(Or, Life is a Struggle, and Death’s No Walk in the Park)
I’ve long been fascinated by cemeteries. When visiting one, I usually feel relaxed, thoughtful, even inspired. Also, I don’t have to worry about making small talk, I can leave when I feel like it, and no reciprocal invitation is ever expected. Come to think of it, I’m attracted to cemeteries for many of the same reasons I tend to avoid parties.
Growing up within biking distance of one, I discovered that it was a great place to read, to enjoy sounds of nature (occasionally disrupted by mowing or weeding), or to walk along the cinder road, pondering some of the mysteries: what was the story beneath the stone entitled “Mother,” over the grave of a woman who died on her twentieth birthday? Who was represented by the tiny sunparched stone that bore no name or dates, but only initials that were the same as mine? Not all questions in life get answered, but as long as people are still asking them, a light still flickers.
Finding myself in Moscow in 1994, a city of seven million living persons, I did not miss the opportunity to pay a visit to some of its most permanent residents. One sunny July day, I persuaded my friend Dawn to accompany me to Novodevichy (“New Maiden”), a historic convent and the site of the city’s most famous necropolis. With tourist map in hand, Dawn gamely navigated us through the park so that I could visit some literary, artistic and musical giants, to get six feet from stardom. At some points, the journey became surprisingly emotional.
Here are some photos (not nearly enough, of course) that I took along the way. People whom I had known only through their art or history became a little more alive to me that day. The images are fairly sharp, and I’ll try to keep my prose to a modest purple.
Yuri Olesha
This Soviet-era author was one of many whose art walked the often razor-thin line of government acceptability. His novel Envy ostensibly contrasted the modern Soviet experience with the petty feelings of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Despite initial praise in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, the novel was later deemed to be a bit too even-handed for official tastes in its comparison of old and new. Olesha survived Stalin, but it was only after the latter’s death that his career was revived.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
A poet of contrasts, Mayakovsky once wrote verse proclaiming his pride in presenting his new Soviet passport to a startled old world. He also would shock people at poetry readings by introducing himself thusly: “I am Mayakovsky: Syphilitic!” His innovative phrasing and visual artistry inspired artists in and out of the USSR. But within a few years, disillusioned by the turn his new country was taking, he killed himself at age 36. Nonetheless, Stalin elevated his memory to roughly the Soviet equivalent of sainthood, with praise, many monuments, and a station of the Moscow Metro that’s practically a museum. During my stay in Moscow, a celebration marking the Futurist poet’s centennial was attended by his American daughter Patricia, born of an illicit affair, whose very existence was unknown to most Russians until shortly before that visit.
As an undergrad, I once performed Mayakovsky’s poem “Lilichka” at a Russian Department “Literary Evening.” In the piece, subtitled “In Place of a Letter,” the poet proclaims his devotion to his friend Lily Brik by assuring her he will not kill himself in various ways that he describes in some detail. My audience was stunned, as I suspect Lily herself was years earlier.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Stalina)
Stalin’s second wife and mother of two of his children, Nadezhda was by all accounts a tragic figure. She is thought to have suffered from bipolar disorder, and one day, after a heated argument in public with her husband about the cruelties of collectivization, she reported went to her bedroom and shot herself. This memorial, with her soft features sculpted in marble, clearly still evokes feelings of love and sympathy among visitors.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Likewise, the affection for Soviet composer Shostakovich is shown by the bounty of flowers at his gravestone. A child prodigy, he fell out of government favor more than once in his career, but he and his music survived to world acclaim.
Isaac Levitan
This Nineteenth-Century landscape artist was a direct contemporary and friend of the writer Anton Chekhov. Levitan’s body was not originally interred at Novodevichy, but was moved there in 1941 after the closing of its original site, a Jewish cemetery at Dorogomilovo.
Those who can read Russian will note the use of the old Cyrillic orthography on the headstone, including some spellings and letters that were altered by Soviet decree in 1918. Tsar Peter I had similarly changed the written Russian language in his day. That’s autocratic power on a level all its own.
Ilya Ilf
Ilf (nom de plume for Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzelberg), and partner Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev published a number of works under the byline “Ilf and Petrov.” They wrote outrageous comedy and biting satire in the ’20s and ’30s, a time not usually associated with either genre in the USSR. Among their collaborations are a humorous account of their journey through America, and The Twelve Chairs, a novel that spawned several film versions, including one by Mel Brooks. It has been suggested that Ilf might have fallen victim to the Stalinist purges had he not first succumbed to tuberculosis at age 39.
When I saw it, Ilf’s grave appeared neglected, or at least not visited in a long time. It seemed sad to me. Before parting, I brushed dirt away from the base and left a balloon, for a bit of color and silliness.
Mikhail Bulgakov
What was it about Soviet life that inspired so much satire? (That’s a rhetorical question.) The novelist and playwright Bulgakov enjoyed some early success with tales such as The Fatal Eggs and Heart of a Dog, which lampooned the dangers of scientific experimentation gone awry. In later years he found decreasing opportunities to publish, leading to him writing a letter in 1929 to Stalin asking for permission to leave the Soviet Union. Very fortunately, Stalin was a fan of some of Bulgakov’s earlier writing and took the unusual step of finding him work at the Moscow Art Theatre. It was at this time that he began work on his magnum opus, The Master and Margarita. This satiric novel of demons wreaking havoc among Soviet bureaucrats was written in secret, and only shared with friends in a private reading shortly before Bulgakov’s death. It wasn’t until a quarter-century later that the novel was first published, serialized in a Soviet literary magazine. Like so many of the so-called Steel Age, Bulgakov knew that to be ahead of your time could be a very dangerous thing.
Anton Chekhov
Playwright, short-story master and my literary hero Chekhov is represented here with a monument modeled after a church, or perhaps a theater, and which some of us American philistines might mistake for a mailbox. This grave was transplanted from a different part of the cemetery, in order to highlight a special section for the graves of Chekhov and many of his theater associates. Even without his renowned plays, Chekhov would still rank high in my esteem for his brilliant short fiction, such as “Gooseberries,” “Sleepy,” and “Lady With a Dog.”
Sergei Eisenstein
I might be in error, but filmmaker Eisenstein is possibly the only creative artist represented here whose work has been alluded to by The Simpsons at least twice. I found ways to include Alexander Nevsky not just into my Russian classes, but even Senior English curriculum. It combines pioneering cinema, brilliant persuasion (it was commissioned as anti-Nazi propaganda, after all), an archetypal battle scene that inspires cinematography to this day, and a masterful score by the Soviet composer…
Sergei Prokofiev
If all you know of Prokofiev’s work is Peter and the Wolf, then, well, you’re an average American. I discovered the music of Sergei Prokofiev while still in junior high school, and we’ve been linked ever since. His wit, playfulness, and even brooding mystery have carried me through some trying times in my life. I could listen to his Symphony № 5 every day.
Visiting Prokofiev’s grave made me actually choke up a bit. Dawn indulged me by letting me take the time to compose a somewhat rambling, grammatically questionable and probably tearstained note of thanks that I left at the site along with a candy bar. The man was fond of sweets, I hear.
Valentin Katayev
Katayev was a realist Soviet writer, a phrase that seems self-contradictory. The brother of writer Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev (of Ilf and Petrov), he was able to accurately describe some of the harsh conditions of Soviet life without seeming to criticize the regime. No small achievement.
I first read Katayev’s story «Отче Наш» (“Our Father Who Art in Heaven”), that takes place in Nazi-occupied Odessa during a bitter winter, in a college class in 1978. Its description of fear, desperation and struggle for survival still haunt me four decades later.
Nikita Khrushchev
Probably the most controversial person in this fair assembly, Soviet Premier Khrushchev was interred at Novodevichy because the government denied him inclusion with other past Soviet leaders, i.e. in the Kremlin Wall necropolis. History considers him to be an improvement over his predecessor Stalin (about as low a bar as you can get), though no doubt there are Russians today who might dispute that. I made a point of visiting and photographing his grave for its artistry, which took me a bit by surprise. Khrushchev was no friend of modern art, dismissing one exhibition by saying “a donkey could do better with his tail.” Yet to me this monument represents a man at once crudely drawn and also intent on rebuilding his shattered nation and restoring pride, prosperity, and an abundance of maize to his people.
When in conversation with Muscovites, the couple of times I invoked Khrushchev’s name were met with frowns, and even gritted teeth. That was enough to test the waters; I never mentioned him again.
Velimir Khlebnikov
I conclude this showcase with Khlebnikov, Futurist poet and friend of Mayakovsky. I have no idea what is signified by the “reclining sarcophagus” statuary here, but to me it says “rest in peace” as well as one can without words. Judging by his dates, Khlebnikov’s life might well be described as nasty, brutish, and short.
In one of the aforementioned “Literary Evenings,” I shared a poem by Khlebnikov called “I and Russia.” In it he congratulates the country for it’s revolutionary achievement, but then suggests that matched that feat by removing his shirt, causing all the hairs of his back to rejoice in the new freedom from the oppression of fabric, and the sunlight and fresh air that would now transform their existence. Yeah, pass the vodka.
There were some other graves we visited (Gogol, Scriabin, David Oistrakh), and some that in retrospect I’d like to have seen (Molotov), but nonetheless it was an enlightening jaunt, and a pretty good hike. Like nearly all the experiences on this trip, I’d gladly do it again, with more time and more photos.
A true Dead Poets’ Society you got there.