Guests from the Future

Abstract

Any attempt to survey recent Russian 6migr6 prose is an exercise in frustration. There is too much of it, by too many authors, in too many different genres. At least a dozen 6migr6 journals regularly include belle-lettristic writing, and several publishing houses devote their lists, in whole or in part, to Russian literature of the last few decades. Emigration makes for bedfellows at least as strange as politics, and disparate works cannot be crammed together arbitrarily like toy cars and nuts into a Christmas stocking. The works I have chosen to discuss do suggest some patterns, common concerns, and parallel directions in which certain Russian writers are moving, and these are worth exploring. Emigre authors are both a literary phenomenon and an intellectual and sociological one. In the latter context their position is rather unenviable. Predominantly writers by profession, they belonged to the Soviet intelligentsia and frequently led materially privileged, if professionally frustrated, lives. Like their compatriots, they settle in new homes with certain handicaps, most important linguistic. In addition, they are masters of a trade which does not, save in the most exceptional circumstances, offer them a livelihood. Most earn their new livings doing other things; if they are lucky they become teachers or broadcasters for Russian-language radio stations or work on the staff of 6migre periodicals. When they do write, whom are they now writing for? The overwhelming majority write in Russian, which limits their audience to fellow-6migr6s, a few Russian-reading Western specialists, and that minuscule portion of the Soviet population which may hear their works read over Voice of America, Radio Liberty, BBC and Deutsche Welle. Those who write in (with English standing for all the languages into which the 6migr6s have moved) or whose work is translated into have a far wider audience, however. That larger