Anatolii Borisovich Mariengof (1897-1962)

Abstract

SEER, Vol.87,No. 3, July200g ReviewArticle AnatoliiBorisovich Mariengof(i897-1962) GORDON McVAY Bol'shun, Boris. Esenini Mariengof: 'Romany bez vran'ia'ili 'Vran'ebez romanov'? Iz istorii russkogo imazhinizma. [Ermitazh], Grodno, 1993. 173pp. Notes.Bibliography. Index.5,000copies.Priceunknown. Radechko,Petr.Troianskii hon ' reputateli Esenina. Kantet,Brest, 2005.256 pp. 50 copies.Priceunknown (paperback). Bozhko,Vladislav.Sergei Esenin vKhar hove, Machulin,Kharkov,2008. 191 pp. Illustrations. Bibliography. 500 copies. Price unknown (paperback). Sukhov, Valerii. Ocherhi o zhiznii tvorchestve Anatoliia Mariengofa. PGPU im.V. G. Belinskogo, Penza,2007.191pp. Notes.Illustrations. 675 copies.Priceunknown (paperback). Khuttunen[Huttunen],Tomi. Imazhinist Mariengof: Dendi Montazh. Tsinihi. Kafedraslavistiki Universiteta Khel'sinki/ Novoe literaturnoeobozrenie ,Moscow, 2007. 271pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index.1,500copies.Priceunknown. Few scholarsin Russia or the West have devotedseriouscritical attention to thelifeand worksofAnatoliiMariengof. Wereitnotfor hisintimate friendship withthephenomenally popularSergeiEsenin (chronicledin Mariengof 's notoriousmemoir,Romanbez vran'ia [Leningrad, 1927,and manysubsequent editions]), Mariengof might havebeenmarginalized toa merefootnote inliterary history. Yet such relegation wouldbe unjust,and Mariengof's'rediscovery' is now at hand. Thisprocessofreassessment coversthreemainareasMariengof the man, the poet and the prosewriter. Duringthe heydayof his notoriety, from1919to 1927,Mariengof revelled in literary-bohemian 'scandals'as a founding father ofRussianImaginism. Underthegroup's own imprint, 'Imazhinisty', he issuedcontroversial verse,dramaand theory, baiting theMoscowpublicand outraging a gamutofaesthetic sensibilities (from aristocratic toproletarian) bya showofcynicism and amoralism. For thishe was predictably rewardedby almostuniversalabuse. Some bloodthirsty poemsin thevolumelav' (Moscow,1919)drewa sharprebukefrom thenewspaper Pravda, whichbrandedMariengof's GordonMcVayisa retired Professor oftheUniversity ofBristol. GORDON McVAY 519 'deafeningyelping'as alien to the proletariat(see A. Men'shoi, 'Oglushitel'noe tiavkan'e', Frauda, 12March 1919,pp. 1-2).Two years later, Anatolii Lunacharskii, thePeople'sCommissar ofEnlightenment, denouncedtheImaginist volume£olotoi kipiatok (Moscow,1921)- a jointeffort by Esenin,Mariengof and Vadim Shershenevich - as a 'prostitution of talent,steepedin stinking filth'(Pis'mo v redaktsiiu, Izvestiia, 14April1921, p. 2). Posingin anachronistic top-hatas an Oscar Wilde fromPenza, the youthful Mariengofrelishedsuch brickbats. DmitriiFurmanov fulminated: 'Mariengof himself is a typicalglossydandy.He creates themostrepulsive impression, thatis,byhisopenlybourgeois essence' (Iz dnevnika pisatelia, Moscow, 1934,p. 71). Ivan Bunin dubbed him 'the greatest scoundrel'(Vospominaniia, Paris,1950,p. 16) - a view sharedbynumerous critics inthe1920sand since,whosawnothing in MariengoPsverseand character but vulgarépatage, sadisticsickness, nightmarish anarchy and urbandecadence. In vain,fellow-Imaginist RiurikIvnevprotested thatMariengof was essentially calm,stagnant andharmless, a poseur whohadmerely played fora whileat beinga 'revolutionary butcher'(Chetyre vystrela vEsenina, Kusikova, Mariengofa, Shershenevicha, Moscow, 1921,pp. 18-21). The harm had been done, and the cynicalpose, whichhad paved theway to notoriety, earned Mariengofincreasingopprobriumas the 1920s advanced.FormostoftheStalinerahelickedhiswounds, a manmade sadderand wiserbytheawfulness ofthetimesand theaccumulation ofpersonaltragedy - thedeathofhisfather in Penza in 1918,killed bya stray bullet;thesuicideofSergeiEseninin 1925;and thesuicide ofhisonlyson,Kirill,in 1940(byhanging, likeEsenin).The belated testimony offriends, andhismarriage offorty yearstotheactress Anna Nikritina, suggestthatthe youthful poseur developedinto a man of sensitivity and principle(see, forinstance,my recentpublications, 'Novoe ob imazhinistakh',Pamiatniki kul'tury: Novyeotkrytiia. Ezhegodnik 2004,Moscow, 2006, pp. 98-230, and 'AnatoliiMariengof: Biograficheskii ocherki ikonografiia', Sovremennoe eseninovedenie, Riazan', 2008, 9, pp. 11-44). Yet theawkwardfactremainsthat, judged by conventional moral standards, the contentof muchof Mariengof'spoetryfrom1919to 1925appearshighly offensive. In his'revolutionary' contributions tothe volumelav ' he systematically playswithdissonances, constantly verging on blasphemy byjuxtaposing thesacredand theprofane. Thus,mentionofa humanbloodbath isimmediately followed bytheexclamation 'Christis risen!'.Christ's'punybody' is tortured on the rack in a Bolshevik politicalpolice cell,whileHis blood is splashedout 'like waterfroma washstand'. This typically headymixture ofblood and blasphemy, couchedincompressed 'chains'ofimages, was intended to 520 ANATOLII BORISOVIGH MARIENGOF shockand impress. In histheoretical tract, Buian-ostrov (Moscow,1920), the poet attempted a philosophical justification forthe Imaginistic preceptof combining highand low, the 'clean' and the 'unclean', whileclaiming thatImaginism was a movement whichembracedboth realismand mysticism, and extolling theimportance ofstrict formal mastery. The calculatedly 'shocking'content of MariengoPsearlyversehas tendedto divertcritical attention fromthemerits ofhispoeticform, Mariengof tirelessly experimented withrhythm, rhyme and imagery, rangingfreely acrossvariouslexicalregisters, fromarchaicSlavonicismsto contemporary jargon.VladimirMarkovmounteda spirited defence in 1980,drawing attention toMariengoPsreligious and sexual imagery, elaborate stanzasandvariety ofheteroaccentual rhyme. Markovmaintained : 'Perhapsthemostoriginal ofall theRussianImagist poets,thoughnotprecisely to everyone's taste,Mariengof stopsjust short ofthefirst rank.He is nevertheless a poetofremarkable craftsmanship and frequently ofgreatstrength' [Russian Imagism igig-ig24,1, Giessen,1980,pp. 18-19). As Imaginism ran itscourse,gradually disintegrating in the mid19208 ,so Mariengofbecame less activeas a poet. He publisheda reflective volumeofversein 1926beforeturning to the creationof provocative prose...