Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп. Сетевой архив.

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
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Miha Javornik

Mikhail Bakhtin and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

(Psychotipology of a Period)*

The purpose of this paper is to juxtapose the conceptualization of M.Bakhtin with the views of the late Russian avant-garde movement called OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ (the Oberiuty).¹ There are several reasons for this juxtaposition. To mention only the major ones: (1) M.Bakhtin knew the Oberiuty's works and held them in high esteem; (2) there are similarities between Bakhtin's and the Oberiuty's views.

The question is whether these similarities are merely a coincidence, a result of acquaintance between them or of a similar attitude towards reality as it was formed on a certain level of cultural-historical development.

Another question in discussing this topic will be how an individual/artist contemplates the reality of the 1920's and what stance he takes towards it. Translated into the context of the literary scholarship — the paper will discuss the role and position of the author/narrator and literary characters in the works of the Oberiuty. Its point of departure will be Bakhtin's evaluation of the Oberiuty (Vaginov), but it will also take into consideration his understanding formulated in the 1920's in the works The Author and the Character in Aesthetic Activity (Автор и герой в эстетической деятельности — 1920—24), Issues of Content, Material, and Form in Literary Art (Проблема содержания, материала и формы в словесном художественном творчестве — 1924), and Problems of Dostoyevsky's Creative Work (Проблемы творчества Достоевского — 1929)²; the treatment will also include findings from the books: The Creative Work of Franзois Rabelais (Творчествo Франсyа Рабле) and The Questions of Literature and Aesthetics (Вопросы литературы и эстетики).

To ask the question of how the literature of the 1920's shows the attitude towards reality is to inquire about the characteristics of the novel. The novel as a constantly emerging and changing genre most completely expresses ("breaks up," to use Bakhtin's words) social reality.

Роман — единственный становящийся жанр, поэтому он более глубоко, существенно, чутко и быстро отражает становление самой действительности³.

In the second half of the 20^thcentury there are two main directions in Russian novel: one direction emphasizes the plot and story (the so-called fantastic-adventurous novels)⁴, the other kind reduces the story to the point that it becomes unrecognizable (prose without plot or ornamental prose).

Following Bakhtin's thoughts on the novel, the 20^th century novel includes — generally speaking — two kinds of contemplation of reality. The author of this paper is interested in the second kind of contemplation, i.e., contemplation that has reduced the role and importance of the story. The novels by the Oberiuty belong to this type as well, among them the novels by Konstantin Vaginov, which Bakhtin held in particularly high esteem.

When investigating the novel with a weakened story that is viewed as a specific human reflection with respect to the reality, one should quote a thought by the Russian acmeist O.Mandel'shtam from his essay The End of the Novel (Конец романа), written in the 1920"s:

Мера романа — человеческaя биография или система биографий. (…) Дальнейшая судьба романa будeт ничем иным, как историей распыления биографии, как формы личного существования, даже больше чем распыления — катастрофической гибели биографии. (…) Современный роман сразу лишился и фабулы, то есть действующей в пpинадлежащем ей времени личности, и психологии, так как она не обосновывает уже никаких действий⁵.

Тhought is of outmost importance for contemplation: Mandel'shtam claims that in the contemporary novel (as a reflection of reality) the literary character is no longer active, since he is not capable of any action. Would it be then reasonable to conclude that this kind of reflection of reality in the novel indicates the incapability of the individual to contemplate reality?

Igor Smirnov in his work Psychodiachronologic discovers parallels between the psychological evolution of man as an individual and ontogenesis of culture⁶. According to him, repeated depersonalization is typical of the late Russian avant-garde, where he also includes the Oberiuty (the 1920's). The author/individual attempts to contemplate reality, but at every attempt he discovers that he is unsuccessful. In this manifestation Smirnov sees characteristics of introverted masochism. Among the principal

*Доклад, прочитанный на IX Международной Бахтинской конференции в Берлине (июль 1999 года. См. об этой конференции на с.170—192 настоящего номера).

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
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characteristics of this kind of psychism is the sensation that could be presented as perseverance in being powerless. An introverted masochist, despite constantly repeated attempts to solve the conflict between the subject and the object (reality), cannot find himself or, in Smirnov's words, his contemplation is entirely formal and irrelevant (Smirnov, 290). Particularly interesting for this essay is the fact that Smirnov unequivocally includes M.Bakhtin among introverted masochists.

Между тем для М.М.Бахтина (интровертированного мазохиста) именно личность иницирует отказ от личностно го: она становится автрской постольку, поскольку она готова уступить себя ради оправдания чуждого ей сознания (Достоевский) или ради того, чтобы сделать создаваемый ею текст отражением народного праздника, карнавала (Рабле, Гоголь). (Smirnov, 293)⁷.

It is evident from this citation that Smirnov juxtaposes Bakhtin's (Bakhtinian) view of the author, literary character and their contemplation, respectively, which is, according to Bakhtin, realized in the polyphony and carnival attitude towards the world, with entirely formal and irrelevant contemplation, characteristic of the introverted masochism. Would it be then reasonable to conclude that in Dostoyevsky's works Bakhtin in fact discovers the beginning of the process leading to the destruction of individuality, when it is impossible to speak of clearly recognizable discourse with a clear axiological position? Does carnivalization mean the (self-) suppression of individuality, when a person during folk holidays puts on a mask and celebrates the idea of the pan-human, collective, rooted in the mythical consciousness?⁸

Is there a connection between the works of the Oberiuty and Bakhtin; is the contemplation of reality in the novel with a weakened story interwoven with Bakhtin's views?

As was mentioned above, among the works by the Oberiuty Bakhtin held in particularly high esteem those of K.Vaginov. In his conversation with V.Duvakin he underscores several characteristics of his novels, that discuss the carnival and carnivalesque perception of the world, respectively (Duvakin, 188)⁹. Bakhtin stops at the novel The Goat's Song (Козлиная песнь), whose title already speaks of a carnivalesque, ceremonial form honoring the god Dionysius. He pays a substantial amount of attention to the way the novel presents one of the main characters_Teptelkin:

Видите ли, самое название "Козлиная песнь" — это дословный перевод древнегреческого названия "трагедия". То есть песня козла, козла. И героем этого романа является необычный, своеобразный человек Тептелкин. (…) Да. Трагический герой, который… и трагичен и нетрагичен — и смешон, и чудаковат, и нелеп — и в то же время глубоко трагичен. Это Тептелкин. (Duvakin, 194)¹⁰

Teptelkin lives the life of an important, tragic, and bizarre-eccentric person — or, as Bakhtin puts it — this is the unique tragedy of a funny man, portrayed in a specific way:

Вообще это совершенно своеобразная, я бы сказал, в литературе трагедия, трагедия — вот можно так это назвать — трагедия смешного человека. Смешногo человека. Tрагедия чудака, но только не в стиле Достоевского, а в ином стиле несколько. Вообще очень интересная, очень любопытная судьба. (Duvakin, 197—98)¹¹.

It seems that in his conversation with Duvakin Bakhtin is observant of the difference that is the fundamental component of the carnivalesque attitude towards the world: bi-polarity and ambivalence, respectively. In speaking of Teptelkin, Bakhtin points out the unity of things that are in principle incompatible, which is intended to build a whole and demonstrate the completeness of the perception (contemplation) of the world, respectively. This bi-polarity is clearly visible in uniting the comic-tragic, serious/important and bizarre-eccentric.

By quoting Bakhtin's words about The Goat's Song one discusses the novel, for which Bakhtin claims that it most perfectly reflects reality. This again shows the combination of reality and fiction (novel) into a new, different whole. Vaginov found prototypes for his characters in people from the Leningrad of his time:

Не автор, а совершенно реальное лицо, которое тогда жило в Петербурге и события жизни которого довольно точно — и привычки и так далее — переданы в романе. Это Лев Васильевич Пумпянский. Вы его знаете, конечно. (…) Да, вот тут есть и автобиографичское лицо_это неизвестный поэт. Он фигурирует все время в романе, неизвестный поэт — это друг Тептелкина. Затем еще — Костя Ротиков. Это отчасти как раз… прототипом послужил Павел Николаевич Медведев (…) (Duvakin, 196)¹².

One finds similar statements about the connection between reality

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
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and the novel in the discussion of another of Vaginov's novels, The Works and Days of Svistonov (Труды и дни Свистонова) . It describes what this reality is like and how a character/personality reflects it. Bakhtin states that this is an autobiographic work (Svistonov is supposedly Vaginov himself — cf. Duvakin, 198), speaking about the representative personalities of the time. For the purpose of this paper Bakhtin's observations about a typical representative of the time named Kuku are of interest. Kuku is a person who does not have any possessions of his own, as everything he had ever owned was with time taken away from him. He had only one thing left: to reproduce lives of others. Kuku's dream is to enter literature, but he cannot write anything, because there isn't anything_reflection of the world is not possible any more. The only thing left for him to do is to stylize people and periods from the past — Kuku dresses like a person from Puškin's time. In the conversation with Duvakin Bakhtin points out that this is the kind of void that has absorbed various periods, interests, and people:¹³

Ну, нужно сказать, что этот Куку — это такое своеобраз ное порождение эпохи — человек, который, так сказать, ничего не имеет своего собственного. Что у него было отнято временем — не в смысле материальном. В конце концов, ему осталось только одно_воспроизводить жизнь других людей, разыгрывать их, быть чем-то. (…) И вообще так это все у него сделанное. Это пустота, но пустота, которая в то же время притянула к себе различные силы, различные эпохи, различные интересы. Мечтает он о том, чтобы войти в литературу, но сам он ничего написать не может, потому что у него ничего нету. Он может только стилизовать. (Duvakin, 198)¹⁴.

The two aforementioned works by Vaginov of which Bakhtin speaks very positively, demonstrate the characteristics of the novel with a weakened story from the 1920"s. It is interesting, however, that in these novels one can also find the evaluative relationships that Bakhtin in the 1930"s developed into a theory about the carnivalesque attitude towards the world. The fundamental structural and, as a consequence, axiological principle in the novel The Goat's Song — that received so much Bakhtin's attention in his conversation with Duvakin — is, without any doubt, bi-polarity and ambivalence, respectively. From this ambivalence grows increasingly clear realization that the entire reality which can
be reflected by the author/narrator and literary characters is nothing but a void. This void needs to be understood as a specific sensation of an individual, as a manner of contemplation that is of particular value; moreover, this value is generated in the carnivalesque attitude towards the world.

For the purpose of a more detailed substantiation of the presented statements one needs to look at the main thematic-conceptual relationships in Vaginov's novel. The prevalent ambivalent relationship in The Goat's Song is the thought about the disintegration and death, respectively, of culture,¹⁵ while one constantly witnesses the author's/character's attempts to prevent this destruction. He sees the solution in an attempt to collect all cultural facts in one place, to create some kind of a museum/catalogue and thus save the culture from ruin. This cataloguing indicates the coming death of culture (void), whereas at the same time it offers an opportunity for transformation, a new life of cultural matter. This therefore means the death of a certain cultural fact to the extent that its original function is lost, and it means rebirth to the extent that this catalogued cultural matter will begin a new life when someone takes it from the catalogue/museum and places it in a different, actual context.

The aforementioned relationship speaks of a special reflection of the world, which for the vanishing individual means a way to overcome the decay of culture and to secure his position in history. This kind of ambivalence, displayed in the novel — similarly to Bakhtin's understanding of the carnivalesque attitude towards the world, — is the basis of perception of the world and should be understood as an opportunity for an individual to leave his mark on it. One should recall Bakhtin's definition of the carnival and carnivalization, as in the critique of Hugo's understanding when he pointed out that F.Rabelais (who was the subject of Bakhtin's thorough treatment) had comprehended the meaning of ambivalence. He particularly underscored the value of laughter, which albeit related to death of the old world, is supposed to signify the beginning of the birth of the new world (Bakhtin, Творчествo Ф.Рабле…, 138,139); the literary characters in The Goat's Song are mostly shown as humorous¹⁶.

In Vaginov's novels as well as in Bakhtin's understanding of the carnivalesque attitude towards the world the levels of material/actual, cultural-historical, and individual are connected into a circle of unstoppable metamorphoses. The elements and categories, respectively, comprising these levels have a two-fold character: each time they can be presented as a unity of two opposite value indicators (birth/death, light/dark, good/bad, etc.). Each category also contains the beginning of its

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
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opposite. The Goat's Song includes thoughts of the Unknown Poet (a literary character in the novel) about a circulating, a repeatable circle_the cycle of life and death. Moreover, this question about death (void) and life is constantly related to the discussion of culture and the position of the individual/author in it:

(…) он знает что никогда старое солнце не засветит, что дважды невозможно войти в один и тот же поток, что начинается новый круг над двухтысячлетным кругом, он бежит все глубже и глубже в старый, двухтысячилетный круг.

(…) для неизвестного поэта что гибель? — ровным счетом плюнуть, все снова повторится, круговорот-с.

(…) Интелигентный чeловек духовно живет не в одной стране, а во многих, нe в одной эпохе, а в многих и может избрать любую гибель, он не грустит, а ему просто скучно, когда его гибель застает дома, он только промычит: еще раз с тобой встретился, — и ему станет смешно. (Vaginov, 72, 47, 36—37)¹⁷.

The idea revealed in the structure of The Goat's Song develops into the opinion that culture is not something homogenous and complete within itself. The author/narrator in Vaginov's work clearly speaks about the fact that culture is a constantly changing text, based on montage as its building principle. If on one hand the text that is complete in itself (e.g., a literary work as such) in effect speaks of its end, this death is already an announcement of birth of a new text. This type of reasoning can without any doubt be juxtaposed with Bakhtin's idea about heteroglossia and polyphony, respectively, as a never concluded contact between various voices/texts, which begins with the so-called inner dialogization¹⁸.Heteroglossia is also discussed in Vaginov's novel:

Собственно, разговор уже велся не на одном языке, а на всех языках одновременно: вдруг вспыхивало ka…, то вместо гимназии № pala…stra, то почему_то раздавалось — urbs (…) то лились итальянские звуки, то произноси лись в нос французские. (Vaginov, 131)¹⁹.

The end of the novel should be understood in the relationship to the polyphonically understood and always open culture, with constant changes in the comprehension of the world. This end again speaks — if observed from Bakhtin's point of view — of a carnivalesque attitude towards the world. At the end of a completed novel the narrator/author
dissapears from it²⁰. However, this physical death cannot prevent the author and the work from continuing their life in other texts. Death means birth of a new function assumed by a particular work (as a text) through the dialogue with other texts²¹. As such, this text has an influence on real life²².

The ambivalent relationships that have been discussed as essential evaluative categories in Bakhtin as well as in Vaginov, are at the end of The Goat's Song presented entirely explicitly and on several levels: it is particularly interesting that the end of the novel is unexpectedly stylized as the closing scene from a theatre play²³. The author of the novel (Vaginov?), excited about the play, comes to the stage to shake hands with the actors. This act introduces into the text a new ambivalent relationship, since the author himself becomes a theater protagonist. As he appears on stage, he overcomes the divide between life and the novel and unites them into one whole — into a theater play. This is also confirmed by the actors's actions: when they take their costumes and make-up off, they begin returning to reality, but they remain on stage in the roles of their characters. Art is transformed into life and art is born from life; this is also contemplated by the actors and the author as they are toasting to high art, and in doing so they are not afraid of their spiritual death — naturally, since death (end) of something offers the opportunity for a new birth.

И автор со своими актерами едет в дешевый кабачок. Там они пируют. Среди бутылок и опустошаемых стаканов автор обсуждает со своими актерами план новой пьесы (emphasis added by M.J.) и они спорят и горячатся и произносят тосты за высокое искусство, не боящееся позора, преступления и духовной смерти. (Vaginov, 508)²⁴.

Similar to Vaginov's reasoning about the function of theater is Bakhtin's presentation of the relationship between a viewer and an actor in his Aesthetics of Literary Art:

Зритель теряет свое место вне и против изображаемого события жизни действующих лиц драмы, в каждый данный момент он в одном из них и изнутри его переживает его жизнь, его глазами видит сцену, его ушами слышит других действующих лиц, сопереживает с ним все его поступки. Зрителя нет, (…) он весь в героях, в сопереживае мом²⁵.

Both Vaginov and Bakhtin in this case are discussing the carnivalesque reception of the world: the viewer (author, director) on one hand

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
66 67

lives the life of the characters on stage (puts himself in their role, becomes the character himself), while these characters are still transforming the audience in the auditorium into viewers and director/author, respectively. This ambivalent relationship is in no uncertain terms discussed by the narrator/author in The Goat's Song, where one can identify more Bakhtin's ideas about dialogism:

Я вижу своих героев стоящими вокруг меня в воздухе, (…) сажусь у моря и, в то время как мои герои возносятся над морем, пронизанные солнцем, я начинаю перелистывать рукопись и беседовать с ними. (…) "Я добр, — размышляю я, — я по-тептелкински прекраснодушен. Я обладаю тончайшим вкусом Кости Ротикова, концепцией неизвестного поэта, простоватостью Троицына. Я сделан из теста моих героев…." (Vaginov, 149, 505)²⁶.

Bakhtin's and Vaginov's thought about perpetual birth and death is combined with the understanding of circle (circulation, cycle) as a universal form of expression found in the conception of the Oberiuty and other prominent art theoreticians of the 1920's (e.g., K.Malevich)²⁷. In their view the circle most appropriately represents the idea of repetition. One needs to keep in mind that this cycling does not mean repetition of the same, but each time it speaks of the search for different (endless and incomprehensible) in the same. This thought was clearly expressed in the essay "About the Circle" by D.Kharms, one of the leading member of the Oberiuty:

Прямая, сломанная в одной точке, образует угол. Но такая прямая, которая ломается одновременно во всех своих точках, называется кривой. Бесконечное количество изменений прямой делает ее совершенной. Кривая не должна быть обязательно бесконечно большой. Она может быть такой, что мы свободно охватим ее взором, и в то же время она останется непостижимой и бесконечной (implasis added by M.J.). Я говорю о замкнутой кривой, в которой скрыто начало и конец. И самая ровная, непостижимая, бесконечная и идеально замкнутая кривая будет КРУГ²⁸.

From the type of understanding of the circle that is discussed in the quotation the connection should be made to Vaginov's and Bakhtin's
ideas: the elements of culture have various meanings in various contexts yet they exist as the same empirical facts. The person who appears as the author of a text the next moment becomes a character in some other text. Only this very fact makes him an author. It is no coincidence that Vaginov in The Goat's Song repeatedly pointed out the changeability of roles played by an individual (author/literary character)²⁹.

The paper has listed a number of examples and/or comparisons between the structure of Vaginov's texts and the theory of M.Bakhtin. The parallels that were pointed out raise questions about possible generalizations.

There are visible parallels between the 1920"s novel without a plot and/or novels with a weakened story, which include the Oberiuty prose, on one hand and Bakhtin's views on the other. These parallels are evident in similar if not identical perception (contemplation) of reality.

This similarity was also pointed out by Smirnov when he stated that the main characteristic of the late Russian avant-garde (and consequently, M.Bakhtin) is the struggle with the intellect³⁰. Bakhtin considers characters such as the fool, jester, or joker to be of special importance for the development of the European novel³¹.This apology also signifies a particular kind of degradation of everything intellectual. The word intellect/intellectual should be viewed mostly as the manifestation of culture, which is the result of the human intellectual reflection throughout the history. This manifestation (i.e., intellect) foretells the disintegration or, rather, the death of the culture itself (cf. Vaginov). The struggle with death means the fight with intellect. It is not surprising at all that the main weapon in this fight is the negation of everything intellectual, i.e., the apology of insanity, bizarreness, and/or stupidity, which is an eye-catching characteristic of the Oberiuty's texts³². This insanity, which should be understood as a method of contemplating reality, certainly does not mean the absence of intellect, but rather its replacement, which could be labeled as negative intellect. Hence, this is an entirely normal and expected situation, in which the actual role of the intellect has become re-evaluated, i.e., it has been given (in a new context) a different value. Naturally, the apology of insanity at first leads to dehierarchization of all rational, already existing relationships, which eventually leads to a void. Only this void (death) creates the sensation of complete freedom, where potentially anything is possible (new birth).

If one looks carefully and draws the connections between various

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп, 1999, № 3
Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope, 1999, № 3
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statements, it becomes clear that this is again a discussion about ambivalence, about the unconcluded within something concluded, about a circle (circulating), which means nothing/zero (void, death), but also freedom and possibility of anything.

A void (nothing), which is a topic in The Goat's Song as well as in Works and Days of Svistonov and is also underscored as an important characteristic by Bakhtin in his conversation with Duvakin, is only the beginning (birth) of something new, as it contains all possible options.

The question about the psychotypical characteristics of culture materialized in the novel with a weakened story (Vaginov) and speaking (according to Smirnov) of repeated depersonalization, can now be set into an even broader cultural-historical context, the findings can be summarized and compared. Introverted masochism, as Smirnov called the Oberiuty's and Bakhtin's contemplation, becomes a way of contemplating reality when Soviet society and culture, respectively, at the end of the 1920"s faced questions about authorship, subject, an author's creative freedom and/or individuality. The ruling ideology put ever greater limits on the freedom of the individual, which culminated in 1932—34 when literary organizations were dissolved; the ideologization and dogmatization of literature was increasingly explicit, with the government prescribing the aesthetic norm — socialist realism. The prescribed contemplation of an individual in the new reality is based on the principle of the collective and it emphasizes the fact that, in his views of the world, the artist must unconditionally adjust to the demands of the collective and/or ideology that is supposed to pave the way for a better, more just society. This effort essentially says that one needs to eliminate any individual view that threatens the projection of the new world. Naturally, in this new situation the author/individual has to internalize reality, which, in other words, means that he, whether he likes it or not, must reflect social expectations and/or demands for collective patterns set in advance. Logically, in this process the author's word as an expression of an omniscient and self-confident authority (known, for instance, in Symbolism or most isms during the avant-garde). The author as a bearer of his own statements expressed in an authoritative manner, disappears and the text and its structure begin to fulfill the role of the new value and new reflection. This is affirmed by the statement of the author/narrator in The Goat's Song by Vaginov: I am made of the same dough as my characters. The role and the significance of the author that does not represent authority in the traditional sense of the word can be deciphered from the discourse of others, i.e., literary characters/real personalities, who only through the rewiring of the reality and literature build the reflection.
The author who cannot realize his individual point of view in reality internalizes reality and creates his own model of the world, in which he discovers that he can be established as the author/individual only by his own literary characters. The search for the meaning of the world takes place in a continuous dialogue between the author and the literary characters. Understandably, their dialogue is the expression of the carnivalesque attitude towards the world, in which the function of a person (the author or literary characters) is changed in constantly changing, yet repeatable circulation, cycles. Every concrete reflection is always the expression of a change, but at the same time it testifies to the same — every birth contains the beginning of its demise. The opposite is true as well: every demise contains elements of the same, but at the same time a different beginning.

The works of the Oberiuty as well as of M.Bakhtin display characteristics of so-called mythical thinking. This is clearly pointed out by Bakhtin in his work The Creative Work of Franзois Rabelais in his statement that the carnival is an important syncretic form of theater, since it unites various holiday forms, ceremonies, deeply rooted in the primal (mythical — author's note) way of human thinking (Bakhtin, Творчествo Ф.Рабле, 15, 206). It is characteristic of this thinking that individuality is not yet developed, that individual has not identified himself as a bearer of variety in the world, there is only one — collective truth and consciousness. According to Bakhtin all participants in the carnival are active participants of the collective rituals (Bakhtin, Проблемы поэтики…, 207). He points out that during the ritual play the carnivalesque, universal laughter includes the addressee, the author, and the reader in this ritual — the idea about who is who is vanishing (Bakhtin, Творчествo Ф.Рабле…, 57). Laughter signifies profanation, transfer of everything high, ideal, abstract to the ground and physical being, which indicates random connections of spiritual and material into inseparable unity (Bakhtin, Творчествo Ф.Рабле…, 21)³³. This type of reflection can be interpreted as an aspiration to return into the phase of consciousness before reflection (from the point of the individual this is a void/death), when this — in collective forms of consciousness — offers a possibility of rebirth, in birth it means the beginning of a new individual.

In other words: the apology of the carnivalesque attitude towards the world means the return to the roots of the mythical, collective, and primordial and it has even greater significance at the time of increasingly pointed questions in the Soviet society about human freedom, creativity, and individuality. This is understandable, since individual reflection is more and more often capable of speaking only about the absence of a clearly distinctive self and about the fact that one's own intellect

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cannot be trusted, since it repeatedly leads to depersonalization. The artist is therefore intentionally dissolved in mythical forms of consciousness that is still devoid of individuality — he is self-annihilating as he attempts to devaluate himself and in this sensation he realizes that around him there is only a void, nothing. However, this nothing in the carnivalesque play with relatively exceptional freedom of behavior, which for a while becomes life — as Bakhtin would put it (Bakhtin, Творчествo Ф.Рабле…, 15) — opens unimaginable possibilities for establishing new connections that will result in a new text, which will be a proof of a different individual.

This rebirth is discussed by M.Bakhtin and can be observed in the works of the Oberiuty. The Oberiuty (Olejnikov, Zabolockij, Kharms) come close to the idea about the mythical with their fervent apology of the primitive and primordial and with the call for deconstruction of all conventional forms of communication and culture, respectively³⁴. It is typical of the most Oberiuty that they erased from their consciousness the existing cultural models or conventional stereotypes in order to create a complete void. This void — as was mentioned above — means everything, a totality of all possibilities, which are realized differently in each particular situation³⁵.

When Bakhtin discusses a void in the novel by Vaginov, he only speaks of the fact that a void has absorbed various styles, epochs, and interests. Also, in Bakhtin's perspective, this void means everything — it is the collective which is in his opinion so clearly evident in the folk culture of laughter…

The Leningrad culture of the 1920's reflects the process indicating the change in cultural-historical period — the avant-garde is replaced by socialist realism. In changing his own cultural-artistic reflection the author/individual experiences of his own transitory nature. Fear as a predictable consequence of this experience leads to an attempt that would justify this and bring satisfaction. The answer to the question of how to resolve this fear seems to lie in the attempt to place one's creativity outside history³⁶ and find the justification for one's own work in something that is real, objective, supra-temporal³⁷.The circle as an ideal shape for the principles that are eternally regenerated and interwoven (nothing/everything) is thus shown as an attempt to find one's self in the collective, mythical (extra-historical) consciousness. Bakhtin's understanding of the Oberiuty (Vaginov) affirms these statements. What Bakhtin po
ints out in his conversation with Duvakin as a fundamental characteristic of Vaginov's novels, speaks of a similar, if not an identical reflection of the self and speaks of a specific cultural psychotype. Bakhtin's theory of carnivalization is thus a logical consequence in the perception of culture and man/individual in it. In this context it is understandable that as a consequence and as a dominant the concept of dialogism is built. An individual is newly born in the combination of various discourses (alien discourses) as they are created in a concrete situation, although within collective consciousness, in which everything/nothing — potentially speaking — is real as well. The discourse of an individual can never be entirely complete as a clearly recognizable evaluative point of view, since its semantics always depends on the attitude towards the unchangeable collective consciousness as something identical, yet different.

Could this be called something different? Every time I attempt to be the Self, I discover that I do not exist. And when I have the feeling that I do not exist, I am here, together with everyone else…

¹ The acronym stands for Association of Real Art (Oбъединение реального искусства).

² The author will also take into consideration the expanded and revised version of 1963 titled Проблемы поэтики Достоевского . Quotations are from the third edition, published in Moscow in 1972.

³ Бахтин М.М. Эпос и роман // Вопросы литературы и эстетики, Москва 1975, 451. The novel is the only emerging genre, therefore it more thoroughly, significantly, noticeably, and more readily reflects evolution of reality itself. (Mihail Bahtin, Teorija romana, Ljubljana 1982, 12)

⁴ It is generally accepted in literary history that in Russian/Soviet culture the 1920's mean a rejection of so-called traditional realism. Novels commonly include elements of expressionism, neorealism, exoticism (Andreev, Remizov, Zamjatin), which leads to thinking about their connection with the so-called fantastic realism of Gogol' and Dostoevsky. Although in the second half of the 1920's there is growing interest in psychological motivation, similar to the one L.N.Tolstoy developed in his novels (e.g., in Šolokhov), the main characteristic of the novels of this time is the attention to construction principles as had been developed by the Russian avant-garde in the 1910's. The term constructive novel was accepted as the main direction in the 1920's novel (despite specifics in the poetics of individual authors). Constructive novel is a literary work where the author, in order to strongly emphasize the signifi

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cance of the construction, makes the linguistic and thematic aspects subordinate (cf. A. Flaker, Konstruktivni roman/dvadesete godine, Pojmovnik ruske avangarde 7, Zagreb 1990).

⁵ Мандельштам О. Собрание сoчинений в трех томах, Междунaродное Литературное Содружество 1971, 268, 269. "The criterion for the novel is a person's biography or a system of biographies. (…) The future fate of the novel will be nothing but the history of disappearance of biography as a form that speaks of the existence of the personal. Not only of disappearance, it will also be a proof of the catastrophic end of the biography. (…) The contemporary novel also lacks a story, even an active character, representing the time that he belongs to. This character does not have psychology, since he is not capable of any action." (Transl. by M.J._unless stated otherwise, all the translations from Russian are the author's.)

⁶ Смирнов Игорь П. Психодиахронологика. Психоистория русской литературы от романтизма до наших дней. Москва 1994.

⁷ Among this, M.M.Bakhtin (an introverted masochist) considers the character to be the instigator of the shift from the personal: /s/he becomes author-like only inasmuch as /s/he is prepared to recede in order to justify the alien consciousness (Dostoyevsky), or in order for the text /s/he is creating to reflect the folk celebration, carnival (Rabelais, Gogol').

⁸ For more about this question see the article: Рыклин М. Тела террора (тезисы к логике насилия), Бахтинский сборник, 1, Москва 1990. Ryklin sees in Bakhtin's type of carnival a form of violence aimed against the individual's body and individuality intself.

⁹ Unless stated otherwise, the quotations are taken from the book edited in 1996 and titled Беседы В.Д.Дувакина с М.М.Бахтиным .

The reasoning of this paper is confirmed by T.Nikol'skaja's foreword to K.Vaginov's works: «Перед читателем вагиновских романов проходит настоящее карнавальное шествие чудаков всех мастей. Эту особенность прозы Вагинова высоко ценил Михаил Бахтин: "Вот истинно карнавальный писатель", — сказал ученный в разговоре с А.Вулисoм» (Vaginov, 8).

«The reader of Vaginov's novels follows a real carnival parade that includes all kinds of bizarre characters. Bakhtin held this particular feature of Vaginov's prose in high esteem. "This is a truly carnival writer" the scholar said in the conversation with A.Vulis».

All quotations from Vaginov's works are from the book Константин Вагинов, Козлиная песнь (Романы), Москва: "Современник" 1991 (Vaginov). This analysis takes into consideration all variants which
are not included into the final version, but they are exceptionally important for understanding of Vaginov's contemplation of the world.

¹⁰ You see, the title "The Goat's Song" — is a literal translation of the Old Greek name for tragedy. This is a song of a goat, a goat. And the main character of this novel is an unusual, bizarre person Teptelkin. (…) Yes. A tragic character, who … is tragic and not tragic — and funny and strange and clumsy — and deeply tragic at the same time. That is Teptelkin.

¹¹ Generally this is entirely unique, I would say, tragedy in literature, tragedy — it could be called that way — tragedy of a funny person. Funny person. A tragedy of a weird person, but not in Dostoyevsky's sense, but somewhat different. In any case, very interesting fate, raising curiosity.

¹² "Not the author, but a real person who at the time lived in Petersburg is portrayed in the novel — the events from his life are presented in great detail — his habits and so on. This is Lev Vasil'evich Pumpjanskij. You know him, of course. (…) Yes, and here there is also an autobiographic character — an unknown poet. He constantly appears in the novel, the unknown poet — he is Teptelkin's friend. Then there is also Kostja Rotikov. This sometimes appears to be as if his prototype were Pavel Nikolaevich Medvedev."

In the beginning of the 1920's M.Bakhtin together with the philosopher M.I.Kagan and the philologist L.V.Pumpjanskij created the so-called Nevel' School, which represented the philosophical core of the later Bakhtin's treatments. In the novel The Goat's Song Bakhtin appears as the philosopher Andrievskij, which is pointed out by V.Kozhinov and S.Konkin in "Михаил Михайлович Бахтин. Краткий очерк жизни и творчества" in the book Проблемы поэтики и истории литературы. Саранск 1973).

¹³ The Goat's Song also includes passages about the sensation of a void, felt by the unknown poet; in "The Second Epilogue" (Второе послесловие) from the 1927 edition, which was not included in the final version; a void occupies a special place: "Тогда я не был Тептелкиным, неизвестным поэтом, философом, Костей Ротиковым, Мишей Котиковым; тогда я был одным лицом, цельным и неделимым. Тогда я еще не распался на отдельных людей (…) Но вышел ли я окончательно из книги, освободился ли я от моих героев, изгнал ли я их в мир (…) что станет со мной, если я действительно их изгоню, может быть, появится пустота, огромное ничто." (Vaginov, 23, 509).

"Back then I was not Teptelkin yet, unknown poet, philosopher,

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Kostja Rotikov, Misha Kotikov; back then I was still one person, whole and indivisible. I have not become fragmented into separate people. (…) But if I have definitely left the book, freed myself of my characters, drove them out into the world (…), what will happen to me if I actually expel them, perhaps a void will set in, an enormous nothing."

¹⁴ Well, it needs to be mentioned that this Kuku — such an unusual creation of the epoch — is a person who, so to speak, does not have anything of his own. The time took everything away from him — not in the material sense. Finally only one thing was left — to reproduce lives of others, to play their role, to be someone. (…) And thus everything with him has already been completed. This is a void, but a void that has attracted various forces, various epochs, various interests. He dreams about getting into literature, but he cannot write anything, because he does not possess anything. He can only stylize.

¹⁵ It is no coincidence that the question about the crisis of the Greek-Roman culture before the rise of Christianity has a particularly important role in the novel.

¹⁶ Cf. Bakhtin's opinion on Teptelkin that he expresses in his conversation with Duvakin.

¹⁷ (…) he knows that never again the old sun will shine, that it is not possible to enter the same channel twice, he knows that a new circle is starting above the two-thousand-year-old circle, while he is running deeper and deeper into the old, two-thousand-year-old circle.

(…) what is condemnation to an unknown poet? — you can spit on that, since it will all be repeated, this is circulating.

(…) The intelligent man does not live in only one land, but in many, not only in one epoch, but in many, and he can choose the condemnation he desires. He is not sad, he is simply bored when the condemnation befalls him at home, then he just mutters: we have met one more time_and he finds it laughable.

¹⁸ This is part of every communicative process because of the differences in discourse (value) positions. It divides the discourse into authentic author's discourse and non-authentic alien discourse. The author's discourse includes into its framework the alien discourse as "a discourse within a discourse" and as "a discourse about a discourse." Cf. A.Skaza, "Mihail Mihajlovich Bahtin (Oris življenja in dela)," in: M.Bahtin, Teorija romana, Ljubljana 1982, 394.

¹⁹ The conversation actually was not carried out in one language only, but in all languages simultaneously: once ka… was blurted out, instead of gymnasium it was № pala…stra, then it resounded, I don't know why, urbs (…) now one could hear Italian voices, then French ones
were pronounced nasally.

²⁰ Cf. footnote 12.

²¹ Cf. thoughts of A.Skaza about M.Bakhtin's creative work: "Every object that is marked is on one hand incorporated in some other reality (ideological, semiotic), but on the other hand it does not give up its natural identity (a unique natural condition/prirodnaja edinichnaja dannost'). The difference between the two "conditions" of the object is in the changed meaning or, rather, function of the object. The semiotic meaning changes the objective meaning according to the function, which is within the ideological system defined as a specific value." (Ibid., 391)

²² This is confirmed by the fact that the creation of the novel has an impact on the narrator's/author's fate — cf. Шиндина О., «К интерпретации романа Вагинова "Козлиная песнь"», Russian Literature, 1993 (34). The author with analitical depth succesfully juxtaposed The Goat's Song as a ceremonial form celebrating Dionysus (as a god that is perpetually in the process of being born and of dying) with Bakhtin's concept of carnivalization. In this respect her treatment also represents the basis of the seach of conceptual parallels between the two authors in this paper.

²³ Cf. "The First Epilogue" (Первое послесовие) — Vaginov, 508—509.

²⁴ "And the author and his actors go into a cheap bar. There they drink. Surrounded by emptied glasses the author and his actors discuss a plan for a new theater play (bold print by M.J.). They argue and they get all excited and they toast to high art and they are not afraid of disgrace, trespasses, and spiritual death." This is one of the versions of the end of the novel from 1927 or 1928, that was not included in the final edition of the novel. The author glued together the pages with the two epilogues. Citations from "The Second Epilogue" (Второе послесловие) were first published in the paper Transponans (Транспонанс ) in 1984, no. 2.

²⁵ Бахтин М.М., Эстетика словесного творчества . Москва 1979, 66. "The viewer loses his place outside and vis-а-vis the event occuring on stage to the characters in the play, every given moment he is inside of one of the characters and experiences his life from within, he hears other actors with this character's ears, he partakes in the experience of the character's actions. There is no viewer, (…) the viewer is entirely in characters, in shared experiences." (Mihail M. Bahtin, Estetika in humanistiиne vede, Ljubljana 1999, 89) Cf. similar thoughts on mutual codependence between the author and the viewer in one of the early editions of The Goat's Song titled "Foreword" (Предисловие) — Vagi

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nov, 501.

²⁶ I see how my characters are standing around me in the air, (…) I am sitting by the sea and while my characters are rising above the sea, illuminated by the sun, I start paging through the manuscript and talking to them. (…) "I am good — I am thinking — I am sentimental Teptelkin-like. I have mastered the refined taste of Kostja Rotikov, the conception of the unknown poet, the simplicity of Troicin. I am made of the same dough my characters are made of…"

²⁷ This is a juxtaposition of the circle and zero (nothing), which are valued in a similar way by the Oberiuty and Malevich, i.e., circle/zero = everything. Cf. Malevich's thoughts on supremacistic mirror (Сарабьянов Д., Шатских А., Казимир Малевич — живопись, теория, Москва 1993).

²⁸ "A straight line broken in one point forms an angle. A straight line broken in all its points is called a curved line. An infinite multitude of changes in a straight line makes it perfect. It is not necessary for the curved line to be indefinitely long: it can be of such a size that it can be taken in with a glance, and even then it will remain incomprehensible and infinite (emphasis added by M.J.) I am talking about a closed curved line in which the beginning and the end are hidden. And the most straight, incomprehensible, infinitely and ideally closed curved line shall be a circle." (Хармс Д. Полное собрание сочинений. Том 2, Санкт-Петербург 1997, 315; Jean-Philippe Jaccard, Возвышенное в творчестве Хармса, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 34 (1994)).

²⁹ Cf. the quotation from Vaginov's work about the author who is made of the same dough as his characters. The structure brings out multi-level relationships indicating that one deals with several texts simultaneously (texts within texts, texts about texts; the so-called inter-media or, rather, interlogs are of special significance. As a consequence, the lines between people are being erased, which leads to dislocations: while in one passage a person appears as the author, in some other passage he appears as a character — and vice versa. Here it is important to point out the exceptional significance assigned to dislocation as a characteristic of cultural evolution by Smirnov in Psychodiachronologic (Smirnov, 8). In his work Smirnov uses the term замещение, which is translated as replacing/replacement, but it is evident from the context that what is actually in question is dislocation (смещение).

³⁰ Cf. the thoughts of Malevich, quoted by Smirnov: «Малевич заявлял в 1916 г.: "Художнику разум нужен только для домашногo обихода /…/ 19 февр. в 1914 году я отказался на публичной лекции от разума."» (Smirnov, 300).

³¹ Cf. the chapter about the role of a vagabond, a jester and a fool in the novel from the essay "The Forms of Time and Chrono-topos in the Novel" (Формы времени и хронотопа в романе). See Бахтин М.М. Вопросы литературы и эстетики, Москва 1975, 308_316 or M. Bahtin, Teorija romana, Ljubljana 1982, 294—291.

³² In this context the thoughts of the unknown poet from The Goat's Song are interesting: «"Я должен сойти с ума", — размышлял неизвестный поэт (…) "Правда, в безумии для меня теперь уж нет того очарования, (…) которое было в ранней юности, я не вижу в нем высшего бытия, но вся жизнь моя этого требует, и я спокойно сойду c ума".» / «"I must go mad", thought the unknown poet (…) True, madness does not hold the same appeal for me (…) as it did when I was very young, I don't see the higher reality in it, however, my entire life requires it and I will easily go mad."» / On the significance of madness for the Oberiuty see also Smirnov, 294-304.

³³ It should be noted that laughter/humor has a very significant function in Vaginov's works.

³⁴ One often comes upon the idea that the value of anything alive is in inverse proportion with the level of its intellect — cf. works by Kharms (Столкновение дуба с мудрецом ), Olejnikov, Zabolockij (Школа жуков). See also Smirnov, 307.

³⁵ Cf. Jean-Philippe Jaccard, Возвышенное в творчестве Хармса, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 34 (1994), 69.

³⁶ Is there a connection with Bakhtin's concept of вненаходимость (existence from without)? See also the essay by A.Skaza "Estetski humanizem Mihaila Bahtina" in: M.Bahtin, Estetika in humanistiиne vede, Ljubljana 1999, and footnote 18 to Bakhtin's essay "Avtor in junak v estetski dejavnosti" from the same book.

³⁷ This is also clearly discussed in Oberiu manifest_see Baraсski/Litwinow Rosyjskie kierunki literackie, Warszawa 1982, 582—587.

Цель доклада — сопоставление концептуальной основы движения обэриутов (как поздней фазы русского авангарда) с бахтинским пониманием карнавализации, авторства и многоголосия. По мнению автора доклада, теория Бахтина отражает основополагающие концепции обэриутов.

Обэриуты считают, что реальное значение объектов создаётся только реальным же (часто случайным) окружением. Поэтому реальность мира возникает в чистых формах, которые в данный момент (в данном контексте) выстраивают свой образ.

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Только конкретный объект, освобождённый от литературной и повседневно-бытовой шелухи и поставленный в реальные (конкретные) отношения с другим объектом, получает то значение, которое ему придаётся искусством. Понимание этого конкретного значения объектов (случайно оказавшихся рядом) возродит мир и очистит его восприятие от чрезмерной эмоциональности и слащавости. Предметы, — как их видят обэриуты, — нам только кажутся нелогичными и нереальными, поскольку мы привыкли воспринимать их стереотипно, т.е. в литературизированной позолоте, искажающей реальную сущность предметов. Поэтому необходимо избавить литературу от всяческой позолоты, иначе говоря, устранить все интеллектуальные и логические условности. Деконструкция существующих норм коммуникации ведёт к апологии безумства, глупости, которые предоставляют возможность воскрешения мира, будучи понимаемы как призыв оценивать отношения лишь в рамках реальной, конкретной ситуации.
Бахтинская теория дискурса подчёркивает важность реального (конкретного) контекста дискурса. Лингвистическая структура воспринимается им не только как некое завершённое и индивидуальное целое, но и как социально ориентированный дискурс, характеризуемый внутренними диалогичностью и полифонией. Объективна и потому реальна только действительная деятельность в рамках дискурса, когда реальность отражается в переплетении конкретных языковых ситуаций и концепций ценности.
В своей апологии ренессансного карнавала Бахтин близко подходит к концепции обэриутов. Рассматривая влияние карнавала на европейский роман, он акцентирует важность фольклорных форм сатиры и пародии и, в связи с этим, особое значение фольклорных героев — шута, безумца, дурака. Карнавал и так называемые карнавализованные формы культуры представляют собой переоценку нормативных форм поведения, тогда как дискурс и действия дураков, которые играют центральную роль во время народных празднеств, представляет собой реализацию идеи абсолютной свободы. В произведениях обэриутов, особенно в прозе Вагинова, которую Бахтин оценивал очень высоко, дурак — как центральный характер — также обозначает реализацию идеи абсолютной свободы…

Ljubljana (Slovenia)

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Miha Javornik
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN and OBERIU/ОБЭРИУ