Architecture of Oblivion: Ruins and Historical Consciousness in Modern Russia

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION The world is truly puzzling to me! Why is the view of steep, rocky mountains and ruins so pleasant to all? This is nonsense: To me a threshing barn and a shed Are better than any ruin, For at least they have some use: Ah des ruines, moi je m’en moque. A house without a roof and windows, For cats only is good, Or for rats, but not for people. —I. Miatlev, The Sensations and Observations of Madame Kurdiukova Abroad, dans l’étranger1 t The provincial Madame Kurdiukova, who speaks in this epigraph, is the heroine of Ivan Miatlev’s humorous parody of travel literature, The Sensations and Observations of Madame Kurdiukova Abroad, dans l’étranger (1840). A landowner from Tambov who likes to flaunt her learning by sprinkling macaronic phrases in her speech, she is representative of a particular attitude, pretentious and irreverent, that is characteristic of the way that semi-educated people of her class are depicted in Russian literature. It is the view of the famous castles on the Rhine, a central topos in German Romantic culture, that prompts her categorical dismissal of ruins and her reassertions of pragmatic values. Regardless of her cultural pedigree, in her insensitivity to ruins she hardly stands alone in Russian culture. In A.N. Maikov’s “Promenade in Rome with My Acquaintances” (1848), Andrei Blagochinnyi, a well-connected parvenu who quickly achieved high rank and amassed considerable sums of money in St. Petersburg , but who confuses religious and architectural orders, is much surprised as he walks through ancient Rome: 4 Architecture of Oblivion Is this all? These broken stones (oblomki)? Well, to tell the truth, apart from the Coliseum, there is nothing good to look at. Why don’t they spruce things up here? I pictured the ancient city in an entirely different way. To begin with, I would not allow these bulls here and would not have tolerated this rubbish. Nothing should grow over here. Secondly, I thought that there is a real ancient city, that this is a separate city, with palaces one can visit, and with real streets.2 Blagochinnyi’s ideas about urban renewal uncannily anticipate former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s similar sentiments on the matter. To demonstrate the wider purchase of this view of ruins, Blagochinnyi’s feelings are echoed by his serf’s. Concerned that his Van’ka might abscond during the trip abroad, Blagochinnyi tests his faithfulness by probing his response to the scenery. Looking at the Coliseum and referring to the destruction of Moscow in 1812, Van’ka declares in his incorrect Russian: That’s like after the fire. Is this a kiather [i.e. theater] or what? Well, we’ll have a new and much superior one. And in comparison with these our tromphals [triumphal] arches will be much nicer. You see, here the knights that are stuck on are all without noses, while you can’t pick off our cast iron that easily, and they wouldn’t allow it. And there are no guards here. You can throw a stone and get away with it.3 This quote reveals not only Van’ka’s deep ignorance, which echoes that of his master, but also his assumption, to which we shall return, that ruins reflect on the state’s custodianship over the city, space, and society, while the people are presumed to be more interested in plunder than preservation. In their fictional commentary about the ruinophobia of their contemporaries , Miatlev and Maikov testify to the topical interest of ruins in the Romantic age. Indeed, such dismissive views on ruins contrast with the fashionable allure of antiquity in elite circles that emerged in the late eighteenth century, when, as will be discussed in chapter 2, antique classical artifacts were imported to Russia and fake antique ruins erected in gardens. In the 1820s the painter Aleksandr Briullov participated in the excavations of Pompeii, while the Academy of Arts sent many artists to Italy, where they learned to make drawings of ruins. This high-class engouement for ruins was an acquired taste that required robust learning. During his journey to Italy, the freemason Vasilii Zinov’ev acknowledged with regret that owing to his lack of erudition and imagination, he could muster little enthusiasm for antiquities.4 Characteristically, in War and Peace, the only Introduction 5 protagonist to display alertness to the aesthetic beauty of burned-down Moscow is the Western...