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While some of the carnival elements in Bashlachev’s early songs are present in “Пляши в огне,” the role of the artist is quite different in this work. He does not seek to create a diversion or criticize the social order. His goal is to seek truth and achieve transcendence and to reveal that path to others. When in the eighth stanza he sings: “Я тобой живу, но прости мне сны - не житье,” he implies that our world is one of dreams and it is the poet’s task to awaken himself and others to a higher reality. If this is the case, then the poetic persona’s fire dance is not a simple dance of joy or a way to spend a weekend evening - it is the ecstatic dance of a dervish or a shaman.
These works written in 1982, 1984, and 1986 show that in each period Bashlachev had a different idea of the role of the rock lyricist and his relationship to true poetry. In “Мы льем свое больное семя” rock poetry is clearly a surrogate for the real thing. Eternal themes are raised only in carnival form and the rocker’s role is limited to social satire and amusement. In “Похороны шута” the poetic persona is aware that his power is real - if only temporary - and he seems ready to move on to another higher incarnation. The works written in 1986 are virtually devoid of carnival humor. They seek rather to use the power of the magical word to transform both the poet and those who would heed him. Having limited poetic options to truth-seeking and mystic transformation, Bashlachev seems to have set a standard that he could no longer consistently achieve as a writer. This may have contributed to his creative crisis and eventual suicide.
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ
1. See, for example, Iurii Domanskii. “Poet.” Tekst smerti russkogo roka. Tver’: Izdatel’stvo Tver’skogo universiteta, 9.
2. Sviridov,S.V. “Magiia iazyka: Poeziia A. Bashlacheva. 1986 god.,” in Russkaia rok-poeziia: tekst i kontekst 4, Tver’: Liliia Print, 2000, 57.
3. Ibid. 59.
4. See Sviridov,S.V. “Poeziia A. Bashlacheva: 1983-1984,” Russkaia rok-poeziia: tekst I kontekst 3, Tver’: Liliia Print, 2000, 170-172.
© Qualin Anthon, 2007
Erin Collopy, Anthony Qualin
Техас
SASHBASH AND THE REFRIGERATOR PEOPLE: ALEXANDER BASHLACHEV IN NINA SADUR’S “ЧУДЕСНЫЕ ЗНАКИ СПАСЕНЬЯ”
Эрин Коллопи, Энтони Куалин САШБАШ И ЛЮДИ ИЗ ХОЛОДИЛЬНИКА :
АЛЕКСАНДР БАШЛАЧЕВ В “ ЧУДЕСНЫХ ЗНАКАХ СПАСЕНЬЯ” НИНЫ САДУР
В данной статье художественный образ СашБаша из книги “Чудесные знаки спасения” Нины Садур анализируется при помощи построения аналогии с реальной судьбой рок-поэта Александра Башлачева. Автор исследования стремится последовательно доказать, что книга представляет собой “многоуровневый ” трибьют поэту, в котором Н. Садур совершает попытку рассмотреть творческую судьбу А. Башлачева как поэта и спасителя, дарующего мир и искупление всем, обратившимся к его поэзии.
Reading Nina Sadur’s “Chudesnye znaki spasen’ia,” anyone familiar with the 1980s’ Russian rock scene cannot help but notice the many parallels between the character Sasha and the rock poet Aleksandr Bashlachev, who is usually referred to simply as Sasha Bash-lachev or even SashBash. At first glance the traits shared by the literary persona and the real-life singer-songwriter appear to be limited to superficial physical characteristics and biographical data. Yet, if one examines the relationship between Sasha and the narrator, “Chudesnye znaki spasen’ia” appears to be an artistic exploration of the significance not only of Bashlachev’s works but of his legend, as well.
Born in Cherpovets in 1960, Bashlachev moved to Leningrad in 1984 and soon became a leading figure in the city’s music scene. Bashlachev was frequently, probably more than any figure in the rock underground, referred to as a poet by those around him. While Bashlachev’s early songs are characterized by a humorous, ironic tone, his later works grow more serious and somber. As he explores his identity as a poet, he grapples with the roles of mystic, shaman, and, even, Messiah. His songs developed from relatively short works that display equal amounts of influence from Western rock music and Vladimir Vysotsky to long dense attempts to create modern folk epics. While Bashlachev’s esteem among rock critics and musicians did not translate into a lasting mass popularity, his death led to virtual rock and roll canonization and though time has thinned the numbers of his followers, those that remain continue to endow his verse with a quasireligious significance1.
Although the narrator, who shares Sadur’s first name, Nina, does not provide a detailed physical description of Sasha, there can be little doubt that the character is a literary representation of Bashlachev. Sadur’s character and Bashlachev are both named Sasha, both are musicians, both wear bells around their necks, both have bad teeth, and both play guitar until their fingers are bloody. Perhaps most importantly, both meet their deaths by leaping from a window: Sadur’s Sasha from the eighth floor, Bashlachev from the ninth. Sasha plays his songs for Sadur’s narrator, yet Nina says little about them, dismissing them by simply stating: “Мне не понравились его песни. Когда он кончил петь, я вежливо похвалила”2. This is perhaps the
most puzzling element in the work (which - like most of Sadur’s writing
- is sufficiently puzzling to begin with). It hardly seems possible for a story in which a major role is played by a character based on a singer-songwriter to ignore his music and verse to such an extent. Yet, a careful reading reveals a number of intertextual references to Bashlachev’s works, as well as numerous passages which are evocative of elements not only of Bashlachev’s art, but of the artist’s legend.
While the narrator’s response to Sasha’s music might seem to indicate a rejection of Bashlachev’s work, this is not necessarily the case. Bashlachev’s music is somewhat jagged and a negative initial reaction to his songs as songs does not mean that the listener will not come to appreciate his skill as a poet at some point in the future. The unreliable nature of the narrator’s first impressions is revealed by the shifting evaluation of Sasha’s intellectual capabilities: she refers to his eyes as intelligent, yet later calls him “недалекий,” “не очень-то умный,” “туповатый,” and “дурачок”3. Indeed the reliability of the narrator’s appraisal of Sasha’s gifts comes into question most clearly when she realizes how clever he was to wear a bell, while bemoaning her own inability to come up with the idea, although she still maintains that she is much cleverer than he.
Before discovering Sasha’s bell, the narrator shows him the nature of her communal apartment neighbors through an unusual pantomime. Although she doubts his ability to understand her display, twice calling him a fool, she observes that his face changes, as something in his eyes trembles and his lips grow dark. While a more standard reaction to the depressing spectacle would be for something in his eyes to grow dark and his lips to tremble, it is difficult to say whether Sasha’s strange response to the narrator’s performance is an indication of his unusual nature, her inability to read him properly, or her own unique viewpoint. In any case, the narrator’s show seems intended to shatter Sasha’s innocent state, confronting him with the ugliness that exists in the world he shares with her. This strange pantomime may be an evaluation of Sadur’s own role as an artist, as the author herself tends to offer unusual portrayals of unsavory social elements. Perhaps in this light Sadur can be seen to be crediting her own art in the transformation of Bashlachev’s. Lest this seem too arrogant on Sadur’s part, it should be noted that her daughter, Ekaterina, knew Bashlachev well enough to publish an interview with him in 1987.
In commenting on the bell around Sasha’s neck, the narrator engages one of the most prominent images in Bashlachev’s verse. While her reaction to such a trifle as the physical existence of the bell seems overwrought, such a response is appropriate to the spiritual signifi-
cance the “колокольчик” carries in Bashlachev’s works. This image is explored in depth in V. Koshelev’s article “«Время колокольчиков»: литературная история символа” and in “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” an article by Julia Friedman and Adam Weiner4. Both studies focus on Bashlachev’s song “Время колокольчиков,” which, as the title makes clear, is a key work for the understanding Bashlachev’s bell motif. Koshelev, Friedman and Weiner contend that the “колокольчик” represents a personal spirituality which Bashlachev juxtaposes to the “колокол” that represents a communal spirituality that has become damaged like the tsar-kolokol, which is mentioned in Bashlachev’s song. Bashlachev himself emphasizes the spiritual significance of his little bell in the song “Случай в Сибири” in which he responds to the question as to what is ringing beneath his shirt, saying “Душа звенит, обычная душа.” Thus while Sadur’s narrator claims to dislike Sasha’s songs, “Chudesnye znaki spasen’ia” reveals a familiarity with Bashlachev’s verse that indicates, at the very least, respect.
That Sasha is said to have leapt from an eighth floor window rather than a ninth may simply be an inaccuracy in Sadur’s use of facts from Bashlachev’s biography. On the other hand, the number eight has a special significance in Bashlachev’s song “На жизнь поэтов” in which poets are seen to travel in seven circles before leaving us for the eighth. Indeed the narrator evokes the image of Sasha moving in “circles” almost immediately prior to her learning of his leap from the eighth floor, exclaiming: “А, прославился и не звонит - вышел на новые круги!”5 After Sasha’s death the narrator seems to accept the premise of “Семь кругов...” that real poets die young, as she admits, albeit grudgingly, that Sasha may have been a talent. The one sentence paragraph that follows the news of Sasha’s death, “лето текло еле-еле: кап-кап.” may seem like a virtual non-sequitur, but it entirely of words and syllables from a verse in Bashlachev’s “Ржавая вода,” in which he sings:
А пока вода-вода
кап-кап-каплею [compare Sadur’s кап-кап]6 лупит дробью
в стекло, [compare Sadur’s текло]
Улететь бы куда белой цаплею! - [compare Sadur’s лето and еле-еле]
обожжено крыло.
Thus, bracketed as it is by images of a poet leaving the world for the eighth circle and of the singer flying away as a white heron, Sasha’s leap may be seen as an act of transcendence rather than a tragic suicide. Yet this interpretation of Bashlachev’s death exists only on an artistic level as one text engages another. As a poet who cre-
ates his own legend Bashlachev’s suicide may have been the only possible outcome of his life. Sadur’s art acknowledges this fact. Yet on the surface level of the text, Nina, the narrator, engages Sasha’s death from a personal perspective, saying that he chose to “похабно убиться.” Thus we have two radically different, but not necessarily conflicting, views of Bashlachev’s death. On one level the writer recognizes the inevitability of suicide as the final stage in the development of Bashlachev’s artistic and spiritual vision, while on the other, Nina mourns, and to an extent resents, the loss of a person she held dear.
Sasha’s return to the narrator’s home years after his death is evocative of the theme of resurrection that is so common in Bashla-chev’s verse. In his song, “Триптих,” which is dedicated to the memory of Vysotsky, Bashlachev quotes the deceased bard saying “возвращаются все” conferring a metaphysical element to Vysotsky’s words by adding “через самых любимых и преданных женщин.” The theme of reincarnation or resurrection is applied directly to Bash-lachev’s poetic persona when he sings “все забудут, да не скоро. А когда забудут, я опять вернусь,” in the song “Сядем рядом,” which is a key song to the imagery found in “Chudesnye znaki spasen’ia.” Bashlachev’s promise to return if he is forgotten is evoked almost directly in Sadur’s text, as not long before her narrator describes his return, she mentions that she had forgotten that he had ever sung7. Thus Sadur’s work can be seen as an exploration of the form in which Bashlachev fulfills his promise to come back.
One of the first things that we learn about Sasha during his postsuicide visit to the narrator is that his black, broken teeth have been replaced with white healthy ones. While this causes her to doubt that he is the real Sasha, she seems to have accepted his authenticity by the time that he leaves by leaping from her window. Perhaps these flawless teeth represent the posthumous image of Bashlachev, in which his shortcomings as a human being were ignored as he was placed upon a pedestal. If Sadur had known Bashlachev as a real human being, but had initially responded to his music with indifference as her narrator does, she might have had a similar response to articles about a brilliant young poet with so many outstanding human and spiritual characteristics. Remembering his human qualities, she may have cried out, along with her narrator, “Это не он!!”8 Yet if Sadur is questioning the extent to which Bashlachev’s humanity is neglected by those who would venerate him, she also places him above his fellow human beings, saying “Он и с черными был прекраснее всех”9
It is not long after Sasha’s return that he begins to shout at Nina. Her description of his eyes as he roars at her is strikingly similar to Galina Pilipenko’s description of the transformation in Bashlachev’s eyes as he sings. Sadur’s narrator says: “[Г]лаза его были серые! Серые были! Но их заливала чернота взбешенного зрачка”10. Pili-penko tells us: “У СашБаша были синие глаза, но когда он чего-то хотел сделать и когда он пел, они становились темными, почти черными”11. As Sasha could be singing as easily as shouting (and with Bashlachev the difference between the two is not always significant) Nina’s reaction could symbolize Sadur’s response to Bashla-chev’s music. She states:
... [Я] мгновенно повалилась на пол и начала безудержно рыдать.
Я не различила слов - слишком велика была его ярость, но я вся исходила слезами от его беспощадности. Мне казалось, что я выплюну свое сердце от спазмов рыданий. Я почему-то понимала, что это еще не все, что он еще сдерживает свою ярость, но
12
если он даст ей волю. .
The statement “Я не различила слов” seems especially applicable to the words of songs. While Nina’s reaction may appear excessively strong, it seems to be only ever so slightly exaggerated when taken next to Bulat Okudzhava’s reaction to Bashlachev’s verse:
Незнакомый молодой поэт должен приходить в литературу не с гладким чемоданчиком аккуратно подогнанных стихов, а с мешком, набитым острыми гвоздями, которые выпирают в разные стороны и задевают меня и ранят, и его боль становится моей болью... Он открывает мне многослойный смысл явлении и такие глубины, под которыми не пустота, a новый смысл. Тогда, пораженный его зоркостью, я кричу, плачу вместе с ним и вместе с ним ликую, потому что его мир становится как бы моим. Так я воспринял стихи Александра Башлачева, поэта незнакомого, но истинного, сказавшего свое слово с подлинным вдохновением и неугасающей болью13.
Sasha’s attempt to drag the narrator toward the window seems to represent the possibility that Bashlachev’s verse provides such a powerful glimpse of the poet’s world that it may compel the listener to share the artist’s fate. During her struggle with Sasha, Nina notes several times that the stars are extraordinarily near to the ground that night. This is reminiscent of the stars in a number of Bashlachev’s songs, including “Сядем рядом” in which the song’s addressee is told that she will be able to stroke a star with her hand it is so close. “Сядем рядом” contains yet another passage that is central to the image-
ry in “Чудесные знаки спасенья” as Bashlachev sings: “Глянь в окно
- да вот оно рассыпано, твое зерно” with the grain, of course, also referring to the stars. In spite of the pain that Sasha inflicts on Nina, he does not throw her from the window, but rather forces her to look through it as the above imperative implies. Indeed as he holds her head out the window, he holds her in, as well. Thus Bashlachev’s music makes the listener experience the feelings that led him as a poet to the window, but it releases her, having forced her to glimpse what exists on the other side. However harsh the entire experience may seem it has a tender side, as Sasha strokes Nina’s shoulder “словно приучал не бояться бездны”14.
After Sasha’s second suicide, Nina decides that the whole thing was but a dream. She soon finds, however, that a large dog has begun to visit the part of the courtyard beneath her window. This dog takes on the characteristics of the gray wolf from Russian folklore. She believes that this wolf can take her to Sasha if she leaps onto its back. The wolf may be connected to Bashlachev in that he does mention wolves in his songs, but he is partial to the dimwitted wolf who is tricked by the fox, whereas Nina’s wolf is Ivan Durachok’s clever and noble benefactor. Perhaps the wolf and its bond with Sasha simply symbolize the folkloric elements in Bashlachev’s artistic vision that are so often noted by critics.
Be it a dream or a supernatural encounter, Sasha’s posthumous visit changes Nina. At first she exhibits an increased ability to tolerate the ugliness around her. She believes that she has the power to summon Sasha at will, and although she cannot really communicate with him, his presence is comfort enough. She hears his voice coming from an apartment window but, employing a phrase from Bashlachev’s song “Пляши в огне” “времени в обрез” she leaves Sasha to sing (and dance?) “в окне”15. She hears his voice on other occasions, but is too busy running errands for her roommate to stop and appreciate the music.
Nina’s tolerance for the coarse life of her apartment mates is short-lived, however. Having grown fed-up with their abuse, she decides to rid herself of them through black magic. Yet, when a newspaper photo of Sasha offers to assist her in attempt to destroy her neighbors, Nina decides that what is left of his existence and warmth is enough to keep her going and she spares her oppressors. Perhaps this is an examination of Bashlachev’s role as a poet and a savior. His music is not for everyone. He does not bring about social change, ridding Russia of its wicked and crude elements. Rather he offers peace and redemption to those who have had a personal, and at times, pain-
ful encounter with his work. Thus Bashlachev’s legacy offers the personal spirituality associated in his songs with the колокольчик. “Chudesnye znaki spasen’ia” is a tribute to Bashlachev on many levels. It honors his memory as a human being, offers an homage to his verse, and explores the effect of his gift on those who have grappled with its force and meaning.
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ
I. For example, Iuliia Lavrushina writes, “[у] нас один Пушкин, один Блок, одна Ахматова. Один Саша Башлачев.” in Лаврушина, Юлия. "На восьмой круг..." газета "Встреча" г. Вологда 1991. 9 Apr. 2007 <http://www.bashlachev.net/stats4.shtml#s3>. And Mikhail Budaragin writes, “[о]ткуда могло взяться такое самопожертвование? Во искупление каких грехов, своих и чужих, Башлачёв готов был принять все "семь кругов беспокойного лада"? Почему он ушёл на восьмой, завершающий, круг?” in Бударагин, Михаил. “Человек на Руси” Proekt “Molodoe isskustvo. 9 Apr. 2007 http://www.urbietorbi.narod.ru /publ/mbudar.htm
2. Садур, Нина. “Чудесные знаки спасенья”.. Чудесные знаки. Москва: Вагриус, 2000. 162.
3. Bashlachev’s poetic persona refers to himself as a “шут” and a “дурак” in songs such as “Похороны шута” and “Верка, Надька и Любка.”
4. Koshelev, V.“«Время колокольчиков»: литературная история
символа” Русская рок-поэзия: текст и контекст 3. ред. Ю. Доманский. Тверь: ТГУ, 2000. 142-161; Friedman, Julia and Adam Weiner. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” Consuming Russia. Popular Culture, Sex and Society since Gorbachev. Ed. Adele Barker. Raleigh, North Carolina: Duke UP, 1999. 110-137
5. Садур 163
6. Садур 164.
7. Садур 163.
8. Садур 166.
9. Садур 167.
0. Садур 168.
II. Pilipenko, Galina. “О Баше.” Самиздатовский журнал "Ура-бум-бум" N 10, 1990 г. 9 Apr. 2007 http://www.bashlachev.net/stats5.shtml)
12. Садур 166.
13. Окуджава,Булат. “Посвяжения.” Александр Башлачев. 9 Apr. 2007. http ://www. rockanet. ru/SashBash/initiation.phtml
14. Садур 169.
15. Садур 178.
© Erin Collopy, Anthony Qualin, 2007
