Tsars and Commissars: W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden and Images of Russia in British Adventure Fiction, 1890-1930

Abstract

W. Somerset Maugham is well-known for, among his other literary pursuits, being one of the originators of modern spy fiction. His novel Ashenden: or the British Agent (1928) is one of the classics of this “genre.” However, what is not appreciated is the fact that Ashenden is also important in other contexts, particularly both for an understanding of modern literary images of Russia and for an appreciation of Maugham’s own ideas about the nature of realism. Throughout the nineteenth century, Russia was one of the most important settings for British adventure — including spy — fiction. In a wide range of popular novels dealing with future wars, anarchists and international espionage, Russia was portrayed as a vast, sprawling land governed in a semi-feudal fashion. The Russian people were oppressed by their government and backwards in their mentality, but possessed of a certain otherworldliness exemplified by the so-called “Russian soul.” Russia was seen as a police state, whose citizens (and any foreigners unlucky enough to transgress against the unreasonable laws of the autocracy) might at any time be arrested, tortured, and exiled to the wastes of Siberia. Ashenden, it is argued here, strove to destroy many of these images of Russia, and particularly the mysticism surrounding the “Russian soul.” Maugham poked fun at the Russia portrayed in popular fiction in order to create a more realistic, less melodramatic style of adventure fiction. Equally, he used this technique as a vehicle to promote his own style of realism, a style in direct contrast to such pillars of “Russian” literature as Turgenev and Dostoevsky. By attacking the images of Russia that appeared in popular British adventure fiction — images often derived from serious Russian literature — Maugham was attacking the literary basis of the latter.