Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch

Girl Meets Elephant, with Unexpected Results

Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch. Nikolaos A. Chrissidis, Cathy J Potter, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, and Jennifer B. Spock, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011, 211–30.       Girl Meets Elephant, with Unexpected Results* Roshanna P. Sylvester In  January  1987  I  walked  into  a  banter-­‐‑filled  classroom  dominated  by  a  bear   of   a   man   who   at   that   precise   moment   was   busy   futzing   with   an   old   coffee   percolator  and  a  box  of  jelly  donuts.  Once  the  coffee  was  in  process,  Professor   Paul   Bushkovitch   called   the   ranks   to   order   and   proceeded   to   give   us   our   marching   orders  for  that  particular  iteration  of   History  671b,  “Russia  in  the   Revolutionary  Era.”  My  assigned  task  was  to  wade  through  several  hundred   reels   of   microfilm   of   British   Foreign   Office   records   from   Russia   that   Yale’s   Sterling  Library  had  recently  acquired  at  Bushkovitch’s  behest.  It  was  while   dutifully  spinning  through  reams  of  correspondence  that  my  eye  fell  on  a  dis-­‐‑ patch   from   Mr.   John   Picton   Bagge,   British   Consul-­‐‑General   at   Odessa,   who   with  dry  wit  and  cynicism  described  the  undoing  of  a  vibrant  city.  At  some   point  soon  after  my  initial  encounter  with  Mr.  Bagge,  I  turned  up  at  Paul’s  of-­‐‑ fice  to  ask  if  I  might  concentrate  on  Odessa  for  my  seminar  paper.  He  cocked   an  eyebrow  then  gave  me  his  blessing,  explaining  that  his  own  family  hailed   from   Odessa,   where  his   grandfather  had   served   on  the  faculty   of   Novoros-­‐‑ siisk  University.     So  it  was  that  my  acquaintance  with  Paul  Bushkovitch  and  Odessa  coin-­‐‑ cided.  With  Paul’s  encouragement,  the  seminar  paper  evolved  into  an  M.A.   thesis,  a  Ph.D.  dissertation,  and  finally  a  book.  As  my  research  progressed,  I   moved   away   from   the   events   of   1917   to   1920   to   concentrate   instead   on   the   much-­‐‑storied  world  of  “old  Odessa,”  especially  on  how  residents  in  the  last   years  of  tsarist  rule  employed  notions  of  class,  gender,  and  ethnicity  to  sort   themselves  out  in  an  increasingly  complex  and  unsettling  urban  milieu.  In  an   attempt  to  recover  something  of  Odessa’s  famed  Zeitgeist,  I  turned  to  the  peri-­‐‑ odical  press  as  a  key  source  for  the  study.  As  I  soon  discovered,  the  richest   collection   of   local   newspapers   from   the   pre-­‐‑revolutionary   era   was   in   the   (then)  Lenin  Library’s  outpost  at  Khimki,  on  the  outskirts  of  Moscow.  It  was   there  on  a  fateful  day  in  1990  that  I  turned  the  page  of  an  April  1914  edition  of   Odesskaia   pochta   (Odessa   Post)   to   find   a   two-­‐‑inch   high   banner   headline                                                                                                                             *  The  material  in  this  chapter  was  originally  published  in  Roshanna  P.  Sylvester,  Tales   of  Old  Odessa:  Crime  and  Civility  in  a  City  of  Thieves  (DeKalb:  Northern  Illinois  Univer-­‐‑ sity  Press,  2005),  177–93.  Many  thanks  to  Northern  Illinois  University  Press  for  permis-­‐‑ sion  to  reprint  that  material  here.   212 ROSHANNA P. SYLVESTER screaming   “Elephant   Sentenced   to   Death.”1   Little   did   I   suspect   in   that   charmed  moment  that  the  doomed  elephant  would  become  the  unlikely  hero   of  my  book’s  last  chapter.  That  the  tale  would  lead  back  to  Paul’s  grandfather   in  Odessa  was  beyond  my  imagining.  But  that  is  precisely  what  happened.     The   article   that   follows   presents   the   story   of   “Iambo,”   the   high-­‐‑strung   pachyderm  condemned  to  the  ultimate  penalty  on  a  charge  of  attempted  mur-­‐‑ der.   Iambo’s   fate   was   Odessa’s   biggest   cause   célèbre   in   that   tense   pre-­‐‑war   spring,  the  elephant’s  infamy  rivaling  that  of  Barnum’s  famous  “Jumbo.”2  In   his  few  months  in  the  limelight,  Iambo  was  more  than  just  an  object  of  curi-­‐‑ osity.  As  journalists  picked  up  his  story,  he  became  a  powerful  symbol,  a  met-­‐‑ aphorical  incarnation  of  the  multifaceted  anxieties  of  Odessan  society,  a  nine-­‐‑ thousand-­‐‑pound   vessel   filled   with   conjured   “others.”   The   columns   that   ap-­‐‑ peared  in  the  port’s  periodical  press  during  the  Iambo  days  were  sometimes   direct,   sometimes   ironic,   and   sometimes   satirical.   Regardless   of   the   style   of   narration,   however,   commentary   about   Iambo   reflected   public   preoccupa-­‐‑ tions  with  respectability  and  morality,  modernity  and  urbanity,  freedom  and   oppression.     The  common  denominator  in  all  of  these  stories  was  the  crucial  question   of  who:  Who  was  Iambo?  What  kind  of  a  “person”  was  he?  Was  he  victim,   villain,  or  avenger?  Criminal  or  madman?  What  were  his  goals,  aspirations,   anxieties,  and  fears?  In  what  did  he  believe  and  in   whom  did  he  trust?  For   Odessan  journalists,  Iambo  was  more  than  just  an  elephant;  he  was  an  instru-­‐‑ ment   for   the   expression   of   identity,   a   means   through...