Russian Literature L (2001) 185-/96North-Holland

www.elsevier. com/locate/rusl it

THE ENIGMA OF THE MOON IN.POVEST' NEPOGASBMNOT LUNY'I

ROBERT W. VAAGAN

Context and Subtext

The novella'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny' by Boris Pil'njak (1894-1938)2 hasalways been viewed as an incrimination of Stalin for the death of Frunze, thepopular People's Commissar for the Army and Navy.3 It was immediatelysuppressed on appearin g in lovyj mir in May 1926" and was only repub-lished in the USSR in 1987.' Yet as noted by Edwards, it is far more than acommentary on Frunze's death.6 Russian yo;th_s are now taught that it alsoreveals the sinister ruthlessness of Bolshevism.' Elsewhere I have offered acontextual reading of the novella based on the politics and literary issues ofthe 1920s." In the present article I argue that the novella's full artistic rich-ness and meaning only emerge with the subtext. Of particular interest is theleitmotif of the moon which, occurring 21 times in all, remains an enigma tomany.n

The novella had been completed by early January 1926.In late JanuaryPil'njak set out on a six-month travel to China and Japan and was absentfrom Moscow on its publication in May. Almost the entire edition wasimpounded by the OGPU and a.^new, expurgated May issue withoutPil'njak's contribution was printed.rO Yet enough copies of the first editionwere in circulation to set in motion further action. In a foreword dated 28January 1926 Pil'njak rejected any connection between the story and thedeath of Frunze. During interrogation by the NKVD in 1937-1938 Pil'njakattributed this improbable disclaimer to Polonskij, co-editor 1926-1931 of

0304-3479/01/$ - see front matter @ 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rishts reserved.PII: S0304-3479(0 I )0008 I -3

186 Robert ltr/. Vaagan

Novyj mir.tl The novella also carried a dedication: "Voronskomu druZeski."Elsewhere I have shown that Pil'njak had all reason to be grateful to theeditor and literary critic Voronskij who in 1922 had advanced Pil'njak's

.career by portraying him as the first in a series of literary portraits in the newand influential journal Krasnaja nov'.tz Always a nuiJance to the party,especially after the publication in Berlin of his novella 'Krasnoe derevo'(1929), the flamboyant Pil'njak, who married three times, nonethelessenjoyed unique privileges rntll 1932, including extensive travelling abroad.His good connections could not, though, prevent his arrest in October 1937.As the NKVD interrogation protocols confirm, 'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny'was cited against him and he was shot in April 1938."

Compositional Aspects

Among the many compositional aspects worth commenting on I shall limitthe presentation to the structure and plot, the narrative perspective and the useof contrasts as well as some comments on the chronology, location andprotagonists.

The tale is structured into 4 numbered chapters, of which only one - thethird - carries a title: 'Smefi' Gavrilova'. Chapter 4 is termed simply 'Glavaposlednjaja'. In the Novyj mir edition chapter 1 consists of SVzpages, chapter2 of llVz pages, chapter 3 of 10 pages and the last chapter of less than onepage; the full text *ns to 28 pagei.ra Edwards views it is a novella,l5 whichthe brevity, rigid economy of style, the concentration in time, action andscope as well as the limited character gallery all justify. That the "Povest"' ofthe title nonetheless has been translated both as the "Story" and - which ismore usual - the "Tale"16 only testifies to the generic ind terminologicalcomplexities of the Russian short form.

To briefly recapitulate the plot, in chapter I we meet CommanderNikolaj Ivanovid Gavrilov, hero of the Civil War, and we learn about hisulcer of the stomach. He has been hastily summoned from the sunny Cau-casus for an operation he himself deems unnecessary. Demonstrating thetechnique of defamiliarization, Pil'njak lets Gavrilov arrive in a hostile townin the cold north, with only one friend to meet him, the party officialAleksandr Popov. Popov has been abandoned by his wife and been left alonewith his two-year old daughter Nata5a. Chapter I is the only chapter in whichthe moon is not mentioned.

In chapter 2 Gavrilov is brought to House No. 1 for an audience withthe "Negorbjaidijsja delovek" ("Unbending Marr"). His name and identityremain undisclosed, and he has already ordered the operation to take place.Gavrilov, being a disciplined Bolshevik, accepts this ominous fait accompli.Anticipating the outcome, he writes three last letters, to be opened after his

The Enigma of the Moon in 'Poyest' nepogaiennoj luny' 187

death. To calm his nerves, Gavrilov takes Popov on a frenzied car drive outof town. We then meet the medical professors Anatolij Koz'mid Lozovskij,35 years old, and his senior, Pavel Ivanovid Kokosov. In chapter 2 the moonmakes 6 appearances, which I shall return to.

In chapter 3 the two medical professors prepare for the operation. Aspersonalities they are opposites. Kokosov is a gentleman exponent of tradi-tion, honour and the Hippocratic oath. He drinks tea and kisses his wife'shand and rejects an offer to be picked up by a limousine sent from House No.1. By contrast the wine- and coffee-consuming Lozovskij kisses the shoulderof his mistress and gladly accepts the offer to be driven by a limousine fromHouse No. 1. Yet it is he who has been elected to operate on Gavrilov, withhis senior Kokosov to assist him. For some unexplained reason Lozovskijtelephones House No. 1 and is ordered to appear immediately after theoperation to make a report. In the meantime Gavrilov is being prepared forsurgery. Lozovskij asks his senior Kokosov to commence the operation. Theanesthesia does not have the desired effect and Lozovskij administers whatturns out to be a fatal overdose of chloroform. Only after almost one hourdoes the patient lose consciousness and the operation can start. It quicklytranspires that the ulcer has healed, and the operation has been futile. Ga-vrilov stops breathing and resuscitation fails. Hunied telephone calls precedethe arrival of a detachment of Red Guards and Lozovskij is severely re-primanded at House No. l. The "Negorbjq;dtjsja delovek", having alerted theother two members of the leading trojka,'' arrives at the deathbed of Gavri-lov, ostensibly remorseful. Replicating Gavrilov's mad car drive, the "Negor-bja3dijsja delovek" orders the car driven at full speed out of town. In chapter3 the moon appears eight times, which I shall comment on later.

In the final chapter after the burial Popov is alone with his daughter andreads Gavrilov's letter, in which he proposes that Popov marry his widow.Nata5a attempts to blow at the moon, to extinguish it, just as she in chapter 2had attempted to blow out a match in Gavrilov's hand when he lit his pipe.The full moon, though tired of hurrying, remains unextinguished from thepoint of view of the two-year-old Nata5a. The text does not state that herfather was watching her doing this although he may well have been doing so.The moon appears no less than six times in the very brief and concludingchapter, which indicates a climax in its use as a leitmotif. Possibly we mayhere find a clue to the symbol of the moon in the novella.

In 'Povest' nepogaSennoj luny' third-person omniscient narration isemployed, and the narrator's identity is not divulged. The text is not autobio-graphical if we accept Lejeune's argument that a prerequisite for an autobio-graphical account is that author, narrator and principal character are identi-cal.'o Still, as in many of Pil'njak's texts some autobiographical elements arefelt. Thus the two-year-old Nata5a, like the sympathetic heroine Natal'jaOrdynina in Golyj god, carri'es the name of Pil'njak's first child, his daughter

1 8 8 Robert W. Vaagan

Natal'ja (Nataia) born-in 1918.re Our confidence in a reliable narrator, inCulleis terminology,2O is crucial since the text - despite the improbableforeword - purports to be realistic and even documentary as far as plot andcharacter portrayal are concerned. Within a realistic framework the mostreliable and probable narrator would be Popov who may have been modelledon Voronskij.'' Assuming he did see his daughter attempting to extinguishthe moon he could have been so taken by this scene following his closefriend's death that he as narrator inserted into his third-person narrative themoon as a leitmotif, focalizing on it through the eyes of Nata5a. Such areading would explain why the 2l appearances of the moon are the only non-realistic elements in the text. As Culler has reminded us, the functions offocalizer and narrator need not be identical, and focalizing$vents through theeyes of a child can be a very effective narrative technique." Irss convincingin my view is the possibility that the narrator could be Nataia herself in laterlife, reminiscing and fusing political rumours with her father's account. Thiswould not correspond with the novella's final "Moskva, na Povarskoj, 9 janv.1926", which indicates that the narrative was completed soon after Gavrilov'sdeath.

Pil'njak relies on structural and stylistic contrasts on several levels: thecontrasts between the sunny south versus the cold north; the morally uprightKokosov versus the opportunist Lozovskij; the white-dressed medical staffand white hospital walls versus the red blood of the operation wound; thenoisy factory sirens versus the calm of Gavrilov's dead body; the rigid "Ne-gorbjaidijsja delovek" versus the delicate Nata5a etc. If we turn more ex-plicitly to some elements bearing on the realism of the story we see that thechronology is straightforwardly linear. Following a 24-hour cycle it beginsand terminates in the early morning in late autumn. The events described arestretched over a couple of days at most. This concentrated time span meansthat the moon, which is twice described as being full, remains full through-out. No year is stated but as shown by Reck, several newspaper insertionsdate the story to 1925."'The location is an unnamed town in the north, identi-fied by Browning as Moscow.'o Whil" this may well be correct the text doesnot provide any specific identification. We are told, though, that the unnamedtown hosts House No. 1 at the juncture of the two main streets, and that ariver runs nearby.

Apart from Gavrilov, Popov, Nata5a, the 'Negorbjaidijsja delovek",Kokosov and Lozovskij, the characters include peripheral figures like Koko-sov's wife and Lozovskij's mistress, and several military and medical atten-dants. Maguire has justifiably criticized Pil'njak's protagonists in general forinsufficient depth." Here the characters are at least given realistic thoughsketchy backgrounds. Thus Popov and Gavrilov grew up at Orechovo-Zuevoon the river Kljaz'ma near the town of Pokrov, which are all authentic names.The dating, location and the verisimilitude of the protagonists, including the

The Enigma of the Moon in 'Povest' nepogaiennoj luny' 1 8 9

collage of credible journalistic news items, all give credence to the realisticand even documentary qualities of the text. This sets it.apart from much ofPil'njak's other short prose, e.g. the.semi-surrealist 'Zerljch vo polunoii'(1926) written only half a year earlier.'o

The novella is thus a departure from the mainstream of Pil'njak'swork27 and is seen by Golubkov as an attempt by Pil'njak to abandon hisordinary impressionism.'o There can be little doubt Pil'njak was commentingon Frunze's death, as realistically as he could under the circumstances. Notonly was the novella completed just nine weeks after Frunze's death on 30October 1925, but as shown convincingly by Reck, the parallels betweenGavrilov/Frunze and the "Negorbja5dijsja delovek"/Stalin are too many andevident to be ignored." Volkogonov cites sources according to which Stalinand Mikojan went to the hospital and insisted that Professor Rozanov operateon Frunze. On balance, though, Volkogonov found that the evidence ofStalin's wilful murder of Frunze was not Conclusive.3o

It follows from what has been said that the entire text, including therole of the narrator, can be interpreted within the parameters of realism. Theonly violation of the realistic-contextual paradigm is the animated moon,occurring 2l times. If we accept Edwards' view that Pil'njak's work, likeZamjatin's and Bulgakov's, is often marked by the irrationality of Dostoev-skij,'' we may find an answer to the enigma of the moon in the subtext.

Subtextual Readings

In the West 'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny' has been interpreted not only poli-tically but also symbolically." In Browning's estimate the novella was Pil'-njak's "perhaps aesthetically most successful brief treatment of the implac-able antagonism between civilization (The City) and nature (the moon)"."More recently Fal'dikov has interpreted it as a conflict between individualpersonality and the power of the state, between emotional spontaneity and anawareness of one's insignificance in the historical process.'" In the wake ofits first republication in the USSR in 1987," Soviet scholars for the first timehad an opportunity to openly discuss it. Early contextual and politicizedinterpretations soon gave way to subtextual readings, as if taking-note ofMaguire's contention that "all Pil'njak's works are allegorical".'o Whilemostly concerned with the text's political aspects Latynina states that thestory is fundamentally about how fear can compel someone (Lozovskij) totake part in a crime.'' Later Sajtanov, while being preoccupied with politics,ventured into the subtext and viewed the moon as a metaphor connectinghistory and nature.38

The first specifically Russian subtextual reading appeared in 1993.Krjudkov, asserting that the central metaphor of the moon remained an enig-

190 Robert W. Vaagan

ma, stated that no one had given an account of the last scene where Natadaattempts to extinguish the moon. He disagreed with those who focussed onthe negative connotations of the moon in the story, claiming that this onlyapplied to the last sentence of the text. Instead he argued that all references tothe moon prior to the last sentence are positive. The story illustrated in hisview the contrast between two types of movement: that of nature and that ofhistory. While Krjudkov noted that the often fragmentary nature of Pil'njak'stexts excludes a unitary conceptualization, he argued that this did not apply to'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny': Under the gaze of man the moon becomes ahiding, frozen lump of ice, and little Nata5a symbolizes future mankind whoattempts to extinguish it. Nature and man are therefore irreconcilable due toman's fault. The moon revenges itself for man's forcible intrusion upon itsnatural course. And therefore it was "soverienno ponjatno, dto etimi gudkamivoet gorodskaja du5a, zarroroLetrraja nyne lunoju"." Despite his plausiblereading Krjudkov did not comment on Pil'njak's use of animation andpersonification to bring the moon to life, a technique I have elsewheredemonstrated was very successfully used by Boris Pisternak in Dohor Zi-

4nvago. -

The Enigma of the Moon

Seen in the context of Pil'njak's primitivism and e.g. his use of meteoro-logical motifs noted by Lewis,"' his attraction to the moon is not surprising.The appearance of the moon had fascinated Pil'njak long before he wrote'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny'. In 'Snega' (1916) we find e.g. "Nad bezmolv-nymi poljami prochodila luna", "luna pljasala" and "luna prygala naverchu voblakach"."' An entry in his diary on 17 September 1923 informs us that:"Veder byl neobyknovenno choro5, luna svetila [...]. Domoj vemulis' kogdauZe poblednela luna."43

But the moon as seen in the northern hemisphere had canied mostlynegative connotations with heartlessness, coldness and even death in Pil'-njak's early short stories 'Celaja Lizn" (1916), 'Smertel'noe manit' (1918),oZavolol'e' (1925),'NeroZdennaja povest" (1925), and also in Golyj god(1921). Yet a change took place around 1925, the year before Pil'njak set outon his first visit to the southern hemisphere. In particular two stories whichwere first published in 1925 anticipated a new and more favourable con-ception of the moon which was expanded further in 'Povest' nepogaSennojluny'. These were 'NeroZdennaja povest" and 'Mat' syra-zemlja'. In theformer, which Pil'njak republished the same year under the,title 'O lune', hestated that he could not find words to describe the moon."" In 'Mat' syra-zemlja' we find the first notion of an unextingui_shed or unextinguishablemoon: "[...] gde lunu nikogda i nikak ne potu5i5'."o' In this story I agree with

The Enigmo of the Moon in "Povest' nepogaiennoj lurry'

Browning that the negative connotations of the moon had been replaced bypositive associations, linking the moon (and earth) with images of life's na-iural fluctuations.{

Pil'njak prepared for his first travel to the Far East in late January 1926by studying ancient cultural traditions and artaT possibly also the lunar ca-lendar. In many societies the appearance of the full moon has been consider-ed an occasion for celebration, the waning moon as a time for anxiety, andthe eclipse of the m(x)n as a cause for dreid.4 Moving through its phases of29Yz days, equal to 354 days a year, the lunar calendar provided a basis forthe time reckoners in many ancient cultures bef^ore eventually being sup-planted by the l lday longer solar year calendar.*' It is not coincidental thatin Russian "mesjac" signifies both month and moon. Neither can it be acoincidence that it is the full moon, not the waning or the eclipse of themoon, that Pil'njak describes in 'Povest' nepogalennoj luny'.

As already note4 the symbol of the moon appears 2l times in 'Povest'nepogaiennoj luny', making it effectively a leitrnotif. The moon is referred toconsistently as "luna", not "mesjac", and it is not conceived metaphorically,e.g. as a "chrustal'nyj serp" ('smertel'noe manit').so The moon's prominenceis not only reflected in the title, but by the fact that it is also the final word inthe final chapter, a feature repeated in the novella 'Kitajskij dnevnik' Q9n)-Below I have de-contextualizfA all 2l appearances of the moon. The numbersin brackets refer to the relevant page in Novyj mir,May 1926:

Titlel) flonesrr seuoramessof, ryml (5)

Chapter 224) [..J uaa AoMaMu roltuf,rracb HeHJDKEaf, ropory nynq, o6naxa mrm

oqeHb troctrelrruo, n Ka3aJrocb" qm JryEa Ectryrilua, mpomrcx, 6e-xET, trpErr?er, mo6nr KyAa-To rr(rclerb, xyga-ro He orro3Aarb, &ilatlysa B ctrHn( o6naxar f, B rrepmD( trIxrBanil( neSa (18)

5) Han ropoaorrr mra ryua (18)6) JI5ma crerrrrna naa ropoaorr. (19)7) Ha satracmD( ryrrr( Jryua cKoJrb3trna no pemcau. (20)

Chapter 38) [.-J tau Ha ropnlonr€ yrrmpana 3a cHeraME s cmefi Mrne crnflfl Jry-

ria-(26)9) B yror qac tro ueSy nonsrm o6nara, tr 3a Hf,Mf, Totrrorrlnacb troJrHar,

ycraroqaf, Tolxlmrbcfl ryua (3 l)l0) Ymqrr Karnurtrcb no4 nyuofi n ueuo,puruofi [ysrrne HoqE, BMecrre

c Jlosoncmr- (31)I l) B o6naxax rotrlorrnnacb, c5rMarorrruracb ryna [..-]. (31)

1 9 1

r92 Robert W. Vaagan

12) [...] uenogauxHbrMn cranr{ [...] - roJrbKo Jryrra 3a odlaKauu, Aa 3raMarrrr{Ha, Aa qeroBeK t...]. (32)

13) [...] noruar ga o6rararrar.r ryuy (32)14) [...] n uaa HlrM cnemuJranywa(32\15) Or nyurr s He6e - B 3Tor qac - ocrzrflacB M€llo 3aMerHar, Tzuoqar ne-

IrHaf rmrmra. (32)

Chapter 416) B oruo resna 6erar JryHa, ycraBrrrnff c[ertrr{rr. (33)l7-2I) [...] ona HaAyBana ilIeKrr, rpy6rofi cKnaAbrBrura ry6rr, cuorpeJra Ha

Jryny, uenunacb B nyry, Ayla B nee. [...] '.-f, xo.ry noracr{Tb Jryny", -orBerI{JIa Harama. flomras Jryua Kyrrqrlxofi mrna 3a o6narauu,ycraBana ropo[r,rrbcq. [...] Brulo coBeprrreHHo rrorr.flruo, qro sruMtrryAKaMI,r Boer ropoAcrarr Ayma, 3urMopoxGrruafl HbrHe lrysoro. (33)

We note that the moon is unextinguished, it rose, is afraid, it hurries, runs,jumps, tries to be on time/not be late, went, crept, died, humied, was fatigued,hurried, became frantic, was chased behind clouds, hid itself like a mer-chant's wife, crept, was tired of hunying, crept, was tired of hurrying andfinally freezes the city soul. While the moon thus comes to life there are onlytwo anthropomorphisms proper: 11) "V oblakach toropilas', sumato5ilas'luna" and 20) "Polnaja luna kupdichoj plyla za oblakami". The full moonoccurs twice, in 20) as just shown, and in 9) "V etot das po nebu polzlioblaka, i zanimi toropilas' polnaja, ustaju5daja toropit'sja luna". If we at thispoint call to mind Popov as narrator and Nata5a as focalizer, we can see howthe narrative allows us as readers to see the full moon, agitated and stressed,and how it subtextually punishes man's transgressions by freezing the citysoul, thus prevailing in the end. The moon expands from a contextual leit-motif into becoming, through the subtext, one of the main characters of thestory, thereby justifying its prominence in the novella's title. Although thetwo anthropomorphisms noted infuse the moon with certain human qg-alities,its other 19 appearances are only animations, not personifications.t' Non-human major characters were nothing new to Pil'njak who in e.g. 'Mat' syra-zerrlja' (1925) had made the wolf pup Nikita a protagonist. Pil'njak may alsotfrough this novella have influenced Sergej Klydkov's folkloristic novelCertuchinskij balakir' (1926), in which the moon is one of the principalcharacters.

Viewing the moon as one of the main characters in 'Povest' nepoga-Sennoj luny' would seem to be consistent with Pil'njak's narrative techniqueand with what Alberg Jensen has termed "nature as code" in Pil'njak'so"uvre.S'Pil'njak's preoccupation with the moon did not cease with 'Povest'nepogaSennoj luny'. On returning from Japan in August 1926 one of the first

The Enigma of the Moon in 'Povest' nepogaiennoj luny' 193

short stories he wrote was 'Olenij gorod Nara' where the moon is favourablyconceptualized in the very first lines:

Jlyna uocunaJra pocy - nonurrfi Mec;ru - Annnnufi Beqep - Berep r4rryHa - 3Haror Apyf Apym: orn $parrr no;qcJryrrraHbr MHoro y rnoHrleB.?I re nevepa n Hape 6ttrlu oqeHr r5rHFrbr.'''

Conclusion

'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny' has been interpreted both in the West and inRussia first and foremost within a realistic-contextual paradigm. Such read-ings have considerable scope, also in terms of explaining the role of the nar-rator. To explain the leitmotif of the moon, however, we need to turn to sub-textual readings. While these have long been commonplace in the West, theyhave only appeared during the 1990s in Russia. Rather than contradict eachother, contextual and subtextual readings can prove mutually enriching. Ihave argued that the full artistic richness and meaning of the novella onlyemerge with the subtext. The moon rises from the subtext to become one ofthe principal characters in the novella. This transformation is best understoodif we view Popov as narrator and Nata5a as focalizer. By thus mergingcontext and subtext, we realize as readers that the moon is no longer anenisma in the novella.

NOTES

This article is a revised version of a lecture given on 18 June 1999 at TheUniversity of Oslo, Faculty of Arts, in partial fulfilment of the requirements ofthe degree doctor philosophiae."Pil'njak" was a pseudonym Boris Vogau adopted in 1915, cf. N.Ju. Grja-kalova,'BessjuZetnaj a proza Borisa Pil'njaka 19 1O-ch-nadala 1 920-ch godov(Genezis i povestvovatel'nye osobennosti)', Russkaja literatura,1998, No. 4,p . 18 .V.T. Reck, Boris Pil'niak. A Soviet Writer in Conflict with the State,London,1975,pp. 13-51, offers a detailed account. For a Soviet version cf. B. Novi-kov, 'Tvordeskij put' Borisa Pil'njaka', in: B. Pil'njak, Izbrannye proizve-denij a, Moskva, 197 6, pp. 3-28.Novyj mir,1926, No. 5, pp. 5-33.

t94 Robert W. Vaagan

Znamja,1987, No.12, pp. 105-128.T.R.N. Edwards, Three Russian l4/riters and the lrrational. Zamyatin, Pil'-nyak and Bulgakov, London, 1982, p. 127 .V.M. Akimov, Sto let russkoj literatury. Ot serebrjanogo veka do naiich dnej(Posobie dlja star5eklassnikov i postupajuidich v vuzy), Sankt-Peterburg,1995, pp. 282-283.R.W. Vaagan,IskussNo videt'prekrasnoe. The Literary Aesthetics of Alek-sandr Voronskij 1921-1928, Acta Humaniora, No. 53, Oslo 2000, pp. 109-110 .V.P. Krjudkov, 'Podemu luna "nepoga5ennaja" (O simvolike "Povesti nepo-gadennoj luny" B. Pil'njaka)', Russkaja literatura,1993, No. 3,pp. 121-127.A recent illustration that the moon remains an enigma is provided e.g. by M.Fal'dikov, 'Boris Pil'njak glazami zapadnogo slavista', in Po materialamnauinoj konferencii, posujaiiennoj l}}Jetiju so dnja roidenija pisatelja,Moskva, 1995, pp. 33-41. Herc Fal'dikov merely noted the moon's "ambi-gugus shape" (p. 35) without further comment.I. Sajtanov, 'Kogda lomaetsja tedenie (Istorideskie metafory Borisa Pil'nja-ka)' , Voprosy literatury,1990, No. 7 , p. 61.V. Chentalinski. La Parole Ressuscitde. Dans les Archives Littdraires duKGB, Paris, 1993, pp. 228-233.Vaagan, op. cit., pp. 109-110. Cf. also: A. Voronskij,'Literaturnye siluety I:Boris Pil 'njak' , Krasnaja nov', 1922, No. a (8), pp.252,269.Chentalinski, op. cit., pp. 228-233.B. Pil'njak, Povest'nepogaiennoj luny,Letchworth 1971, runs to 55 pages.Edwards, op. cit., p. 87.Whereas Edwards (op. cit., p. 131) gives 'The Story of the UnextinguishedMoon', G. Browning in Boris Pilniak: Scythian at a Typewriter, Ann Arbor,1985, pp. 152ff., refers to 'The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon'. The wide-ly used Letchworth 1971 edition, however, uses "Tale", cf. Pil'njak, op. cit.,197l, a feature repeated by V. Terras in A History of Russian Literature,Lon-don, 1991, p. 570.Probably a^reference to the ruling trojka from December 1923-early l9)5:Kamenev, Zinov'ev and Stalin. Cf. Reck, op. cit., pp.37-38; cf. also W.B.Husband, 'The New Economic Policy and the Revolutionary Experirrient1921-1929' , in: G.L. Freeze (Ed.), Russia. A History, Oxford, 1997, p.268.P. Lej eune, Le P act e Aut obio gr aphi que, P aris, 197 5, p. 28.Browning, op. cit.,p. 12.J. Culler, Literary Theory. A Very Short Innoduction, Oxford, 1997, p.89.Boris Pil'nja( Rasplesnutoe vremja. Rasskazy, povesti, romany, Moskva,1990, p. 606. This would make Voronskij's rejection of the dedication all themore understandable. Being a very close friend of Frunze, Voronskij rqectedthe dedication since it suggested he had been Pil'njak's source of information.Being also cast as the narrator could have proven doubly incriminating anddamaging to his career, cf. Vaagan, op. cit.,2000, pp. 107ff.Culler, op. cit., pp. 89-90.

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333435

The Enigma of the Moon in 'Povest'nepogaiennoj luny' 195

Cf. Reck, op. cit.,p.21.Browning, op. cit.,p. 152.R.A. Maguire, Red Virgin Soil. Soviet Literature in the 1920's,Ithaca,1987,p . 1 1 6 .Cf. D. Kassek, 'Rasskaz Borisa Pil'njaka "Zenich vo polunodi" (1925 g.)(Popytka analiza)' , Russkaja literatura, 1992, No. 2, pp. 172-173.Fal'dikov, op. cit., p. 35.M.M. Golubkov, 'Estetideskaja sistema v tvordestve Borisa Pil'njaka 20-chgodov', in: Boris Pil'njak: Opyt segodnjainego proitenija (Po materialamnauinoj konferencii, posujaiiennoj l01Jetiju so dnja roZdenija pisatelja),Moskva, 1995, p.7 .Reck, op. cit.,pp.20ff.D. Volkogonov, Stalin. Politiieskij portret, Vols. I-fI, Moskva 1996, Vol. I,pp.127-128.Edwards, op. cit., pp. 87ff.There is a consensus within the field of pil'njakovedenie that Christianity wasnot part of Pil'njak's worldview, although he on occasion resorted to religiousimagery, cf. Browning, op. cit., pp. 9, 102. The possibility of a Christologicalreading of'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny' has been suggested by Edwards, op.cit., pp. 129-131.Browning, op. cit.,p. 152.Fal'dikov, op. cit., p. 35.Znamja, 1987, No. 12, pp. 105-128.Maguire, op. cit., p. I15.A. Latynina, 'Ja uie otdal prikaz... o'Povest' nepoga5ennoj luny" BorisaPil'njaka kak javlenie social'noj prognostiki', in: Literaturnoe obozrenie,1988, No.5, pp. 13-15.Sajtanov, op. cit., pp. 35-72.Pil 'njak, op. cit.,1990, pp. 128; Krjudkov, op. cit.,1993,p.125.R. Vaagan, Pojmat' Zivoe. Antropomorfsmer i Boris Pasternalcs Dohor Zi-vago,Meddelelser, No. 76, Slavisk-baltisk avdeling, Oslo, 1996.K.B. Lewis, 'The Representation of Social Space in The Novel: ManhattanTransfer, Naked Yeqr and Berlin Alexanderplatz' (Thesis submitted in partialfulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department ofComparative Literature in the Graduate College of the University of Iowa,r976), pp.7 r-12.B. Pil'njak, Povest' nepogaiennoj luny. Rasskazy, povesti, romqn, Moskva,1990, pp. 76, 81, 83.B. Pil'njak, Romany, Moskva, 1990,p.32.B. Pil'njak, Soiinenijav trech tomach, Vol. II, Moskva, 1994,pp. 528,620.Pil 'njak, op. cit.,1990, p. 169.Browning, op. cit., p. 218.Ibid., p. 6l ; Sajtanov, op. cit.. p. 59 .

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48 M. Eliade (EA.), The Encyclopedia of Religions, Vols. I-XVL Vol. X, NewYork, 1987, p. 83; cf. also D. Brueton, The Moon. Myth, Magic qnd Fact,New York, 1998.

4e D.E. Duncan, The Cqlendar, London, 1998, pp. l0ff.50 B. Andronika5vili-Pil'njak, Boris Pil'njak. Celoveieskij veter. Romany, po-

vesti, rassluzy, Tbilisi, 1990, p. 150.51 I discuss these distinctions further in my analysis of anthropomorphisms in

Boris Pastem ak' s Doldor Zivago, cf. Vaagan, op. cit., 1996, pp. 2I-27 .s2 Peter Alberg Jensen, Nature as Code. The Achievement of Boris Pilnjak 1915-

I 9 2 4, Coperhagen, I97 9.s3 Andronika5vili-Pil'njak, op. cit.,p.239.