The image of the desert in the Shanghai poetry anthology "The Island" (1946)

Zykova Galina Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-1453-2791 Doctor of Philology Professor; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119421, Russia, Moscow, Novatorov str., 36, building 1, sq. 97 gzykova1966@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Li Li Postgraduate student; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moscow, Ramenki district, ter. Leninskie Gory, 1 lili.msu@mail.ru

According to the remarkable poet V. Pereleshin, the most striking poetry collection generated by the Russian emigration to China was "Island" (1946) ^[1] — the result of the work of the Shanghai circle "Friday" (1943-1945). The Island included poems by nine poets: N. Peterets, N. Shchegolev, V. Pereleshin, L. Andersen, L. Khaindrova, Y. Kruzenshtern-Peterets, M. Korostovets, V. Ievleva, V. Pomerantseva.

The history of Friday and the publication of Ostrov is described in Shchegolev's preface to the collection ^[2], as well as, based on documents not always available to a researcher from Russia, by historians of Russian emigration V. Kreid ^[3] and O. Bakich ^[4]. However, as a literary phenomenon, the collection "Island" is rarely analyzed as a kind of artistic whole. So, O. Bakich, the author of the first detailed work about him, gives a description of the artistic manner of each of the nine poets individually. Meanwhile, the composition of the collection, which consisted not of individual author's collections, but of sections devoted to specific topics, suggests that the interaction of different voices is important. This was stated in the preface by one of the poets of "Friday" and the editor of the collection, N. Shchegolev.: "In essence, different worldviews, different shades of philosophical thought are represented..." ^{[2, p. 13]} (literary figures of the Russian emigration ^[5] and researchers ^[6] wrote about Shchegolev, in particular, about his role in the publication of Ostrov.

The possibility of exploring the "Island" as an artistic phenomenon is apparently felt in modern science: the "Gioconda" section has recently been devoted to brief theses commenting on the choice of the topic in the light of the tradition of referring to the image of Leonardo da Vinci. Vinci in the Russian culture of modernity ^[7]; some poetic features were also described ^[8].

The collection consists of 20 sections: "Smoke", "Carousel", "Ring", "Cameo", "Lamp", "Sea", "Chimera", "Desert", "Angels", "Phoenix", "Through colored glass", "The Cat", "Dostoevsky", "Russia", "House", "Mirror", "Bell", "We weave lace", "Poet", "Gioconda". The structure of the collection is related to the literary game: the members of "Friday" wrote poems on given topics (these topics were invented by the participants of the game). As Bakic observes, "the topics were not random, but <...> significant in meaning. Some <...> have a tradition in Russian poetry and assume a high significance. Other <...> contain the potential of philosophical reflections" ^{[4, p. 186]}. We will make a reservation in advance that within each of the sections the verses are arranged in alphabetical order of the authors' surnames, that is, at this level the creation of a certain composition is not expected.

We would like to offer an analysis of the "Desert" section. The choice of this section is motivated by the fact that the desert, perhaps to a greater extent than other given topics, lends itself to a variety of interpretations.: this is one of the most popular and traditional cultural (including poetic) images, moreover, it is very ambiguous (which, apparently, contributes to the life of the image in history); researchers noted that "[l]exeme "desert" initially had different semantic content" ^{[9, p. 206]}, designating geographically real a place, and a "place of solitude and solitude" outside of "topographical concreteness" [Ibid.]; only the desert-related ideas of loneliness (which could have different emotional connotations, be understood both as a good solitude and as the suffering of an exile) turned out to be stable. The image of the desert in Russian studies is explored, but mainly in the literature of the first third of the 19th century. (^{[9],[10, [11]}) and later poetry associated with the tradition of spiritual poetry (^[12]), meanwhile it is very significant for texts of another type (let's call at least a Stop in the Desert Brodsky (1970) and Rubtsov's contemporary and not at all idyllic poem "In the Desert" (1968). Given this status of the poetic image, it seems useful to pay attention to a group of texts that show, compare, and explore its various semantic and artistic possibilities.

The desert as an Exodus space is a biblical symbol, actualized for the Russian emigration: emigration has been compared with the exodus of Jews from Egypt since the early 1920s (see, for example.: ^{[13],[14],[15]}). And for the "eastern branch" of emigration, for Russians in China, the desert is also a geographically specific, familiar and well—known phenomenon.

For the "Desert" section, all nine poets of the collection gave their poems, which indicates the special attitude of the authors to this image.

The deserts of the East, which are close to the lands where the Russian poets found themselves, are most directly represented in V. Pomerantsev's poem, where images of the great conquerors of the past appear ("But a dream or reality cannot be checked under the tambourines of a storm: / Through a shower of stones, between time—pitted rocks / Huge and red, shaggy eyebrows furrowed, / Genghis rode a bay pacer nearby"). Perhaps this poem appeared under the influence of ideas about the "threat from the East", ideas about future military conflicts between East and West.

The events in Mongolia, which gained state independence in 1945, are apparently meant in Yevleva's poems: however, one can assume a political subtext here, having an idea of the author's views and her future fate. The possibility of such an understanding is also suggested by the words in the text itself: about "[n]stumble of the new era" and about "[in]etre of the Gobi". However, the central image of the poem is still fantastic, and it does not quite lend itself to real commentary ("The Winged Horseman / Passes through the yellow desert… // He went out into the sea of Stone and dead light. // Bright and Terrible / An unfolded scroll like a banner...") (In parentheses, we note that very little is known about Varvara Nikolaevna Ievleva (1900-1960), who left in 1947; apparently, in the USSR she did not give up trying to engage in literary activity, she probably owns plays (not staged?) in the early 1950s, "The Snake House" and "Open Doors", preserved in the archive of the Glavrepertkom ^[16],[17].

There are poems in the section where the desert (despite its geographical proximity) has an exclusively metaphorical meaning: for Justina Krusenstern-Peterets, the desert is a metaphor for mental suffering (its nature is not specified): "This fiery umbrella, / This evil horizon / It's not for nothing that they call it the desert. / Only pain ... Only burning pain ..." Some novelty in the interpretation of the traditional metaphor is determined by the development of the mirages motif: the pain of the lyrical heroine is caused by the loss of illusions. The verses begin and end with the words about mirages and their loss.: "A caravan was passing… He disappeared into the distance like a mirage.… // Is it because you dreamed a waking dream?"

The image of wandering in the desert, which is crucial for the self-awareness of Russian emigration, is developed by Maria Korostovets in a relatively long narrative text (16 quatrains) based on the story of Moses and the copper serpent (Numbers 21). The key image here is the image of snakes. Already in the first line, the journey is explained as follows: "We walked through the desert, overcoming the curse of the serpent" (that is, the sin of Eve, seduced by the devil in the form of a serpent). Let's pay attention to the non-triviality of this reference to one's own sins as the reason for exile. Snakes torment the wanderers ("We fought and fled, but the slippery reptiles multiplied..."). Unlike the snakes sent by God in the Old Testament as punishment for grumbling, here the snakes turn out to be not only real, but also metaphorical: "And doubts crept, and grumblings crept like snakes, / Crawled into our souls and stung our hearts ...". The ending of the poem, apparently, can be understood in different ways. If in the Bible the Copper Serpent, created by Moses at the behest of God, is a sign of salvation, then in Korostovets the last stanza sounds like this: "And beating my chest, in anticipation of a miracle, confused, / I looked up with hope, as Moses commanded ... / I shone unbearably in the sun... the copper-forged serpent." The ellipsis inside the phrase indicates that it is the snake that you see – the snake again! — it was unexpected for those who asked Moses.: "May Moses come out and show us the Lord's face!" The word "unbearably" does not indicate joy at the miracle, but rather new suffering. Finally, it is important that the appearance of the serpent in the finale of the poem, which begins with the words about the "curse of the serpent," makes the composition circular, brings us back to the beginning, and the wanderers — perhaps to their former torments.

Another biblical image is used in Nikolai Peterets' sonnet: an Eternal Jew wandering in the desert: "Get up! It's time! The light is trembling in the window, / The distant sands are burning from the sun; / You must hurry… // You don't know where the path lies, / And they won't saddle your horse, / You're walking, but the devil is casting spells, / And demons are guiding your staff." (The last line suggests the traditional comparison of the desert and the heart: "The desert is scarier than the heart!") N.V. Peterets died in 1944; the image of the Wandering Jew had already appeared — as lyrically experienced — in Russian poetry of the era (for example, in Tsvetaev's translation, "Swimming", Baudelaire's poem "Le voyage” ^[18]).

Against the background of the use of the lexeme "desert" in Russian poetry, where it often has positive connotations (the desert is "a place of unity with God" ^{[11, p. 144]}), it is noticeable that in "Island" the desert is understood almost exclusively as a place of suffering. For example, there is no very common association in Russian poetry between the "desert" and the theme of creativity (and with Pushkin's poem "The Prophet"). The closest thing to this figurative tradition is Pereleshin, who, however, does not speak directly about creativity, but about religious contemplation. For Pereleshin (a monk in 1938-1945), the desert is a place of saving solitude, it is "golden, beloved", it gives peace ("not in slumber, the desired lightness is given"); this is the place where Christ fasted ("beautiful angels of the white mansions / Flew, and the animals served Him"); The Old The Covenant, however, is also remembered here: the desert is not only "forty days old, / Where Christ fasted," but also "terrible, forty years old, angry," that is, the one through which Moses led the Jews. But Pereleshin's desert can only be a "trial and execution" for "hearts of little faith." The Pereleshinsky text is the only one in the section where the desert does not frighten or torment the lyrical hero, but the desert here only seems to the lyrical hero, who is in a city park ("From the July sun, I am slightly covered with bad trees / A skinny park, / I admire the nomads in the cloudy sky — clouds are wide like camels").

If we look for literary reminiscences — and their presence is very likely, given how much the desert is a traditional poetic motif, then we can assume that the image of the "camel cloud" in Pereleshin (and this is the leitmotif here: "I admire the nomads in the cloudy sky — Clouds are wide like camels <...> And in the old days, sail by caravan / On a humpbacked rocking ship <...> I'm coming to you — and I'm rocking steadily, / Breathing this heat and sandy wind") — Hamlet's joke retold with new, serious intonations ("Do you see that cloud over there, almost like a camel?").

Within the framework of the collection section, Pereleshin's poem is contrasted with Shchegolev's poem. If Pereleshin has a desert, this is the place where the hero flees from the city ("In the gray city, feelings and thoughts are lost, / The soul is trapped in a stone, languishing. / I'm going to you..."), then Shchegolev's city seems to be a desert: in the city a person is lonely (and loneliness brings suffering), in the city, as in the desert, there is no natural life ("Empty: not a single person, / Bare: not a single tree!"). Let us assume that the city as a theme appears in Shchegolev, among other things, under the influence of futurists, especially Shchegolev's beloved Mayakovsky, an influence that is also found at the level of graphics, syntax, and attempts to reproduce the intonations of oral speech.

There are also texts in the section that can be understood as a joking reaction to the poems of comrades who filled the image of the desert with symbolic meanings: "The nature of the desert is simple: / The desert is terribly empty" (Andersen). An even more obvious joke is Khaindrova's poem, based on a game with exotic realities and barbarisms ("Samum suddenly flew in from somewhere / A young khanum rushed into the desert").

So, we can say that, firstly, despite the significant differences in individual poetic manners, the poems of the section are united by the theme of wandering, which for emigrants was obviously autobiographical in nature. Secondly, the special (primarily geographical) position of the poets of the "eastern branch" determined the possibility of interaction between the conditional, symbolic meaning of the traditional poetic image and reality, historical, geographical, ethnographic, and such interaction could be fruitful in the artistic sense: there was a "realization of metaphor" (as once turned into real conventionally-poetic fetters in the poetry of the Decembrists).