circumstances be perceived as a human being, but it is by its nature an object. Denigration to plant-level resembles denigration to the inanimate. Plants, however, tend to be seen as belonging to a higher order than objects. Because a plant possesses physiology, albeit primitive - it grows, may blossom, bear fruits - a character compared to a plant seems higher in the scale of values than one compared to a thing. For this reason "flora" precedes "an object" in the table above. Let us begin with one of the most frequent motifs in Saltykov's work - "zoological denigration."

1. The human being as animal The motif of the human being as animal is one of the most ancient and widespread devices of satirical denigration. One finds it already in ancient Greek comedy; it is even reflected in the titles of Aristophanes' plays: The wasps, The frogs. The ass in The metamorphoses of Apuleius, the horses in the last part of Swift's Gulliver's travels, and the penguins in France's The island of the penguins are nothing but personifications of denigrating metaphors. This tradition continues into twentieth century literature; it suffices to remember Orwell's

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Animal farm, Capek's The war with the salamanders, and Ionesco's The rhinoceros. Animals in literary works are most frequently represented in folkloric terms. For example, the typical folkloric bear is awkward1 (although in reality bears run quite swiftly and climb trees) and kindhearted (real bears can be quite dangerous). The qualities folklore attributes to bears are of a "physiognomic" derivation: they remain within the bounds of the initial impression of the bear, an impression produced by its external appearance alone. Literature also exhibits purely symbolic interpretations of animals, interpretations rooted in mythology and legend. Such, for example, is the wisdom of the snake. Folkloric and literary treatments of animals differ in other ways as well. For example, the sad girl of Russian folk songs is often compared to a cuckoo. In Slavic satirical folklore, however, the cuckoo becomes the thoughtless mother who abandons her children to the whims of fortune. In Saltykov's work, satirical denigration through comparison to an animal occurs so frequently that his satirical characters could populate a large zoo by themselves. Saltykov is quite inventive and compares his characters to the most varied representatives of fauna, from insects to anthropoids: "What a brigadier! Like a bedbug, he wants to crawl up onto the mattress of a married woman!" (8, 308). The adherents of zenskij vopros 'the woman question' crawled by like lizards. (11, 284) [Kondratij Trifonovic] minced around on his little legs as roosters do when they are in love (3, 131). Prokop's face resembles that of a beautiful pug (12, 309). Senja was so inordinately proud of the trust placed in him that he stretched out his neck like a saddled steed (8, 16). She [the old pompadouress] jumped from her seat and pounced on the chief of police like a wounded tigress (8, 52).

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These were not people passing before me, but something more like gorillas, capable of splintering a gun's muzzle with their teeth (10, 24).4 Sometimes a group of animals appears ["around her swarmed a flock of shy admirers" (8, 41)] or even an entire genus: "It is well known that of all possible species of mammals the most liberal may be the Russian landowner" (6, 455). These comparisons become comic, however, only when certain animals, that is, those which seem to display inadequacies characteristic of human beings, are used for the metaphoric counterpart.5 In Aesop's fables and subsequent representatives of this genre, animals make allegorical appearances. Allegory by it self, however, is not comic. In his use of animal images for comic denigration Saltykov most often observes established satirical conventions; sometimes, however, he deliberately overturns the norms of both folklore and literature. In his fairy tale, "The forgetful ram", the ram (read: someone dependent on the Russian state) does not adhere to the conventional notion of Russian popular culture and is not represented as stupid but rather as meek and unhappy. The eagle in Saltykov's "The eagle, the patron of the arts" is not the proud and noble bird of poetry and folklore, but rather a scavenger par excellence:6 Poets write a lot about eagles in their poetry, and always with praise: the eagle has an indescribable beauty in every feature, and a swift gaze, and a majestic flight. He does not fly like other birds, but soars or floats in the sky; what is more, he gazes at the sun and fights with thunder. Others even endow his heart with magnanimity. So whenever, for example, they want to exalt a policeman in verse, they will compare him without fail to an eagle. "Like an eagle, they say, policeman badge number such and such looked around, grabbed someone, and, having heard him out, - forgave him" (16 [1], 72). Saltykov treats the image of the eagle idiosyncratically, destroying the established poetic stereotype: It may be an eagle, it may be an arch-eagle, but it's still a bird. It's so much a bird that comparison to it, even of a policeman,

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may be flattering only if misunderstood. I now think about eagles in the following way: "Eagles are eagles, and that's all. They are predators, but have an excuse: nature itself created them exclusively as anti-vegetarians" (16 [1], 73). Comparison to animals is so much a part of our everyday speech that many zoological denigrations have lost their freshness and figurativeness. Such expressions as "stubborn as an ox", "works like a horse" or, in Russian, uprjam, kak osel 'stubborn as a donkey', zloj, kak sobaka 'angry as a dog' have had their figurative nature effaced long ago; they no longer strike anyone as tropes. But Saltykov successfully "resurrects" these invidious comparisons; he restores their original power. Thus, mocking the eagerness of one of his characters, publicist Zlatoustov, to serve the bosses, the satirist comments: "From time to time [Zlatoustov] would move restlessly in his armchair like a horse ready at the first sign to begin neighing and attacking" (8, 118). Saltykov compares the pompadour Feden'ka to "a young stallion who has broken out of his stall into freedom" (8, 191). Sometimes simile is varied with metaphor in expressions of the type "literary crcrvos greedy for carrion" (6, 447), "the highest dignitaries, these, as it were, administrative double-snipes" (3,29). Saltykov often compares characters to animals by using metaphoric verbs or adverbs: '"Oh! Storyteller!' he began to bark upon seeing me" (11, 54); "We survived - but without the tree of citizenship. We do not gather around it and do not twitter" (8, 164); "On a trot Kozelkov hurried to leave the club" (8, 103).7 Saltykov varies his techniques for making worn expressions vivid, for restoring to them their original, comic function of comparing people to animals, by mentioning real and metaphoric animals in the same breath. Thus, in the phrase "...the young out-of-town lions showed off in hunting sleighs and trotters" (8, 78), the mention of "trotters" insinuates the possibility that the "lions" themselves (from the expression "high-society lion") are more likely to be of an animal rather than human variety. The symbolic she-goat in the set phrase "to flog someone like Sidor's goat" {drat', porot', sec' kak sidorovu kozu, that is, to punish someone mercilessly) is transformed into a real one by adding the figurative expression "to bend down to the ground" (prigibat'sja k zemle, that is, to behave in a quiet, unnotice-

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Satirical characterization: Metaphoric denigration

able way). When the two expressions are juxtaposed, "goat" takes on literal meaning: "The Glupovian loves to bend down to the earth and pretend to be Sidor's goat" (3, 469). Saltykov also uses sayings, proverbs, and other conventional expressions to enliven the zoological motif. For example, "Even the devoted Akulina became in [the eyes of Padejkova] something like a snake warmed at the bosom [otogretaja u pazuxi zmeja]" (3, 306). Here one easily perceives the play with the expression "to warm a snake against one's bosom", meaning, "to show attention, concern and love for a person who repays with ingratitude" (Molotkov 1968: 305). Close to this device is one of injecting new life into animal images through the citing of well-known literary works. For example, the police-chiefs mood in Pompadours and pompadouresses is identical to that of Krylov's crows in the fable "The crow and the fox": "The

g

police-chiefs breath stuck in his craw from happiness" (8, 507). Saltykov's "zemstvo mosquitos" derive from Krylov's fable "The lion and the mosquito". While Krylov's mosquito, comments Saltykov, was able to "penetrate into the very softness" of the lion, zemstvo public figures can only "buzz" at meetings like mosquitos (15 [2], 156). Saltykov constructs new animal expressions on the model of old ones: their denigrating function is made clear. For example, in Russian there is a saying: raznoserstnaja publika 'a public of different coats' - raznoserstnaja is used literally only for animals), that is, a public created from chance people. There is also the expression Ijudi vsevozmoznyx mastej 'people of all [possible] coats' - the word for coat, mast', is also used literally only for animals). Here the original meaning of the word "mast'", that is, a type of animal, was long ago effaced. Saltykov creates a new expression: by replacing some words with others he reinstates the figurativeness of the expression and creates a denigrating comic effect: "Liberaly vsevozmoznyx serstej" 'Liberals of all possible hair' - substituting serst' for mast' (3, 260). 10 Animal comparisons in Saltykov's work may also work through metonymy. For instance, the infatuated pompadour, who fawns on the "old pompadouress", seeks her attention and lavishes compliments on her - a resemblance that the narrator's exclamations make obvious: "Oh, if only he had had a tail, she probably would have seen how he was now wagging it!" (8, 46). Saltykov also introduces into the narration new denigrating units, and then he produces the generalized

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denigrating concepts that are based on the units. In Letters to my auntie, for example, Saltykov discusses the self-satisfaction of 'Vell-intentioned helpers" ("ô/a^77amerenn37eso