The Russian soul is like Roman god Janus: one face is Russophile; the other, Cosmopolitan. For this reason, no one, like the Russians, has an unbiased appreciation of everything what is good in foreign cultures. It is well said that, unlike any other nationality, a well-cultivated Russian is at home anywhere he goes, as long as he does not stay there too long. Conversely, all achievements of Western civilization, native or foreign, are gratefully appropriated into the Russian culture, becoming an integral part of it, in the best sense of the word.
In this sense, the great American Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known as Mark Twain, is distinctly Russian, and, by the same token, his America is Russian as well, no matter how strange this may sound.
And such he was for me, since childhood, when I first got acquainted with his writings (The Prince and the Pauper was my first Mark Twain book). Although his subjects are occasionally non-American (England in the above, or a cross-mix as in the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), the American adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are so distinctively American, that in all post-Tom-and-Huck rereadings of his books Mark Twain’s American identity and flavor simply can’t be lost, or even diluted by a change in the geographical decorations.
Furthermore, once the odd personality of Mark Twain, his colorful life, his ironic pessimism, his anxieties, and the Rabelaisian humor of his privately written indecencies and pranks, plus his penchant for frequent travel, including extensive travel abroad, become known to his Russian reader, an even greater affinity, as though a kinship in the spirit, is discovered and eagerly recognized, bringing the man closer to the Russian heart, and his America, with him, too.
In other words, as far as the evolution of my personal attitude to America (and not only mine, in Russia) is concerned, Mark Twain is a major contributor to the positive image of Russia’s main adversary in modern world, and at least as such he ought to be appreciated in his homeland today, where the scrutiny of certain trees is currently preferred to the general evaluation of the forest, making up a ridiculous stereotype, leading to the overall denunciation and rejection (to use the fairly recently circulated and odiously funny term of the presidential election 2008 season) of this nation’s magnificent history in homage to the gods of political correctness. (I’m referring here to the recent criticism of what is perceived as Mark Twain’s “racial insensitivity,” resulting in virtual censorship and suppression of his best works in American school curricula, and other such disgrace.)
But, mind you, stripped of her glorious past, America, in the nakedness of her present, is quite unattractive, and even revolting!
In this sense, the great American Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known as Mark Twain, is distinctly Russian, and, by the same token, his America is Russian as well, no matter how strange this may sound.
And such he was for me, since childhood, when I first got acquainted with his writings (The Prince and the Pauper was my first Mark Twain book). Although his subjects are occasionally non-American (England in the above, or a cross-mix as in the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), the American adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are so distinctively American, that in all post-Tom-and-Huck rereadings of his books Mark Twain’s American identity and flavor simply can’t be lost, or even diluted by a change in the geographical decorations.
Furthermore, once the odd personality of Mark Twain, his colorful life, his ironic pessimism, his anxieties, and the Rabelaisian humor of his privately written indecencies and pranks, plus his penchant for frequent travel, including extensive travel abroad, become known to his Russian reader, an even greater affinity, as though a kinship in the spirit, is discovered and eagerly recognized, bringing the man closer to the Russian heart, and his America, with him, too.
In other words, as far as the evolution of my personal attitude to America (and not only mine, in Russia) is concerned, Mark Twain is a major contributor to the positive image of Russia’s main adversary in modern world, and at least as such he ought to be appreciated in his homeland today, where the scrutiny of certain trees is currently preferred to the general evaluation of the forest, making up a ridiculous stereotype, leading to the overall denunciation and rejection (to use the fairly recently circulated and odiously funny term of the presidential election 2008 season) of this nation’s magnificent history in homage to the gods of political correctness. (I’m referring here to the recent criticism of what is perceived as Mark Twain’s “racial insensitivity,” resulting in virtual censorship and suppression of his best works in American school curricula, and other such disgrace.)
But, mind you, stripped of her glorious past, America, in the nakedness of her present, is quite unattractive, and even revolting!
No comments:
Post a Comment